Papers

Logical CCZ states enable Toffoli gates, a central building block of fault-tolerant quantum arithmetic. We introduce an end-to-end protocol for direct CCZ-state preparation on bivariate tricycle and bicycle (BT/BB) codes. Our factory combines the cup-product CCZ gates native to BT codes with two novel ingredients, both enabled by engineering the logical coupling between BT and BB codes through projection-preserving lifts. Index-2 lifted BB ancillas enable selective $Z$-basis initialization, allowing the native cup-product gates to directly prepare two disjoint logical CCZ states. The prepared CCZ states are faithfully transferred to index-3 lifted BB memories with high code distance. We use decoder-based postselection to obtain high-fidelity output states with low overhead. We perform exact simulations of our factory under a circuit-level noise model motivated by neutral-atom hardware, obtaining joint infidelities of $1.84\times10^{-5}$ at $21.94\%$ acceptance and $4.10\times10^{-7}$ at $8.89\%$ acceptance for single-qubit, CZ, and CCZ error rates of $0.01\%$, $0.1\%$, and $0.5\%$, respectively. At the output-infidelity target of our smallest factory, its estimated spacetime cost per CCZ state is lower than that of $T$-state cultivation followed by CCZ conversion, providing an efficient route to logical CCZ states for fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Side-channel attacks on block ciphers rarely recover the key outright: they leave a residual key space ordered by subkey posteriors, and evaluation laboratories report the key rank of the true key against thresholds near 2^48 and 2^60. No evaluation framework models an adversary who collects traces classically and finishes the search on a quantum computer, although quantum search with advice provides exactly that. We give such an adversary a cost model and a metric. For a device whose key has rank r, any quantum algorithm with classical access to the posteriors needs Omega(sqrt(r)) cipher evaluations, and block search achieves O(sqrt(r)); the per-instance advantage is exactly quadratic, and the super-quadratic exponents reported for search with advice are averages over the prior that apply to no single device. Under the NIST MAXDEPTH budget D and a Grover iteration of g gates and depth d, the quadratic advantage holds only for ranks up to (4D/(pi d))^2 and collapses to a constant factor beyond; with the best published AES-128 oracle and D = 2^40 the window closes near rank 2^58.6. We define the quantum-aware key rank, the classical rank of equal cost, computable from the rank estimators laboratories already run, and derive the classical rank a device must retain to keep a given threshold against each depth budget. Block search and amplitude amplification from the product-form posterior state are within a factor of two to four of each other on Hamming-weight posteriors, so the cost of coherent indexing decides between them. Experiments on simulated leakage and a toy cipher confirm the predicted window: at SNR 0.125 a depth-limited quantum adversary is worth about 22 traces to a classical one, however large its gate budget.

A quantum memory can preserve a subsystem perfectly while discarding information needed by a later operation. We study the total intermediate dimension required for channel synthesis when the first stage protects a $b$-dimensional subsystem and has a prescribed noncommutative graph imposing full confusability on an $a$-dimensional control register. For a finite family of classically controlled branches, exact synthesis is possible if and only if the target graph contains the prescribed graph of the first stage. For every feasible family, we construct a single processor that implements all branches exactly. The processor uses pairwise nonorthogonal pure program states in a register of dimension at most $a$. A target graph may be realizable with a carrier of dimension $b$, while synthesizing a channel with that graph can require dimension $ab$. We also characterize the closure of the attainable channels, distinguishing exact synthesis from arbitrarily accurate approximation. Finally, for a family built from the trine communication task, a four-dimensional carrier permits exact synthesis with quantum programs under output depolarization. At the same total carrier dimension and without free shared randomness, classical programs have optimal normalized diamond error $(1-\eta)/4$, where $0\leq\eta\leq1$ is the depolarization strength. For $\eta<1$, the gap persists under sufficiently small perturbations of the target branches.

We demonstrate that the one-time measurement scheme is more consistent than the standard two-time measurement scheme with respect to the fundamental symmetry of entanglement, namely entanglement-assisted invariance (envariance). In particular, the work statistics obtained from the one-time measurement scheme arise naturally as a direct consequence of envariance for any driving unitary, without involving an explicit measurement postulate, whereas the analogous identification for the two-time measurement scheme is possible only for a Haar-measure-zero set of unitaries. This envariance-based formulation eliminates the ambiguity in work statistics related to the energetic cost of measurement.

The Petz recovery map provides a near optimal decoder for approximate quantum error correction, but its inverse square-root normalization complicates circuit implementation. We use the polar structure of the Petz recovery isometry to implement recovery through a single quantum singular value transformation (QSVT). We give explicit block-encoding circuits and an extended recovery isometry that yields approximate Petz recovery without postselection. We bound the diamond distance between the approximate and ideal Petz encoding-recovery channels in terms of a spectrum-weighted loss, which provides a channel specific objective for optimizing the QSVT angles. Uniform polynomial approximation yields an asymptotic error bound that decays exponentially with the number of QSVT iterations, at a rate controlled by the smallest nonzero scaled singular value. Applications to Haar-random encoding and the Hayden-Preskill protocol illustrate the tradeoff between circuit depth and recovery accuracy and place existing scrambling decoders within a common Petz recovery framework.

Trapped-ion devices are being investigated for transportable applications, including the transfer of exotic charged particles between laboratories and the development of portable quantum technologies. To date, ion transport has been demonstrated only in magnetic (Penning) traps, whereas radiofrequency (Paul) traps are the predominant platform in quantum science. Here, we report the first transport of a few thousand ions confined in a linear Paul trap over distances of several kilometers, with transport durations of 15 and 45 min. These results establish a foundation for mobile trapped-ion quantum devices capable of operating while in motion and may enable the transport of exotic ions in Paul traps between experimental facilities.

We study quantum spectrum and eigenstate property estimation using multiple initial states and generalized Hadamard tests. Building on the QFAMES (quantum filtering and analysis of multiplicities in eigenvalue spectra) framework, we introduce a new method that samples evolution times independently for each initial-state pair. Under the stated assumptions, when statistical error determines the sampling cost, the total Hamiltonian simulation cost required for fixed-accuracy eigenvalue and observable estimation is independent of the number of initial states, up to logarithmic factors. This improves scalability when many initial states are needed to explore the target eigenspaces. The method also reduces the cost of multiplicity recovery and retains Heisenberg-limited scaling for eigenvalue estimation. Numerical experiments support the predicted statistical error scalings.

At zero temperature, a dilute Fermi gas with an attractive contact interaction forms a superfluid with gapped fermionic excitations. We show that the gap at weak coupling can be organized as a trans-series expansion in the interaction strength and the asymptotic Gor'kov-Melik-Barkhudarov gap. Low-energy virtual quasiparticles generate corrections that are linear in the gap with a leading coefficient nearly 25$\times$ larger than the other known coefficients. This substantially increases the gap at intermediate densities, highlighting that systematic corrections are crucial for quantitative predictions.

Kemp and Ramgoolam proposed a basis of monomials for a commutative semisimple algebra with generators \(C_1,\ldots, C_L\), constructed from a degeneracy graph which records how the eigenspaces of \( C_1\) are successively split by \( C_2,\ldots, C_L\). They showed that the basis property is equivalent to the non-vanishing of the determinant of the matrix of values of these monomials on the projector basis, and conjectured a factorised formula for this determinant, as a product of powers of eigenvalue differences. We prove this formula for any number of generators. The proof uses graph analogues of Newton polynomials. Their evaluation matrix is not triangular in general, but expanding the rows of the children of each node of the penultimate layer in a Newton basis of their eigenvalues makes it block triangular, with diagonal blocks given by smaller degeneracy graphs in which the final layer is removed. The formula then follows by induction on the number of layers. We show that the exponents in the determinant are overlap volumes of higher-dimensional Young diagrams attached to the nodes of the graph: intervals, ordinary Young diagrams, plane partitions and their higher analogues. Finally, the block triangular structure gives an explicit recursive inversion of the evaluation matrix, expressing the projectors in the monomial basis.

A well established approach to describe open quantum system dynamics is the celebrated Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) master equation. In this article we aim to shed light on semigroup dynamics that are not of this form. Such dynamics may appear in real physical systems describing asymptotic long-time dynamics. Thus, they correspond to semigroup dynamics applicable to a restricted set of initial states only. As a way of motivating our studies, first we review known results about the single-mode Gaussian Quantum Brownian motion channel and corresponding master equations. Next we discuss a conceptually simpler family of qubit semigroup generators and identify parameter regions of completely positive, merely positive, and non-positive dynamics. We then focus on the latter case to which we will refer to as restricted-positive, as the semigroup generator may well be physically meaningful when applied to a restricted set of admissible initial states.

Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference offers robustness in high-noise environments due to its phase-insensitive nature, while N00N-state interference provides enhanced phase sensitivity for precision measurements in low-noise settings. However, their realizations have typically required separate experimental platforms. Here, we report a single hybrid quantum interferometer that can dynamically transition between HOM and N00N-state interference by adjusting two time delays, $\tau_1$ and $\tau_2$. This tunability enables operation in phase-insensitive, phase-sensitive, or hybrid modes within a unified setup, as confirmed by theoretical analysis and experimental demonstration. Our system offers a versatile platform with potential for quantum sensing applications, paving the way for integrated quantum technologies capable of adapting to diverse noise conditions.

Solving linear systems of equations is a fundamental task in machine learning and optimization. In this work, we extend the original WZP algorithm from real symmetric linear systems to complex Hermitian linear systems. We then study the success probability of the modified WZP algorithm from a resource-theoretic perspective. By expressing the postselection success probability as the expectation value of a positive operator, we derive upper and lower bounds of the maximal success probability over separable, incoherent, and real pure states. These bounds further establish connections between the maximal success probability and geometric entanglement, coherence, and imaginarity. We further show that, under permutation averaging, the averaged success probability is an affine function of the coherence fraction, with its dependence determined by the alignment between the success operator and the equal-superposition state. We also investigate the preprocessed WZP algorithm under subgroup-constrained preprocessing. For the two-level family, the optimal success probability is determined by the maximal projection weight onto the orbit of the target projector. Our results provide a unified perspective on the WZP success probability under different operational constraints.

A recent graph-theoretic criterion for a Hamiltonian to exhibit a free-parafermion spectrum is that its frustration graph be an indifference graph. We show that an arbitrary finite indifference graph can be realized as a frustration graph of the quantized six-vertex model at odd roots of unity, by a suitable choice of the defining wiring diagram and parameters. This provides a concrete realization of the criterion through the quantum Frobenius property of the quantized six-vertex model, recently established from its three-dimensional integrable structure.

We revisit the effective radial Schrödinger equation for a charged spinless particle in collinear static electric and magnetic fields that was formulated in our earlier work within the tridiagonal representation approach (TRA). In that model the angular factor of the electric coupling is replaced by the orientation parameter $C=\cos\theta$, the linear Zeeman term is diagonal in the azimuthal quantum number, and the effective field-modified central potential takes the form $V(r)=\Vt(r)+qECr$. Here we show that the same equation can be solved exactly without the TRA, by the Nikiforov–Uvarov (NU) method, once the potential component $\Vt(r)$ is prescribed. Three examples are worked out in closed form: a Kratzer-type component, which yields a linear-plus-Coulomb-plus-inverse-square central potential; a pseudoharmonic-type component, which yields a linear-plus-harmonic-plus-inverse-square potential; and a Hulthén-type component with a repulsive core (Manning–Rosen form), which yields a screened confining potential with a finite number of $s$-wave bound states. For each case we obtain the energy spectrum, the normalized eigenfunctions in terms of Laguerre or Jacobi polynomials, the location of the potential minimum, and closed-form radial moments. The spectra are independent of the orientation $\theta$ and of the electric field, in agreement with the structure found by the TRA, while the field enters through the shape of $V(r)$, the radial moments, and the expectation value $\langle V\rangle_k$. All analytical results are confirmed by an independent finite-difference diagonalization.

We demonstrate that a single repulsive impurity enhances directional confinement of a high-energy wavepacket in a finite two-dimensional lattice of quantum wells. At energies far above the interwell barriers, the impurity suppresses transverse dynamical tunneling while preserving propagation along a principal lattice axis, even as the corresponding classical regular region shrinks. Confinement is strongest at impurity amplitudes comparable to the barrier height and weakens for stronger perturbations. Spectral analysis links this nonmonotonic pinning to the wavepacket's overlap with eigenstates concentrated along the launch direction, consistent with impurity-induced variational scarring. These results show that a single local defect can control quantum propagation over distances far exceeding its own spatial extent.

