Two-dimensional crystals of trapped ions are a promising system with which to implement quantum simulations of challenging problems such as spin frustration. Here, we present a design for a surface-electrode elliptical ion trap which produces a 2-D ion crystal and is amenable to microfabrication, which would enable higher simulated coupling rates, as well as interactions based on magnetic forces generated by on-chip currents. Working in an 11 K cryogenic environment, we experimentally verify to within 5% a numerical model of the structure of ion crystals in the trap. We also explore the possibility of implementing quantum simulation using magnetic forces, and calculate J-coupling rates on the order of 10^3 / s for an ion crystal height of 10 microns, using a current of 1 A.

In this paper, we present a loss-tolerant quantum strong coin flipping protocol with bias 0.359. This is an improvement over Berlin etal's protocol [BBBG08] which achieves a bias of 0.4. To achieve this, we extend Berlin et al.'s protocol by adding an encryption step that hides some information to Bob until he confirms that he successfully measured.

Long decay times were previously observed in samples such as 29Si, C60,Y2O3 by applying multipulse nuclear magnetic resonance sequences to measure decoherence times. They are originated in stimulated echoes caused by the pulse angle distributions predictable for inhomogeneously broadened lines. In the present work, a detailed analysis describing how the stimulated echoes can be exploited as quantum coherence memories is presented. We introduce a method based on field gradients to storage coherences as polarization in a controlled way in homogeneous samples. The possibility to keep a coherent state frozen while another part of the sample is subjected to quantum operations opens new perspectives in the field of quantum information. Upon recovery of the storaged coherences, interactions among the whole system can be turned on. However, in order to perform quantum computation, the knowledge of the true coherence time is necessary. We applied the proposed method to demonstrate under the stimulated echo formalism, the appropriate experimental scheme that enables a quenching of the coherence storage, thus rendering a measurement of the coherence decay time T2.

We report measurements of the optical properties of the 1042 nm transition of negatively-charged Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers in type 1b diamond. The results indicate that the upper level of this transition couples to the m_s=+/-1 sublevels of the {^3}E excited state and is short-lived, with a lifetime <~ 1 ns. The lower level is shown to have a temperature-dependent lifetime of 462(10) ns at 4.4 K and 219(3) ns at 295 K. The light-polarization dependence of 1042 nm absorption confirms that the transition is between orbitals of A_1 and E character. The results shed new light on the NV level structure and optical pumping mechanism.

Parametric two-electron reduced-density-matrix (p-2RDM) methods have enjoyed much success in recent years; the methods have been shown to exhibit accuracies greater than coupled cluster with single and double substitutions (CCSD) for both closed- and open-shell ground-state energies, properties, geometric parameters, and harmonic frequencies. The class of methods is herein discussed within the context of the coupled electron pair approximation (CEPA), and several CEPA-like topological factors are presented for use within the p-2RDM framework. The resulting p-2RDM/n methods can be viewed as a density-based generalization of CEPA/n family that are numerically very similar to traditional CEPA methodologies. We cite the important distinction that the obtained energies represent stationary points, facilitating the efficient evaluation of properties and geometric derivatives. The p-2RDM/n formalism is generalized for an equal treatment of exclusion-principle-violating (EPV) diagrams that occur in the occupied and virtual spaces. One of these general topological factors is shown to be identical to that proposed by Kollmar [C. Kollmar, J. Chem. Phys. 125, 084108 (2006)], derived in an effort to approximately enforce the D, Q, and G conditions for N-representability in his size-extensive density matrix functional.

For the last decade quantum memories have been intensively studied for potential applications to quantum information and communications using atomic and ionic ensembles. With the importance of a multimode storage capability in quantum memories, on-demand control of reversible inhomogeneous broadening of an optical medium has been broadly investigated recently. However, the photon storage time in these researches is still too short to apply for long-distance quantum communications. In this paper, we demonstrate new physics of spin population decay dependent ultralong photon storage method, where spin population decay time is several orders of magnitude longer than the conventional constraint of spin phase decay time.

A Wigner crystal formed with trapped ion can undergo structural phase transition, which is determined only by the mechanical conditions on a classical level. Instead of this classical result, we show that through consideration of quantum and thermal fluctuation, a structural phase transition can be solely driven by change of the system's temperature. We determine a finite-temperature phase diagram for trapped ions using the renormalization group method and the path integral formalism, and propose an experimental scheme to observe the predicted temperature-driven structural phase transition, which is well within the reach of the current ion trap technology.

Results of the numerical Monte-Carlo simulations for the Stark-tuned F\"orster resonance and dipole blockade between 2 to 5 cold rubidium Rydberg atoms in various spatial configurations are presented. Effect of the atom spatial uncertainties on the resonance amplitude and spectrum is investigated. Feasibility to observe coherent Rabi-like population oscillations at a F\"orster resonance between two cold Rydberg atoms is analyzed. Spectra and fidelity of the Rydberg dipole blockade are calculated for various experimental conditions, including nonzero detuning from the F\"orster resonance and finite laser line width. The results are discussed in the context of quantum information processing with Rydberg atoms.

