21,147 research outputs found
Research investigation directed toward extending the useful range of the electromagnetic spectrum Progress report, 1 May - 31 Oct. 1968
Microwave frequency probes of ionized helium, rubidium lasers, cesium spectrum, and ruby crystal
Entanglement splitting of pure bipartite quantum states
The concept of entanglement splitting is introduced by asking whether it is
possible for a party possessing half of a pure bipartite quantum state to
transfer some of his entanglement with the other party to a third party. We
describe the unitary local transformation for symmetric and isotropic splitting
of a singlet into two branches that leads to the highest entanglement of the
output. The capacity of the resulting quantum channels is discussed. Using the
same transformation for less than maximally entangled pure states, the
entanglement of the resulting states is found. We discuss whether they can be
used to do teleportation and to test the Bell inequality. Finally we generalize
to entanglement splitting into more than two branches.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, extended version, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Thermodynamics and the Measure of Entanglement
We point out formal correspondences between thermodynamics and entanglement.
By applying them to previous work, we show that entropy of entanglement is the
unique measure of entanglement for pure states.Comment: 8 pages, RevTeX; edited for clarity, additional references, to appear
as a Rapid Communication in Phys. Rev.
Estimating the risk of adverse birth outcomes in pregnant women undergoing non-obstetric surgery using routinely collected NHS data: an observational study
Background: Previous research suggests that non-obstetric surgery is carried out in 1 – 2% of all pregnancies. However, there is limited evidence quantifying the associated risks. Furthermore, of the evidence available, none relates directly to outcomes in the UK, and there are no current NHS guidelines regarding non-obstetric surgery in pregnant women. Objectives: To estimate the risk of adverse birth outcomes of pregnancies in which non-obstetric surgery was or was not carried out. To further analyse common procedure groups. Data Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) maternity data collected between 2002 – 3 and 2011 – 12. Main outcomes: Spontaneous abortion, preterm delivery, maternal death, caesarean delivery, long inpatient stay, stillbirth and low birthweight. Methods: We utilised HES, an administrative database that includes records of all patient admissions and day cases in all English NHS hospitals. We analysed HES maternity data collected between 2002 – 3 and 2011 – 12, and identified pregnancies in which non-obstetric surgery was carried out. We used logistic regression models to determine the adjusted relative risk and attributable risk of non-obstetric surgical procedures for adverse birth outcomes and the number needed to harm. Results: We identified 6,486,280 pregnancies, in 47,628 of which non-obstetric surgery was carried out. In comparison with pregnancies in which surgery was not carried out, we found that non-obstetric surgery was associated with a higher risk of adverse birth outcomes, although the attributable risk was generally low. We estimated that for every 287 pregnancies in which a surgical operation was carried out there was one additional stillbirth; for every 31 operations there was one additional preterm delivery; for every 25 operations there was one additional caesarean section; for every 50 operations there was one additional long inpatient stay; and for every 39 operations there was one additional low-birthweight baby. Limitations: We have no means of disentangling the effect of the surgery from the effect of the underlying condition itself. Many spontaneous abortions will not be associated with a hospital admission and, therefore, will not be included in our analysis. A spontaneous abortion may be more likely to be reported if it occurs during the same hospital admission as the procedure, and this could account for the associated increased risk with surgery during pregnancy. There are missing values of key data items to determine parity, gestational age, birthweight and stillbirth. Conclusions: This is the first study to report the risk of adverse birth outcomes following non-obstetric surgery during pregnancy across NHS hospitals in England. We have no means of disentangling the effect of the surgery from the effect of the underlying condition itself. Our observational study can never attribute a causal relationship between surgery and adverse birth outcomes, and we were unable to determine the risk of not undergoing surgery where surgery was clinically indicated. We have some reservations over associations of risk factors with spontaneous abortion because of potential ascertainment bias. However, we believe that our findings and, in particular, the numbers needed to harm improve on previous research, utilise a more recent and larger data set based on UK practices, and are useful reference points for any discussion of risk with prospective patients. The risk of adverse birth outcomes in pregnant women undergoing non-obstetric surgery is relatively low, confirming that surgical procedures during pregnancy are generally safe. Future work: Further evaluation of the association of non-obstetric surgery and spontaneous abortion. Evaluation of the impact of non-obstetric surgery on the newborn (e.g. neonatal intensive care unit admission, prolonged length of neonatal stay, neonatal death). Funding: The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme
Mixedness and teleportation
We show that on exceeding a certain degree of mixedness (as quantified by the
von Neumann entropy), entangled states become useless for teleporatation. By
increasing the dimension of the entangled systems, this entropy threshold can
be made arbitrarily close to maximal. This entropy is found to exceed the
entropy threshold sufficient to ensure the failure of dense coding.Comment: 6 pages, no figure
Robust Multi-Partite Multi-Level Quantum Protocols
We present a tripartite three-level state that allows a secret sharing
protocol among the three parties, or a quantum key distribution protocol
between any two parties. The state used in this scheme contains entanglement
even after one system is traced out. We show how to utilize this residual
entanglement for quantum key distribution purposes, and propose a realization
of the scheme using entanglement of orbital angular momentum states of photons.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure
A Lorentz-invariant look at quantum clock synchronization protocols based on distributed entanglement
Recent work has raised the possibility that quantum information theory
techniques can be used to synchronize atomic clocks nonlocally. One of the
proposed algorithms for quantum clock synchronization (QCS) requires
distribution of entangled pure singlets to the synchronizing parties. Such
remote entanglement distribution normally creates a relative phase error in the
distributed singlet state which then needs to be purified asynchronously. We
present a fully relativistic analysis of the QCS protocol which shows that
asynchronous entanglement purification is not possible, and, therefore, that
the proposed QCS scheme remains incomplete. We discuss possible directions of
research in quantum information theory which may lead to a complete, working
QCS protocol.Comment: 5 pages; typeset in RevTe
Quantum Network Coding
Since quantum information is continuous, its handling is sometimes
surprisingly harder than the classical counterpart. A typical example is
cloning; making a copy of digital information is straightforward but it is not
possible exactly for quantum information. The question in this paper is whether
or not quantum network coding is possible. Its classical counterpart is another
good example to show that digital information flow can be done much more
efficiently than conventional (say, liquid) flow.
Our answer to the question is similar to the case of cloning, namely, it is
shown that quantum network coding is possible if approximation is allowed, by
using a simple network model called Butterfly. In this network, there are two
flow paths, s_1 to t_1 and s_2 to t_2, which shares a single bottleneck channel
of capacity one. In the classical case, we can send two bits simultaneously,
one for each path, in spite of the bottleneck. Our results for quantum network
coding include: (i) We can send any quantum state |psi_1> from s_1 to t_1 and
|psi_2> from s_2 to t_2 simultaneously with a fidelity strictly greater than
1/2. (ii) If one of |psi_1> and |psi_2> is classical, then the fidelity can be
improved to 2/3. (iii) Similar improvement is also possible if |psi_1> and
|psi_2> are restricted to only a finite number of (previously known) states.
(iv) Several impossibility results including the general upper bound of the
fidelity are also given.Comment: 27pages, 11figures. The 12page version will appear in 24th
International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS
2007
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