We present a tutorial review on the topics related to current development in cavity optomechanics, with special emphasis on cavity optomechanical effects with ultracold gases, Bose–Einstein condensates, and spinor Bose–Einstein condensates. Topics including the quantum model and nonlinearity of the cavity optomechanics, the principles of optomechanical cooling, radiation-pressure-induced nonlinear states, the chaotic dynamics in a condensate-mirror-hybrid optomechanical setup, and the spin-mixing dynamics controlled by optical cavities are covered.

We present a detailed analysis of phase sensitivity for a nonlinear Ramsey interferometer, which utilize effective mean-field interaction of a two-component Bose–Einstein condensate in phase accumulation. For large enough particle number N and small phase shift ?, analytical results of the Ramsey signal and the phase sensitivity are derived for a product coherent state |θ,0?. When collisional dephasing is absent, we confirm that the optimal sensitivity scales as 2/N^3/2 for polar angle of the initial state θ = π/4 or 3π/4. The best-sensitivity phase satisfies different transcendental equations, depending upon the initial state and the observable being measured after the phase accumulation. In the presence of the collisional dephasing, we show that the N^-3/2-scaling rule of the sensitivity maintains with spin operators J^x and J^y measurements. A slightly better sensitivity is attainable for optimal coherent state with θ = π/6 or 5π/6.

Linewidth narrowing and other quantum coherent effects based on three-photon coherent population trapping (CPT) in Ca⁺ ions are investigated. If the propagation directions of the three lasers obey the phase matching condition, the dark linewidth resulting from the CPT can be very narrow, and it can be controlled by adjusting the parameters of the lasers.

In our experiment, a single cesium atom prepared in a large-magnetic-gradient magneto–optical trap (MOT) can be efficiently transferred into a 1064-nm far-off-resonance microscopic optical dipole trap (FORT). The efficient transfer of the single atom between the two traps is used to determine the trapping lifetime and the effective temperature of the single atom in FORT. The typical trapping lifetime has been improved from ～ 6.9 s to ～ 130 s by decreasing the background pressure from ～ 1 × 10^–10 Torr to ～ 2 × 10^–11Torr and applying one-shot 10-ms laser cooling phase. We also theoretically investigate the dependence of trapping lifetimes of a single atom in a FORT on trap parameters based on the FORT beam’s intensity noise induced heating. Numerical simulations show that the heating depends on the FORT beam’s waist size and the trap depth. The trapping time can be predicted based on effective temperature measurement of a single atom in the FORT and the intensity noise spectra of the FORT beam. These experimental results are found to be in agreement with the predictions of the heating model.

Graphene nanostructures are promising candidates for future nanoelectronics and solid-state quantum information technology. In this review we provide an overview of a number of electron transport experiments on etched graphene nanostructures. We briefly revisit the electronic properties and the transport characteristics of bulk, i.e., two-dimensional graphene. The fabrication techniques for making graphene nanostructures such as nanoribbons, single electron transistors and quantum dots, mainly based on a dry etching “paper-cutting” technique are discussed in detail. The limitations of the current fabrication technology are discussed when we outline the quantum transport properties of the nanostructured devices. In particular we focus here on transport through graphene nanoribbons and constrictions, single electron transistors as well as on graphene quantum dots including double quantum dots. These quasi-one-dimensional (nanoribbons) and quasi-zero-dimensional (quantum dots) graphene nanostructures show a clear route of how to overcome the gapless nature of graphene allowing the confinement of individual carriers and their control by lateral graphene gates and charge detectors. In particular, we emphasize that graphene quantum dots and double quantum dots are very promising systems for spin-based solid state quantum computation, since they are believed to have exceptionally long spin coherence times due to weak spin–orbit coupling and weak hyperfine interaction in graphene.

The interaction between molecules and solid surfaces plays important roles in various applications, including catalysis, sensors, nanoelectronics, and solar cells. Surprisingly, a full understanding of molecule–surface interaction at the quantum mechanical level has not been achieved even for very simple molecules, such as water. In this mini-review, we report recent progresses and current status of studies on interaction between representative molecules and surfaces. Taking water/metal, DNA bases/carbon nanotube, and organic dye molecule/oxide as examples, we focus on the understanding on the microstructure, electronic property, and electron–ion dynamics involved in these systems obtained from first-principles quantum mechanical calculations. We find that a quantum mechanical description of molecule–surface interaction is essential for understanding interface phenomenon at the microscopic level, such as wetting. New theoretical developments, including van der Waals density functional and quantum nuclei treatment, improve further our understanding of surface interactions.

The local density of states (LDOS) around two nonmagnetic impurities which are located at different sites is studied within the two-dimensional t–J–U model. The order parameters are determined in a self-consistent way with the Gutzwiller projected mean-field approximation and the Bogoliubov–de Gennes theory. When the two impurities are located one or two sites away, we find the superconductivity coherence peaks are more strongly suppressed and the zero-energy peak (ZEP) has split into two peaks. Whereas when the two impurities are located next to each other, the ZEP vanished, and LDOS does not change a lot compared with the case away from the impurities.

Motivated by the recent pioneering advances on nanoscale plasmonics and also nanophotonics technology based on the surface plasmons (SPs), in this work, we give a master equation model in the Lindblad form and investigate the quantum optical properties of single quantum dot (QD) emitter coupled to the SPs of a metallic nanowire. Our main results demonstrate the QD luminescence results of photon emission show three distinctive regimes depending on the distance between QD and metallic nanowire, which elucidates a crossover passing from being metallic dissipative for much smaller emitter–nanowire distances to surface plasmon (SP) emission for larger separations at the vicinity of plasmonic metallic nanowire. Besides, our results also indicate that, for both the resonant case and the detuning case, through measuring QD emitter luminescence spectra and second-order correlation functions, the information about the QD emitter coupling to the SPs of the dissipative metallic nanowire can be extracted. This theoretical study will serve as an introduction to understanding the nanoplasmonic imaging spectroscopy and pave a new way to realize the quantum information devices.

We explain how to treat a microscopic wave function of α-condensation taking a 3α-nucleus as a typical example. The wave function has been originally proposed ten years before by Horiuchi, R?pke, Schuck and the present author (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2001, 87: 192501). The microscopic model, which fully takes into account the Pauli principle between all the constituent nucleons, effective internucleon forces and the Coulomb force, can play an important role in reproducing an α-gas nature thanks to α-condensation as an excited state of α-like nuclei. An essential point of the wave function is to describe their ground state simultaneously.We study its typical features by giving an analytical formula of the norm kernel and the kernel concerning the one-body operator for 3α-condensation.

Scale-free topology and high clustering coexist in some real networks, and keep invariant for growing sizes of the systems. Previous models could hardly give out size-independent clustering with selforganized mechanism when succeeded in producing power-law degree distributions. Always ignored, some empirical statistic results display flat-head power-law behaviors. We modify our recent coevolutionary model to explain such phenomena with the inert property of nodes to retain small portion of unfavorable links in self-organized rewiring process. Flat-head power-law and size-independent clustering are induced as the new characteristics by this modification. In addition, a new scaling relation is found as the result of interplay between node state growth and adaptive variation of connections.