Macroscopic Coherence Research Articles

Coherent scattering and macroscopic coherence: implications for neutrino, dark matter and axion detection

We study the question of whether coherent neutrino scattering can occur on macroscopic scales, leading to a significant increase of the detection cross section. We concentrate on radiative neutrino scattering on atomic electrons (or on free electrons in a conductor). Such processes can be coherent provided that the net electron recoil momentum, i.e. the momentum transfer from the neutrino minus the momentum of the emitted photon, is sufficiently small. The radiative processes is an attractive possibility as the energy of the emitted photons can be as large as the momentum transfer to the electron system and therefore the problem of detecting extremely low energy recoils can be avoided. The requirement of macroscopic coherence severely constrains the phase space available for the scattered particle and the emitted photon. We show that in the case of the scattering mediated by the usual weak neutral current and charged current interactions this leads to a strong suppression of the elementary cross sections and therefore the requirement of macroscopic coherence results in a reduction rather than an increase of the total detection cross section. However, for the νe scattering mediated by neutrino magnetic or electric dipole moments coherence effects can actually increase the detection rates. Effects of macroscopic coherence can also allow detection of neutrinos in 100 eV — a few keV energy range, which is currently not accessible to the experiment. A similar coherent enhancement mechanism can work for relativistic particles in the dark sector, but not for the conventionally considered non-relativistic dark matter.

Simultaneous cooling of coupled mechanical resonators in cavity optomechanics

Quantum manipulation of coupled mechanical resonators has become an important research topic in optomechanics because these systems can be used to study the quantum coherence effects involving multiple mechanical modes. A prerequisite for observing macroscopic mechanical coherence is to cool the mechanical resonators to their ground state. Here we propose a theoretical scheme to cool two coupled mechanical resonators by introducing an optomechanical interface. The final mean phonon numbers in the two mechanical resonators are calculated exactly and the results show that the ground-state cooling is achievable in the resolved-sideband regime and under the optimal driving. By adiabatically eliminating the cavity field in the large-decay regime, we obtain analytical results of the cooling limits, which show the smallest achievable phonon numbers and the parameter conditions under which the optimal cooling is achieved. Finally, the scheme is extended to the cooling of a chain of coupled mechanical resonators.

Expansion of a superconducting vortex core into a diffusive metal

Vortices in quantum condensates exist owing to a macroscopic phase coherence. Here we show, both experimentally and theoretically, that a quantum vortex with a well-defined core can exist in a rather thick normal metal, proximized with a superconductor. Using scanning tunneling spectroscopy we reveal a proximity vortex lattice at the surface of 50 nm—thick Cu-layer deposited on Nb. We demonstrate that these vortices have regular round cores in the centers of which the proximity minigap vanishes. The cores are found to be significantly larger than the Abrikosov vortex cores in Nb, which is related to the effective coherence length in the proximity region. We develop a theoretical approach that provides a fully self-consistent picture of the evolution of the vortex with the distance from Cu/Nb interface, the interface impedance, applied magnetic field, and temperature. Our work opens a way for the accurate tuning of the superconducting properties of quantum hybrids.

Strong Exciton–Photon Coupling and Lasing Behavior in All-Inorganic CsPbBr3 Micro/Nanowire Fabry-Pérot Cavity

Macroscopic spontaneous coherence of exciton-polariton in semiconductor cavity is one important research field in condensed matter physics. All-inorganic micro/nanowire Fabry-P\'erot cavity with excellent optical performance makes it possible to realize strong coupling and lasing of exciton-photon at room temperature. In this work, we demonstrated strong coupling of exciton-photon and polariton lasing in CsPbBr3 micro/nanowires synthesized by CVD method. By exploring spatial resolved PL spectra of CsPbBr3 cavity, we observed mode volume dependent coupling strength , as well as significant increase in group index. Moreover, low threshold polariton lasing was achieved at room temperature within strong coupling regime; the polariton characteristic is confirmed by comparing lasing spectra with waveguided output spectra and the dramatically reduced lasing threshold. Our present results provide new avenues to achieve high coupling strengths potentially enabling application of exciting phenomena such as Bose-Einstein condensation of polaritons, efficient light-emitting diodes and lasers.

Nonequilibrium optical control of dynamical states in superconducting nanowire circuits.

