Extraction Methods and an Investigation of Drosophila Lipids

In earlier work (8) we extracted lipids from dried, macerated Drosophila melanogaster with ether, but later, working with larger quantities of undried flies, we found that most of the phospholipids were autolyzed. Kates' studies (2) led him to suggest n-propanol or isopropanol for lipid extraction (isopropanol was his later choice (6, 7)). Attempting to meet the requirements discussed above, we developed a new and relatively simple method of extraction employing n-propanol (9), or chloroformmethanol (2:1). The latter proved to be a more useful solvent. The method will be described in detail below, with results of an examination of Drosophila lipids

Phospholipides containing amino acids other than serine. I. Detection

In view of the widespread occurrence of the amino acid-containing lipides and the unique course of their metabolism during development of Drosophila, we have carried out extensive investigations concerned with their isolation and chemical nature. The present report is concerned primarily with techniques and procedures developed to insure removal of non-lipide contaminants from preparations of these lipides

Exploring constrained quantum control landscapes

The broad success of optimally controlling quantum systems with external fields has been attributed to the favorable topology of the underlying control landscape, where the landscape is the physical observable as a function of the controls. The control landscape can be shown to contain no suboptimal trapping extrema upon satisfaction of reasonable physical assumptions, but this topological analysis does not hold when significant constraints are placed on the control resources. This work employs simulations to explore the topology and features of the control landscape for pure-state population transfer with a constrained class of control fields. The fields are parameterized in terms of a set of uniformly spaced spectral frequencies, with the associated phases acting as the controls. Optimization results reveal that the minimum number of phase controls necessary to assure a high yield in the target state has a special dependence on the number of accessible energy levels in the quantum system, revealed from an analysis of the first- and second-order variation of the yield with respect to the controls. When an insufficient number of controls and/or a weak control fluence are employed, trapping extrema and saddle points are observed on the landscape. When the control resources are sufficiently flexible, solutions producing the globally maximal yield are found to form connected `level sets' of continuously variable control fields that preserve the yield. These optimal yield level sets are found to shrink to isolated points on the top of the landscape as the control field fluence is decreased, and further reduction of the fluence turns these points into suboptimal trapping extrema on the landscape. Although constrained control fields can come in many forms beyond the cases explored here, the behavior found in this paper is illustrative of the impacts that constraints can introduce.Comment: 10 figure

Quantum Control Landscapes

Numerous lines of experimental, numerical and analytical evidence indicate that it is surprisingly easy to locate optimal controls steering quantum dynamical systems to desired objectives. This has enabled the control of complex quantum systems despite the expense of solving the Schrodinger equation in simulations and the complicating effects of environmental decoherence in the laboratory. Recent work indicates that this simplicity originates in universal properties of the solution sets to quantum control problems that are fundamentally different from their classical counterparts. Here, we review studies that aim to systematically characterize these properties, enabling the classification of quantum control mechanisms and the design of globally efficient quantum control algorithms.Comment: 45 pages, 15 figures; International Reviews in Physical Chemistry, Vol. 26, Iss. 4, pp. 671-735 (2007

Description of a lunar rainbow

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Direct Observation of the Fourth Star in the Zeta Cancri System

Direct imaging of the zeta Cnc system has resolved the fourth star in the system, which is in orbit around zeta Cnc C. The presence of the fourth star has been inferred for many years from irregularities in the motion of star C, and recently from C's spectroscopic orbit. However, its mass is close to that of C, making its non-detection puzzling. Observing at wavelengths of 1.2, 1.7, and 2.2 microns with the adaptive-optics system of the CFHT, we have obtained images which very clearly reveal star D and show it to have the color of an M2 star. Its brightness is consonant with its being two M stars, which are not resolved in our observations but are likely to be in a short-period orbit, thereby accounting for the large mass and the difficulty of detection at optical wavelengths, where the magnitude difference is much larger. The positions and colors of all four stars in the system are reported and are consistent with the most recent astrometric observations.Comment: 7 pages including 3 tables, 1 figure; To appear in PAS

The role of controllability in optimizing quantum dynamics

This paper discusses the important role of controllability played on the complexity of optimizing quantum mechanical control systems. The study is based on a topology analysis of the corresponding quantum control landscape, which is referred to as the optimization objective as a functional of control fields. We find that the degree of controllability is closely relevant with the ruggedness of the landscape, which determines the search efficiency for global optima. This effect is demonstrated via the gate fidelity control landscape of a system whose controllability is restricted on a SU(2) dynamic symmetry group. We show that multiple local false traps (i.e., non-global suboptima) exist even if the target gate is realizable and that the number of these traps is increased by the loss of controllability, while the controllable systems are always devoid of false traps.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

The landscape of quantum transitions driven by single-qubit unitary transformations with implications for entanglement

This paper considers the control landscape of quantum transitions in multi-qubit systems driven by unitary transformations with single-qubit interaction terms. The two-qubit case is fully analyzed to reveal the features of the landscape including the nature of the absolute maximum and minimum, the saddle points and the absence of traps. The results permit calculating the Schmidt state starting from an arbitrary two-qubit state following the local gradient flow. The analysis of multi-qubit systems is more challenging, but the generalized Schmidt states may also be located by following the local gradient flow. Finally, we show the relation between the generalized Schmidt states and the entanglement measure based on the Bures distance

Quantum control by von Neumann measurements

A general scheme is presented for controlling quantum systems using evolution driven by non-selective von Neumann measurements, with or without an additional tailored electromagnetic field. As an example, a 2-level quantum system controlled by non-selective quantum measurements is considered. The control goal is to find optimal system observables such that consecutive non-selective measurement of these observables transforms the system from a given initial state into a state which maximizes the expected value of a target operator (the objective). A complete analytical solution is found including explicit expressions for the optimal measured observables and for the maximal objective value given any target operator, any initial system density matrix, and any number of measurements. As an illustration, upper bounds on measurement-induced population transfer between the ground and the excited states for any number of measurements are found. The anti-Zeno effect is recovered in the limit of an infinite number of measurements. In this limit the system becomes completely controllable. The results establish the degree of control attainable by a finite number of measurements