20,210 research outputs found
Collective Interaction-Driven Ratchet for Transporting Flux Quanta
We propose and study a novel way to produce a DC transport of vortices when
applying an AC electrical current to a sample. Specifically, we study
superconductors with a graduated random pinning density, which transports
interacting vortices as a ratchet system. We show that a ratchet effect appears
as a consequence of the long range interactions between the vortices. The
pinned vortices create an asymmetric periodic flux density profile, which
results in an asymmetric effective potential for the unpinned interstitial
vortices. The latter exhibit a net longitudinal rectification under an applied
transverse AC electric current.Comment: 4 pages, 5 postscript figure
A pulsed Sagnac source of narrowband polarization-entangled photons
We demonstrate pulsed operation of a bidirectionally pumped polarization
Sagnac interferometric down-conversion source and its generation of narrowband,
high-visibility polarization-entangled photons. Driven by a narrowband,
mode-locked pump at 390.35 nm, the phase-stable Sagnac source with a type-II
phase-matched periodically poled KTiOPO crystal is capable of producing
0.01 entangled pair per pulse in a 0.15-nm bandwidth centered at 780.7 nm with
1 mW of average pump power at a repetition rate of 31.1 MHz. We have achieved a
mean photon-pair generation rate of as high as 0.7 pair per pulse, at which
multi-pair events dominate and significantly reduce the two-photon
quantum-interference visibility. For low generation probability , the
reduced visibility is independent of the throughput efficiency and
of the polarization analysis basis, which can be utilized to yield an accurate
estimate of the generation rate . At low we have characterized
the source entanglement quality in three different ways: average
quantum-interference visibility of 99%, the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt
parameter of , and quantum state tomography with 98.85%
singlet-state fidelity. The narrowband pulsed Sagnac source of entangled
photons is suitable for use in quantum information processing applications such
as free-space quantum key distribution.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Relativistic descriptions of final-state interactions in neutral-current neutrino-nucleus scattering at MiniBooNE kinematics
The analysis of the recent neutral-current neutrino-nucleus scattering cross
sections measured by the MiniBooNE Collaboration requires relativistic
theoretical descriptions also accounting for the role of final state
interactions. In this work we evaluate differential cross sections with the
relativistic distorted-wave impulse-approximation and with the relativistic
Green's function model to investigate the sensitivity to final state
interactions. The role of the strange-quark content of the nucleon form factors
is also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Experimental Realization of a One-way Quantum Computer Algorithm Solving Simon's Problem
We report an experimental demonstration of a one-way implementation of a
quantum algorithm solving Simon's Problem - a black box period-finding problem
which has an exponential gap between the classical and quantum runtime. Using
an all-optical setup and modifying the bases of single-qubit measurements on a
five-qubit cluster state, key representative functions of the logical two-qubit
version's black box can be queried and solved. To the best of our knowledge,
this work represents the first experimental realization of the quantum
algorithm solving Simon's Problem. The experimental results are in excellent
agreement with the theoretical model, demonstrating the successful performance
of the algorithm. With a view to scaling up to larger numbers of qubits, we
analyze the resource requirements for an n-qubit version. This work helps
highlight how one-way quantum computing provides a practical route to
experimentally investigating the quantum-classical gap in the query complexity
model.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
Mastering the Master Space
Supersymmetric gauge theories have an important but perhaps under-appreciated
notion of a master space, which controls the full moduli space. For
world-volume theories of D-branes probing a Calabi-Yau singularity X the
situation is particularly illustrative. In the case of one physical brane, the
master space F is the space of F-terms and a particular quotient thereof is X
itself. We study various properties of F which encode such physical quantities
as Higgsing, BPS spectra, hidden global symmetries, etc. Using the plethystic
program we also discuss what happens at higher number N of branes. This letter
is a summary and some extensions of the key points of a longer companion paper
arXiv:0801.1585.Comment: 10 pages, 1 Figur
AFM pulling and the folding of donor-acceptor oligorotaxanes: phenomenology and interpretation
The thermodynamic driving force in the self-assembly of the secondary
structure of a class of donor-acceptor oligorotaxanes is elucidated by means of
molecular dynamics simulations of equilibrium isometric single-molecule force
spectroscopy AFM experiments. The oligorotaxanes consist of
cyclobis(paraquat-\emph{p}-phenylene) rings threaded onto an oligomer of
1,5-dioxynaphthalenes linked by polyethers. The simulations are performed in a
high dielectric medium using MM3 as the force field. The resulting force vs.
extension isotherms show a mechanically unstable region in which the molecule
unfolds and, for selected extensions, blinks in the force measurements between
a high-force and a low-force regime. From the force vs. extension data the
molecular potential of mean force is reconstructed using the weighted histogram
analysis method and decomposed into energetic and entropic contributions. The
simulations indicate that the folding of the oligorotaxanes is energetically
favored but entropically penalized, with the energetic contributions overcoming
the entropy penalty and effectively driving the self-assembly. In addition, an
analogy between the single-molecule folding/unfolding events driven by the AFM
tip and the thermodynamic theory of first-order phase transitions is discussed
and general conditions, on the molecule and the cantilever, for the emergence
of mechanical instabilities and blinks in the force measurements in equilibrium
isometric pulling experiments are presented. In particular, it is shown that
the mechanical stability properties observed during the extension are
intimately related to the fluctuations in the force measurements.Comment: 42 pages, 17 figures, accepted to the Journal of Chemical Physic
Mimicking the probability distribution of a two-dimensional Grover walk with a single-qubit coin
Multi-dimensional quantum walks usually require large coin spaces. Here we
show that the non-localized case of the spatial density probability of the
two-dimensional Grover walk can be obtained using only a two-dimensional coin
space and a quantum walk in alternate directions. We present a formal proof of
this correspondence and analyze the behavior of the coin-position entanglement
as well as the x-y spatial entanglement in our scheme with respect to the
Grover one. We show that our experimentally simpler scheme allows to entangle
the two orthogonal directions of the walk more efficiently.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX
Cooling a mechanical resonator via coupling to a tunable double quantum dot
We study the cooling of a mechanical resonator (MR) that is capacitively
coupled to a double quantum dot (DQD). The MR is cooled by the dynamical
backaction induced by the capacitive coupling between the DQD and the MR. The
DQD is excited by a microwave field and afterwards a tunneling event results in
the decay of the excited state of the DQD. An important advantage of this
system is that both the energy level splitting and the decay rate of the DQD
can be well tuned by varying the gate voltage. We find that the steady average
occupancy, below unity, of the MR can be achieved by changing both the decay
rate of the excited state and the detuning between the transition frequency of
the DQD and the microwave frequency, in analogy to the laser sideband cooling
of an atom or trapped ion in atomic physics. Our results show that the cooling
of the MR to the ground state is experimentally implementable.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
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