Optical control of states exhibiting macroscopic phase coherence in condensed matter systems opens intriguing possibilities for materials and device engineering, including optically controlled qubits and photoinduced superconductivity. Metastable states, which in bulk materials are often associated with the formation of topological defects, are of more practical interest. Scaling to nanosize leads to reduced dimensionality, fundamentally changing the system's properties. In one-dimensional superconducting nanowires, vortices that are present in three-dimensional systems are replaced by fluctuating topological defects of the phase. These drastically change the dynamical behavior of the superconductor and introduce dynamical periodic long-range ordered states when the current is driven through the wire. We report the control and manipulation of transitions between different dynamically stable states in superconducting δ3-MoN nanowire circuits by ultrashort laser pulses. Not only can the transitions between different dynamically stable states be precisely controlled by light, but we also discovered new photoinduced hidden states that cannot be reached under near-equilibrium conditions, created while laser photoexcited quasi-particles are outside the equilibrium condition. The observed switching behavior can be understood in terms of dynamical stabilization of various spatiotemporal periodic trajectories of the order parameter in the superconductor nanowire, providing means for the optical control of the superconducting phase with subpicosecond control of timing.

Coherence, asymmetry, and quantum macroscopicity

We investigate a measure of quantum coherence and its extension to quantify quantum macroscopicity. The coherence measure can also quantify the asymmetry of a quantum state with respect to a given group transformation. We then show that a weighted sum of asymmetry in each mode can be applied as a measure of macroscopic coherence. To exclude the effects of microscopic superpositions, we suggest a method to introduce a cutoff to the weighted sum that will specify the macroscopic portion of the coherence. This cutoff may be interpreted as the fuzziness for a given measurement outcome. Based on the suggested measures, we investigate the quantum macroscopicity for particular concrete examples in N-partite spin systems.

Quantum Hall drag of exciton condensate in graphene

Excitons are pairs of electrons and holes bound together by the Coulomb interaction. At low temperatures, excitons can form a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), enabling macroscopic phase coherence and superfluidity. An electronic double layer (EDL), in which two parallel conducting layers are separated by an insulator, is an ideal platform to realize a stable exciton BEC. In an EDL under strong magnetic fields, electron-like and hole-like quasi-particles from partially filled Landau levels (LLs) bind into excitons and condense. However, in semiconducting double quantum wells, this magnetic-field-induced exciton BEC has been observed only in sub-Kelvin temperatures due to the relatively strong dielectric screening and large separation of the EDL. Here we report exciton condensation in bilayer graphene EDL separated by a few atomic layers of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). Driving current in one graphene layer generates a quantized Hall voltage in the other layer, signifying coherent superfluid exciton transport. Owing to the strong Coulomb coupling across the atomically thin dielectric, we find that quantum Hall drag in graphene appears at a temperature an order of magnitude higher than previously observed in GaAs EDL. The wide-range tunability of densities and displacement fields enables exploration of a rich phase diagram of BEC across Landau levels with different filling factors and internal quantum degrees of freedom. The observed robust exciton superfluidity opens up opportunities to investigate various quantum phases of the exciton BEC and design novel electronic devices based on dissipationless transport.

Disturbance-based measure of macroscopic coherence

We propose a measure of macroscopic coherence based on the degree of disturbance caused by a coarse-grained measurement. Based on our measure, we point out that recently proposed criteria of macroscopic coherence may lead to inconsistent results when considering certain states such as a product of microscopic superpositions. An inequality relation is proved that relates the Wigner–Yanase–Dyson skew information and the measurement disturbance, providing arguments as to why our approach is able to rule out such inconsistencies. We show that our measure can also quantify the fragility of a quantum state to a certain type of decoherence. Our work provides a general framework of quantifying macroscopic coherence from an operational point of view, based on the relationship between the precision of the measurement and disturbance of the quantum state.

Quantized Vortices and Four-Component Superfluidity of Semiconductor Excitons.

We study spatially indirect excitons of GaAs quantum wells, confined in a 10 μm electrostatic trap. Below a critical temperature of about 1K, we detect macroscopic spatial coherence and quantized vortices in the weak photoluminescence emitted from the trap. These quantum signatures are restricted to a narrow range of density, in a dilute regime. They manifest the formation of a four-component superfluid, made by a low population of optically bright excitons coherently coupled to a dominant fraction of optically dark excitons.

3/2-Body Correlations and Coherence in Bose–Einstein Condensates

We construct a variational wave function for the ground state of weakly interacting bosons that gives a lower energy than the mean-field Girardeau-Arnowitt (or Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov) theory. This improvement is brought about by incorporating the dynamical 3/2-body processes where one of two colliding non-condensed particles drops into the condensate and vice versa. The processes are also shown to transform the one-particle excitation spectrum into a bubbling mode with a finite lifetime even in the long-wavelength limit. These 3/2-body processes, which give rise to dynamical exchange of particles between the non-condensate reservoir and condensate absent in ideal gases, are identified as a key mechanism for realizing and sustaining macroscopic coherence in Bose-Einstein condensates.

