Entanglement is not very useful for estimating multiple phases

The problem of the estimation of multiple phases (or of commuting unitaries) is considered. This is a sub-model of the estimation of a completely unknown unitary operation where it has been shown in recent works that there are considerable improvements by using entangled input states and entangled measurements. Here it is shown that when estimating commuting unitaries, there is practically no advantage in using entangled input states or entangled measurements.Comment: v2. New title, improved Fig.3, other minor changes, Accepted in PR

Effect of partial ionization on wave propagation in solar magnetic flux tubes

Observations show that waves are ubiquitous in the solar atmosphere and may play an important role for plasma heating. The study of waves in the solar corona is usually based on linear ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) for a fully ionized plasma. However, the plasma in the photosphere and the chromosphere is only partially ionized. Here we investigate theoretically the impact of partial ionization on MHD wave propagation in cylindrical flux tubes in the two-fluid model. We derive the general dispersion relation that takes into account the effects of neutral-ion collisions and the neutral gas pressure. We take the neutral-ion collision frequency as an arbitrary parameter. Particular results for transverse kink modes and slow magnetoacoustic modes are shown. We find that the wave frequencies only depend on the properties of the ionized fluid when the neutral-ion collision frequency is much lower that the wave frequency. For high collision frequencies realistic of the solar atmosphere ions and neutrals behave as a single fluid with an effective density corresponding to the sum of densities of both fluids and an effective sound velocity computed as the average of the sound velocities of ions and neutrals. The MHD wave frequencies are modified accordingly. The neutral gas pressure can be neglected when studying transverse kink waves but it has to be taken into account for a consistent description of slow magnetoacoustic waves. The MHD waves are damped due to neutral-ion collisions. The damping is most efficient when the wave frequency and the collision frequency are of the same order of magnitude. For high collision frequencies slow magnetoacoustic waves are more efficiently damped than transverse kink waves. In addition, we find the presence of cut-offs for certain combinations of parameters that cause the waves to become non-propagating.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

Measuring the purity of a qubit state: entanglement estimation with fully separable measurements

Given a finite number $N$ of copies of a qubit state we compute the maximum fidelity that can be attained using joint-measurement protocols for estimating its purity. We prove that in the asymptotic $N\to\infty$ limit, separable-measurement protocols can be as efficient as the optimal joint-measurement one if classical communication is used. This in turn shows that the optimal estimation of the entanglement of a two-qubit state can also be achieved asymptotically with fully separable measurements. The relationship between our global Bayesian approach and the quantum Cramer-Rao bound is also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX, improved versio

Jovian equatorial H2 emission from 1979-1987

Ninety two IUE observations of the Jovian equatorial region taken between 2 Dec. 1978 and 1 Feb. 1988 were averaged together by date of observation, resulting in 22 averaged spectra which were fit with a model to determine the amount of H2 Lyman band emission in the region 1552 to 1624A. The data suggest that the H2 emission may vary with time. Especially suggestive is the marked downward trend of the emission between 1983 and 1987, during which time the strength of the emission in the 1552 to 1624A region decreases by a factor of 10. Uncertainty in the existing data and a gap in the data in 1980 and 1981 preclude a positive identification of a correlation between the brightness of the H2 emission and the major solar cycle

Exoplanet HD 209458b : Evaporation strengthened

Following re-analysis of Hubble Space Telescope observations of primary transits of the extrasolar planet HD209458b at Lyman-alpha, Ben-Jaffel (2007, BJ007) claims that no sign of evaporation is observed. Here we show that, in fact, this new analysis is consistent with the one of Vidal-Madjar et al. (2003, VM003) and supports the detection of evaporation. The apparent disagreement is mainly due to the disparate wavelength ranges that are used to derive the transit absorption depth. VM003 derives a (15+/-4)% absorption depth during transit over the core of the stellar Lyman-alpha line (from -130 km/s to +100 km/s), and this result agrees with the (8.9+/-2.1)% absorption depth reported by BJ007 from a slightly expanded dataset but over a larger wavelength range (+/-200 km/s). These measurements agree also with the (5+/-2)% absorption reported by Vidal-Madjar et al. (2004) over the whole Lyman-alpha line from independent, lower-resolution data. We show that stellar Lyman-alpha variability is unlikely to significantly affect those detections. The HI atoms must necessarily have velocities above the escape velocities and/or be outside the Roche lobe, given the lobe shape and orientation. Absorption by HI in HD209458b's atmosphere has thus been detected with different datasets, and now with independent analyses. All these results strengthen the concept of evaporating hot-Jupiters, as well as the modelization of this phenomenon.Comment: To be published in ApJ

