66 research outputs found
Geometric measure of quantum discord and the geometry of a class of two-qubit states
We investigate the geometric picture of the level surfaces of quantum
entanglement and geometric measure of quantum discord (GMQD) of a class of
X-states, respectively. This pictorial approach provides us a direct
understanding of the structure of entanglement and GMQD. The dynamic evolution
of GMQD under two typical kinds of quantum decoherence channels is also
investigated. It is shown that there exists a class of initial states for which
the GMQD is not destroyed by decoherence in a finite time interval.
Furthermore, we establish a factorization law between the initial and final
GMQD, which allows us to infer the evolution of entanglement under the
influences of the environment.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, comments are welcom
Reconstructing the nonadaptive radiation of an ancient lineage of ground‐dwelling stick insects (Phasmatodea: Heteropterygidae)
Stick and leaf insects (Phasmatodea) are large terrestrial herbivorous arthropods known for masquerading as plant parts such as bark, twigs and leaves. Their evolutionary history is largely shaped by convergent evolution associated with adaptive radiations on geographically isolated landmasses that have repeatedly generated ground-dwelling ecomorphs. The members of one lineage, however, the Oriental Heteropterygidae, are morphologically rather uniform, and have a predominantly ground-dwelling lifestyle. The phylogeny of Heteropterygidae that comprises approximately 130 described species is controversial and remains uncertain. In particular, the systematic position of the giant Jungle Nymph Heteropteryx dilatata, whose males are capable of flight and exhibit the most plesiomorphic wing morphology among extant phasmatodeans, is of major interest to the scientific community. Here, we analysed a set of seven nuclear and mitochondrial genes to infer the phylogeny of Heteropterygidae covering the group's overall diversity. The divergence time estimation and reconstruction of the historical biogeography resulted in an ancestral distribution across Sundaland with long distance dispersal events to Wallacea, the Philippines and the South Pacific. We were able to resolve the relationships among the three principal subgroups of Heteropterygidae and revealed the Dataminae, which contain entirely wingless small forms, as the sister group of Heteropteryginae + Obriminae. Within Heteropteryginae, Haaniella is recovered as paraphyletic in regard to Heteropteryx. Consequently, Heteropteryx must be considered a subordinate taxon deeply embedded within a flightless clade of stick insects. Within Obriminae, the Bornean Hoploclonia is strongly supported as the earliest diverging lineage. Based on this finding, we recognize only two tribes of equal rank among Obriminae, the Hoplocloniini trib. nov. and Obrimini sensu nov. Within the latter, we demonstrate that previous tribal assignments do not reflect phylogenetic relationships and that a basal splitting event occurred between the wing-bearing clade Miroceramia + Pterobrimus and the remaining wingless Obrimini. The Philippine genus Tisamenus is paraphyletic with regard to Ilocano hebardi, thus, we transfer the latter species to Tisamenus as Tisamenus hebardi comb. nov. and synonymize Ilocano with Tisamenus. We discuss character transformations in the light of the new phylogenetic results and conclude that the current taxonomic diversity appears to be mainly driven by allopatry and not to be the result of niche differentiation. This radiation is thus best described as a nonadaptive radiation
Lorentz-covariant, unitary evolution of a relativistic Majorana qubit
We formulate a covariant description of a relativistic qubit identified with an irreducible set of quantum spin states of a Majorana particle with a sharp momentum. We treat the particle’s four-momentum as an external parameter. We show that it is possible to define an interesting time evolution of the spin density matrix of such a qubit. This evolution is manifestly Lorentz covariant in the bispinor representation and unitary in the spin representation. Moreover, during this evolution the Majorana particle undergoes an uniformly accelerated motion. We classify possible types of such motions, and finally we illustrate the behaviour of the polarization vector of the Majorana qubit during the evolution in some special cases
Functional Subsystems and Quantum Redundancy in Photosynthetic Light Harvesting
The Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) antennae complex, responsible for light
harvesting in green sulfur bacteria, consists of three monomers, each with
seven chromophores. Here we show that multiple subsystems of the seven
chromophores can transfer energy from either chromophore 1 or 6 to the reaction
center with an efficiency matching or in many cases exceeding that of the full
seven chromophore system. In the FMO complex these functional subsystems
support multiple quantum pathways for efficient energy transfer that provide a
built-in quantum redundancy. There are many instances of redundancy in nature,
providing reliability and protection, and in photosynthetic light harvesting
this quantum redundancy provides protection against the temporary or permanent
loss of one or more chromophores. The complete characterization of functional
subsystems within the FMO complex offers a detailed map of the energy flow
within the FMO complex, which has potential applications to the design of more
efficient photovoltaic devices
Laboratory experiments in innovation research: a methodological overview and a review of the current literature
On the head morphology of Phyllium and the phylogenetic relationships of Phasmatodea (Insecta)
Receptorarchitectonic mapping of four new areas in the inferior frontal sulcus of the human brain
The Correlation Conversion property of quantum channels
Transmission of quantum entanglement will play a crucial role in future
networks and long-distance quantum communications. Quantum Key Distribution,
the working mechanism of quantum repeaters and the various quantum
communication protocols are all based on quantum entanglement. On the other
hand, quantum entanglement is extremely fragile and sensitive to the noise of
the communication channel over which it has been transmitted. To share
entanglement between distant points, high fidelity quantum channels are needed.
In practice, these communication links are noisy, which makes it impossible or
extremely difficult and expensive to distribute entanglement. In this work we
first show that quantum entanglement can be generated by a new idea, exploiting
the most natural effect of the communication channels: the noise itself of the
link. We prove that the noise transformation of quantum channels that are not
able to transmit quantum entanglement can be used to generate distillable
(useable) entanglement from classically correlated input. We call this new
phenomenon the Correlation Conversion property (CC-property) of quantum
channels. The proposed solution does not require any non-local operation or
local measurement by the parties, only the use of standard quantum channels.
Our results have implications and consequences for the future of quantum
communications, and for global-scale quantum communication networks. The
discovery also revealed that entanglement generation by local operations is
possible.Comment: v3: 37 pages, Journal-ref: Quant. Inf. Proc. (2013
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