We present two-photon diffraction and interference experiments utilizing parametric down-converted photon pairs (biphotons) and a transmission grating. The biphoton exhibits a diffraction-interference pattern equivalent to an effective single particle with half wavelength of the constituent photons.

We point out that controlled quantum interference corresponds to measurement in an incomplete basis and implies a nonlocal transfer of classical information. A test of whether such a generalized measurement is permissible in quantum theory is presented.

We discuss the notion of spin squeezing considering two mutually exclusive classes of spin-s states, namely, oriented and non-oriented states. Our analysis shows that the oriented states are not squeezed while non-oriented states exhibit squeezing. We also present a new scheme for construction of spin-s states using 2s spinors oriented along different axes. Taking the case of s=1, we show that the ‘non-oriented’ nature and hence squeezing arise from the intrinsic quantum correlations that exist among the spinors in the coupled state.

We present a recent experiment [1] using space-like beamsplitters in motion revealing a new feature of quantum nonlocality: The correlations caused by two-particle quantum entanglement are not only independent of distance (as we already know from the conventional Bell-type experiments) but also independent of the time-ordering between the two single-photon measurements. Hence, it seems impossible to cast them in any real time ordering and maintain a causal explanation in which an earlier event influences a later one by arbitrarily fast communication.

Magnetochiral anisotropy refers to the phenomenon that when light is passed through a chiral medium placed in an external magnetic field, the refractive index, or equivalently, the absorption encountered by the light differs depending on whether it travels parallel or antiparallel to the magnetic field. It is a very small effect, the change in refractive index because of this effect alone being of the order of 10⁻¹¹. This effect has recently been measured in an active ring laser interferometer in which the detection scheme convincingly eliminates the contributions from natural optical activity, the Faraday effect and other stray anisotropies in the system. The phenomenon is important in the context of fundamental interactions between light and matter and the governing symmetry principles, and also in biochemistry as one possible explanation for the homochriality of life.

The dynamics of a particle which is linearly coupled to a boson field is investigated. The boson field induces superselection rules for the momentum of the particle, if the field is infrared divergent. Thereby the Hamiltonian of the total system remains bounded from below.

We present an ‘overview’ of coherence-to-decoherence transition in certain selected problems of condensed matter physics. Our treatment is based on a subsystem-plus-environment approach. All the examples chosen in this paper have one thing in common — the environmental degrees of freedom are taken to be bosonic and their spectral density of excitations is assumed to be ‘ohmic’. The examples are drawn from a variety of phenomena in condensed matter physics involving, for instance, quantum diffusion of hydrogen in metals, Landau diamagnetism and c-axis transport in high T_c superconductors.

Entangling an unknown qubit with one type of reference state is generally impossible. However, entangling an unknown qubit with two types of reference states is possible. To achieve this, we introduce a new class of states called zero sum amplitude (ZSA) multipartite, pure entangled states for qubits and study their salient features. Using shared-ZSA states, local operations and classical communication, we give a protocol for creating multipartite entangled states of an unknown quantum state with two types of reference states at remote places. This provides a way of encoding an unknown pure qubit state into a multiqubit entangled state.

We present a general scheme for entangling any degree of freedom of two uncorrelated identical particles from independent sources by a combination of two-particle interferometry and which-way detection. We show that this entanglement generation procedure works for completely random initial states of the variable to be entangled. We also demonstrate a curious complementarity exhibited by our scheme and its applications in estimating the generated entanglement as a function of wave packet overlap at the beamsplitter.

We show how the use of optimally shaped pulses to guide the time evolution of a system (‘coherent control’) can be an effective approach towards quantum computation logic. We demonstrate this with selective control of decoherence for a multilevel system with a simple linearly chirped pulse. We use a multiphoton density-matrix approach to explore the effects of ultrafast shaped pulses for two-level systems that do not have a single photon resonance, and show that many multiphoton results are surprisingly similar to the single-photon results. Finally, we choose two specific chirped pulses: one that always generates inversion and the other that always generates self-induced transparency to demonstrate an ensemble CNOT gate.

Use of dipolar and quadrupolar couplings for quantum information processing (QIP) by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is described. In these cases, instead of the individual spins being qubits, the 2ⁿ energy levels of the spin-system can be treated as an n-qubit system. It is demonstrated that QIP in such systems can be carried out using transition-selective pulses, in CH₃CN, ¹³CH₃CN, ⁷Li (I=3/2) and ¹³³Cs (I=7/2), oriented in liquid crystals yielding 2 and 3 qubit systems. Creation of pseudopure states, implementation of logic gates and arithmetic operations (half-adder and subtractor) have been carried out in these systems using transition-selective pulses.

The flow of information is discussed in the context of quantum teleportation. Situations are described which use a sequence of systems of particles in which, though there is no claim of faster-than-light signaling, it is plausible to suggest that information about measurement procedures in one wing of the apparatus does reach the other end in a non-local manner. The definition of the term ‘parameter dependence’ is discussed.

