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Thursday 6 August

Quantum Physics

Hadamard sensing channel: deterministic artifact suppression for quantum sensors

Dynamical decoupling sequences are essential for nanoscale quantum sensing, but the finite duration of microwave pulses generates spurious responses. While phase randomization (PR) protocol can suppress these artifacts, they rely on probabilistic averaging. This introduces an inherent statistical variance that demands excessive sequence lengths and stringent hardware capabilities for true random phase generation. Here, we propose Hadamard sensing channel (HSC), a deterministic phase-design framework based on Hadamard matrices. HSC completely eliminates the statistical variance of PR by exactly and deterministically canceling spurious signals using a finite set of orthogonal phase patterns. Simulations confirm that HSC matches the ideal suppression of PR but exhibits superior robustness against control errors. HSC offers a mathematically exact and hardware-friendly solution for reliable high-resolution nanoscale nuclear magnetic resonance.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.mes-hall

An Effective String Theory Toolbox for Quantum Hall Interfaces III: Open Worldsheets, Endpoint Conditions, and Branes

A freely moving quantum Hall (QH) interface may end on a physical edge or topological boundary, but fixed-edge theory cannot determine what endpoint data make such a termination consistent. Here we formulate an open-worldsheet junction framework in which the embedding, material charge, anomaly flow, and topological boundary condition are organized together. The endpoint is specified by a geometric support and variational boundary data, together with condensable topological sectors and any outgoing channels required to absorb or continue the worldsheet flux. This construction extends the charge–shape relation to an interval and shows why a lone chiral Majorana cannot terminate on a finite-dimensional endpoint degree of freedom. It gives an operational definition of a QH brane and a systematic basis for endpoint and network theories of dynamical QH interfaces.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.mes-hall

An Effective String Theory Toolbox for Quantum Hall Interfaces II: Majorana Fermions on Fluctuating Moore-Read Worldsheets

A Moore–Read interface carries a chiral Majorana mode on a boundary whose geometry may itself fluctuate. Fixed-edge theory does not determine how this neutral mode should be transported when the interface bends and moves, or how its dynamics couples to the fluctuating shape. Here we construct a spatially reparametrization-invariant Majorana theory on the nonrelativistic worldsheet of a freely moving interface. The changing line element fixes a universal half-density transport law, while additional curvature- and velocity-dependent couplings remain controlled by microscopic interface physics. The resulting framework identifies the Majorana stress tensor as the mediator between neutral and geometric dynamics and provides the neutral sector needed for effective theories of dynamical non-Abelian quantum Hall interfaces.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.mes-hall

An Effective String Theory Toolbox for Quantum Hall Interfaces I: Worldsheet Kinematics and Constraint Structure

A freely moving quantum Hall interface is fundamentally different from an ordinary edge fixed by an external confining potential. Since a normal displacement changes the areas occupied by the adjacent incompressible phases, the interface geometry and charge dynamics cannot be treated as independent degrees of freedom. We formulate this problem for interfaces between Abelian quantum Hall phases using a spatially reparametrization-invariant worldsheet description, in which tangential motion is a relabeling of the interface while normal motion is physical. Starting from the two-sided Chern–Simons response, we derive the relation between normal charge transport and interface motion. We then introduce a relative-area construction, defined with respect to a material reference curve, that converts this velocity relation into an equal-time constraint linking the charged boundary sector to the interface shape. Combined with the folded $K$-matrix current algebra, this identifies the universal Hall kinematics of the moving interface while leaving its geometric energy and neutral dynamics dependent on microscopic interface physics. The resulting framework provides a systematic basis for effective theories of dynamical quantum Hall interfaces.
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Quantum Physics

Time-Dependent Hamiltonian Simulation with Optimal Query Complexity

We give a query-optimal algorithm for simulating a general $n$-qubit time-dependent Hamiltonian $H(t)$ on $[0,T]$, assuming that $H$ is Lipschitz continuous and $\|H(t)\|\leq\alpha$. In the standard $\mathrm{HAM\mbox{-}T}$ access model, the algorithm approximates the time-ordered propagator $U_H(T)$ to error $\varepsilon$ using $$ O\left( \alpha T+\frac{\log(1/\varepsilon)} {\log(e+\log(1/\varepsilon)/(\alpha T))} \right) $$ $\mathrm{HAM\mbox{-}T}$ queries. This matches the known query lower bound for time-independent Hamiltonians, showing that time dependence incurs no asymptotic query overhead. Our method first constructs a one-query transducer that, given an auxiliary state, implements an approximation to $U_H(T)$ and returns the state unchanged. A weighted combination of circuits that apply the transducer different numbers of times makes the error caused by omitting this state decay factorially, yielding the stated optimal precision dependence. For time-independent Hamiltonians, the same method also gives a query-optimal alternative to qubitization.
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All authors Boyang Chen, Minbo Gao, Xinzhao Wang, Shuo Zhou

