A quantum heat engine with coupled superconducting resonators

  1. Ali Ü. C. Hardal,
  2. Nur Aslan,
  3. C. M. Wilson,
  4. and Özgür E. Müstecaplıoğlu
We propose a quantum heat engine composed of two superconducting transmission line resonators interacting with each other via an optomechanical-like coupling. One resonator is periodically
excited by a thermal pump. The incoherently driven resonator induces coherent oscillations in the other one due to the coupling. A limit cycle, indicating finite power output, emerges in the thermodynamical phase space. The system implements an all-electrical analog of a photonic piston. Instead of mechanical motion, the power output is obtained as a coherent electrical charging in our case. We explore the differences between the quantum and classical descriptions of our system by solving the quantum master equation and classical Langevin equations. Specifically, we calculate the mean number of excitations, second-order coherence, as well as the entropy, temperature, power and mean energy to reveal the signatures of quantum behavior in the statistical and thermodynamic properties of the system. We find evidence of a quantum enhancement in the power output of the engine at low temperatures.

Discrete time quantum walk with nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond coupled to a superconducting flux qubit

  1. Ali Ü. C. Hardal,
  2. Peng Xue,
  3. Yutaka Shikano,
  4. Özgür E. Müstecaplioglu,
  5. and Barry C. Sanders
We propose a quantum-electrodynamics scheme for implementing the discrete-time, coined quantum walk with the walker corresponding to the phase degree of freedom for a quasi-magnon field
realized in an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond. The coin is realized as a superconducting flux qubit. Our scheme improves on an existing proposal for implementing quantum walks in cavity quantum electrodynamics by removing the cumbersome requirement of varying drive-pulse durations according to mean quasiparticle number. Our improvement is relevant to all indirect-coin-flip cavity quantum-electrodynamics realizations of quantum walks. Our numerical analysis shows that this scheme can realize a discrete quantum walk under realistic conditions.