Engineering of Zeno Dynamics in Integrated Photonics

Abstract

Frequent observations to a quantum system modify its coherent evolution through the Zeno effect and Zeno dynamics. Generally, the measurement process destroys the evolution environment of the monitored system, making repeated observations remain a challenge. Here, using the quantum analogy experiments, we realize and engineer the Zeno effect and Zeno dynamics in optical waveguide arrays, where the optical modes correspond to distinct quantum states, and the temporal evolution is mapped into the spatial propagation. We propose a new, extensible experimental strategy for realizing an optical analog of stroboscopic measurements, which are performed by the build-in, on-demand segmented waveguide portions. The weak-to-strong stroboscopic measurements are realized, where the monitored system undergoes a transition from free evolution to optical Zeno freezing. Setting the measurements in the strong regime, the optical Zeno effect and optical Zeno dynamics are successfully generated, and their relationship is demonstrated in optics. We then propose a novel quantum Zeno slicing approach, which allows us to dynamically engineer the Hilbert space of the monitored system. This generic approach is verified by generating a series of Zeno subspaces with different measurement projectors, based on the quantum-optical analogy. The complexity of light dynamics is largely increased, providing full control of the propagation via steering Zeno dynamics. Our results pave the way for manipulation of quantum states by harnessing Zeno dynamics in integrated photonics.

Floquet parity-time symmetry in integrated photonics

“…S1 ). The weakly guided propagation (along z ) of optical waves in such a waveguide array follows the Schrödinger-type paraxial wave equation , where , ψ is the envelope of the light field of wavelength λ , corresponding to the wavenumber k = 2π/ λ , n 0 is the substrate refractive index, and Δ n ( x , y ; z ) is the index modulation 51 – 54 . This equation can be mapped to the conventional Schrödinger equation for z → t and −Δ n → V .…”

Progress and realization platforms of dynamic topological photonics

“…In fact, the researches on DP are quite broad, including the dynamic evolution process of optical system [35,36] and physical system in time domain, such as synthetic dimension [37][38][39] and gauge field. [40] As for the photonic devices, DP is also widely studied in waveguide systems, [41][42][43] resonant cavity systems, [44][45][46] photonic crystal systems, [47][48][49] exciton systems. [50][51][52] Fig.…”

Quantum Zeno and Anti‐Zeno Effects in the Dynamics of Non‐Degenerate Hyper‐Raman Processes Coupled to Two Linear Waveguides

“…[38][39][40] Early experimental realizations of QZE have been followed by exciting recent experiments having much more controls and precision. [41] Experimental realization of QZE paved the way for various applications of QZE, [38,[42][43][44][45] ranging from the enhancement of the resolution of absorp- tion tomography [44,45] to the demonstration of an entangling gate between two effectively non-interacting transmon qubits, [46] the reduction of communication complexity [47] to the QZE and QAZE based noise spectroscopy [48] to the utilization of QZE to achieve improved precision of metrology in the presence of non-Markovian noise. [49] Interesting applications of QZE and QAZE are also found in opposing decoherence by restricting the dynamics of the system in a decoherence-free subspace, [50] quantum interrogation measurement, [38] counterfactual secure quantum communication, [43,51] isolating quantum dot from its surrounding electron reservoir, [52] protecting the entanglement between two interacting atoms.…”