11 research outputs found
Why the Tsirelson bound?
Wheeler's question 'why the quantum' has two aspects: why is the world
quantum and not classical, and why is it quantum rather than superquantum,
i.e., why the Tsirelson bound for quantum correlations? I discuss a remarkable
answer to this question proposed by Pawlowski et al (2009), who provide an
information-theoretic derivation of the Tsirelson bound from a principle they
call 'information causality.'Comment: 17 page
Macroscopically local correlations can violate information causality
Although quantum mechanics is a very successful theory, its foundations are
still a subject of intense debate. One of the main problems is the fact that
quantum mechanics is based on abstract mathematical axioms, rather than on
physical principles. Quantum information theory has recently provided new ideas
from which one could obtain physical axioms constraining the resulting
statistics one can obtain in experiments. Information causality and macroscopic
locality are two principles recently proposed to solve this problem. However
none of them were proven to define the set of correlations one can observe. In
this paper, we present an extension of information causality and study its
consequences. It is shown that the two above-mentioned principles are
inequivalent: if the correlations allowed by nature were the ones satisfying
macroscopic locality, information causality would be violated. This gives more
confidence in information causality as a physical principle defining the
possible correlation allowed by nature.Comment: are welcome. 6 pages, 4 figs. This is the originally submitted
version. The published version contains some bounds on quantum realizations
of d2dd isotropic boxes (table 1), found by T. Vertesi, who kindly shared
them with u
Trapped Rydberg Ions: From Spin Chains to Fast Quantum Gates
We study the dynamics of Rydberg ions trapped in a linear Paul trap, and
discuss the properties of ionic Rydberg states in the presence of the static
and time-dependent electric fields constituting the trap. The interactions in a
system of many ions are investigated and coupled equations of the internal
electronic states and the external oscillator modes of a linear ion chain are
derived. We show that strong dipole-dipole interactions among the ions can be
achieved by microwave dressing fields. Using low-angular momentum states with
large quantum defect the internal dynamics can be mapped onto an effective spin
model of a pair of dressed Rydberg states that describes the dynamics of
Rydberg excitations in the ion crystal. We demonstrate that excitation transfer
through the ion chain can be achieved on a nanosecond timescale and discuss the
implementation of a fast two-qubit gate in the ion chain.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figure
Comparative genomics indicates the mammalian CD33rSiglec locus evolved by an ancient large-scale inverse duplication and suggests all Siglecs share a common ancestral region
Is there a future for TNF promoter polymorphisms?
The in vitro study of TNF promoter polymorphism (SNP) function was stimulated by the numerous case-control (association) studies of the polymorphisms in relation to human disease and the appearance of several studies claiming to show a functional role for these SNPs provided a further impetus to researchers interested in the role of TNF in their disease of interest. In this review we consider case-control studies, concentrating on the autoimmune and inflammatory diseases rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, ankylosing spondylitis, and asthma, and on infectious diseases including malaria, hepatitis B and C infection, leprosy and sepsis/septic shock. We also review the available evidence on the functional role of the various TNF promoter polymorphisms. In general, case-control studies have produced mixed results, with little consensus in most cases on whether any TNF polymorphisms are actually associated with disease, although results have been more consistent in the case of infectious diseases, particularly malaria. Functional studies have also produced mixed results but recent work suggests that the much studied -308G/A polymorphism is not functional, while the function of other TNF polymorphisms remains controversial. Studies of the TNF region are increasingly using extended haplotypes that can better capture the variation of the MHC region