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At least 1,135 records · Page 63

High-pressure inelastic neutron scattering study of the anisotropic S = 1 spin chain [ Ni ( HF 2 ) ( 3 - Clpyradine ) 4 ] B F 4

[Ni(HF 2 )(3-Clpyradine) 4 ]BF 4 (NBCT) is a one-dimensional, S=1 spin-chain material that shows no long-range magnetic order down to thermometer temperatures of 0.1 K. Previous ambient pressure inelastic neutron scattering experiments identified NBCT to be in the large-D quantum paramagnetic phase of the D/J phase diagram, where D is the axial single-ion anisotropy and J is the intrachain superexchange. In this work, we extend the previous experiments to a hydrostatic pressure of 0.9 GPa. By comparing to density matrix renormalization group calculations, we find D/J increases from 1.5 to 3.2 as pressure increases from 0 GPa to 0.9 GPa, which pushes the system further into the large-D phase.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Plasmons in Z 2 topological insulators

Here, we study plasmonic excitations in the Kane-Mele model, a two-dimensional Z 2 topological insulator on the honeycomb lattice, using the random phase approximation (RPA). In the topologically nontrivial phase, the model has conducting edge states that traverse the bulk energy gap and display spin-momentum locking. Such a state of matter is called the quantum spin hall (QSH) phase, which is robust against time-reversal (TR) invariant perturbations. We find that in the QSH phase, gapless spin-polarized plasmons can be excited on the edges of the system. The propagation of these plasmons is chiral for each individual spin component and shows spin-momentum locking for both spin components on the same edge. Moreover, we study the effect of external magnetic fields on the gapless edge plasmons. Specifically, out-of-plane magnetic fields delocalize edge plasmons propagating in one direction without affecting the other one, while an in-plane magnetic field can be applied to selectively excite a specific spin-plasmon branch with proper doping or gating to the system. Our findings may have potential applications in novel plasmonic and spintronic devices. We also investigate plasmons in the Kane-Mele model on a finite-sized diamond-shaped nanoflake and observe low-energy plasmons circulating the boundary of the material.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Attosecond coherent electron motion in Auger-Meitner decay

In quantum systems, coherent superpositions of electronic states evolve on ultrafast time scales (few femtoseconds to attoseconds; 1 attosecond = 0.001 femtoseconds = 10 -18 seconds), leading to a time-dependent charge density. Here we performed time-resolved measurements using attosecond soft x-ray pulses produced by a free-electron laser, to track the evolution of a coherent core-hole excitation in nitric oxide. Using an additional circularly polarized infrared laser pulse, we created a clock to time-resolve the electron dynamics and demonstrated control of the coherent electron motion by tuning the photon energy of the x-ray pulse. Core-excited states offer a fundamental test bed for studying coherent electron dynamics in highly excited and strongly correlated matter.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

CoSMo - Shell Model Code

CoSMo is a comprehensive shell model code suite designed for nuclear shell model and configuration interaction calculations. Its highly structured and templated nature allows for flexibility and ease in applications, including those to open quantum systems with non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, clustering, and time-dependent dynamics.

Volya, Alexander↗

Compressive characterization of biphoton frequency spectra

Frequency-bin qudits constitute a promising tool for quantum information processing. Here we use compressive sensing to characterize the spectral correlations of entangled photon pairs in a quantum frequency comb, obtaining a 26-fold reduction in measurement time compared to raster scanning.

Simmerman, Emma↗

On-chip terahertz emission from Floquet-Bloch states [Invited]

Floquet engineering uses time-periodic electromagnetic fields to modify the electronic properties of quantum materials via the creation of Floquet-Bloch states. These photon-dressed states inherit features from both the material and the driving field, enabling the exploration and control of quantum phenomena in light-matter hybrid systems. In non-centrosymmetric materials, shift currents can arise from the quantum geometric properties of electronic wavefunctions. However, shift currents from Floquet-Bloch states remain experimentally unexplored. Here, we employ an on-chip optoelectronic circuit to detect intrinsic terahertz emission from Floquet-Bloch states in T d -WTe 2 under intense optical driving. We observe strong edge-localized terahertz emission that scales linearly with the driving field, consistent with the theoretical prediction for shift currents generated by Floquet-Bloch states. The results advance our understanding of strongly driven quantum materials and provide insights for developing efficient, bias-free terahertz sources for future optoelectronic technologies.

