Quantum physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional spectroscopy revealed oscillatory signals in photosynthesis’ exciton dynamics, but crowded spectra impede the identification of what sustains the oscillations. Here the authors probe an J-aggregate, whose uncongested response shows that vibronic coupling is responsible for the sustained coherence.

    • James Lim
    • , David Paleček
    •  & Jürgen Hauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum simulation offers an unparalleled computational resource, but realizing it for fermionic systems is challenging due to their particle statistics. Here the authors report on the time evolutions of fermionic interactions implemented with digital techniques on a nine-qubit superconducting circuit.

    • R. Barends
    • , L. Lamata
    •  & John M. Martinis

  • Article |

    In the presence of a Hermitian potential, a plane wave propagating in free space cannot maintain a constant intensity due to scattering. Here, Makriset al. show that in non-Hermitian potential, waves can propagate with constant intensity through linear and nonlinear inhomogeneous media with gain and loss.

    • K. G. Makris
    • , Z. H. Musslimani
    •  & S. Rotter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The two-dimensional atomic layers of black phosphorus may be exfoliated to create devices with desirable electronic transport properties. Here, the authors observe two-dimensional quantum transport in black phosphorus quantum wells, protected from oxidation by encapsulation in a polymer layer.

    • V. Tayari
    • , N. Hemsworth
    •  & T. Szkopek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Irreversible computation cannot be performed without a work cost, and energy dissipation imposes limitations on devices' performances. Here the authors show that the minimal work requirement of logical operations is given by the amount of discarded information, measured by entropy.

    • Philippe Faist
    • , Frédéric Dupuis
    •  & Renato Renner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-Tc superconductivity is thought to be associated with spatial electronic ordering, which for cuprates is not well understood yet. Here the authors use Monte Carlo simulations to show the emergence of a soft-matter-like electronic phase between the antiferromagnetic and the superconducting states.

    • M. Capati
    • , S. Caprara
    •  & J. Lorenzana

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A wide variety of interesting phenomena arise in 2D systems subject to external gauge fields, but these are sometimes challenging to verify experimentally. Here the authors propose a setup to simulate 2D physics with a 1D arrangement of cavities, by exploiting the orbital angular momentum of trapped photons.

    • Xi-Wang Luo
    • , Xingxiang Zhou
    •  & Zheng-Wei Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thermal operations, a model of thermodynamic processes for small quantum systems out of equilibrium, are well-understood in absence of coherence. Here the authors introduce cooling processes, a generalization of thermal operations and find necessary and sufficient conditions for coherent state transitions via cooling processes.

    • Varun Narasimhachar
    •  & Gilad Gour

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Full tomography of the quantum state of a many-body system becomes harder as more and more atoms are included. Here the authors borrow a concept from condensed-matter physics, continuous matrix-product states, and present an efficient approach for experimental quantum-field tomography.

    • A. Steffens
    • , M. Friesdorf
    •  & J. Eisert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Connections in networks are organized to fulfil a function, and a common one is targeted transport or navigation. Here the authors use game theory to show how networks designed to maximize navigation efficiency at minimal cost share basic structural properties, which are also found in real cases.

    • András Gulyás
    • , József J. Bíró
    •  & Dmitri Krioukov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The cold dark matter paradigm predicts that Milky Way-like galaxies should have dwarf galaxies with dark matter halos as satellites. Ural et al.present a new model, independent of cosmological simulations, that constrains the pre-infall mass of the Milky Way satellite Carina to a value lower than expected.

    • Uğur Ural
    • , Mark I. Wilkinson
    •  & Matthew G. Walker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phase diagrams are useful to describe the different states of matter, although for mechanically instable system the derivation of a free energy and thus of phase diagrams has been a challenge. Here, the authors propose a computational method to define the free energy of mechanically unstable phases.

    • A. van de Walle
    • , Q. Hong
    •  & R. Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical communications and quantum operations require active coupling control in closely packed integrated photonic circuits. Here, Mrejen et al.exploit adiabatic elimination to demonstrate active coupling control between two closely packed waveguides by tuning the mode index of an in-between decoupled waveguide.

    • Michael Mrejen
    • , Haim Suchowski
    •  & Xiang Zhang

  • Article |

    In strongly coupled systems lacking long-lived quasiparticles, conventional methods are inadequate to study the dynamics of phase transitions. Here, the authors use holographic duality to investigate the superconducting transition and show that critical dynamics and formation of topological defects are universal.

    • Julian Sonner
    • , Adolfo del Campo
    •  & Wojciech H. Zurek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The connection between information and thermodynamics is embodied in the figure of Maxwell’s demon, a feedback controller. Here, the authors apply thermodynamics of information to signal transduction in chemotaxis of E. coli, predicting that its robustness is quantified by transfer entropy.

    • Sosuke Ito
    •  & Takahiro Sagawa

  • Article |

    Two-dimensional quantum spin liquid states, which retain spin disorder down to low temperatures, have never been realized experimentally. Here, the authors use quantum Monte Carlo methods to predict a new route to this state in rare-earth pyrochlore quantum spin ices under an applied (111) magnetic field.

    • Juan Carrasquilla
    • , Zhihao Hao
    •  & Roger G. Melko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A minimal observable length leading to deformed commutation relations is a common feature of theories that aim to merge quantum physics and gravity. Here, the authors analyse the free evolution of micro- and nano-oscillators to lower the limits on the parameters quantifying commutator deformation.

    • Mateusz Bawaj
    • , Ciro Biancofiore
    •  & Francesco Marin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin triplet superconductivity may benefit spintronics, providing dissipation-free spin-polarized currents. Here, the authors demonstrate macroscopic quantum tunnelling in spin filter Josephson junctions containing a ferromagnetic insulator barrier of GdN, evidencing unconventional superconductivity below 100 mK.

    • D. Massarotti
    • , A. Pal
    •  & F. Tafuri

  • Article |

    Structural patterns such as communities are used to understand the architecture of complex networks, but this is typically obtained for a purely static case. Here the authors introduce a generalized formalism that includes the statistical properties of the event timings.

    • Jean-Charles Delvenne
    • , Renaud Lambiotte
    •  & Luis E. C. Rocha

  • Article |

    Quantum features such as entanglement can be used to improve metrological precision, but noise affects their performances. Here the authors construct schemes for exploiting quantum error correction to preserve the quantum Fisher information, thereby shielding quantum gain efficiently.

    • Xiao-Ming Lu
    • , Sixia Yu
    •  & C. H. Oh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the emerging field of valleytronics, the valley degree of freedom of electrons is exploited in addition to charge and spin for novel functionalities. Here, Renard et al.show how valley polarization can facilitate spin-polarization in a silicon-on-insulator quantum well.

    • V. T. Renard
    • , B. A. Piot
    •  & K. Takashina

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Implementations of known quantum teleportation techniques suffer from a number of technical limitations, most notably the scaling of the required classical resources. Here, the authors implement a new protocol, superdense teleportation, which requires fewer resources than the conventional approaches.

    • Trent M. Graham
    • , Herbert J. Bernstein
    •  & Paul G Kwiat

  • Article |

    Recent experiments with plasmonic nanostructures have found phenomena that cannot be explained classically, necessitating new theoretical models. Toscano et al. present a self-consistent hydrodynamic theory that describes both the nonlocal response and the electronic spill-out for noble and simple metals.

    • Giuseppe Toscano
    • , Jakob Straubel
    •  & Martijn Wubs

  • Article |

    In statistical physics, the observable macroscopic behaviour of a system is obtained from a microscopic model of its components. Here, the authors extend this approach to systems with no known microscopic dynamics, by looking at the system’s response to external perturbations.

    • Baruch Barzel
    • , Yang-Yu Liu
    •  & Albert-László Barabási

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum phase transitions are a discontinuous change in a property of the ground state or the structure of the excited states as a system parameter traverses a critical point. Here, the authors recreate analogous effects with laboratory-achievable light-matter coupling in an on-chip superconducting circuit

    • M. Feng
    • , Y.P. Zhong
    •  & H. Wang

  • Article |

    Two-dimensional charge ordering cannot be fully described by Peierls-like weak coupling mechanisms appropriate for one-dimensional materials. Here, the authors show how strong orbital-dependent electron–phonon coupling drives two-dimensional charge ordering in archetypal niobium diselenide.

    • Felix Flicker
    •  & Jasper van Wezel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although expected to have an influence, the effect of strong laser fields on molecules in high-harmonic generation in gases is rarely explored. Kraus et al.show that the laser modifies the electronic structure of large polyatomic molecules and present a new theoretical framework to model this.

