Papers

Let $$X_n=\sum_{i=1}^s t_i A_i^{\otimes n},$$ where $A_1,\ldots,A_s\in M_d(\mathbb C)$ and $t_1,\ldots,t_s\in\mathbb C$ are fixed, while $n$ grows. Direct computation of determinants or Schatten norms of $X_n$ is exponential in $n$. For a single tensor power these quantities are elementary, and even the determinant of a generic two-term combination admits a reduction to polynomially many scalar factors; however, no analogous elementary reduction is available for three or more terms. We give an exact representation-theoretic method which, for fixed $d$ and $s$, computes $\|X_n\|_p$, $0<p<\infty$, and determinants in polynomial time in $n$. Schur–Weyl duality yields a simultaneous block decomposition, while Jacobi–Trudi identities in the Grothendieck ring replace Schur modules by signed combinations of tensor products of symmetric powers. For $d=3$, each irreducible contribution reduces to the difference of two explicitly computable symmetric-power terms, leading to an open-source implementation. In a single-thread CPU benchmark, a genuine three-term $3\times3$ trace-norm problem with $n=18$ is evaluated in about $47$ seconds, whereas just storing the unreduced matrix would require approximately $2.4\times10^{18}$ bytes. Direct and reduced computations agree to relative error below $3.4\times10^{-15}$ throughout their common range $n\leq9$.

We clarify the meaning of a probabilistic no-signalling strategy in Ref [Proc. R. Soc. A 481, 20240601]. For every fixed input, the deterministic strategy constructed using the Axiom of Choice can indeed be represented by a Dirac probability distribution over the outputs. The relevant distinction arises when one considers the complete process from input to output, with the input itself sampled according to a probability distribution. In this case, the input and output spaces must be measurable and the dependence of the conditional output distribution on the input must also be measurable. Equivalently, the conditional distributions must form a Markov kernel. The Axiom-of-Choice strategy fails precisely this measurability requirement.

Quantum technologies may revolutionize optical interferometry through new means to distribute and preserve electric-field amplitude and phase correlations between widely separated telescopes. After reviewing existing techniques, I survey proposed quantum-sensing and quantum-networking applications and highlight recent laboratory demonstrations of key building blocks. By easing field-transport demands for baselines beyond $\sim$1 km, quantum-enhanced interferometry could enable sub-milliarcsecond imaging and microarcsecond-class differential astrometry. That said, "going quantum" is not a magic shortcut to sensitivity because many of the most compelling science cases remain photon- and turbulence-limited. I therefore emphasize the practical constraints – loss, bandwidth, coherence time, synchronization, and wavelength limits of quantum interfaces – that must also be overcome to make these capabilities useful for astronomy, whether deployed on the ground or from space.

Floquet driving uses periodic controls to tailor the behavior of quantum systems, with applications in quantum analogue simulation, sensing, and the protection of quantum information. Most approaches are designed using idealized, instantaneous pulses, even though experiments necessarily use pulses with finite duration and shape. This mismatch becomes especially challenging for interacting $d$-level systems, or qudits, because the number of possible controls grows rapidly with the number of levels. We develop a strong-drive Floquet theory that incorporates experimentally realizable pulse waveforms directly into the design of the effective interactions. The pulse duration, amplitude, and shape therefore become useful control parameters rather than sources of error. We show that systems with more than two levels offer capabilities unavailable in qubit systems: finite-duration driving can create new interactions that are absent from the original system and can substantially change its symmetries. We demonstrate these capabilities for interacting three-level systems. A single pulse transforms a diagonal interaction into a quantum spin-1 model dominated by nematic interactions, while pulse protocols motivated by trapped ultracold polar molecules produce models with enlarged $SU(2)\times U(1)$ and $SU(3)$ symmetries. Numerical tests of both short-time evolution and many-body dynamics confirm the accuracy of the resulting description. Our results provide a scalable analytical framework for designing finite-duration controls in interacting qudit platforms.

