Chiral luttinger liquids and their use in detecting quantum discord

Hunt, Matthew Antony (2018). Chiral luttinger liquids and their use in detecting quantum discord. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

In this thesis we investigate the physics of chiral Luttinger liquids found at the edge of a 2D material in the quantum Hall regime. We focus specifically on the edge modes found in the relativistic quantum Hall in graphene, where the number of species is larger than in conventional 2D semi-conductors. This leads to interesting dynamics of chiral modes along the interface of a graphene PN junction in a high magnetic field. We address a series of conflicting experiments within this system, and unify them into one model where the differences between the experiments originate from disorder. The high mobility of electrons in graphene, paired with additional degeneracies of the material, lead to it being an ideal material for the fabrication of a high quality electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZJ). We investigate how a MZI in graphene may differ from those built in other 2D semi-conductors, with a focus on the additional interactions we expect to be present in graphene. We make use of the electronic MZI in a quantum information setting, specifically with regards to detecting quantum discord. Due to the nature of discord as a entropic measure, it has proved difficult to
construct an experimental protocol to quantify (or even detect) its presence in a system.
Based on the MZI, we propose a robust protocol for detecting quantum discord, from which we construct an
experimentally accessible measure of discord. We demonstrate that our measure bares a strong resemblance to discord, whilst bypassing the difficulties associated with measurement of an entropic quantity.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):