2,537 research outputs found
Including Systematic Uncertainties in Confidence Interval Construction for Poisson Statistics
One way to incorporate systematic uncertainties into the calculation of
confidence intervals is by integrating over probability density functions
parametrizing the uncertainties. In this note we present a development of this
method which takes into account uncertainties in the prediction of background
processes, uncertainties in the signal detection efficiency and background
efficiency and allows for a correlation between the signal and background
detection efficiencies. We implement this method with the Feldman & Cousins
unified approach with and without conditioning. We present studies of coverage
for the Feldman & Cousins and Neyman ordering schemes. In particular, we
present two different types of coverage tests for the case where systematic
uncertainties are included. To illustrate the method we show the relative
effect of including systematic uncertainties the case of dark matter search as
performed by modern neutrino tel escopes.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, replaced to match published versio
An Introduction to Quantum Programming in Quipper
Quipper is a recently developed programming language for expressing quantum
computations. This paper gives a brief tutorial introduction to the language,
through a demonstration of how to make use of some of its key features. We
illustrate many of Quipper's language features by developing a few well known
examples of Quantum computation, including quantum teleportation, the quantum
Fourier transform, and a quantum circuit for addition.Comment: 15 pages, RC201
Computational Indistinguishability between Quantum States and Its Cryptographic Application
We introduce a computational problem of distinguishing between two specific
quantum states as a new cryptographic problem to design a quantum cryptographic
scheme that is "secure" against any polynomial-time quantum adversary. Our
problem, QSCDff, is to distinguish between two types of random coset states
with a hidden permutation over the symmetric group of finite degree. This
naturally generalizes the commonly-used distinction problem between two
probability distributions in computational cryptography. As our major
contribution, we show that QSCDff has three properties of cryptographic
interest: (i) QSCDff has a trapdoor; (ii) the average-case hardness of QSCDff
coincides with its worst-case hardness; and (iii) QSCDff is computationally at
least as hard as the graph automorphism problem in the worst case. These
cryptographic properties enable us to construct a quantum public-key
cryptosystem, which is likely to withstand any chosen plaintext attack of a
polynomial-time quantum adversary. We further discuss a generalization of
QSCDff, called QSCDcyc, and introduce a multi-bit encryption scheme that relies
on similar cryptographic properties of QSCDcyc.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures. We improved presentation, and added more detail
proofs and follow-up of recent wor
The detector control system of the ATLAS experiment
The ATLAS experiment is one of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, constructed to study elementary particle interactions in collisions of high-energy proton beams. The individual detector components as well as the common experimental infrastructure are supervised by the Detector Control System (DCS). The DCS enables equipment supervision using operator commands, reads, processes and archives the operational parameters of the detector, allows for error recognition and handling, manages the communication with external control systems, and provides a synchronization mechanism with the physics data acquisition system. Given the enormous size and complexity of ATLAS, special emphasis was put on the use of standardized hardware and software components enabling efficient development and long-term maintainability of the DCS over the lifetime of the experiment. Currently, the DCS is being used successfully during the experiment commissioning phase
Random Oracles in a Quantum World
The interest in post-quantum cryptography - classical systems that remain
secure in the presence of a quantum adversary - has generated elegant proposals
for new cryptosystems. Some of these systems are set in the random oracle model
and are proven secure relative to adversaries that have classical access to the
random oracle. We argue that to prove post-quantum security one needs to prove
security in the quantum-accessible random oracle model where the adversary can
query the random oracle with quantum states.
