Hermitian conjugate measurement

We propose a new class of probabilistic reversing operations on the state of a system that was disturbed by a weak measurement. It can approximately recover the original state from the disturbed state especially with an additional information gain using the Hermitian conjugate of the measurement operator. We illustrate the general scheme by considering a quantum measurement consisting of spin systems with an experimentally feasible interaction and show that the reversing operation simultaneously increases both the fidelity to the original state and the information gain with such a high probability of success that their average values increase simultaneously.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures; a paragraph is added in the introductio

Topological Winding and Unwinding in Metastable Bose-Einstein Condensates

Topological winding and unwinding in a quasi-one-dimensional metastable Bose-Einstein condensate are shown to be manipulated by changing the strength of interaction or the frequency of rotation. Exact diagonalization analysis reveals that quasidegenerate states emerge spontaneously near the transition point, allowing a smooth crossover between topologically distinct states. On a mean-field level, the transition is accompanied by formation of grey solitons, or density notches, which serve as an experimental signature of this phenomenon.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Reversible quantum measurement with arbitrary spins

We propose a physically reversible quantum measurement of an arbitrary spin-s system using a spin-j probe via an Ising interaction. In the case of a spin-1/2 system (s=1/2), we explicitly construct a reversing measurement and evaluate the degree of reversibility in terms of fidelity. The recovery of the measured state is pronounced when the probe has a high spin (j>1/2), because the fidelity changes drastically during the reversible measurement and the reversing measurement. We also show that the reversing measurement scheme for a spin-1/2 system can serve as an experimentally feasible approximate reversing measurement for a high-spin system (s>1/2). If the interaction is sufficiently weak, the reversing measurement can recover a cat state almost deterministically in spite of there being a large fidelity change.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures, Sec. 3.2 is adde

Metastable Quantum Phase Transitions in a One-Dimensional Bose Gas

This is a chapter for a book. The first paragraph of this chapter is as follows: "Ultracold quantum gases offer a wonderful playground for quantum many body physics, as experimental systems are widely controllable, both statically and dynamically. One such system is the one-dimensional (1D) Bose gas on a ring. In this system binary contact interactions between the constituent bosonic atoms, usually alkali metals, can be controlled in both sign and magnitude; a recent experiment has tuned interactions over seven orders of magnitude, using an atom-molecule resonance called a Feshbach resonance. Thus one can directly realize the Lieb-Liniger Hamiltonian, from the weakly- to the strongly-interacting regime. At the same time there are a number of experiments utilizing ring traps. The ring geometry affords us the opportunity to study topological properties of this system as well; one of the main properties of a superfluid is the quantized circulation in which the average angular momentum per particle, L/N, is quantized under rotation. Thus we focus on a tunable 1D Bose system for which the main control parameters are interaction and rotation. We will show that there is a critical boundary in the interaction-rotation control-parameter plane over which the topological properties of the system change. This is the basis of our concept of \textit{metastable quantum phase transitions} (QPTs). Moreover, we will show that the finite domain of the ring is necessary for the QPT to occur at all because the zero-point kinetic pressure can induce QPTs, i.e., the system must be finite; we thus seek to generalize the concept of QPTs to inherently finite, mesoscopic or nanoscopic systems."Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, book will appear later this year; v2 is in improved format and includes small corrections for final versio

Phonon Spectroscopy by Electric Measurements of Coupled Quantum Dots

We propose phonon spectroscopy by electric measurements of the low-temperature conductance of coupled-quantum dots, specifically employing dephasing of the quantum electronic transport by the phonons. The setup we consider consists of a T-shaped double-quantum-dot (DQD) system in which only one of the dots (dot 1) is connected to external leads and the other (dot 2) is coupled solely to the first one. For noninteracting electrons, the differential conductance of such a system vanishes at a voltage located in-between the energies of the bonding and the anti-bonding states, due to destructive interference. When electron-phonon (e-ph) on the DQD is invoked, we find that, at low temperatures, phonon emission taking place on dot 1 does not affect the interference, while phonon emission from dot 2 suppresses it. The amount of this suppression, as a function of the bias voltage, follows the effective e-ph coupling reflecting the phonon density of states and can be used for phonon spectroscopy.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

