3,780 research outputs found
Novelty, efficacy, and significance of weak measurements for quantum tomography
© 2015 American Physical Society. The use of weak measurements for performing quantum tomography is enjoying increased attention due to several recent proposals. The claimed merits of using weak measurements in this context are varied, but are generally represented by novelty, increased efficacy, and foundational significance. We critically evaluate two proposals that make such claims and find that weak measurements are not an essential ingredient for most of their claimed features
Fisher-Symmetric Informationally Complete Measurements for Pure States
© 2016 American Physical Society. We introduce a new kind of quantum measurement that is defined to be symmetric in the sense of uniform Fisher information across a set of parameters that uniquely represent pure quantum states in the neighborhood of a fiducial pure state. The measurement is locally informationally complete - i.e., it uniquely determines these parameters, as opposed to distinguishing two arbitrary quantum states - and it is maximal in the sense of a multiparameter quantum Cramér-Rao bound. For a d-dimensional quantum system, requiring only local informational completeness allows us to reduce the number of outcomes of the measurement from a minimum close to but below 4d-3, for the usual notion of global pure-state informational completeness, to 2d-1
Optical one-way quantum computing with a simulated valence-bond solid
One-way quantum computation proceeds by sequentially measuring individual
spins (qubits) in an entangled many-spin resource state. It remains a
challenge, however, to efficiently produce such resource states. Is it possible
to reduce the task of generating these states to simply cooling a quantum
many-body system to its ground state? Cluster states, the canonical resource
for one-way quantum computing, do not naturally occur as ground states of
physical systems. This led to a significant effort to identify alternative
resource states that appear as ground states in spin lattices. An appealing
candidate is a valence-bond-solid state described by Affleck, Kennedy, Lieb,
and Tasaki (AKLT). It is the unique, gapped ground state for a two-body
Hamiltonian on a spin-1 chain, and can be used as a resource for one-way
quantum computing. Here, we experimentally generate a photonic AKLT state and
use it to implement single-qubit quantum logic gates.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 8 tables - added one referenc
Double Field Theory Formulation of Heterotic Strings
We extend the recently constructed double field theory formulation of the
low-energy theory of the closed bosonic string to the heterotic string. The
action can be written in terms of a generalized metric that is a covariant
tensor under O(D,D+n), where n denotes the number of gauge vectors, and n
additional coordinates are introduced together with a covariant constraint that
locally removes these new coordinates. For the abelian subsector, the action
takes the same structural form as for the bosonic string, but based on the
enlarged generalized metric, thereby featuring a global O(D,D+n) symmetry.
After turning on non-abelian gauge couplings, this global symmetry is broken,
but the action can still be written in a fully O(D,D+n) covariant fashion, in
analogy to similar constructions in gauged supergravities.Comment: 28 pages, v2: minor changes, version published in JHE
Spin-Nematic Squeezed Vacuum in a Quantum Gas
Using squeezed states it is possible to surpass the standard quantum limit of
measurement uncertainty by reducing the measurement uncertainty of one property
at the expense of another complementary property. Squeezed states were first
demonstrated in optical fields and later with ensembles of pseudo spin-1/2
atoms using non-linear atom-light interactions. Recently, collisional
interactions in ultracold atomic gases have been used to generate a large
degree of quadrature spin squeezing in two-component Bose condensates. For
pseudo spin-1/2 systems, the complementary properties are the different
components of the total spin vector , which fully characterize the state on
an SU(2) Bloch sphere. Here, we measure squeezing in a spin-1 Bose condensate,
an SU(3) system, which requires measurement of the rank-2 nematic or quadrupole
tensor as well to fully characterize the state. Following a quench
through a nematic to ferromagnetic quantum phase transition, squeezing is
observed in the variance of the quadratures up to -8.3(-0.7 +0.6) dB
(-10.3(-0.9 +0.7) dB corrected for detection noise) below the standard quantum
limit. This spin-nematic squeezing is observed for negligible occupation of the
squeezed modes and is analogous to optical two-mode vacuum squeezing. This work
has potential applications to continuous variable quantum information and
quantum-enhanced magnetometry
KK6 from M2 in BLG
We study the possibility that the Kaluza-Klein monopole (KK6) world-volume
action may be obtained from the multiple membranes (M2) action which is
described by BLG theory. We first point out that the infinite dimensional Lie
3-algebra based on the Nambu-Poisson structure could not only provide three
dimensional manifolds to allow M5 from M2, which was studied by previous
authors, but also provide five dimensional manifolds to allow KK6 from M2. We
next present a possible way that the U(1) field on KK6 world-volume action
could be produced form the gauge potential in BLG theory.Comment: Latex, 15 pages. V3: Add theorem 2 to complete proof. V4: Detail
physical interpretations and calculations in section
Schwannoma of the external auditory canal: a case report
BACKGROUND: Schwannomas are uncommon benign tumors of the external auditory canal. The clinical features, the differential diagnosis, and the surgical treatment of these lesions are discussed. CASE PRESENTATION: A 51-year-old patient presented with a mass obliterating the external auditory meatus. Excisional biopsy was performed. Diagnosis was reported to be schwannoma by histopathologic examination. CONCLUSION: Schwannoma, rarely seen in the external auditory canal, can be managed by a precise excision of the tumor via transmeatal approach
TGF-beta 1 induces human alveolar epithelial to mesenchymal cell transition (EMT)
Background: Fibroblastic foci are characteristic features in lung parenchyma of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). They comprise aggregates of mesenchymal cells which underlie sites of unresolved epithelial injury and are associated with progression of fibrosis. However, the cellular origins of these mesenchymal phenotypes remain unclear. We examined whether the potent fibrogenic cytokine TGF-β1 could induce epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) in the human alveolar epithelial cell line, A549, and investigated the signaling pathway of TGF-β1-mediated EMT.
