Quantum physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    The availability of pervasive data has opened up possibilities for quantitative approaches to many phenomena, but extracting useful information from huge datasets is difficult. Here, Louail et al. propose a method to extract a coarse-grained signature of large weighted networks and apply it to mobility networks.

    • Thomas Louail
    • , Maxime Lenormand
    •  & Marc Barthelemy

  • Article |

    Spin–orbit-coupled Fermi gases have been shown to support exotic topological quantum states. Here, the authors investigate quench dynamics of these gases in two dimensions, and find that three different phases with different topological properties emerge depending on the behaviour of the order parameter.

    • Ying Dong
    • , Lin Dong
    •  & Han Pu

  • Article |

    How do fluctuations alter the dynamics of phase transitions in crystal near a mechanical instability? To answer this question, here Mao et al. present a square lattice-based analytic model showing that large entropic effects can take place at nonzero temperature near the transition.

    • Xiaoming Mao
    • , Anton Souslov
    •  & T. C. Lubensky

  • Article |

    Replica symmetry breaking, in which identical systems subject to identical conditions evolve to different end states, has been predicted to occur in many contexts but has yet to be observed experimentally. Ghofraniha et al.report evidence for its occurrence in the pulse-to-pulse variations of a random laser.

    • N. Ghofraniha
    • , I. Viola
    •  & C. Conti

  • Article |

    Quantum steering is a form of quantum non-locality that can be verified for arbitrarily low detection efficiencies and high losses at the price of requiring complete trust in one of the parties. Here, Kocsis et al. present measurement-device-independent steering protocols that remove this need for trust.

    • Sacha Kocsis
    • , Michael J. W. Hall
    •  & Geoff J. Pryde

  • Article |

    Empirical data can contain information about causation rather than mere correlation. Here Chaves et al. present an algorithm for computing constraints on the correlations arising from a given quantum causal structure, and apply this framework to the information causality principle and networked architectures.

    • Rafael Chaves
    • , Christian Majenz
    •  & David Gross

  • Article |

    A long-standing debate on the foundation of quantum mechanics is whether wave–particle duality and the uncertainty principle are equivalent. Here Coles et al. show that the wave–particle duality relation corresponds to a formulation of the uncertainty principle in terms of min- and max-entropies.

    • Patrick J. Coles
    • , Jedrzej Kaniewski
    •  & Stephanie Wehner

  • Article |

    Ultrathin layers that can confine electron motion to just two dimensions exhibit a wide range of unusual electronic properties. Gamucci et al. combine two very different examples of such systems—graphene and a gallium arsenide quantum well—and demonstrate interlayer coupling effects.

    • A. Gamucci
    • , D. Spirito
    •  & V. Pellegrini

  • Article |

    Mechanical resonators lose energy over time due to both dissipative and dephasing processes. Schneider et al. now use a fast time-domain technique to separate the influence of these two types of mechanism, and demonstrate that at high driving power, dephasing becomes the dominant factor.

    • Ben H. Schneider
    • , Vibhor Singh
    •  & Gary A. Steele

  • Article |

    Superconducting circuits are one possible way of realizing qubits, but the time for which they can maintain their quantum state is limited by single-electron-like excitations. Wang et al. now demonstrate a technique for controlling these so-called quasiparticles and improving qubit lifetime.

    • C. Wang
    • , Y. Y. Gao
    •  & R. J. Schoelkopf

  • Article |

    Electromagnetically induced transparency—an effect in atomic physics caused by interference between transitions—has found analogues in other areas, like nanophotonics. Yang et al. exploit this effect in an all-dielectric metasurface to produce high-Q-factor resonances ideal for refractive index sensing.

    • Yuanmu Yang
    • , Ivan I. Kravchenko
    •  & Jason Valentine

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Advances in electron microscopy are enabling ever smaller features to be probed, with the measurement of atomic electric fields standing as a major challenge. Towards that aim, Müller et al.present a simplified theoretical approach for enhancing the resolution in differential phase contrast microscopy.

