Papers

As quantum systems advance toward interconnected architectures, the ability to identify nodes, manage resources, and support network-level functions becomes increasingly critical. In this work, we propose a lossless source coding scheme for addressing in quantum networks that enables compact, hierarchical, and coherently processable quantum address states. Specifically, we introduce a prefix-suffix address space and develop an isometric hierarchical encoder-decoder that guarantees unique decodability. We further provide a practical Huffman-based procedure that embeds prefix-free, length-eigenstate codewords into the address space, thereby preserving isometry. The scheme is particularly designed for networks with hierarchical structure, heterogeneous cluster sizes, and configurable address assignment to accommodate dynamic network conditions. A numerical example on a 13-node network demonstrates that the proposed hierarchical encoding scheme is feasible and achieves perfect fidelity. This work establishes a rigorous connection between source coding theory and quantum network design, offering a practical framework towards scalable and coherent quantum addressing.

The minimal Kitaev chain that emulates a topological superconductor with three quantum dots offers a tunable platform for potentially hosting poor man's Majorana (PMM) modes. Asserting the need to go beyond differential conductance spectroscopy, we introduce current-current correlations as a viable framework for verifying their true non-locality. The robustness of the PMM modes, specifically with respect to delocalization as the system is tuned away from sweet spots, we show, is embedded in the relative magnitudes of the nonlocal transport processes. This aspect is adeptly captured by current cross-correlations, whose features show remarkable stability around the PMM sweet spot, specifically with respect to the detuning of an outer dot. We establish this as a prominent feature and a diagnostic for true PMMs even in the short chain limit. Our results accentuate the need for current cross-correlation measurements as a diagnostic framework for unambiguously verifying true non-locality of entangled states as well as topologically protected states.

We introduce the pair second-order correlation function $g_{\textrm{pairs}}^{\left(2\right)}=\left\langle \left(P^{\dagger}\right)^{2}P^{2}\right\rangle /\left\langle P^{\dagger}P\right\rangle ^{2}$, defined through the pair operator $P^{\dagger}=a^{\dagger}b^{\dagger}$, to characterize second-order correlations and pair bunching and antibunching in photon-pair creation processes. This quantity directly probes correlations between pair-generation events within a single two-mode quantum state, providing access to the intrinsic pair-generation process beyond conventional single-mode or heralded second-order correlations, which do not directly capture correlations between pair events. Values of $g_{\textrm{pairs}}^{\left(2\right)}$ greater than, equal to, or less than unity correspond respectively to pair bunching, Poissonian pair statistics, and pair antibunching. Using the Cauchy–Schwarz inequality, we further show that all classical two-mode fields described by a positive Glauber–Sudarshan \ensuremath{P}-function satisfy $g_{\textrm{pairs}}^{\left(2\right)}\geq1$, so that pair antibunching is classically forbidden and constitutes an unambiguous signature of nonclassicality. We evaluate $g_{\textrm{pairs}}^{\left(2\right)}$ for several representative quantum states and show, in particular, that even arbitrarily weak two-mode squeezed vacuum states exhibit pair bunching. Comparison with heralded second-order correlations highlights the complementary information provided by these observables. The proposed correlation function is experimentally accessible via standard coincidence measurements, requires no phase reference or state reconstruction, and remains invariant under uniform loss.

We propose a Purcell-engineered notch-filter hybrid coupler for superconducting controlled-$Z$ (CZ) gates that combines coherent interaction engineering with leakage-selective dissipation. The architecture integrates a nonlinear transmon coupler with a coupled Purcell-filter and notch-resonator subsystem, providing additional control over both the coherent interaction pathways and the engineered dissipative environment. The filter branch reshapes the effective interaction pathways, while the notch resonator further tailors the frequency response of the coupled filter network and preserves strong leakage-selective dissipation. Using dressed-eigenstate analysis together with Lindblad master-equation simulations, we show that the proposed architecture substantially reduces leakage and retains high-fidelity, low-leakage operation compared with an optimized single-transmon coupler while remaining robust over a broad range of coherence assumptions and device parameters. The gate analysis reconstructs the projected computational quantum channel and therefore retains the phase information required to distinguish a CZ operation from identity. The nominal operating point occurs at $t_{\rm CZ}=327.46~\mathrm{ns}$ with $F_{\rm avg}^{\rm CZ}=99.714\%$, $L_{\rm avg}=8.78\times10^{-4}$, and $L_{\rm max}=2.04\times10^{-3}$. A minimax timing-robust operating point at $327.20~\mathrm{ns}$ maintains $F_{\rm avg}^{\rm CZ}\geq99.590\%$ over a $\pm0.50~\mathrm{ns}$ timing window. These results demonstrate that engineered dissipation complements conventional coherent interaction engineering and provides an additional design degree of freedom for realizing robust, high-fidelity superconducting CZ gates.

We prove a strong converse for quantum communication over Pauli channels within the class of stabilizer codes. If a code whose code space is a full joint eigenspace of a stabilizer group transmits above the coherent information of its own input state, its entanglement fidelity decays exponentially in the block length; the encoder may be any isometry onto that space and the decoder any channel. For memoryless channels this determines the $\varepsilon$-quantum capacity of the class for every $\varepsilon < 1$, so that tolerating a constant error buys no rate; for antidegradable channels, such as the depolarizing channel with error probability $p \in [1/4, 3/4]$, that capacity is zero, while for $p \in [1/4,1/2)$ partial-transposition bounds provably cannot certify a strong converse. The proof uses neither additivity assumptions nor semidefinite relaxations: optimal decoding succeeds precisely on an event in a product probability space, so the blowing-up lemma of Ahlswede, Gács and Körner applies, and the side information it produces is charged against the coherent information. The argument also constrains near-deterministic decoding for codes of any kind, and we isolate the encoder-side statement that would extend it to all of them.

Motivated by the equivalent partial-trace formulations of Werner-state distillability [P. Costa Rico, Lett. Math. Phys. 115, 47 (2025); S.-Y. Qi et al., Phys. Rev. A 110, 012406 (2024)], we prove a bipartite partial-trace inequality for every matrix of rank at most two. As applications, we prove the two-copy undistillability of NPT Werner states in arbitrary local dimension, thereby resolving this open problem highlighted in [P. Horodecki et al., PRX Quantum 3, 010101 (2022)]. We further prove a two-parameter extension of the matrix inequality and show that two individually one-copy-undistillable NPT Werner states cannot activate each other's one-copy distillability. We also resolve the singular-value maximization problem associated with the two-ququart case.

In this work, we introduce a multiconfigurational mixed quantum-classical many-body approach for simulating the finite-temperature correlated multi-exciton dynamics in the presence of phonon-induced static and dynamic disorder. In this mixed quantum-classical approach, the excitonic subsystem is described using a multiconfigurational wavefunction that extends beyond the mean-field limit, while the phonons are evolved quasi-classically. Using this approach, we simulate a multi-excitonic dissipative system and show how the interplay between phonon-induced dynamic disorder and exciton-exciton many-body interactions determines excitation-dependent excitonic transport and spatial correlations. Our results show that while the mean-field approach produces semi-quantitatively accurate diffusive dynamics, it does not capture the spatial correlations as expected. We find that a mean-field path approximation, where we generate pre-computed trajectories using our mean-field mixed quantum-classical approach and then perform multiconfigurational dynamics, can reproduce the spatial correlations to a good accuracy, positioning this approach as an efficient method for capturing spatial correlations in complex systems.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides information-theoretic security independent of computational assumptions, yet the bulk and cost of current systems hinder large-scale deployment. Although integrated photonic technologies have enabled highly integrated QKD chips, practical QKD transmitters are still predominantly implemented as rack-mounted systems. Here, we demonstrate a highly integrated standalone QKD transmitter that integrates all essential functionalities required for practical QKD operation within a compact platform built around a silicon photonic encoding chip. The transmitter occupies only $167 \times 56 \times 21~\mathrm{mm}^3$ ($\sim 0.2~\mathrm{dm}^3$), comparable in size to a half-height, half-width PCIe card and more than 30 times smaller in volume than a conventional 1U rack-mounted system. Paired with a conventional discrete-component receiver, it achieves a secure key rate of 219.1 kbps over 51.3 km of standard single-mode fiber, with performance comparable to that of conventional discrete-component implementations. This work bridges the gap between photonic chip integration and deployable QKD hardware, marking an important step toward transitioning QKD transmitters from conventional rack-mounted equipment to compact board-level platforms.