Quantum Physics

Balanced Routing for Symmetric Quantum Circuits

Mapping quantum programs to restricted physical chips requires SWAP operations, incurring depth and error penalties. In symmetric programs, this routing overhead breaks theoretical symmetry because identical logical roles experience unequal shuffling. While often attributed to hardware topology alone, we show this is a two-level phenomenon. A qubit patch's shape dictates if it can host a balanced assignment. When balance is possible, the actual imbalance is set by the logical-to-physical assignment, meaning a balanced assignment can distribute routing costs perfectly evenly at no extra depth. Through exhaustive search on a 57-qubit "heavy-hex" lattice, we prove these topological constraints. For a four-part ring, 108 of 124 connected patches admit a cost-free balanced assignment, with the 16 exceptions being star-shaped. For a six-part ring, cost-free balance is impossible on compact patches. For a fully connected four-part symmetry, balance is structurally impossible at any depth. Simulations using realistic error rates show that, relative to the worst-case concentrated assignment, balanced assignments reduce symmetry-breaking by 92.7% (95% CI [+89.8%, +95.3%]) for the raw metric and 87.0% (95% CI [+79.6%, +94.1%]) for the decoherence-corrected measure (p = 2.45 x 10^-32). Substrate error heterogeneity accounts for at most 10.8% of this effect. Notably, switching to the compiler's highest generic optimization level did not yield a statistically significant change in routing imbalance, highlighting the need for targeted symmetry-aware passes. When patch geometry permits, routing imbalance is a compiler choice rather than a hardware limitation. Thus, symmetry-aware assignment should be a primary objective for compiler optimization and chip design.
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Quantum Physics

Quantum framework for event graphs

Graph representations of discrete events provide a natural foundation for machine-learning models of anomaly detection, yet they also suggest a deeper quantum description in which graph structure gives rise to interacting quantum degrees of freedom. We develop a quantum framework based on a directed participant graph whose edges represent events connecting pairs of source and destination vertices. A line-graph transformation maps each event to a node of a bidirectional event graph, whose edges inherit relational information from the participant graph. Since event datasets are naturally organized as collections of event records, their raw attributes align directly with the nodes of the event graph. A quantum harmonic oscillator (QHO) is assigned to every node of the participant graph, with the collective Hilbert space of these QHOs providing a complete basis for representing quantum states. Every directed edge of the participant graph thereby acquires a Schwinger isospin arising from the two endpoint oscillators. Under the line-graph transformation, event-graph nodes correspond to observable isospins whose interactions through bidirectional edges provide a natural substrate for learning from event datasets, while the quantum states associated with the underlying participant nodes remain latent and inaccessible to direct observation. Within this framework we formulate a compact U(1) lattice gauge theory (LGT) on the event graph that leads to a Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian (KSH) in the form of an XY-type spin model governing the dynamics of sparse anomalous-event isospins immersed in a bath of many nominal events. The proposed framework establishes a mathematical foundation for quantum-inspired graph-based anomaly detection and provides a principled bridge between graph learning, LGT, and quantum information.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.quant-gas

Criteria for Feasible Monte Carlo Stochastic Simulations of Bosonic Markovian Open Quantum Dynamics

The Monte Carlo sampling of the stochastic differential equations (SDEs) based on the quasiprobability distribution function, such as the Glauber–Sudarshan P, Wigner, and Husimi Q functions provides a powerful framework for investigating bosonic open quantum many-body dynamics described by the Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan–Lindblad (GKSL) equation, while considering the effects of quantum fluctuations beyond the mean-field approximation. However, the stochastic Monte Carlo simulation is possible only when the corresponding Fokker–Planck equation has a positive-semidefinite diffusion matrix, and the general conditions for the diffusion matrix to be positive semidefinite have remained unclear. In this work, starting from the path integral formulation, we first derive the sufficient conditions under which the diffusion matrix is positive semidefinite for an arbitrary Hamiltonian, jump operators, and choice of quasiprobability distribution functions. We also analytically derive the corresponding SDEs to be solved. We then investigate the dynamics of the GKSL equation in the thermodynamic limit and show that, depending on the form of the jump operators, the mean-field approximation may fail to describe the dynamics accurately, making stochastic Monte Carlo simulations indispensable. Furthermore, we derive the sufficient conditions under which the higher-order quantum fluctuation terms beyond the Fokker–Planck description vanish identically, even when the jump operators contain quadratic terms. Under these conditions, whenever the corresponding SDEs can be derived, the stochastic Monte Carlo simulation reproduces the exact dynamics. These results clarify the conditions under which the stochastic Monte Carlo simulations are both feasible and necessary for accurately describing the dynamics governed by the GKSL equation in phase space.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from hep-th

Partition Functions of Hermitian and PT-Symmetric Oscillators from Integrable Models

We develop an ODE/IM-based formulation for the thermal partition function and the spectral zeta function of the homogeneous Hermitian and PT-symmetric oscillators. For both classes of systems, the quantization condition can be expressed using the counting function $a(E)$, which can be solved via the Destri-de Vega equation of the integrable model. We then express the partition function and spectral zeta function as contour integrals involving the counting function, thereby providing a direct bridge between quantum spectral functions and integrable models.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.stat-mech

Measurement-induced entanglement Hamiltonian

We study the entanglement Hamiltonian of an infinite hopping chain in its ground state, after partial projective measurements in the occupation basis. For a segment separated by two measurement regions from the rest of the chain, we show that the reduced density matrix can be related to a grand-canonical state via a conformal mapping and a gauge transformation in the underlying field-theory description. The entanglement Hamiltonian is then described by a local inverse temperature that vanishes as a square root around the endpoints and is independent of the particular measurement outcome. In sharp contrast, the local chemical potential is shown to be related to the induced charge density in the segment. Hence the entanglement Hamiltonian of a post-selected state contains much more information on the measurement outcome than the respective entropy.
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Quantum Physics

Towards fault-tolerance with universal phase-error-transparent gates for high-spin cat codes

High-dimensional nuclear spins offer a hardware-efficient route to quantum error correction (QEC), with the spin cat code providing intrinsic robustness against phase errors – the dominant noise channel in donor-in-silicon architectures. However, realizing the full potential of this encoding requires gate operations that preserve its error-correcting properties. In this work, we construct a universal logical gate set that is error-transparent (ET) to phase errors, and discuss its practical implementations and challenges. The ET gates ensure that phase errors occurring stochastically during gate operations are propagated in a systematically traceable manner and remain correctable in a subsequent QEC step. Among the universal gate set constructed, we identify the logical $X$ gate as the primary challenge and discuss potential realization schemes. In addition, to fully leverage the spin cat code's advantage over an unencoded qubit, multi-tone microwave driving of the logical $CZ$ gate is essential. Our simulations show that ET gates significantly outperform non-ET gates and may be necessary to surpass the break-even point. We further show how logical measurement and recovery can be constructed from ET operations, and explain why state-preparation cannot be made ET. In particular, ET measurement in the computational basis is realizable via spin parity measurement, and that error correction circuits constructed from ET operations achieve optimal error correction capacity. Our work charts a concrete path toward full fault-tolerant quantum computation with high-dimensional nuclear spin systems.
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All authors Kelvin Onggadinata, Si Yan Koh, Arghya Maity, Kuan Eng Johnson Goh, Bent Weber, Kay Jin Lim, Hui Khoon Ng, Teck Seng Koh

Quantum Physics

Geometry-Only CSL/DP Ratios and the Nonuniqueness of Decoherence Kernels

We study idealized levitated protocols that create spatial superpositions of massive test particles. For each protocol, we compare the dimensionless contrast-loss exponent of mass-proportional continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) with the Diósi–Penrose (DP) self-energy exponent $E_G\tau/\hbar$. We first prove that the point-particle CSL separation kernel has an exact random-unitary realization: Gaussian momentum kicks arriving at Poisson-distributed times produce the same unconditional decay of spatial coherence, although a pure state conditioned on the complete kick record remains pure. The separation kernel alone therefore specifies an operational decoherence law, not the occurrence of objective collapse. We then show that the ratio of the CSL and DP exponents is independent of particle mass and interrogation time. In the point-particle model it depends only on branch separation and an effective distance; for the standard GRW reference parameters, its resolved-superposition crossover is $x_*\approx1.91\,\mathrm{nm}$. For rigid spherical bodies with an arbitrary normalized radial mass profile, total mass, overall density scale, and interrogation time again cancel, leaving a dimensionless geometry factor. The results distinguish three requirements for a decisive experiment: detectable absolute effects, a controlled comparison of CSL and DP scales, and observables capable of discriminating physically different dynamics that share the same ensemble decoherence kernel.
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Quantum Physics

