Charge Motion along a Polynucleotide Chains in a Constant Electric Field Depends on the Charge Coupling Constant with Chain Displacements

Various regimes of a charge motion along a chain in a constant electric field are investigated. This motion is simulated on the basis of the Holstein model. Earlier studies demonstrate a possibility of a uniform motion of a charge in a constant electric field over very long distances. For small values of the electric field intensity a Holstein polaron can move at a constant velocity. As the electric field intensity increases, a charge motion acquires oscillatorily character, performing Bloch oscillations. Since the charge motion depends on the whole set of the system parameters the character of the motion depends not only on the value of the electric field intensity. Therefore, the electric field intensity for which the uniform motion takes place differs for chains with different parameters. The character of the charge motion and distribution is considered in chains with different values of the constant of coupling between the charge and the displacements of the chain. We showed that the values of the electric field intensity for which the regime of a charge motion changes are different in chains with different values of the coupling constant. We also demonstrated that for one and the same value of the electric field intensity, in chains with different values of the coupling constant either a uniform motion or an oscillatory motion, or a stationary polaron can be observed.

Polaron dynamics of Bloch–Zener oscillations in an extended Holstein model

Recent developments in qubit engineering make circuit quantum electrodynamics devices promising candidates for the study of Bloch oscillations (BOs) and Landau–Zener (LZ) transitions. In this work, a hybrid circuit chain with alternating site energies under external electric fields is employed to study Bloch–Zener oscillations (BZOs), i.e. coherent superpositions of BOs and LZ transitions. We couple each of the tunable qubits in the chain to dispersionless optical phonons and build an extended Holstein polaron model with the purpose of investigating vibronic effects in the BZOs. We employ an extension of the Davydov ansatz in combination with the Dirac–Frenkel time-dependent variational principle to simulate the dynamics of the qubit chain under the influence of high-frequency quantum harmonic oscillators. Band gaps emerge due to energy differences in site energies at alternating qubit sites, and are shown to play key roles in tuning band structures and time periodic reconstructions of the wave patterns. In the absence of qubit–phonon interactions, the qubits undergo either standard BZOs or breathing modes, depending on whether the initial wave packet is formed by a broad or narrow Gaussian wave packet, respectively. The BZOs can get localized in space if the band gaps are sufficiently large. In the presence of qubit–phonon coupling, the periodic behavior of BZOs can be washed out and undergo dynamic localization. The influence of an ohmic bath on the dynamics of BZOs is investigated by means of a Markovian master equation approach. Finally, we calculate the von Neumann entropy as a measure of the entanglement between qubits and phonons.

High-harmonic generation in Weyl semimetal β-WP2 crystals

As a quantum material, Weyl semimetal has a series of electronic-band-structure features, including Weyl points with left and right chirality and corresponding Berry curvature, which have been observed in experiments. These band-structure features also lead to some unique nonlinear properties, especially high-order harmonic generation (HHG) due to the dynamic process of electrons under strong laser excitation, which has remained unexplored previously. Herein, we obtain effective HHG in type-II Weyl semimetal β-WP2 crystals, where both odd and even orders are observed, with spectra extending into the vacuum ultraviolet region (190 nm, 10th order), even under fairly low femtosecond laser intensity. In-depth studies have interpreted that odd-order harmonics come from the Bloch electron oscillation, while even orders are attributed to Bloch oscillations under the “spike-like” Berry curvature at Weyl points. With crystallographic orientation-dependent HHG spectra, we further quantitatively retrieved the electronic band structure and Berry curvature of β-WP2. These findings may open the door for exploiting metallic/semimetallic states as solid platforms for deep ultraviolet radiation and offer an all-optical and pragmatic solution to characterize the complicated multiband electronic structure and Berry curvature of quantum topological materials.

Observation of anyonic Bloch oscillations

Bloch oscillations are exotic phenomena describing the periodic motion of a wave packet subjected to the external force in a lattice, where the system possessing single- or multiple-particles could exhibit distinct oscillation behaviors. In particular, it has been pointed out that quantum statistics could dramatically affected the Bloch oscillation even in the absence of particle interactions, where the oscillation frequency of two pseudofermions with the anyonic statistical angle being π becomes half of that for two bosons. However, these statistic-dependent Bloch oscillations have never been observed in experiments up to now. Here, we report the first experimental simulation of anyonic Bloch oscillations using electric circuits. By mapping eigenstates of two anyons to modes of designed circuit simulators, the Bloch oscillation of two bosons and two pseudofermions are verified by measuring the voltage dynamics. It is found that the oscillation period in the two-boson simulator is almost twice of that in the two-pseudofermion simulator, which is consistent with the theoretical prediction. Our proposal provides a flexible platform to investigate and visualize many interesting phenomena related to particle statistics, and could have potential applications in the field of the novelty signal control.