Quantum data-center (QDC) architectures aim to scale distributed quantum computing (DQC) by interconnecting multiple quantum processing units (QPUs), but their performance depends strongly on how algorithmic communication patterns interact with entanglement generation, switch reconfiguration, and network topology. This paper studies the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) as a graph-structured optimization workload for QDC-based distributed quantum computing. We adapt QAOA to SwitchQNet, a distributed quantum compiler framework that schedules communication and entanglement generation over switch-based QDC networks, by adding a routing generator that converts graph-dependent two-qubit cost interactions into remote-CX communication requests across QPUs. Using this extension, we evaluate QAOA instances across Clos, fat-tree, and spine-leaf topologies, measuring communication latency, EPR-pair overhead, EPR wait time, retry overhead, and sensitivity to buffer size, look-ahead depth, communication-qubit count, EPR latency, and EPR fidelity assumptions. The results show that QAOA obtains modest but consistent latency reductions, highlighting its value as a diagnostic benchmark for studying the interaction between algorithm structure, entanglement management, and quantum-network architecture.

We use Monte Carlo data for the three-dimensional Ising model at the critical temperature to predict an emergent radial geometry of the bulk using machine learning. Specifically, we employ a differentiable solver for a probe field on an asymptotically $\mathrm{AdS}_4$ background, trained to reproduce the measured momentum-space two-point functions of the boundary operators ($\sigma$ and $\epsilon$). We find that a single metric cannot simultaneously serve both operators. Fitting each channel separately improves its own residual by a factor of three to five, but degrades the other by up to two orders of magnitude. We quantify this tension between the two operators and show that it survives changes to the momentum window and the lattice size. Our results numerically demonstrate that the bulk geometry of a theory with an $\mathcal{O}(1)$ central charge, such as the 3D Ising model, is not captured by a single classical metric.

We exhibit two finite orthogonality hypergraphs that admit faithful orthogonal representations by rays in complex three-dimensional space but admit none in real three-dimensional space. Thus, although each orthogonality diagram is unchanged, its coordinatizability in dimension three depends on whether the scalar field is complex or real. The first hypergraph has 20 vertices and 12 contexts. The second hypergraph adds one vertex and two contexts. Phase-adjusted realification also gives explicit faithful orthogonal representations of both hypergraphs in real six-dimensional space.

We formalize side-channel detection in Gaussian-modulated continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) as a certificate-forgery hypothesis test and identify its detectability with an information-theoretic rate. Relative to a set $\mathcal{M}$ of trusted, real-time-monitored observables, the forgery- detectability rate $g_{\mathcal M}$ of a benign-statistics certificate is the missed-detection Stein exponent. We prove a dichotomy: $g_{\mathcal M}$ is monotone and strictly positive in the leaked Holevo information when the shot- noise unit is trusted, and identically zero otherwise, recovering local- oscillator and calibration attacks as the degenerate case. Monotonicity yields a certificate reusability rate bounding the Holevo leakage compatible with an undetected certificate over $N_{\mathrm{PE}}$ estimation rounds, via the non- asymptotic bound $\varepsilon_{\mathrm{PE}}\le\exp(-N_{\mathrm{PE}}\psi(r))$ whose near-threshold expansion matches the Gaussian confidence-interval scaling of standard finite-size analyses. We then give a composable finite-size key- length statement under collective Gaussian attacks, whose worst-case Holevo term is the reusability rate and whose parameter-estimation failure probability is bounded by the Stein exponent at every block length. Both results are unconditional in the trusted-correlation model, where strict monotonicity of the Holevo leakage in the excess noise follows from a noise-injection argument; for general $\mathcal{M}$ they hold under an explicit no-spurious-local-minima condition on the divergence landscape, verifiable by low-dimensional inspection. Convexity of the rate further assumes a numerically supported concavity of the Holevo bound, the sole numerical ingredient; proof status is delimited throughout.

