Papers

Real-to-complex spectral transitions mark the onset of amplification in non-Hermitian systems, but their thresholds are often treated as model-specific quantities. Here we develop a general, non-perturbative activated-mode principle that governs the real-to-complex threshold across broad classes of non-Hermitian systems. A central insight is that only a small Hilbert subspace is “activated" at the transition onset, which can be variationally determined through the competition between spectral detuning and mode-level projected non-Hermitian couplings. The result is a closed-form exceptional-activation condition for arbitrarily large “disturbances", rather than a perturbative estimate. We apply our framework to three contrasting illustrative problems, establishing (i) a closed-form threshold for critical non-Hermitian skin amplification at all system sizes; (ii) a new link between impurity tunneling threshold and exceptional point switching; and (iii) activation channel switching without underlying topological phase transition. Overall, our findings recast real-to-complex transitions as generic mode-selection problems independent of any specific symmetry.

In this note, we study the stabilizer complexity of the reduced density matrix corresponding to one side of a partially entangled thermal (PET) state with fixed energy boundary conditions in a holographic CFT. In particular, we study Wigner negativity, an operationally meaningful magic monotone which can be interpreted as the complexity of classically simulating any quantum circuit preparation of the reduced state on the subregion. Using assumptions on the pseudorandomness of the CFT spectrum and the heavy operator insertion, we observe that the Wigner negativity of the PET state relative to the microcanonical density matrix at the given energy is given by $\exp\left[\frac{1}{8G_N}(A_{\text{out}} - A_{\text{min}})\right]$, where $A_{\text{out}}$ is the area of the outer extremal surface, while $A_{\text{min}}$ is the area of the minimal extremal surface. Thus, the stabilizer complexity of the reduced density matrix on the boundary subregion is $O(1)$ in the absence of a python's lunch, but gets exponentially enhanced in the presence of a python's lunch in the bulk geometry.

Despite its fundamental importance in the theory of strongly correlated electrons, the nature of the ground state of the two-dimensional doped Hubbard model remains intensely debated. Variational approaches provide a powerful route to this problem, but their conclusions can depend sensitively on the chosen wave-function parameterization, the mean-field initialization, or the pinning fields used to guide the optimization, as well as on boundary conditions. This can favor one type of symmetry breaking over another, making it difficult to distinguish the genuine interplay of intertwined or competing orders from biases induced by the variational parameterization. Here, we introduce the Symmetry-Preserving Backflow Pairing (SBP) ansatz, a neural-network wave function that respects translational symmetry by construction and thereby avoids these broken-symmetry minima. The SBP ansatz reaches state-of-the-art variational energies for the $t$-$t'$ Hubbard model on lattices up to $24\times24$ with $504$ electrons, below those of competing pure stripe solutions. By extrapolating to the thermodynamic limit, we find robust evidence for $d$-wave superconducting order, resolving a long-standing question about the $1/8$-doped model at $t'/t=-0.2$ and $U/t=8.0$. Built on general principles of symmetry and locality, the SBP wave function provides a broadly applicable variational representation for challenging interacting fermionic systems.

We develop a lattice characterization of fermionic 't Hooft anomalies of finite internal symmetries in one and two spatial dimensions, formulated in terms of obstructions to symmetric short-range-entangled (SRE) states. We consider lattice systems formed by tensor product of onsite fermionic and bosonic local degrees of freedom, and finite internal symmetry given by a central extension $\mathbb Z_2^F\to G_f\to G_b$. We extract a hierarchy of fermionic anomaly indices for a given symmetry operator in both (1+1)D and (2+1)D. In (1+1)D, an exact lattice symmetry is characterized by a pair of cohomological data $(n_2,\nu_3)$. For $G_f=G_b\times\mathbb Z_2^F$, we further show that a symmetry with trivial lattice anomaly indices $(n_2,\nu_3)$ is onsiteable and hence admits a symmetric SRE state, establishing that these indices faithfully detect the lattice anomaly. Comparing with continuum fermionic QFT, we find that exact lattice symmetries do not realize the additional $H^1(BG_b,\mathbb Z_2)$ anomaly layer in continuum QFT. In particular, for $G_b=\mathbb Z_2$, exact lattice symmetries realize only the even $\mathbb Z_4$ subgroup of the continuum $\mathbb Z_8$ classification. In (2+1)D, we identify three successive anomaly layers of cohomological data $(n_2,n_3,\nu_4)$. We show that a nontrivial value of any layer obstructs a symmetric SRE state. For $G_f=G_b\times\mathbb Z_2^F$, it also forbids a symmetric invertible state. We also construct a non-onsite $\mathbb Z_4^F$ lattice symmetry in (2+1)D with nontrivial lattice anomaly index that forbids any symmetric invertible states with $c_-\in\mathbb{Z}$, therefore forbids any invertible states compatible with onsite $\mathbb{Z}_4^F$ symmetry. Our results motivate a systematic study of which continuum anomalies admit exact microscopic lattice realizations.

Periodic driving can suppress the Josephson nonlinearity of a fluxonium superconducting circuit, producing a nearly harmonic Floquet spectrum at isolated freezing points [K. Lewellen et al., Newton 2, 100434 (2026)]. Here we show that this dynamically frozen behavior does not generically suppress quasiparticle-induced dissipation in the resulting frozonium circuit. We formulate quasiparticle processes in the frozonium using a Floquet framework and analyze both drive-assisted Cooper-pair breaking and tunneling of pre-existing quasiparticles. Pair generation is controlled by gap-breaking thresholds at high drive frequencies, while multiphoton resonances produce pronounced rate enhancements at lower frequencies. Quasiparticle tunneling exhibits connected resonance structures organized by the harmonic Floquet-Magnus spectrum near the freezing point, with resonant hybridization generating characteristic avoided crossings. Our results show that suitable operating regimes must balance dynamical freezing against quasiparticle loss and provide a framework for identifying experimental drive parameters away from harmful resonances.

We study a spin-$\frac12$ impurity coupled to the boundary of a strongly correlated spin-$s$ Takhtajan–Babujian chain, an integrable model whose low-energy physics is described by a perturbed $SU(2)_{2s}$ Wess–Zumino–Witten conformal field theory. While boundary conformal field theory determines the low-energy universality class of the weak-coupling regime, exact Bethe Ansatz methods reveal a sequence of boundary quantum phase transitions in which impurity-bound states emerge and reorganize the Hilbert space into multiple excitation towers built on distinct boundary configurations. This tower restructuring provides the organizing principle for a rich boundary phase diagram extending beyond the conventional Kondo regime. Weak antiferromagnetic coupling realizes the overscreened $2s$-channel Kondo universality class, whereas stronger couplings generate localized boundary modes and qualitatively new screening mechanisms. To describe the resulting thermodynamics, we develop a generalized thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz framework that captures the multi-tower structure across all regimes. The impurity entropy reproduces the boundary conformal field theory prediction in the overscreened Kondo regime but develops pronounced nonmonotonic temperature dependence once boundary-bound states appear, in quantitative agreement with large-scale finite-temperature matrix-product-operator simulations. Complementary dynamical calculations reveal sharp threshold features in the impurity spectral function that directly track the underlying tower structure. Together, boundary conformal field theory, exact Bethe Ansatz, generalized thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz, and tensor-network simulations provide a unified description of impurity screening, boundary-bound-state formation, and excitation-tower reconstruction in a correlated spin-$s$ chain.

Leakage beyond the computational subspace is a major source of error in multilevel quantum hardware. We show that any \( [[n,k,d]] \) stabilizer code can be embedded isometrically into a single \(D\)-dimensional system while preserving its complete error-correcting structure. We further derive a necessary and sufficient condition for exact leakage correction, proving that leakage is correctable precisely when it does not distinguish between logical states. These results establish a unified framework for quantum error correction in multilevel quantum systems.

