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James Anglin

Publications and source records attributed to James Anglin.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

An Autonomous Topological Pump

Robust quantization of particle transport, as in a Thouless pump, is a hallmark of topological quantum systems with externally controlled system parameters. Here we instead propose and analyze a Thouless pump, for fermions in a one-dimensional lattice, in which external control is not needed, because an additional dynamical degree of freedom allows the pump to work autonomously. The external control parameters are replaced by a quantum spin in a static magnetic field, so that Larmor precession of the spin performs the control cycle that induces topologically quantized transport of the fermions -- at least in some higher energy eigenstates of the combined system. In other states, the back-action of the fermions on the spin can distort the control cycle enough to disrupt the transport, but we find numerical evidence for a critical value of the magnetic field above which the autonomous pump works with topological robustness, suggesting that topological protection and autonomous operation together may permit robust "quantum motors".

quant-ph

Decoherence of charge density waves in beam splitters for interacting quantum wires

Simple intersections between one-dimensional channels can act as coherent beam splitters for non-interacting electrons. Here we examine how coherent splitting at such intersections is affected by inter-particle interactions, in the special case of an intersection of topological edge states. We derive an effective impurity model which represents the edge-state intersection within Luttinger liquid theory at low energy. For Luttinger K = 1 / 2 , we compute the exact time-dependent expectation values of the charge density as well as the density-density correlation functions. In general a single incoming charge density wave packet will split into four outgoing wave packets with transmission and reflection coefficients depending on the strengths of the tunnelling processes between the wires at the junction. We find that when multiple charge density wave packets from different directions pass through the intersection at the same time, reflection and splitting of the packets depend on the relative phases of the waves. Active use of this phase-dependent splitting of wave packets may make Luttinger interferometry possible. We also find that coherent incident packets generally suffer partial decoherence from the intersection, with some of their initially coherent signal being transferred into correlated quantum noise. In an extreme case four incident coherent wave packets can be transformed entirely into density-density correlations, with the charge density itself having zero expectation value everywhere in the final state.

cond-mat.str-el

Cold, dilute, trapped bosons as an open quantum system

We present a master equation governing the reduced density operator for a single trapped mode of a cold, dilute, weakly interacting Bose gas; and we obtain an operator fluctuation-dissipation relation in which the Ginzburg-Landau effective potential plays a physically transparent role. We also identify a decoherence effect that tends to preserve symmetry, even when the effective potential has a ``Mexican hat'' form.

quant-ph

Stochastic Theory of Accelerated Detectors in a Quantum Field

We analyze the statistical mechanical properties of n-detectors in arbitrary states of motion interacting with each other via a quantum field. We use the open system concept and the influence functional method to calculate the influence of quantum fields on detectors in motion, and the mutual influence of detectors via fields. We discuss the difference between self and mutual impedance and advanced and retarded noise. The mutual effects of detectors on each other can be studied from the Langevin equations derived from the influence functional, as it contains the backreaction of the field on the system self-consistently. We show the existence of general fluctuation- dissipation relations, and for trajectories without event horizons, correlation-propagation relations, which succinctly encapsulate these quantum statistical phenomena. These findings serve to clarify some existing confusions in the accelerated detector problem. The general methodology presented here could also serve as a platform to explore the quantum statistical properties of particles and fields, with practical applications in atomic and optical physics problems.

gr-qc

Classical Dynamics for Linear Systems: The Case of Quantum Brownian Motion

It has long been recognized that the dynamics of linear quantum systems is classical in the Wigner representation. Yet many conceptually important linear problems are typically analyzed using such generally applicable techniques as influence functionals and Bogoliubov transformations. In this Letter we point out that the classical equations of motion provide a simpler and more intuitive formalism for linear quantum systems. We examine the important problem of Brownian motion in the independent oscillator model, and show that the quantum dynamics is described directly and completely by a c-number Langevin equation. We are also able to apply recent insights into quantum Brownian motion to show that the classical Fokker-Planck equation is always local in time, regardless of the spectral density of the environment.

quant-ph