Field-Space Entanglement Dynamics Between Tunnel-Coupled Luttinger Liquids

Entanglement dynamics depend not only on how a quantum system is partitioned, but critically on how interactions across that partition are structured. For a spatial bipartition of a locally interacting system, entanglement is generated near the boundary and then propagates into the bulk. By contrast, when two extended quantum fields are coupled locally along their entire length, the interaction crosses the field-space partition everywhere, and this generates correlations throughout the system. Here, we study the entanglement dynamics between two gapless one-dimensional quantum many-body systems described by Luttinger liquid theory. The systems are initially decoupled and prepared at zero or finite temperature, after which a time-dependent tunneling interaction is activated uniformly along their length. Within a Gaussian approximation, we derive general analytical expressions for the logarithmic negativity, mutual information, and Rényi entropies under arbitrary coupling protocols. At zero temperature, entanglement displays an early-time power-law growth whose exponent is fixed solely by the first non-null derivative of the tunneling protocol. Once the coupling saturates, we obtain exact long-time averages of the information-theoretic quantities and characterise how the correlations scale with temperature and the final coupling strength. We also analyse how mutual information and logarithmic negativity approach the adiabatic limit for a very slow protocol with respect to intrinsic system timescale. This work extends the study of entanglement dynamics in nonequilibrium field theory to field-space partitions and mixed initial states.
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All authors Léonce Dupays, Taufiq Murtadho, Bi Hong Tiang, Nelly H.Y. Ng, Paola Ruggiero

Quantum Physics

Dynamical phase transition in generalized Dicke model with strongly interacting trapped Rydberg ions

We study dynamical phase transitions in the generalized dissipative Dicke model in an array of trapped Rydberg ions, where their density-density interactions compete with the collective spin-phonon coupling, laser driving and dissipation. This setting offers a versatile approach to study equilibrium as well as non-equilibrium many-body phenomena, as parameters, such as the Ising interaction, laser-ion and spin-phonon coupling can be tuned. Through analyzing the mean-field phase diagram, we find a variety of distinct phases and the emergence of a tricritical point that are sensitively dependent of the interaction between Rydberg ions. We then study the quantum dynamics for a finite system size and characterize parameter dependent dynamics using the spin average, entropy, and Loschmidt echo. Distinctive signatures of the dynamical phases, such as slow relaxation and metastability, arise near the phase transition. This analysis predicts rich quantum dynamics of the finite system that link to the non-equilibrium mean-field phases. Our study widens the exploration of collective and non-equilibrium phases in Dicke models, and reveals that the Rydberg ion interaction drastically affects the phase diagram and dynamics.
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Quantum Physics

Exponential Speedup of Entanglement Generation by Quantum Mpemba Effects

Entanglement is a key resource for quantum technologies. We show that protocols employing quantum Mpemba effects allow one to exponentially accelerate the generation of entanglement, or to slow down the decay thereof. Two entanglement Mpemba effects with different operational meaning are introduced, focusing either on the task of rapidly generating a certain threshold value for entanglement or on achieving the asymptotic steady-state value. We show that entanglement Mpemba effects depend on the chosen entanglement measure. Using cluster elimination methods, many-body quantum systems also benefit from the exponential speedup of entanglement generation, as we demonstrate for a dissipative long-range Ising chain.
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All authors Sara M. Benjadi, Reinhold Egger, Igor Gornyi, Andrea Nava

Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from gr-qc

A Scale-Invariant Theory of the Universe

Modern physics has achieved extraordinary empirical success while retaining much of the absolute, unobservable structure introduced by Newton, largely without questioning its necessity. We investigate how far this structure can be eliminated by adopting a relational ontology guided by Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason. Removing absolute position, orientation, time and, finally, scale leads naturally to a formulation of the gravitational $N$-body problem where only dimensionless ratios are physically meaningful. Within this framework, the scale-invariant variety $V$ becomes a central quantity, providing a measure of structure, a natural ordering of shapes, and an emergent gravitational arrow of time. We argue that the resulting formulation unifies classes of Newtonian solutions previously regarded as distinct, uncovering a possible new symmetry, suggests a notion of explanation based on timeless spatial correlations rather than temporal evolution, and points towards a more economical ontology. Although developed in the context of Newtonian gravity, the principles proposed here may also offer a new perspective on general relativity and quantum mechanics.
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Quantum Physics