Analysis of a convenient information bound for general quantum channels

Open questions from Sarovar and Milburn (2006 J.Phys. A: Math. Gen. 39 8487) are answered. Sarovar and Milburn derived a convenient upper bound for the Fisher information of a one-parameter quantum channel. They showed that for quasi-classical models their bound is achievable and they gave a necessary and sufficient condition for positive operator-valued measures (POVMs) attaining this bound. They asked (i) whether their bound is attainable more generally, (ii) whether explicit expressions for optimal POVMs can be derived from the attainability condition. We show that the symmetric logarithmic derivative (SLD) quantum information is less than or equal to the SM bound, i.e.\ $H(\theta) \leq C_{\Upsilon}(\theta)$ and we find conditions for equality. As the Fisher information is less than or equal to the SLD quantum information, i.e. $F_M(\theta) \leq H(\theta)$, we can deduce when equality holds in $F_M(\theta) \leq C_{\Upsilon}(\theta)$. Equality does not hold for all channels. As a consequence, the attainability condition cannot be used to test for optimal POVMs for all channels. These results are extended to multi-parameter channels.Comment: 16 pages. Published version. Some of the lemmas have been corrected. New resuts have been added. Proofs are more rigorou

Prefactorized subgroups in pairwise mutually permutable products

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10231-012-0257-yWe continue here our study of pairwise mutually and pairwise totally permutable products. We are looking for subgroups of the product in which the given factorization induces a factorization of the subgroup. In the case of soluble groups, it is shown that a prefactorized Carter subgroup and a prefactorized system normalizer exist.Aless stringent property have F-residual, F-projector and F-normalizer for any saturated formation F including the supersoluble groups.The first and fourth authors have been supported by the grant MTM2010-19938-C03-01 from MICINN (Spain).Ballester-Bolinches, A.; Beidleman, J.; Heineken, H.; Pedraza Aguilera, MC. (2013). Prefactorized subgroups in pairwise mutually permutable products. Annali di Matematica Pura ed Applicata. 192(6):1043-1057. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10231-012-0257-yS104310571926Amberg B., Franciosi S., de Giovanni F.: Products of Groups. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1992)Ballester-Bolinches, A., Pedraza-Aguilera, M.C., Pérez-Ramos, M.D.: Totally and Mutually Permutable Products of Finite Groups, Groups St. Andrews 1997 in Bath I. London Math. Soc. Lecture Note Ser. 260, 65–68. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1999)Ballester-Bolinches A., Pedraza-Aguilera M.C., Pérez-Ramos M.D.: On finite products of totally permutable groups. Bull. Aust. Math. Soc. 53, 441–445 (1996)Ballester-Bolinches A., Pedraza-Aguilera M.C., Pérez-Ramos M.D.: Finite groups which are products of pairwise totally permutable subgroups. Proc. Edinb. Math. Soc. 41, 567–572 (1998)Ballester-Bolinches A., Beidleman J.C., Heineken H., Pedraza-Aguilera M.C.: On pairwise mutually permutable products. Forum Math. 21, 1081–1090 (2009)Ballester-Bolinches A., Beidleman J.C., Heineken H., Pedraza-Aguilera M.C.: Local classes and pairwise mutually permutable products of finite groups. Documenta Math. 15, 255–265 (2010)Beidleman J.C., Heineken H.: Mutually permutable subgroups and group classes. Arch. Math. 85, 18–30 (2005)Beidleman J.C., Heineken H.: Group classes and mutually permutable products. J. Algebra 297, 409–416 (2006)Carocca A.: p-supersolvability of factorized groups. Hokkaido Math. J. 21, 395–403 (1992)Carocca, A., Maier, R.: Theorems of Kegel-Wielandt Type Groups St. Andrews 1997 in Bath I. London Math. Soc. Lecture Note Ser. 260, 195–201. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1999)Doerk K., Hawkes T.: Finite Soluble Groups. Walter De Gruyter, Berlin (1992)Maier R., Schmid P.: The embedding of quasinormal subgroups in finite groups. Math. Z. 131, 269–272 (1973