Reservoir-Free Decoherence in Flying Qubits.

An effective time-dependent Hamiltonian can be implemented by making a quantum system fly through an inhomogeneous potential, realizing, for example, a quantum gate on its internal degrees of freedom. However, flying systems have a spatial spread that will generically entangle the internal and spatial degrees of freedom, leading to decoherence in the internal state dynamics, even in the absence of any external reservoir. We provide formulas valid at all times for the dynamics, fidelity, and change of entropy for ballistic particles with small spatial spreads, quantified by Δx. This non-Markovian decoherence can be significant for ballistic flying qubits (scaling as Δx^{2}) but usually not for flying qubits carried by a moving potential well (scaling as Δx^{6}). We also discuss a method to completely counteract this decoherence for a ballistic qubit later measured.

Nonequilibrium System as a Demon.

Maxwell demons are creatures that are imagined to be able to reduce the entropy of a system without performing any work on it. Conventionally, such a Maxwell demon's intricate action consists of measuring individual particles and subsequently performing feedback. We show that much simpler setups can still act as demons: we demonstrate that it is sufficient to exploit a nonequilibrium distribution to seemingly break the second law of thermodynamics. We propose both an electronic and an optical implementation of this phenomenon, realizable with current technology.

Most efficient quantum thermoelectric at finite power output.

Machines are only Carnot efficient if they are reversible, but then their power output is vanishingly small. Here we ask, what is the maximum efficiency of an irreversible device with finite power output? We use a nonlinear scattering theory to answer this question for thermoelectric quantum systems, heat engines or refrigerators consisting of nanostructures or molecules that exhibit a Peltier effect. We find that quantum mechanics places an upper bound on both power output and on the efficiency at any finite power. The upper bound on efficiency equals Carnot efficiency at zero power output but decays with increasing power output. It is intrinsically quantum (wavelength dependent), unlike Carnot efficiency. This maximum efficiency occurs when the system lets through all particles in a certain energy window, but none at other energies. A physical implementation of this is discussed, as is the suppression of efficiency by a phonon heat flow.

Size independence of statistics for boundary collisions of random walks and its implications for spin-polarized gases.

A bounded random walk exhibits strong correlations between collisions with a boundary. For a one-dimensional walk, we obtain the full statistical distribution of the number of such collisions in a time t. In the large t limit, the fluctuations in the number of collisions are found to be size independent (independent of the distance between boundaries). This occurs for any interboundary distance, from less to greater than the mean free path, and means that this boundary effect does not decay with increasing system size. As an application, we consider spin-polarized gases, such as 3-helium, in the three-dimensional diffusive regime. The above results mean that the depolarizing effect of rare magnetic impurities in the container walls is orders of magnitude larger than a Smoluchowski assumption (to neglect correlations) would imply. This could explain why depolarization is so sensitive to the container's treatment with magnetic fields prior to its use.

Temperature can enhance coherent oscillations at a Landau-Zener transition.

We consider sweeping a system through a Landau-Zener avoided crossing, when that system is also coupled to an environment or noise. Unsurprisingly, we find that decoherence suppresses the coherent oscillations of quantum superpositions of system states, as superpositions decohere into mixed states. However, we also find an effect we call "Lamb-assisted coherent oscillations," in which a Lamb shift exponentially enhances the coherent-oscillation amplitude. This dominates for high-frequency environments such as super-Ohmic environments, where the coherent oscillations can grow exponentially as either the environment coupling or temperature are increased. The effect could be used as an experimental probe for high-frequency environments in such systems as molecular magnets, solid-state qubits, spin-polarized gases (neutrons or He3), or Bose condensates.

Controlling the sign of magnetoconductance in Andreev quantum dots.

We construct a theory of coherent transport through a ballistic quantum dot coupled to a superconductor. We show that the leading-order quantum correction to the two-terminal conductance of these Andreev quantum dots may change sign depending on (i) the number of channels carried by the normal leads or (ii) the magnetic flux threading the dot. In contrast, spin-orbit interaction may affect the magnitude of the correction, but not always its sign. Experimental signatures of the effect include a nonmonotonic magnetoconductance curve and a transition from an insulator-like to a metal-like temperature dependence of the conductance. Our results are applicable to ballistic or disordered dots.

Huge conductance peak caused by symmetry in double quantum dots.

We predict a huge interference effect contributing to the conductance through large ultraclean quantum dots of chaotic shape. When a double-dot structure is made such that the dots are the mirror image of each other, constructive interference can make a tunnel barrier located on the symmetry axis effectively transparent. We show (via theoretical analysis and numerical simulation) that this effect can be orders of magnitude larger than the well-known universal conductance fluctuations and weak localization (both less than a conductance quantum). A small magnetic field destroys the effect, massively reducing the double-dot conductance; thus a magnetic field detector is obtained, with a similar sensitivity to a SQUID, but requiring no superconductors.

Semiclassical transport in nearly symmetric quantum dots. I. Symmetry breaking in the dot.

We apply the semiclassical theory of transport to quantum dots with exact and approximate spatial symmetries; left-right mirror symmetry, up-down mirror symmetry, inversion symmetry, or fourfold symmetry. In this work-the first of a pair of articles-we consider (a) perfectly symmetric dots and (b) nearly symmetric dots in which the symmetry is broken by the dot's internal dynamics. The second article addresses symmetry-breaking by displacement of the leads. Using semiclassics, we identify the origin of the symmetry-induced interference effects that contribute to weak localization corrections and universal conductance fluctuations. For perfect spatial symmetry, we recover results previously found using the random-matrix theory conjecture. We then go on to show how the results are affected by asymmetries in the dot, magnetic fields, and decoherence. In particular, the symmetry-asymmetry crossover is found to be described by a universal dependence on an asymmetry parameter gamma_{asym} . However, the form of this parameter is very different depending on how the dot is deformed away from spatial symmetry. Symmetry-induced interference effects are completely destroyed when the dot's boundary is globally deformed by less than an electron wavelength. In contrast, these effects are only reduced by a finite amount when a part of the dot's boundary smaller than a lead-width is deformed an arbitrarily large distance.

Semiclassical transport in nearly symmetric quantum dots. II. Symmetry breaking due to asymmetric leads.

In this work-the second of a pair of articles-we consider transport through spatially symmetric quantum dots with leads whose widths or positions do not obey the spatial symmetry. We use the semiclassical theory of transport to find the symmetry-induced contributions to weak localization corrections and universal conductance fluctuations for dots with left-right, up-down, inversion, and fourfold symmetries. We show that all these contributions are suppressed by asymmetric leads; however, they remain finite whenever leads intersect with their images under the symmetry operation. For an up-down symmetric dot, this means that the contributions can be finite even if one of the leads is completely asymmetric. We find that the suppression of the contributions to universal conductance fluctuations is the square of the suppression of contributions to weak localization. Finally, we develop a random-matrix theory model which enables us to numerically confirm these results.

Towards a dephasing diode: asymmetric and geometric dephasing.

We study the effect of a noisy environment on spin and charge transport in ballistic quantum wires with spin-orbit coupling (Rashba coupling). We find that the wire then acts as a dephasing diode, inducing very different dephasing of the spins of right and left movers. We also show how Berry phase (geometric phase) in a curved wire can induce such asymmetric dephasing, in addition to purely geometric dephasing. We propose ways to measure these effects through spin detectors, spin-echo techniques, and Aharanov-Bohm interferometry.

Shot noise in semiclassical chaotic cavities.

We construct a trajectory-based semiclassical theory of shot noise in clean chaotic cavities. In the universal regime of vanishing Ehrenfest time tau(E), we reproduce the random matrix theory result and show that the Fano factor is exponentially suppressed as tau(E) increases. We demonstrate how our theory preserves the unitarity of the scattering matrix even in the regime of finite tau(E). We discuss the range of validity of our semiclassical approach and point out subtleties relevant to the recent semiclassical treatment of shot noise in the universal regime by Braun et al. (cond-mat/0511292).

Microscopic theory for the quantum to classical crossover in chaotic transport.

We present a semiclassical theory for the scattering matrix S of a chaotic ballistic cavity at finite Ehrenfest time. Using a phase-space representation coupled with a multibounce expansion, we show how the Liouville conservation of phase-space volume decomposes S as S=S(cl) plus sign in circle S(qm). The short-time, classical contribution S(cl) generates deterministic transmission eigenvalues T=0 or 1, while quantum ergodicity is recovered within the subspace corresponding to the long-time, stochastic contribution S(qm). This provides a microscopic foundation for the two-phase fluid model, in which the cavity acts like a classical and a quantum cavity in parallel, and explains recent numerical data showing the breakdown of universality in quantum chaotic transport in the deep semiclassical limit. We show that the Fano factor of the shot-noise power vanishes in this limit, while weak localization remains universal.

Geometric nature of the environment-induced Berry phase and geometric dephasing.

We investigate the geometric phase or Berry phase acquired by a spin half which is both subject to a slowly varying magnetic field and weakly coupled to a dissipative environment (either quantum or classical). We study how this phase is modified by the environment and find that the modification is of a geometric nature. While the original Berry phase (for an isolated system) is the flux of a monopole field through the loop traversed by the magnetic field, the environment-induced modification of the phase is the flux of a quadrupolelike field. We find that the environment-induced phase is complex, and its imaginary part is a geometric contribution to dephasing. Its sign depends on the direction of the loop. Unlike the Berry phase, this geometric dephasing is gauge invariant for open paths of the magnetic field.

Berry phase in a nonisolated system.

We investigate the effect of the environment on a Berry phase measurement involving a spin-half. We model the spin + environment using a biased spin-boson Hamiltonian with a time-dependent magnetic field. We find that, contrary to naive expectations, the Berry phase acquired by the spin can be observed, but only on time scales which are neither too short nor very long. However this Berry phase is not the same as for the isolated spin-half. It does not have a simple geometric interpretation in terms of the adiabatic evolution of either bare spin states or the dressed spin resonances. This result is crucial for proposed Berry phase measurements in superconducting nanocircuits.

Leading off-diagonal correction to the form factor of large graphs.

Using periodic-orbit theory beyond the diagonal approximation we investigate the form factor, K(tau), of a generic quantum graph with mixing classical dynamics and time-reversal symmetry. We calculate the contribution from pairs of self-intersecting orbits that differ from each other only in the orientation of a single loop. In the limit of large graphs, these pairs produce a contribution -2tau(2) to the form factor which agrees with random-matrix theory.