Quantum error correction with global control

Reaching fault tolerance means scaling qubit counts by orders of magnitude, a jump that conventional superconducting architectures cannot sustain without solving the so-called `wiring problem'. Global control sidesteps this bottleneck, but implementing quantum error correction (QEC) on previously proposed global architectures incurs extremely steep overhead costs, due to the need for separate correction procedures for the computational and auxiliary qubits that comprise the global device. We resolve this by introducing the first globally-controlled architecture with zero qubit overhead. Every physical qubit is a computational qubit, and thus, every qubit is protected under a single error correcting scheme. We identify a class of cyclic stabilizer codes realizable through global iSWAP and single-qubit gates, yielding QEC thresholds nearly seven orders of magnitude larger than previous estimates for globally-controlled arrays. We further show these thresholds improve systematically as the global architecture is augmented with a limited amount of local measurement sites, demonstrating a trade-off between wiring simplicity and fault-tolerant performance.
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All authors Roberto Menta, Lindsay Bassman Oftelie, Ashkan Abedi, Francesco Cioni, Marco Polini, Seth Lloyd, Francesco Caravelli, Vittorio Giovannetti

Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Learning to Rank Tensor Network Contraction Plans for GPU-Accelerated Quantum Circuit Simulation

Classical simulation remains essential for developing and validating quantum algorithms, but its cost grows rapidly with circuit size. Tensor-network contraction can reduce this cost by exploiting circuit structure, although its efficiency depends strongly on the chosen contraction plan. On GPUs, plans with similar theoretical complexity may perform very differently because execution also depends on parallelism, reduction structure, memory traffic, and contraction geometry. We present a learning-to-rank framework for selecting efficient contraction plans before executing them. Each plan is represented by structural features derived directly from its sequence of pairwise contractions, and gradient-boosted rankers are trained from GPU measurements using listwise and pairwise objectives. We evaluate the resulting models on diverse circuit families, using separate in-distribution and circuit-family-shift test sets, and compare them with random and MinFill-based baselines. The learned rankers generally identify better plans, with the listwise model providing the strongest overall decision quality. We also study backend shift by comparing empirical plan orderings on two GPU architectures and evaluating the source-trained models on the second device without retraining. The rankings remain substantially, though not perfectly, stable across GPUs, and the models retain useful decision quality. These results support Learning to Rank as a practical way to reduce contraction-plan search, while showing that performance remains partly backend dependent.
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Quantum Physics

Symmetry-guided constructions of absolutely maximally entangled states in five open cases

We give explicit Hermitian self-dual maximum distance separable codes with parameters $[12,6,7]_{25}$, $[18,9,10]_{121}$, and $[18,9,10]_{169}$. The stabilizer construction proves the existence of ${\rm AME}(12,5)$, ${\rm AME}(18,11)$, and ${\rm AME}(18,13)$ states; one-party projection also gives ${\rm AME}(17,11)$ and ${\rm AME}(17,13)$. The first code was found by a direct search. A regular $\mathbb{Z}_3^2$ coordinate orbit of its automorphism group suggested a group-circulant form that reduces each length-eighteen construction to a nine-entry kernel. The printed matrices are certified by exact Hermitian products and complete square-minor enumeration.
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Quantum Physics

Robust logarithmic entanglement lower bound for $f$-routing

In one-round $f$-routing, Alice receives an $n$-bit string $x$ and an unknown qubit, and Bob receives an $n$-bit string $y$. They exchange one simultaneous message each and cannot communicate afterwards; the party selected by a Boolean function $f(x,y)$ must then recover the qubit. The parties may share unlimited entanglement in advance. When $f$ is the inner product modulo $2$, we prove that every protocol with worst-case error at most $0.09$ must use a shared state whose entanglement of formation grows at least logarithmically in $n$. The lower bound is robust: it tolerates constant error on both routing cases and covers arbitrary mixed states shared between Alice and Bob. Earlier growing lower bounds in this model, in contrast, require perfect recovery on at least one routing case. The bound is only logarithmic: a polynomial lower bound remains open.
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Quantum Physics

