53 research outputs found
Remarks on Duality Transformations and Generalized Stabilizer States
We consider the transformation of Hamilton operators under various sets of
quantum operations acting simultaneously on all adjacent pairs of particles. We
find mappings between Hamilton operators analogous to duality transformations
as well as exact characterizations of ground states employing non-Hermitean
eigenvalue equations and use this to motivate a generalization of the
stabilizer formalism to non-Hermitean operators. The resulting class of states
is larger than that of standard stabilizer states and allows for example for
continuous variation of local entropies rather than the discrete values taken
on stabilizer states and the exact description of certain ground states of
Hamilton operators.Comment: Contribution to Special Issue in Journal of Modern Optics celebrating
the 60th birthday of Peter Knigh
Decoupling with unitary approximate two-designs
Consider a bipartite system, of which one subsystem, A, undergoes a physical
evolution separated from the other subsystem, R. One may ask under which
conditions this evolution destroys all initial correlations between the
subsystems A and R, i.e. decouples the subsystems. A quantitative answer to
this question is provided by decoupling theorems, which have been developed
recently in the area of quantum information theory. This paper builds on
preceding work, which shows that decoupling is achieved if the evolution on A
consists of a typical unitary, chosen with respect to the Haar measure,
followed by a process that adds sufficient decoherence. Here, we prove a
generalized decoupling theorem for the case where the unitary is chosen from an
approximate two-design. A main implication of this result is that decoupling is
physical, in the sense that it occurs already for short sequences of random
two-body interactions, which can be modeled as efficient circuits. Our
decoupling result is independent of the dimension of the R system, which shows
that approximate 2-designs are appropriate for decoupling even if the dimension
of this system is large.Comment: Published versio
Quasi-autonomous quantum thermal machines and quantum to classical energy flow
There are both practical and foundational motivations to consider the thermodynamics of quantum systems at small scales. Here we address the issue of autonomous quantum thermal machines that are tailored to achieve some specific thermodynamic primitive, such as work extraction in the presence of a thermal environment, while having minimal or no control from the macroscopic regime. Beyond experimental implementations, this provides an arena in which to address certain foundational aspects such as the role of coherence in thermodynamics, the use of clock degrees of freedom and the simulation of local time-dependent Hamiltonians in a particular quantum subsystem. For small-scale systems additional issues arise. Firstly, it is not clear to what degree genuine ordered thermodynamic work has been extracted, and secondly non-trivial back-actions on the thermal machine must be accounted for. We find that both these aspects can be resolved through a judicious choice of quantum measurements that magnify thermodynamic properties up the ladder of length-scales, while simultaneously stabilising the quantum thermal machine. Within this framework we show that thermodynamic reversibility is obtained in a particular Zeno limit, and finally illustrate these concepts with a concrete example involving spin systems
Quantum key distribution based on orthogonal states allows secure quantum bit commitment
For more than a decade, it was believed that unconditionally secure quantum
bit commitment (QBC) is impossible. But basing on a previously proposed quantum
key distribution scheme using orthogonal states, here we build a QBC protocol
in which the density matrices of the quantum states encoding the commitment do
not satisfy a crucial condition on which the no-go proofs of QBC are based.
Thus the no-go proofs could be evaded. Our protocol is fault-tolerant and very
feasible with currently available technology. It reopens the venue for other
"post-cold-war" multi-party cryptographic protocols, e.g., quantum bit string
commitment and quantum strong coin tossing with an arbitrarily small bias. This
result also has a strong influence on the Clifton-Bub-Halvorson theorem which
suggests that quantum theory could be characterized in terms of
information-theoretic constraints.Comment: Published version plus an appendix showing how to defeat the
counterfactual attack, more references [76,77,90,118-120] cited, and other
minor change
Exploiting Behavioral Disparities Among Predators and Prey to Selectively Remove Pests: Maximizing the Ratio of Bark Beetles to Predators Removed During Semiochemically Based Trap-Out
RearingTetrastichus gallerucae [hymenoptera: Eulophidae] for biological control of the ELM leaf beetleXanthogaleruca luteola
First record of the Australian psyllid Ctenarytaina spatulata Taylor (Homoptera: Psyllidae) in Europe
Attractive responses by Monochamus galloprovincialis (Col., Cerambycidae) to host and bark beetle semiochemicals
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