Experimentally realizable control fields in quantum Lyapunov control

As a hybrid of techniques from open-loop and feedback control, Lyapunov control has the advantage that it is free from the measurement-induced decoherence but it includes the system's instantaneous message in the control loop. Often, the Lyapunov control is confronted with time delay in the control fields and difficulty in practical implementations of the control. In this paper, we study the effect of time-delay on the Lyapunov control, and explore the possibility of replacing the control field with a pulse train or a bang-bang signal. The efficiency of the Lyapunov control is also presented through examining the convergence time of the controlled system. These results suggest that the Lyapunov control is robust gainst time delay, easy to realize and effective for high-dimensional quantum systems

Quantum Brayton cycle with coupled systems as working substance

We explore the quantum version of Brayton cycle with a composite system as the working substance. The actual Brayton cycle consists of two adiabatic and two isobaric processes. Two pressures can be defined in our isobaric process, one corresponds to the external magnetic field (characterized by $F_x$) exerted on the system, while the other corresponds to the coupling constant between the subsystems (characterized by $F_y$). As a consequence, we can define two types of quantum Brayton cycle for the composite system. We find that the subsystem experiences a quantum Brayton cycle in one quantum Brayton cycle (characterized by $F_x$), whereas the subsystem's cycle is of quantum Otto in another Brayton cycle (characterized by $F_y$). The efficiency for the composite system equals to that for the subsystem in both cases, but the work done by the total system are usually larger than the sum of work done by the two subsystems. The other interesting finding is that for the cycle characterized by $F_y$, the subsystem can be a refrigerator while the total system is a heat engine. The result in the paper can be generalized to a quantum Brayton cycle with a general coupled system as the working substance.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev.

On approaches to modelling lattice dislocations

By proposing a sinusoidal relationship between slip discontinuity and the associated mismatch force, Peierls and Nabarro famously developed a dislocation model that eliminates the stress singularity from the Volterra dislocation model. Recently, Lubarda and Markenscoff (Appl. Phys. Lett. 89:151923, 2006) developed a model in which the Burgers vector of the dislocation is applied over some finite distance, , described as the ‘core radius’. They found that the shear stress on the glide-plane predicted in the Lubarda-Markenscoff model is identical to that predicted by the Peierls-Nabarro model. In this paper, we investigate generalisations of both the Lubarda-Markenscoff and Peierls-Nabarro models, demonstrating that different distributions of infinitesimal dislocations in a generalised Lubarda-Markenscoff model can be associated with different expressions for the misalignment force in a generalised Peierls-Nabarro model. Our results indicate that the generalised Lubarda-Markenscoff framework is a versatile and useful method for modelling the core of a dislocation that neatly complements the well established Peierls-Nabarro framework