We investigate directional quantum steering harvesting by two uniformly accelerated non-identical Unruh-DeWitt detectors coupled to a massless scalar field in the Minkowski vacuum. We show that the Unruh effect does not simply degrade harvested steering, but can reshape its directionality in a strongly parameter-dependent manner. At low detector energy scales, acceleration predominantly suppresses steering, whereas at higher energy scales, moderate acceleration can enhance steering and even activate an initially absent steering direction. Most strikingly, within a finite acceleration window, the Unruh effect enhances steering in one direction while simultaneously suppressing it in the opposite direction, revealing an intrinsically directional influence of relativistic acceleration. Detector non-identicality provides an additional control mechanism: a moderate energy-gap mismatch can enhance or activate one steering direction while suppressing the reverse one, whereas sufficiently large energy-gap mismatch suppresses the harvested steering. Moreover, the maximal steering asymmetry approximately marks the transition from two-way to one-way steering. Our results establish relativistic acceleration and detector non-identicality as means of controlling the strength and directionality of vacuum-harvested quantum correlations.

We propose a loss-tolerant measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) protocol using time-bin-multiplexed single photons entangled with local qubits stored in nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. In each round, Alice and Bob each send a single multiplexed photon to an untrusted intermediary, Charlie. Each photon first becomes entangled with Charlie's NV-center qubits; Charlie then performs entanglement swapping between his NV qubits to establish EPR pairs between Alice's and Bob's local qubits. With $d$ time bins per photon, $\log_2 d + 1$ EPR pairs can be generated per transmitted photon, substantially increasing the probability of EPR-pair creation under limited channel bandwidth. To further mitigate the effects of prolonged memory storage, the protocol employs a memory-insensitive (MI) architecture, where multiple banks of qubits and multiplexed photon routing reduce the effective memory lifetime requirements. This approach enhances loss tolerance, enabling higher secret key rates and secure key distribution over longer distances compared to conventional single-photon protocols. Using the Lo-Chau EPR-QKD framework and Shor-Preskill reduction, we prove that the protocol is secure without trusting intermediate nodes, making it suitable for quantum networks with untrusted repeaters.

Ionizing radiation produces correlated errors in superconducting qubits, posing some challenges to quantum error correction. In addition, it causes background events in other superconducting cryogenic devices, such as kinetic inductance detectors and superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. Cosmic muons are a component of this background that can only be partly shielded against at ground level, but can be tagged by an independent detector inside the cryostat, so that the affected data can be vetoed, or the muon tags incorporated into error correction. We present a low-cost, compact muon detector consisting of two plastic scintillator modules, each read out by a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM), operated in coincidence. We characterize the SiPMs from room temperature down to 10 mK, including the breakdown and upper-limit voltages that define the operating bias range. Operated as a muon counter, the detector measures a coincidence rate that, as expected, is independent of temperature within uncertainties and agrees with analytical and Monte Carlo predictions. Below approximately 8 K, each muon event produces two pulses, one narrow and one broad, an effect that, to our knowledge, has not been reported before. Coincidences with an independent muon detector outside the cryostat confirm that muons are still counted reliably in this regime. By studying the appearance of double pulses as a function of temperature and magnetic field up to 4.5 T, we find a behavior consistent with the phase diagram of a type-II superconductor. This links the double pulses to a superconducting material in the SiPM, likely an adhesion layer or diffusion barrier introduced during manufacturing. The mechanism by which the superconducting state produces the second pulse is not yet understood.

We classify strong subadditivity for the canonical topological Rényi functional at finite positive orders on an unpunctured torus in the topological quantum field theory of any finite unitary modular tensor category. Universal validity means validity for all pure ground states and all regular region pairs with transverse or disjoint boundaries and compatible corner rounding. At von Neumann order one, the inequality holds universally. For each fixed order strictly between zero and one, universal validity is equivalent to pointedness, meaning that every simple anyon type has quantum dimension one. For every nonpointed category and each finite positive order other than one, we construct a violating pure state and an allowed pair. For a fixed pointed category and fixed order above one, universal validity is equivalent to a same-order modular Fourier entropy bound for every pure state. Global homological constraints on actual unions and intersections and established weighted modular uncertainty prove the order-one theorem. For parallel annuli at fixed flux distribution, the order-one functional is affine in their positive count. At other orders, unequal quantum dimensions on the occupied support induce strict curvature that suitable overlapping regions convert into negative deficits. Under the boundary-charge cutting prescription, the von Neumann theorem extends to arbitrary logical density matrices in the same ground space.