We begin by separating the classical and quantum-accessible random oracle
models by presenting a scheme that is secure when the adversary is given
classical access to the random oracle, but is insecure when the adversary can
make quantum oracle queries. We then set out to develop generic conditions
under which a classical random oracle proof implies security in the
quantum-accessible random oracle model. We introduce the concept of a
history-free reduction which is a category of classical random oracle
reductions that basically determine oracle answers independently of the history
of previous queries, and we prove that such reductions imply security in the
quantum model. We then show that certain post-quantum proposals, including ones
based on lattices, can be proven secure using history-free reductions and are
therefore post-quantum secure. We conclude with a rich set of open problems in
this area.Comment: 38 pages, v2: many substantial changes and extensions, merged with a
related paper by Boneh and Zhandr
Optical Properties of Deep Ice at the South Pole - Absorption
We discuss recent measurements of the wavelength-dependent absorption
coefficients in deep South Pole ice. The method uses transit time distributions
of pulses from a variable-frequency laser sent between emitters and receivers
embedded in the ice. At depths of 800 to 1000 m scattering is dominated by
residual air bubbles, whereas absorption occurs both in ice itself and in
insoluble impurities. The absorption coefficient increases approximately
exponentially with wavelength in the measured interval 410 to 610 nm. At the
shortest wavelength our value is about a factor 20 below previous values
obtained for laboratory ice and lake ice; with increasing wavelength the
discrepancy with previous measurements decreases. At around 415 to 500 nm the
experimental uncertainties are small enough for us to resolve an extrinsic
contribution to absorption in ice: submicron dust particles contribute by an
amount that increases with depth and corresponds well with the expected
increase seen near the Last Glacial Maximum in Vostok and Dome C ice cores. The
laser pulse method allows remote mapping of gross structure in dust
concentration as a function of depth in glacial ice.Comment: 26 pages, LaTex, Accepted for publication in Applied Optics. 9
figures, not included, available on request from [email protected]
Solving the Shortest Vector Problem in Lattices Faster Using Quantum Search
By applying Grover's quantum search algorithm to the lattice algorithms of
Micciancio and Voulgaris, Nguyen and Vidick, Wang et al., and Pujol and
Stehl\'{e}, we obtain improved asymptotic quantum results for solving the
shortest vector problem. With quantum computers we can provably find a shortest
vector in time , improving upon the classical time
complexity of of Pujol and Stehl\'{e} and the of Micciancio and Voulgaris, while heuristically we expect to find a
shortest vector in time , improving upon the classical time
complexity of of Wang et al. These quantum complexities
will be an important guide for the selection of parameters for post-quantum
cryptosystems based on the hardness of the shortest vector problem.Comment: 19 page
Almost uniform sampling via quantum walks
Many classical randomized algorithms (e.g., approximation algorithms for
#P-complete problems) utilize the following random walk algorithm for {\em
almost uniform sampling} from a state space of cardinality : run a
symmetric ergodic Markov chain on for long enough to obtain a random
state from within total variation distance of the uniform
distribution over . The running time of this algorithm, the so-called {\em
mixing time} of , is , where
is the spectral gap of .
We present a natural quantum version of this algorithm based on repeated
measurements of the {\em quantum walk} . We show that it
samples almost uniformly from with logarithmic dependence on
just as the classical walk does; previously, no such
quantum walk algorithm was known. We then outline a framework for analyzing its
running time and formulate two plausible conjectures which together would imply
that it runs in time when is
the standard transition matrix of a constant-degree graph. We prove each
conjecture for a subclass of Cayley graphs.Comment: 13 pages; v2 added NSF grant info; v3 incorporated feedbac
The AMANDA Neutrino Telescope and the Indirect Search for Dark Matter
With an effective telescope area of order 10^4 m^2, a threshold of ~50 GeV
and a pointing accuracy of 2.5 degrees, the AMANDA detector represents the
first of a new generation of high energy neutrino telescopes, reaching a scale
envisaged over 25 years ago. We describe its performance, focussing on the
capability to detect halo dark matter particles via their annihilation into
neutrinos.Comment: Latex2.09, 16 pages, uses epsf.sty to place 15 postscript figures.
Talk presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Sources and Detection of
Dark Matter in the Universe (DM98), Santa Monica, California, Feb. 199
- …