4,438 research outputs found
Counting statistics of coherent population trapping in quantum dots
Destructive interference of single-electron tunneling between three quantum
dots can trap an electron in a coherent superposition of charge on two of the
dots. Coupling to external charges causes decoherence of this superposition,
and in the presence of a large bias voltage each decoherence event transfers a
certain number of electrons through the device. We calculate the counting
statistics of the transferred charges, finding a crossover from sub-Poissonian
to super-Poissonian statistics with increasing ratio of tunnel and decoherence
rates.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Switching of electrical current by spin precession in the first Landau level of an inverted-gap semiconductor
We show how the quantum Hall effect in an inverted-gap semiconductor (with
electron- and hole-like states at the conduction- and valence-band edges
interchanged) can be used to inject, precess, and detect the electron spin
along a one-dimensional pathway. The restriction of the electron motion to a
single spatial dimension ensures that all electrons experience the same amount
of precession in a parallel magnetic field, so that the full electrical current
can be switched on and off. As an example, we calculate the magnetoconductance
of a p-n interface in a HgTe quantum well and show how it can be used to
measure the spin precession due to bulk inversion asymmetry.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, extended versio
Theory of the topological Anderson insulator
We present an effective medium theory that explains the disorder-induced
transition into a phase of quantized conductance, discovered in computer
simulations of HgTe quantum wells. It is the combination of a random potential
and quadratic corrections proportional to p^2 sigma_z to the Dirac Hamiltonian
that can drive an ordinary band insulator into a topological insulator (having
an inverted band gap). We calculate the location of the phase boundary at weak
disorder and show that it corresponds to the crossing of a band edge rather
than a mobility edge. Our mechanism for the formation of a topological Anderson
insulator is generic, and would apply as well to three-dimensional
semiconductors with strong spin-orbit coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (updated figures, calculated DOS
The systematic position of Plagiochila moritziana, P. trichostoma and P. deflexa based on ITS sequence variation of nuclear ribosomal DNA, morphology, and lipophilic secondary metabolites
According to phylogenetic analyses of nrDNA ITS1 and ITS2 sequences (including the 5.8S unit) the Neotropical Plagiochila moritziana, P. rutilans var. rutilans, P. rutilans var. standleyi, P. trichostoma (= P. permista, syn. nov.), and P. subtrinitensis form a monophyletic lineage and are placed in P. sect. Rutilantes; all five taxa lack a ca 20 base pair sequence that is present in all the taxa of the other Plagiochila sections investigated. The Central American P. subtrinitensis is treated as a synonym of the Hawaiian endemic P. deflexa. Plagiochila moritziana is excluded from sect. Fuscoluteae and reduced to a variety of P. rutilans; P. sect. Permistae is treated as a synonym of P. sect. Rutilantes. The sporophytes of P. trichostoma and P. deflexa are described for the first time. Fresh material of P. rutilans var. moritziana exhibits a distinct odor of peppermint caused by the presence of several menthane monoterpenoids, principally pulegone. The Central American P. rutilans var. standleyi is reported from Ecuador, new to South America. Lectotypes are designated for P. rutilans var. moritziana, P. subtrinitensis, and P. trichostoma
Finite difference method for transport properties of massless Dirac fermions
We adapt a finite difference method of solution of the two-dimensional
massless Dirac equation, developed in the context of lattice gauge theory, to
the calculation of electrical conduction in a graphene sheet or on the surface
of a topological insulator. The discretized Dirac equation retains a single
Dirac point (no "fermion doubling"), avoids intervalley scattering as well as
trigonal warping, and preserves the single-valley time reversal symmetry (=
symplectic symmetry) at all length scales and energies -- at the expense of a
nonlocal finite difference approximation of the differential operator. We
demonstrate the symplectic symmetry by calculating the scaling of the
conductivity with sample size, obtaining the logarithmic increase due to
antilocalization. We also calculate the sample-to-sample conductance
fluctuations as well as the shot noise power, and compare with analytical
predictions.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figure
A Proper Motion Survey for White Dwarfs with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2
We have performed a search for halo white dwarfs as high proper motion
objects in a second epoch WFPC2 image of the Groth-Westphal strip. We identify
24 high proper motion objects with mu > 0.014 ''/yr. Five of these high proper
motion objects are identified as strong white dwarf candidates on the basis of
their position in a reduced proper motion diagram. We create a model of the
Milky Way thin disk, thick disk and stellar halo and find that this sample of
white dwarfs is clearly an excess above the < 2 detections expected from these
known stellar populations. The origin of the excess signal is less clear.
Possibly, the excess cannot be explained without invoking a fourth galactic
component: a white dwarf dark halo. We present a statistical separation of our
sample into the four components and estimate the corresponding local white
dwarf densities using only the directly observable variables, V, V-I, and mu.
For all Galactic models explored, our sample separates into about 3 disk white
dwarfs and 2 halo white dwarfs. However, the further subdivision into the thin
and thick disk and the stellar and dark halo, and the subsequent calculation of
the local densities are sensitive to the input parameters of our model for each
Galactic component. Using the lowest mean mass model for the dark halo we find
a 7% white dwarf halo and six times the canonical value for the thin disk white
dwarf density (at marginal statistical significance), but possible systematic
errors due to uncertainty in the model parameters likely dominate these
statistical error bars. The white dwarf halo can be reduced to around 1.5% of
the halo dark matter by changing the initial mass function slightly. The local
thin disk white dwarf density in our solution can be made consistent with the
canonical value by assuming a larger thin disk scaleheight of 500 pc.Comment: revised version, accepted by ApJ, results unchanged, discussion
expande
Making Sigma-Protocols Non-interactive Without Random Oracles
DamgËard, Fazio and Nicolosi (TCC 2006) gave a transformation of Sigma-protocols, 3-move honest verifier zero-knowledge proofs, into efficient non-interactive zero-knowledge arguments for a designated verifier. Their transformation uses additively homomorphic encryption
to encrypt the verifierâs challenge, which the prover uses to compute an encrypted answer. The transformation does not rely on the random oracle model but proving soundness requires a complexity leveraging assumption.
We propose an alternative instantiation of their transformation and show that it achieves culpable soundness without complexity leveraging. This
improves upon an earlier result by Ventre and Visconti (Africacrypt 2009), who used a different construction which achieved weak culpable soundness.
We demonstrate how our construction can be used to prove validity of encrypted votes in a referendum. This yields a voting system with homomorphic tallying that does not rely on the Fiat-Shamir heuristic
Arya: Nearly linear-time zero-knowledge proofs for correct program execution
There have been tremendous advances in reducing interaction, communication and verification time in zero-knowledge proofs but it remains an important challenge to make the prover efficient. We construct the first zero-knowledge proof of knowledge for the correct execution of a program on public and private inputs where the prover computation is nearly linear time. This saves a polylogarithmic factor in asymptotic performance compared to current state of the art proof systems.
We use the TinyRAM model to capture general purpose processor computation. An instance consists of a TinyRAM program and public inputs. The witness consists of additional private inputs to the program. The prover can use our proof system to convince the verifier that the program terminates with the intended answer within given time and memory bounds. Our proof system has perfect completeness, statistical special honest verifier zero-knowledge, and computational knowledge soundness assuming linear-time computable collision-resistant hash functions exist. The main advantage of our new proof system is asymptotically efficient prover computation. The proverâs running time is only a superconstant factor larger than the programâs running time in an apples-to-apples comparison where the prover uses the same TinyRAM model. Our proof system is also efficient on the other performance parameters; the verifierâs running time and the communication are sublinear in the execution time of the program and we only use a log-logarithmic number of rounds
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