We study the extended Dicke model obtained from the scalar–vector–tensor polarizability of open-shell atoms coupled to a shared cavity mode. For a single electric-dipole channel, rotational symmetry fixes the tensor to vector ratio; we use $^{168}\mathrm{Er}$ with $J=6$ as a product-state example. A circular pump produces a chiral Raman vertex whose tensor-dependent matrix elements select the occupied Zeeman sector. The resulting first-order transition occurs before the empty-cavity branch loses local stability, and the ordered state is read out through $\langle\hat J_z\rangle$. A linear pump instead produces an empty-cavity $\pm x$ cat and a continuous transition into an even-$m$ cat-like state with order parameter $\langle\hat J_z^2\rangle$. With cavity loss alone, the circular trajectory emits a photon burst and approaches a Raman-dark Zeeman pole rather than a finite-field condensate. In the linear geometry, cavity-bright modes are damped toward the cat-like branch while a dark spin mode remains undamped. These are phenomena of that model; the vector-only controls show that they depend on the channel-fixed tensor coupling.

Cavity optomechanics represents a frontier research direction in quantum science and technology, centered on the control and exploration of interactions between electromagnetic fields and mechanical motion. Rooted in quantum mechanics, this field realizes efficient coupling and precise manipulation of optical fields and mechanical vibrations through the structural design and precise regulation of optical microcavities and mechanical oscillators, thereby revealing and harnessing novel quantum phenomena. In recent years, cavity optomechanics has evolved into an interdisciplinary frontier integrating quantum optics, condensed matter physics, and quantum precision measurement, exhibiting profound application in both fundamental physics research and quantum information science. With advancements in technologies such as nanomanufacturing and laser cooling, optomechanical interactions have been successfully demonstrated in various experimental systems. Among these platforms, cavity cold-atom systems stand out as one of the ideal platforms for implementing quantum optomechanics. Featuring exceptional environmental isolation, long quantum coherence times, and strong light-matter interaction, these systems provide a crucial testbed for exploring strong and even ultrastrong optomechanical coupling effects as well as rich nonlinear quantum phenomena. This paper reviews the recent progress in optomechanical control and manipulation based on cavity cold-atom systems. We first outline the fundamental principles of standard cavity optomechanical systems. Then, we describe the experimental realization of linear and nonlinear optomechanical couplings in cold-atom systems. After that, we focus on the representative applications of this platform in high-precision quantum sensing, quantum memory, and the preparation of macroscopic nonclassical states. Finally, we give an outlook and challenges in this field.

In quasi-Hermitian mixed-state quenches, the initial and final Hamiltonians generally possess different positive-definite metrics, so post-quench evolution is not quasi-unitary in the initial physical space. Choosing the preparation/measurement space as reference, we derive from first principles a normalized mixed-state Loschmidt amplitude using metric-compatible purifications. The resulting biorthogonal trace representation contains a normalization factor given by the norm of the evolved purification in the initial metric; this factor is essential for comparing states from different physical Hilbert spaces and directly encodes the metric mismatch. We prove that this normalization function is strictly positive on the real-time axis, so real-time criticality arises solely from destructive interference in the dynamical overlap. In complex time, zeros of the normalization factor generate branch singularities distinct from Fisher zeros. For a general two-level system, we derive analytic expressions for the Fisher and normalization zeros and analyze exceptional-point scaling together with the temperature- and quasi-Hermiticity-dependent DQPT critical times in two solvable quench protocols. In contrast to metric-stationary quenches, where non-Hermitian effects may be absorbed into an equivalent Hermitian description, the metric mismatch here produces genuine non-Hermitian dynamics: a time-dependent normalization factor and complex-time branch structure that cannot be removed by any global similarity transformation.

