Papers

Wigner negativity has been shown to be a resource in quantum computing, raising the question of how to efficiently produce states with a large Wigner negativity. Cubic Gaussian states, obtained when a cubic gate is applied to a Gaussian state, have been proposed as candidates for this purpose. We show that cubic Gaussian states with a large Wigner negativity $\mathcal N$ necessarily have a short decoherence time $\tau$ that is bounded above by $\mathcal N^{-2}$. In other words, a large Wigner negativity comes at a cost: the decoherence time $\tau$ of cubic Gaussian states decreases at least quadratically in the negativity $\mathcal N$. Maximizing $\tau$ at fixed Wigner negativity $\mathcal N$, we show that this upper bound is reached by optimal cubic Gaussian states. They have the property that for large negativity, the optimal squeezing scales as $\ln\mathcal N$ and the optimal cubicity as $\mathcal N^{-1}$. Optimal cubic Gaussian states with large negativity can therefore be constructed with small cubicity, provided sufficient squeezing is applied. However, their decoherence time decreases with growing negativity. In addition, we show that their preparation is extremely sensitive to thermal noise. Finally, we compare, for each integer $n$, the optimal cubic Gaussian state with the $n$th Fock state that has the same negativity: despite their pronounced differences in photon number distribution and Wigner function, we show that they have similar, be it slightly larger, decoherence times and entanglement generating potential through a beam splitter.

Many Quantum Field Theory models, either designed to improve the ultraviolet behavior via higher derivative terms or aimed at providing unified descriptions of Gravity, inevitably introduce negative-energy 'ghosts' states. These states raise fundamental questions regarding the stability of the theory. In this study, we investigate the time evolution of simplified quantum mechanical models consisting of two coupled normal and ghost subsystems. Although the full spectrum of these models is unbounded from below and, therefore, lacks a true ground state, we focus the time evolution of a 'would-be ground state': a zero-energy eigenstate of the decoupled system. By analyzing its metastability under interactions, we gain insights into the dynamics of ghost-like states. Contrary to the standard paradigm, our results demonstrate that, across a broad range of couplings, the would-be ground state does not decay and remains dynamically stable over long times. This provides evidence towards resolving the stability problems of Hamiltonians that are unbounded from below. We also discuss the connections with the corresponding classical and semiclassical dynamics.

We study continuous-time quantum walks on connected strongly regular graphs that are not complete, observed at a random time drawn from a freely chosen probability law. Uniform average mixing (UAM) asks for a law under which every averaged transition probability equals $1/n$, where $n$ is the number of vertices. On a strongly regular graph this is equivalent to two affine constraints on three cosine moments. We construct a bounded, compactly supported time density for every strongly regular graph with nonintegral eigenvalues. For integral spectra we give an exact finite Toeplitz criterion and its Hankel form. Every averaged mixing matrix of such a graph is realized by at most two observation times. Three elementary inequalities on the moment line, which also give a short proof of Chan's classification of complex Hadamard matrices in the Bose-Mesner algebra, lead to a determination of all strongly regular graphs that admit UAM. Apart from the conference graphs of nonsquare order and the graphs with instantaneous uniform mixing, these are the members of two infinite families of parameter sets and their complements, and for them we give explicit laws with two observation times. The Petersen graph and its complement are the smallest members. A strongly regular graph with UAM admits a bounded time density exactly when it has no instantaneous uniform mixing. We also correct the classification of instantaneous uniform mixing on strongly regular graphs by Godsil, Mullin and Roy. Its sign condition excludes the halved $5$-cube, which mixes uniformly at time $\pi/4$. With the order $4\theta^2$ read literally, its parity condition also excludes the Clebsch graph and includes the parameters $(36,14,4,6)$, for which no time law gives uniform average mixing.

The joint expectation values of quantum observables measured by two parties typically depend on the causal structure of the measurement protocol. The two causal structures we investigate here are the direct-cause scenario, in which a single quantum state is measured twice in series with a general quantum channel between measurements, and the common-cause scenario, in which a shared bipartite quantum state is measured in parallel. Through a variety of examples of qubit channels with tunable parameters, we identify the full set of input states where the direct-cause joint expectation values of Pauli observables coincide with those obtained from a common cause, a situation that we call causal confusion. More generally, for arbitrary finite-dimensional quantum systems and light-touch observables, we prove that a channel exhibits causal confusion for some input state if and only if it is a positive-partial-transpose (PPT) channel, thereby endowing PPT channels with a new operational meaning in terms of causal confusion. Using this result, we characterize the set of qubit channels for which there exists an input state leading to causal confusion as the set of entanglement-breaking channels.