We show that in the case of unknown harmonic oscillator coherent states it is possible to achieve what we call perfect information cloning. By this we mean that it is still possible to make arbitrary number of copies of a state which has exactly the same information content as the original unknown coherent state. By making use of this perfect information cloning it would be possible to estimate the original state through measurements and make arbitrary number of copies of the estimator. We define the notion of a measurement fidelity and calculate it for our case as well as for the Gaussian cloners.

It is argued that immense physical resources — for nonlocal communication, espionage, and exponentially-fast computation — are hidden from us by quantum noise, and that this noise is not fundamental but merely a property of an equilibrium state in which the universe happens to be at the present time. It is suggested that ‘non-quantum’ or nonequilibrium matter might exist today in the form of relic particles from the early universe. We describe how such matter could be detected and put to practical use. Nonequilibrium matter could be used to send instantaneous signals, to violate the uncertainty principle, to distinguish non-orthogonal quantum states without disturbing them, to eavesdrop on quantum key distribution, and to outpace quantum computation (solving NP-complete problems in polynomial time).

Near the interface between a normal metal and a superconductor, Cooper pairs penetrate into the normal side, giving rise to the proximity effect. The two electrons of these pairs have entangled spin and orbital degrees of freedom. Nonlocal features of quantum mechanics can be probed by separating these two electrons. This is achieved with a fork geometry with two normal leads containing either spin- or energy-selective filters. A signature of entanglement can be detected by measuring the positive noise cross-correlations in this fork. In the case of energy filters, Bell-inequality checks constitute a definite probe of entanglement. We formulate Bell-type inequalities in terms of current-current cross-correlations associated with contacts with varying magnetization orientations. We find maximal violation (as in photons) when a superconductor is the particle source.

We show by general considerations that it is not possible to test violation of the existing versions of Bell’s inequality in entangled neutral kaons system using experimentally accessible thin regenerators. We point out the loophole in the recent argument (A Bramon and M Nowakowski, Phys. Rev. Lett.83, 1 (1999)) that claimed such a test to be possible.

I prove that there is no spooky action at a distance and nonlocal state-reduction during measurements on quantum entangled systems. The prediction of quantum theory as well as experimental results are in conflict with the concept of nonlocal state-reduction, as conclusively shown here under very general assumptions. This has far-reaching implications in the interpretation of quantum mechanics in general, and demands a radical change in its present interpretation of measurements on entangled multiparticle systems. Motivated by these results we re-examine Bell’s theorem for correlations of entangled systems and find that the correlation function used by Bell fails to incorporate phase correlations at source. It is the use of such an unphysical correlation function, and not failure of locality, that leads to the Bell’s inequalities.

We have addressed the foundational issue of how a macroscopic quantum system starting off as a pure state tends towards a mixed state described by the microcanonical ensemble. The earlier works of von Neumann and Van Kampen are also reviewed. A simple criterion is given as to when the above mentioned passage can take place.

The existence of several exotic phenomena, such as duality and spectral anholonomy is pointed out in one-dimensional quantum wire with a single defect. The topological structure in the spectral space which is behind these phenomena is identified.

The time-dependent Schrödinger equation is solved numerically for the case of a Gaussian wave packet incident on a time-varying potential barrier. The time evolving reflection and transmission probabilities of the wave packet are computed for several different time-dependent boundary conditions obtained by reducing or increasing the height of the potential barrier. We show that in the case when the barrier height is reduced to zero, a time interval is found during which the reflection probability is larger (superarrivals) compared to the unperturbed case. We further show that the transmission probability exhibits superarrivals when the barrier is raised from zero to a finite value of its height. Superarrivals could be understood by ascribing the features of a real physical field to the Schrödinger wave function which acts as a carrier through which a disturbance, resulting from the boundary condition being perturbed, prpagates from the barrier to the detectors measuring reflected and transmitted probabilities. The speed of propagation of this effect depends upon the rate of reducing or raising the barrier height, thus suggesting an application for secure information transfer using superarrivals.

Quantum aspects of optical polarization are discussed for waves traveling in anisotropic dielectric media with a view to relate the dynamics of polarization with that of photon spin and its manipulation by classical polarizers.

Recently Auberson, Mahoux, Roy and Singh have proved a long standing conjecture of Roy and Singh: In 2N-dimensional phase space, a maximally realistic quantum mechanics can have quantum probabilities of no more than N+1 complete commuting cets (CCS) of observables coexisting as marginals of one positive phase space density. Here I formulate a stationary principle which gives a nonperturbative definition of a maximally classical as well as maximally realistic phase space density. I show that the maximally classical trajectories are in fact exactly classical in the simple examples of coherent states and bound states of an oscillator and Gaussian free particle states. In contrast, it is known that the de Broglie-Bohm realistic theory gives highly nonclassical trajectories.

After a brief review of the notion of a full set of mutually unbiased bases in an N-dimensional Hilbert space, we summarize the work of Wootters and Fields (W K Wootters and B C Fields, Ann. Phys.191, 363 (1989)) which gives an explicit construction for such bases for the case N=p^r, where p is a prime. Further, we show how, by exploiting certain freedom in the Wootters-Fields construction, the task of explicitly writing down such bases can be simplified for the case when p is an odd prime. In particular, we express the results entirely in terms of the character vectors of the cyclic group G of order p. We also analyse the connection between mutually unbiased bases and the representations of G.

