[en] In the framework of open quantum systems, we study the internal dynamics of both freely falling and static two-level atoms interacting with quantized conformally coupled massless scalar field in de Sitter spacetime. We find that the atomic transition rates depend on both the nature of de Sitter spacetime and the motion of atoms, interestingly the steady states for both cases are always driven to being purely thermal, regardless of the atomic initial states. This thermalization phenomenon is structurally similar to what happens to an elementary quantum system immersed in a thermal field, and thus reveals the thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime. Besides, we find that the thermal baths will drive the entanglement shared by the freely falling atom (the static atom) and its auxiliary partner, a same two-level atom which is isolated from external fields, to being sudden death, and the proper time for the entanglement to be extinguished is computed. We also analyze that such thermalization and disentanglement phenomena, in principle, could be understood from the perspective of table-top simulation experiment

[en] Treated beyond the single-mode approximation, Measurement-Induced-Nonlocality (MIN) is investigated for both Dirac and Bosonic fields in non-inertial frames. Two distinct differences between the Dirac and Bosonic fields are: (i) the MIN for Dirac fields persists for any acceleration, while the quantity for Bosonic fields does decay to zero in the infinite acceleration limit; (ii) the dynamic behaviors of the MIN for Dirac fields is quite different from the Bosonic fields case. Besides, we also study the nonlocality for Dirac fields and find that the MIN is more general than the quantum nonlocality related to violation of Bell’s inequalities. Meanwhile some discussions of geometric discord are presented too. -- Highlights: •Measurement-Induced-Nonlocality (MIN) of both Dirac and Bosonic fields are studied in non-inertial frame beyond the single-mode approximation. •MIN for Dirac fields persists for any accelerations. •MIN for Bosonic fields decays to zero in the infinite acceleration limit. •Dynamic behaviors of the MIN for Dirac fields is quite different from that of Bosonic fields. •MIN is more general than the quantum nonlocality related to the violation of Bell’s inequalities

[en] Modeling the qubit by a two-level semiclassical detector coupled to a massless scalar field, we investigate how the Unruh effect affects the nonlocality and entanglement of two-qubit and three-qubit states when one of the entangled qubits is accelerated. Two distinct differences with the results of free field model in non-inertial frames are (i) for the two-qubit state, the CHSH inequality cannot be violated for sufficiently large but finite acceleration, furthermore, the concurrence will experience “sudden death”; and (ii) for the three-qubit state, not only does the entanglement vanish in the infinite acceleration limit, but also the Svetlichny inequality cannot be violated in the case of large acceleration. -- Highlights: ► We compare entanglement and nonlocality of two-level detector model with that of free field model in noninertial frame. ► Two-qubit state entanglement experiences “sudden death”. ► Three-qubit state entanglement vanishes in the infinite acceleration limit. ► Bipartite nonlocal correlations vanish for finite values of the acceleration. ► Tripartite nonlocal correlations vanish for finite values of the acceleration as well

[en] In the framework of open quantum systems, we study the dynamics of a static polarizable two-level atom interacting with a bath of fluctuating vacuum electromagnetic field and explore under which conditions the coherence of the open quantum system is unaffected by the environment. For both a single-qubit and two-qubit systems, we find that the quantum coherence cannot be protected from noise when the atom interacts with a non-boundary electromagnetic field. However, with the presence of a boundary, the dynamical conditions for the insusceptible of quantum coherence are fulfilled only when the atom is close to the boundary and is transversely polarizable. Otherwise, the quantum coherence can only be protected in some degree in other polarizable direction. -- Highlights: •We study the dynamics of a two-level atom interacting with a bath of fluctuating vacuum electromagnetic field. •For both a single and two-qubit systems, the quantum coherence cannot be protected from noise without a boundary. •The insusceptible of the quantum coherence can be fulfilled only when the atom is close to the boundary and is transversely polarizable. •Otherwise, the quantum coherence can only be protected in some degree in other polarizable direction.