Our main claim is that Bohr adopted a principle-theoretic approach to quantum mechanics in order to reconcile two principles: the distinction principle, which asserts the necessity of a clear epistemic distinction between a classical apparatus and a quantum system, and the non-separability principle, which asserts that the two systems are ontologically non-separable in any measurement process. The latter principle is a consequence of Bohr's argument that, during a measurement interaction, the quantum system and the measurement apparatus form a 'new kind of individuality'. To support our argument, we first demonstrate the overlooked fact that, according to Bohr, the measurement interaction is a physical, irreversible process and not merely an epistemic acquisition of new information. In this respect, quantum mechanics must be regarded not only as a universal theory, but also as revealing no non-arbitrary difference between a quantum realm and a classical realm; the distinction is purely pragmatic. The tension between the epistemic necessity to rely on a neatly distinguishable classical realm and the ontic non-separability of the quantum system and the classical apparatus inclined Bohr to refuse to provide a constructive account of the measurement process, such as that later proposed, for instance, by spontaneous dynamical reduction models.

A quantum system of any fixed dimension can be prepared in a continuum of states, yet it cannot be used to transmit an unlimited amount of classical information. Similarly, the correlations observed between measurement outcomes on separate parts of a shared quantum system can be stronger than classical correlations, but they cannot transmit information. These fundamental limitations suggest that the statistics observed from quantum communication and quantum correlations may admit a simulation using a finite amount of classical communication. This expectation is confirmed in the smallest nontrivial quantum dimension, with two classical bits being necessary and sufficient to exactly simulate qubit communication and all correlations between qubits. Despite significant efforts during the previous decades, this remained the only solved case. Here we resolve both problems for every quantum dimension. The solution reveals an unexpected qualitative transition starting at dimension four: no finite amount of classical communication can exactly simulate ququart communication nor all quantum correlations of two entangled ququarts, even with unlimited shared randomness. One might have expected this transition, if it existed, to appear already for qutrits. Instead, we construct an explicit protocol that exactly simulates qutrit communication using $357$ classical bits, and consequently, all correlations of two entangled qutrits.

The entangled states of composite quantum systems are well studied. The particle-like nature of these systems also means that, while entangled, they can be physically separated and measurements performed on the separated subsystems. Measurements on the separated subsystems A and B should pertain to vectors in the local Hilbert space of each subsystem, but to date it has not been clear how to elucidate the relevant states of the separated subsystems because it is not obvious how to resolve them from states given in the tensor product basis, except for the separable states. Here it is shown that the projections of any general entangled state that are detected by measurements on the separated subsystems can be obtained considering the corresponding (cosets of) states in the free vector space from which the tensor product space is defined. The result eliminates the need to invoke random collapse, and from this perspective nonlocality arises because of the way measurements on each separated subsystem projects possible measurement outcomes.

Photonic chips with silicon nitride ($\mathrm{Si_3N_4}$) microring resonators are well established as heralded single-photon sources, but their operation as frequency-degenerate twin-photon sources has not previously been demonstrated. Here, we realise a twin-photon source at telecommunication wavelengths in a $\mathrm{Si_3N_4}$ ring microresonator via an inverse four-wave mixing (FWM) process, in which two photons from spectrally distinct pumps are converted into a pair of identical twin photons. The measurements show a maximum coincidence-to-accidental ratio (CAR) of $5.4\pm0.6$. In addition, the microresonator functions as a heralded single-photon source through pump-degenerate spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM), exhibiting a spectral purity of $P=0.67\pm0.05$ and a heralded anti-bunching of $g^{(2)}_h(0)=0.0042\pm0.0015$. Together, these results demonstrate both photon-generation schemes on a single integrated $\mathrm{Si_3N_4}$ platform, highlighting its potential for scalable, tailored quantum light generation.

