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Wednesday 6 May

Quantum Physics

Krylov Dynamics and Operator Growth in Time-Dependent Systems via Lie Algebras

We study quantum dynamics generated by time-dependent Hamiltonians in Krylov space, the minimal subspace in which the evolution takes place. We establish a direct link between dynamics in the time-dependent Krylov subspace and the underlying Lie-algebraic structure of the Hamiltonian. We develop a general framework in which the dynamics in the time-dependent Krylov subspace is generated by ladder operators of the associated Lie algebra. In particular, we identify the minimal conditions under which the exact time-dependent Krylov dynamics is naturally determined by the interaction-picture Hamiltonian and governed by an embedded $\mathfrak{sl}(2,\mathbb{C})$ subalgebra. We further show that an exact single-exponential representation of the time-evolution operator gives rise to a distinct time-independent Krylov dynamics in a unitarily related basis, from which the exact time-dependent Krylov dynamics can nevertheless be recovered. We also extend the framework to the oscillator algebra as the simplest extension of the nilpotent Heisenberg–Weyl algebra, and provide further examples, including the translated and dilated harmonic oscillator, systems governed by closed Virasoro subalgebras, a spin in a rotating magnetic field, and higher-dimensional generalizations for multi-level systems. In addition, we introduce a new quantum speed limit to the complexity growth rate generated by a time-dependent generator and show that, for evolutions governed by a Lie algebra, it retains the same functional form as in the time-independent case. Remarkably, saturation of this bound is strongly affected by temporal driving and persists only when the Hamiltonian commutes with itself at different times. These results establish a unified framework for characterizing operator growth and Krylov complexity in time-dependent quantum systems with underlying Lie-algebraic structures.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.stat-mech

Charge Scrambling in Strong-to-Weak Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

Strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking (SWSSB) is diagnosed by nonlinear correlators, but its direct static implication for conserved charge fluctuations is not automatic. We show that, for continuous symmetries, long-range Rényi-1 correlator, together with a sufficiently rapid approach to its nonzero asymptotic value, forces subsystem charge indefiniteness: the block-charge variance has an extensive lower bound; equivalently, the truncated symmetry expectation has extensive curvature. This gives a precise static fluctuation footprint of charge scrambling. We construct examples to show that the implication is conditional and non-reversible: dephased superfluids retain Rényi-1 SWSSB with subextensive charge variance when the Rényi-1 tail is too slow, while sparse fixed-charge projectors have extensive charge variance but no local charge-transfer Rényi-1 order or long-range conditional mutual information. Finally, we introduce a twist overlap correlator, which serves as an analogue of charge variance applicable to both discrete and continuous symmetries. This naturally decomposes local block-charge fluctuations into strong- and weak-symmetry channels. We found that the weak-symmetry channel isolates coherent charge fluctuations and is directly related to the Wigner–Yanase skew information. Taken together, these results give a unified understanding for distinguishing nonlinear SWSSB order, local charge indefiniteness, and coherent charge fluctuations.
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Quantum Physics

Quantum Proper Scoring Rules: Minimax Estimation and Resource-Theoretic Advantages

We generalize proper scoring rules to the quantum domain, replacing probability distributions with density operators. We define Quantum Value Functionals via operator convex generators and establish a complete duality theory yielding proper quantum scoring rules. We derive minimax optimal bounds for quantum state tomography under McCarthy-type incentives, proving a Quantum Cramér-Rao-McCarthy Bound that explicitly links minimax risk to the curvature of the generating function and the Quantum Fisher Information. We quantify the economic value of quantum resources (coherence, entanglement, adaptivity) in forecasting tasks, establishing scaling separations between classical and quantum estimation strategies. Our results guide the design of quantum sensors, incentive-compatible quantum data markets, and robust quantum machine learning protocols.
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Quantum Physics

Negative refraction with absorption suppressed by electromagneticly induced transparency in a left-handed atomic system

This paper intends to realize negative refraction with absorption suppressed by the electromagneticly induced transparency(EIT) in a dense four-level atomic system. Without the two equal transition frequencies responding to the probe field, the atomic system displays a negative refraction with the simultaneously negative permittivity and negative permeability(Left-handedness). The response of the probe field is amplified and propagates transparency in some frequency extents. Therefore, our aim for searching the low-loss negative refraction can be achieved in the scheme, given the main applied limitation of the negative refractive materials is the large amount of dissipation and absorption. However, an excessive signal field intensity would increase the absorption near the resonance in our scheme.
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Quantum Physics