We formulate minimal and dissipative Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) dynamics in the functional Schrödinger representation for a non-relativistic bosonic field. In this framework, the Fock-space state is encoded in a wave functional, and fixed particle-number wave functions are obtained by sector projection. For the minimal CSL coupling to the smeared mass density, this projection gives the standard nonlinear stochastic dynamics in each \(N\)-particle sector, with the collapse operator acting on the total smeared density of the configuration. This makes the amplification mechanism transparent and allows us to discuss sector superpositions, local probability balance, and the status of Bohmian equivariance at the wave-function level. We then consider a dissipative extension in which the collapse operator includes a smeared current contribution. The one-particle sector reproduces the expected dissipative CSL energy balance, while fixed many-body sectors contain additional collective momentum shifts and pair-mixing terms that are not reducible, in general, to independent one-particle contributions. Within a leading compact closure, the collective pair friction produces a non-extensive stationary mean kinetic energy: in three dimensions and for weak dissipation, $T_N^{\rm comp}\simeq 2T_\beta/N$, whereas the corresponding dilute energy remains extensive.

Unitary designs provide efficient substitutes for Haar-random unitaries in quantum information processing, randomized measurements, and many-body quantum dynamics. We propose a protocol based on time evolutions of a single chaotic Hamiltonian interleaved with unitary perturbations to generate unitary designs. We derive the frame potential of the resulting ensemble in terms of those of the intermediate ensemble. The intermediate ensemble need not itself be Haar random or exhibit Haar-level frame potentials, provided that its trace moments and frame-potential growth are sufficiently suppressed. The nontrivial Pauli set and the Clifford ensemble are simple examples, whereas ensembles whose cardinality does not grow with the Hilbert-space dimension generally fail. We further establish a frame-potential correspondence between multi-Hamiltonian temporal protocols and one-Hamiltonian protocols interleaved with repeated fixed trace-suppressed perturbations, showing that two perturbations suffice to recover Haar-level frame potentials. For local Hamiltonians, we derive a lower bound on the space–depth control resource, while more generally we establish a universal finite-window bound that constrains the required temporal sampling range. Together, these results identify complementary spatial and temporal resource requirements for perturbation-assisted randomness generation.

We investigated how a magnetic topological defect affects the vacuum polarization of a charged massive scalar field in a flat $(3+1)$-dimensional space-time. The defect was modeled as an impenetrable to matter field finite-thickness tube with magnetic flux inside. We implemented the most general form of the Robin boundary condition on the surface of the magnetic tube, which enables a fully general analysis of the problem. We have found that in flat spacetime, the total vacuum energy generated by a magnetic topological defect depends on the curvature $\xi$, except for special cases corresponding to the Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. By contrast, when Robin's general boundary conditions are imposed, the induced vacuum energy acquires an explicit dependence on the curvature coupling $\xi$, which is significant even in flat space-time. A detailed study of the dependence of the effect on the boundary condition parameter has been carried out. The obtained results highlight the nontrivial role played by boundary conditions in vacuum polarization phenomena.

We derive an effective trapped atom–cavity model in which a constant gravitational acceleration shifts the oscillator equilibrium and changes the local standing-wave coupling, thereby encoding the acceleration in the Jaynes Cummings exchange frequencies. With the atom and motion initially in their ground states and the cavity field initially coherent, we solve the closed-system carrier dynamics exactly and derive the displaced-frame quantum Fisher information (QFI) of the joint atom-cavity state. This QFI is proportional to the square of the local coupling slope, grows quadratically with interrogation time, and scales linearly with mean photon number. At the node, phase-referenced Ramsey detection gives a sign-sensitive estimate of axial acceleration and locally saturates the joint QFI. Away from the node, photon counting and phase-optimized homodyne detection provide cavity readouts when the cavity state carries more QFI than the atomic state. At the off-node operating point studied, Lindblad simulations show that cavity loss produces a finite-time QFI optimum. Lamb Dicke and sideband-suppression conditions control the carrier approximation. In the closed-system benchmark, the carrier-model QFI agrees with the atom-cavity QFI obtained from the unexpanded model after tracing out motion.

Achieving scalable quantum computing demands high-fidelity operations capable of mitigating population leakage into non-computational states. Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) have recently emerged as a powerful paradigm to unify quantum hardware characterization (inverse problems) and pulse engineering (direct problems), laying the foundational architecture for autonomous quantum processors. However, standard PINN frameworks face severe numerical bottlenecks, such as spectral bias, when attempting to simultaneously solve highly oscillatory multi-level dynamics and optimize continuous control fields under strict global phase constraints. In this work, we propose an enhanced PINN scheme for quantum optimal control (PINNQOC) that circumvents these limitations by incorporating Fourier feature embeddings, dynamic epoch normalization, and an informed pre-training routine. To rigorously evaluate its performance, we systematically benchmark our framework against two premier continuous control solvers: the first-order Krotov method and the second-order Projection Operator Newton Method for Trajectory Optimization (PRONTO). These techniques are applied to implement multiple quantum gates on a truncated three-level fluxonium qubit and a four-level Nitrogen-Vacancy center coupled to a Carbon-13 nuclear spin. Our advanced PINNQOC approach successfully suppresses population leakage while achieving gate fidelities exceeding 99.9$\%$, matching the efficacy of traditional solvers. Finally, we provide a comprehensive analysis of computational times, iteration efficiency, and mean leakage, highlighting the distinct trade-offs and avenues for embedding physics-guided machine learning into automated quantum hardware pipelines.

This paper develops a unified kernel-based method for computing exact matrix elements of composite quantum operations by inserting resolutions of the identity after individual operators or between successive factors of an operator chain. A single insertion gives an exact scalar identity, and nested insertions between the factors give multiple integral identities for chains of closed operators under explicit Bochner-integrability conditions. The procedure is carried through on polynomial and analytic functions of the ladder operators, on one- and two-mode Gaussian unitaries, and on three composite operations: a Kerr phase followed by squeezing or by a cubic phase gate, a two-mode squeezer followed by a beam splitter, and a heralded cat-state circuit with two beam splitters. At rational Kerr phases the Kerr-squeezed amplitudes reduce to finite sums of squeezed coherent-state amplitudes weighted by quadratic Gauss sums, with an explicit error bound at the remaining phases; the two-mode network gives a bivariate Hermite polynomial; and the heralded circuit gives closed forms for the amplitudes, the heralding probabilities and their extension to an arbitrary passive network fed by one squeezed source. The examples are set against the reach of four established techniques: operator ordering, the Berezin symbol calculus, Lie disentangling and the symplectic formalism. Each technique reaches a subset of the examples directly, while the insertion procedure reaches all of them under the same hypotheses. A comparison with direct Fock summation identifies the regime in which the finite Kerr sums are efficient, and the choice of resolution at each boundary of a chain follows a selection rule set by the action of the adjacent factor. Each closed form agrees with an independent numerical computation.