We investigate how cotunneling affects passive-state ordering in a Photosystem II reaction center modelled as a nonequilibrium molecular junction. We use a full pigment excitation manifold, with excitonic and charge-transfer rates computed within a Nakajima-Zwanzig formalism using realistic spectral densities. Cotunneling is introduced through a microscopically constructed doubly reduced acceptor state obtained from relevant quinone-side two-electron configurations, while photoexcitation is allowed into the full excitonic manifold. Passive-state permutations are quantified through ergotropy and energetic capacitance. We find that thermodynamic smoothness in ergotropy and energetic capacitance can conceal microscopic state rearrangements. Cotunneling redistributes the extractable nonequilibrium energy among the quinone acceptor, the donor-pheophytin radical pair, and excitonic states with strong contributions from pigments on the inactive branch. At high Coulomb interaction, cotunneling produces no passive-state reordering. Piecewise-linear relations among ergotropy, energetic capacitance, and mean energy further reveal the population reorderings generated by cotunneling.

Dissipation is generally regarded as detrimental to nonclassical-state generation, yet whether it can determine which quantum resource is emitted from an open hybrid quantum system remains largely unexplored. Here, we show that the symmetry of bosonic dissipation channels can select and switch quantum-emission pathways in a tripartite Mollow system, where a strongly driven two-level emitter simultaneously couples to cavity photons and motional phonons. In the Mollow regime, higher-order tripartite interactions generate resonant photon-phonon pair excitations, whose emitted quantum states are subsequently selected by dissipation. Under symmetric dissipation, the system produces strongly correlated photon-phonon pairs, enabling both single-pair emission and correlated multipair bundles with pronounced nonclassical correlations. Breaking the dissipation symmetry progressively suppresses the hybrid correlations and dynamically decouples the photonic and phononic degrees of freedom. In the strongly asymmetric regime, long-lived phonons accumulate in highly excited Fock states, while rapidly leaking cavity photons are converted into high-purity single-photon and two-photon bundles. The crossover between these distinct emission regimes is characterized through time-resolved correlation functions, Fock-state distributions, and Wigner quasiprobability distributions. Our results establish dissipation symmetry as a resource for steering quantum emission between hybrid and purely photonic nonclassical states, providing a route toward programmable hybrid quantum emitters and dissipative quantum-state engineering.

Data reuploading—repeatedly encoding classical inputs at multiple layers of a parameterized quantum circuit—is a central mechanism for enhancing the expressivity of quantum neural networks (QNNs). Building on the Fourier-theoretic framework of Schuld et al.~\cite{schuld2021fourier}, we study the frequency spectrum of the general multivariate, $R$-reupload architecture (QDR). (i) We make explicit that the accessible frequencies form the set $K_R=S^{(R)}-S^{(R)}$, which equals the $R$-fold sumset $T^{(R)}$ of the difference set $T=S-S$ of the encoding spectrum, and we characterise it exactly: $K_R=\{k\in\mathcal L:\ \ell_T(k)\le R\}$, where $\mathcal L=\mathrm{span}_{\mathbb Z}(T)$ is an integer lattice and $\ell_T$ is word length in $T$. (ii) We show that the directions of the spectrum stabilise already at $R=1$ (the real span of $K_R$ equals that of $\mathcal L$), whereas the spectrum itself never saturates: the maximal frequency grows linearly in $R$ and the number of frequencies grows polynomially, as $\Theta(R^{m})$ with $m=\mathrm{rank}\,\mathcal L$. (iii) Using the spectrum size, we give a Rademacher-complexity bound on the capacity of QDRs of order $\sqrt{|K_R|/n}$. (iv) We report experiments on function approximation and classification with train/test splits, several seeds and parameter-matched classical baselines. The simulated spectra match the theory exactly. A single-qubit QDR beats a matched MLP on several smooth or periodic univariate targets and on the spiral task, but it is clearly worse on multivariate regression ($d\ge4$), where it is highly sensitive to the input-encoding scale; it beats the MLP only on equations with $d\le3$ inputs.

