Entanglement without Dissipation: A Touchstone for an exact Comparison of Entanglement Measures

Entanglement, which is an essential characteristic of quantum mechanics, is the key element in potential practical quantum information and quantum communication systems. However, there are many open and fundamental questions (relating to entanglement measures, sudden death, etc.) that require a deeper understanding. Thus, we are motivated to investigate a simple but non-trivial correlated two-body continuous variable system in the absence of a heat bath, which facilitates an \underline{exact} measure of the entanglement at all times. In particular, we find that the results obtained from all well-known existing entanglement measures agree with each other but that, in practice, some are more straightforward to use than others

Information and entropy in quantum Brownian motion: Thermodynamic entropy versus von Neumann entropy

We compare the thermodynamic entropy of a quantum Brownian oscillator derived from the partition function of the subsystem with the von Neumann entropy of its reduced density matrix. At low temperatures we find deviations between these two entropies which are due to the fact that the Brownian particle and its environment are entangled. We give an explanation for these findings and point out that these deviations become important in cases where statements about the information capacity of the subsystem are associated with thermodynamic properties, as it is the case for the Landauer principle.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Entropy of a Quantum Oscillator coupled to a Heat Bath and implications for Quantum Thermodynamics

The free energy of a quantum oscillator in an arbitrary heat bath at a temperature T is given by a "remarkable formula" which involves only a single integral. This leads to a corresponding simple result for the entropy. The low temperature limit is examined in detail and we obtain explicit results both for the case of an Ohmic heat bath and a radiation heat bath. More general heat bath models are also examined. This enables us to determine the entropy at zero temperature in order to check the third law of thermodynamics in the quantum regimeComment: International Conference on "Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics

Cosmological gravitino problem confronts electroweak physics

A generic feature of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking models is that the gravitino is the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). In order not to overclose the universe, the gravitino LSP should be light enough (~ 1 keV), or appropriately heavy (~ 1 GeV). We study further constraints on the mass of the gravitino imposed by electroweak experiments, i.e., muon g-2 measurements, electroweak precision measurements, and direct searches for supersymmetric particles at LEP2. We find that the heavy gravitino is strongly disfavored from the lower mass bound on the next-to-LSP. The sufficiently light gravitino, on the other hand, has rather sizable allowed regions in the model parameter space.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, version to appear in PR

Dyson Pairs and Zero-Mass Black Holes

It has been argued by Dyson in the context of QED in flat spacetime that perturbative expansions in powers of the electric charge e cannot be convergent because if e is purely imaginary then the vacuum should be unstable to the production of charged pairs. We investigate the spontaneous production of such Dyson pairs in electrodynamics coupled to gravity. They are found to consist of pairs of zero-rest mass black holes with regular horizons. The properties of these zero rest mass black holes are discussed. We also consider ways in which a dilaton may be included and the relevance of this to recent ideas in string theory. We discuss accelerating solutions and find that, in certain circumstances, the `no strut' condition may be satisfied giving a regular solution describing a pair of zero rest mass black holes accelerating away from one another. We also study wormhole and tachyonic solutions and how they affect the stability of the vacuum.Comment: 41 pages LaTex, 5 figure

Radiative Corrections to Fixed Target Moller Scattering Including Hard Bremsstrahlung Effects

We present a calculation of the complete $O(\alpha)$ electroweak radiative corrections to the Moller scattering process e^-e^- -> e^-e^-, including hard bremsstrahlung contributions. We study the effects of these corrections on both the total cross section and polarization asymmetry measured in low energy fixed target experiments. Numerical results are presented for the experimental cuts relevant for E-158, a fixed target e^-e^- experiment being performed at SLAC; the effect of hard bremsstrahlung is to shift the measured polarization asymmetry by approximately +4%. We briefly discuss the remaining theoretical uncertainty in the prediction for the low energy Moller scattering polarization asymmetry.Comment: 22 pgs; minor clarifications added and typos fixe

Super-conservative interpretation of muon g-2 results applied to supersymmetry

The recent developments in theory and experiment related to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon are applied to supersymmetry. We follow a very cautious course, demanding that the supersymmetric contributions fit within five standard deviations of the difference between experiment and the standard model prediction. Arbitrarily small supersymmetric contributions are then allowed, so no upper bounds on superpartner masses result. Nevertheless, non-trivial exclusions are found. We characterize the substantial region of parameter space ruled out by this analysis that has not been probed by any previous experiment. We also discuss some implications of the results for forthcoming collider experiments.Comment: 10 pages, latex, 3 fig

Neutrino-induced lepton flavor violation in gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking

Gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking is known to greatly suppress flavor changing neutral current effects. However, we show that gauge mediation in the context of leptogenesis implies potentially large lepton flavor violating signals. If the heavy right-handed neutrinos that participate in leptogenesis are lighter than the messenger scale of gauge mediation, they will induce flavor off-diagonal masses to the sleptons which in turn can induce large effects in mu to e gamma, tau to mu gamma, and mu-e conversion in nuclei. We demonstrate this result and compute numerically the lepton-flavor violating decay and conversion rates in scenarios of direct gauge mediation.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

On Yukawa quasi-unification with mu<0

Although recent data on the muon anomalous magnetic moment strongly disfavor the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model with mu<0, they cannot exclude it because of theoretical ambiguities. We consider this model supplemented by a Yukawa quasi-unification condition which allows an acceptable b-quark mass. We find that the cosmological upper bound on the lightest sparticle relic abundance is incompatible with the data on the branching ratio of b-->s gamma, which is evaluated by including all the next-to-leading order corrections. Thus, this scheme is not viable.Comment: 4 pages including 3 figures, Revte

Heavy mass expansion, light-by-light scattering and the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon

Contributions from light-by-light scattering to (g_\mu-2)/2, the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, are mediated by the exchange of charged fermions or scalar bosons. Assuming large masses M for the virtual particles and employing the technique of large mass expansion, analytical results are obtained for virtual fermions and scalars in the form of a series in (m_\mu /M)^2. This series is well convergent even for the case M=m_\mu. For virtual fermions, the expansion confirms published analytical formulae. For virtual scalars, the result can be used to evaluate the contribution from charged pions. In this case our result confirms already available numerical evaluations, however, it is significantly more precise.Comment: revtex4, eps figure