Cooling a mechanical mode in finite time is a routing problem: excitation must reach a lossy mode before thermal noise rebuilds the population. Exceptional points are non-Hermitian degeneracies at which two hybrid modes and their eigenvectors merge, so a loop around them can exchange connected spectral branches. The main obstacle in testing whether this topology improves cooling is causal. Independently optimized enclosing and non-enclosing protocols normally have different waveforms, so topology and waveform geometry change together. We remove this ambiguity in a three-mode optomechanical system with a strongly damped main cavity and an exactly lossless auxiliary cavity. We keep one power modulation and one detuning shape fixed and change only their relative phase. The shift preserves the matched local control resources but changes the loop from non-enclosing to a braid around both exceptional points. Certified dynamics show that the two-exceptional-point protocol lowers the final mechanical occupation by more than 55 percent. The advantage survives the complete admissible phase family, deliberate waveform changes, a finite neighborhood of nearby smooth controls, and the restoration of counter-rotating heating processes. The auxiliary cavity acts as a coherent buffer, while the main cavity remains the only optical loss channel.

Continuous-variable quantum computing (CVQC) is a computing paradigm in which measurements yield values over a continuous domain. CVQC is both a convenient computational framework for modeling physical quantum systems, and a good abstraction for hardware platforms based on quantum optics. Yet, the semantic foundations of CVQC remain underdeveloped. To address this gap, we develop a formal semantics for a core CV quantum programming language, and sound verification methods for program correctness. A main contribution of this work is to isolate a well-behaved quantitative predicate domain that achieves sufficient expressiveness to accommodate unbounded values as they arise in the infinite-dimensional, continuous setting. Specifically, we choose closed positive quadratic forms as semantic predicates, representing finite expectations, domains of finiteness, and infinite penalties in one ordered object. We validate our choice by establishing that our semantic predicates satisfy desirable closure properties including the definition of weakest preconditions. We validate our design with two case studies, including an example based on the celebrated GKP error-correcting code, for which we establish a second moment bound.

We show the emergence of a quantum fluctuation-driven transport crossover between two liquid states in distinguishable helium-4 obeying Boltzmann statistics, in the absence of atomic exchange. Using path integral centroid molecular dynamics simulations over 0.1-3.3 K and 1-60 bar, we investigate the transport properties of two distinct liquid states: the low quantum-dispersion liquid (LQDL) and the high quantum-dispersion liquid (HQDL). While LQDL exhibits conventional liquid behavior consistent with the Stokes-Einstein (SE) relation, HQDL emerges at lower temperatures and displays anomalous gas-like transport characterized by superdiffusion and ultralow viscosity, accompanied by a breakdown of the SE relation. This counterintuitive emergence of gas-like dynamics upon cooling reflects the dominant role of nuclear quantum fluctuations, in contrast to thermal fluctuations at higher temperatures. Across the LQDL-HQDL boundary, we identify a transport crossover marked by a qualitative change in the velocity autocorrelation function (VAF), a transition in the Prandtl number, and the emergence of transport minima in shear and kinematic viscosities, thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusivity. These minima reflect a crossover from liquid-like to gas-like transport upon cooling in the low-temperature subcritical region, in addition to the universal transport minima observed in the supercritical regime. The transition from oscillatory to monotonic VAF defines a second Frenkel line, distinct from the conventional Frenkel line observed in the supercritical region. LQDL is a heat-transport-dominated dissipative fluid, whereas HQDL is a momentum-dominated inertial fluid. These results demonstrate that nuclear quantum fluctuations alone induce gas-like liquid behavior and provide a unified picture of transport phenomena in distinguishable helium-4 without superfluidity.

Multipartite entanglement is commonly characterized by scalar notions such as separability and entanglement depth, which do not resolve the distribution of entangled cluster sizes. For mixed states, we introduce formation profiles that assign weights to the entanglement architectures appearing in pure-state decompositions. We show that after discarding every profile that admits a strictly weaker feasible replacement, the remaining irreducible structure need not be unique: a four-qubit example exhibits a continuous family of incomparable irreducible profiles. Monotone functions of the architectures recover widely used scalar quantifiers as special cases, whereas the full profile geometry retains additional information, including the minimum weight that every decomposition must assign outside a chosen architectural class. Finally, we derive experimentally accessible bounds on these weights from convex witnesses, including the quantum Fisher information, thereby connecting detailed formation structure with practical entanglement certification.

