Quantum discord bounds the amount of distributed entanglement

The ability to distribute quantum entanglement is a prerequisite for many fundamental tests of quantum theory and numerous quantum information protocols. Two distant parties can increase the amount of entanglement between them by means of quantum communication encoded in a carrier that is sent from one party to the other. Intriguingly, entanglement can be increased even when the exchanged carrier is not entangled with the parties. However, in light of the defining property of entanglement stating that it cannot increase under classical communication, the carrier must be quantum. Here we show that, in general, the increase of relative entropy of entanglement between two remote parties is bounded by the amount of non-classical correlations of the carrier with the parties as quantified by the relative entropy of discord. We study implications of this bound, provide new examples of entanglement distribution via unentangled states and put further limits on this phenomenon.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX4; Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Artificial dry surface biofilm (DSB) models for testing the efficacy of cleaning and disinfection

Dry surface biofilms (DSB) harbouring pathogens are widespread in healthcare settings, difficult to detect and resistant to cleaning and disinfection interventions. Here, we describe a practical test protocol to palliate the lack of standard efficacy test methods for DSB. Staphylococcus aureus DSB were produced over a 12‐day period, grown with or without the presence of organic matter, and their composition and viability were evaluated. Disinfectant treatment was conducted with a modified ASTM2967‐15 test and reduction in viability, transferability, and biofilm regrowth post treatment were measured. Dry surface biofilms produced over a 12‐day period had a similar carbohydrates, proteins and DNA content, regardless the presence or absence of organic matter. The combination of sodium hypochlorite (1,000 ppm) and a microfiber cloth was only effective against DSB in the absence of organic load. With the increasing concerns of the uncontrolled presence of DSB in healthcare settings, the development of effective interventions is paramount. We propose that our DSB model in the presence of organic load is appropriate for the testing of biocidal products, while the use of three parameters, log10 reduction, transferability and regrowth, provides an accurate and practical measurement of product efficacy

Location of the Multicritical Point for the Ising Spin Glass on the Triangular and Hexagonal Lattices

A conjecture is given for the exact location of the multicritical point in the phase diagram of the +/- J Ising model on the triangular lattice. The result p_c=0.8358058 agrees well with a recent numerical estimate. From this value, it is possible to derive a comparable conjecture for the exact location of the multicritical point for the hexagonal lattice, p_c=0.9327041, again in excellent agreement with a numerical study. The method is a variant of duality transformation to relate the triangular lattice directly with its dual triangular lattice without recourse to the hexagonal lattice, in conjunction with the replica method.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure; Minor corrections in notatio

It's a trap! The development of a versatile drain biofilm model and its susceptibility to disinfection

Background Pathogens in drain biofilms pose a significant risk for hospital-acquired infection. However, the evidence of product effectiveness in controlling drain biofilm and pathogen dissemination are scarce. A novel in-vitro biofilm model was developed to address the need for a robust, reproduceable and simple testing methodology for disinfection efficacy against a complex drain biofilm. Methods Identical complex drain biofilms were established simultaneously over 8 days, mimicking a sink trap. Reproducibility of their composition was confirmed by next-generation sequencing. The efficacy of sodium hypochlorite 1000 ppm (NaOCl), sodium dichloroisocyanurate 1000 ppm (NaDCC), non-ionic surfactant (NIS) and peracetic acid 4000 ppm (PAA) was explored, simulating normal sink usage conditions. Bacterial viability and recovery following a series of 15-min treatments were measured in three distinct parts of the drain. Results The drain biofilm consisted of 119 mixed species of Gram-positive and -negative bacteria. NaOCl produced a >4 log10 reduction in viability in the drain front section alone, while PAA achieved a >4 log10 reduction in viability in all of the drain sections following three 15-min doses and prevented biofilm regrowth for >4 days. NIS and NaDCC failed to control the biofilm in any drain sections. Conclusions Drains are one source of microbial pathogens in healthcare settings. Microbial biofilms are notoriously difficult to eradicate with conventional chemical biocidal products. The development of this reproducible in-vitro drain biofilm model enabled understanding of the impact of biocidal products on biofilm spatial composition and viability in different parts of the drain. Keyword

Private Incremental Regression

Data is continuously generated by modern data sources, and a recent challenge in machine learning has been to develop techniques that perform well in an incremental (streaming) setting. In this paper, we investigate the problem of private machine learning, where as common in practice, the data is not given at once, but rather arrives incrementally over time. We introduce the problems of private incremental ERM and private incremental regression where the general goal is to always maintain a good empirical risk minimizer for the history observed under differential privacy. Our first contribution is a generic transformation of private batch ERM mechanisms into private incremental ERM mechanisms, based on a simple idea of invoking the private batch ERM procedure at some regular time intervals. We take this construction as a baseline for comparison. We then provide two mechanisms for the private incremental regression problem. Our first mechanism is based on privately constructing a noisy incremental gradient function, which is then used in a modified projected gradient procedure at every timestep. This mechanism has an excess empirical risk of $\approx\sqrt{d}$, where $d$ is the dimensionality of the data. While from the results of [Bassily et al. 2014] this bound is tight in the worst-case, we show that certain geometric properties of the input and constraint set can be used to derive significantly better results for certain interesting regression problems.Comment: To appear in PODS 201