Parameterised graph theory studies how the complexity of graph-theoretic problems depends on structural parameters of the input graph. This perspective has proved useful in analysing tensor-network simulation (Markov and Shi, 2008). Its implications for tensor-network representations and tomography are less well understood. In particular, which graph parameters determine whether a tensor-network state (TNS) admits a tractable matrix product state (MPS) or tree tensor network (TTN) representation, and which control the complexity of learning the state? We address these questions using parameterised graph theory. First, we show that cutwidth and tree-cutwidth bound the bond dimension overhead required to represent a TNS as an MPS or TTN. In the TTN case, tree-cutwidth also bounds the local dimension of the grouped subsystems. The proofs are based on entanglement rerouting, a tensor-network analogue of rerouting information in a classical network. Second, we derive graph-dependent upper bounds on the sample and computational complexity of realisable TNS tomography, with exponents that depend on cutwidth, tree-cutwidth, and a new graph parameter, learning complexity, which we bound in terms of degree and treewidth. We obtain these results by extending the disentangling MPS learner of (Cramer et al., 2010), as analysed further in (Bakshi et al., 2025; Lin et al., 2025), to TTNs and to tensor networks on arbitrary known graphs. Finally, we extend the framework beyond the realisable setting. For an arbitrary input state, our agnostic learner outputs a pure state whose fidelity is within additive error $\epsilon$ of the optimum over tensor-network states on the given graph with a given bond dimension, with explicit graph-dependent bounds on sample and computational complexity.

Exact CNOT synthesis seeks a minimum-size circuit implementing a given invertible binary linear transformation. We study its vanilla formulation: synthesis from the identity on fixed labeled qubits, without ancillas and with all-to-all connectivity. We prove that this problem is NP-hard and that its bounded decision version is NP-complete. Hardness persists even for unitriangular targets that are low-rank perturbations of the identity and under near-linear gate budgets. Our proof gives a polynomial-time reduction from the NP-complete Hamiltonian path problem on grid graphs. A unary hypercube embedding translates graph vertices into circuit parities and edge traversals into CNOT updates. The central challenge is that Hamiltonian paths require intermediate vertex visits, whereas exact synthesis constrains only the final transformation. We bridge this gap with a replicated recorder qubits construction that encodes the required parities in the final outputs, together with a tight gate budget that forces every sufficiently short implementation to trace a Hamiltonian path. Crucially, this path structure is enforced by the construction rather than imposed as a restriction on the circuit. The result directly implies NP-hardness for shortest word problem and Cayley-graph distance computation over $\mathrm{GL}(n,2)$ with elementary transvections as generators, as well as fixed-width sequential XOR program minimization. For CNOT-minimal exact phase polynomial synthesis, it yields NP-hardness with a zero phase polynomial; extending the reduction to grid-graph Hamiltonian cycle problem establishes hardness even when the final linear transformation is the identity. These complementary results show that the linear and phase components each independently suffice for NP-hardness of exact phase polynomial synthesis.

In his seminal paper, Bell [Physics Physique Fizika 1, 195 (1964)] considers the correlations that result from space-like separated measurements on a pair of entangled particles. He uses relativity theory to motivate the Bell causal structure, then shows the existence of quantum correlations that cannot be explained classically within this causal structure. Classical explanations of such quantum correlations are possible in alternative causal structures, for instance, those that allow superluminal causal influences, but, as shown in [New Journal of Physics 17 033002 (2015)], all such alternative explanations require fine tuning (causation without correlation). Here we discuss the existence of spurious quantum correlations — correlations that look quantum in one causal structure, but have a natural classical explanation in another. More precisely, there are causal structures that admit non-classical quantum correlations, but for which the same correlations have a classical explanation in another causal structure without fine tuning. The realisation in the other causal structure can also be achieved without breaking any natural constraints on the causal structure that follow from relativity theory. However, similarly to non-classical quantum correlations in the Bell causal structure, we find other causal structures with non-classical quantum correlations that do not have a classical causal explanation in any alternative causal structure without fine tuning.