Error Mitigation in Dynamic Circuits for Hamiltonian Simulation

Dynamic quantum circuits integrate mid-circuit measurements and feed-forward operations to enable real-time classical processing and conditional quantum logic. These capabilities are central to key quantum protocols such as quantum error correction, and have recently demonstrated significant potential for reducing quantum resources, including circuit depth and gate count, across a range of applications. However, executing dynamic circuits on real quantum hardware introduces a critical trade-off: while resource requirements decrease, circuit fidelity degrades due to high error rates of mid-circuit measurements, as well as the decoherence errors accumulated during the extended idle periods introduced by both mid-circuit measurements and feed-forward operations. In this paper, we systematically investigate the impact of standard error mitigation techniques on dynamic circuit applications pertaining to Hamiltonian simulation and ground state estimation of physically relevant systems like the Heisenberg model. We explore dynamical decoupling (DD) as a strategy to suppress decoherence and crosstalk errors during idle windows introduced by mid-circuit measurements and feed-forward delays, and also examine error mitigation via zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE). Through experiments conducted on IBM quantum hardware, we benchmark effective combinations of these strategies that maximize the practical benefits of dynamic quantum circuits in these applications. We demonstrate that a combination of DD and ZNE is effective in mitigating the errors introduced during mid-circuit measurements and feed-forward operations, as well as the errors arising from faulty measurements. This approach yields a energy gap improvement of at least 60% in ground state estimation and reduces observed error of time-evolved states by up to 99% for the Ising model and up to 20% for the Heisenberg model.
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Quantum Physics

Release-free electro-optomechanical crystal modulator

Electro-optic modulation is central to classical optical communications and emerging quantum technologies. High-confinement optomechanical crystal modulators enable microwave-optical transduction through strong optomechanical interactions and offer a promising interface between superconducting qubits and optical fibers. However, their performance is limited by thermal noise from optical absorption. Release-free optomechanical crystals provide improved thermal anchoring but have not yet been integrated into a microwave-optical transducer. Here, we demonstrate a release-free electro-optomechanical transducer combining strong optomechanical interactions in silicon with the efficient piezoelectricity of lithium niobate via micro-transfer printing. We observe electro- and optomechanical coupling rates compatible with quantum-level operation when co-integrated with a superconducting microwave circuit. This advance moves release-free electro-optomechanical devices toward practical microwave-optical interfaces.
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All authors Paul Burger, Joey Frey, Johan Kolvik, Mads B. Kristensen, Raphaël van Laer

Quantum Physics

Plasma effects on lifetimes and screening of Rydberg excitons

We simulate the effects of a neutral electron–hole plasma on Rydberg excitons in cuprous oxide (Cu$_2$O), focusing on the validity of Debye screening and the role of plasma-induced thermalization. Unlike atomic Rydberg states, excitons in Cu$_2$O consist of quasiparticles with comparable effective masses whose orbital frequencies can exceed the plasma frequency, invalidating the assumption of a stationary screened charge. Using two complementary approaches, a classical orbit model and a harmonic-oscillator representation evolved via the truncated Wigner approximation, we study exciton lifetimes and interaction screening under realistic plasma conditions. We find numerically that plasma-induced scattering induces finite exciton lifetimes with specific scaling relations with plasma density, principal quantum number $n$ and temperature, possibly providing an explanation for experimentally observed deviations from the $n^3$ scaling at high principal quantum numbers. By explicitly computing time-averaged electric fields, we show that Debye screening overestimates the screening of the exciton's internal field, especially for high angular momentum states. Furthermore, we demonstrate that exciton-exciton interactions are not Debye screened at separations comparable to the Debye length for Rydberg excitons that are well resolvable in absorption measurements.
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Quantum Physics

Exact entanglement trade-offs in qutrit and composite-dimensional stabilizer states

When absolute maximal entanglement is unavailable in a state family, different objectives can select different distributions of residual entanglement. We determine exact trade-offs for qutrit stabilizer states and binary–ternary product states. For eight qutrits, evaluation of the complete published classification gives three nondominated balanced-cut entanglement profiles, characterized by the probabilities of obtaining three or four maximally entangled qutrit pairs. We relate the squared entropy-deficit objective to code weight enumerators and use a uniformity-forcing bound to prove that its eleven-qutrit minimum is six. The unique minimizing Clifford class is an already classified code, whose entropy profile also attains a sharp bound on average reference–erasure mutual information among four-uniform eleven-qutrit stabilizer states. In local dimension six, explicit sector alignments attain 56 maximally mixed four-party reductions, the maximum for arbitrary binary–ternary product states. Within the stabilizer product family, the exact cost–count Pareto boundary consists of $(44,48)$ and $(48,56)$. These results identify when aggregate optimization determines operational entanglement properties and when it does not. Published classifications supply coverage; analytical bounds, explicit witnesses, and independent arithmetic checks establish the stated consequences.
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Quantum Physics