A classification of four-state spin edge Potts models

We classify four-state spin models with interactions along the edges according to their behavior under a specific group of symmetry transformations. This analysis uses the measure of complexity of the action of the symmetries, in the spirit of the study of discrete dynamical systems on the space of parameters of the models, and aims at uncovering solvable ones. We find that the action of these symmetries has low complexity (polynomial growth, zero entropy). We obtain natural parametrizations of various models, among which an unexpected elliptic parametrization of the four-state chiral Potts model, which we use to localize possible integrability conditions associated with high genus curves.Comment: 5 figure

Multicritical Points of Potts Spin Glasses on the Triangular Lattice

We predict the locations of several multicritical points of the Potts spin glass model on the triangular lattice. In particular, continuous multicritical lines, which consist of multicritical points, are obtained for two types of two-state Potts (i.e., Ising) spin glasses with two- and three-body interactions on the triangular lattice. These results provide us with numerous examples to further verify the validity of the conjecture, which has succeeded in deriving highly precise locations of multicritical points for several spin glass models. The technique, called the direct triangular duality, a variant of the ordinary duality transformation, directly relates the triangular lattice with its dual triangular lattice in conjunction with the replica method.Comment: 18 pages, 2, figure

Near-forward Raman selection rules of the phonon-polariton created by alloying in (Zn,Be)Se

The Raman selection rules of the (ZnSe, BeSe) mixed phonon polariton created by alloying in the three mode (1ZnSe, 2BeSe) ZnBeSe system, whose dramatic S like dispersion covers the large frequency gap between the ZnSe and BeSe spectral ranges, is studied in its wave vector dependence by near forward scattering. Both the collapse regime away from the Brillouin zone centre and the reinforcement regime near the Brillouin zone centre are addressed, using appropriate laser lines and Be contents. We find that in both regimes the considered phonon polariton, in fact a transverse mode with mixed mechanical and electrical character, obeys the same nominal Raman selection rules as its purely mechanical variant commonly observed in the backscattering geometry. Besides, marked differences in the phonon polariton Raman lineshapes in the two regimes give a hint about how the phonon polariton electrical field E develops while descending the S like dispersion towards the Brillouin zone centre. In the reinforcement regime E is large, leading to intramode on top of intermode transfers of oscillator strength mediated by E between the two BeSe modes, that both exhibit a fine structure on account of the alloy disorder. In contrast, in the collapse regime E remains weak, as testified by the absence of intramode transfer. The discussion is supported by contour modeling of the multi phonon polariton Raman lineshapes in their wave vector dependence within the linear dielectric approach.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

Brane to bulk supersymmetry breaking and radion force at micron distances

We study mediation of supersymmetry breaking in the bulk, in models with primordial supersymmetry breaking on D-branes at the string scale, in the TeV region. We compute the gravitino and scalar masses up to one-loop level, as well as the radion coupling to matter. We find that the latter mediates a model independent force at submillimeter distances that can be tested in micro-gravity experiments for any dimensionality of the bulk. In the case of two large dimensions, our type I string framework provides an example which allows to stabilize the radion potential and determine the desired hierarchy between the string and Planck scales.Comment: One equation and one figure corrected. Two references added. Version to be published in Nuclear Physics

Fuchs versus Painlev\'e

We briefly recall the Fuchs-Painlev\'e elliptic representation of Painlev\'e VI. We then show that the polynomiality of the expressions of the correlation functions (and form factors) in terms of the complete elliptic integral of the first and second kind, $K$ and $E$, is a straight consequence of the fact that the differential operators corresponding to the entries of Toeplitz-like determinants, are equivalent to the second order operator $L_E$ which has $E$ as solution (or, for off-diagonal correlations to the direct sum of $L_E$ and $d/dt$). We show that this can be generalized, mutatis mutandis, to the anisotropic Ising model. The singled-out second order linear differential operator $L_E$ being replaced by an isomonodromic system of two third-order linear partial differential operators associated with $\Pi_1$, the Jacobi's form of the complete elliptic integral of the third kind (or equivalently two second order linear partial differential operators associated with Appell functions, where one of these operators can be seen as a deformation of $L_E$). We finally explore the generalizations, to the anisotropic Ising models, of the links we made, in two previous papers, between Painlev\'e non-linear ODE's, Fuchsian linear ODE's and elliptic curves. In particular the elliptic representation of Painlev\'e VI has to be generalized to an ``Appellian'' representation of Garnier systems.Comment: Dedicated to the : Special issue on Symmetries and Integrability of Difference Equations, SIDE VII meeting held in Melbourne during July 200