A possible Efimov trimer state in a 3-component lithium-6 mixture

We consider the Efimov trimer theory as a possible framework to explain recently observed losses by inelastic three-body collisions in a three-hyperfine-component ultracold mixture of lithium 6. Within this framework, these losses would arise chiefly from the existence of an Efimov trimer bound state below the continuum of free triplets of atoms, and the loss maxima (at certain values of an applied magnetic field) would correspond to zero-energy resonances where the trimer dissociates into three free atoms. Our results show that such a trimer state is indeed possible given the two-body scattering lengths in the three-component lithium mixture, and gives rise to two zero-energy resonances. The locations of these resonances appear to be consistent with observed losses.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Updated figures, equations and references as in the published version. Note that there is a 1/2 factor missing in Eq. (6) of the published versio

Staggered magnetism in LiV2_2O4_4 at low temperatures probed by the muon Knight shift

We report on the muon Knight shift measurement in single crystals of LiV2O4. Contrary to what is anticipated for the heavy-fermion state based on the Kondo mechanism, the presence of inhomogeneous local magnetic moments is demonstrated by the broad distribution of the Knight shift at temperatures well below the presumed "Kondo temperature" ($T^*\simeq 30$ K). Moreover, a significant fraction ($\simeq10$ %) of the specimen gives rise to a second component which is virtually non-magnetic. These observations strongly suggest that the anomalous properties of LiV2O4 originates from frustration of local magnetic moments.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, sbmitted to J. Phys.: Cond. Mat

Functional Analysis of Spontaneous Cell Movement under Different Physiological Conditions

Cells can show not only spontaneous movement but also tactic responses to environmental signals. Since the former can be regarded as the basis to realize the latter, playing essential roles in various cellular functions, it is important to investigate spontaneous movement quantitatively at different physiological conditions in relation to cellular physiological functions. For that purpose, we observed a series of spontaneous movements by Dictyostelium cells at different developmental periods by using a single cell tracking system. Using statistical analysis of these traced data, we found that cells showed complex dynamics with anomalous diffusion and that their velocity distribution had power-law tails in all conditions. Furthermore, as development proceeded, average velocity and persistency of the movement increased and as too did the exponential behavior in the velocity distribution. Based on these results, we succeeded in applying a generalized Langevin model to the experimental data. With this model, we discuss the relation of spontaneous cell movement to cellular physiological function and its relevance to behavioral strategies for cell survival.Comment: Accepted to PLoS ON

Magnetic field-induced phase transitions in a weakly coupled s = 1/2 quantum spin dimer system Ba3_{3}Cr2_{2}O8_{8}

By using bulk magnetization, electron spin resonance (ESR), heat capacity, and neutron scattering techniques, we characterize the thermodynamic and quantum phase diagrams of Ba$_3$Cr$_2$O$_8$. Our ESR measurements indicate that the low field paramagnetic ground state is a mixed state of the singlet and the S$_z$ = 0 triplet for $H \perp c$. This suggests the presence of an intra-dimer Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya (DM) interaction with a DM vector perpendicular to the c-axis

Orbital and spin chains in ZnV2O4

Our powder inelastic neutron scattering data indicate that \zvo is a system of spin chains that are three dimensionally tangled in the cubic phase above 50 K due to randomly occupied $t_{2g}$ orbitals of V$^{3+}$ ($3d^2$) ions. Below 50 K in the tetragonal phase, the chains become straight due to antiferro-orbital ordering. This is evidenced by the characteristic wave vector dependence of the magnetic structure factor that changes from symmetric to asymmetric at the cubic-to-tetragonal transition