Quantum transport simulations in a programmable nanophotonic processor

TL;DR

This study uses a programmable nanophotonic processor to explore how disorder and environmental noise influence quantum transport, revealing regimes like environment-assisted transport and the quantum Goldilocks effect.

Contribution

It demonstrates the use of a large, low-loss nanophotonic mesh to systematically map disorder effects on quantum transport in a programmable setting.

Findings

Identification of distinct transport regimes including environment-assisted transport.

Observation of the quantum Goldilocks regime in disordered systems.

Validation of the nanophotonic processor as a platform for quantum simulation.

Abstract

Environmental noise and disorder play critical roles in quantum particle and wave transport in complex media, including solid-state and biological systems. Recent work has predicted that coupling between noisy environments and disordered systems, in which coherent transport has been arrested due to localization effects, could actually enhance transport. Photonic integrated circuits are promising platforms for studying such effects, with a central goal being the development of large systems providing low-loss, high-fidelity control over all parameters of the transport problem. Here, we fully map the role of disorder in quantum transport using a nanophotonic processor consisting of a mesh of 88 generalized beamsplitters programmable on microsecond timescales. Over 64,400 transport experiments, we observe several distinct transport regimes, including environment-assisted quantum transport and the ''quantum Goldilocks'' regime in strong, statically disordered discrete-time systems. Low loss and high-fidelity programmable transformations make this nanophotonic processor a promising platform for many-boson quantum simulation experiments.