Which execution details must a quantum computation retain, and to what precision, to support a declared comparison? We define a sufficient record by the largest Hellinger distance between outcome laws that share it. Our main result is a circuit-derived certificate for continuous recording precision: independent channel-mixture probabilities enter through the affinity of latent noise flags, while coherent rotation differences enter through conditional quantum fidelity. Their joint composition bounds whole record cells without simulating their outcome distributions. For four-qubit QAOA at depth one, a 13-bit comparison record guarantees distance below 0.05 throughout a declared continuous noise box, uniformly over programmed angles when comparisons hold the logical task fixed. A construction with observable noise flags attains the general bound. Exact tensorization of Hellinger affinity connects recording precision to the length of a future measurement transcript. On finite context classes, separation witnesses certify minimum-cost field retention; a four-field record is the unique minimum for 28 archived QAOA instances. Fresh six-qubit processor measurements establish different minimum label counts at one common tolerance: two labels are necessary and sufficient for raw laws, while one suffices after a fixed decoder for a synthetic image-segmentation task. These hardware conclusions are conditional on stationary independent shots and remain distinct from the analytic channel certificate. Shared task definitions and evidential archives are retained separately. The framework specifies which execution distinctions matter, how precisely to record them, and what evidence supports the resulting agreement guarantee.

Normal-mode splitting reveals coherent cavity–magnon hybridization but does not certify finite-time quantum-state transfer. We describe quantum transfer in a passive, linear cavity–magnon system coupled to thermal reservoirs as a thermal-loss channel specified by its coherent transmissivity $\eta$ and output-referred thermal population $\nu$. For single-rail qubits, we calculate the phase-corrected average fidelity and compare it with the deterministic measure-and-prepare benchmark of $2/3$. A Bell pair shared by the cavity and an isolated reference retains reference–magnon entanglement if and only if $\eta>\nu$. An input squeezed vacuum of strength $r$ yields sub-vacuum magnon fluctuations if and only if $\nu<\eta(1-e^{-2r})/2$. When the initial magnon and both reservoirs have the same occupation, an analytically determined peak-transmissivity time optimizes all three tasks. These task-dependent benchmarks show that a conventional linewidth-based strong-coupling criterion does not guarantee quantum-transfer performance. Conversely, entanglement or squeezing can survive below that spectroscopic reference when the added noise is sufficiently low. These benchmarks provide quantitative targets for transfer timing and thermal-noise control in intracavity-to-magnon quantum interfaces.

Multipartite interactions provide a unique route to generate hybrid quantum states, yet their intrinsically weak nonlinear coupling limits the controllable manipulation of the resulting correlations. Here we show that cooperative double squeezing and cavity Kerr nonlinearity together enable controllable engineering of Kerr-filtered hybrid states in a tripartite spin-photon-phonon system. Double squeezing exponentially enhances the spin-mediated photon-phonon pair-generation channel, whereas the Kerr interaction selectively reshapes the photonic component while maintaining the underlying tripartite conversion process. This mechanism reconstructs the composition of the hybrid excitation and gives rise to a fourfold phase-space manifold associated with spontaneous $Z_{2}^{(a)}\times Z_{2}^{(b)}$ parity breaking. Our results reveal a strategy for engineering hybrid quantum states by combining interaction amplification with mode-selective nonlinear filtering.

Directional quantum light requires asymmetric photon statistics without sacrificing coherence between propagation paths, a combination that remains difficult to achieve within a single quantum-optical platform. Here we identify a microscopic path-complementarity mechanism in hybridized cavity polaritons that reconciles these two requirements. In a Zeeman-split ring-cavity QED system, cavity backscattering hybridizes the counterpropagating modes, whereas the Zeeman splitting creates spectrally asymmetric excitation channels. Their interplay gives rise, under weak driving, to directional photon blockade coexisting with strong single-photon path entanglement: one input direction exhibits antibunching while the opposite direction is bunched. Remarkably, switching between the two one-photon polariton resonances reverses both the photon-statistical and intensity asymmetries while nearly preserving the path concurrence over a broad parameter regime. Our results establish path complementarity as a general design principle for directional nonclassical light with retained quantum coherence.

