The dynamical Casimir effect in superconducting microwave circuits

We theoretically investigate the dynamical Casimir effect in electrical circuits based on superconducting microfabricated waveguides with tunable boundary conditions. We propose to implement a rapid modulation of the boundary conditions by tuning the applied magnetic flux through superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) that are embedded in the waveguide circuits. We consider two circuits: (i) An open waveguide circuit that corresponds to a single mirror in free space, and (ii) a resonator coupled to a microfabricated waveguide, which corresponds to a single-sided cavity in free space. We analyze the properties of the dynamical Casimir effect in these two setups by calculating the generated photon-flux density, output-field correlation functions, and the quadrature squeezing spectra. We show that these properties of the output field exhibit signatures unique to the radiation due to the dynamical Casimir effect, and could therefore be used for distinguishing the dynamical Casimir effect from other types of radiation in these circuits. We also discuss the similarities and differences between the dynamical Casimir effect, in the resonator setup, and downconversion of pump photons in parametric oscillators.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figure

Nonclassical microwave radiation from the dynamical Casimir effect

We investigate quantum correlations in microwave radiation produced by the dynamical Casimir effect in a superconducting waveguide terminated and modulated by a superconducting quantum interference device. We apply nonclassicality tests and evaluate the entanglement for the predicted field states. For realistic circuit parameters, including thermal background noise, the results indicate that the produced radiation can be strictly nonclassical and can have a measurable amount of intermode entanglement. If measured experimentally, these nonclassicalilty indicators could give further evidence of the quantum nature of the dynamical Casimir radiation in these circuits.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

KPZ equation in one dimension and line ensembles

For suitably discretized versions of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation in one space dimension exact scaling functions are available, amongst them the stationary two-point function. We explain one central piece from the technology through which such results are obtained, namely the method of line ensembles with purely entropic repulsion.Comment: Proceedings STATPHYS22, Bangalore, 200

Measuring Technology Achievement of Nations and the Capacity to Participate in the Network Age

human development, democracy

Atomic Processes in Planetary Nebulae and H II Regions

Spectroscopic studies of Planetary Nebulae (PNe) and H {\sc ii} regions have driven much development in atomic physics. In the last few years the combination of a generation of powerful observatories, the development of ever more sophisticated spectral modeling codes, and large efforts on mass production of high quality atomic data have led to important progress in our understanding of the atomic spectra of such astronomical objects. In this paper I review such progress, including evaluations of atomic data by comparisons with nebular spectra, detection of spectral lines from most iron-peak elements and n-capture elements, observations of hyperfine emission lines and analysis of isotopic abundances, fluorescent processes, and new techniques for diagnosing physical conditions based on recombination spectra. The review is directed toward atomic physicists and spectroscopists trying to establish the current status of the atomic data and models and to know the main standing issues.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Lower limit on the achievable temperature in resonator-based sideband cooling

A resonator can be effectively used as a cooler for another linear oscillator with a much smaller frequency. A huge cooling effect, which could be used to cool a mechanical oscillator below the energy of quantum fluctuations, has been predicted by several authors. However, here we show that there is a lower limit T* on the achievable temperature that was not considered in previous works and can be higher than the quantum limit in realistic experimental realizations. We also point out that the decay rate of the resonator, which previous studies stress should be small, must be larger than the decay rate of the cooled oscillator for effective cooling.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, uses psfra

Stochastic Transition Model for Discrete Agent Movements

We propose a calibrated two-dimensional cellular automaton model to simulate pedestrian motion behavior. It is a v=4 (3) model with exclusion statistics and random shuffled dynamics. The underlying regular grid structure results in a direction-dependent behavior, which has in particular not been considered within previous approaches. We efficiently compensate these grid-caused deficiencies on model level.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Eddy covariance measurements and parameterisation of traffic related particle emissions in an urban environment

