Performance and the Right

Editorial for Special Issue An introduction to the Special Issue, this editorial highlights the changes (or otherwise) in the global socio-political landscape since the Special Issue was first proposed in late 2018. It offers a brief introduction to each article, a rationale for the structure of this issue, and advocates for the importance of scholarship that examines the relationship between performance and right-wing politics

A quantum de Finetti theorem in phase space representation

The quantum versions of de Finetti's theorem derived so far express the convergence of n-partite symmetric states, i.e., states that are invariant under permutations of their n parties, towards probabilistic mixtures of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) states. Unfortunately, these theorems only hold in finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, and their direct generalization to infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces is known to fail. Here, we address this problem by considering invariance under orthogonal transformations in phase space instead of permutations in state space, which leads to a new type of quantum de Finetti's theorem that is particularly relevant to continuous-variable systems. Specifically, an n-mode bosonic state that is invariant with respect to this continuous symmetry in phase space is proven to converge towards a probabilistic mixture of i.i.d. Gaussian states (actually, n identical thermal states).Comment: 5 page

Stark deceleration of CaF molecules in strong- and weak-field seeking states

We report the Stark deceleration of CaF molecules in the strong-field seeking ground state and in a weak-field seeking component of a rotationally-excited state. We use two types of decelerator, a conventional Stark decelerator for the weak-field seekers, and an alternating gradient decelerator for the strong-field seekers, and we compare their relative merits. We also consider the application of laser cooling to increase the phase-space density of decelerated molecules.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Microscopic study of inhomogeneous superconductors

We study various inhomogeneity effects on superconductivity as due to quantum confinement, surfaces and impurities, using the self-consistent Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism on the attractive Hubbard model. The results are also compared with those obtained from the Anderson prescription, a BCS formalism for incorporating spatial inhomogeneity.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure