Phase diagram and critical end point for strongly interacting quarks.

We introduce a method based on chiral susceptibility, which enables one to draw a phase diagram in the chemical-potential-temperature plane for strongly interacting quarks whose interactions are described by any reasonable gap equation, even if the diagrammatic content of the quark-gluon vertex is unknown. We locate a critical end point at (µ(E),T(E))∼(1.0,0.9)T(c), where T(c) is the critical temperature for chiral-symmetry restoration at µ=0, and find that a domain of phase coexistence opens at the critical end point whose area increases as a confinement length scale grows.

Electric field manipulation enhanced by strong spin-orbit coupling: promoting rare-earth ions as qubits.

Quantum information processing based on magnetic ions has potential for applications as the ions can be modified in their electronic properties and assembled by a variety of chemical methods. For these systems to achieve individual spin addressability and high energy efficiency, we exploited the electric field as a tool to manipulate the quantum behaviours of the rare-earth ion which has strong spin-orbit coupling. A Ce:YAG single crystal was employed with considerations to the dynamics and the symmetry requirements. The Stark effect of the Ce3+ ion was observed and measured. When demonstrated as a quantum phase gate, the electric field manipulation exhibited high efficiency which allowed up to 57 π/2 operations before decoherence with optimized field direction. It was also utilized to carry out quantum bang-bang control, as a method of dynamic decoupling, and the refined Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm. Our experiments highlighted rare-earth ions as potentially applicable qubits because they offer enhanced spin-electric coupling which enables high-efficiency quantum manipulation.