We show that an $N$-site quantum Rabi ring with matched giant-atom couplings has $2^N$ degenerate superradiant configurations as the atomic-to-cavity frequency ratio $\eta=\Delta/\omega$ tends to infinity. Each atom couples to two cavities two sites apart, and the photon hopping carries a phase $\pi/2$. Tuning the ratio of contact strengths to the photon hopping reduces the mean-field energy to a sum of single-site Rabi energies, with a common critical coupling for all momentum-pair sectors. The degeneracy survives quadratic quantum fluctuations despite a dispersive excitation spectrum. At finite $\eta$, second-order processes involving the local cubic anharmonicity generate a same-sublattice Ising coupling of order $\omega/\eta$, selecting ferro- and antiferro-superradiant configurations. This quantum order-by-disorder effect has no classical counterpart. Four-site calculations retaining all spin states quantitatively support the predicted energy coefficients. The separation between the induced coupling and the excitation gap allows a broad temperature interval with macroscopic photon occupation and short-range correlations between displacement signs.

Inspired by quantum metrology, we propose a coherent consensus primitive to enhance the collaborative performance of independent quantum classifiers at the decision boundary. The basic idea consists of three steps: i) prepare a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state on $n$ qubits; ii) apply a relative phase to each qubit, which encodes the output of one classifier; and iii) undo the GHZ preparation to collect all phases onto the first qubit. The signal is amplified by a factor of $n$, which reduces the sampling error by a factor of $\sqrt{n}$ relative to incoherent majority voting, that is, the direct combination of estimates from individual classifiers. Coherent consensus is valid for general estimation and classification of phases. We derive guarantees on the resources needed to estimate phases using this coherent consensus primitive as compared to majority voting. We implement both techniques on a trapped-ion quantum computer using a given ensemble of imperfect phase gates. We observe the expected $\sqrt{n}$ gain in precision of coherent consensus, with excess dispersion at the largest $n$ consistent with device drift. Coherent consensus can thus be understood as a form of sensing inside a quantum computer.

Part I: Semiclassical Gravity Efficiently Solves $\mathsf{NP}$-Complete Problems Assuming the gravitational field is classical and that it couples to quantum fields via the semiclassical Einstein field equations (EFEs), we show that the weak-field dynamics of a massive and non-relativistic qubit can in principle be used to solve an $\mathsf{NP}$-complete problem in polynomial time. We attribute this vast computational power to the non-linear qubit dynamics afforded by the semiclassical EFEs. Consequently, the above two assumptions entail a violation of the Physical Extended Church–Turing Thesis, which we regard as evidence for the quantization of gravity. Part II: Spacetime Quasicrystals We generalize self-similar quasicrystals, such as the Penrose tilings, from Euclidean space to Minkowski spacetime. We construct the first examples of Lorentzian quasicrystals and identify their key novel features. We then explore possible connections to fundamental physics. First, we propose a speculative scenario in which our $(3+1)$D universe is embedded in a particularly symmetric $(9+1)$D torus $\mathbb{T}^{9,1}$, previously identified as the most symmetric toroidal compactification of the superstring. We suggest that this construction may shed light on the seesaw relation $M_{\rm Pl}M_{\rm vac} \approx M_{\rm EW}^{2}$ between the Planck, vacuum-energy, and electroweak scales. Second, we replace the random causal sets of causal set theory with ordered, highly symmetric quasi-crystalline causal sets. We find suggestive evidence that our quasicrystals outperform Poisson random sets in the number-volume correspondence in both $(1+1)$D and $(3+1)$D, where such behaviour has been conjectured to be impossible. Finally, extending hyperuniformity from space to spacetime, we show that our $(1+1)$D quasicrystal is the first demonstrated example of a spacetime-hyperuniform structure.

There exist two different paradigms for records in isolated quantum systems: decoherent histories (which determines which past events leave formal records) and quantum Darwinism (which determines which current events get redundantly recorded). Neither one implies the other, and connections between the two are scarcely investigated. We unify quantum Darwinism and decoherent histories based on the insight that only redundant records about past events matter. The resulting framework of past redundancy encompasses quantum Darwinism when applied to events at the current time, and it connects redundancy to decoherence of histories and the probability sum rule via the Bhattacharyya coefficient (or fidelity). Importantly, various examples show that past redundancy is a more widespread phenomenon than the fine-tuned models necessary for quantum Darwinism suggest. We thus arrive at a richer picture in which redundancy can be caused by mechanisms different from quantum Darwinism (such as macroevents or cascade structures), which emphasizes that redundancy is necessary but not sufficient for objectivity, and which, overall, allows to realistically investigate the question: how generic is redundancy in nature?

The Color-of-Money (CoM) problem is a financial optimization challenge in which enterprises must determine how to allocate and route funds across multiple accounts, currencies, and time periods while satisfying regulatory, operational, and liquidity constraints. As the number of assets, obligations, and planning periods increases, the decision space grows rapidly, making large-scale optimization increasingly challenging for classical approaches. In this work, we present a proof-of-concept quantum implementation of the CoM problem using IBM Quantum hardware. The original optimization problem is formulated as a constrained Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem and transformed into a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) representation suitable for quantum execution. We employ a Variational Quantum Algorithm (VQA) with Pauli Correlation Encoding (PCE), a qubit efficient encoding technique and apply error-mitigation technique to improve solution fidelity on noisy quantum hardware. A prototype instance consisting of 3 assets, 3 obligations, and 2 time periods was executed on real IBM quantum hardware and benchmarked against classical exact solver SCIP. The quantum approach successfully reproduced the same optimal solution obtained classically, validating the correctness and feasibility of the proposed methodology. While current noisy quantum hardware does not outperform classical optimization on the evaluated small instance, the results demonstrate the feasibility of executing treasury optimization workloads on current quantum hardware and provide a foundation for future investigations.

Oblivious transfer (OT) is a fundamental cryptographic primitive that is useful for realizing any two-party computation. Since information-theoretically secure perfect OT is impossible classically and quantumly, research has focused on imperfect protocols, exploring how close to perfect one can get against unbounded dishonest parties. While current approaches often make use of pure quantum states, recent work suggests that mixed quantum states may improve performance. In this paper, we investigate the use of mixed quantum states in Rabin oblivious transfer, where a sender holds one bit and a receiver learns its value with a certain probability while the sender remains ignorant of whether the receiver learned it. We present three mixed-state protocols constructed with two distinct methods, extending an existing pure-state scheme and employing a probabilistic approach, and demonstrate improved performance compared to classical and quantum pure-state protocols across varying parameters.

This work is devoted to a theoretical study of the interaction of a quantum three-level ladder system with a continuous electromagnetic field in a one-dimensional open waveguide. We consider a situation closely resembling stimulated emission - the scattering of a single-photon exponential pulse by an excited three-level emitter. Using the real-space formalism, we obtain an analytical expression for the wavefunction of our system. We show that, for the low anharmonicity of a three-level system inherent to a transmon (the most common type of artificial atom), the influence of the third level can have a significant effect on the system's behavior. Namely, the presence of the third level largely suppresses the stimulated emission effect if the relative anharmonicity is lower than $| \alpha_r | < 4\%$. However, for a three-level system, it is possible to obtain correlation effects such as photon bunching in the reflected field, which can also be 'switched off' by tuning the incident photon parameters.

We present an automated method for reducing fault-tolerant circuits through fault-equivalent rewrites. Starting from a known fault-tolerant circuit, the search applies non-reducing enabling rules to expose Bell-pair reductions, each of which removes an ancilla preparation and a CNOT gate. Because every search transition preserves fault equivalence, the resulting circuits inherit the fault-tolerance properties of the input circuit. Candidate circuits are evaluated using circuit-level Monte Carlo simulation. For Shor-style syndrome extraction with the $[[7,1,3]]$ code, our method reduces one syndrome-measurement round from 30 to 18 ancilla preparations and from 54 to 42 CNOT gates. At a physical two-qubit error rate of $p = 10^{-3}$, the optimized circuit lowers the logical error rate by approximately 21% for both logical basis states. The reduction ranges from 13% to 23% over a range of $p$ spanning two orders of magnitude. We also apply the method to Steane-based dynamic syndrome extraction constructed from Goto's verified logical-$\lvert 0 \rangle$ preparation, in which the verification qubit serves as a flag. The search selects a circuit using four ancillas and 14 CNOT gates, matching the resource counts of the previous design but with an improved CNOT depth. Under depolarizing idle noise at $3p/10$ the selected circuit lowers the logical error rate by approximately 15% for both logical basis states, and by approximately 10% at $p/10$. These results demonstrate that automated fault-equivalent rewriting can identify circuits with lower resource costs or improved logical performance without separately verifying the fault tolerance of every candidate.

