Reply to "Comment on "Some implications of the quantum nature of laser fields for quantum computations''''

In this revised reply to quant-ph/0211165, I address the question of the validity of my results in greater detail, by comparing my predictions to those of the Silberfarb-Deutsch model, and I deal at greater length with the beam area paradox. As before, I conclude that my previous results are an (order-of-magnitude) accurate estimate of the error probability introduced in quantum logical operations by the quantum nature of the laser field. While this error will typically (for a paraxial beam) be smaller than the total error due to spontaneous emission, a unified treatment of both effects reveals that they lead to formally similar constraints on the minimum number of photons per pulse required to perform an operation with a given accuracy; these constraints agree with those I have derived elsewhere.Comment: A reply to quant-ph/0211165. Added more calculations and discussion, removed some flippanc

Outbreak of encephalitic listeriosis in red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa)

An outbreak of neurological disease was investigated in red-legged partridges between 8 and 28 days of age. Clinical signs included torticollis, head tilt and incoordination and over an initial eight day period approximately 30–40 fatalities occurred per day. No significant gross post mortem findings were detected. Histopathological examination of the brain and bacterial cultures followed by partial sequencing confirmed a diagnosis of encephalitis due to Listeria monocytogenes. Further isolates were obtained from follow-up carcasses, environmental samples and pooled tissue samples of newly imported day-old chicks prior to placement on farm. These isolates had the same antibiotic resistance pattern as the isolate of the initial post mortem submission and belonged to the same fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism (fAFLP) subtype. This suggested that the isolates were very closely related or identical and that the pathogen had entered the farm with the imported day-old chicks, resulting in disease manifestation in partridges between 8 and 28 days of age. Reports of outbreaks of encephalitic listeriosis in avian species are rare and this is to the best of our knowledge the first reported outbreak in red-legged partridges

The transition between hole-pairs and four-hole clusters in four-leg tJ ladders

Holes weakly doped into a four-leg \tj ladder bind in pairs. At dopings exceeding a critical doping of $\delta_c\simeq {1/8}$ four hole clusters are observed to form in DMRG calculations. The symmetry of the ground state wavefunction does not change and we are able to reproduce this behavior qualitatively with an effective bosonic model in which the four-leg ladder is represented as two coupled two-leg ladders and hole-pairs are mapped on hard core bosons moving along and between these ladders. At lower dopings, $\delta<\delta_c$, a one dimensional bosonic representation for hole-pairs works and allows us to calculate accurately the Luttinger liquid parameter \krho, which takes the universal value \krho=1 as half-filling is approached

Spin Gap Fixed Points in the Double Chain Problem

Applying the bosonization procedure to weakly coupled Hubbard chains we discuss the fixed points of the renormalization group flow where all spin excitations are gapful and a singlet pairing becomes the dominant instability.Comment: 15 pages, TeX, C Version 3.

The discontinuous nature of chromospheric activity evolution

Chromospheric activity has been thought to decay smoothly with time and, hence, to be a viable age indicator. Measurements in solar type stars in open clusters seem to point to a different conclusion: chromospheric activity undergoes a fast transition from Hyades level to that of the Sun after about 1 Gyr of main--sequence lifetime and any decaying trend before or after this transition must be much less significant than the short term variations.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Kaon-Nucleon Scattering Amplitudes and Z∗^*-Enhancements from Quark Born Diagrams

We derive closed form kaon-nucleon scattering amplitudes using the ``quark Born diagram" formalism, which describes the scattering as a single interaction (here the OGE spin-spin term) followed by quark line rearrangement. The low energy I=0 and I=1 S-wave KN phase shifts are in reasonably good agreement with experiment given conventional quark model parameters. For $k_{lab}> 0.7$ Gev however the I=1 elastic phase shift is larger than predicted by Gaussian wavefunctions, and we suggest possible reasons for this discrepancy. Equivalent low energy KN potentials for S-wave scattering are also derived. Finally we consider OGE forces in the related channels K$\Delta$, K$^*$N and K$^*\Delta$, and determine which have attractive interactions and might therefore exhibit strong threshold enhancements or ``Z$^*$-molecule" meson-baryon bound states. We find that the minimum-spin, minimum-isospin channels and two additional K$^*\Delta$ channels are most conducive to the formation of bound states. Related interesting topics for future experimental and theoretical studies of KN interactions are also discussed.Comment: 34 pages, figures available from the authors, revte

Strong Decays of Strange Quarkonia

In this paper we evaluate strong decay amplitudes and partial widths of strange mesons (strangeonia and kaonia) in the 3P0 decay model. We give numerical results for all energetically allowed open-flavor two-body decay modes of all nsbar and ssbar strange mesons in the 1S, 2S, 3S, 1P, 2P, 1D and 1F multiplets, comprising strong decays of a total of 43 resonances into 525 two-body modes, with 891 numerically evaluated amplitudes. This set of resonances includes all strange qqbar states with allowed strong decays expected in the quark model up to ca. 2.2 GeV. We use standard nonrelativistic quark model SHO wavefunctions to evaluate these amplitudes, and quote numerical results for all amplitudes present in each decay mode. We also discuss the status of the associated experimental candidates, and note which states and decay modes would be especially interesting for future experimental study at hadronic, e+e- and photoproduction facilities. These results should also be useful in distinguishing conventional quark model mesons from exotica such as glueballs and hybrids through their strong decays.Comment: 69 pages, 5 figures, 39 table

A Monte Carlo Study of Correlations in Quantum Spin Ladders

We study antiferromagnetic spin--1/2 Heisenberg ladders, comprised of $n_c$ chains ($2 \leq n_c \leq 6$) with ratio $J_{\bot}/J_{\|}$ of inter-- to intra--chain couplings. From measurements of the correlation function we deduce the correlation length $\xi(T)$. For even $n_c$, the static structure factor exhibits a peak at a temperature below the corresponding spin gap. Results for isotropically coupled ladders ($J_{\bot}/J_{\|} = 1$) are compared to those for the single chain and the square lattice. For $J_{\bot}/J_{\|} \leq 0.5$, the correlation function of the two--chain ladder is in excellent agreement with analytic results from conformal field theory, and $\xi(T)$ exhibits simple scaling behavior.Comment: 4 pages, 5 EPS figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Single hole dynamics in the t-J model on two- and three-leg ladders

The dynamics of a single hole in the t-J model on two- (2LL) and three- (3LL) leg ladders is studied using a recently developed quantum Monte Carlo algorithm. For the 2LL it is shown that in addition to the most pronounced features of the spectral function, well described by the limit of strong coupling along the rungs, a clear shadow band appears in the antibonding channel. Moreover, both the bonding band and its shadow have a finite quasiparticle (QP) weight in the thermodynamic limit. For strong coupling along the rungs of the 3LL, the low-energy spectrum in the antisymmetric channel is similar to a one-dimensional chain, whereas in the two symmetric channels it resembles the 2LL. The QP weight vanishes in the antisymmetric channel, but is finite in the symmetric one