A classical phase space with a suitable symplectic structure is constructed together with functions which have Possion brackets algebraically identical to the Lie algebra structure of the Lie group SU(3). It is shown that in this phase space there are two spheres which intersect at one point. Such a system has a representation as an algebraic curve of the form X³+…=0 in C³. The curve introduced is singular at the origin in the limit when the radii of the spheres go to zero. A direct connection between the Lie groups SU(3) and a singular curve in C³ is thus established. The key step needed to do this was to treat the Lie group as a quantum system and determine its phase space.

We review certain emergent notions on the nature of space-time from noncommutative geometry and their radical implications. These ideas of space-time are suggested from developments in fuzzy physics, string theory, and deformation quantization. The review focuses on the ideas coming from fuzzy physics. We find models of quantum space-time like fuzzy S⁴ on which states cannot be localized, but which fluctuate into other manifolds like CP³. New uncertainty principles concerning such lack of localizability on quantum space-times are formulated. Such investigations show the possibility of formulating and answering questions like the probability of finding a point of a quantum manifold in a state localized on another one. Additional striking possibilities indicated by these developments is the (generic) failure of CPT theorem and the conventional spin-statistics connection. They even suggest that Planck’s ‘constant’ may not be a constant, but an operator which does not commute with all observables. All these novel possibilities arise within the rules of conventional quantum physics, and with no serious input from gravity physics.

We present evidence for a nonsingular origin of the Universe with intial conditions determined by quantum physics and relativistic gravity. In particular, we establish that the present temperature of the microwave background and the present density of the Universe agree well with our predictions from these intial conditions, after evolution to the present age using the Einstein-Friedmann equation. Remarkably, the quantum origin for the Universe naturally allows its evolution at exactly the critical density. We also discuss the consequences of these results to some fundamental aspects of quantum physics in the early Universe.

We consider the modification of a single-particle Schrödinger equation by the inclusion of an additional gravitational self-potential term which follows from the prescription that the ‘massdensity’ that enters this term is given by m|ψ($$\overrightarrow r $$,t)|², where ψ($$\overrightarrow r $$,t) is the wave function and m is the mass of the particle. This leads to a nonlinear equation, the ‘Newton-Schrödinger’ equation, which has been found to possess stationary self-bound solutions, whose energy can be determined using an asymptotic method. We find that such a particle strongly violates the superposition principle and becomes a black hole as its mass approaches the Planck mass.

Inelastic scattering induces dephasing in mesoscopic systems. An analysis of previous models to simulate inelastic scattering in such systems is presented and a relatively new model based on wave attenuation is introduced. The problem of Aharonov-Bohm (AB) oscillations in conductance of a mesoscopic ring is studied. We show that the conductance is symmetric under flux reversal and the visibility of AB oscillations decays to zero as a function of the incoherence parameter, signaling dephasing. Further the wave attenuation model is applied to a fundamental problem in quantum mechanics, that of the conditional (reflection/transmission) times spent in a given region of space by a quantum particle before scattering off from that region.

From the advent of quantum mechanics, various types of stochastic-dynamical approach to quantum mechanics have been tried. We discuss how to utilize Nelson’s stochastic quantum mechanics to analyze the tunneling phenomena, how to derive relativistic field equations via the Poisson process and how to describe a quantum dynamics of open systems by the use of quantum state diffusion, or the stochastic Schrödinger equation.

We construct a tunneling time distribution by means of Nelson’s quantum mechanics and investigate statistical properties of the tunneling time distribution. As a result, we find that the relationship between the average and the variance of the tunneling time shows ‘wave-particle duality’.

The classical Duffing oscillator is a dissipative chaotic system, and so there is not a definite Hamiltonian. We quantize the Duffing oscillator on the basis of quantum state diffusion (QSD) which is a formulation for open quantum systems and a useful tool for analyzing nonlinear problems and classical limits. We can define a ‘Lyapunov exponent’, which corresponds to the classical one in the proper limit, and investigate the behavior of the system by varying the Planck constant effectively. We show that there exists a critical stage, where the behavior of the system crosses over from classical to quantum one.

A Poisson process is one of the fundamental descriptions for relativistic particles: both fermions and bosons. A generalized linear photon wave equation in dispersive and homogeneous medium with dissipation is derived using the formulation of the Poisson process. This formulation provides a possible interpretation of the passage time of a photon moving in the medium, which never exceeds the speed of light in vacuum.

It is shown that conventional de Broglie-Bohm quantum theory is incompatible with the standard quantum theory of a system unless the former is ergodic.

Unlike the previous theoretical results based on standard quantum mechanics that established the nearly elliptical shapes for the centre-of-mass motion in Rydberg atoms using numerical simulations, we show analytically that the Bohmian trajectories in Rydberg atoms are nearly elliptical.