Continuity properties of a factor of Markov chains

Starting from a Markov chain with a finite alphabet, we consider the chain obtained when all but one symbol are undistinguishable for the practitioner. We study necessary and sufficient conditions for this chain to have continuous transition probabilities with respect to the past

Geometric Phase for Fermionic Quasiparticles Scattering by Disgyration in Superfluids

We consider a Volovik's analog model for description of a topological defects in a superfluid and we investigate the scattering of quasiparticles in this background. The analog of the gravitational Aharonov-Bohm in this system is found. An analysis of this problem employing loop variables is considered and corroborates for the existence of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in this system. The results presented here may be used to study the Aharonov-Bohm effect in superconductors.Comment: 7 pages, to appear in Europhys. Let

Decoherence, pointer engineering and quantum state protection

We present a proposal for protecting states against decoherence, based on the engineering of pointer states. We apply this procedure to the vibrational motion of a trapped ion, and show how to protect qubits, squeezed states, approximate phase eigenstates and superpositions of coherent states.Comment: 1 figur

Experimental evidence of laser power oscillations induced by the relative Fresnel (Goos-Haenchen) phase

The amplification of the relative Fresnel (Goos-Haenchen) phase by an appropriate number of total internal reflections and the choice of favorable incidence angles allow to observe full oscillations in the power of a DPSS laser transmitted through sequential BK7 blocks. The experimental results confirm the theoretical predictions. The optical apparatus used in this letter can be seen as a new type of two-phase ellipsometric system where the phase of the complex refractive index is replaced by the relative Fresnel (Goos-Haenchen) phase.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Improved semiclassical density matrix: taming caustics

We present a simple method to deal with caustics in the semiclassical approximation to the thermal density matrix of a particle moving on the line. For simplicity, only its diagonal elements are considered. The only ingredient we require is the knowledge of the extrema of the Euclidean action. The procedure makes use of complex trajectories, and is applied to the quartic double-well potential.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. Revised version, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.