Coherent interfaces between optical photons and mechanical excitations provide a promising route towards phonon-state engineering and hybrid quantum information processing. Cavity optomechanical systems enable such interfaces via optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT), allowing coherent mapping between traveling optical fields and localized mechanical modes. However, previous implementations of OMIT conversion protocols were limited to classical input signals with large coherent state photon numbers due to room temperature operation and corresponding thermal mechanical noise. Here, we demonstrate efficient low-noise photon-phonon state transfer close to the single-quantum regime in an optomechanical crystal operated at Millikelvin temperatures. Using weak coherent optical input pulses at the few-photon level, we achieve a record-level photon-phonon conversion efficiency of $\eta=0.76$, a mechanical storage lifetime of $T_\mathrm{1}=7.3~\mu s$, and a tunable conversion bandwidth exceeding 4.5 MHz. Hanbury Brown-Twiss measurements of the retrieved signal demonstrate the coherent nature of the converted phononic state, evidencing low added thermal noise in the conversion process ($n_\mathrm{th}=9.0$). These results establish optomechanical crystals as efficient optical interfaces to GHz mechanical modes and provide a pathway toward deterministic single-quantum-level mechanical state preparation.

Quantum benchmarks provide compact measures of performance that are important for evaluating and comparing quantum systems. Circuit-level benchmarks are particularly valuable because they capture the accumulated effects of noise across interacting operations, but existing approaches may require structured gate sets and costly compilation, classical simulation of reference outputs, or subsystem decompositions that do not capture full-register behavior. We introduce Error Per Circuit Layer (EPCL), an overlap-based circuit-level benchmark that estimates an effective layer polarization by applying identical random circuits to two disjoint quantum registers and measuring the overlap between their output states as a function of circuit depth. EPCL avoids classical simulation of ideal output distributions and recovery to a known reference state, and is compatible with arbitrary gate sets, including non-Clifford gates. We derive the expected overlap decay under an ensemble-averaged depolarizing model and identify the assumptions under which the fitted decay parameter represents an effective layer polarization. Numerical simulations show that EPCL recovers the predicted polarization under weak local stochastic noise and remains well described by a single-exponential decay at stronger stochastic noise levels. The simulations further show that coherent errors associated with fixed entangling layers may require Pauli twirling or randomized compiling to produce the expected decay, while inter-register correlations contribute an additional covariance term to the measured overlap. Finally, experiments on IBM quantum hardware demonstrate clear EPCL decay in 8- and 16-qubit implementations. These results support EPCL as a method for measuring aggregate register performance without requiring classical simulation of ideal circuit outputs or restriction to structured gate sets.

Quantum thermalization explains how an isolated many-body system naturally evolves towards a thermal state, rendering information about the initial conditions inaccessible to local measurements. This is precisely the mechanism utilized in quantum error correction, where information is protected by design through a nonlocal encoding. In this work, we leverage this connection to port the rigorous framework of (approximate) quantum error correction to the study of quantum thermalization. Treating typical late-time states as codewords, we characterize the error-correcting properties of generic thermalizing dynamics. We numerically uncover a universal relationship between the encoding rate, distance, and thermal entropy density of the emergent code. At infinite temperature, this universal curve saturates the quantum Singleton bound, achieving the same optimal limit as Haar-random codes. At finite temperature, we introduce a code family based on the Scrooge ensemble, the natural thermal analogue of the Haar ensemble, and prove it saturates the entropic quantum Singleton bound, establishing this family as optimal within entropic constraints. Our extracted universal curve independently saturates this same bound, revealing that finite-temperature thermalization is itself optimal. Finally, we show how conserved quantities limit the error-correcting behavior of thermalization: codewords with differing energies, or other conserved charges, leak only classical information, and correctability persists until the difference reaches the scale of thermal fluctuations. Our results reveal a universal optimal coding structure in thermalizing dynamics, while introducing new optimal codes that achieve fundamental limits of approximate quantum error correction.

Non-local magic quantifies the non-stabilizerness of a bipartite quantum state that cannot be removed by local unitary transformations. Despite its natural definition, its evaluation generally requires a difficult optimization over local unitaries. Here, we show that for the log-stabilizer fidelity this optimization admits an exact closed-form analytic solution depending only on the Schmidt spectrum. We then introduce the magic of purification, defined as the minimum pure-state magic over all purifications of a mixed state, and show that it naturally induces a resource theory whose free states are normalized stabilizer-code projectors. For the log-stabilizer fidelity, the magic of purification admits a distance-based formulation in terms of the Uhlmann fidelity. Remarkably, we prove that non-local magic coincides with the minimum magic of purification along the unitary orbit of the reduced density operator. Our results provide both an efficient analytical characterization and a mixed-state resource-theoretic interpretation of non-local magic.

Open-system lattice gauge theory (LGT) has so far been developed predominantly in Abelian settings, leaving open how genuinely non-Abelian gauge structure reshapes dissipative real-time dynamics. Here, we study a $1+1$D SU(2) Yang–Mills LGT with dynamical matter coupled to a thermal scalar environment through a gauge-preserving Lindblad evolution, which we solve using tensor networks. Starting from a quark–antiquark pair connected by a chromoelectric flux string, we find that the thermal medium melts the string by delocalizing the color charges and screening the flux; on resonance, this dissipative melting competes with and delays coherent string breaking. The thermalization time is non-monotonic in the environment coupling, decreasing through environment-assisted transport at weak dissipation before increasing in a quantum-Zeno regime. In the strong-dephasing limit, a Schrieffer–Wolff expansion maps the dynamics to a classical exclusion process and yields the Liouvillian thermalization time analytically. Beyond these generic open-system effects, the non-Abelian matter structure produces a systematic mesonic bias in the steady state, while the thermalization time decreases with temperature, in contrast to the Abelian Schwinger model trend and in qualitative agreement with pNRQCD studies of the quark–gluon plasma. These results establish a gauge-preserving framework for thermalization and string dynamics in open non-Abelian lattice gauge theories.

Understanding real-time string dynamics in three spatial dimensions is essential for connecting quantum simulations of lattice gauge theories (LGTs) to the physical dimensionality of QED and QCD, where transverse fluctuations and competing local processes proliferate. We present the first real-time simulations of string breaking in $3+1$D lattice quantum electrodynamics. Using tree tensor networks, we simulate the quench dynamics of electric flux strings in a $3\!+\!1$D U(1) LGT with dynamical matter. At strong coupling, the string breaks resonantly at a sharp resonance condition of mass and gauge couplings, converting electric energy into matter–antimatter pairs that screen the static charges. Off resonance, we classify all competing channels—pair production, string deformations and extensions, and flux loops—whose multiplicity, extensive for pair production and flux loops, depletes the string sector even far from resonance. A channel-resolved perturbation theory quantitatively reproduces these dynamics and their Fourier spectrum. Our results establish diagnostics and benchmarks for upcoming quantum simulators of higher-dimensional LGTs.

It has long been assumed that a particle–having crossed a black hole event horizon unentangled with another particle in the exterior universe–can no longer dynamically entangle with that particle. Here, we first establish the possibility of post-crossing entanglement via an electromagnetic mediator. We then show within a gravitational time-delayed-potential model that entanglement can be created between freely falling spatial superpositions across an event horizon. Radial escape, however, triggers bremsstrahlung emission–imposing a dephasing bound that grows with entangling phase, $\Gamma > \frac{6}{11\pi}\Phi$, within a constrained leading-quadrupole model–and is ultimately ruled out by macroscopic which-path leakage. By contrast, equivalent macroscopic optical masses in principle allow local harvesting of entanglement tangentially, via quantum erasure, thus revealing a remarkable geometric duality: Spacetime irreversibly degrades entanglement under radial escape, while allowing the transverse teleportation of the entangled qubit to infinity, independent of Hawking evaporation.

We investigate the structures of effective Hamiltonians governing monitored dynamics of a one-dimensional Majorana chain through the Lyapunov spectral analysis. We focus on a gapless phase characterized by finite-size scalings different from those in conventional critical and/or frustration-free systems; the spectral gap closing faster than $1/L$ but slower than $1/L^2$ and the entanglement entropy growing as $[\ln(L)]^2$ with $L$ being the system size. We find that the corresponding effective Hamiltonians have random long-range power-law hoppings with nontrivial magnitude correlations, rather than being independently and identically distributed. To elucidate the role of these non-Gaussian correlations, we construct random power-law hopping models that capture the essential features of the effective Hamiltonians. The spectral gaps of the constructed models decay faster than $1/L$ but slower than $1/L^2$. We find that, in the absence of hopping correlations, the ground-state entanglement exhibits $\ln(L)$ scaling. In the presence of correlations, by contrast, the entanglement entropy is enhanced and its system-size dependence is consistent with $[\ln(L)]^2$ scaling over the system sizes studied. These results suggest that correlations among long-range hopping magnitudes are responsible for the entanglement scaling that seldom appears in ground states of conventional isolated quantum systems.

Quantum low-density parity-check (qLDPC) codes admit high encoding rates but require nonlocal entangling gates for syndrome measurement. Instead of physically moving the qubits which slows down with the increasing qubit number, here we propose to achieve parallel nonlocal entangling gates on a two-dimensional (2D) ion crystal using frequency-multiplexing. Adiabatic conditions ensure the suppression of gate infidelity and crosstalk error, as well as their robustness against slow drift in the trap frequency which is a leading error source in ion trap. We consider a numerical example of a $[[248,10,18]]$ bivariate bicycle code on a 2D crystal of 512 ions. By optimizing the mapping of the qubits and the assignment of the frequency bands for multiplexing, we show that a moderate laser power is sufficient for parallelism, and that a logical error rate of $10^{-12}$ can be achieved under realistic noise parameters.

We present an operator-decomposition architecture that mathematically maps a global operator into independently executable local operators, reducing the maximum quantum circuit depth at the cost of classical reconstruction and sampling overhead. By framing complex Quantum Circuits around an operator in a vector space that can be algebraically pre-decomposed, AOD complements quantum error correction and error-mitigation approaches by performing algebraic decomposition before quantum execution. Our approach leans in the computer science definition of a Monoid: a design pattern and mathematical concept consisting of a data type, a combining function that is associative, and a safe identity (neutral) element that does not change other values when combined. Simulation wise we define a MapReduce programming model where the addition (+) is the reducer, thus leveraging a naturally stable commutative monoid which carries zero "negative-probability tax" or phase conflicts. Furthermore, we define a Vector Space of Linear Operators over Additive Abelian Groups that benefit from this paradigm, including: Inner Products, Series expansions, Traces and Convolutions. Finally, we present the mathematical foundations and simulation results for this paradigm.

We study the short-time Loschmidt dynamics after a small sudden quench near a quantum critical point. We show that the initial quadratic growth of the Loschmidt rate function is governed by the variance of the quench operator per system size. For a local quench operator, this variance density is exactly equal to the spatial sum of the equal-time connected two-point correlation function in the initial ground state. This relation connects the early-time Loschmidt response to static critical correlations. Assuming power-law correlations at criticality, we classify the finite-size scaling of the short-time coefficient by the scaling dimension of the quench operator. In one dimension, the coefficient is finite, logarithmically enhanced, or algebraically enhanced with system size. We illustrate this operator dependence in the transverse-field Ising chain, where transverse-field and longitudinal-field quenches couple to different critical operators. We also discuss the first correction beyond the quadratic regime using the fourth cumulant of the post-quench Hamiltonian.

We investigate phase estimation in an SU(1,1) interferometer employing $m$-photon-added even and odd coherent states as nonclassical input resources. The phase sensitivity is evaluated through intensity detection and the error propagation method, while the ultimate precision limit is determined from the quantum Cramér-Rao bound with the quantum Fisher information serving as the relevant metrological quantity. Our results demonstrate that photon addition significantly enhances the phase sensitivity, increases the quantum Fisher information, and reduces the quantum Cramér-Rao bound, leading to a clear improvement over the corresponding even and odd coherent states. Furthermore, the achievable sensitivity exceeds the standard quantum limit and gradually approaches the Heisenberg scaling with increasing photon-addition number. We also find that the $m$-photon-added even coherent states exhibit a modest advantage over their odd counterparts. As $m$ increases, however, this distinction becomes progressively weaker, suggesting that photon addition diminishes the role of the initial parity of the coherent state in determining the interferometric performance.

We investigate limits of semigroups of stochastic matrices defined by their invariant distribution. Given probability vectors $\gamma(\beta)$ depending on a parameter $\beta$, we introduce a notion of convergence as $\beta\to\infty$ for the corresponding semigroups of $\gamma(\beta)$-preserving stochastic matrices and investigate the structure of the resulting limit. In general, the limiting semigroup differs from the semigroup preserving the limiting distribution, showing that these two operations do not commute. We develop a general framework for such limiting semigroups and study in detail the case in which the invariant distributions are Gibbs vectors at the inverse temperature $\beta$. We show that the limiting semigroup consists of block-upper-triangular stochastic matrices subject to additional substochasticity constraints. We characterise and enumerate their extremal elements and determine the preorder on probability vectors induced by the action of the semigroup. The resulting notion of Block-Triangular majorisation interpolates between ordinary majorisation and upper triangular (aka unordered) majorisation. We show that it is completely characterised by a finite family of monotones and analyse the corresponding behaviour of Rényi $\alpha$-entropies as $\beta\to\infty$.

A discrete time crystal is an out-of-equilibrium phase of matter characterized by the spontaneous breaking of discrete time-translation symmetry. Using extensive numerical simulations based on matrix-product-state methods, we provide evidence for discrete time-crystalline behavior in strongly disordered spin chains with Heisenberg interactions, including the isotropic point, subject to periodic driving. Starting from a many-body localized regime, we observe that rotations induced by delta kicks produce a pronounced subharmonic response at half the drive frequency in spin observables. We investigate the stability of this response against rotation-angle errors through entanglement entropy, quantum Fisher information, short-range spin correlations, and restricted-control ergotropy. Increasing the rotation error reveals an intermediate dynamical regime separating the time-crystalline and Floquet-localized responses. In this regime, most observables exhibit signatures of weakly correlated dynamics reminiscent of Anderson localization.

We study robust K-ary quantum-state discrimination when all candidate states are affected by the same unknown common unitary perturbation. The unknown perturbation does not represent the label to be identified, but acts as a nuisance factor that changes the performance of a fixed measurement. We formulate the problem as a minimax decision problem over the possible perturbations and propose using the Bayes-optimal collective measurement associated with a least favorable prior (LFP) on the nuisance-parameter space. For a finite discretization of this space, we show that the LFP can be computed by a semidefinite program and that the corresponding value coincides with the finite-grid minimax success probability. As numerical demonstrations, we consider a binary nonorthogonal qubit model and a nonorthogonal three-state qutrit model with an unknown common unitary perturbation. The LFP-based measurement substantially flattens the success-probability profile and improves the worst-case success probability compared with a reference-point optimal measurement and a uniform-prior Bayes measurement. The resulting LFP concentrates its weight on regions of the nuisance-parameter space that actively limit the robust discrimination performance, thereby providing both a constructive measurement design and a diagnostic description of the difficult nuisance-parameter regimes.

The fixed-ray escort integral representation expresses $\alpha$–$z$ Rényi divergence as an average over ordinary relative entropy of a family of escort states. Working in the standard UV-regulated density-matrix description of QFT subregions, we use this representation to derive an escort-averaged entanglement first law, an escort-averaged representation of the $\alpha$–$z$ information kernel, and an escort-averaged Bekenstein-type bound for ball-shaped regions in conformal field theories. For the conjectural $\alpha$–$z$ quantum null energy condition (QNEC), we obtain a quasi-local form in which the null energy is evaluated in an escort-averaged state and is corrected by an escort-transport term encoding the failure of escort formation to commute with restriction to a null-deformed region. The $z=\alpha$ specialization gives a similar quasi-local form of the Rényi QNEC for sandwiched Rényi divergence. We explicitly compute the Rényi QNEC, including the explicit escort transport term, for coherent-state excitations in a free scalar field theory. For the same coherent family, we obtain a positive $\alpha$–$z$ null Hessian, verifying the conjectured diagonal $\alpha$–$z$ QNEC for this family.

