Curved Graphene Nanoribbons: Structure and Dynamics of Carbon Nanobelts

Carbon nanoribbons (CNRs) are graphene (planar) structures with large aspect ratio. Carbon nanobelts (CNBs) are small graphene nanoribbons rolled up into spiral-like structures, i. e., carbon nanoscrolls (CNSs) with large aspect ratio. In this work we investigated the energetics and dynamical aspects of CNBs formed from rolling up CNRs. We have carried out molecular dynamics simulations using reactive empirical bond-order potentials. Our results show that similarly to CNSs, CNBs formation is dominated by two major energy contribution, the increase in the elastic energy due to the bending of the initial planar configuration (decreasing structural stability) and the energetic gain due to van der Waals interactions of the overlapping surface of the rolled layers (increasing structural stability). Beyond a critical diameter value these scrolled structures can be even more stable (in terms of energy) than their equivalent planar configurations. In contrast to CNSs that require energy assisted processes (sonication, chemical reactions, etc.) to be formed, CNBs can be spontaneously formed from low temperature driven processes. Long CNBs (length of $\sim$ 30.0 nm) tend to exhibit self-folded racket-like conformations with formation dynamics very similar to the one observed for long carbon nanotubes. Shorter CNBs will be more likely to form perfect scrolled structures. Possible synthetic routes to fabricate CNBs from graphene membranes are also addressed

Entanglement and the nonlinear elastic behavior of forests of coiled carbon nanotubes

Helical or coiled nanostructures have been object of intense experimental and theoretical studies due to their special electronic and mechanical properties. Recently, it was experimentally reported that the dynamical response of foamlike forest of coiled carbon nanotubes under mechanical impact exhibits a nonlinear, non-Hertzian behavior, with no trace of plastic deformation. The physical origin of this unusual behavior is not yet fully understood. In this work, based on analytical models, we show that the entanglement among neighboring coils in the superior part of the forest surface must be taken into account for a full description of the strongly nonlinear behavior of the impact response of a drop-ball onto a forest of coiled carbon nanotubes.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

A Quantum solution to the Byzantine agreement problem

We present a solution to an old and timely problem in distributed computing. Like Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), quantum channels make it possible to achieve taks classically impossible. However, unlike QKD, here the goal is not secrecy but agreement, and the adversary is not outside but inside the game, and the resources require qutrits.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Entanglement measure for general pure multipartite quantum states

We propose an explicit formula for an entanglement measure of pure multipartite quantum states, then study a general pure tripartite state in detail, and at end we give some simple but illustrative examples on four-qubits and m-qubits states.Comment: 5 page

Tripartite entanglement and quantum relative entropy

We establish relations between tripartite pure state entanglement and additivity properties of the bipartite relative entropy of entanglement. Our results pertain to the asymptotic limit of local manipulations on a large number of copies of the state. We show that additivity of the relative entropy would imply that there are at least two inequivalent types of asymptotic tripartite entanglement. The methods used include the application of some useful lemmas that enable us to analytically calculate the relative entropy for some classes of bipartite states.Comment: 7 pages, revtex, no figures. v2: discussion about recent results, 2 refs. added. Published versio

Entanglement criterion for pure M⊗NM\otimes N bipartite quantum states

We propose a entanglement measure for pure $M \otimes N$ bipartite quantum states. We obtain the measure by generalizing the equivalent measure for a $2 \otimes 2$ system, via a $2 \otimes 3$ system, to the general bipartite case. The measure emphasizes the role Bell states have, both for forming the measure, and for experimentally measuring the entanglement. The form of the measure is similar to generalized concurrence. In the case of $2 \otimes 3$ systems, we prove that our measure, that is directly measurable, equals the concurrence. It is also shown that in order to measure the entanglement, it is sufficient to measure the projections of the state onto a maximum of $M(M-1)N(N-1)/2$ Bell states.Comment: 6 page