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Steady-state quantum thermal machines are typically characterized by a continuous flow of heat between different reservoirs. However, at the level of discrete stochastic realizations, heat flow is unraveled as a series of abrupt quantum jumps, each representing an exchange of finite quanta with the environment. In this work, we present a framework that resolves the dynamics of quantum thermal machines into cycles classified as engine-like, cooling-like, or idle. We analyze the statistics of individual cycle types and their durations, enabling us to determine both the fraction of cycles useful for thermodynamic tasks and the average waiting time between cycles of a given type. Central to our analysis is the notion of intermittency, which captures the operational consistency of the machine by assessing the frequency and distribution of idle cycles. Our framework offers a novel approach to characterizing thermal machines, with significant relevance to experiments involving mesoscopic transport through quantum dots.

Designing efficient and robust quantum control strategies is vital for developing quantum technologies. One recent strategy is the Quantum Alternating Operator Ansatz (QAOA) sequence that alternatively propagates under two noncommuting Hamiltonians, whose control parameters can be optimized to generate a gate or prepare a state. Here, we describe the design of a QAOA sequence to prepare long-lived singlet states (LLS) from the thermal state in NMR. With extraordinarily long lifetimes exceeding the spin-lattice relaxation time constant $T_1$, LLS have been of great interest for various applications, from spectroscopy to medical imaging. Accordingly, designing sequences for efficiently preparing LLS in a general spin system is crucial. Using numerical analysis, we study the efficiency and robustness of our QAOA sequence over a wide range of errors in the control parameters. Using a two-qubit NMR register, we conduct an experimental study to benchmark our QAOA sequence against other prominent methods of LLS preparation and observe superior performance, especially under noisy conditions.

We theoretically study the transport signatures of unpaired Floquet Majorana bound states in the Josephson current of weakly linked, periodically driven topological superconductors. We obtain the occupation of the Floquet Majorana modes in the presence of weak coupling to thermal leads analytically, and show that, similar to static superconductors, the Josephson current involving Floquet Majorana bound states is also 4π-periodic in the phase difference across the junction, and also depends linearly on the coupling between superconductors. Moreover, unlike the static case, the amplitude of the Josephson current can be tuned by setting the unbiased chemical potential of the driven superconductors at multiple harmonics of the drive frequency. As a result, we uncover a Josephson Floquet sum rule for driven superconductors. We confirm our analytical expressions for Josephson current, the occupation of Floquet bands, and a perturbative analysis of the quasienergies with numerically exact results.

In this talk, we study how noise and quantum monitoring shape symmetry breaking and chaos. We discuss the simulation of complex open quantum systems using classical noise and how noise limits adiabatic strategies, giving rise to anti-Kibble-Zurek scaling. We further show how spontaneous symmetry breaking is modified in the presence of an observer whose action is described by continuous quantum measurements. In the second part of the talk, we show how the signatures of Hamiltonian quantum chaos in the spectral form factor are suppressed energy dephasing while they are enhanced when the dynamics is conditioned to the absence of con quantum jumps.

Non-Abelian anyons, a promising platform for fault-tolerant topological quantum computation, adhere to the charge super-selection rule (cSSR), which imposes restrictions on physically allowed states and operations. However, the ramifications of cSSR and fusion rules in anyonic quantum information theory remain largely unexplored. In this talk, we unveil that the information-theoretic characteristics of anyons diverge fundamentally from those of non-anyonic systems such as qudits, bosons, and fermions and display intricate structures. In bipartite anyonic systems, pure states may have different marginal spectra, and mixed states may contain pure marginal states. More striking is that in a bipartite pure entangled state, parties may lack equal access to entanglement. This we call entanglement disparity, and it is manifested in asymmetric quantum teleportation employing an entangled anyonic state shared between Alice and Bob, where Alice can perfectly teleport unknown quantum information to Bob, but Bob lacks this capability. These traits challenge conventional understanding, necessitating new approaches to characterize quantum information and correlations in anyons. We expect that these distinctive features will also be present in non-Abelian lattice gauge field theories. Our findings significantly advance the understanding of the information-theoretic aspects of anyons and may lead to realizations of quantum communication and cryptographic protocols where one party holds sway over the other.

In this lecture, we provide an introduction to quantum trajectory theory. We present various mathematical problems that arise within this context. In particular, we introduce approaches for analyzing the asymptotic behavior, convergence speed, and stabilization of quantum trajectories toward different states or subspaces through feedback control strategies. Our study includes both quantum non-demolition (QND) measurements and generic (non-QND) measurements in discrete-time and continuous-time settings.

