Quantum state tomography using a single apparatus

The density matrix of a two-level system (spin, atom) is usually determined by measuring the three non-commuting components of the Pauli vector. This density matrix can also be obtained via the measurement data of two commuting variables, using a single apparatus. This is done by coupling the two-level system to a mode of radiation field, where the atom-field interaction is described with the Jaynes--Cummings model. The mode starts its evolution from a known coherent state. The unknown initial state of the atom is found by measuring two commuting observables: the population difference of the atom and the photon number of the field. We discuss the advantages of this setup and its possible applications.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure, Phys. Rev.

Unlock ways to share data on peer review

Peer review is the defining feature of scholarly communication. In a 2018 survey of more than 11,000 researchers, 98% said that they considered peer review important or extremely important for ensuring the quality and integrity of scholarly communication. Indeed, now that the Internet and social media have assumed journals\u2019 original role of dissemination, a journal\u2019s main function is curation. Both the public and the scientific community trust peer review to uphold shared values of rigour, ethics, originality and analysis by improving publications and filtering out weak or errant ones. Scholarly communities rely on peer review to establish common knowledge and credit

Continuum-based models and concepts for the transport of nanoparticles in saturated porous media: A state-of-the-science review

Environmental applications of nanoparticles (NP) increasingly result in widespread NP distribution within porous media where they are subject to various concurrent transport mechanisms including irreversible deposition, attachment/detachment (equilibrium or kinetic), agglomeration, physical straining, site-blocking, ripening, and size exclusion. Fundamental research in NP transport is typically conducted at small scale, and theoretical mechanistic modeling of particle transport in porous media faces challenges when considering the simultaneous effects of transport mechanisms. Continuum modeling approaches, in contrast, are scalable across various scales ranging from column experiments to aquifer. They have also been able to successfully describe the simultaneous occurrence of various transport mechanisms of NP in porous media such as blocking/straining or agglomeration/deposition/detachment. However, the diversity of model equations developed by different authors and the lack of effective approaches for their validation present obstacles to the successful robust application of these models for describing or predicting NP transport phenomena. This review aims to describe consistently all the important NP transport mechanisms along with their representative mathematical continuum models as found in the current scientific literature. Detailed characterizations of each transport phenomenon in regards to their manifestation in the column experiment outcomes, i.e., breakthrough curve (BTC) and residual concentration profile (RCP), are presented to facilitate future interpretations of BTCs and RCPs. The review highlights two NP transport mechanisms, agglomeration and size exclusion, which are potentially of great importance in controlling the fate and transport of NP in the subsurface media yet have been widely neglected in many existing modeling studies. A critical limitation of the continuum modeling approach is the number of parameters used upon application to larger scales and when a series of transport mechanisms are involved. We investigate the use of simplifying assumptions, such as the equilibrium assumption, in modeling the attachment/detachment mechanisms within a continuum modelling framework. While acknowledging criticisms about the use of this assumption for NP deposition on a mechanistic (process) basis, we found that its use as a description of dynamic deposition behavior in a continuum model yields broadly similar results to those arising from a kinetic model. Furthermore, we show that in two dimensional (2-D) continuum models the modeling efficiency based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC) is enhanced for equilibrium vs kinetic with no significant reduction in model performance. This is because fewer parameters are needed for the equilibrium model compared to the kinetic model. Two major transport regimes are identified in the transport of NP within porous media. The first regime is characterized by higher particle-surface attachment affinity than particle-particle attachment affinity, and operative transport mechanisms of physicochemical filtration, blocking, and physical retention. The second regime is characterized by the domination of particle-particle attachment tendency over particle-surface affinity. In this regime although physicochemical filtration as well as straining may still be operative, ripening is predominant together with agglomeration and further subsequent retention. In both regimes careful assessment of NP fate and transport is necessary since certain combinations of concurrent transport phenomena leading to large migration distances are possible in either case

Multiscale formulation of pore-scale compressible Darcy-Stokes flow

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of fluid dynamics in digital images of porous materials is challenging due to the cut-off length issue where interstitial voids below the resolution of the imaging instrument cannot be resolved. Such subresolution microporosity can be critical for flow and transport because they could provide important flow pathways. A micro-continuum framework can be used to address this problem, which applies to the entire domain a single momentum equation, i.e., Darcy-Brinkman-Stokes (DBS) equation, that recovers Stokes equation in the resolved void space (i.e., macropores) and Darcy equation in the microporous regions. However, the DBS-based micro-continuum framework is computationally demanding. Here, we develop an efficient multiscale method for the compressible Darcy-Stokes flow arising from the micro-continuum approach. The method decomposes the domain into subdomains that either belong to the macropores or the microporous regions, on which Stokes or Darcy problems are solved locally, only once, to build basis functions. The nonlinearity from compressible flow is accounted for in a local correction problem on each subdomain. A global interface problem is solved to couple the local bases and correction functions to obtain an approximate global multiscale solution, which is in excellent agreement with the reference single-scale solution. The multiscale solution can be improved through an iterative strategy that guarantees convergence to the single-scale solution. The method is computationally efficient and well-suited for parallelization to simulate fluid dynamics in large high-resolution digital images of porous materials. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.TOTAL through the Stanford TOTAL enhanced modeling of source rock (STEMS) project24 month embargo; published online: 25 July 2019This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]