9,475 research outputs found
Quantum Mechanics as a Framework for Dealing with Uncertainty
Quantum uncertainty is described here in two guises: indeterminacy with its
concomitant indeterminism of measurement outcomes, and fuzziness, or
unsharpness. Both features were long seen as obstructions of experimental
possibilities that were available in the realm of classical physics. The birth
of quantum information science was due to the realization that such
obstructions can be turned into powerful resources. Here we review how the
utilization of quantum fuzziness makes room for a notion of approximate joint
measurement of noncommuting observables. We also show how from a classical
perspective quantum uncertainty is due to a limitation of measurability
reflected in a fuzzy event structure -- all quantum events are fundamentally
unsharp.Comment: Plenary Lecture, Central European Workshop on Quantum Optics, Turku
2009
Ion induced density bubble in a strongly correlated one dimensional gas
We consider a harmonically trapped Tonks-Girardeau gas of impenetrable bosons
in the presence of a single embedded ion, which is assumed to be tightly
confined in a RF trap. In an ultracold ion-atom collision the ion's charge
induces an electric dipole moment in the atoms which leads to an attractive
potential asymptotically. We treat the ion as a static deformation of
the harmonic trap potential and model its short range interaction with the gas
in the framework of quantum defect theory. The molecular bound states of the
ionic potential are not populated due to the lack of any possible relaxation
process in the Tonks-Girardeau regime. Armed with this knowledge we calculate
the density profile of the gas in the presence of a central ionic impurity and
show that a density \textit{bubble} of the order of a micron occurs around the
ion for typical experimental parameters. From these exact results we show that
an ionic impurity in a Tonks gas can be described using a pseudopotential,
allowing for significantly easier treatment.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review A (Rapid Communications)
A formal definition and a new security mechanism of physical unclonable functions
The characteristic novelty of what is generally meant by a "physical
unclonable function" (PUF) is precisely defined, in order to supply a firm
basis for security evaluations and the proposal of new security mechanisms. A
PUF is defined as a hardware device which implements a physical function with
an output value that changes with its argument. A PUF can be clonable, but a
secure PUF must be unclonable. This proposed meaning of a PUF is cleanly
delineated from the closely related concepts of "conventional unclonable
function", "physically obfuscated key", "random-number generator", "controlled
PUF" and "strong PUF". The structure of a systematic security evaluation of a
PUF enabled by the proposed formal definition is outlined. Practically all
current and novel physical (but not conventional) unclonable physical functions
are PUFs by our definition. Thereby the proposed definition captures the
existing intuition about what is a PUF and remains flexible enough to encompass
further research. In a second part we quantitatively characterize two classes
of PUF security mechanisms, the standard one, based on a minimum secret
read-out time, and a novel one, based on challenge-dependent erasure of stored
information. The new mechanism is shown to allow in principle the construction
of a "quantum-PUF", that is absolutely secure while not requiring the storage
of an exponentially large secret. The construction of a PUF that is
mathematically and physically unclonable in principle does not contradict the
laws of physics.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, Conference Proceedings MMB & DFT 2012,
Kaiserslautern, German
Collisional Quantum Brownian Motion
We derive a quantum master equation from first principles to describe
friction in one dimensional, collisional Brownian motion. We are the first to
avoid an ill-defined square of the Dirac delta function by using localized wave
packets rather than plane waves. Solving the Schr\"odinger equation for two
colliding particles, we discover that the previously found position diffusion
is not a physical process, but an artifact of the approximation of a coarse
grained time scale, which in turn is needed to find Markkovian dynamics.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur
Rescue of myeloid lineage-committed preprogenitor cells from cytomegalovirus-infected bone marrow stroma
The effect of murine cytomegalovirus on myelopoiesis was studied in long-term bone marrow culture to find an in vitro correlate for the lethal virus interference with bone marrow reconstitution (W. Mutter, M. J. Reddehase, F. W. Busch, H.-J. Bühring, and U. H. Koszinowski, J. Exp. Med. 167:1645-1658, 1988). The in vitro generation of granulocyte-monocyte progenitors (CFU-GM) discontinued after infection of the stromal cell layer, whereas the proliferation and differentiation of CFU-GM to granulocyte-monocyte colonies remained unaffected. A protocol was established to probe the functional integrity of earlier hematopoietic cells. Pre-CFU-GM (the progenitors of the CFU-GM) could be recovered from an infected bone marrow donor culture by transfer onto an inductive recipient stromal cell layer. Thus, at least in vitro, infection of bone marrow stroma appears to be the only cause of the defect in myelopoiesis
Protecting subspaces by acting on the outside
Many quantum control tasks aim at manipulating the state of a quantum
mechanical system within a finite subspace of states. However, couplings to the
outside are often inevitable. Here we discuss strategies which keep the system
in the controlled subspace by applying strong interactions onto the outside.
This is done by drawing analogies to simple toy models and to the quantum Zeno
effect. Special attention is paid to the constructive use of dissipation in the
protection of subspaces.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle for simultaneous measurement of positive-operator-valued measures
A limitation on simultaneous measurement of two arbitrary positive operator
valued measures is discussed. In general, simultaneous measurement of two
noncommutative observables is only approximately possible. Following Werner's
formulation, we introduce a distance between observables to quantify an
accuracy of measurement. We derive an inequality that relates the achievable
accuracy with noncommutativity between two observables. As a byproduct a
necessary condition for two positive operator valued measures to be
simultaneously measurable is obtained.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Uncertainty Relations for Positive Operator Valued Measures
How much unavoidable randomness is generated by a Positive Operator Valued
Measure (POVM)? We address this question using two complementary approaches.
First we study the variance of a real variable associated to the POVM outcomes.
In this context we introduce an uncertainty operator which measures how much
additional noise is introduced by carrying out a POVM rather than a von Neumann
measurement. We illustrate this first approach by studying the variances of
joint estimates of \sigma_x and \sigma_z for spin 1/2 particles. We show that
for unbiased measurements the sum of these variances is lower bounded by 1. In
our second approach we study the entropy of the POVM outcomes. In particular we
try to establish lower bounds on the entropy of the POVM outcomes. We
illustrate this second approach by examples.Comment: 5 pages, minor modifications and clarification
Failure in generating hemopoietic stem cells is the primary cause of death from cytomegalovirus disease in the immunocompromised host
We have shown in a murine model system for cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in the immunocompromised host that CMV infection interferes with the earliest detectable step in hemopoiesis, the generation of the stem cell CFU-S-I, and thereby prevents the autoreconstitution of bone marrow after sublethal irradiation. The antihemopoietic effect could not be ascribed to a direct infection of stem cells. The failure in hemopoiesis was prevented by adoptive transfer of antiviral CD8+ T lymphocytes and could be overcome by syngeneic bone marrow transplantation. CD8+ T lymphocytes and bone marrow cells both mediated survival, although only CD8+ T lymphocytes were able to limit virus multiplication in host tissues. We concluded that not the cytopathic effect of virus replication in host tissues, but the failure in hemopoiesis, is the primary cause of death in murine CMV disease
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