Li, Xinyu [Max Planck Institute for the Structure ↗

Characterizing Al quasiparticle diffusion using a positionable laser (Final Technical Report)

This Career Award accomplished most of its goals, in demonstrating for the first time a low- threshold nuclear recoil detector based on the quantum evaporation of helium-4. Through this work, we trained several PhD students and evolved this niche R&D topic into a central pillar of the DOE-funded TESSERACT project, which now plans to take underground helium data in 2028.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Distributed quantum approximate optimization algorithm on a quantum-centric supercomputing architecture

Quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) has shown promise in solving combinatorial optimization problems by providing quantum speedup on near-term gate-based quantum computing systems. However, QAOA faces challenges for high-dimensional problems due to the large number of qubits required and the complexity of deep circuits, limiting its scalability for real-world applications. In this study, we present a distributed QAOA (DQAOA), which leverages distributed computing strategies to decompose a large computational workload into smaller tasks that require fewer qubits and shallower circuits than are necessary to solve the original problem. These sub-problems are processed using a combination of high-performance and quantum computing resources. The global solution is iteratively updated by aggregating sub-solutions, allowing convergence toward the optimal solution. We demonstrate that DQAOA can handle considerably large-scale optimization problems (e.g., 1000-bit problem), achieving a high solution quality and short time-to-solution, outperforming existing strategies. Furthermore, we realize DQAOA on a quantum-centric supercomputing architecture, paving the way for practical applications of gate-based quantum computers in real-world optimization tasks. To extend DQAOA’s applicability to materials science, we further develop an active learning algorithm integrated with our DQAOA (AL-DQAOA), which involves machine learning, DQAOA, and active data production in an iterative loop. We successfully optimize photonic structures using AL-DQAOA, indicating that solving real-world optimization problems using gate-based quantum computing is feasible. We expect the proposed DQAOA to be applicable to a wide range of optimization problems and AL-DQAOA to find broader applications in material design.

Kim, Seongmin [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000159063004)↗

Time-refraction optics with single cycle modulation

Abstract We present an experimental study of optical time-refraction caused by time-interfaces as short as a single optical cycle. Specifically, we study the propagation of a probe pulse through a sample undergoing a large refractive index change induced by an intense modulator pulse. In these systems, increasing the refractive index abruptly leads to time-refraction where the spectrum of all the waves propagating in the medium is red-shifted, and subsequently blue-shifted when the refractive index relaxes back to its original value. We observe these phenomena in the single-cycle regime. Moreover, by shortening the temporal width of the modulator to ∼5–6 fs, we observe that the rise time of the red-shift associated with time-refraction is proportionally shorter. The experiments are carried out in transparent conducting oxides acting as epsilon-near-zero materials. These observations raise multiple questions on the fundamental physics occurring within such ultrashort time frames, and open the way for experimenting with photonic time-crystals, generated by periodic ultrafast changes to the refractive index, in the near future.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Field–potential finite-difference time-domain (FiPo FDTD) technique for computational electromagnetics

Modeling light–matter interactions at the nanoscale requires accurate handling of coupled quantum and electromagnetic systems. This coupling requires information about the electric scalar potential Φ and the magnetic vector potential A, which are not typically calculated in standard computational electromagnetics implementations. To that end, we have developed a field–potential finite-difference time-domain (FiPo FDTD) algorithm, which solves a set of first-order equations for Φ and A alongside equations for the electric and magnetic fields E and H. The FiPo Basic code is essentially conventional FDTD, but with an added module that calculates the potentials. The FiPo Hybrid code self-consistently calculates both fields and potentials and is particularly suitable for coupling with quantum electronic transport solvers because it can be sourced by the potentials themselves. To terminate the domain and mimic infinite space, we have derived and implemented a convolutional perfectly matched layer (CPML) absorbing boundary condition for FiPo FDTD whose performance is on par with state-of-the-art CPMLs for standard FDTD. We present FiPo simulation results on several example systems.