Recent developments in the architecture of quantum computers have enabled their use in applications for various information-processing tasks. This information becomes unreliable primarily due to the erroneous implementation of control methods for state preparation and measurements and the qubit’s inability to store information for long periods in the presence of uncontrollable noise sources. Conventional noise spectroscopy protocols can characterize and model environmental noise but are usually resource-intensive and lengthy. Moreover, the underlying noise can vary over time, making noise profile extraction futile as this new information cannot be harnessed to improve quantum error correction or dynamical decoupling protocols. In this work, we address this challenge using a machine learning-based methodology to swiftly extract noise spectra of multiple qubits and demonstrate a possible noise mitigation strategy. The procedure involves implementing undemanding dynamical decoupling sequences to record coherence decays of the investigated qubits and then predict the underlying noise spectra with the help of a convolution neural network pre-trained on a synthetic dataset. The protocol is virtually hardware-agnostic. However, we validated its effectiveness using IBM’s superconducting qubits. We used these rapidly obtained yet accurate noise spectra to design bespoke dynamic decoupling sequences and perform time-dependent noise spectroscopy.

A variable-range interacting Ising model with spin-$s$ particles exhibits distinct behavior depending on the fall-off rates in the range of interactions, notably non-local (NL), quasi-local (QL), and local, which are based on the equilibrium properties.  It is unknown if such a transition is respected in the dynamical framework. We use an analytically solvable model in arbitrary spatial dimension ($D$), to establish a dynamical non-local (dNL) behavior, which does not agree with the known result of equilibrium NL behavior. We analyze the profiles of topological entanglement entropy (TEE), mutual information, Lieb-Robinson bound (LRB) and genuine multipartite entanglement (GME) of the weighted graph state (WGS), prepared when the multi-level maximally coherent state at each site evolves according to the long-range spin-$s$ Ising Hamiltonian. Specifically, we demonstrate that the connection between the LRB profile and the divergence in the first derivative of GME with respect to the fall-off rate in the WGS can indicate the transition point from dNL to a dynamical local/quasi-local (dQL) regimes.

After introducing the basic notions about tensors, I will discuss different aspects of quantum entanglement in the framework of tensor norms. I will show how this point of view can bring new insights to this fundamental notion of quantum theory and how new entanglement criteria can be naturally obtained in this way.

Theoretical tools used in processing continuous measurement records from real experiments to obtain quantum trajectories can easily lead to numerical errors due to a non-infinitesimal time resolution. In this work, we propose a systematic assessment of the accuracy of a map. We perform error analyses for diffusive quantum trajectories, based on single-time-step Kraus operators proposed in the literature, and find the orders in time increment to which such operators satisfy the conditions for valid average quantum evolution (completely positive, convex-linear, and trace-preserving), and the orders to which they match the Lindblad solutions. Given these error analyses, we propose a Kraus operator that satisfies the valid average quantum evolution conditions and agrees with the Lindblad master equation, to second order in the time increment, thus surpassing all other existing approaches. In order to test how well our proposed operator reproduces exact quantum trajectories, we analyze two examples of qubit measurement, where exact maps can be derived: a qubit subjected to a dispersive (z-basis) measurement and a fluorescence (dissipative) measurement. We show analytically that our proposed operator gives the smallest average trace distance to the exact quantum trajectories, compared to existing approaches.

In this talk, I will consider a finite-level quantum system linearly coupled to a bosonic reservoir, that is the prototypical example of an open quantum system. I will present recent results on the reduced dynamics of the finite system when the coupling constant tends to infinity, i.e. in the ultrastrong coupling limit. In particular, I will show that the dynamics corresponds to a nonselective projective measurement followed by a unitary evolution with an effective (Zeno) Hamiltonian. I will also discuss the connection with the usual setting for the quantum Zeno effect, based on repeated measurements.
The rigorous proof of the limit is quite simple and can be generalized to the case of a small system interacting with two reservoirs when one of the couplings is finite and the other one tends to infinity. In this second scenario the reduced dynamics is richer and possibly non-Markovian.
Joint work with Marco Merkli, arXiv:2411.06817.    

Entanglement of pure and mixed quantum states.

After introducing the basic notions about tensors, I will discuss different aspects of quantum entanglement in the framework of tensor norms. I will show how this point of view can bring new insights to this fundamental notion of quantum theory and how new entanglement criteria can be naturally obtained in this way.