    • P. M. Kraus
    • , O. I. Tolstikhin
    •  & H. J. Wörner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Future quantum computers will employ error correction to protect quantum data from decoherence and faulty hardware. Here, using a quantum processor with five superconducting qubits, the authors demonstrate how to protect one logical qubit from bitflip errors using multi-qubit, stabilizer measurements.

    • D. Ristè
    • , S. Poletto
    •  & L. DiCarlo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The work fluctuations of systems driven out of equilibrium are governed by the same large-deviation theory as wavefunction amplitudes close to the Anderson localization transition. Exploiting this analogy, the authors generalize the Jarzynski equality, verifying their relation on a single-electron box.

    • I.M. Khaymovich
    • , J.V. Koski
    •  & J.P. Pekola

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Radiation pressure can control the motion of a nanoscale resonator, but pushing this to the quantum limit is difficult because the influence of a single photon is tiny. Here, the authors boost the radiation–pressure interaction by six orders of magnitude using a Josephson junction qubit

    • J.-M. Pirkkalainen
    • , S.U. Cho
    •  & M.A. Sillanpää

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A driven-dissipative system of non-interacting bosons may form multiple condensates—a dynamics described by birth–death processes that also occur in evolutionary game theory. Here, the authors apply game theory to show how the vanishing of relative entropy production governs condensate selection.

    • Johannes Knebel
    • , Markus F. Weber
    •  & Erwin Frey

  • Article |

    Quantum repeaters have been conceived as a means to extend the range of quantum secure communications, but can handle only distillable entangled states. Here, the authors introduce and study quantum key repeaters, devices which may allow long-distance quantum key distribution with non-distillable states.

    • Stefan Bäuml
    • , Matthias Christandl
    •  & Andreas Winter

  • Article |

    A challenging problem is to identify the most central agents in interconnected multilayer networks. Here, De Domenico et al. present a mathematical framework to calculate centrality in such networks—versatility—and rank nodes accordingly.

    • Manlio De Domenico
    • , Albert Solé-Ribalta
    •  & Alex Arenas

  • Article |

    Multilayer networks have been used to capture the structure of complex systems with different types of interactions, but often contain redundant information. Here, De Domenico et al. present a method based on quantum information, to identify the minimal configuration of layers to retain.

    • Manlio De Domenico
    • , Vincenzo Nicosia
    •  & Vito Latora

  • Article |

    Nucleation is the fundamental relaxation mechanism that leads to the emergence of a new phase or structure via first-order phase transitions. Here, the authors study nucleation and growth of two-dimensional phases on curved surfaces, and show how the curvature influences its inhomogeneity and speed.

    • Leopoldo R. Gómez
    • , Nicolás A. García
    •  & Daniel A. Vega

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The transmission of light through opaque media is a complex process, owing to the many scattering processes of light. Here, the authors develop a method to determine the transmission eigenchannels through an opaque medium as a solution of diffusion equations.

    • Matthieu Davy
    • , Zhou Shi
    •  & Azriel Z. Genack

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The conversion dynamics of nuclear-spin isomers has only been observed for a small number of molecules, generally with rotational symmetry. Here, the authors observe the separation of nuclear-spin isomers of gaseous methanol and show a decreased interconversion at higher pressures.

    • Zhen-Dong Sun
    • , Meihua Ge
    •  & Yujun Zheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum repeaters are needed for long-distance quantum communication but it is thought that they require matter quantum memories. Azuma et al. introduce an all-photonic quantum repeater based on flying qubits that scales polynomially with the channel distance without the need for matter quantum memories.

    • Koji Azuma
    • , Kiyoshi Tamaki
    •  & Hoi-Kwong Lo

  • Article |

    Quasi-one-dimensional substructures have distinctive properties, but the lattice dynamics are poorly understood. Here, Chen et al.use inelastic neutron scattering and density functional theory to discover that numerous low-energy optical vibrational modes including a twisting polarization are present in higher manganese silicides.

    • Xi Chen
    • , Annie Weathers
    •  & Li Shi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The inherent strangeness of quantum mechanics means it is possible to detect objects using single-quantum particles even if they do not interact directly. Peise et al. realize such an ‘interaction-free measurement’ by exploiting the quantum Zeno effect in a BEC, obviating the need for single-particle sources.

    • J. Peise
    • , B. Lücke
    •  & C. Klempt

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