Avazpour, L. [University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI ↗

The Fermilab Holometer: A program to measure Planck scale indeterminacy

We propose an experiment at Fermilab to study a conjectured effect called "holographic noise" that may arise from new Planck scale physics: the measured positions of bodies may wander randomly from ideal geodesics of classical relativity, in measurement-dependent directions, by about a Planck length per Planck time. The experiment will search for this holographic jitter in the relation of mass-energy and space-time by looking for correlated phase noise between two neighboring 40 meter interferometers. The goal of the experiment is to provide convincing evidence for or against the hypothesis that relative transverse positions of bodies display this particular new kind of quantum noise, whose power spectrum is independent of frequency and has a spectral density determined only by the Planck time. A positive result of the experiment would be a major step forward in understanding the emergence of space time and mass-energy from a unified theory of spacetime and quantum mechanics. A negative result will impact the macroscopic interpretation of unified theories.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

An updated LLVM-based quantum research compiler with further OpenQASM support

Abstract Quantum computing is a rapidly growing field with the potential to change how we solve previously intractable problems. Emerging hardware is approaching a complexity that requires increasingly sophisticated programming and control. Scaffold is an older quantum programming language that was originally designed for resource estimation for far-future, large quantum machines, and ScaffCC is the corresponding LLVM-based compiler. For the first time, we provide a full and complete overview of the language itself, the compiler as well as its pass structure. While previous works Abhari et al (2015 Parallel Comput. 45 2–17), Abhari et al (2012 Scaffold: quantum programming language https://cs.princeton.edu/research/techreps/TR-934-12 ), have piecemeal descriptions of different portions of this toolchain, we provide a more full and complete description in this paper. We also introduce updates to ScaffCC including conditional measurement and multidimensional qubit arrays designed to keep in step with modern quantum assembly languages, as well as an alternate toolchain targeted at maintaining correctness and low resource count for noisy-intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) machines, and compatibility with current versions of LLVM and Clang. Our goal is to provide the research community with a functional LLVM framework for quantum program analysis, optimization, and generation of executable code.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Primitive quantum gates for dihedral gauge theories

We describe the simulation of dihedral gauge theories on digital quantum computers. The nonabelian discrete gauge group $D_N$-- the dihedral group -- serves as an approximation to $U(1)\times\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory. In order to carry out such a lattice simulation, we detail the construction of efficient quantum circuits to realize basic primitives including the nonabelian Fourier transform over $D_N$, the trace operation, and the group multiplication and inversion operations. For each case the required quantum resources scale linearly or as low-degree polynomials in $n=\log N$. We experimentally benchmark our gates on the Rigetti Aspen-9 quantum processor for the case of $D_4$. The fidelity of all $D_4$ gates was found to exceed $80\%$.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Carbon quantum dots interfacial modified graphene/silicon Schottky barrier solar cell

The two-dimensional thin film, as an effective interface modification layer to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of graphene/silicon (Gr/Si) heterojunction solar cells has attracted extensive attention recently. However, the complicated manufacturing process and specialized equipment requirements impede its broad application. Herein, carbon quantum dots (CQDs) fabricated under the mild reaction condition was first time used to modify Gr/Si devices interface structure. The effects of CQDs size distributions and coating thickness on J-V characteristics and the energy band structure of Gr/CQDs/Si solar cells were systematically analyzed. The findings indicate that the PCE of resulting Gr/CQDs/Si solar cells could reach 9.97% when the thickness and sizes of CQDs interlayer are ~26 nm and 4–7 nm, without any chemical doping, which is 6.8-times PCE than that of virgin Gr/Si solar cells. The CQDs interlayer serves as both an electron blocking layer and hole transport layer to reduce the carrier recombination, leading to a lower reverse saturation current as well as a larger VOC then improved the device performance. The enhanced PCE shows that the CQDs species have the potential applications in a cost-effective photovoltaic device.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Trotter Errors from Dynamical Structural Instabilities of Floquet Maps in Quantum Simulation

We study the behavior of errors in the quantum simulation of spin systems with long-range multibody interactions resulting from the Trotter-Suzuki decomposition of the time-evolution operator. We identify a regime where the Floquet operator underlying the Trotter decomposition undergoes sharp changes even for small variations in the simulation step size. This results in a time evolution operator that is very different from the dynamics generated by the targeted Hamiltonian, which leads to a proliferation of errors in the quantum simulation. These regions of sharp change in the Floquet operator, referred to as structural instability regions, appear typically at intermediate Trotter step sizes and in the weakly interacting regime, and are thus complementary to recently revealed quantum chaotic regimes of the Trotterized evolution [L. M. Sieberer et al. npj Quantum Inf. 5, 78 (2019); M. Heyl, P. Hauke, and P. Zoller, Sci. Adv. 5, eaau8342 (2019)]. We characterize these structural instability regimes in p-spin models, transverse-field Ising models with all-to-all p-body interactions, and analytically predict their occurrence based on unitary perturbation theory. We further show that the effective Hamiltonian associated with the Trotter decomposition of the unitary time-evolution operator, when the Trotter step size is chosen to be in the structural instability region, is very different from the target Hamiltonian, which explains the large errors that can occur in the simulation in the regions of instability. These results have implications for the reliability of near-term gate-based quantum simulators, and reveal an important interplay between errors and the physical properties of the system being simulated.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

A Simulation Study of Quantum Clock Synchronization Using Teleportation

An important requirement in implementing distributed computing and sensing application is the synchronization of clocks at various locations. The Internet relies on the Network Time Protocol (NTP), which synchronizes clocks with accuracy in the order of milliseconds. More recently an ensemble of atomic clocks is used for navigation based on GPS. These clocks are highly accurate and provide time with very low uncertainty. Even so, many physics experiments such as distributed LIGO-based systems may require more accurate clock synchronization that is achievable using quantum entanglement. This requires the deployment of a network of quantum clocks synchronized by exploiting entangled atomic clock qubits. In this paper, we carry out a simulation study of synchronizing a network of quantum clocks interconnected by a fiber plant that supports the ESnet; the latter is used to support the classical communication needed for teleportation. We consider an existing protocol for synchro-nizing the atomic clock qubits that relies on the GHZ states. To assess the performance of the protocol we developed a discrete-event simulation of the network using IBM Qiskit framework for underlying quantum gate operations and measurements. The simulation results shed light on the resources required in terms of the number entangled qubits and the time needed to achieve the synchronization of different number of nodes in ESnet.

Kiran, Mariam↗

A random unitary circuit model for black hole evaporation

Inspired by the Hayden-Preskill protocol for black hole evaporation, we consider the dynamics of a quantum many-body qudit system coupled to an external environment, where the time evolution is driven by the continuous limit of certain 2-local random unitary circuits. We study both cases where the unitaries are chosen with and without a conserved U(1) charge and focus on two aspects of the dynamics. First, we study analytically and numerically the growth of the entanglement entropy of the system, showing that two different time scales appear: one is intrinsic to the internal dynamics (the scrambling time), while the other depends on the system-environment coupling. In the presence of a U(1) conserved charge, we show that the entanglement follows a Page-like behavior in time: it begins to decrease in the middle stage of the “evaporation”, and decreases monotonically afterwards. Second, we study the time needed to retrieve information initially injected in the system from measurements on the environment qudits. Based on explicit numerical computations, we characterize such time both when the retriever has control over the initial configuration or not, showing that different scales appear in the two cases.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Exploring entanglement and spectral split correlations in three-flavor collective neutrino oscillations

In environments with prodigious numbers of neutrinos, such as core-collapse supernovae, neutron star mergers, or the early Universe, neutrino-neutrino interactions are dynamically significant. They can dominate neutrino flavor evolution and force it to be nonlinear, causing collective neutrino oscillations. Such collective oscillations have been studied numerically, for systems with up to millions of neutrinos, using mean-field or one-particle effective approximations. However, such a system of interacting neutrinos is a quantum many-body system, wherein quantum correlations could play a significant role in the flavor evolution—thereby motivating the exploration of many-body treatments that follow the time evolution of these correlations. In many-body flavor evolution calculations with two neutrino flavors, the emergence of spectral splits in the neutrino energy distributions has been found to be correlated with the degree of quantum entanglement across the spectrum. In this work, for the first time, we investigate the emergence of spectral splits in the three-flavor many-body collective neutrino oscillations. We find that the emergence of spectral splits resembles the number and location found in the mean-field approximation but not in the width. Moreover, unlike in the two-flavor many-body calculations, we find that additional degrees of freedom make it more difficult to establish a correlation between the location of the spectral splits and the degree of quantum entanglement across the neutrino energy spectrum. The observation from the two-flavor case, that neutrinos nearest to the spectral split frequency exhibit the highest level of entanglement, is more difficult to ascertain in the three-flavor case because of the presence of multiple spectral splits across different pairwise combinations of flavor and/or mass states. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