The Saturable Electronic Reluctance Switch: Switchable low-power and low-noise generation of magnetic fields using permanent magnets

Across many areas of science, there is a need to generate magnetic fields that are both ultra-stable and switchable on and off. Current-carrying wire configurations are switchable but are susceptible to current noise. Existing current-controlled approaches to switching the field produced by a permanent magnet involve altering the magnets magnetisation, which typically requires large field pulses and produces excessive power dissipation in high frequency applications. We present a hybrid technique to switch the field of any arbitrary magnet through use of a non-linear ferromagnetic circuit, named the Saturable Electronic Reluctance Switch (SERS). The circuit achieves a linear and monotonic ramp of the magnetic field up to a current threshold, above which the field becomes constant. Crucially, the applied current has minimal influence on the magnetic field stability and demagnetisation of the magnet is avoided. The power dissipated in each switching cycle is expected to be many orders of magnitude less than for existing permanent magnet switching approaches. SERS is also robust to fabrication errors, suppressing noise in the control current by several orders of magnitude in a non-ideal device. To illustrate its application, a SERS-driven device is proposed for generating ultra-stable magnetic field gradients in a scalable trapped-ion quantum computer. We find this device offers an order of magnitude reduction in power dissipation compared to state-of-the-art current carrying wires, while reducing magnetic field noise originating from current fluctuations by up to five orders of magnitude.
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All authors P. D. Taylor-Burdett, C. A. Burhan, S. Mason, F. R. Lebrun-Gallagher, S. Weidt, W. K. Hensinger

Quantum Physics

A Factor-Graph Formulation of CSS Syndrome Decoding: Joint BP and Four-State BP

For CSS syndrome decoding, the two check matrices impose binary parity-check constraints on the two Pauli error components. The posterior can therefore be written as a binary factor graph with two Tanner graphs coupled by the local joint prior at each qubit. We call the sum-product algorithm on this factorization joint belief propagation (joint BP). Joint BP retains the local channel correlation between the two Pauli components. This note compares joint BP with the four-state Pauli-label factor graph used for four-state BP. The two algorithms are shown to have the same posterior weights, messages, and beliefs after relabeling the four local Pauli states and marginalizing the irrelevant binary component.
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Quantum Physics

Dimeric Perylene-Bisimide Organic Molecules: Fractional-Time Control of Quantum Resources

In this work, we explore the dynamics of quantum correlations, namely coherence, entanglement, and nonlocality associated with a Bell state, in a dimeric arrangement of organic PBI molecules, mediated by dipole-dipole interactions, under time-fractional dynamics. Within the framework of the time-fractional Schrödinger equation (TFSE) with Caputo fractional derivatives, we explore system dynamics for different values of the fractional order $\tau$, transition energies, interaction strength, and purity $p$. We employ the relative entropy of coherence, logarithmic entanglement entropy and concurrence, and CHSH inequality to estimate system dynamics associated with coherence, entanglement, and nonlocality, respectively. These findings highlight the role of the fractional order $\tau$ in system dynamics, including memory effects and relaxation, and thereby bring together ideas from fractional calculus and quantum information theory perspectives and discuss methodologies to control and utilize these molecular quantum correlations.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.stat-mech

Kink-kink correlations in nonlinear quenches across a quantum critical point

When a quantum system exhibiting a second order phase transition is quenched across the critical point in large but finite time, the dynamics are not adiabatic in the critical region and the Kibble-Zurek (KZ) mechanism provides a framework to determine local observables such as the mean defect density. However, to find higher-point functions, one has to go beyond the KZ paradigm asshown in recent works on one-dimensional transverse field Ising model (TFIM) following a linear quench. It has been found that (i) besides the KZ scale, the quench dynamics depend on another length scale that arises due to the finite phase difference between the low energy modes, and (ii) contrary to the expectations based on the KZ mechanism, in general, the correlation functions do not decay exponentially with distance. Motivated by these results for the linear quench, we are interested in understanding if these properties are universal, and consider the 1D TFIM when the transverse field varies algebraically in the vicinity of the critical field. We focus on the equal-time,longitudinal kink-kink correlation function at the end of the quench from the paramagnetic to the ferromagnetic phase, and find that (i) the correlator depends only on the KZ length for superlinear quenches, otherwise an additional dephasing length is required to describe it, and (ii) the dephased correlator decays as a compressed exponential with an exponent that changes continuously with the quench exponent. Our results are obtained using an adiabatic perturbation theory, analytical arguments and exact numerical integration of the relevant equations.
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Quantum Physics

Block Permutation Routing on Ramanujan Hypergraphs for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing

We analyze permutation routing of rigid blocks representing surface code patches of $d_C^2$ atoms on a reconfigurable lattice with hypergraph transformations. For a hypergraph $H$, code distance $d_C$, $s=d_C^2$, number of blocks $N_L$, and guard distance $g$, we show the block routing number $\mathrm{rt}_B(H, s, g) = \Theta(d_C \log N_L)$. A spectral analysis of the quotient graph $Q(G_{\mathrm{cl}}(H), B)$ (blocks as supervertices) shows that the spectral ratio $\beta_Q < 1$ is preserved in the high-connectivity regime. Negative association of block permutations and congestion bounds are used for random intermediate configurations. Serialization establishes that each quotient routing phase requires $O(d_C)$ physical sub-steps due to the block footprint width. A lower bound $\mathrm{rt}_B = \Omega(d_C \log N_L)$ follows from combining the spectral lower bound on quotient phases with the traversal cost per phase. We include error model analysis grounded in recent experimental results, syndrome extraction protocols (stop-and-correct, rolling active fault-tolerant (AFT) measurement, and adaptive deformation), and integration with lattice surgery compilation via the Litinski protocol. Composition with the correlated-decoding scheme reduces syndrome-extraction overhead from $O(d_C)$ to $O(1)$ per correction window, leaving routing as the leading-order contributor to the integrated $O(d_C \log N_L)$ depth. Spectral inheritance is organized in a hierarchy: exact (Haemers interlacing on equitable partitions), perturbative (Weyl bounds for near-equitable partitions, a practically relevant case for surface-code patches), and universal (higher-order Cheeger). Methods extend directly to QCCD trapped-ion architectures under the same regime condition, with junction crossings replacing AOD transports as the elementary single-hop translation.
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Quantum Physics

Network-Mediated Capacitive Coupling Drives Fast OTOC Saturation in Superconducting Circuits

We investigate the dynamical and spectral consequences of capacitance-network-mediated interactions in superconducting transmon arrays beyond effective nearest-neighbor descriptions. While weak coupling regimes are well captured by an effective nearest-neighbor interacting models, we show that increasing capacitive connectivity induces a pronounced departure from this approximation in dynamical observables. Using Out-of-Time-Ordered Correlators (OTOCs), we demonstrate that such network-mediated couplings significantly accelerate operator scrambling, leading to rapid saturation compared to the nearest-neighbor limit. This dynamical crossover is accompanied by a shift in spectral statistics away from Poissonian behavior toward level repulsion, with the ratio parameter remaining intermediate between Poisson and Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) limits. This indicates the emergence of partial ergodicity rather than fully developed quantum chaos. As this behavior arises within experimentally realistic regimes of current superconducting transmon devices, identifying when network-mediated couplings qualitatively alter information dynamics is directly relevant for scalable superconducting architectures.
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Quantum Physics

Polarization-Controlled Photon Mode Switching and Photon–Magnon Coupling in a Planar Cavity–Magnonic System

This work presents polarization-selective photon-magnon coupling (PMC) in a planar cavity-magnonic platform consisting of an electric-LC resonator (ELCR) side-coupled to a microstrip transmission line and integrated with a yttrium iron garnet (YIG) thin film. The ELCR supports two orthogonal photon modes at $\sim 3.93$ GHz and $\sim 5.73$ GHz, whose excitation and radiative damping are governed by the resonator orientation relative to the microwave-field polarization. Rotating the resonator enables controlled switching between these modes and tunable photon-magnon hybridization. An equivalent circuit model including intrinsic and extrinsic damping successfully reproduces the polarization-driven mode switching, while an effective three-mode Hamiltonian accurately captures the coupled-mode evolution. The results reveal strong angular tunability of the PMC strength through redistribution between two competing interaction channels. At $\theta = 0^\circ$, only the lower-frequency photon mode is excited, yielding $g_{31}=56.5$ MHz, while the higher-frequency mode remains inactive. As the angle increases, both channels become active: $g_{31}$ increases from $56.5$ to $98$ MHz over $0^\circ$-$60^\circ$ before vanishing at $90^\circ$, whereas $g_{23}$ decreases from $76$ to $30$ MHz over $30^\circ$-$90^\circ$. The observed evolution yields a measured transition near $25.7^\circ$ and a symmetry-related model-predicted transition near $154.3^\circ$. These findings establish resonator-orientation–driven polarization selectivity as a versatile mechanism for controllable photon–magnon interactions in planar architectures.
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All authors Abhishek Maurya, Sachin Verma, Bojong Kim, Biswanath Bhoi, Rajeev Singh, Sang-Koog Kim

Quantum Physics

Dephasing Effects on the Dynamical Evolution of Quantum Correlations and Coherence in Neutrino Oscillations

