33 research outputs found
Energy-Momentum Restrictions on the Creation of Gott Time Machines
The discovery by Gott of a remarkably simple spacetime with closed timelike
curves (CTC's) provides a tool for investigating how the creation of time
machines is prevented in classical general relativity. The Gott spacetime
contains two infinitely long, parallel cosmic strings, which can equivalently
be viewed as point masses in (2+1)-dimensional gravity. We examine the
possibility of building such a time machine in an open universe. Specifically,
we consider initial data specified on an edgeless, noncompact, spacelike
hypersurface, for which the total momentum is timelike (i.e., not the momentum
of a Gott spacetime). In contrast to the case of a closed universe (in which
Gott pairs, although not CTC's, can be produced from the decay of stationary
particles), we find that there is never enough energy for a Gott-like time
machine to evolve from the specified data; it is impossible to accelerate two
particles to sufficiently high velocity. Thus, the no-CTC theorems of Tipler
and Hawking are enforced in an open (2+1)-dimensional universe by a mechanism
different from that which operates in a closed universe. In proving our result,
we develop a simple method to understand the inequalities that restrict the
result of combining momenta in (2+1)-dimensional gravity.Comment: Plain TeX, 41 pages incl. 9 figures. MIT-CTP #225
Experimental study of ultracold neutron production in pressurized superfluid helium
We have investigated experimentally the pressure dependence of the production
of ultracold neutrons (UCN) in superfluid helium in the range from saturated
vapor pressure to 20bar. A neutron velocity selector allowed the separation of
underlying single-phonon and multiphonon pro- cesses by varying the incident
cold neutron (CN) wavelength in the range from 3.5 to 10{\AA}. The predicted
pressure dependence of UCN production derived from inelastic neutron scattering
data was confirmed for the single-phonon excitation. For multiphonon based UCN
production we found no significant dependence on pressure whereas calculations
from inelastic neutron scattering data predict an increase of 43(6)% at 20bar
relative to saturated vapor pressure. From our data we conclude that applying
pressure to superfluid helium does not increase the overall UCN production rate
at a typical CN guide.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures Version accepted for publication in PR
Quantum state restoration and single-copy tomography
Given a single copy of an n qubit quantum state |psi>, the no-cloning theorem
greatly limits the amount of information which can be extracted from it.
Moreover, given only a procedure which verifies the state, for example a
procedure which measures the operator |psi> in
time polynomial in n . In this paper, we consider the scenario in which we are
given both a single copy of |psi> and the ability to verify it. We show that in
this setting, we can do several novel things efficiently. We present a new
algorithm that we call quantum state restoration which allows us to extend a
large subsystem of |psi> to the full state, and in turn this allows us to copy
small subsystems of |psi>. In addition, we present algorithms that can perform
tomography on small subsystems of |psi>, and we show how to use these
algorithms to estimate the statistics of any efficiently implementable POVM
acting on |psi> in time polynomial in the number of outcomes of the POVM.Comment: edited for clarity; 13 pages, 1 figur
Fermion Production in the Background of Minkowski Space Classical Solutions in Spontaneously Broken Gauge Theory
We investigate fermion production in the background of Minkowski space
solutions to the equations of motion of gauge theory spontaneously
broken via the Higgs mechanism. First, we attempt to evaluate the topological
charge of the solutions. We find that for solutions is not well-defined
as an integral over all space-time. Solutions can profitably be characterized
by the (integer-valued) change in Higgs winding number . We show
that solutions which dissipate at early and late times and which have nonzero
must have at least the sphaleron energy. We show that if we couple
a quantized massive chiral fermion to a classical background given by a
solution, the number of fermions produced is , and is not related
to .Comment: Version to be published. Argument showing that the topological charge
of solutions is undefined has been strengthened and clarified. Conclusions
unchange
Unfrustrated Qudit Chains and their Ground States
We investigate chains of 'd' dimensional quantum spins (qudits) on a line
with generic nearest neighbor interactions without translational invariance. We
find the conditions under which these systems are not frustrated, i.e. when the
ground states are also the common ground states of all the local terms in the
Hamiltonians. The states of a quantum spin chain are naturally represented in
the Matrix Product States (MPS) framework. Using imaginary time evolution in
the MPS ansatz, we numerically investigate the range of parameters in which we
expect the ground states to be highly entangled and find them hard to
approximate using our MPS method.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. Typos correcte
Spherical Shells of Classical Gauge Field and their Topological Charge as a Perturbative Expansion
We consider the classical equations of motion of gauge theory,
without a Higgs field, in Minkowski space. We work in the spherical ansatz and
develop a perturbative expansion in the coupling constant for solutions
which in the far past look like freely propagating spherical shells. The
topological charge of these solutions is typically non-integer. We then
show that can be expressed as a power series expansion in which can be
nonzero at finite order. We give an explicit analytic calculation of the order
contribution to for specific initial pulses. We discuss the relation
between our findings and anomalous fermion number violation, and speculate on
the physical implications of our results.Comment: 18 pages in REVTE
Measurement-induced entanglement and teleportation on a noisy quantum processor
Measurement has a special role in quantum theory: by collapsing the
wavefunction it can enable phenomena such as teleportation and thereby alter
the "arrow of time" that constrains unitary evolution. When integrated in
many-body dynamics, measurements can lead to emergent patterns of quantum
information in space-time that go beyond established paradigms for
characterizing phases, either in or out of equilibrium. On present-day NISQ
processors, the experimental realization of this physics is challenging due to
noise, hardware limitations, and the stochastic nature of quantum measurement.
Here we address each of these experimental challenges and investigate
measurement-induced quantum information phases on up to 70 superconducting
qubits. By leveraging the interchangeability of space and time, we use a
duality mapping, to avoid mid-circuit measurement and access different
manifestations of the underlying phases -- from entanglement scaling to
measurement-induced teleportation -- in a unified way. We obtain finite-size
signatures of a phase transition with a decoding protocol that correlates the
experimental measurement record with classical simulation data. The phases
display sharply different sensitivity to noise, which we exploit to turn an
inherent hardware limitation into a useful diagnostic. Our work demonstrates an
approach to realize measurement-induced physics at scales that are at the
limits of current NISQ processors