Generating entanglement between two Rydberg atoms is at the core of neutral-atom quantum computers. Current two-qubit gates operate in the Rydberg-blockade regime, in which the full strength of the van der Waals interaction between the two Rydberg atoms is not directly exploited, to avoid sensitivity to the position noise of the tweezer-trapped atoms, at the cost of a longer time spent in the Rydberg state. Here, we propose a set of techniques based on coherent control of the atomic motion obtained by combining optical tweezers and a two-dimensional optical lattice, and a sequence of multiple on/off pulses. The protocols keep the two-qubit gate error contribution from position noise below $10^{-4}$, heat the atom by less than~$\Delta n = 0.01$, while being robust to alignment errors of the potential up to $50$~nm and thermal excitation up to $\bar{n} = 3$. This toolbox opens the path for new two-qubit Rydberg gates directly, or partially, driven by the interaction, in which the atoms spend only $\sim 10$~ns in the Rydberg state, minimizing the increasingly dominant error source originating from its finite lifetime.

We investigate the role of local counter-diabatic (CD) terms in enhancing the performance of discrete-time digital protocols for a frustrated Ising ring, a system with an exponentially small spectral gap that acts as a bottleneck for conventional quantum annealing. The techniques investigated range from a digitised version of a fixed-schedule protocol, including lowest-order analytical CD terms, all the way to a full-fledged Quantum Approximate Optimisation Algorithm (QAOA), including variational CD terms (DC-QAOA). By analyzing the resulting residual energy, we show that DC-QAOA combined with Chopped RAndom Basis (CRAB) quantum control techniques for optimizing the circuit parameters, can outperform all the other strategies. By monitoring the ground-state population during the dynamics we learn that DC-QAOA finds effective shortcuts towards the target state through intermediate excited states, a process that is unexpectedly enhanced by the inclusion of local CD unitaries. Our results highlight the importance of flexible variational control of CD dynamics and demonstrate that digital optimization can explore operator dynamics that remain inaccessible to standard analytical CD constructions.

Several open problems in quantum information theory can be formulated as equipartition problems for positive operators, asking for a decomposition into bounded-rank positive parts under uniform constraints. The existence problems for SIC-POVMs and MUBs are of this type, as is the Ruskai-Audenaert conjecture. We first show that certain problems of this form can be attacked using equivariant cohomology, and then present new results on the Ruskai-Audenaert conjecture. In its weak form, this conjecture asserts that every quantum channel admits a convex decomposition into a minimal number of generalized extreme points; in its strong form, one with equal weights. We prove the strong conjecture in all dimensions for a set of channels of nonzero measure, including all cq- and qc-channels, as well as for all channels with qubit inputs. We also prove the weak conjecture for all qutrit channels, along with further results on convex decompositions of quantum channels.

The effects of optical loss and photon distinguishability on the heralded generation of entangled states based on Gaussian resources are quantitatively investigated. By incorporating mode-dependent loss and the statistical characteristics of partially distinguishable photons into a phase-space representation, an efficient numerical framework is established to optimize target-state fidelity and success probability, with a specific focus on the enhancement triggered by non-Gaussian operations such as photon addition and subtraction. The numerical optimization results indicate that a non-vacuum post-selection strategy within a dual-rail encoding framework, combined with the simultaneous tuning of squeezing parameters and the interferometer network, effectively suppresses vacuum noise, enabling the generation of high-fidelity Bell, GHZ, and W states under realistic experimental constraints. The results show that introducing non-Gaussian operations can successfully enhance the state generation performance under realistic imperfections analogous to the enhancements observed under ideal conditions. This study demonstrates that experimental imperfections primarily scale down the success probability rather than fundamentally compromising the state fidelity, providing practical design guidelines for scalable state engineering on integrated photonic platforms.