In this paper, the realignment criterion and the RCCN criterion of separability for states in infinite-dimensional bipartite quantum systems are established. Let $H_A$ and $H_B$ be complex Hilbert spaces with $\dim H_A\otimes H_B=+\infty$. Let $\rho$ be a state on $H_A\otimes H_B$ and $\{\delta_k\}$ be the Schmidt coefficients of $\rho$ as a vector in the Hilbert space ${\mathcal C}_2(H_A)\otimes{\mathcal C}_2(H_B)$. We introduce the realignment operation $\rho^R$ and the computable cross norm $\|\rho\|_{\rm CCN}$ of $\rho$ and show that, if $\rho$ is separable, then $\|\rho^{R}\|_{\rm Tr}=\|\rho\|_{\rm CCN}=\sum\limits_k\delta_k\leq1.$ In particular, if $\rho$ is a pure state, then $\rho$ is separable if and only if $\|\rho^{R}\|_{\rm Tr}=\|\rho\|_{\rm CCN}=\sum\limits_k\delta_k=1$.

The paper review and develop the alternative formulation of quantum mechanics known as the phase space quantum mechanics or deformation quantization. It is shown that the quantization naturally arises as an appropriate deformation of the classical Hamiltonian mechanics. More precisely, the deformation of the point-wise product of observables to an appropriate noncommutative $\star$-product and the deformation of the Poisson bracket to an appropriate Lie bracket is the key element in introducing the quantization of classical Hamiltonian systems. The formalism of the phase space quantum mechanics is presented in a very systematic way for the case of Hamiltonian systems without any constrains and for a very wide class of deformations. The considered class of deformations and the corresponding $\star$-products contains all deformations which can be found in the literature devoted to the subject of the phase space quantum mechanics. Fundamental properties of $\star$-products of observables, associated with the considered deformations are presented as well. Moreover, a space of states containing all admissible states is introduced, where the admissible states are appropriate pseudo-probability distributions defined on the phase space. It is proved that the space of states is endowed with a structure of a Hilbert algebra with respect to the $\star$-multiplication. The most important result of the paper shows that developed formalism is more fundamental then the axiomatic ordinary quantum mechanics which appears in the presented approach as the intrinsic element of the general formalism. In addition, examples of a free particle and a simple harmonic oscillator illustrating the formalism of the deformation quantization and its classical limit are given.

The phenomenon of vacuum decay, i.e. electron-positron pair production due to the instability of the quantum electrodynamics vacuum in an external field, is a remarkable prediction of Dirac theory whose experimental observation is still lacking. Here a classic wave optics analogue of vacuum decay, based on light propagation in curved waveguide superlattices, is proposed. Our photonic analogue enables a simple and experimentally-accessible visualization in space of the process of pair production as break up of an initially negative-energy Gaussian wave packet, representing an electron in the Dirac sea, under the influence of an oscillating electric field.

We analyze in detail the heating of bosonic atoms in an optical lattice due to incoherent scattering of light from the lasers forming the lattice. Because atoms scattered into higher bands do not thermalize on the timescale of typical experiments, this process cannot be described by the total energy increase in the system alone (which is determined by single-particle effects). The heating instead involves an important interplay between the atomic physics of the heating process and the many-body physics of the state. We characterize the effects on many-body states for various system parameters, where we observe important differences in the heating for strongly and weakly interacting regimes, as well as a strong dependence on the sign of the laser detuning from the excited atomic state. We compute heating rates and changes to characteristic correlation functions based both on perturbation theory calculations, and a time-dependent calculation of the dissipative many-body dynamics. The latter is made possible for 1D systems by combining time-dependent density matrix renormalization group (t-DMRG) methods with quantum trajectory techniques.

One of the key features of quantum mechanics is the interference of probability amplitudes. The reason for the appearance of interference is mathematically very simple. It is the linear structure of the Hilbert space which is used for the description of quantum systems. In terms of physics we usually talk about the superposition principle valid for individual and composed quantum objects. So, while the source of interference is understandable it leads in fact to many counter-intuitive physical phenomena which puzzle physicists for almost hundred years. The present thesis studies interference in two seemingly disjoint fields of physics. However, both have strong links to quantum information processing and hence are related. In the first part we study the intriguing properties of quantum walks. In the second part we analyze a sophisticated application of wave packet dynamics in atoms and molecules for factorization of integers. The main body of the thesis is based on the original contributions listed separately at the end of the thesis. The more technical aspects and brief summaries of used methods are left for appendices.

We apply the notion of asymptotic iteration method (AIM) to determine eigenvalues of the bosonic Hamiltonians that include a wide class of quantum optical models. We consider solutions of the Hamiltonians, which are even polynomials of the fourth order with the respect to Boson operators. We also demonstrate applicability of the method for obtaining eigenvalues of the simple Lie algebraic structures. Eigenvalues of the multi-boson Hamiltonians have been obtained by transforming in the form of the single boson Hamiltonian in the framework of AIM.

An approximate method is proposed to solve position dependent mass Schr\"odinger equation. The procedure suggested here leads to the solution of the PDM Schr\"odinger equation without transforming the potential function to the mass space or vice verse. The method based on asymptotic Taylor expansion of the function, produces an approximate analytical expression for eigenfunction and numerical results for eigenvalues of the PDM Schr\"odinger equation. The results show that PDM and constant mass Schr\"odinger equations are not isospectral. The calculations are carried out with the aid of a computer system of symbolic or numerical calculation by constructing a simple algorithm.