Strongly anisotropic non-Kramers rare-earth ions combine giant longitudinal g-factors with a vanishing transverse component imposed by time-reversal symmetry, a combination that makes their spin transitions exquisitely sensitive to the orientation of the applied magnetic field. We show that this sensitivity carries a dual identity: it is simultaneously an overlooked decoherence channel and the basis for a spin-coherence-based angular probe. Using pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance at X-band, we report the first measurements of the quantum coherence of Tb$^{3+}$ in a native-doped CaWO$_4$ crystal (15 ppb) and map the Hahn-echo coherence time $T_2$ as a function of temperature (2 to 10 K) and resonant field ($10^3$ to $10^4$ G). A parameter-free model combining spin-lattice relaxation, instantaneous diffusion and spectral diffusion from all independently quantified impurities overestimates $T_2$ by an order of magnitude at low temperature and wrongly predicts the field dependence of $T_2$, inconsistent with the observed monotonic decrease of $T_2$ with $B_r$. A two-parameter extension, including dynamical angular fluctuations of the crystal axis, reproduces the full dataset across multiple setups and laboratories. Two controlled experiments nominally identical except for different mechanical configuration of the setup establish the mechanical origin of the dominant contribution. The two-parameter extension corresponds to an angular amplitude noise spectral density of overall order 36 n{\deg}/$\sqrt{Hz}$ from global external vibrations (ranging from 10 to 66 n{\deg}/$\sqrt{Hz}$ depending on the exact setup mechanical configuration) estimated at $\sim$ 2.5 kHz plus a temperature-dependent contribution assumed to come from local phonon-driven angular jitter. It identifies and highlights a decoherence pathway of practical relevance to any anisotropic solid-state spin system.

We prove that, for an $n$-qubit system of dimension $d=2^n$, every state satisfying $\operatorname{Tr}(\rho^2)\le 1/(d-a_\ast)$, with $a_\ast=0.458327\cdots$, lies inside the stabilizer polytope and is therefore magic-free. Combining this result with general geometric properties of high-dimensional polytopes, we establish quantitative estimates for the Hilbert–Schmidt inradius and volume radius of the stabilizer polytope, and use them to characterize the typicality of magic in random induced states obtained by tracing out a $k$-dimensional subsystem from a $d\times k$-dimensional Haar-random pure state. We prove a sharp phase transition in the probability of such states having magic, whose transition dimension $k_\star$ is bounded between $\Omega(d^2/\log^2d)$ and $\mathcal{O}(d^2)$. We further prove that the number of facets of the stabilizer polytope lies between $\exp[\Omega(d^2/\log^2 d)]$ and $\exp[\mathcal{O}(d^2\log^2 d)]$ employing a result of Bourgain and Milman in convex geometry, substantially improving upon the previous quasipolynomial lower bound and implying that doubly-exponentially many linear inequalities in the number of qubits are required for an exact description of the magic-free region. Overall, our results reveal the near-extremal geometry of the stabilizer polytope and provide a quantitative foundation for understanding the typicality, robustness, and detectability of magic.

Maximum-likelihood decoding (MLD) achieves the minimum logical error rate of stabilizer codes under known i.i.d. Pauli noise, but its exact evaluation is \#P-hard. Practical pipelines therefore approximate MLD by minimum-weight decoding (MWD), retaining only the lowest-weight recovery per syndrome and discarding the coset degeneracy. The minimum-weight search is in turn implemented by stochastic solvers. We introduce approximate maximum-likelihood decoding (AMLD), a black-box framework that recycles the candidate samples discarded by stochastic inner decoders into a per-class truncated free-energy estimator. For every logical class represented in the candidate pool, the estimator is provably bounded below by the exact free energy and above by the empirical minimum weight. AMLD returns the logical class minimizing the estimated free energy with linear classical overhead. In SA-based Ising-decoder benchmarks, AMLD closes up to $83\%$ of the MWD–MLD threshold gap across the toric and color codes under bit-flip and depolarizing noise. The largest threshold improvement, from $17.28\%$ to $18.62\%$, occurs on the $6.6.6$ color code under depolarizing noise. We further demonstrate AMLD on the $[[144,12,12]]$ bivariate-bicycle code, whose bit-flip decoding problem has a hypergraph structure. This application requires neither matching-based enumeration nor code-specific tensor-network contraction. At $p=0.05$, AMLD reduces the logical error rate by $13\%$ relative to MWD evaluated on the same BP-OSD candidate pool.