[en] We investigate the dynamics of entanglement between two atoms in de Sitter spacetime and in thermal Minkowski spacetime. We treat the two-atom system as an open quantum system which is coupled to a conformally coupled massless scalar field in the de Sitter invariant vacuum or to a thermal bath in the Minkowski spacetime, and derive the master equation that governs its evolution. We compare the phenomena of entanglement creation, degradation, revival and enhancement for the de Sitter spacetime case with that for the thermal Minkowski spacetime case. We find that the entanglement dynamics of two atoms for these two spacetime cases behave quite differently. In particular, the two atoms interacting with the field in the thermal Minkowski spacetime (with the field in the de Sitter-invariant vacuum), under certain conditions, could be entangled, while they would not become entangled in the corresponding de Sitter case (in the corresponding thermal Minkowski case). Thus, although a single static atom in the de Sitter-invariant vacuum responds as if it were bathed in thermal radiation in a Minkowski universe, with the help of the different dynamic evolution behaviors of entanglement for two atoms one can in principle distinguish these two universes.

[en] We probe the κ-deformation of spacetime using a two-level atom as a detector coupled to a κ-deformed massless scalar field which is invariant under a κ-Poincare algebra and written in commutative spacetime. To address the quantum bound to the estimability of the deformation parameter κ, we perform measurements on the two-level detector and maximize the value of quantum Fisher information over all possible detector preparations. We prove that the population measurement is the optimal measurement in the estimation of the deformation parameter κ. In particular, we show that the relativistic motion of the detector affects the precision in the estimation of the parameter κ, which can effectively improve this precision comparing to that of the static detector case by many orders of magnitude. (orig.)

[en] We investigate how the Unruh effect affects the transition between classical and quantum decoherences for a general class of initial states and find that: (i) The quantum decoherence exists while λt⩽λt-tilde (the transition time) and the classical one can also affect the system's evolution while λt⩾λt-tilde for both the bit and phase-bit flips, which are different from the cases in inertial frame; (ii) The classical decoherence will not occur, while the quantum decoherence still dominates the evolution of system as λt⩾λt-tilde for the phase flip; And (iii) as the Unruh temperature increases, the λt-tilde, compared with that in inertial frame, will be bigger for phase flip but smaller for bit flip. However, the λt-tilde does not change no matter what the Unruh temperature is for phase-bit flip.

[en] We address the optimal estimation of quantum parameters, in the framework of local quantum estimation theory, for a massive scalar quantum field in the expanding Robertson–Walker universe exhibiting Lorentz invariance violation (LIV). We find that, in the estimation of cosmological parameters, the ultimate bounds to the precision of the Lorentz-invariant massive scalar field can be improved due to the effects of LIV under some appropriate conditions. We also show that, in the Lorentz-invariant massive scalar field and massless scalar field due to LIV backgrounds, the optimal precision can be achieved by choosing the particles with some suitable LIV, cosmological and field parameters. Moreover, in the estimation of LIV parameter during the spacetime expansion, we prove that the appropriate momentum mode of field particles and larger cosmological parameters can provide us a better precision.

[en] We study the Hawking effect in terms of the geometric phase for a two-level atom coupled to vacuum fluctuations in the background of Kerr black hole in a gedanken experiment. Since the atom interacts with a bath of fluctuating massless scalar field, its geometric phase for the nonunitary evolution turns out to be affected by the spacetime curvature that backscatters the vacuum field modes. We examine the geometric phase for two kinds of vacua, i.e. the Unruh vacuum and the Candelas–Chrzanowski–Howard vacuum. We find that for both of these two cases, the geometric phase of the static atom locating outside the infinite redshift surface (or the stationary atom locating inside the ergosphere) exposes that the atom behaves as if it were immersed in a thermal radiation at the Hawking temperature from the Kerr black hole. Therefore, our results show that one in principle can reveal the Hawking effect in the Kerr black hole by analyzing the correction of the geometric phase as opposed to that in a flat spacetime. (paper)

[en] Since cosmic string spacetime is locally flat but with nontrivial global topology characterized by a deficit angle, we devote to address the quantum bound to the estimation of the deficit angle parameter by using a two-level atom as a detector which is coupled to a massless scalar field. We show that the initial excited state of the detector is the optimal state, and quantum precision always obtains the maximum value when the detector evolves for a limited time. We find that the sensitivity in the predictions for the deficit angle parameter decreases with the increase of . We also note that a uniform, rectilinear accelerated motion does not improve the estimation accuracy, so we obtain the inertial detector is better than the uniform, rectilinear accelerated detector. Therefore, we provide a possibility for detecting the nontrivial global topology in the spacetime. (paper)