We study the exact entanglement dynamics of two atoms in a lossy resonator. Besides discussing the steady-state entanglement, we show that in the strong coupling regime the system-reservoir correlations induce entanglement revivals and oscillations and propose a strategy to fight against the deterioration of the entanglement using the quantum Zeno effect.

We analyze the Kitaev model on the triangle-honeycomb lattice whose ground state has recently been shown to be a chiral spin liquid. We consider two perturbative expansions: the isolated-dimer limit containing Abelian anyons and the isolated-triangle limit. In the former case, we derive the low-energy effective theory and discuss the role played by multiplaquette interactions. In this phase, we also compute the spin-spin correlation functions for any vortex configuration. In the isolated-triangle limit, we show that the effective theory is, at lowest nontrivial order, the Kitaev honeycomb model at the isotropic point. We also compute the next-order correction which opens a gap and yields non-Abelian anyons.

CR-39 nuclear track material is frequently used for the detection of protons accelerated in laser-plasma interactions. The measurement of track densities allows for determination of particle angular distributions, and information on the kinetic energy can be obtained by the use of passive absorbers. We present a precise method of measuring spectral distributions of laser-accelerated protons in a single etching and analysis process. We make use of a one-to-one relation between proton energy and track size and present a precise calibration based on monoenergetic particle beams. While this relation is limited to proton energies below 1 MeV, we show that the range of spectral measurements can be significantly extended by simultaneous use of absorbers of suitable thicknesses. Examples from laser-plasma interactions are presented, and quantitative results on proton energies and particle numbers are compared to those obtained from a time-of-flight detector. The spectrum end points of continuous energy distributions have been determined with both detector types and coincide within 50-100 keV.

The thermodynamic properties of $N$ two-level atoms coupled to radiation field are analyzed taking into account the diamagnetic term by a slight modification to the usual approach to quantizing the electromagnetic field. Following this procedure, we are able to solve the discrepancy originating in the use of different states as a basis for expressing the state of radiation field. We develop a perturbative expansion of partition function and a simple analytic expression is found for a high coupling constant. We show that, in this limit, the interaction of independent atomic spins with a single photon mode can be interpreted as an effective spin-spin interaction of long range nature. Even in this approach, if the diamagnetic term is taken into account, a phase transition at nonzero temperature cannot occur due to sum-rule arguments.

We discuss the ground state entanglement of a bi-partite system, composed by a qubit strongly interacting with an oscillator mode, as a function of the coupling strength, the transition frequency and the level asymmetry of the qubit. This is done in the adiabatic regime in which the time evolution of the qubit is much faster than the oscillator one. Within the adiabatic approximation, we obtain a complete characterization of the ground state properties of the system and of its entanglement content.