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Chen, Yu-Ao

Publications and source records attributed to Chen, Yu-Ao.

Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry: Workshop Summary

This document presents a summary of the 2023 Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry Workshop hosted by CERN. The workshop brought together experts from around the world to discuss the exciting developments in large-scale atom interferometer (AI) prototypes and their potential for detecting ultralight dark matter and gravitational waves. The primary objective of the workshop was to lay the groundwork for an international TVLBAI proto-collaboration. This collaboration aims to unite researchers from different institutions to strategize and secure funding for terrestrial large-scale AI projects. The ultimate goal is to create a roadmap detailing the design and technology choices for one or more km-scale detectors, which will be operational in the mid-2030s. The key sections of this report present the physics case and technical challenges, together with a comprehensive overview of the discussions at the workshop together with the main conclusions.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Solving independent set problems with photonic quantum circuits

An independent set (IS) is a set of vertices in a graph such that no edge connects any two vertices. In adiabatic quantum computation [E. Farhi, et al ., Science 292, 472–475 (2001); A. Das, B. K. Chakrabarti, Rev. Mod. Phys. 80, 1061–1081 (2008)], a given graph G ( V , E ) can be naturally mapped onto a many-body Hamiltonian H IS G ( V , E ) , with edges E being the two-body interactions between adjacent vertices V . Thus, solving the IS problem is equivalent to finding all the computational basis ground states of H IS G ( V , E ) . Very recently, non-Abelian adiabatic mixing (NAAM) has been proposed to address this task, exploiting an emergent non-Abelian gauge symmetry of H IS G ( V , E ) [B. Wu, H. Yu, F. Wilczek, Phys. Rev. A 101, 012318 (2020)]. Here, we solve a representative IS problem G ( 8 , 7 ) by simulating the NAAM digitally using a linear optical quantum network, consisting of three C-Phase gates, four deterministic two-qubit gate arrays (DGA), and ten single rotation gates. The maximum IS has been successfully identified with sufficient Trotterization steps and a carefully chosen evolution path. Remarkably, we find IS with a total probability of 0.875(16), among which the nontrivial ones have a considerable weight of about 31.4%. Our experiment demonstrates the potential advantage of NAAM for solving IS-equivalent problems.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗

Cold atoms in space: community workshop summary and proposed road-map

We summarise the discussions at a virtual Community Workshop on Cold Atoms in Space concerning the status of cold atom technologies, the prospective scientific and societal opportunities offered by their deployment in space, and the developments needed before cold atoms could be operated in space. The cold atom technologies discussed include atomic clocks, quantum gravimeters and accelerometers, and atom interferometers. Prospective applications include metrology, geodesy and measurement of terrestrial mass change due to, e.g., climate change, and fundamental science experiments such as tests of the equivalence principle, searches for dark matter, measurements of gravitational waves and tests of quantum mechanics. We review the current status of cold atom technologies and outline the requirements for their space qualification, including the development paths and the corresponding technical milestones, and identifying possible pathfinder missions to pave the way for missions to exploit the full potential of cold atoms in space. Finally, we present a first draft of a possible road-map for achieving these goals, that we propose for discussion by the interested cold atom, Earth Observation, fundamental physics and other prospective scientific user communities, together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and national space and research funding agencies.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Improved Spatial Resolution Achieved by Chromatic Intensity Interferometry

Interferometers are widely used in imaging technologies to achieve enhanced spatial resolution, but require that the incoming photons be indistinguishable. In previous work, we built and analyzed color erasure detectors which expand the scope of intensity interferometry to accommodate sources of different colors. Here we demonstrate experimentally how color erasure detectors can achieve improved spatial resolution in an imaging task, well beyond the diffraction limit. Utilizing two 10.9 mm-aperture telescopes and a 0.8 m baseline, we measure the distance between a 1063.6 nm source and a 1064.4 nm source separated by 4.2 mm at a distance of 1.43 km, which surpasses the diffraction limit of a single telescope by about 40 times. Moreover, chromatic intensity interferometry allows us to recover the phase of the Fourier transform of the imaged objects – a quantity that is, in the presence of modest noise, inaccessible to conventional intensity interferometry.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Chromatic interferometry with small frequency differences

By developing a ‘two-crystal’ method for color erasure, we can broaden the scope of chromatic interferometry to include optical photons whose frequency difference falls outside of the 400 nm to 4500 nm wavelength range, which is the passband of a PPLN crystal. We demonstrate this possibility experimentally, by observing interference patterns between sources at 1064.4 nm and 1063.6 nm, corresponding to a frequency difference of about 200 GHz.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