Methods: A549 cells were examined for evidence of EMT after treatment with TGF-β1. EMT was assessed by: morphology under phase-contrast microscopy; Western analysis of cell lysates for expression of mesenchymal phenotypic markers including fibronectin EDA (Fn-EDA), and expression of epithelial phenotypic markers including E-cadherin (E-cad). Markers of fibrogenesis, including collagens and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) were also evaluated by measuring mRNA level using RT-PCR, and protein by immunofluorescence or Western blotting. Signaling pathways for EMT were characterized by Western analysis of cell lysates using monoclonal antibodies to detect phosphorylated Erk1/2 and Smad2 after TGF-β1 treatment in the presence or absence of MEK inhibitors. The role of Smad2 in TGF-β1-mediated EMT was investigated using siRNA.
Results: The data showed that TGF-β1, but not TNF-α or IL-1β, induced A549 cells with an alveolar epithelial type II cell phenotype to undergo EMT in a time-and concentration-dependent manner. The process of EMT was accompanied by morphological alteration and expression of the fibroblast phenotypic markers Fn-EDA and vimentin, concomitant with a downregulation of the epithelial phenotype marker E-cad. Furthermore, cells that had undergone EMT showed enhanced expression of markers of fibrogenesis including collagens type I and III and CTGF. MMP-2 expression was also evidenced. TGF-β1-induced EMT occurred through phosphorylation of Smad2 and was inhibited by Smad2 gene silencing; MEK inhibitors failed to attenuate either EMT-associated Smad2 phosphorylation or the observed phenotypic changes.
Conclusion: Our study shows that TGF-β1 induces A549 alveolar epithelial cells to undergo EMT via Smad2 activation. Our data support the concept of EMT in lung epithelial cells, and suggest the need for further studies to investigate the phenomenon
The semi-classical expansion and resurgence in gauge theories: new perturbative, instanton, bion, and renormalon effects
We study the dynamics of four dimensional gauge theories with adjoint
fermions for all gauge groups, both in perturbation theory and
non-perturbatively, by using circle compactification with periodic boundary
conditions for the fermions. There are new gauge phenomena. We show that, to
all orders in perturbation theory, many gauge groups are Higgsed by the gauge
holonomy around the circle to a product of both abelian and nonabelian gauge
group factors. Non-perturbatively there are monopole-instantons with fermion
zero modes and two types of monopole-anti-monopole molecules, called bions. One
type are "magnetic bions" which carry net magnetic charge and induce a mass gap
for gauge fluctuations. Another type are "neutral bions" which are magnetically
neutral, and their understanding requires a generalization of multi-instanton
techniques in quantum mechanics - which we refer to as the
Bogomolny-Zinn-Justin (BZJ) prescription - to compactified field theory. The
BZJ prescription applied to bion-anti-bion topological molecules predicts a
singularity on the positive real axis of the Borel plane (i.e., a divergence
from summing large orders in peturbation theory) which is of order N times
closer to the origin than the leading 4-d BPST instanton-anti-instanton
singularity, where N is the rank of the gauge group. The position of the
bion--anti-bion singularity is thus qualitatively similar to that of the 4-d IR
renormalon singularity, and we conjecture that they are continuously related as
the compactification radius is changed. By making use of transseries and
Ecalle's resurgence theory we argue that a non-perturbative continuum
definition of a class of field theories which admit semi-classical expansions
may be possible.Comment: 112 pages, 7 figures; v2: typos corrected, discussion of
supersymmetric models added at the end of section 8.1, reference adde
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