QSCI-CMP: Quantum-Selected Configuration Interaction with Chemically Motivated Preselection

We present QSCI-CMP, a quantum-classical hybrid algorithm for molecular ground-state calculations that reduces both the query count and the gate count of sample-based quantum diagonalization with amplitude amplification (SQD-AA). SQD-AA mitigates the measurement bottleneck of quantum-selected configuration interaction (QSCI) by amplifying the basis states that have not yet been measured. Its oracle, however, specifies the measured states by listing them one by one, so its gate count grows with the number of collected states. Moreover, the quantum resources are spent even on states whose importance is evident from chemical knowledge, such as low-order excitations from the Hartree-Fock reference, which could be collected classically at the outset. We therefore propose to fix such chemically trivial states in advance, include them in the diagonalization subspace from the start, and exclude them from the amplification target, using a low-cost oracle that recognizes them through the excitation level and the seniority number of each basis state. We numerically demonstrate that QSCI-CMP reduces the query count and the gate count required to reach chemical accuracy by up to approximately 68% and 72% relative to SQD-AA for 24-qubit systems. The chemically trivial subspace is freely tunable within the classical computational budget. A larger subspace shifts more work onto the classical solver and increases the reduction in quantum cost, and when it captures the ground state sufficiently well, no quantum sampling is needed at all. We also point out that a query-optimal iteration count known from the analysis of quantum search further reduces the query count of both methods by approximately 12%.
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Quantum Physics

Multi-cavity strong coupling to an electron spin ensemble: spectral and dark-state signatures

Spin ensembles are considered as potential candidates for quantum memory and quantum enhanced sensing applications. Here, we explore the controlled coupling of multiple superconducting microwave cavities to a spin ensemble, which shows signatures of strong coupling and, due to the multi-mode character, the formation of dark states. In particular, the latter are of interest, as they provide a potential pathway to enhance memory times and enable protected storage of non-classical states in spin ensembles due to the suppressed coupling to the circuit environment. We model the spin multi-cavity hybrid to reproduce the spectra and extract characteristic coupling strengths using the input-output formalism.
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All authors P. Oehrl, B. Pérez González, A. Dunaev, M. Althammer, T. S. Parvini, F. Piazza, M. Benito, H. Huebl

Quantum Physics

Quantum One-Way Functions and Related Cryptographic Primitives

Quantum cryptographic primitives beyond key distribution remain a less well understood area of research. In classical cryptography, one-way functions underpin nearly all standard cryptographic protocols, motivating the search for meaningful quantum analogues and for a clear understanding of the physical and computational mechanisms that could enforce one-wayness. In this article, we review quantum one-way functions and a range of closely related quantum-state primitives, including one-way state generators, pseudorandom quantum states, and efficiently indistinguishable pairs of states. We discuss both computational and information-theoretic notions of quantum one-wayness, emphasizing the different adversarial models and security assumptions that underlie these constructions. We compare and contrast the various proposed primitives, and clarify their conceptual relationships. Particular emphasis is placed on questions of physical realizability, experimental feasibility, and robustness to noise. Finally, we outline open problems and future directions toward the development of practical quantum cryptographic primitives beyond key distribution, and the emergence of a broader quantum-cryptographic ecosystem.
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Quantum Physics

The Locality Gap: A Thermodynamic Law for Objective Facts

Objective facts in quantum Darwinism are values recorded redundantly in many independently accessible fragments of the environment. Redundancy does not create additional logical information, so its thermodynamic meaning has remained unclear. We show that it creates an exact work asymmetry between controllers with different access architectures. For a record cloud $F$ and a partition $\mathcal{P}$ into blocks that cannot be jointly controlled, the reversible isothermal erasure penalty relative to a global controller is $k_{\mathrm{B}}T$ times the partition total correlation. If the source event $X$ is supplied as catalytic classical side information, subtracting the corresponding penalty gives the source-loss law $\mathcal{F}_{\mathcal{P}}^{T}=k_{\mathrm{B}}T\left[\sum_{B\in\mathcal{P}}I(X{:}F_B)-I(X{:}F)\right]$. We call this the thermodynamic factuality charge. It ranges from $-k_{\mathrm{B}}T H(X)$ for perfect secret sharing to $(|\mathcal{P}|-1)k_{\mathrm{B}}T H(X)$ for perfect broadcast objectivity. Its normalized form defines a thermodynamic record number between $0$ and $|\mathcal{P}|$. We derive Landauer–Darwin bounds, endpoint-rigidity certificates, exact growth and partition-refinement laws, spectrum-broadcast saturation, and closed formulas for noisy classical and quantum collision models. The theory does not modify quantum mechanics or posit objective collapse; it identifies the thermodynamic resource generated by redundant records under restricted control.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from physics.optics

Transverse quantum-state characterization of programmable electron optics

Programmable electron optics – electronically controlled phase plates – underpin proposals from dose-efficient phase imaging to shaped-electron X-ray sources, nearly all assuming a pure, fully coherent delivered wave whose purity has never been measured. Here we reconstruct the transverse density matrix of a microelectromechanical electrostatic spiral phase plate by mixed-state ptychography, from one four-dimensional STEM scan per state and without added hardware. The delivered beam is substantially mixed: its purity falls from approximately 0.47 to approximately 0.24 as the applied bias grows, inconsistent with a fixed lateral source-blur model, while the real-space coherence width stays near 1 nm. The same scans calibrate the device in situ, allow virtual orbital-angular-momentum sorting and, through a partial-coherence-aware transfer theory, indicate that purifying the output could improve dose efficiency roughly threefold. One acquisition thus becomes a quantum-state acceptance test for programmable electron optics, supplying the purity and coherence that emerging phase-plate and diffractive-imaging schemes assume but leave unquantified.
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All authors Shengbo You, Paolo Rosi, Enzo Rotunno, Alberto Roncaglia, Luca Belsito, Amir H. Tavabi, Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski, Vincenzo Grillo, Philipp M. Pelz

Quantum Physics

Finite Quantum Histories: Holonomy Spectra, Minimal Clocks, and Exact Clock-Change Covariance

We solve cyclic finite-dimensional quantum histories for arbitrary time-dependent unitary steps, without assuming that one step has finite order. The propagation Hamiltonian is a unitary connection Laplacian on a cycle; its complete gauge invariant is the monodromy $M=U_{L-1}\cdots U_0$. Its spectrum is $\lambda_{a,k}=1-\cos((2\pi k-\theta_a)/L)$, where $e^{i\theta_a}\in\mathrm{spec}(M)$. Thus the exact history sector is isomorphic to $\mathrm{Fix}(M)$, while frustration, the gap above a nonempty zero-energy sector, the determinant, and the finite-temperature trace are obtained in closed form. Ordinary spectral data recover the multiset of monodromy phase cosines but not phase orientation; low energy certifies proximity to an exact relational history. We then define the predictive quotient of a sharp finite clock relative to an accessible operator system as the unique coarsest event alphabet preserving all conditional statistics on a history sector. A finite-error theorem shows that threshold clustering recovers this quotient when the minimum diamond separation of inequivalent event channels exceeds four times the estimation error, and proves an optimal record-count bound. With full matrix access and homogeneous step $U$, the minimal number of clock events is the projective order of $U$. We distinguish the normalizer of the clock algebra from transformations preserving the coherent history code and classify oriented exact sharp clock changes by $U(r)\times\mathbb{Z}_L$ on a rank-$r$ history sector; without orientation the cyclic factor becomes dihedral. Reversible changes of full-information clock fibers are necessarily unitary, so irreversible coarse-graining is not exact clock covariance. Minimal realizations of a complete history Gram kernel are uniquely unitarily equivalent, with a finite-data Procrustes bound. Independent finite-matrix code verifies the main results.
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Quantum Physics

Online learning of quantum states under structure

Quantum state tomography is fundamental to quantum information processing but becomes infeasible at scale due to the exponential growth of the state space. Shadow tomography alleviates this challenge by focusing on predicting measurement outcomes rather than reconstructing the full state. Its online variant models adaptive and potentially adversarial measurement scenarios, where a learner sequentially predicts outcomes while competing with the best fixed quantum state in hindsight. We show that exploiting additional structure in the measurements leads to significantly stronger regret guarantees. In particular, under the assumption that the adversarial measurements have bounded Frobenius norm, we analyze online mirror descent and derive optimal regret bounds that depend on intrinsic structural properties, such as rank or sparsity in the standard basis, rather than the dimension of the measurement operators. As a complementary result, we also show that, even in the setting where adversarial measurements are known to be sparse in the Pauli basis commonly used in variational quantum eigensolvers and near-term quantum error mitigation, the underlying regret bound for learning quantum states is the same as that obtained in the generic setting, where the adversarial measurements are not known to possess any particular structure.
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Quantum Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.stat-mech