    • Knut Müller
    • , Florian F. Krause
    •  & Andreas Rosenauer

  • Article |

    In quantum information, the phase-flip error of a logical qubit protected by Z2 topological order is the vison, an elementary excitation of the Z2 phase, which is predicted to condense at zero temperature. Here, Hao et al.study a vison-induced transition in a quantum dimer model on the kagome lattice.

    • Zhihao Hao
    • , Stephen Inglis
    •  & Roger Melko

  • Article |

    Helium is an atom of great scientific interest, yet much debate exists surrounding the shape its molecules form. Here Voigtsberger et al. present experimental results imaging the wavefuction of 4He3 and 3He4He2 trimer systems, which suggest that 4He3 is a random cloud while 3He4He2is a quantum halo state.

    • J. Voigtsberger
    • , S. Zeller
    •  & R. Dörner

  • Article |

    Unusual effects arise when a material’s permittivity or permeability approach zero, a scenario that can be readily engineered in metamaterials. This study explores the regime wherein both these quantities go to zero and the electric and magnetic fields effectively decouple while remaining temporally dynamic.

    • Ahmed M. Mahmoud
    •  & Nader Engheta

  • Article |

    While most quantum optical techniques reveal either the wave or particle nature of light, weak-field homodyne detection combines wave- and particle-like descriptions. Here, Donati et al.employ this hybrid detection scheme to study the coherence between photon number states across two-mode entangled states.

    • Gaia Donati
    • , Tim J. Bartley
    •  & Ian A. Walmsley

  • Article |

    Friedel oscillations are ripples in the electron density surrounding a charge impurity. Bouhassoune et al. now use first-principle calculations to show that Friedel oscillation surrounding an oxygen impurity in a ferromagnetic film can be engineered and amplified by choice of substrate and film thickness

    • Mohammed Bouhassoune
    • , Bernd Zimmermann
    •  & Samir Lounis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coherently coupling microwave photons to quantum electronic conductors could provide a useful platform for quantum information processing. Souquet et al. now theoretically demonstrate that such systems can also act as sensitive probes of the quantum properties of non-classical microwave radiation.

    • J. -R. Souquet
    • , M. J. Woolley
    •  & A. A. Clerk

  • Article |

    Qudits, multiple-level quantum systems, enable more efficient scaling of physical resources in quantum computing than qubits, but they are more difficult to control. Svetitsky et al.now experimentally demonstrate a simplifying technique that converts a four-level qudit into a pair of qubits.

    • Elisha Svetitsky
    • , Haim Suchowski
    •  & Nadav Katz

  • Article |

    The conversion of quantum states between single photons and single atoms is an essential ingredient for the implementation of quantum memories. Here, Kurz et al. demonstrate a photon-to-atom quantum state conversion protocol characterized by mapping fidelities as high as 95%.

    • Christoph Kurz
    • , Michael Schug
    •  & Jürgen Eschner

  • Article |

    Quantum communication schemes rely on cryptographically secure quantum resources to distribute private information. Here, the authors show that graph states—nonlocal states based on networks of qubits—can be exploited to implement quantum secret sharing of quantum and classical information.

    • B. A. Bell
    • , D. Markham
    •  & M. S. Tame

  • Article |

    The polarization state of light is analogous to the spin state of electrons, enabling equivalent phenomena to be explored in optics as in the solid state. Here, the authors study directional scattering of light from nanostructured surfaces, arising from a spin-orbit coupling effect for surface plasmon waves.

    • D. O’Connor
    • , P. Ginzburg
    •  & A. V. Zayats

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Network controllability has numerous applications in natural and technological systems. Here, Gao et al.develop a theoretical approach and a greedy algorithm to study target control—the ability to efficiently control a preselected subset of nodes—in complex networks.