We study the relation between the exact-WKB Delabaere–Dillinger–Pham Stokes jumps and the multi-instanton expansion of a one-dimensional potential with $N$ equal-depth minima. For a single barrier this relation is the Bogomolny–Zinn-Justin cancellation between the instanton–anti-instanton ambiguity and the Borel ambiguity of perturbation theory, and we extend it to every consecutive barrier interval and to the integration contours themselves. In the dilute large-$T$ regime at fixed nonperturbative grade, we derive the quasi-zero mode integral over the instanton separations from the Euclidean path integral and reduce it to Gamma and Hankel periods. With the local Weber level function of each well and one normalization per well fixed by the local Weber connection matrix, these periods reproduce the two lateral connected exact-WKB coefficients. The two lateral contours of each instanton–anti-instanton separation differ by exactly one Hankel cycle, and this linear Picard–Lefschetz relation reproduces the Stokes jump of the connected coefficient. A numerical solution of the Schrödinger equation for a symmetric triple well confirms the resulting two-barrier level splitting. At higher fixed grade, the map from ordered event sequences to normalized scalar coefficient products is not one-to-one. At leading dilute order the scalar weight of a closed event sequence depends only on the numbers of barrier crossings, $\mathcal I\bar{\mathcal I}$ pairs, and $\mathcal I\mathcal I$/$\bar{\mathcal I}\bar{\mathcal I}$ pairs. We construct two inequivalent grade-six triple-well event sequences with the same product of local Weber amplitudes, which embed in every potential with $N\ge3$ wells. Our results hold within the regular dilute, one-loop, local Weber approximation.

We characterize a source of photon pairs simultaneously entangled in polarization and in the transverse spatial degree of freedom, with the spatial measurements performed in intermediate planes of the fractional Fourier transform. The source consists of two crossed type-I crystals in a non-collinear geometry, such that the transverse variables carry information about the crystal of origin. Detection in the crystal plane reveals this information completely and destroys the polarization entanglement, so that a scheme using the near and far fields as conjugate spatial bases cannot support a parallel polarization channel. In intermediate planes both spatial bases combine position and momentum, such that the which-crystal information is partially erased, and the polarization entanglement survives in all four combinations of spatial bases. Applying Bell and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen criteria to the same photon pairs certifies both degrees of freedom simultaneously. We evaluate quantum bit error rates and asymptotic secret key rates in each degree of freedom, and find that the source delivers two simultaneously usable channels per photon pair.

Preserving the underlying statistical properties of light during frequency transduction is essential for interfacing spectrally disparate quantum systems. To do this successfully, the process needs to be highly efficient, broadband and noiseless. Despite significant progress in this field, satisfying all these conditions remains challenging. Recently, molecular modulation-based transduction in hollow-core fibers has emerged as a promising approach, where biphoton correlations were proven to be preserved during frequency up-conversion. However, beyond this previous demonstration of correlation-maintaining conversion, whether molecular modulation can preserve more general statistical properties of light remains experimentally unexplored. Here, we demonstrate the conservation of photon-number statistics during selective frequency transduction by Raman molecular modulation in a hydrogen-filled hollow-core fiber. As a proof of concept, weak 585-nm signals are selectively converted to 773 nm in the near-infrared and to 471 nm in the blue spectral region with near-unity efficiencies. Phase matching between the generated coherence waves and the transitions of interest is achieved through the effective dispersion of the system, enabling independent selection of the frequency up- and down-conversion processes. The preservation of the photon-number statistics of the shifted signals, along with the large frequency shifts, broad tunability and compatibility with quantum-optical fields, provides a versatile fiber-based platform for quantum frequency transduction. In particular, the demonstrated interfacing between visible and near-infrared wavelengths using low pump energies and low gas pressures offers a route towards connecting spectrally distinct quantum systems, including quantum emitters, sensors and atomic quantum memories, within hybrid quantum networks.

The graph isomorphism problem asks whether two graphs are equivalent up to a permutation of their vertices. Its precise computational complexity remains unresolved, and it is still unknown whether a polynomial-time algorithm exists. We investigate whether simple graph-dependent Instantaneous Quantum Polynomial-time (IQP) and Quantum Approximate Optimisation Algorithm (QAOA) circuits can distinguish non-isomorphic graphs. We first show that suitable IQP and QAOA constructions allow the underlying graph to be reconstructed using a polynomial number of samples. Building on previous work using the QAOA energy, we show that Hamming weight distributions can distinguish graph pairs at circuit depths for which the numerically computed energy gap is zero. We then apply graph invariants to the matrix of ZZ correlators on the output distribution. For the specific case of the graph spectrum, at QAOA depth $p=2$, this invariant numerically distinguishes all $10{,}486$ cospectral regular graph pairs tested on up to 18 vertices. For IQP circuits, we introduce a finer invariant based on probability multiplicities within Hamming weight sectors, which distinguishes every non-isomorphic graph pair tested numerically. Finally, we derive exact graph-theoretic characterisations of the IQP output distribution at $\theta=\pi/2$ and $\theta=\pi/4$. These results show that simple graph-dependent quantum circuits encode substantial structural information, while leaving open whether this information can be extracted efficiently for general graph isomorphism.