Neutrino oscillations confirm the presence of mode entanglement, as each flavor eigenstate is composed of a coherent superposition of distinct mass eigenstates. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of quantum resources in neutrino oscillation systems by analyzing quantum steering, logarithmic negativity, and quantum coherence within a two-flavor framework. Treating neutrino oscillations as an effective two-level quantum system, we study the influence of environmental decoherence on these nonclassical features by modeling the system as an open quantum system. Three representative noise channels are considered, namely amplitude damping (AD), phase flip (PF), and phase damping (PD), allowing us to capture both dissipative and dephasing mechanisms. We examine the evolution of quantum resources in both Markovian and non-Markovian regimes, highlighting the role of memory effects in the system-environment interaction. The results reveal a clear hierarchy in the robustness of quantum resources under decoherence. Steering is the most sensitive correlation in the hierarchy under decoherence effects. while logarithmic negativity exhibits intermediate robustness. Quantum coherence displays the highest resilience, persisting over a wider range of parameters. In the PF and PD channels, logarithmic negativity and coherence are shown to exhibit identical dynamical behavior, reflecting their common dependence on phase-related noise. In contrast, the non-Markovian regime leads to delayed decoherence and partial revivals of entanglement and coherence due to information backflow, whereas quantum steering remains strongly suppressed. These findings provide a comparison of different quantum resources in neutrino oscillation systems and offer new insights into the interplay between decoherence mechanisms and quantum correlations.
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All authors Omar Bachain, Elhabib Jaloum, Mohamed Amazioug, Nazek Alessa, Wedad R. Alharbi, Rachid Ahl Laamara, Abdel-Haleem Abdel-Aty

Quantum Physics

Scalable Quantum Reservoir Computing over Distributed Quantum Architectures

Reservoir computing provides an alternative to recurrent neural networks by overcoming the common problems of backpropagation through time and by training only a simple readout layer. The emerging field of quantum computing offers a new computing paradigm that promises to enhance learning through richer feature representations. In this work, we investigate quantum reservoir computing for time-series forecasting. We explore and benchmark four different architectures that combine single or multiple (distributed) reservoirs with single or multiple (distributed) ridge-regression readout layers. We evaluate these architectures using ideal and hardware-informed noisy simulations, and include both hybrid and fully quantum variants, with classical reservoir counterparts serving as a baseline. The results indicate that quantum-enhanced configurations consistently improve forecasting accuracy by reducing the mean absolute error (MAE) and the root mean squared error (RMSE) up to 78.8% and 72.3%, respectively, while distributed architectures effectively enable scaling by utilizing multiple quantum resources in a hardware-agnostic manner. These findings support distributed quantum reservoir computing as a promising, modular approach for forecasting on the quantum platforms of the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era.
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All authors Ioannis Liliopoulos, Georgios D. Varsamis, Konstantinos Rallis, Evangelos Tsipas, Ioannis G. Karafyllidis, Georgios Ch. Sirakoulis, Panagiotis Dimitrakis

Quantum Physics

Exact identification of unknown unitary processes

The accurate identification of faulty hardware is a fundamental requirement for reliable quantum information processing. We address this problem in a quantum setting, where a series of $n$ devices is intended to apply the same unitary operation, but $k$ malfunctioning devices among them apply a different, unknown unitary action. Under the assumption of complete ignorance regarding the specific unitary transformation applied, we model our hypotheses using representation-theoretic tools and study the zero-error protocol for identifying these faulty devices. We derive the optimal success probability for the single- and two-anomaly scenarios, demonstrating that it is independent of the total number of devices in the series. Furthermore, we present a simple protocol that makes use of ancillary systems that achieves this optimal limit. Notably, this protocol offers significant operational advantages, such as allowing us to test each device independently. Finally, we extend our analysis to the general scenario in which both the number of anomalies and the local dimension of the systems are arbitrary, evaluating our protocol's performance and conjecturing its global optimality in the general case.
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All authors Santiago Llorens, Arnau Diebra, Michal Sedlák, Ramon Muñoz-Tapia

Quantum Physics

Exact SU(2) Yang-Mills Waves from a Simple Ansatz

We propose a simple ansatz that reduces the sourceless SU(2) Yang–Mills equations in (3+1) dimensions to nine algebraic constraints. Solving these constraints yields three closed-form families of exact wave solutions. Family I embeds linear electromagnetic waves into the non-Abelian theory, with vanishing commutators and dispersion \(\omega = kc\). Family II describes genuinely nonlinear self-interacting waves that also propagate at the speed of light but exhibit a constant, gauge-invariant offset in the color-electric field, nonvanishing commutators, and a discrete topological parameter \(\xi\eta = \pm 1\) that controls the position of energy-density nodes (\(\theta=0\) or \(\theta=\pi\)). This provides an observable signature with no analogue in Abelian electromagnetism. Family III is a pure gauge solution with vanishing field strengths, valid for arbitrary \(k\) and \(\omega\) without any dispersion relation. These exact solutions offer new insights into how non-Abelian self-interactions fundamentally alter wave propagation and serve as benchmarks for numerical simulations, perturbative studies, and experiments on synthetic non-Abelian gauge fields.
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Quantum Physics