Standard quantum mechanics takes the complex numbers as its scalar algebra. We ask whether this complex structure is algebraically fundamental or may instead form a distinguished embedded sector of a larger commutative and associative scalar algebra. Requiring the ordinary complex sector to remain intact while admitting an additional stable complex-like analytic sector turns the latter into a proper ideal, makes zero divisors unavoidable in finite dimension, and implies a lower bound of four real dimensions. The bicomplex algebra realizes this minimum, and under an additional compatibility assumption the four-dimensional realization is unique up to isomorphism. The resulting algebra exhibits two distinct decompositions: the canonical decomposition into orthogonal idempotent ideals and a decomposition adapted to the embedded complex sector and the additional ideal-valued sector. The ordinary complex scalars therefore lie diagonally across the canonical idempotent decomposition. The ideal sector supports Taylor series, oscillatory exponentials, Fourier-type kernels, and Schrödinger-type expressions, and carries a formal ideal-valued eigenvalue structure. Restricting the Born rule to the embedded complex sector recovers its standard form. Whether this dual scalar architecture has physical significance beyond the algebraic framework remains an open question.

Multimode entangled states of light are key resources for high-dimensional photonic quantum technologies, particularly for continuous-variable quantum computing and quantum information processing. Exploiting their full capabilities requires detection strategies that can efficiently and simultaneously access a large number of modes and their quantum correlations. Multimode optical parametric amplification (MOPA) provides a promising approach by amplifying multiple quadratures prior to detection, rendering the measurement robust against subsequent optical losses while enabling broadband operation. Here, we demonstrate the spectral multimode capability of MOPA by simultaneously characterizing a broadband 60-node dual-rail continuous-variable cluster state. We reconstruct the cluster-state nullifiers across the spectral modes and observe nearly uniform squeezing ranging from -7.2 to -6.5 dB. Furthermore, by evaluating the van Loock-Furusawa criterion across all relevant bipartitions, we verify genuine multipartite entanglement throughout the 60-node state. These results establish MOPA as a promising platform for scalable high-dimensional quantum information processing in the spectral domain.

Quantum kernel methods are leading candidates for a practical quantum advantage in machine learning, but assessing that potential requires two quantities usually reported separately: how well a kernel performs on the task, and how far its geometry departs from the classical kernels available for the same problem. We introduce a fully unsupervised, multi-objective protocol that optimises simultaneously the normalised pseudo discrepancy (NPD), a label-free proxy for anomaly detection quality, and the geometric difference (GD) to a tuned classical reference kernel, selecting models from the resulting Pareto front. We apply it to malware beaconing detection in real network traffic, using a one-class support vector machine with fidelity and projected quantum kernels over four data encodings, on simulators and on IQM's 20-qubit Garnet processor. NPD-guided selection alone finds a fidelity kernel that beats the tuned classical baseline, but with a geometric difference too small to certify the gain as quantum. Projected kernels reach far larger geometric differences; the Pareto-selected one only marginally exceeds the baseline (AUC $0.782$ versus $0.765$, $g_{C\to Q}\approx 89>\sqrt{N}$ relative to that reference kernel), still below the NPD-selected fidelity kernel ($0.840$).

Quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) are promising building blocks for solid-state quantum photonics because of their bright room-temperature emission. These emitters strongly interact with lattice vibrations, which partially underpins their excitation efficiency. Here, using complementary cathodoluminescence (CL) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, we demonstrate cavity-mediated interactions between hBN quantum emitters coupled to the same plasmonic Au void cavity at the room temperature. Cathodoluminescence measurements reveal that a vibronic transition of the 443 nm emitter hybridizes with the cavity mode, giving rise to a spectrally resolved splitting, while the neighboring 537 nm emitter remains in the weak-coupling regime despite spectral overlap. The energy split of the CL peak is at the order of 36.2 meV, whereas the PL-resolved peak is approximately 24.1 meV, which is due to the collective excitations of multiple emitters per electron excitation and their mutual interactions. Maxwell-Bloch simulations reproduce the experimental spectra and identify the observed splitting as the result of cavity-induced hybridization. Excitation-dependent PL further shows that the hybridized state can be accessed through phonon-assisted excitations below the zero-phonon transition. These results demonstrate that vibronic transitions provide an effective pathway for controlling interactions between multiple quantum emitters in hybrid plasmonic nanophotonic systems.

