In this paper we evaluate the performance of two superadiabatic stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) protocols derived from Gaussian and sin-cos pulses, under dissipation and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck noise in the energy levels. We find that, for small amplitudes of Stokes and pump pulses, the population transfer is mainly achieved directly through the counterdiabatic pulse, while for large amplitudes the conventional STIRAP path dominates. This kind of “hedging” leads to a remarkable robustness against dissipation in the lossy intermediate state. For small pulse amplitudes and increasing noise correlation time the performance is decreased, since the dominant counterdiabatic pulse is affected more, while for large pulse amplitudes, where the STIRAP path dominates, the efficiency is degraded more for intermediate correlation times (compared to the pulse duration). For the Gaussian superadiabatic STIRAP protocol we also investigate the effect of delay between pump and Stokes pulses and find that under the presence of noise the performance is improved for increasing delay. We conclude that the Gaussian protocol with suitably chosen delay and the sin-cos protocol perform quite well even under severe noise conditions. The present work is expected to have a broad spectrum of applications, since STIRAP has a crucial role in modern quantum technology.

The intensification and expansion in the cultivation of olives have contributed to the significant spread of Verticillium wilt, which is the most important fungal problem affecting olive trees. Recent studies confirm that practices such as the use of innovative natural minerals (Zeoshell ZF1) and the application of beneficial microorganisms (Micosat F BS WP) restore health in infected trees. However, for their efficient implementation the above methodologies require the marking of trees in the early stages of infestation—a task that is impractical with traditional means (manual labor) but also very difficult, as early stages are difficult to perceive with the naked eye. In this paper, we present the results of the My Olive Grove Coach (MyOGC) project, which used multispectral imaging from unmanned aerial vehicles to develop an olive grove monitoring system based on the autonomous and automatic processing of the multispectral images using computer vision and machine learning techniques. The goal of the system is to monitor and assess the health of olive groves, help in the prediction of Verticillium wilt spread and implement a decision support system that guides the farmer/agronomist.

We investigate static and dynamical aspects of string breaking in a Z 2 lattice gauge theory coupled to Kogut-Susskind staggered fermions. Using tensor network simulations, we demonstrate that the static potential as well as the site-resolved configuration of the matter sites and gauge links allows us to identify the regimes in which string breaking occurs. Furthermore, we develop a variational quantum eigensolver that allows for reliably preparing the ground state of the theory in both the absence and presence of static charges and to capture the static aspects of the phenomenon. Carrying out state preparation on real quantum hardware for up to 19 qubits, we demonstrate its suitability for current quantum devices. In addition, we study the real-time dynamics of a flux tube between two static charges using both tensor networks and quantum hardware. Using a trotterization for the time-evolution operator, we are able to show that the breaking process starts with the creation of charges inside the string. These eventually redistribute toward the static charges and screen them, which leads to the breaking of the flux tube.

We study the effects of motion, on the amount of coherence extracted onto an Unruh-DeWitt detector, modeled as a two-level system, when it interacts with a massless scalar coherent field in $1+1$ Minkowski spacetime. We observe that compared to a detector at rest, for certain values of the initial energy of the field and the duration of the interaction, the amount extracted is larger for a detector moving with constant speed or uniform acceleration. This “swelling” of coherence becomes more intense for increasing values of its velocity and acceleration, and is mostly observed for short interaction durations, when the energy of the field is larger compared to that of the detector, and for longer interaction durations but smaller field energies. As a consequence, the rate at which coherence is lost, is sometimes slower for a moving detector than for a detector at rest.

In this article, we evaluate the efficiency of two shortcuts to adiabaticity for the STIRAP system, in the presence of Ornstein–Uhlenbeck noise in the energy levels. The shortcuts under consideration preserve the interactions of the original Hamiltonian, without adding extra counterdiabatic terms, which directly connect the initial and target states. The first shortcut is such that the mixing angle is a polynomial function of time, while the second shortcut is derived from Gaussian pulses. Extensive numerical simulations indicate that both shortcuts perform quite well and robustly even in the presence of relatively large noise amplitudes, while their performance is decreased with increasing noise correlation time. For similar pulse amplitudes and durations, the efficiency of classical STIRAP is highly degraded even in the absence of noise. When using pulses with similar areas for the two STIRAP shortcuts, the shortcut derived from Gaussian pulses appears to be more efficient. Since STIRAP is an essential tool for the implementation of emerging quantum technologies, the present work is expected to find application in this broad research field.