Quantum Systems Unit
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Okinawa, Japan
- PI
- Thomas Busch
- Tracked papers
- 24 (2014–2026)
Topics
The most frequent field-map topics among the PI' tracked papers.
Recent papers
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Fast dynamical control of quantum droplets via Feshbach resonances
Abstract
We propose a variational shortcut-to-adiabaticity scheme for the fast dynamical control of one-dimensional quantum droplets in ultracold Bose-Bose mixtures. The control is implemented through time-dependent mean-field (MF) and beyond-mean-field (BMF) nonlinearities, which can be adjusted by tuning intra- and interspecies scattering lengths near Feshbach resonances. Using a bright-droplet variational ansatz, together with inverse engineering, we derive time-dependent interaction protocols that connect prescribed initial and target self-bound states while suppressing residual excitations. We analyze three representative settings: simultaneous control of the MF and BMF terms, control with fixed BMF nonlinearity and time-dependent MF interaction, and control with fixed MF nonlinearity and time-dependent BMF interaction. For the constrained cases, additional variational degrees of freedom are introduced to optimize the protocols while respecting the imposed restrictions. Direct numerical simulations of the extended Gross-Pitaevskii equation confirm final fidelities exceeding $0.99$ on short time scales, and show that the optimised protocols are robust against finite calibration errors of the nonlinear control strength. Our results provide a route toward fast state-to-state manipulation of self-bound quantum fluids and may be useful for controlled matter-wave engineering in ultracold mixtures.
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Enhancing ultracold atomic batteries using many-body resonances
Abstract
We study the charging performance of a one-dimensional many-body bosonic quantum battery coupled to a harmonic-oscillator charger. In the weak-coupling regime, we show that the battery--charger dynamics can be accurately described by an effective two-level model, which predicts the resonance condition, optimal charging time, stored work, ergotropy, and charging power. We demonstrate that tuning the charger frequency to the interaction-shifted resonance enables complete energy transfer and maximum extractable work. A many-body charging advantage is observed: increasing the particle number reduces the quantum speed-limit time and enhances the charging power with a characteristic $\sqrt{N_B}$ scaling. We further introduce a decomposition of the switching cost into resonance-shifting and excitation contributions, allowing us to quantify the energetic overhead associated with the charging process. Owing to the small charging cost relative to the available charger energy, stronger battery--charger couplings can be employed to significantly boost the charging power while maintaining a low excitation cost. Our results highlight the role of resonance engineering and many-body effects in designing fast and efficient quantum batteries, and provide a promising route toward their realization in ultracold-atom platforms.
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High fidelity control of a many-body Tonks--Girardeau gas with an effective mean-field approach
Abstract
Shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA) are powerful tools that can be used to control quantum systems with high fidelity. They work particularly well for single particle and non-interacting systems which can be described exactly and which possess invariant or self-similar dynamics. However, finding an exact STA for strongly correlated many-body systems can be difficult, as their complex dynamics may not be easily described, especially for larger systems that do not possess self-similar solutions. Here, we design STAs for one-dimensional bosonic gas in the Tonks--Girardeau limit by using a mean-field approach that succinctly captures the strong interaction effects through a quintic nonlinear term in the Schrödinger equation. We show that for the case of the harmonic oscillator with a time-dependent trap frequency the mean-field approach works exactly and recovers the well-known STA from literature. To highlight the robustness of our approach we also show that it works effectively for anharmonic potentials, achieving higher fidelities than other typical control techniques.
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Dynamical invariant based shortcut to equilibration in open quantum systems
Abstract
We propose using the dynamical invariant also known as the Lewis-Riesenfeld invariant, to speed-up the equilibration of a driven open quantum system. This allows us to reverse engineer the time-dependent master equation that describes the dynamics of the open quantum system and systematically derive a protocol that realizes a shortcut to equilibration. The method does not require additional constraints on the timescale of the dynamics beside the Born-Markov approximation and can be generically applied to boost single particle quantum engines significantly. We demonstrate it with the damped harmonic oscillator, and show that our protocol can achieve a high-fidelity control in shorter timescales than simple non-optimized protocols. We find that the system is heated during the dynamics to speed-up the equilibration, which can be considered as an analogue of the Mpemba effect in quantum control.
