Temperature-related single-photon transport in a waveguide QED.

We propose a scheme to realize a novel, to the best of our knowledge, scenario that the single-photon transport in a one-dimensional waveguide can be affected by the temperature. The scheme is composed by a waveguide-atom interacting structure linked to a thermal bath. The single-photon reflection (or transmission) coefficient can be controlled by adjusting the temperature of the thermal bath. This provides a thermal control of the single-photon transport. Moreover, the scheme provides an approach for implementing the optical thermometer, in which the temperature of the thermal bath is estimated by measuring the photonic transport. The thermometer can accurately measure the temperature in the low-temperature region.

All-optical control of thermal conduction in waveguide quantum electrodynamics.

We investigate the heat conduction between two one-dimensional waveguides intermediated by a laser-driving atom. The laser provides the optical control of the heat conduction. The tunable asymmetric conduction of the heat against the temperature gradient is realized. Assisted by the modulated laser, the heat conduction from either waveguide to the other waveguide can be suppressed. The heat currents can be significantly amplified by the energy flow of the laser.

Steady-State Thermodynamics of a Cascaded Collision Model.

We study the steady-state thermodynamics of a cascaded collision model where two subsystems S1 and S2 collide successively with an environment R in the cascaded fashion. We first formulate general expressions of thermodynamics quantities and identify the nonlocal forms of work and heat that result from cascaded interactions of the system with the common environment. Focusing on a concrete system of two qubits, we then show that, to be able to unidirectionally influence the thermodynamics of S2, the former interaction of S1-R should not be energy conserving. We finally demonstrate that the steady-state coherence generated in the cascaded model is a kind of useful resource in extracting work, quantified by ergotropy, from the system. Our results provide a comprehensive understanding on the thermodynamics of the cascaded model and a possible way to achieve the unidirectional control on the thermodynamics process in the steady-state regime.

Entanglement of photons in their dual wave-particle nature.

Wave-particle duality is the most fundamental description of the nature of a quantum object, which behaves like a classical particle or wave depending on the measurement apparatus. On the other hand, entanglement represents nonclassical correlations of composite quantum systems, being also a key resource in quantum information. Despite the very recent observations of wave-particle superposition and entanglement, whether these two fundamental traits of quantum mechanics can emerge simultaneously remains an open issue. Here we introduce and experimentally realize a scheme that deterministically generates entanglement between the wave and particle states of two photons. The elementary tool allowing this achievement is a scalable single-photon setup which can be in principle extended to generate multiphoton wave-particle entanglement. Our study reveals that photons can be entangled in their dual wave-particle behavior and opens the way to potential applications in quantum information protocols exploiting the wave-particle degrees of freedom to encode qubits.Here the authors experimentally realize a scheme that deterministically generates entanglement between the wave and particle states of two photons using a scalable all-optical scheme. They achieve this result by first showing generation of controllable single-photon wave-particle superposition states.

Simultaneous observation of particle and wave behaviors of entangled photons.

We theoretically study wave-particle duality of two entangled photons in the spirit of quantum version of delayed-choice experiments using Hadamard gate controlled by the quantum state of an ancilla and show that the two photons may globally exhibit particle-like, wave-like or simultaneously both particle-like and wave-like behavior. We prove that the obtained results cannot be satisfactorily explained by any hidden-variable theory. We also propose an efficient and experimentally feasible scheme without using any ancilla and controlled-gates to directly (i.e., without postselection) observe the two-photon wave-particle superposed state as well as the continuous transition of their behavior between wave-like one and particle-like one.

Smallest quantum thermal machine: The effect of strong coupling and distributed thermal tasks.

The functions of the smallest self-contained thermal machine consisting of a single qutrit are studied when the weak internal coupling assumption is relaxed. It is shown that in the presence of one target to be cooled the strong coupling is not beneficial to the refrigeration. The reason is explained by examining the effect of the strong coupling on the contributions of all eigenstates transitions to the heat current of the related thermal reservoir. When acting simultaneously on two targets, the machine can be manipulated to implement distributed tasks on them, such as cooling one target and meanwhile heating another one, by adjusting the coupling strengths between the machine with the two targets. In particular, we show that the machine can realize temperature reversal for the two qubits, namely, the qubit that is coupled to the high temperature reservoir is refrigerated to a temperature below that of the qubit contacting with the low temperature reservoir.

Controlling heat flows among three reservoirs asymmetrically coupled to two two-level systems.

We study heat flows among three thermal reservoirs via two two-level systems (TLSs). Two reservoirs are coupled to one TLS and the third reservoir to the second TLS. The two TLSs are also coupled to each other, thus bridging the third reservoir with the two other reservoirs. We show that the magnitudes and directions of the reservoirs' heat currents can be controlled by varying the various damping rates of the two TLSs due to coupling with the corresponding reservoirs. First, it is shown that by changing the damping rate due to one reservoir, magnitudes of heat currents of the other two reservoirs can behave in completely different manners, namely, although one may be enhanced, the other may instead be suppressed, and vice versa. Second, the sign of the heat current of one reservoir may change (i.e., crossover from heat absorption to heat release, or vice versa) if a damping rate or the coupling strength between the two TLSs is swept through a critical value, which depends on the temperature settings for the three reservoirs. Due to the asymmetric couplings of the two TLSs to the three reservoirs, the thermal rectification occurs without introducing any additional asymmetry to the systems.

Cavity-based architecture to preserve quantum coherence and entanglement.

Quantum technology relies on the utilization of resources, like quantum coherence and entanglement, which allow quantum information and computation processing. This achievement is however jeopardized by the detrimental effects of the environment surrounding any quantum system, so that finding strategies to protect quantum resources is essential. Non-Markovian and structured environments are useful tools to this aim. Here we show how a simple environmental architecture made of two coupled lossy cavities enables a switch between Markovian and non-Markovian regimes for the dynamics of a qubit embedded in one of the cavity. Furthermore, qubit coherence can be indefinitely preserved if the cavity without qubit is perfect. We then focus on entanglement control of two independent qubits locally subject to such an engineered environment and discuss its feasibility in the framework of circuit quantum electrodynamics. With up-to-date experimental parameters, we show that our architecture allows entanglement lifetimes orders of magnitude longer than the spontaneous lifetime without local cavity couplings. This cavity-based architecture is straightforwardly extendable to many qubits for scalability.

Non-Markovian dynamics of a two-level system in the presence of hierarchical environments.

Dynamics of an open system is vividly influenced by the structure of environments. This paper studies in detail the dynamics of a two-level atom in the presence of an overall environment composed of two hierarchies. The first hierarchy is just a single lossy cavity while the second hierarchy consists of a number of other lossy cavities. The atom is coupled directly to the first hierarchy but indirectly to the second one via the couplings between the two hierarchies. We show that even when the coupling between the atom and the first hierarchy is weak the atom's dynamics can become non-Markovian if the number of cavities in the second hierarchy or/and the coupling between the two hierarchies are large enough. We also analyze the case when the coupling between the atom and the first hierarchy is strong and show that the non-Markovian dynamics exhibits different patterns depending on both the number of cavities in the second hierarchy and the coupling between the two hierarchies.