The analysis of charge fluctuations in a mesoscopic device can shed light on the fundamental question of whether or not a single-particle picture of electron transport is appropriate, even in the presence of Coulomb interaction. It has been shown on general grounds that mapping the interacting system onto a fermionic single-particle description is subject to strict constraints on the charge-transfer statistics. These constraints can be formulated in terms of a sign rule for the factorial cumulants of the full counting statistics. We report here on the experimental observation of a sign-rule violation in a most elementary model system, i.e. a single-level quantum dot, and provide theoretical modeling that can quantitatively reproduce the experimental data. This reveals the presence of correlations introduced by electron-electron interaction.

The Unruh response thermalizes accelerated detectors, but the entanglement remaining in a register does not by itself specify what distributed measurements can recover. We study this distinction for a four-qubit cluster state whose two assisting nodes independently undergo generalized amplitude damping, while the target nodes remain isolated and the environments are inaccessible. We derive the exact joint-assisted concurrence and the exact one-way value for arbitrary local measurements. The joint optimum equals the bipartition negativity, and computational-basis measurements attain the one-way optimum. A polar-decomposition argument, together with compactness, establishes a necessary and sufficient condition for separable measurements to attain the joint optimum and proves a strict gap whenever this condition fails. For assisting detectors at equal Unruh temperature with relaxation-rate ratio $r>1$, joint advantage exists precisely when the thermal excitation factor satisfies $q<1/r$. At finite positive temperature it ends at a unique finite time, while the remaining entanglement is nonzero. For $r=2$, both the transition time and remaining resource have closed expressions. These results identify when joint assistance is necessary within the independent weak-coupling thermalization model.

Entropy estimation of discrete probability distributions is a fundamental problem in statistical inference and quantum property estimation. In this paper, we study the problem of estimating Rényi entropy $H_\alpha(\mathbf{p})$ for any distribution $\mathbf{p} = (p_i)_{i=1}^n$ given its purified quantum query-access. For non-integer $\alpha > 1$, our algorithm estimates $H_\alpha(\mathbf{p})$ to within additive error $\epsilon$ using only $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}\big(n^{\max\{1/2,1-1/\alpha\}}/\epsilon\big)$ queries, which improves the best known upper bound for dependence on both $n$ and $1/\epsilon$. For $0<\alpha<1$, our algorithm has query complexity $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}\big(n^{1/(2\alpha)}/\epsilon^{\max\{1,1/(2\alpha)\}}\big)$, which improves the dependence on $1/\epsilon$ of the current best upper bound without incresing its $n$ dependence. Our approach adapts the multi-level estimation framework to relative approximation of the power sums and leverage binary search to remove the requirement of prior knowledge of them. We also strengthen the precision-dependent lower bound to $\Omega\big(1/\epsilon^{\max\{1,1/(2\alpha)\}}\big)$ for $0<\alpha<1$, which identifies the optimal precision dependence of our algorithm.

Spatial sectioning of the far-field noncollinear field from spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a promising approach for multiparty quantum communication. Although demonstrations with six pairs of users have been reported, the fundamental limits remain unknown. These include the maximum number of channels, the required degree of channel optimization, and the dependence on input parameters. In this paper, we provide a practical framework that answers these questions by connecting input parameters and invoking a design theorem. For a representative configuration, we realize 12 user-pair channels with routing consistency exceeding $0.9999$ at a $12\%$ reduction in photon flux. We further show that sectioning improves the accidental-coincidence budget linearly with the number of channels $N$, allowing the aggregate key rate to scale with the user count. These results provide a design strategy for spatial-division multiplexing of entangled photons analogous to the channel-spacing standards used in wavelength-division networks.