A hybrid model for Rydberg gases including exact two-body correlations

A model for the simulation of ensembles of laser-driven Rydberg-Rydberg interacting multi-level atoms is discussed. Our hybrid approach combines an exact two-body treatment of nearby atom pairs with an effective approximate treatment for spatially separated pairs. We propose an optimized evolution equation based only on the system steady state, and a time-independent Monte Carlo technique is used to efficiently determine this steady state. The hybrid model predicts features in the pair correlation function arising from multi-atom processes which existing models can only partially reproduce. Our interpretation of these features shows that higher-order correlations are relevant already at low densities. Finally, we analyze the performance of our model in the high-density case.Comment: significantly expanded and revised version (more observables, high-density regime); 9 pages, 8 figure

Random walks reaching against all odds the other side of the quarter plane

For a homogeneous random walk in the quarter plane with nearest-neighbor transitions, starting from some state $(i_0,j_0)$, we study the event that the walk reaches the vertical axis, before reaching the horizontal axis. We derive an exact expression for the probability of this event, and derive an asymptotic expression for the case when $i_0$ becomes large, a situation in which the event becomes highly unlikely. The exact expression follows from the solution of a boundary value problem and is in terms of an integral that involves a conformal gluing function. The asymptotic expression follows from the asymptotic evaluation of this integral. Our results find applications in a model for nucleosome shifting, the voter model and the asymmetric exclusion process.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Journal of Applied Probabilit

Analytic approximations to the phase diagram of the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model with application to ion chains

We discuss analytic approximations to the ground state phase diagram of the homogeneous Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard (JCH) Hamiltonian with general short-range hopping. The JCH model describes e.g. radial phonon excitations of a linear chain of ions coupled to an external laser field tuned to the red motional sideband with Coulomb mediated hopping or an array of high-$Q$ coupled cavities containing a two-level atom and photons. Specifically we consider the cases of a linear array of coupled cavities and a linear ion chain. We derive approximate analytic expressions for the boundaries between Mott-insulating and superfluid phases and give explicit expressions for the critical value of the hopping amplitude within the different approximation schemes. In the case of an array of cavities, which is represented by the standard JCH model we compare both approximations to numerical data from density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, extended and corrected second versio

Costs and effects of two public sector delivery channels for long-lasting insecticidal nets in Uganda.

BACKGROUND: In Uganda, long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN) have been predominantly delivered through two public sector channels: targeted campaigns or routine antenatal care (ANC) services. Their combination in a mixed-model strategy is being advocated to quickly increase LLIN coverage and maintain it over time, but there is little evidence on the efficiency of each system. This study evaluated the two delivery channels regarding LLIN retention and use, and estimated the associated costs, to contribute towards the evidence-base on LLIN delivery channels in Uganda. METHODS: Household surveys were conducted 5-7 months after LLIN distribution, combining questionnaires with visual verification of LLIN presence. Focus groups and interviews were conducted to further investigate determinants of LLIN retention and use. Campaign distribution was evaluated in Jinja and Adjumani while ANC distribution was evaluated only in the latter district. Costs were calculated from the provider perspective through retrospective analysis of expenditure data, and effects were estimated as cost per LLIN delivered and cost per treated-net-year (TNY). These effects were calculated for the total number of LLINs delivered and for those retained and used. RESULTS: After 5-7 months, over 90% of LLINs were still owned by recipients, and between 74% (Jinja) and 99% (ANC Adjumani) were being used. Costing results showed that delivery was cheapest for the campaign in Jinja and highest for the ANC channel, with economic delivery cost per net retained and used of USD 1.10 and USD 2.31, respectively. Financial delivery costs for the two channels were similar in the same location, USD 1.04 for campaign or USD 1.07 for ANC delivery in Adjumani, but differed between locations (USD 0.67 for campaign delivery in Jinja). Economic cost for ANC distribution were considerably higher (USD 2.27) compared to campaign costs (USD 1.23) in Adjumani. CONCLUSIONS: Targeted campaigns and routine ANC services can both achieve high LLIN retention and use among the target population. The comparatively higher economic cost of delivery through ANC facilities was at least partially due to the relatively short time this system had been in existence. Further studies comparing the cost of well-established ANC delivery with LLIN campaigns and other delivery channels are thus encouraged

