Quantum engineering requires controllable artificial systems with quantum coherence exceeding the device size and operation time. This can be achieved with geometrically confined low-dimensional electronic structures embedded within ultraclean materials, with prominent examples being artificial atoms (quantum dots) and quantum corrals (electronic cavities). Combining the two structures, we implement a mesoscopic coupled dot-cavity system in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas, and obtain an extended spin-singlet state in the regime of strong dot-cavity coupling. Engineering such extended quantum states presents a viable route for nonlocal spin coupling that is applicable for quantum information processing.

We present a theoretical analysis of spin-coherent electronic transport across a mesoscopic dotcavity system. Such spin-coherent transport has been recently demonstrated in an experiment with a dot-cavity hybrid implemented in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas [C. Rössler et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 166603 (2015)] and its spectroscopic signatures have been interpreted in terms of a competition between Kondo-type dot-lead and molecular-type dot-cavity singlet-formation. Our analysis brings forward all the transport features observed in the experiments and supports the claim that a spin-coherent molecular singlet forms across the full extent of the dot-cavity device. Our model analysis includes: (i) a single-particle numerical investigation of the two-dimensional geometry, its quantum-coral-type eigenstates and associated spectroscopic transport features, (ii) the derivation of an effective interacting model based on the observations of the numerical and experimental studies, and (iii) the prediction of transport characteristics through the device using a combination of a master-equation approach on top of exact eigenstates of the dot-cavity system, and an equation-of-motion analysis that includes Kondo physics. The latter provides additional temperature scaling predictions for the many-body phase transition between molecular-and Kondosinglet formation and its associated transport signatures. arXiv:1705.11145v2 [cond-mat.mes-hall]

Repeated measurements as typically occurring in two-or multi-time correlators rely on von Neumann's projection postulate, telling how to restart the system after an intermediate measurement.We invoke the principle of deferred measurement to describe an alternative procedure where coevolving quantum memories extract system information through entanglement, combined with a final readout of the memories described by Born's rule. The new approach to repeated quantum measurements respects the unitary evolution of quantum mechanics during intermediate times, unifies the treatment of strong and weak measurements, and reproduces the projected and (anti-) symmetrized correlators in the two limits. As an illustration, we apply our formalism to the calculation of the electron charge correlator in a mesoscopic physics setting, where single electron pulses assume the role of flying memory qubits. We propose an experimental setup which reduces the measurement of the time correlator to the measurement of currents and noise, exploiting the (pulsed) injection of electrons to cope with the challenge of performing short-time measurements.

We study the charge dynamics of a quantum dot as measured by a nearby quantum point contact probing the dot via individual single-particle wave packets. We contrast the two limiting cases of weak and strong system--detector coupling exerting vanishing and strong back-action on the system and analyze the resulting differences in the charge-charge correlator. Extending the study to multiple projective measurements modelling a continuous strong measurement, we identify a transition from a charge dynamics dominated by the system's properties to a universal dynamics governed by the measurement

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system is non-decreasing. Discussing the Second Law in the quantum world poses new challenges and provides new opportunities, involving fundamental quantum-information-theoretic questions and novel quantum-engineered devices. In quantum mechanics, systems with an evolution described by a so-called unital quantum channel evolve with a non-decreasing entropy. Here, we seek the opposite, a system described by a non-unital and, furthermore, energy-conserving channel that describes a system whose entropy decreases with time. We propose a setup involving a mesoscopic four-lead scatterer augmented by a micro-environment in the form of a spin that realizes this goal. Within this non-unital and energy-conserving quantum channel, the micro-environment acts with two non-commuting operations on the system in an autonomous way. We find, that the process corresponds to a partial exchange or swap between the system and environment quantum states, with the system's entropy decreasing if the environment's state is more pure. This entropy-decreasing process is naturally expressed through the action of a quantum Maxwell demon and we propose a quantum-thermodynamic engine with four qubits that extracts work from a single heat reservoir when provided with a reservoir of pure qubits. The special feature of this engine, which derives from the energy-conservation in the non-unital quantum channel, is its separation into two cycles, a working cycle and an entropy cycle, allowing to run this engine with no local waste heat.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure