Dissipative quantum tunneling of a single microscopic defect in a mesoscopic metal

Theoretical investigation of weak absorption and laser induced damage in YCOB crystal

Weak absorption and laser-induced damage in crystal have been extensively studied, but the mechanism of these phenomena is still not well understood. Herein, we investigated the weak absorption and laser-induced...

Probing the strongly driven spin-boson model in a superconducting quantum circuit

Quantum two-level systems interacting with the surroundings are ubiquitous in nature. The interaction suppresses quantum coherence and forces the system towards a steady state. Such dissipative processes are captured by the paradigmatic spin-boson model, describing a two-state particle, the “spin”, interacting with an environment formed by harmonic oscillators. A fundamental question to date is to what extent intense coherent driving impacts a strongly dissipative system. Here we investigate experimentally and theoretically a superconducting qubit strongly coupled to an electromagnetic environment and subjected to a coherent drive. This setup realizes the driven Ohmic spin-boson model. We show that the drive reinforces environmental suppression of quantum coherence, and that a coherent-to-incoherent transition can be achieved by tuning the drive amplitude. An out-of-equilibrium detailed balance relation is demonstrated. These results advance fundamental understanding of open quantum systems and bear potential for the design of entangled light-matter states.

Two-level systems interacting with a bosonic environment appear everywhere in physics. Here, the authors use a superconducting device to study this spin-boson model in the presence of coherent driving, showing that the drive enhances dissipation into the environment and can localize or delocalize the system.

Quantum stochastic dynamics in the presence of a time-periodic rapidly oscillating potential: nonadiabatic escape rate

Escape from a metastable state in the presence of a high-frequency field (where the driving becomes nonadiabatic) underlies a broad range of phenomena of physics and chemistry, and thus its understanding is of paramount importance. We study the problem of intermediate-to-high-damping escape from a metastable state of a dissipative system driven by a rapidly oscillating field, one of the most important classes of nonequilibrium systems, in a broad range of field driving frequencies (ω) and amplitudes (a). We construct a Langevin equation using quantum gauge transformation in the light of Floquet theorem and exploiting a systematic perturbative expansion in powers of 1/ω using "Kapitza-Landau time window". The quantum dynamics in a high-frequency field are found to be described by an effective time-independent potential. The temperature dependence of escape rate and the change of its form with varying parameters of the field have been analyzed. It may decrease upon increasing the temperature which is contingent on the effects of intricate interplay between external modulation and dissipation. The crossover temperature between tunnelling and thermal hopping increases with an increase in external modulation so that quantum effects in the escape are relevant at higher temperatures. These observations are uncommon and counterintuitive and, therefore, of considerable interest. Our results might be valuable for the exploration of the dynamics of cold atoms in electromagnetic fields.

Transport and its enhancement caused by coupling

Using the Weiss mean-field approximation theory and the particles' transport theory for the spatially periodic stochastic systems, we derive an exact analytical expression for the stationary probability current of a coupled lattice system driven by dichotomous noise. It is shown that, for this coupled lattice system, the spatial asymmetry of the system, the asymmetry of the dichotomous noise, and the coupling among nearest neighbors are the ingredients for the stationary probability current. By applying our theory to two special models, we find that (1) the coupling can lead to the directional transport of the particles (even when the potential and the dichotomous noise are symmetric) and (2) the coupling among nearest neighbors can enhance the transport of the particles in some circumstances. Our results are applied to a device of two-dimensional Josephson-junction arrays and a large protein motors cluster.

Suppression of thermally activated escape by heating

The problem of thermally activated escape over a potential barrier is solved by means of path integrals for one-dimensional reaction dynamics with very general time dependences. For a suitably chosen but still quite simple static potential landscape, the net escape rate may be substantially reduced by temporally increasing the temperature above its unperturbed constant level.

Phenomenon of stochastic resonance caused by multiplicative asymmetric dichotomous noise

The exact expression of the first moment and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) have been calculated for a linear system subject to an external periodic field as well as a multiplicative asymmetric dichotomous noise, by using the Shapiro-Loginov formula. It has been found that the amplitude of the output signal, and the SNR, respectively, exhibit two kinds of the phenomena of stochastic resonance: one is as the functions of the parameters of the asymmetric dichotomous noise, such as the noise strength D, and the parameter k describing the asymmetric degree of the dichotomous noise; the other is as the function of the parameter of the input signal, such as the input signal frequency omega.

Dynamics of a tunneling magnetic impurity: Kondo effect induced incoherence

We study how the formation of the Kondo compensation cloud influences the dynamical properties of a magnetic impurity that tunnels between two positions in a metal. The Kondo effect dynamically generates a strong tunneling impurity-conduction electron coupling, changes the temperature dependence of the tunneling rate, and may ultimately result in the destruction of the coherent motion of the particle at zero temperature. We find an interesting two-channel Kondo fixed point as well for a vanishing overlap between the electronic states that screen the magnetic impurity. We propose experiments where the predicted features could be observed.

Iterative algorithm versus analytic solutions of the parametrically driven dissipative quantum harmonic oscillator

We consider the Brownian motion of a quantum-mechanical particle in a one-dimensional parabolic potential with periodically modulated curvature under the influence of a thermal heat bath. Analytic expressions for the time-dependent position and momentum variances are compared with results of an iterative algorithm, the so-called quasiadiabatic propagator path-integral algorithm. We obtain good agreement over an extended range of parameters for this spatially continuous quantum system. These findings indicate the reliability of the algorithm also in cases for which analytic results may not be available a priori.

Analytical systematic approximate method of a two-state dissipative system

Occupation probability and changes of the environment in a dissipative two-state system have been investigated using a systematic approximate method. This method explores the tunneling dynamics through a system state vector with manifest physical meanings and provides a deep microscopic insight into the dynamical behaviors of the system.