Entanglement Scaling and Full Counting Statistics in Excited States of Two-Dimensional Rotating Fermions

We investigate the entanglement entropy of a class of $N$-particle excited state of fermions confined in a two-dimensional harmonic trap rotating at an angular frequency $\Omega$. The excited state is constructed by filling a particular set of $N$ single-particle energy levels. We analytically compute the Rényi entropies of order $q$ in a disc of radius $r$ around the centre of the trap, and the cumulants corresponding to number fluctuations of fermions within the disc. We found that the area law scaling of entanglement entropy holds even for a class of excited states. We also verified the well-known series expansion of entanglement entropy in terms of the particle number cumulants for non-interacting fermions. We further derive the centered cumulant generating function, demonstrating that the associated probability distribution function in the disc has identical scaling properties, up to a variable shift, to the known ground-state result. Finally, we extend our result to an annular region, showing that both the Rényi entropy and particle number cumulants of the annulus decompose into sums of the corresponding quantities of the two bounding discs. These additive relations hold as long as the width of the annulus is sufficiently large.
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All authors Priyangshu Goswami, Abhishek Dhar, Satya N. Majumdar, Anupam Kundu

Quantum Physics

Beyond transversality: structure of Clifford circuits for CSS codes

We characterize four groups of Clifford circuits for Calderbank–Shor–Steane (CSS) codes that are relevant to fault-tolerant logical operations. First, we show that every code-preserving Clifford circuit is a product of Z-diagonal circuits, composed of S and CZ gates, and their X-basis analogues. Second, we define the two-fold transversal group, generated by depth-one two-local code-preserving circuits, and show that each of its elements can be expressed as a product of layers consisting of either Z-diagonal, X-diagonal, or CNOT gates. As a corollary, every transversal gate is a product of three transversal diagonal circuits; for connected non-self-dual codes, two such circuits suffice. We further show that every code-preserving automorphism circuit, consisting of single-qubit Clifford gates and permutations, has a normal form comprising a Hadamard layer, a permutation, and two diagonal circuits. We also define a two-fold automorphism group, in which a depth-one two-local circuit may be code-preserving up to a permutation, and show that its logical image can be larger than that of the two-fold transversal group. For 231 CSS codes, we provide explicit generators and determine the logical image of the two-fold transversal group. We tabulate 173 codes whose full logical Clifford group is generated by two-fold-transversal circuits, including codes of distances 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 13, with respective best rates 2/5, 3/4, 34/77, 17/28, 14/25, 1/27, 3/56, and 1/33. We construct families of CSS codes from bipartite grids, cut-complements, and quadrics, and census the self-dual codes invariant under rank-3 permutation groups. Many of these codes realize the full logical Clifford group in this way.
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Quantum Physics

Provably Efficient Self-Calibrating Quantum Fault Tolerance

Quantum error correction protects logical information only when every physical operation remains below the fault-tolerance threshold, a condition that must be maintained continuously rather than only at the initial calibration. In practice, however, analog control parameters inevitably drift because of environmental fluctuations. As future fault-tolerant quantum computations are expected to run for days or even months, interrupting computation for repeated recalibration becomes fundamentally impractical. A promising alternative is to integrate calibration directly into computation by repurposing syndrome measurements as a calibration signal (Sivak et al, Nature 2026), but whether such self-calibration can be achieved with provable efficiency remains an open question. Here we establish a theoretical framework for such self-calibrating quantum fault tolerance. We prove that, for a broad class of control-induced errors, the detection rate defines a locally strongly convex surrogate objective for analog calibration with high probability. This geometric property enables a simple and efficient online optimization algorithm using only syndrome measurements collected during normal error correction. We prove convergence to an $\varepsilon$ detection rate within $O(1/\varepsilon^2)$ epochs for time-independent drifts and also establish guarantees for time-dependent drifts. We further show that the convergence rate is independent of the code distance for quantum low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. Pulse-level simulations of neutral-atom arrays and large-scale circuit-level Clifford simulations confirm these theoretical predictions. Our results establish self-calibrating fault tolerance as a provably efficient paradigm in which the same syndrome measurements simultaneously protect logical information and stabilize the underlying hardware.
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