The relationship between two flavors of oblivious transfer at the quantum level

Though all-or-nothing oblivious transfer and one-out-of-two oblivious transfer are equivalent in classical cryptography, we here show that due to the nature of quantum cryptography, a protocol built upon secure quantum all-or-nothing oblivious transfer cannot satisfy the rigorous definition of quantum one-out-of-two oblivious transfer.Comment: 4 pages, no figur

Coin Tossing is Strictly Weaker Than Bit Commitment

We define cryptographic assumptions applicable to two mistrustful parties who each control two or more separate secure sites between which special relativity guarantees a time lapse in communication. We show that, under these assumptions, unconditionally secure coin tossing can be carried out by exchanges of classical information. We show also, following Mayers, Lo and Chau, that unconditionally secure bit commitment cannot be carried out by finitely many exchanges of classical or quantum information. Finally we show that, under standard cryptographic assumptions, coin tossing is strictly weaker than bit commitment. That is, no secure classical or quantum bit commitment protocol can be built from a finite number of invocations of a secure coin tossing black box together with finitely many additional information exchanges.Comment: Final version; to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Towards Communication-Efficient Quantum Oblivious Key Distribution

Oblivious Transfer, a fundamental problem in the field of secure multi-party computation is defined as follows: A database DB of N bits held by Bob is queried by a user Alice who is interested in the bit DB_b in such a way that (1) Alice learns DB_b and only DB_b and (2) Bob does not learn anything about Alice's choice b. While solutions to this problem in the classical domain rely largely on unproven computational complexity theoretic assumptions, it is also known that perfect solutions that guarantee both database and user privacy are impossible in the quantum domain. Jakobi et al. [Phys. Rev. A, 83(2), 022301, Feb 2011] proposed a protocol for Oblivious Transfer using well known QKD techniques to establish an Oblivious Key to solve this problem. Their solution provided a good degree of database and user privacy (using physical principles like impossibility of perfectly distinguishing non-orthogonal quantum states and the impossibility of superluminal communication) while being loss-resistant and implementable with commercial QKD devices (due to the use of SARG04). However, their Quantum Oblivious Key Distribution (QOKD) protocol requires a communication complexity of O(N log N). Since modern databases can be extremely large, it is important to reduce this communication as much as possible. In this paper, we first suggest a modification of their protocol wherein the number of qubits that need to be exchanged is reduced to O(N). A subsequent generalization reduces the quantum communication complexity even further in such a way that only a few hundred qubits are needed to be transferred even for very large databases.Comment: 7 page

Anytime Stereo Image Depth Estimation on Mobile Devices

Many applications of stereo depth estimation in robotics require the generation of accurate disparity maps in real time under significant computational constraints. Current state-of-the-art algorithms force a choice between either generating accurate mappings at a slow pace, or quickly generating inaccurate ones, and additionally these methods typically require far too many parameters to be usable on power- or memory-constrained devices. Motivated by these shortcomings, we propose a novel approach for disparity prediction in the anytime setting. In contrast to prior work, our end-to-end learned approach can trade off computation and accuracy at inference time. Depth estimation is performed in stages, during which the model can be queried at any time to output its current best estimate. Our final model can process 1242$\times$375 resolution images within a range of 10-35 FPS on an NVIDIA Jetson TX2 module with only marginal increases in error -- using two orders of magnitude fewer parameters than the most competitive baseline. The source code is available at https://github.com/mileyan/AnyNet .Comment: Accepted by ICRA201

A quantum protocol for cheat-sensitive weak coin flipping

We present a quantum protocol for the task of weak coin flipping. We find that, for one choice of parameters in the protocol, the maximum probability of a dishonest party winning the coin flip if the other party is honest is 1/sqrt(2). We also show that if parties restrict themselves to strategies wherein they cannot be caught cheating, their maximum probability of winning can be even smaller. As such, the protocol offers additional security in the form of cheat sensitivity.Comment: 4 pages RevTex. Differs from the journal version only in that the sentences: "The ordering of the authors on this paper was chosen by a coin flip implemented by a trusted third party. TR lost." have not been remove