Scalar and Vector Airborne Platform Calibration Using Quantum and Classical Magnetometers and Inertial Sensors

Airborne magnetometry requires rigorous calibration to isolate geomagnetic signals from sensor errors and platform magnetic fields. This magnetic compensation is needed for applications like geophysical exploration and magnetic anomaly navigation. The standard approach utilizes a quantum scalar Optically Pumped Magnetometer (OPM) and a less sensitive fluxgate vector sensor for attitude information. This configuration typically results in a scalar approximation of the platform field. Advancements in high-sensitivity Diamond Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) vector magnetometers now enable a re-evaluation of the standard hardware configuration and full vector calibration models. We show through rigorous theoretical analysis that scalar calibration models are robust to misalignment. Vector calibration models, however, are intrinsically first-order sensitive to attitude errors, irrespective of the accuracy of the magnetic field measurements. These errors arise from inaccurate representation of the background field direction in the body frame, and can amplify small orientation errors into noticeable calibration residuals. Using realistic sensor models and flight trajectories, we evaluate different sensor configurations for magnetic calibration and assess the use of onboard Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) as an independent attitude reference to enable stable compensation. Our results suggest that quantum vector magnetometers like NV sensors are not sufficient to solve the attitude bottleneck for airborne vector magnetic calibration. However, as a single sensor capable of providing both absolute field and directional measurements, they may offer benefits regarding sensor placement, synchronization, and scalar calibration accuracy.
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Quantum Physics

Beyond Gates: Pulse Level Quantum Fourier Models

In the domain of variational quantum algorithms, quantum Fourier models (QFMs) provide a mathematically well defined structure for quantum machine learning (QML). There has been a substantial amount of work on the scalability and trainability of such models showcasing the potential but also the limitations for the prospective application of QFMs. However, much less is known in the context of pulse-level quantum computing, where the microwave parameters that implement unitary operations on the hardware are used to perform computations directly instead of through the interface of quantum circuits. In this work, we evaluate QFMs through the lens of pulse parameters and link metrics such as expressibility and Fourier coefficient correlation (FCC) to this extended set of variational parameters. We show that while control over pulse shapes does not significantly alter the global expressibility or structural correlations of the Ansatz, it fundamentally alters the local optimisation landscape. For composite gates, independent pulse scalings replace a single logical angle by multiple independently tunable sub-angles. This relaxes the rigid monomial couplings induced by the gate-level parameterisation, and provides gradient descent with higher-dimensional escape routes, decoupling local parameter constraints and significantly boosting performance during training. Following an analytical proof, we show numerical results validating our theory on training a QFM with an exponential (ternary) feature map on a Fourier series with the same frequencies.
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All authors Melvin Strobl, Maja Franz, Lukas Scheller, Eileen Kuehn, Wolfgang Mauerer, Achim Streit

Quantum Physics

Quantum Realizability of Probabilistic Theories Stable under Teleportation

The classification of general probabilistic theories (GPTs) whose CHSH value is stable under arbitrary rounds of teleportation and entanglement swapping was obtained in Dmello and Gross work and consists of seven families, indexed by characters of the Klein four-group $K_4$, the cyclic group $\mathbb{Z}_4$, and the dihedral group $D_4$. The question of which of these families admits a realization within standard quantum mechanics was left open. In this work we resolve this question completely. Using elementary representation theory, we prove that exactly two families are quantum-realizable, namely $\chi^{K_4}_{1234}$ and $\chi^{D_4}_{125}$, while the remaining five admit no quantum realization.
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Quantum Physics

Optimal Error Exponents for Composite Sequential Quantum Hypothesis Testing

We study the composite sequential quantum hypothesis testing (SQHT) problem, where the objective is to distinguish a null quantum state from a set of alternative quantum states. We propose a mixture-sequential quantum probability ratio test that adaptively selects measurements based on the current mixture estimate of the alternative set, and stops upon the first threshold crossing of the mixture log-likelihood ratio. Under an expected sample size constraint, we show that our proposed strategy simultaneously achieves the Type-I and (worst-case) Type-II error exponents, characterized by the minimal measured relative entropies between the null state and the alternative set. We further establish a matching converse, thereby characterizing the optimal error exponent region. Finally, our results show that achieving vanishing error probabilities in composite SQHT requires an expected sample complexity at least as large as that of sequential testing between two fixed states.
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Quantum Physics