    • Jianxi Gao
    • , Yang-Yu Liu
    •  & Albert-László Barabási

  • Article |

    Spin–orbit coupling gives rise to a plethora of rich phenomena in many condensed matter and atomic systems. Syzranov et al.study the role of dipole–dipole interactions in ultracold polar molecule gases and show that they produce an effective spin–orbit coupling that generates chiral excitations.

    • Sergey V. Syzranov
    • , Michael L. Wall
    •  & Ana Maria Rey

  • Article |

    A longstanding question in quantum information is the validity of the disputed Peres conjecture stating that bound entangled state can never lead to Bell inequality violation. Here Vértesi and Brunner prove that the Peres conjecture is false by providing an explicit counter example.

    • Tamás Vértesi
    •  & Nicolas Brunner

  • Article |

    Metal nanostructures strongly influence fluorescence of nearby molecules, ranging from significant enhancement to total quenching. To decode the precise interactions taking place, Holzmeister et al. present a method that distinguishes the contributions to excitation, radiative and non-radiative rates.

    • Phil Holzmeister
    • , Enrico Pibiri
    •  & Philip Tinnefeld

  • Article |

    A problem in the treatment of 1D quantum magnetic systems is the shortage of theoretical models applicable for general confinement. Here, Volosniev et al.introduce an energy-functional technique to solve 1D fermionic and bosonic systems with strong short-range interaction in arbitrary geometry.

    • A. G. Volosniev
    • , D. V. Fedorov
    •  & N. T. Zinner

  • Article |

    In chiral helimagnets, the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction is known to stabilize skyrmions, but the microscopic roots remain enigmatic. Here, Janson et al. apply a multi-scale approach to Cu2OSeO3and show that its skyrmions can be traced back to magnetic tetrahedra of a quantum nature.

    • Oleg Janson
    • , Ioannis Rousochatzakis
    •  & Helge Rosner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Semiconductor quantum dots embedded in nanowires are good candidates for the realization of a nearly ideal entangled photons source. Here, Versteegh et al.demonstrate emission of single-photon pairs from a position-controlled nanowire quantum dot without the need for temporal post-selection.

    • Marijn A. M. Versteegh
    • , Michael E. Reimer
    •  & Val Zwiller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Contact parameterises two-body correlations at short distances in dilute systems like ultracold atomic gases. Using a fundamental thermodynamic relation, Chen et al.study the contact near a continuous classical or quantum phase transition and find that it displays a number of critical behaviours.

    • Y.-Y. Chen
    • , Y.-Z. Jiang
    •  & Qi Zhou

  • Article |

    An open question in quantum key distribution (QKD) is whether there exist protocols avoiding the exponential decay of the secret key generation rate with distance. Takeoka et al.show a fundamental tradeoff between the secret-key generation rate and the channel loss for optical repeater-less QKD protocols.

    • Masahiro Takeoka
    • , Saikat Guha
    •  & Mark M. Wilde

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The magnetocaloric effect is well understood in spin-frustrated low-dimensional systems, and should be observable in certain high-symmetry molecular structures. Here, the authors report the experimental observation of sub-Kelvin cooling with a molecular magnet, and probe the low-temperature spin behaviour.

    • Joseph W. Sharples
    • , David Collison
    •  & Marco Evangelisti

  • Article |

    Long quantum coherence time is a fundamental requirement for the realization of any quantum-mechanically operating machine. Here, Bader et al.demonstrate a coherence time as long as 68 μs at low temperature and of 1 μs at room temperature for a transition metal complex.

    • Katharina Bader
    • , Dominik Dengler
    •  & Joris van Slageren

  • Article |

    Unlike metals, Weyl and Dirac semimetals possess open discontinuous Fermi surfaces. Here, Potter et al.show how such materials may still exhibit characteristic electronic oscillations under applied magnetic fields via bulk tunnelling between Fermi arcs and predict their experimental signatures.

