Quantum Machines: Measurement and Control of Engineered Quantum Systems: Lecture Notes of the Les Houches Summer School: Volume 96, July 2011
Michel Devoret, Benjamin Huard, Robert Schoelkopf, and Leticia F. Cugliandolo
Abstract
This book gathers the lecture notes of courses given at the 2011 Les Houches Summer School in Theoretical Physics, Session XCVI. What is a quantum machine? Can we say that lasers and transistors are quantum machines? After all, physicists advertise these devices as the two main spin-offs of the understanding of quantum physics. However, while quantum mechanics must be used to predict the wavelength of a laser and the operation voltage of a transistor, it does not intervene at the level of the signals processed by these systems. Signals involve macroscopic collective variables such as voltages ... More
This book gathers the lecture notes of courses given at the 2011 Les Houches Summer School in Theoretical Physics, Session XCVI. What is a quantum machine? Can we say that lasers and transistors are quantum machines? After all, physicists advertise these devices as the two main spin-offs of the understanding of quantum physics. However, while quantum mechanics must be used to predict the wavelength of a laser and the operation voltage of a transistor, it does not intervene at the level of the signals processed by these systems. Signals involve macroscopic collective variables such as voltages and currents in a circuit or the amplitude of the oscillating electric field in an electromagnetic cavity resonator. In a true quantum machine, the signal collective variables, which both inform the outside on the state of the machine and receive controlling instructions, must themselves be treated as quantum operators, just like the position of the electron in a hydrogen atom.Quantum superconducting circuits, quantum dots, and quantum nanomechanical resonators satisfy the definition of quantum machines. These mesoscopic systems exhibit a few collective dynamical variables, whose fluctuations are well within the quantum regime and whose measurement is essentially limited in precision by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Other engineered quantum systems based on natural, rather than artificial, degrees of freedom can also qualify as quantum machines: trapped ions, single Rydberg atoms in superconducting cavities, and lattices of ultracold atoms. This book provides the basic knowledge needed to understand and investigate the physics of these novel systems.
Keywords:
quantum physics,
quantum mechanics,
quantum machine
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199681181 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199681181.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Michel Devoret, editor
Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, USA; Collège de France, Paris, France
Benjamin Huard, editor
Laboratoire Pierre Aigrain, CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
Robert Schoelkopf, editor
Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, USA
Leticia F. Cugliandolo, editor
Laboratoire de Physique Theorique et Hautes Energies, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6, Paris, France
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