Quantum feedback with weak measurements

The problem of feedback control of quantum systems by means of weak measurements is investigated in detail. When weak measurements are made on a set of identical quantum systems, the single-system density matrix can be determined to a high degree of accuracy while affecting each system only slightly. If this information is fed back into the systems by coherent operations, the single-system density matrix can be made to undergo an arbitrary nonlinear dynamics, including for example a dynamics governed by a nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. We investigate the implications of such nonlinear quantum dynamics for various problems in quantum control and quantum information theory, including quantum computation. The nonlinear dynamics induced by weak quantum feedback could be used to create a novel form of quantum chaos in which the time evolution of the single-system wave function depends sensitively on initial conditions.Comment: 11 pages, TeX, replaced to incorporate suggestions of Asher Pere

Why does fertilization reduce plant species diversity? Testing three competition-based hypotheses

1 Plant species diversity drops when fertilizer is added or productivity increases. To explain this, the total competition hypothesis predicts that competition above ground and below ground both become more important, leading to more competitive exclusion, whereas the light competition hypothesis predicts that a shift from below-ground to above-ground competition has a similar effect. The density hypothesis predicts that more above-ground competition leads to mortality of small individuals of all species, and thus a random loss of species from plots. 2 Fertilizer was added to old field plots to manipulate both below-ground and above-ground resources, while shadecloth was used to manipulate above-ground resources alone in tests of these hypotheses. 3 Fertilizer decreased both ramet density and species diversity, and the effect remained significant when density was added as a covariate. Density effects explained only a small part of the drop in diversity with fertilizer. 4 Shadecloth and fertilizer reduced light by the same amount, but only fertilizer reduced diversity. Light alone did not control diversity, as the light competition hypothesis would have predicted, but the combination of above-ground and below-ground competition caused competitive exclusion, consistent with the total competition hypothesis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75695/1/j.1365-2745.2001.00662.x.pd

Measurement of the B0-anti-B0-Oscillation Frequency with Inclusive Dilepton Events

The $B^0$-$\bar B^0$ oscillation frequency has been measured with a sample of 23 million \B\bar B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. In this sample, we select events in which both B mesons decay semileptonically and use the charge of the leptons to identify the flavor of each B meson. A simultaneous fit to the decay time difference distributions for opposite- and same-sign dilepton events gives $\Delta m_d = 0.493 \pm 0.012{(stat)}\pm 0.009{(syst)}$ ps$^{-1}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Search for Heavy Neutral and Charged Leptons in e+ e- Annihilation at LEP

A search for exotic unstable neutral and charged heavy leptons as well as for stable charged heavy leptons is performed with the L3 detector at LEP. Sequential, vector and mirror natures of heavy leptons are considered. No evidence for their existence is found and lower limits on their masses are set

BcB_c spectroscopy

In the framework of potential models for heavy quarkonium the mass spectrum for the system ($\bar b c$) is considered. Spin-dependent splittings, taking into account a change of a constant for effective Coulomb interaction between the quarks, and widths of radiative transitions between the ($\bar b c$) levels are calculated. In the framework of QCD sum rules, masses of the lightest vector $B_c^*$ and pseudoscalar $B_c$ states are estimated, scaling relation for leptonic constants of heavy quarkonia is derived, and the leptonic constant $f_{B_C}$ is evaluated.Comment: IHEP 94-51, LATEX, 39 page