Granular superconductivity and magnetic-field-driven recovery of macroscopic coherence in a cuprate/manganite multilayer

We show that in Pr$ _{0.5} $La$ _{0.2} $Ca$ _{0.3} $MnO$ _{3} $/YBa$ _{2} $Cu$ _{3} $O$ _{7} $ (PLCMO/YBCO) multilayers the low temperature state of YBCO is very resistive and resembles the one of a granular superconductor or a frustrated Josephson-junction network. Notably, a coherent superconducting response can be restored with a large magnetic field which also suppresses the charge-orbital order in PLCMO. This coincidence suggests that the granular superconducting state of YBCO is induced by the charge-orbital order of PLCMO. The coupling mechanism and the nature of the induced inhomogeneous state in YBCO remain to be understood.

Room-temperature Tamm-plasmon exciton-polaritons with a WSe2 monolayer.

Solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics is a rapidly advancing field, which explores the frontiers of light–matter coupling. Metal-based approaches are of particular interest in this field, as they carry the potential to squeeze optical modes to spaces significantly below the diffraction limit. Transition metal dichalcogenides are ideally suited as the active material in cavity quantum electrodynamics, as they interact strongly with light at the ultimate monolayer limit. Here, we implement a Tamm-plasmon-polariton structure and study the coupling to a monolayer of WSe2, hosting highly stable excitons. Exciton-polariton formation at room temperature is manifested in the characteristic energy–momentum dispersion relation studied in photoluminescence, featuring an anti-crossing between the exciton and photon modes with a Rabi-splitting of 23.5 meV. Creating polaritonic quasiparticles in monolithic, compact architectures with atomic monolayers under ambient conditions is a crucial step towards the exploration of nonlinearities, macroscopic coherence and advanced spinor physics with novel, low-mass bosons.

On consistent micromechanical estimation of macroscopic elastic energy, coherence energy and phase transformation strains for SMA materials

An apparatus of micromechanics is used to isolate the key ingredients entering macroscopic Gibbs free energy function of a shape memory alloy (SMA) material. A new self-equilibrated eigenstrains influence moduli (SEIM) method is developed for consistent estimation of effective (macroscopic) thermostatic properties of solid materials, which in microscale can be regarded as amalgams of n-phase linear thermoelastic component materials with eigenstrains. The SEIM satisfy the self-consistency conditions, following from elastic reciprocity (Betti) theorem. The method allowed expressing macroscopic coherency energy and elastic complementary energy terms present in the general form of macroscopic Gibbs free energy of SMA materials in the form of semilinear and semiquadratic functions of the phase composition. Consistent SEIM estimates of elastic complementary energy, coherency energy and phase transformation strains corresponding to classical Reuss and Voigt conjectures are explicitly specified. The Voigt explicit relations served as inspiration for working out an original engineering practice-oriented semiexperimental SEIM estimates. They are especially conveniently applicable for an isotropic aggregate (composite) composed of a mixture of n isotropic phases. Using experimental data for NiTi alloy and adopting conjecture that it can be treated as an isotropic aggregate of two isotropic phases, it is shown that the NiTi coherency energy and macroscopic phase strain are practically not influenced by the difference in values of austenite and martensite elastic constants. It is shown that existence of nonzero fluctuating part of phase microeigenstrains field is responsible for building up of so-called stored energy of coherency, which is accumulated in pure martensitic phase after full completion of phase transition. Experimental data for NiTi alloy show that the stored coherency energy cannot be neglected as it considerably influences the characteristic phase transition temperatures of SMA material.

Hybrid Resonators: Lasing and Macroscopic Coherence of Hybridized Modes in Coupled 2D Waveguide‐VCSEL Resonators (Advanced Optical Materials 8/2016)

Hybrid Resonators: Lasing and Macroscopic Coherence of Hybridized Modes in Coupled 2D Waveguide‐VCSEL Resonators (Advanced Optical Materials 8/2016)

Lasing and Macroscopic Coherence of Hybridized Modes in Coupled 2D Waveguide‐VCSEL Resonators

Hybrid resonators in vertical and lateral direction are introduced by depositing a full vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) stack on top of a periodically structured substrate. As a result, waveguided (WG) modes in the cavity plane are scattered into the vertical direction and exhibit linear dispersion curves in addition to the original parabolic cavity mode. A large in‐plane coherence length even below threshold enables a coherent interaction of both resonators, as observed in a pronounced anticrossing and hybridization of waveguided and VCSEL modes in the far field spectrum. Resulting from this coupling, both original VCSEL modes as well as hybrid WG‐VCSEL modes show stimulated emission. Here, hybrid modes exhibit a macroscopically increased spatial extension of the coherent laser mode, proven by both spatially resolved spectra as well as sharp modes in k‐space. The coherent coupling of two conceptually very different devices with perpendicular propagation directions facilitates a multitude of new applications.