    • Andrew C. Potter
    • , Itamar Kimchi
    •  & Ashvin Vishwanath

  • Review Article |

    Neutrinos are ghost-like particles that interact only very weakly with other particles. As ongoing experiments to measure their properties improve, Ohlsson and Zhou review neutrino mass models and the renormalization group running of neutrino parameters that aim to understand the origin of neutrino mass.

    • Tommy Ohlsson
    •  & Shun Zhou

  • Article |

    The manipulation of magnetic skyrmions in thin films has presented new possibilities for emerging devices and technology. Here, Koshibae et al.use numerical simulations to show how localized nanoscale heating can generate such chiral topological spin textures in both dipolar and chiral magnets.

    • Wataru Koshibae
    •  & Naoto Nagaosa

  • Article |

    Superconducting flux qubits operating as two-level systems can act as artificial atoms, and so represent a potential metamaterial building block. Macha et al.assemble 20 such qubits into a metamaterial in which the ‘atoms’ are collectively coupled to the quantized mode of a microwave photon field.

    • Pascal Macha
    • , Gregor Oelsner
    •  & Alexey V. Ustinov

  • Article |

    Quantum simulators offer a test bed to emulate physical phenomena that are difficult to reproduce numerically. Using a multi-element superconducting quantum circuit, Chen et al.emulate weak localization for a mesoscopic system using a control sequence that lets them continuously tune the level of disorder.

    • Yu Chen
    • , P. Roushan
    •  & John M. Martinis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is an old adage in quantum physics that the observation of a system changes its properties, as exemplified by the quantum Zeno effect. Now, Burgarth et al.show that such repeated measurement of a quantum system actually enriches its dynamics, letting it explore a much larger algebra than it did before.

    • Daniel Klaus Burgarth
    • , Paolo Facchi
    •  & Kazuya Yuasa

  • Article |

    Ultracold atoms in optical lattices exhibit many exotic phenomena. Using interacting spinor Bose gases as a model, Li et al.show how spin-valley degeneracy arising in a multivalley band is broken by quantum fluctuations, resulting in a counterintuitive chiral spin order and a spontaneous spin Hall effect.

    • Xiaopeng Li
    • , Stefan S. Natu
    •  & S. Das Sarma

  • Article |

    Chiral spin liquids, a topological phase in frustrated quantum spin systems, have been recently very sought-after. Here, Bauer et al.present a model for a Mott insulator on the Kagome lattice with broken time-reversal symmetry exhibiting such a topological phase.

    • B. Bauer
    • , L. Cincio
    •  & A.W.W. Ludwig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Decoherence is anathema to quantum systems, as it reduces their performance and stability. Shulman et al.show that real-time Hamiltonian parameter estimation can significantly increase the coherence time of a qubit by enabling continuous adjustment of its control parameters.

    • M. D. Shulman
    • , S. P. Harvey
    •  & A. Yacoby

  • Article |

    In condensed matter physics, p-wave chiral superfluidity is an unconventional topological many-body quantum state. Here, Liu et al. report a new mechanism to achieve a centre-of-mass p-wave chiral superfluid state in a spin imbalanced atomic Fermi gas with s-wave interaction.

    • Bo Liu
    • , Xiaopeng Li
    •  & W Vincent Liu

  • Article |

    Arguably, the most counterintuitive aspects of quantum mechanics are indeterminacy of physical quantities and ambiguity of wave/particle behaviour prior to measurement. Terno et al.propose an experiment to test hidden-variable models that aim to restore objectivity and determinism in quantum theory.

    • Radu Ionicioiu
    • , Thomas Jennewein
    •  & Daniel R. Terno

  • Article |

    In complex networks, non-Markovianity is an important mechanism affecting causality and the dynamics of a process. Here, Scholtes et al.introduce an analytical approach to study non-Markovian temporal networks, allowing to predict causality-driven changes of diffusion speed.

    • Ingo Scholtes
    • , Nicolas Wider
    •  & Frank Schweitzer

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