Transit Noise in Spin Squeezing Experiments with Coated Rubidium Vapor Cell

Spin squeezing can suppress quantum projection noise via interparticle entanglement, therefore enabling measurement sensitivities beyond the standard quantum limit. In practice, however, the Gaussian and finite intensity profiles of the optical probe beam induce spatially inhomogeneous atom-light interactions. As polarized atoms move within a vapor cell, they experience position-dependent optical intensities, generating transit noise that limits spin squeezing performance. Here, we investigate the transit noise in a coated rubidium vapor cell through combined theoretical analysis and experimental measurements. By varying the probe beam diameter, we quantify the dependence of transit noise on beam size and atomic Larmor frequency. Our results show that, for a vapor cell with fixed dimensions, the transit noise increases as the probe beam spot area decreases. Moreover, when the Larmor frequency is below the characteristic linewidth of the transit noise, the noise contribution becomes larger. We further calculated and measured spin squeezing for different beam sizes and found an experimental difference of $2.7 \pm 0.2$ dB between 2~mm and 0.6~mm, similar to the theoretical prediction of $3.0 \pm 0.3$ dB. Theoretical analysis under conditions of stronger squeezing shows that transit noise becomes an even more critical limiting factor. These results provide practical guidance for optimizing probe beam parameters and suppressing transit noise in spin squeezing experiments.
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All authors Yujie Ji, Peiying Li, Yanhong Xiao, Yuzhuo Wang, Junlei Duan

Quantum Physics

Real-time Surface-Code Error Correction Using an FPGA-based Neural-Network Decoder

Quantum error correction (QEC) is essential for achieving low error rates required for fault-tolerant quantum computation. In stabilizer-based codes such as the surface code, errors are inferred from repeated syndrome measurements and corrected by a classical decoder. To prevent error accumulation, decoding must be performed with both high throughput and low latency to keep pace with the QEC cycle and enable real-time feedback for universal logical operations. Here we report a hardware-integrated control architecture featuring an FPGA-based neural-network (NN) decoder and experimentally demonstrate real-time surface-code (distance-3) QEC on a superconducting quantum processor. The system achieves a deterministic closed-loop latency of 550 ns, including 124 ns for NN decoding, enabling feedback corrections within a 1.25 us QEC cycle. We show that real-time decoding and feedback correction achieve logical performance comparable to offline decoding while maintaining robustness against varying error conditions. We further demonstrate mid-circuit feedback correction in non-Clifford logical circuits, where Pauli-frame updating alone becomes insufficient. Our results establish a low-latency hardware architecture for embedded QEC control and provide a pathway towards scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing systems.
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All authors Xiaohan Yang, Xuandong Sun, Zhiyi Wu, Jiawei Zhang, Ji Jiang, Xiayu Linpeng, Yuxuan Zhou, Ji Chu, Jingjing Niu, Youpeng Zhong, Song Liu, Dapeng Yu

Quantum Physics

Catalytic advantage in asymptotic entanglement manipulation

Entanglement is a key quantum resource in various quantum protocols, with a rich set of laws governing its manipulation. In this context, catalysis refers to the possibility of an auxiliary state that enables a previously forbidden manipulation, while being completely returned at the end. While the catalytic setting has been thoroughly examined in the single-copy regime, much less is known in the asymptotically many copy regime. In this work, we focus on the entanglement cost of preparing asymptotically many copies of a given state exactly. We show that catalysis can significantly lower the exact entanglement cost by constructing an explicit catalytic protocol. Additionally, these findings generalize readily to other resource theories, showing a general catalytic advantage in the resource dilution task.
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Quantum Physics

Quantum algorithm for solving differential equations using SLAC derivatives

In numerical approaches to solving differential equations on a lattice, a representation of the derivative operator that correctly matches the continuum behaviour of functions of momentum up to the band limit must be non-local. We present the construction of efficient linear-combination-of-unitaries ($\mathrm{LCU}$)-based block-encodings for the first-order derivative and Laplacian operators in the non-local \(N=2^n\)-dimensional SLAC representation. We use state-preparation techniques designed for smoothly decaying functions to prepare the dense $\mathrm{LCU}$ amplitudes with high success probability and low gate cost. Furthermore, we demonstrate how Shannon wavelet transforms can be applied to these block-encodings to obtain multiscale representations of the SLAC derivative operators. We then show how to apply a diagonal preconditioner that reduces the condition number of these matrices in the multiscale wavelet basis to a small constant. This enables the solution of partial differential equations (PDEs) with SLAC-discretised derivative operators on a finite lattice using the quantum linear solving algorithm ($\mathrm{QLSA}$). For a $d$-dimensional PDE, after projection away from the nullspace, the resulting quantum linear-system algorithm has overall gate complexity ${O}(dn^3\alpha^{(k)}\log(1/\varepsilon))$, where $\alpha^{(k)}$ is the subnormalisation factor of the order-$k$ SLAC block-encoding and $\varepsilon$ denotes the algorithmic approximation error.
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All authors Rakshit M. Gharat, Gopikrishnan Muraleedharan, Dominic W. Berry, Gavin K. Brennen

