Quantum repeaters based on heralded qubit amplifiers

We present a quantum repeater scheme based on the recently proposed qubit amplifier [N. Gisin, S. Pironio and N. Sangouard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 070501 (2010)]. It relies on a on-demand entangled-photon pair source which uses on-demand single-photon sources, linear optical elements and atomic ensembles. Interestingly, the imperfections affecting the states created from this source, caused e.g. by detectors with non-unit efficiencies, are systematically purified from an entanglement swapping operation based on a two-photon detection. This allows the distribution of entanglement over very long distances with a high fidelity, i.e. without vacuum components and multiphoton errors. Therefore, the resulting quantum repeater architecture does not necessitate final postselections and thus achieves high entanglement distribution rates. This also provides unique opportunities for device-independent quantum key distribution over long distances with linear optics and atomic ensembles.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

REAM intensity modulator-enabled 10Gb/s colorless upstream transmission of real-time optical OFDM signals in a single-fiber-based bidirectional PON architecture

Reflective electro-absorption modulation-intensity modulators (REAM-IMs) are utilized, for the first time, to experimentally demonstrate colorless ONUs in single-fiber-based, bidirectional, intensity-modulation and direct-detection (IMDD), optical OFDM PONs (OOFDM-PONs) incorporating 25km SSMFs and OLT-side-seeded CW optical signals. The colorlessness of the REAM-IMs is characterized, based on which optimum REAM-IM operating conditions are identified. In the aforementioned PON architecture, 10Gb/s colorless upstream transmissions of end-to-end realtime OOFDM signals are successfully achieved for various wavelengths within the entire C-band. Over such a wavelength window, corresponding minimum received optical powers at the FEC limit vary in a range as small as <0.5dB. In addition, experimental measurements also indicate that Rayleigh backscattering imposes a 2.8dB optical power penalty on the 10Gb/s over 25km upstream OOFDM signal transmission. Furthermore, making use of on-line adaptive bit and power loading, a linear trade-off between aggregated signal line rate and optical power budget is observed, which shows that, for the present PON system, a 10% reduction in signal line rate can improve the optical power budget by 2.6dB. © 2012 Optical Society of America

Emergence of thin shell structure during collapse in isotropic coordinates

Numerical studies of gravitational collapse in isotropic coordinates have recently shown an interesting connection between the gravitational Lagrangian and black hole thermodynamics. A study of the actual spacetime was not the main focus of this work and in particular, the rich and interesting structure of the interior has not been investigated in much detail and remains largely unknown. We elucidate its features by performing a numerical study of the spacetime in isotropic coordinates during gravitational collapse of a massless scalar field. The most salient feature to emerge is the formation of a thin shell of matter just inside the apparent horizon. The energy density and Ricci scalar peak at the shell and there is a jump discontinuity in the extrinsic curvature across the apparent horizon, the hallmark that a thin shell is present in its vicinity. At late stages of the collapse, the spacetime consists of two vacuum regions separated by the thin shell. The interior is described by an interesting collapsing isotropic universe. It tends towards a vacuum (never reaches a perfect vacuum) and there is a slight inhomogeneity in the interior that plays a crucial role in the collapse process as the areal radius tends to zero. The spacetime evolves towards a curvature (physical) singularity in the interior, both a Weyl and Ricci singularity. In the exterior, our numerical results match closely the analytical form of the Schwarzschild metric in isotropic coordinates, providing a strong test of our numerical code.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures. version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Percolation in suspensions of polydisperse hard rods : quasi-universality and finite-size effects

We present a study of connectivity percolation in suspensions of hard spherocylinders by means of Monte Carlo simulation and connectedness percolation theory. We focus attention on polydispersity in the length, the diameter and the connectedness criterion, and invoke bimodal, Gaussian and Weibull distributions for these. The main finding from our simulations is that the percolation threshold shows quasi universal behaviour, i.e., to a good approximation it depends only on certain cumulants of the full size and connectivity distribution. Our connectedness percolation theory hinges on a Lee-Parsons type of closure recently put forward that improves upon the often-used second virial approximation [ArXiv e-prints, May 2015, 1505.07660]. The theory predicts exact universality. Theory and simulation agree quantitatively for aspect ratios in excess of 20, if we include the connectivity range in our definition of the aspect ratio of the particles. We further discuss the mechanism of cluster growth that, remarkably, differs between systems that are polydisperse in length and in width, and exhibits non-universal aspects.Comment: 7 figure

Comment on ``Nonuniversal Exponents in Interface Growth''

Recently, Newman and Swift[T. J. Newman and M. R. Swift, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 79}, 2261 (1997)] made an interesting suggestion that the strong-coupling exponents of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation may not be universal, but rather depend on the precise form of the noise distribution. We show here that the decrease of surface roughness exponents they observed can be attributed to a percolative effect

Microcavity quantum-dot systems for non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation

We review the practical conditions required to achieve a non-equilibrium BEC driven by quantum dynamics in a system comprising a microcavity field mode and a distribution of localised two-level systems driven to a step-like population inversion profile. A candidate system based on eight 3.8nm layers of In(0.23)Ga(0.77)As in GaAs shows promising characteristics with regard to the total dipole strength which can be coupled to the field mode.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in J. Phys. Conf. Ser. for QD201

Entrainment transition in populations of random frequency oscillators

The entrainment transition of coupled random frequency oscillators is revisited. The Kuramoto model (global coupling) is shown to exhibit unusual sample-dependent finite size effects leading to a correlation size exponent $\bar\nu=5/2$. Simulations of locally coupled oscillators in $d$-dimensions reveal two types of frequency entrainment: mean-field behavior at $d>4$, and aggregation of compact synchronized domains in three and four dimensions. In the latter case, scaling arguments yield a correlation length exponent $\nu=2/(d-2)$, in good agreement with numerical results.Comment: published versio

Quantum Repeaters with Photon Pair Sources and Multi-Mode Memories

We propose a quantum repeater protocol which builds on the well-known DLCZ protocol [L.M. Duan, M.D. Lukin, J.I. Cirac, and P. Zoller, Nature 414, 413 (2001)], but which uses photon pair sources in combination with memories that allow to store a large number of temporal modes. We suggest to realize such multi-mode memories based on the principle of photon echo, using solids doped with rare-earth ions. The use of multi-mode memories promises a speedup in entanglement generation by several orders of magnitude and a significant reduction in stability requirements compared to the DLCZ protocol.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in PRL, accepted versio

Quantum state preparation in semiconductor dots by adiabatic rapid passage

Preparation of a specific quantum state is a required step for a variety of proposed practical uses of quantum dynamics. We report an experimental demonstration of optical quantum state preparation in a semiconductor quantum dot with electrical readout, which contrasts with earlier work based on Rabi flopping in that the method is robust with respect to variation in the optical coupling. We use adiabatic rapid passage, which is capable of inverting single dots to a specified upper level. We demonstrate that when the pulse power exceeds a threshold for inversion, the final state is independent of power. This provides a new tool for preparing quantum states in semiconductor dots and has a wide range of potential uses.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Onset of collective and cohesive motion

We study the onset of collective motion, with and without cohesion, of groups of noisy self-propelled particles interacting locally. We find that this phase transition, in two space dimensions, is always discontinuous, including for the minimal model of Vicsek et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 75},1226 (1995)] for which a non-trivial critical point was previously advocated. We also show that cohesion is always lost near onset, as a result of the interplay of density, velocity, and shape fluctuations.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let