Variational two-particle reduced-density-matrix methods impose hierarchies of semidefinite constraints. We ask whether a fixed level of such a hierarchy can recover even an elementary many-fermion spectrum, using the dispersion test, in which a value is accepted as an eigenvalue when the minimized dispersion vanishes. For an exactly solvable operator that counts fermions in one half of the spin orbitals, whose spectrum consists of integers, we determine the complete set of accepted values at every level of the full hierarchy of particle-hole semidefinite constraints. Besides the integers, this set contains an entire interval of noninteger values unless the hierarchy level grows linearly with the particle number, and we give the exact threshold. The proof constructs explicit pseudo reduced density matrices that are diagonal in the occupation basis, obtained by continuing the occupation probabilities of a fixed-particle-number state to a noninteger particle number. Classical semidefinite constraints on occupation correlations, supplemented by nonnegative occupation-pattern probabilities, suffice to establish fermionic positivity. For this counting model the two relaxations have the same dispersion zero set, not necessarily the same feasible states, and a converse argument shows that no other false eigenvalues occur. The limitation is specific to the hierarchy: two-body inequalities that encode the integer spectrum would remove every false value but are not generated at a fixed level. We also verify that the full semidefinite constraints and their complete projection onto two-particle reduced-density-matrix space are equivalent in finite dimensions, so that the result applies equally to the polar formulation.

A KMS-symmetric quantum Markov semigroup is completely determined by the quadratic form in induces on the GNS Hilbert space. The quadratic forms that arise in this way are called quantum Dirichlet forms. In this article we give a complete description of bounded quantum Dirichlet forms in terms of derivations. In particular, we exhibit an explicit characterization of the bounded quantum Dirichlet forms on type I factors. We also show that any unbounded quantum Dirichlet form can be represented in terms of derivations. The key technical insight is that the modular group always restricts to a strongly continuous group on the domain of a quantum Dirichlet form such that the square root of the analytic generator is accretive with respect to the form norm.

Identifying and measuring topological invariants remains a fundamental challenge due to the non-local nature of momentum eigenstates in real space. Established approaches based on Bloch oscillations, quantum walks, charge pumping and quench dynamics, typically fail to provide direct momentum-dependent geometric information of each Bloch state. Here, we propose a novel framework for implementing direct band-topology tomography via momentum-selective measurements, and experimentally demonstrate it on a superconducting processor featuring a highly connected coupling architecture. Utilizing a “star-like" geometry in which an auxiliary probe couples to a one-dimensional topological chain with spatially modulated coupling strengths, we selectively address the desired momentum states of the chain. This approach enables the direct and robust extraction of the winding phase that contributes to the associated topological invariant. Leveraging non-local couplers bridged by long tantalum airbridges, we realize an extended Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model and map its full topological phase diagram. Through a nested Fourier analysis over time and space, we directly extract the winding phase across Brillouin zone and resolve quantized winding numbers of $\nu=\{0,\pm1,2\}$ characterized by phase winding $\{0, \pm 2\pi,4\pi\}$. Our work establishes a versatile tool for probing topological characteristics and opens a new avenue for robust quantum computing architectures based on topological protection.

Superconducting qubits are often based on the first two energy levels of a physical anharmonic LC oscillator. Since the anharmonicity of such systems is usually much lower than the involved energy gaps, population can easily leak to higher energy states. This is what characterizes leakage errors, and it can have multiple sources: from coherent error induced by the control platform to incoherent thermal dissipation. In this work, we adapt an optimal control method based on sub-Riemannian geodesic search in the unitary group for a system consisting of two superconducting qubits with leakage levels. We use the $R_x(\pi/2)$ rotation for single-qubit operation analysis, and the $i$SWAP operation for two-qubit analysis. For the former, we find considerable performance improvement in average gate fidelity as well as in the reduction of leakage errors when comparing the obtained optimal pulses with Gaussian and DRAG pulses, especially for short duration pulses. For the $i$SWAP gate, although leakage error remains roughly the same, we manage to obtain considerably higher fidelities with the cost of requiring a slightly longer time evolution.