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Quantum control and quantum speed limits in supersymmetric potentials
Abstract
Supersymmetry allows one to build a hierarchy of Hamiltonians that share the same spectral properties and which are pairwise connected through common superpotentials. The iso-spectral properties of these Hamiltonians imply that the dynamics and therefore control of different eigenstates are connected through supersymmetric intertwining relations. In this work we explore how this enables one to study general dynamics, shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA) and quantum speed limits for distinct states of different supersymmetric partner potentials by using the infinite box as an example.
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Cavity magnomechanical storage and retrieval of quantum states
Abstract
We show how a quantum state in a microwave cavity mode can be transferred to and stored in a phononic mode via an intermediate magnon mode in a magnomechanical system. For this we consider a ferrimagnetic yttrium iron garnet (YIG) sphere inserted in a microwave cavity, where the microwave and magnon modes are coupled via a magnetic-dipole interaction and the magnon and phonon modes in the YIG sphere are coupled via magnetostrictive forces. By modulating the cavity and magnon detunings and the driving of the magnon mode in time, a Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage (STIRAP)-like coherent transfer becomes possible between the cavity mode and the phonon mode. The phononic mode can be used to store the photonic quantum state for long periods as it possesses lower damping than the photonic and magnon modes. Thus our proposed scheme offers a possibility of using magnomechanical systems as quantum memory for photonic quantum information.
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A many-body heat engine at criticality
Abstract
We show that a quantum Otto cycle in which the medium, an interacting ultracold gas, is driven between a superfluid and an insulating phase can outperform similar single particle cycles. The presence of an energy gap between the two phases can be used to improve performance, while the interplay between lattice forces and the particle distribution can lead to a many-body cooperative effect. Since finite time driving of this cycle can create unwanted non-equilibrium dynamics which can significantly impair the performance of the engine cycle, we also design an approximate shortcut to adiabaticity for the many-body state that can be used to achieve an efficient Otto cycle around a critical point.
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A Feshbach engine in the Thomas-Fermi regime
Abstract
Bose-Einstein condensates can be used to produce work by tuning the strength of the interparticle interactions with the help of Feshbach resonances. In inhomogeneous potentials, these interaction ramps change the volume of the trapped gas allowing one to create a thermodynamic cycle known as the Feshbach engine. However, in order to obtain a large power output, the engine strokes must be performed on a short timescale, which is in contrast with the fact that the efficiency of the engine is reduced by irreversible work if the strokes are done in a non-adiabatic fashion. Here we investigate how such an engine can be run in the Thomas-Fermi regime and present a shortcut to adiabaticity that minimizes the irreversible work and allows for efficient engine operation.
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Optomechanical cooling by STIRAP-assisted energy transfer $:$ an alternative route towards the mechanical ground state
Abstract
Standard optomechanical cooling methods ideally require weak coupling and cavity damping rates which enable the motional sidebands to be well resolved. If the coupling is too large then sideband-resolved cooling is unstable or the rotating wave approximation can become invalid. In this work we describe a protocol to cool a mechanical resonator coupled to a driven optical mode in an optomechanical cavity, which is also coupled to an optical mode in another auxiliary optical cavity, and both the cavities are frequency-modulated. We show that by modulating the amplitude of the drive as well, one can execute a type of STIRAP transfer of occupation from the mechanical mode to the lossy auxiliary optical mode which results in cooling of the mechanical mode. We show how this protocol can outperform normal optomechanical sideband cooling in various regimes such as the strong coupling and the unresolved sideband limit.
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Orthogonality Catastrophe as a Consequence of the Quantum Speed Limit
Abstract
A remarkable feature of quantum many-body systems is the orthogonality catastrophe which describes their extensively growing sensitivity to local perturbations and plays an important role in condensed matter physics. Here we show that the dynamics of the orthogonality catastrophe can be fully characterized by the quantum speed limit and, more specifically, that any quenched quantum many-body system whose variance in ground state energy scales with the system size exhibits the orthogonality catastrophe. Our rigorous findings are demonstrated by two paradigmatic classes of many-body systems -- the trapped Fermi gas and the long-range interacting Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick spin model.