357 research outputs found
Preventive treatment of nephrolithiasis with alkali citrate—a critical review
Using the keywords "urolithiasis and citrate treatment”, "nephrolithaisis and citrate treatment”, "kidney stones and citrate treatment”, a Medline search revealed 635 articles published between 1 January 1966 and 1 December 2004. For the present analysis, only studies meeting all of the following criteria were included: (1) publications in English or German, (2) studies on preventive alkali citrate treatment in patients with calcium oxalate, uric acid and infection stone disease, (3) clinical studies including at least ten subjects, and (4) treatment phases of at least 1week duration. A total of 43 studies met the inclusion criteria and were further subclassified according to intermediate or ultimate endpoints as well as to study design. With stone recurrence as the ultimate endpoint, 21 uncontrolled studies in almost 1,000 patients demonstrated a reduction in stone forming rate by 47-100%. In four randomized controlled trials including 227 patients, 53.5% on alkali citrate vs 35% on placebo remained stone-free after at least 1year of treatment (P<0.0005). Similar values (66% vs 27.5% for alkali citrate vs placebo, P<0.0005) were obtained in 104 patients from two randomized trials with dissolution/clearance of residual stones as endpoint. Unfortunately, up to 48% of alkali citrate treated patients left the studies prematurely, primarily due to adverse effects such as eructation, bloating, gaseousness or frank diarrhe
Creation of macroscopic superposition states from arrays of Bose-Einstein condensates
We consider how macroscopic quantum superpositions may be created from arrays
of Bose-Einstein condensates. We study a system of three condensates in Fock
states, all with the same number of atoms and show that this has the form of a
highly entangled superposition of different quasi-momenta. We then show how, by
partially releasing these condensates and detecting an interference pattern
where they overlap, it is possible to create a macroscopic superposition of
different relative phases for the remaining portions of the condensates. We
discuss methods for confirming these superpositions.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Experimentally realizable quantum comparison of coherent states and its applications
When comparing quantum states to each other, it is possible to obtain an
unambiguous answer, indicating that the states are definitely different,
already after a single measurement. In this paper we investigate comparison of
coherent states, which is the simplest example of quantum state comparison for
continuous variables. The method we present has a high success probability, and
is experimentally feasible to realize as the only required components are beam
splitters and photon detectors. An easily realizable method for quantum state
comparison could be important for real applications. As examples of such
applications we present a "lock and key" scheme and a simple scheme for quantum
public key distribution.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, version one submitted to PRA. Version two is the
final accepted versio
Experimental Realization of Teleporting an Unknown Pure Quantum State via Dual Classical and Einstein-Podolski-Rosen Channels
We report on a quantum optical experimental implementation of teleportation
of unknown pure quantum states. This realizes all the nonlocal aspects of the
original scheme proposed by Bennett et al. and is equivalent to it up to a
local operation. We exhibit results for the teleportation of a linearly
polarized state and of an elliptically polarized state. We show that the
experimental results cannot be explained in terms of a classical channel alone.Comment: 11 pages LaTeX, 3 figures, 1 page figures captions. The figures and
figures captions are not encapsulated; please print them separatel
"All versus nothing" inseparability for two observers
A recent proof of Bell's theorem without inequalities [A. Cabello, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 86, 1911 (2001)] is formulated as a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-like
proof involving just two observers. On one hand, this new approach allows us to
derive an experimentally testable Bell inequality which is violated by quantum
mechanics. On the other hand, it leads to a new state-independent proof of the
Kochen-Specker theorem and provides a wider perspective on the relations
between the major proofs of no-hidden-variables.Comment: REVTeX, 4 page
Optimal entanglement purifying via entanglement swapping
It is known that entanglement swapping can be used to realize entanglement
purifying. By this way, two particles belong to different non-maximally
entangled pairs can be projected probabilisticly to a maximally entangled state
or to a less entangled state. In this report, we show, when the less entangled
state is obtained, if a unitary transformation is introduced locally, then a
maximally entangled state can be obtained probabilisticly from this less
entangled state. The total successful probability of our scheme is equal to the
entanglement of a single pairpurification (if two original pairs are in the
same non-maximally entangled states) or to the smaller entanglement of a single
pair purification of these two pairs (if two original pairs are not in the same
non-maximally entangled states). The advantage of our scheme is no continuous
indefinite iterative procedure is needed to achieve optimal purifying.Comment: 7 pages, Revtex, no figure, accepted by Phys. Rev. A as a Brief
Repor
Coherent Time Evolution and Boundary Conditions of Two-Photon Quantum Walks
Multi-photon quantum walks in integrated optics are an attractive controlled
quantum system, that can mimic less readily accessible quantum systems and
exhibit behavior that cannot in general be accurately replicated by classical
light without an exponential overhead in resources. The ability to observe time
evolution of such systems is important for characterising multi-particle
quantum dynamics---notably this includes the effects of boundary conditions for
walks in spaces of finite size. Here we demonstrate the coherent evolution of
quantum walks of two indistinguishable photons using planar arrays of 21
evanescently coupled waveguides fabricated in silicon oxynitride technology. We
compare three time evolutions, that follow closely a model assuming unitary
evolution, corresponding to three different lengths of the array---in each case
we observe quantum interference features that violate classical predictions.
The longest array includes reflecting boundary conditions.Comment: 7 pages,7 figure
Extreme nonlocality with one photon
Quantum nonlocality is typically assigned to systems of two or more well
separated particles, but nonlocality can also exist in systems consisting of
just a single particle, when one considers the subsystems to be distant spatial
field modes. Single particle nonlocality has been confirmed experimentally via
a bipartite Bell inequality. In this paper, we introduce an N-party Hardy-like
proof of impossibility of local elements of reality and a Bell inequality for
local realistic theories for a single particle superposed symmetrical over N
spatial field modes (i.e. a N qubit W state). We show that, in the limit of
large N, the Hardy-like proof effectively becomes an all-versus nothing (or
GHZ-like) proof, and the quantum-classical gap of the Bell inequality tends to
be same of the one in a three-particle GHZ experiment. We detail how to test
the nonlocality in realistic systems.Comment: 11 single column pages, 2 figures; v3 now includes a Bell inequality
in addition to the results in the previous versio
A Measure of Stregth of an Unextendible Product Basis
A notion of strength of an unextendible product basis is introduced and a
quantitative measure for it is suggested with a view to providing an indirect
measure for the bound entanglement of formation of the bound entangled mixed
state associated with an unextendible product basis.Comment: 4 pages, Latex, 1 figure, remarks, criticisms welcom
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