Quantum Physics

W-state graphs: Structure and Algorithms

We study the class of edge-coloured graphs arising from the graph-theoretic representation of quantum photonic experiments that generate multipartite W-states. Abstracting away physical amplitudes and phases, we introduce W-state graphs: matching-covered graphs equipped with a half-edge 2-colouring such that every perfect matching contains exactly one bichromatic edge and every vertex is incident with a red half-edge. Our main contribution is a complete structural characterization of W-state graphs. We show that a graph is a W-state graph if and only if each of its 3-connected components is a W-cone, a simple and rigid building block defined by a universal vertex and a factor-critical base. This characterization implies that no W-state graph is simple and yields a recognition algorithm running as fast as verifying whether a graph is matching-covered. We also show that the natural generalization to Dicke states encounters a complexity barrier: verifying one of the two Dicke state conditions is itself coNP-complete, resolving an open problem of Vardi and Zhang [IJCAI 2023]. Our results place W-state graphs firmly within classical matching theory and precisely delineate the combinatorial structures capable of realizing idealized W-states in the experiment-graph framework.
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Quantum Physics

Scheduling Concurrent Entanglement Requests in Quantum Networks

This paper investigates resource allocation for entanglement distribution in multi-node, multi-channel quantum networks at the metropolitan scale. A multi-slot quantum network simulation framework is developed across physical and network layers, incorporating heterogeneous link characteristics, limited quantum memories, request queuing, retry mechanisms, and concurrent entanglement distribution. Based on this framework, a centralized scheduling architecture is proposed to coordinate quantum memories, communication channels, and routing paths for multiple simultaneous entanglement requests. Three classes of resource allocation strategies are evaluated: heuristic approaches, a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) optimization method, and a Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO)-based reinforcement learning approach. The heuristic schemes reveal fundamental trade-offs between request delay and entanglement success rate: Dynamic Efficient minimizes delay, Success Enhancement improves success probability through adaptive multi-path allocation, and Static Efficient provides a balance between these objectives. The MILP approach achieves optimized resource allocation by jointly considering request handling and multi-path assignment, while the PPO-based method learns adaptive scheduling policies to improve overall performance. Simulation results demonstrate that these approaches provide different performance advantages in terms of request delay, entanglement success rate, capacity utilization, and request handling rate, highlighting the trade-offs between efficiency and reliability in metropolitan-scale quantum network scheduling.
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Quantum Physics

Quantum Magic in early FTQC: From Diagonal Clifford Hierarchy No-Go Theorems to Architecture Design Blueprints

We address the circuit-design problem of maximizing quantum magic in early fault-tolerant quantum computing (early FTQC), where logical dynamics natively take the form of alternating Clifford layers and diagonal non-Clifford layers. To render this optimization analytically tractable, we first prove a uniqueness theorem: for operational magic functionals built from Pauli expectation values, the axioms of faithfulness and tensor-product additivity force a Rényi-type dependence on the Pauli-spectrum. Leveraging the closed phase-polynomial description of the diagonal Clifford hierarchy, we derive exact Pauli-spectrum expressions and tight bounds for a shallow-layer model. These bounds expose a zero-magic mechanism and prove that maximal magic strictly requires graph-state preconditioning. Consequently, we establish our first no-go theorem: hierarchy level alone cannot universally order operational magic. Extending our framework to the $N$-layer model motivated by the Space-Time Efficient Analog Rotation (STAR) architecture, we obtain an exact iterative update rule for the Pauli spectrum. This yields a second no-go theorem: no state-independent sequence of operations can guarantee monotonic magic improvement. Together, these theorems demonstrate that algebraic gate structures are fundamentally insufficient to dictate resource generation. To overcome this, we reframe early FTQC gate selection as a state-aware, differentiable optimization over continuous analog parameters. Finally, we identify a severe kinematic expressibility bottleneck in architectures restricted to single-qubit $Z$-rotations and show that introducing nonlinear diagonal phases, such as multi-qubit $Z$-rotation, shatters this bottleneck. This provides a fundamental principle for demonstrating early FTQC, establishing scalable magic generation as a foundational benchmark for evaluating early FTQC architectures.
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All authors Hsueh-Hao Lu, Yasunari Suzuki, Yasunobu Nakamura, En-Jui Kuo