Quantum devices are open systems whose dynamics interleave coherent evolution with dissipation, and benchmarking, error mitigation, and error correction all rest on a faithful model of both. Existing characterization protocols either assume prior knowledge of the interaction and noise structure, or demand ancillas, entangled probes, or mid-circuit control, or capture only the Pauli-diagonal part of the noise. Here, we present a protocol that reconstructs an arbitrary sparse Markovian generator, including every Hamiltonian together with the jump operator coefficients, using only product Pauli state preparation, single uninterrupted forward evolutions, and product Pauli measurements. Given a sparsity budget $M_0$ and a strength bound $\Gamma$ of the Lindbladian, every coefficient is learned to precision $\epsilon$ from $\widetilde{O}(\Gamma^2M_0^2/\epsilon^4)$ experiments and $\widetilde{O}(\Gamma M_0^2/\epsilon^2)$ total evolution time, with both supports identified from data without locality assumptions. The protocol runs at a logarithmic number of positive evolution times on a hardware clock lattice and is provably robust to calibrated state-preparation and measurement errors.

Local unitary equivalence serves as the cornerstone for classifying entanglement in bipartite quantum systems. Mathematically, it reduces to the study of polynomial invariants of the density matrix under the action of local unitary groups. The collection of all such polynomial invariants forms a ring, known as the invariant ring. However, identifying the complete generators of the invariant ring is the central issue. In 2007, for the two-qubit system, King et al fully characterized the structure of the invariant ring and determined its Cohen–Macaulay decomposition. In this paper, we revisit their work, with a focus on the computation of the Molien series and the construction of invariants. On one hand, we rigorously derive the Molien series via explicit contour integration over the maximal torus, filling in all previously omitted computational steps. On the other hand, we systematically construct all invariants using a graphical method, and then reduce the candidate set by applying various identities and algebraic relations, obtaining a generating set consisting of 21 invariants. This paper aims to make this important result more widely accessible to researchers in quantum information and invariant theory through the above discussions.

Waveguide-QED platforms represent one potential approach to scalable quantum technologies, but their simulation remains computationally demanding due to the large number of frequency modes required to describe traveling photons. In practice, increasing the simulated bandwidth rapidly raises the numerical cost, leading to a trade-off between accuracy and tractability. The existing approaches formulated in time-domain indirectly control this trade-off through the choice of time step, which obscures the connection between discretization parameters and the represented spectral window. In this work, we introduce an end-to-end framework to explicitly control the effective bandwidth in waveguide-QED simulations of two-photon scattering. We show that truncating the frequency domain requires consistent shifts of the model parameters, and derive a systematic calibration procedure that preserves the physical accuracy of the reduced model. This enables tuning the central frequency and the bandwidth of the numerical spectrum, leading to a several-fold reduction in the Hilbert space dimension while maintaining physical accuracy. We discuss the limitations of this calibration and relate the finite-bandwidth viewpoint to time-domain discretizations.

In distributed quantum computing (DQC), executing monolithic quantum circuits across multiple interconnected quantum processing units (QPUs) requires dedicated communication qubits to generate and distribute entanglement. Because the number of physical qubits within a QPU is finite, a trade-off emerges where allocating more communication qubits increases the capacity of quantum channels for concurrent non-local operations, but reduces the number of computational qubits available for local gate operations. Distributed quantum compilation routinely ignores this channel capacity, while hardware architects lack a method to determine it prior to quantum circuit partitioning. Moreover, scheduling entanglement on demand introduces severe latency, whereas pre-fetching exposes stored pairs to decoherence. We propose an economic order quantity model from perishable inventory theory to optimize the trade-off between entanglement distribution latency and the time cost of decoherence. The resulting estimate is driven by algorithmic demand and physical constraints, offering a dual application for the hardware-software co-design of high-performance DQC: for hardware architects, it gives the optimal allocation of dedicated communication qubits in static heterogeneous architectures; for compiler developers, it gives the optimal number to reserve dynamically in homogeneous architectures.