The convergence of AI and quantum computing requires a new approach to cybersecurity. Credible experts estimate that by 2030 a cryptographically relevant quantum computer will be capable of breaking the encryption that underpins all of our digital communication. One of the most disruptive technology in history is coming and it's expected to change everything. In this context academic institutions will contribute to their states' future economic prosperity by leveraging their strengths and resources, particularly talent development, in key and emerging areas prioritized across the state. We report on current efforts to develop a Pathways Plus to Quantum Information Science (QIS) degree, a set of dual credit courses for high-school (HS) students and incoming college students pursuing a minor or specialization in Quantum Computing (QC). As of today, in the US, quantum topics appear on the HS curriculum standards in just two states: OH (Computing) and TX (Physics). Reaching out to HS and even middle school students (and their teachers) presents obvious long-term benefits in terms of workforce development for the quantum industrial ecosystem. Standing in the way of successful, widespread introduction of QC and QIS topics in HS and middle school are three distinct obstacles: (a) lack of materials at the right level for students and instructors, (b) funding and support for professional development for teachers, and (c) lack of state standards. In this paper we address all three aspects with a special focus on the benefits of quantum virtual labs and ZX calculus in the classroom.

We consider two two-dimensional (2D) electronic systems in the presence of a perpendicular homogeneous electric field that generates a Rashba spin-orbit interaction (RSOI): a system of non-interacting electrons in a 2D conductor, modeled using the 2D Schrödinger equation (SE), and a single-layer graphene system, modeled using a 2D Dirac equation (DE) for massless fermions. In both cases the RSOI is expressed via an $SU(2)$ Rashba vector potential ${\bf A}_{R}$. We demonstrate that ${\bf A}_{R}$ cannot be eliminated from either the 2D SE or the 2D DE via a gauge transformation. Nevertheless, for a plane wave solution, an $SU(2)$ matrix exists that eliminates ${\bf A}_{R}$ from the resulting 1D SE. This unitary matrix is an Aharonov-Casher (AC) phase factor, and facilitates the calculation of the AC phase in the Schrödinger scheme. The plane wave solution for the DE contains two components of ${\bf A}_{R}$: $A_{R, k}$ in the direction of the wave vector ${\bf k}$, and $A_{R, n}$ normal to ${\bf k}$. The latter generates an effective electron mass that cannot be eliminated from the DE. The former generates an AC phase that can be eliminated by a time-dependent unitary transformation. Thus, the Dirac AC phase is time-dependent, i.e., it is a dynamical phase. This is in contradistinction to the Schrödinger AC phase which is geometrical.

Entanglement is a defining feature of quantum mechanics, and its relation to quantum criticality is of considerable current interest. Here we show that measurable spin and charge fluctuations provide an entanglement witness of quantum criticality in the two-impurity Kondo model, which has experimental realizations in terms of coupled quantum dots and magnetic impurities added to surfaces. We use density-matrix renormalization group and numerical renormalization group calculations to resolve the non-Fermi-liquid critical point separating two independently Kondo-screened impurities from an inter-impurity singlet and interpret it as a change in the dominant entanglement partner of each local moment: from entanglement of the local moment with an extended set of conduction-electron degrees of freedom to entanglement with the other impurity. This reorganization is accompanied by a singular response of the impurity-bath entanglement and the inter-impurity susceptibility. We show how the same structure is encoded in the quantum Fisher information of collective spin and charge operators at zero and finite temperatures, connecting the entanglement picture to experimentally accessible dynamical response functions. Our results establish impurity systems as controlled settings in which quantum-critical entanglement can be detected through measurable correlations, and provide further insight into the possibility of understanding heavy-fermion physics in terms of entanglement.

We introduce a framework to classify quantum phases, phase transitions, and non-equilibrium dynamics of interfaces separating ordered bulk domains in 2D quantum magnets - equivalently, confining strings in dual lattice gauge theories - based on effective 1D Hamiltonians governing geometric fluctuations. Building on a "holographic" approach from [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 120601 (2022)], here reinterpreted as an exact bosonization, we uncover a rich quantum phase structure, with a variety of stiff and rough interface phases described by gapped and gapless 1D ground states, respectively, all distinguishable through the statistics of 2D wave-function snapshots. Our framework allows us to predict distinct spatiotemporal scaling laws for non-equilibrium curvature-driven interface dynamics across parameter space, which can be readily probed in existing experiments. We finally show that our approach enables the unprecedented experimental opportunity of directly measuring charge full counting statistics and symmetry-resolved properties of an encoded 1D system, as we explicitly demonstrate by numerically simulating a neutral-atom array experiment.

We construct phase transitions that proliferate condensable anyons in general 2+1d topological orders, including non-abelian ones. The central tool that provides a systematic approach to this question is the Symmetry Topological Field Theory (SymTFT). For a given topological order, we identify the relevant symmetry from the transparent lines generated by the condensable anyons, and thereby realize the topological order in terms of a 3+1d SymTFT sandwich. The proliferation phase transition is realized by coupling scalar fields to the anyons purely on the symmetry boundary of the SymTFT. We illustrate the construction for abelian theories, as well as non-abelian ones, $D(S_3)$ and $SU(2)_k$ Chern-Simons theories, and extend it to anomalous anyons.

We cast general imaging as multiparameter quantum estimation of band-limited spatial-frequency amplitudes. For separable (single-copy) measurements, we compute precision limits using semidefinite programming to evaluate the Nagaoka-Hayashi Cramér-Rao bound. We then introduce an architecture for a measurement apparatus based on diffractive optical neural networks and photon counting that saturates this bound. Extending the framework to arbitrary objects and many amplitudes, we show image reconstructions in which our architecture recovers fine features at the quantum limit, outperforming direct imaging. Together, these results open a scalable route to saturating multiparameter quantum limits in superresolution microscopy, telescopy, and remote sensing.

Quantum simulation is expected to be a main application of quantum computers with realistic utility in quantum chemistry, materials science and beyond. However, preparing excited or general eigenstates is a central challenge, particularly when the desired eigenvalue is not known in advance, or when the overlap with the initial state is insufficient. We introduce the Dominant Eigenstate Filtering via Eigenprobability Amplification and Thresholding (DEFEAT) algorithm that identifies and filters the eigenstate with the largest overlap with the supplied initial state. Our key observation is that we do not need prior knowledge of the target eigenvalue, as we construct efficient twirling superoperators that map initial states to eigenprobability density operators $\rho$, diagonal in the Hamiltonian eigenbasis and encoding its spectral weights, alongside its block-encoding implementation. Our crucial innovation is the quadratic amplification of probabilities via the factorisation $\rho=\rho_{\rm sqrt}^\dagger\rho_{\rm sqrt}$, analogous to the recently introduced sum-of-squares spectral amplification (SOSSA), which we use here to amplify the separation between dominant and subdominant components. Thresholding then yields the dominant-eigenstate projector. Compared with conventional phase estimation, DEFEAT improves the dependence on the overlap with the initial state while requiring substantially fewer ancillary qubits. We prove that the query complexity of the filtering step is optimal up to logarithmic factors and establish a complementary lower bound for eigenstate preparation under purified query access to $\rho$. We validate in numerical simulations that the convergence rate of DEFEAT matches our theoretical results. Our results provide a general eigenvalue-agnostic primitive for dominant eigenstate filtering and preparation, and for estimating properties of dominant eigenstates.

A theoretical unified interferometric framework is developed for interaction-free measurement (IFM) and delayed-choice (DC) experiments. The proposed model leads to a quantum circuit based architecture in which an ancillary qubit coherently controls the interaction between a photon and a bomb, allowing the system to evolve in a superposition of interaction and non-interaction regimes. The ancillary control qubit serves as a quantum switch that continuously interpolates between IFM and DC behavior, revealing a common operational origin for both phenomena. We demonstrate that both the phenomena can be realized within this framework through controlled quantum-gate operations. The analysis shows that the framework enables a continuous transition between the particle-like and wave-like behavior in DC setup. The framework is shown to be consistent with standard quantum mechanics, preserving unitary evolution, quantum superposition and the measurement postulate.

The output state of a 2D geometrically local shallow random quantum circuit does not have long range correlations due to its lightcone structure. But this changes if one measures a subset of the qubits: long-range entanglement can be induced by the measurement process, leading to conditional correlations between distant qubits. In this paper we investigate the structure of conditional dependence in these circuits and its consequences for quantum advantage. For a tripartition $ABC$ of the qubits, we consider the ensemble of post-measurement states on $A$ that is conditioned on a specific measurement outcome on $B$ and ranges over all possible measurement outcomes on $C$. For circuit depths exceeding a constant critical value $d^*$, we conjecture that this ensemble is well approximated by a certain generalization of the Haar ensemble, called the Scrooge ensemble~[Jozsa et al., \href{https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.49.668}{Phys. Rev. A 49, 668 (1994)}]; we also provide supporting numerical and analytical evidence. Our conjecture describes a precise sense in which the state retains its lightcone structure on the remaining unmeasured qubits, but also develops some globally random features arising from the measurement. A consequence is that $n$-qubit shallow random quantum circuits in two dimensions are classically efficiently simulable in the presence of a tiny depolarizing noise rate $\Omega(\log(n)/n)$.

Let $\mathcal{P}_{N}$ be the $(N+1)$-dimensional Hilbert space of analytic polynomials of degree at most $N$. This is the natural environment to define $SU(2)$ (Bloch) coherent states. Let $Q_{\rho }$ be the Husimi function of a density operator $\rho $ on $% \mathcal{P}_{N}$. We prove an isospectral version of Lieb-Solovej inequality: if $\rho ^{\downarrow }$ is obtained by placing the eigenvalues of $\rho $ in decreasing order along the monomial basis, then \begin{equation*} \int_{\mathbb{C}}\Phi (Q_{\rho }(z))\,dm(z)\leq \int_{\mathbb{C}}\Phi (Q_{\rho ^{\downarrow }}(z))\,dm(z) \end{equation*}% for every convex function $\Phi $ on $[0,1]$. Applying the corresponding reversed inequality to the concave function $\Phi (t)=-t\log t$ gives the Wehrl entropy. In the process it is show that the output state of $\rho $ under Lieb-Solovej's channel is majorized by the output of the state $\rho ^{\downarrow }$. As an application, among all measurable subsets of the sphere having a fixed area, spherical caps maximize every partial sum of the eigenvalues of Toeplitz operators with symbol $1_{\Omega}$. Equivalently, caps maximize all Ky Fan norms, leading to the sharp inequalities, previously known for $r=1$: \begin{equation*} \sum_{j=1}^{r}\lambda_{j}(\Omega) \leq r-\sum_{k=0}^{r-1}(r-k)\binom{N+1}{k} m(\Omega)^{k}\bigl(1-m(\Omega)\bigr)^{N+1-k}. \end{equation*} This implies isoperimetric inequalities for all Schatten sums of $T_{\Omega}$, obtained without using the spherical isoperimetric inequality.

Ryu-Takayanagi established how boundary entanglement encodes bulk area. We provide the metric counterpart: boundary mutual information imposes a rigorous lower bound on bulk geodesic separation that diverges logarithmically as correlations vanish. A multiscale iteration promotes this local inequality to a global obstruction to bulk connectivity. For parallel strips in AdS$_5$/CFT$_4$, the bound necessitates a quantum resolution of the classical mutual-information transition and fixes the asymptotic growth of geodesic distance.

Efficient integration of cryptanalytic evidence with quantum verification remains a fundamental challenge in hybrid classical-quantum cryptanalysis. This work presents a capability-adaptive cryptanalytic framework that unifies linear cryptanalysis, differential cryptanalysis, and side-channel leakage analysis within a common candidate-space reduction architecture, followed by reduced-space quantum verification through amplitude amplification. A formal mathematical model is developed for candidate-space construction, adaptive filtering, verification-space reduction, and complexity characterization, supported by the oretical results establishing the relationship between candidate-space contraction and quantum verification effort. A Hamiltonian formulation is further introduced to provide a physically realizable interpretation of the reduced-space verification process. Evaluation using statistically generated cryptanalytic observations demonstrates that the proposed framework reduces an initial candidate-key hypothesis space of 4096 candidates to an effective candidate space of 13 hypotheses, corresponding to an overall reduction of approximately 99.683%. Consequently, the Grover verification requirement decreases from 50 iterations to only 2 iterations, yielding an approximately 25-fold reduction in verification effort, while reduced-space amplitude amplification achieves a target-state success probability of approximately 94.53%. These results demonstrate that adaptive cryptanalytic filtering can substantially reduce quantum verification complexity while preserving cryptanalytic admissibility, providing a practical foundation for capability-aware hybrid cryptanalysis and reduced-space quantum search.

The frustrated Ising ring is one of the simplest models exhibiting exponential closing spectral gaps, making it a paradigmatic and challenging benchmark for quantum annealing (QA). Ground-state preparation for this model has therefore been studied extensively in both continuous-time QA and digitized protocols such as the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA). Here, we use the frustrated Ising ring to investigate how the parity mapping affects the performance of both QA and QAOA. For QA, finite-size calculations show that the parity mapping increases the minimum spectral gap under the energy normalization used in this work, thereby enabling faster continuous-time ground state preparation protocols. An ideal implementation of Parity-QA, with a single global constraint, shows no evidence of exponential gap closing over the accessible system sizes, whereas a hardware-motivated decomposition into local constraints restores the exponential decrease, albeit with a smaller fitted exponent than conventional QA. For the digitized protocol, we find that the number of Parity-QAOA layers required to prepare the exact ground state remains constant over the simulated sizes, improving upon the quadratic scaling required by conventional QAOA. To investigate the role of constraints in Parity-QAOA, we further consider a modified Ising ring instance in which the constraint term is essential for preparing the target ground state. We then compare the corresponding resource requirements with those of conventional QAOA.

Reliable quantum-state engineering in periodically driven devices requires more than reproducing their excitation spectrum: the environment must resolve the transitions of the driven system. We show that two dissipative descriptions of the same parametrically coupled qubits can yield closely similar period-averaged populations yet qualitatively different asymptotic entanglement. Both retain the complete periodically driven Hamiltonian, the same microscopic bath couplings, and the same physical observables; they differ in the dynamical representation used to resolve the dissipative channels and the corresponding system operators: the static dressed basis in the partial harmonic decomposition approach (PHDA) and the Floquet basis, including all relevant drive sidebands, in Floquet-Born-Markov (FBM) theory. The population maps preserve the same resonance skeleton and remain closely similar over broad low-to-moderate drive regions, while clearer differences emerge as the modulation becomes stronger. Phase-resolved single- and two-qubit coherence observables reveal a substantially stronger redistribution of amplitudes and phases. Concurrence amplifies this hidden state-level discrepancy: Floquet-resolved dissipation selects stronger and more extended Bell-like entangled regions and a larger overlap with a fixed Bell-like reference, while PHDA generally underestimates the entanglement and its thermal persistence. A channel-resolution test verifies the secular, completely positive FBM construction throughout the relevant parameter domain. Our results establish population agreement as an insufficient benchmark for open Floquet quantum-state engineering and identify coherence-sensitive observables as the decisive validation test.

Anyon condensation that describes the transition between topological quantum field theories can be formulated in the language of tensor categories or that of operator algebras. We deploy the formalism of Doplicher-Haag-Roberts bimodules over quasi-local $\mathrm{C}^{*}$-algebras recently developed in [1] to investigate anyon condensation, which is associated with an extension of a certain operator algebra. The connection between notions in the two formulations is thereby made manifest in an intuitive, diagrammatic manner. An entropic order parameter, as the quantum information-theoretic measure characterising a condensation, is naturally defined, and we give a very simple proof of a bound on it.

Exact entanglement distillation converts a noisy bipartite state into a maximally entangled state with zero error. Under completely PPT-preserving operations, the additive min-Rains relative entropy provides a single-letter upper bound on the regularized distillation rate. An interesting problem in entanglement theory dating back to 2016 has been whether this bound is always tight. Here we resolve this question in the negative. The key is a tensor-stable rigidity absent from the min-Rains relaxation: every feasible exact-distillation effect must act as the identity on the support of the input state. We convert this constraint into a new single-letter upper bound using a generally non-Hermitian, range-supported witness. For a rank-three subspace, we show this upper bound lies strictly below the min-Rains relative entropy for every state with that support. Thus, the constraint discarded by the min-Rains relaxation remains relevant under arbitrary tensor powers. Our result rules out the min-Rains relative entropy as a closed-form formula for exact PPT distillable entanglement and reveals the subtle asymptotic structure of exact entanglement manipulation under PPT operations.

Single organic molecules are a well-established platform for high-quality single-photon generation: they can emit lifetime-limited photons with high purity and indistinguishability. However, their emission is accompanied by a pronounced red-shifted phonon sideband and higher-order vibrational peaks, which reduce the fraction of photons emitted into the desired narrowband zero-phonon line. The standard approach to suppressing this unwanted emission is to integrate the emitter into a monolithic photonic nanostructure that provides Purcell enhancement. However, incorporating organic materials using clean-room techniques has proven challenging, and has in fact so far prevented their integration into monolithic microcavities altogether. As a result, efficient, narrowband organic single-photon sources for applications in quantum information processing have remained elusive despite their considerable promise. Here, we propose three monolithic microcavity designs tailored to provide sufficient Purcell enhancement for organic quantum emitters. The Purcell effect induced by these cavities preferentially enhances emission into the 0-0 zero-phonon line, increasing spectral purity, photon extraction, and shortening the excited-state lifetime, which in turn relaxes the requirements for generating indistinguishable photons. The cavities have been optimized using Bayesian optimization and the adaptive Antoulas-Anderson (AAA) algorithm for rational approximation, which offer global optimization and the efficient reconstruction of spectra from scattering simulations, respectively. These structures are compatible with both standard clean-room processing and single-molecule preparation techniques. Therefore, they offer a clear route to realize high-quality, practically monochromatic organic single-photon light sources.

It is known that Chebyshev based polynomial approximation gives a near-optimal rate of convergence for calculating a function of a Hermitian matrix. However, previous work has not discussed the option of true minimax approximation, nor the specifics of writing a high performance implementation with a rigorous analysis of errors. This work provides such an analysis and an open-source implementation of three approximation methods in C++.

The non-equilibrium properties of open quantum systems are determined by the microscopic laws governing energy exchange with their environment. In particular, an enhancement of the performance of quantum heat engines has been predicted by speeding up the dynamics through control of the system–bath interaction. However, direct microscopic control of heat transfer between the machine and the reservoir has remained elusive so far. Here, we experimentally demonstrate such control in a quantum Otto engine realized with ultracold Cs-133 atoms coupled to an atomic reservoir of ultracold Rb-87 atoms. Heat exchange between the two is mediated by inelastic s-wave collisions whose energy-dependent scattering cross sections lead to an asymmetric equilibration dynamics in the isochoric heating and cooling strokes. By tuning the kinetic temperature of the atomic reservoir, we modify the associated microscopic scattering rates, and thereby the heat transfer law, giving control over the time allocation within the engine cycle through control over the microscopic, multi-exponential relaxation dynamics. This enables power output optimization at fixed efficiency. Our results establish microscopic control of system-reservoir interactions as a tool for manipulating heat flow at the nanoscale and engineering the finite-time performance of quantum thermal machines.

Low-entropy arrays of atomic quantum systems in optical tweezers offer unique prospects for fundamental research on few- and many-body systems as well as for extended applications in quantum technology. The significance of this approach relies on the achievable system size, its uniformity, and the rate of qubit allocation. We propel the neutral-atom quantum-technology platform by the rapid assembly of a regular two-dimensional quantum register of up to 1024 atomic qubits, enabled by a novel implementation of intensity-homogenized tweezer arrays and parallelized atom transport. Our highly efficient microoptical architecture modularizes intensity equalization and tweezer patterning in separate functional units, eliminating restrictions that arise for high-power, high-resolution, and large-scale light-field control within a single device. Arrays of precise grid structure, trap depth, and vibrational frequency with more than 3500 sites are demonstrated. Individual sites are interconnected by up to 50 parallelized transport tweezers with intensity and position control in real-time for swift qubit relocation. Multi-tweezer transport enables the operation of target patterns of up to 32 x 32 sites with sustained near-unity filling fraction. These results boost neutral-atom quantum information science above the kiloqubit level.

The $n$-qubit Pauli group is an essential ingredient to most quantum applications, from computing and error correction to benchmarking and simulation. Despite comprising merely a discrete set of operators, it exhibits many quintessential features of quantum theory, including contextuality, which has been identified as a key resource to quantum advantage in a variety of different flavours. Here, we extend this analysis, introducing the notion of a `noncontextual property' whose nonexistence proves the Kochen-Specker theorem, similarly to and generalising common arguments based on the nonexistence of valuations. We relate this notion formally to the existence of Boolean-valued frame functions, and characterise all such frame functions in the case of the $n$-qubit Pauli group. For two qubits, we show that the Pauli group admits noncontextual properties, despite admitting no valuations. We then establish this as the only nontrivial such case with $n\geq 2$, by proving that any Boolean-valued frame function on stabiliser states is constant for more than two qubits. We also perform a similar analysis for the symplectic theory underlying the $n$-qubit Pauli group, for which nonconstant Boolean-valued frame functions exist for all $n$, yet only in restricted form. By comparison, this shows that contextuality in the $n$-qubit Pauli group is not only a consequence of the projective nature of the Pauli group as a representation of its underlying symplectic vector space, but of the geometry of symplectic polar spaces itself. In geometric terms, our result determines all Cameron-Liebler sets of maximal totally isotropic flats in the binary affine-symplectic space.

The continuous-time quantum walk on an oriented circulant graph is determined by the Fourier eigenvalues of its Hermitian adjacency matrix. We classify perfect state transfer (PST) between distinct vertices in every nonempty oriented circulant graph. We show that each such graph is described by an odd primitive quadratic Dirichlet character of conductor $\Delta$, a set of gcd-classes, and a choice between the two orientations of each selected class. For a graph of order $n$, we derive an explicit formula for every Fourier eigenvalue without assuming that $n/\Delta$ is coprime to $\Delta$. We prove that PST occurs only for $\Delta\in\{3,4,8\}$ and give necessary and sufficient conditions on the connection set for each conductor. Equivalently, the square-free radicands of oriented circulant graphs with PST are exactly $1$, $2$, and $3$. More generally, when $\lambda_j=\sqrt{D}\eta_j$ with $\eta_j\in\mathbb{Z}$, congruences satisfied by the integers $\eta_j$ determine all PST pairs and times, the minimum period, and the largest vertex sets supporting multiple state transfer (MST). In this class, pretty good state transfer is equivalent to PST. We also determine the connected orders and enumerate the resulting graphs.

Vortex electrons carry a quantized orbital angular momentum (OAM) degree of freedom, but whether this internal structure can survive repeated transport through an accelerator lattice remains unclear. Here we formulate a density-matrix theory for periodic round lattices and show that the symmetry-protected quantity is a Lewis-Floquet OAM invariant, rather than the instantaneous kinetic OAM. The classical transfer map lifts to unitary state evolution, while stochastic field errors generate a Lindblad channel. This framework exposes a sharp separation between visibility and state survival. Dipole jitter displaces the wavepacket, rapidly smearing a vortex signature measured about a fixed origin without altering its recentered internal OAM distribution. Quadrupole fluctuations instead drive genuine $\Delta\ell=\pm2$ leakage. For a matched $n=0$, $|\ell|=1$ mode, white-noise estimates based on representative IOTA and PETRA III parameters give fixed-frame smearing scales of $4.9\times10^2$ and $3.3$ turns, but intrinsic-leakage scales of $2.1\times10^5$ and $2.2\times10^6$ turns, respectively. Thus loss of an unrecentered vortex image need not signal destruction of the vortex state: its internal OAM structure can persist hundreds to hundreds of thousands of times longer. Centroid tracking and quadrupole stability are therefore distinct experimental requirements for observability and state survival, respectively.