Dicke superradiance in solids [Invited

Recent advances in optical studies of condensed matter have led to the emergence of phenomena that have conventionally been studied in the realm of quantum optics. These studies have not only deepened our understanding of light-matter interactions but also introduced aspects of many-body correlations inherent in optical processes in condensed matter systems. This article is concerned with superradiance (SR), a profound quantum optical process predicted by Dicke in 1954. The basic concept of SR applies to a general $N$-body system where constituent oscillating dipoles couple together through interaction with a common light field and accelerate the radiative decay of the system. In the most fascinating manifestation of SR, known as superfluorescence (SF), an incoherently prepared system of $N$ inverted atoms spontaneously develops macroscopic coherence from vacuum fluctuations and produces a delayed pulse of coherent light whose peak intensity $\propto N^2$. Such SF pulses have been observed in atomic and molecular gases, and their intriguing quantum nature has been unambiguously demonstrated. Here, we focus on the rapidly developing field of research on SR in solids, where not only photon-mediated coupling but also strong Coulomb interactions and ultrafast scattering exist. We describe SR and SF in molecular centers in solids, molecular aggregates and crystals, quantum dots, and quantum wells. In particular, we will summarize a series of studies we have recently performed on quantum wells in strong magnetic fields. These studies show that cooperative effects in solid-state systems are not merely small corrections that require exotic conditions to be observed; rather, they can dominate the nonequilibrium dynamics and light emission processes of the entire system of interacting electrons.

Brouillage thermique d'un gaz cohérent de fermions

It is generally assumed that a condensate of paired fermions at equilibrium is characterized by a macroscopic wavefunction with a well-defined, immutable phase. In reality, all systems have a finite size and are prepared at non-zero temperature; the condensate has then a finite coherence time, even when the system is isolated in its evolution and the particle number $N$ is fixed. The loss of phase memory is due to interactions of the condensate with the excited modes that constitute a dephasing environment. This fundamental effect, crucial for applications using the condensate of pairs' macroscopic coherence, was scarcely studied. We link the coherence time to the condensate phase dynamics, and we show with a microscopic theory that the time derivative of the condensate phase operator $\hat{\theta}\_0$ is proportional to a chemical potential operator that we construct including both the pair-breaking and pair-motion excitation branches. In a single realization of energy $E$, $\hat{\theta}\_0$ evolves at long times as $-2\mu\_{\rm mc}(E)t/\hbar$ where $\mu\_{\rm mc}(E)$ is the microcanonical chemical potential; energy fluctuations from one realization to the other then lead to a ballistic spreading of the phase and to a Gaussian decay of the temporal coherence function with a characteristic time $\propto N^{1/2}$. In the absence of energy fluctuations, the coherence time scales as $N$ due to the diffusive motion of $\hat{\theta}\_0$. We propose a method to measure the coherence time with ultracold atoms, which we predict to be tens of milliseconds for the canonical ensemble unitary Fermi gas.

General framework for quantum macroscopicity in terms of coherence

We propose a universal language to assess macroscopic quantumness in terms of coherence, with a set of conditions that should be satisfied by any measure of macroscopic coherence. We link the framework to the resource theory of asymmetry. We show that the quantum Fisher information gives a good measure of macroscopic coherence, enabling a rigorous justification of a previously proposed measure of macroscopicity. This picture lets us draw connections between different measures of macroscopicity and evaluate them; we show that another widely studied measure fails one of our criteria.

Magnetic soliton confinement and discretization effects arising from macroscopic coherence in a chiral spin soliton lattice

Understanding the conditions determining the appearance of stable chiral spin topological excitations is a central problem in condensed matter physics and related fields. This work provides the first unambiguous demonstration of discretization due to the macroscopic phase coherence and metastability for chiral topological excitations, and evidence of the mechanisms underlying its appearance. This was achieved through the use of an advanced Lorentz electron microscope with the highest possible resolution imaging of spin textures. The results provide new insights into dynamics in the phase transition of the chiral system, and will raise new questions concerning the mechanisms governing loss of chiral ordering.

Nanoscale phase engineering of thermal transport with a Josephson heat modulator.

Macroscopic quantum phase coherence has one of its pivotal expressions in the Josephson effect, which manifests itself both in charge and energy transport. The ability to master the amount of heat transferred through two tunnel-coupled superconductors by tuning their phase difference is the core of coherent caloritronics, and is expected to be a key tool in a number of nanoscience fields, including solid-state cooling, thermal isolation, radiation detection, quantum information and thermal logic. Here, we show the realization of the first balanced Josephson heat modulator designed to offer full control at the nanoscale over the phase-coherent component of thermal currents. Our device provides magnetic-flux-dependent temperature modulations up to 40 mK in amplitude with a maximum of the flux-to-temperature transfer coefficient reaching 200 mK per flux quantum at a bath temperature of 25 mK. Foremost, it demonstrates the exact correspondence in the phase engineering of charge and heat currents, breaking ground for advanced caloritronic nanodevices such as thermal splitters, heat pumps and time-dependent electronic engines.