Hydrodynamic relaxation in open quantum many-body systems can be understood in terms of diffusive Nambu–Goldstone (NG) modes associated with strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking (SWSSB). Here, we find a common structure underlying weak ergodicity breaking in closed quantum systems and diffusive hydrodynamics in open quantum systems. We establish a spectral correspondence between the parent Hamiltonian of rainbow quantum many-body scar (RQMBS) states in closed systems and the effective Lindbladian of strongly dissipative open systems with strong $U(1)$ symmetry and local charge-dephasing Lindblad operators. For broad classes of spin, fermionic, and bosonic systems, we construct asymptotic RQMBS (ARQMBS) states. Within the enlarged scar subspace, the parent Hamiltonian admits a local Rokhsar–Kivelson-type frustration-free decomposition. A single-mode variational construction gives an $O(k^2)$ upper bound on its lowest excitation energy and yields states satisfying the defining ARQMBS criteria: orthogonality, vanishing energy variance, and characteristic entanglement scaling. Under vectorization, RQMBS states are mapped to maximally mixed infinite-temperature states in fixed-charge sectors, which exhibit long-range SWSSB order under finite-density conditions. Assuming uniformly bounded positive transition rates, the effective Lindbladian has the same local projectors as the parent Hamiltonian but with positive transition-dependent weights, yielding two-sided spectral bounds and the same system-size scaling of their gaps. For uniform rates, the two operators are proportional to each other and their eigenmodes coincide. Therefore, an exact quadratic parent-Hamiltonian branch maps directly to a diffusive NG mode. Our results connect different mechanisms of slow relaxation in closed and open quantum many-body systems.

Photonic quantum computing has recently emerged as a promising platform for hybrid quantum machine learning due to its native realization of linear-optical circuits and the computational complexity of boson sampling. However, despite growing interest in quantum methods for finance, the influence of photonic circuit design choices on predictive performance remains largely unexplored. Existing studies typically evaluate a single architecture, leaving the broader photonic design space unexamined. In this work, we present Q-PhotoMarket, a systematic design space exploration (DSE) framework for photonic hybrid quantum neural networks (HQNNs) applied to financial market prediction. We explore over 5,000 valid photonic configurations spanning input photon states, circuit architectures, entangling models, and measurement strategies across their compatible computation spaces, for U.S., Indian, and cryptocurrency markets. To improve search efficiency, the exhaustive exploration is complemented with Bayesian optimization. We further incorporate threshold calibration and prediction-collapse diagnostics to enable reliable evaluation under increasingly imbalanced return thresholds. Experimental results show that systematic exploration of more than 5,000 photonic HQNN configurations reveals consistent architectural patterns across financial markets, identifies robust high-performing designs, and demonstrates competitive performance relative to classical machine learning baselines.

Anomaly detection on small and unbalanced datasets remains very challenging in machine learning, although this scenario is common in several domains, including healthcare, cybersecurity, finance, and energy. Data augmentation and generative AI may mitigate training-data scarcity, but they often fall short because anomalies are, by definition, unpredictable, rare, and highly diverse events compared to high-probability normal data. Overfitting to pseudo-anomalies, model collapse, high-dimensional data, uninterpretable black-box models, and validation challenges are typical issues limiting their practical applicability. In this context, quantum machine learning may provide a promising and more sustainable avenue because it can enable more interpretable models with far fewer trainable parameters and smaller datasets, implementable on energy-efficient quantum hardware. Here, we propose a novel two-step hybrid classical–quantum architecture for sequential data and test it on a realistic scenario in the global energy-transition domain, i.e., automated anomaly detection in large-scale photovoltaic plants. The achieved generalization capability and competitive prediction accuracy may pave the way for new hybrid learning models able to exploit the continuously increasing power of cloud-available and more sustainable quantum accelerators integrated with more traditional energy-hungry High Performance Computing resources.