Quantum Phase Transitions in a Linear Ion Trap

We show that the quantum phase transition of the Tavis-Cummings model can be realised in a linear ion trap of the kind proposed for quantum computation. The Tavis-Cummings model describes the interaction between a bosonic degree of freedom and a collective spin. In an ion trap, the collective spin system is a symmetrised state of the internal electronic states of N ions, while the bosonic system is the vibrational degree of freedom of the centre of mass mode for the ions.Comment: 6 pages and 2 figures. submitted to Dan Walls Memorial Volume, edited by H. Carmichael, R. Glauber, and M. Scully, to be published by Springe

Observer dependent entanglement

Understanding the observer-dependent nature of quantum entanglement has been a central question in relativistic quantum information. In this paper we will review key results on relativistic entanglement in flat and curved spacetime and discuss recent work which shows that motion and gravity have observable effects on entanglement between localized systems.Comment: Ivette Fuentes previously published as Ivette Fuentes-Guridi and Ivette Fuentes-Schulle

Combining Size and Shape in Weak Lensing

Weak lensing alters the size of images with a similar magnitude to the distortion due to shear. Galaxy size probes the convergence field, and shape the shear field, both of which contain cosmological information. We show the gains expected in the Dark Energy Figure of Merit if galaxy size information is used in combination with galaxy shape. In any normal analysis of cosmic shear, galaxy sizes are also studied, so this is extra statistical information comes for free and is currently unused. There are two main results in this letter: firstly, we show that size measurement can be made uncorrelated with ellipticity measurement, thus allowing the full statistical gain from the combination, provided that $\sqrt{Area}$ is used as a size indicator; secondly, as a proof of concept, we show that when the relevant modes are noise-dominated, as is the norm for lensing surveys, the gains are substantial, with improvements of about 68% in the Figure of Merit expected when systematic errors are ignored. An approximate treatment of such systematics such as intrinsic alignments and size-magnitude correlations respectively suggests that a much better improvement in the Dark Energy Figure of Merit of even a factor of ~4 may be achieved.Comment: Updated to MNRAS published version and added footnot