Urban aerosol sources are important due to the health effects of particles and their potential impact on climate. Our aim has been to quantify and parameterise the urban aerosol source number flux <i>F</i> (particles m^&minus;2 s^&minus;1), in order to help improve how this source is represented in air quality and climate models. We applied an aerosol eddy covariance flux system 118.0 m above the city of Stockholm. This allowed us to measure the aerosol number flux for particles with diameters >11 nm. Upward source fluxes dominated completely over deposition fluxes in the collected dataset. Therefore, the measured fluxes were regarded as a good approximation of the aerosol surface sources. Upward fluxes were parameterised using a traffic activity (<I>TA</I>) database, which is based on traffic intensity measurements. <P style='line-height: 20px;'> The footprint (area on the surface from which sources and sinks affect flux measurements, located at one point in space) of the eddy system covered road and building construction areas, forests and residential areas, as well as roads with high traffic density and smaller streets. We found pronounced diurnal cycles in the particle flux data, which were well correlated with the diurnal cycles in traffic activities, strongly supporting the conclusion that the major part of the aerosol fluxes was due to traffic emissions. <P style='line-height: 20px;'> The emission factor for the fleet mix in the measurement area <I>EF</I>_<i>fm</i>=1.4&plusmn;0.1&times;10¹⁴ veh^&minus;1 km^&minus;1 was deduced. This agrees fairly well with other studies, although this study has an advantage of representing the actual effective emission from a mixed vehicle fleet. Emission from other sources, not traffic related, account for a <I>F</I>₀=15&plusmn;18&times;10⁶ m^&minus;2 s^&minus;1. The urban aerosol source flux can then be written as <I>F=EF</I>_<i>fm</i><I>TA+F</I>₀. In a second attempt to find a parameterisation, the friction velocity <i>U</i>_* normalised with the average friction velocity <!-- MATH $overline{U_ast}$ --> <IMG WIDTH='21' HEIGHT='36' ALIGN='MIDDLE' BORDER='0' src='http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/6/769/2006/acp-6-769-img15.gif' ALT='$overline{U_ast}$'> has been included, <I>F=EF</I><!-- MATH $_{fm }TAleft({frac{U_ast }{overline{U_ast}}} ight)^{0.4}{+}F_{0}$ --> <IMG WIDTH='136' HEIGHT='51' ALIGN='MIDDLE' BORDER='0' src='http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/6/769/2006/acp-6-769-img16.gif' ALT='$_{fm }TAleft({frac{U_ast }{overline{U_ast}}}right)^{0.4}{+}F_{0}$'>. This parameterisation results in a somewhat reduced emission factor, 1.3&times;10¹⁴ veh^&minus;1 km^&minus;1. When multiple linear regression have been used, two emission factors are found, one for light duty vehicles <I>EF</I>_LDV=0.3&plusmn;0.3&times;10¹⁴ veh^&minus;1 km^&minus;1 and one for heavy-duty vehicles, <I>EF</I>_HDV=19.8&plusmn;4.0&times;10¹⁴ veh^&minus;1 km^&minus;1, and <i>F</I>₀=19&plusmn;16&times;10⁶ m^&minus;2 s^&minus;1. The results show that during weekdays ~70&ndash;80% of the emissions came from HDV

The Single-Photon Router

We have embedded an artificial atom, a superconducting "transmon" qubit, in an open transmission line and investigated the strong scattering of incident microwave photons ($\sim6$ GHz). When an input coherent state, with an average photon number $N\ll1$ is on resonance with the artificial atom, we observe extinction of up to 90% in the forward propagating field. We use two-tone spectroscopy to study scattering from excited states and we observe electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We then use EIT to make a single-photon router, where we can control to what output port an incoming signal is delivered. The maximum on-off ratio is around 90% with a rise and fall time on the order of nanoseconds, consistent with theoretical expectations. The router can easily be extended to have multiple output ports and it can be viewed as a rudimentary quantum node, an important step towards building quantum information networks.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Implementation of the three-qubit phase-flip error correction code with superconducting qubits

We investigate the performance of a three qubit error correcting code in the framework of superconducting qubit implementations. Such a code can recover a quantum state perfectly in the case of dephasing errors but only in situations where the dephasing rate is low. Numerical studies in previous work have however shown that the code does increase the fidelity of the encoded state even in the presence of high error probability, during both storage and processing. In this work we give analytical expressions for the fidelity of such a code. We consider two specific schemes for qubit-qubit interaction realizable in superconducting systems; one $\sigma_z\sigma_z$-coupling and one cavity mediated coupling. With these realizations in mind, and considering errors during storing as well as processing, we calculate the maximum operation time allowed in order to still benefit from the code. We show that this limit can be reached with current technology.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure