A new mass-ratio for the X-ray Binary X2127+119 in M15?

The luminous low-mass X-ray binary X2127+119 in the core of the globular cluster M15 (NGC 7078), which has an orbital period of 17 hours, has long been assumed to contain a donor star evolving off the main sequence, with a mass of 0.8 solar masses (the main-sequence turn-off mass for M15). We present orbital-phase-resolved spectroscopy of X2127+119 in the H-alpha and He I 6678 spectral region, obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. We show that these data are incompatible with the assumed masses of X2127+119's component stars. The continuum eclipse is too shallow, indicating that much of the accretion disc remains visible during eclipse, and therefore that the size of the donor star relative to the disc is much smaller in this high-inclination system than the assumed mass-ratio allows. Furthermore, the flux of X2127+119's He I 6678 emission, which has a velocity that implies an association with the stream-disc impact region, remains unchanged through eclipse, implying that material from the impact region is always visible. This should not be possible if the previously-assumed mass ratio is correct. In addition, we do not detect any spectral features from the donor star, which is unexpected for a 0.8 solar-mass sub-giant in a system with a 17-hour period.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted by A&

On the tensor convolution and the quantum separability problem

We consider the problem of separability: decide whether a Hermitian operator on a finite dimensional Hilbert tensor product is separable or entangled. We show that the tensor convolution defined for certain mappings on an almost arbitrary locally compact abelian group, give rise to formulation of an equivalent problem to the separability one.Comment: 13 pages, two sections adde

Arginine mutation alters binding of a human monoclonal antibody to antigens linked to systemic lupus erythematosus and the antiphospholipid syndrome

Objective: Previous studies have shown the importance of somatic mutations and arginine residues in the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) of pathogenic anti-double-stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA) antibodies in human and murine lupus, and in studies of murine antibodies, a role of mutations at position 53 in VH CDR2 has been demonstrated. We previously demonstrated in vitro expression and mutagenesis of the human IgG1 monoclonal antibody B3. The present study was undertaken to investigate, using this expression system, the importance of the arginine residue at position 53 (R53) in B3 VH. Methods: R53 was altered, by site-directed mutagenesis, to serine, asparagine, or lysine, to create 3 expressed variants of VH. In addition, the germline sequence of the VH3-23 gene (from which B3 VH is derived) was expressed either with or without arginine at position 53. These 5 new heavy chains, as well as wild-type B3 VH, were expressed with 4 different light chains, and the resulting antibodies were assessed for their ability to bind to nucleosomes, -actinin, cardiolipin, ovalbumin, 2-glycoprotein I (2GPI), and the N-terminal domain of 2GPI (domain I), using direct binding assays. Results: The presence of R53 was essential but not sufficient for binding to dsDNA and nucleosomes. Conversely, the presence of R53 reduced binding to -actinin, ovalbumin, 2GPI, and domain I of 2GPI. The combination B3 (R53S) VH/B3 VL bound human, but not bovine, 2GPI. Conclusion: The fact that the R53S substitution significantly alters binding of B3 to different clinically relevant antigens, but that the alteration is in opposite directions depending on the antigen, implies that this arginine residue plays a critical role in the affinity maturation of antibody B3

Covariance matrices and the separability problem

We propose a unifying approach to the separability problem using covariance matrices of locally measurable observables. From a practical point of view, our approach leads to strong entanglement criteria that allow to detect the entanglement of many bound entangled states in higher dimensions and which are at the same time necessary and sufficient for two qubits. From a fundamental perspective, our approach leads to insights into the relations between several known entanglement criteria -- such as the computable cross norm and local uncertainty criteria -- as well as their limitations.Comment: 4 pages, no figures; v3: final version to appear in PR

A complete criterion for separability detection

Using new results on the separability properties of bosonic systems, we provide a new complete criterion for separability. This criterion aims at characterizing the set of separable states from the inside by means of a sequence of efficiently solvable semidefinite programs. We apply this method to derive arbitrarily good approximations to the optimal measure-and-prepare strategy in generic state estimation problems. Finally, we report its performance in combination with the criterion developed by Doherty et al. [1] for the calculation of the entanglement robustness of a relevant family of quantum states whose separability properties were unknown

The power of symmetric extensions for entanglement detection

In this paper, we present new progress on the study of the symmetric extension criterion for separability. First, we show that a perturbation of order O(1/N) is sufficient and, in general, necessary to destroy the entanglement of any state admitting an N Bose symmetric extension. On the other hand, the minimum amount of local noise necessary to induce separability on states arising from N Bose symmetric extensions with Positive Partial Transpose (PPT) decreases at least as fast as O(1/N^2). From these results, we derive upper bounds on the time and space complexity of the weak membership problem of separability when attacked via algorithms that search for PPT symmetric extensions. Finally, we show how to estimate the error we incur when we approximate the set of separable states by the set of (PPT) N -extendable quantum states in order to compute the maximum average fidelity in pure state estimation problems, the maximal output purity of quantum channels, and the geometric measure of entanglement.Comment: see Video Abstract at http://www.quantiki.org/video_abstracts/0906273

Quantum Separability and Entanglement Detection via Entanglement-Witness Search and Global Optimization

We focus on determining the separability of an unknown bipartite quantum state $\rho$ by invoking a sufficiently large subset of all possible entanglement witnesses given the expected value of each element of a set of mutually orthogonal observables. We review the concept of an entanglement witness from the geometrical point of view and use this geometry to show that the set of separable states is not a polytope and to characterize the class of entanglement witnesses (observables) that detect entangled states on opposite sides of the set of separable states. All this serves to motivate a classical algorithm which, given the expected values of a subset of an orthogonal basis of observables of an otherwise unknown quantum state, searches for an entanglement witness in the span of the subset of observables. The idea of such an algorithm, which is an efficient reduction of the quantum separability problem to a global optimization problem, was introduced in PRA 70 060303(R), where it was shown to be an improvement on the naive approach for the quantum separability problem (exhaustive search for a decomposition of the given state into a convex combination of separable states). The last section of the paper discusses in more generality such algorithms, which, in our case, assume a subroutine that computes the global maximum of a real function of several variables. Despite this, we anticipate that such algorithms will perform sufficiently well on small instances that they will render a feasible test for separability in some cases of interest (e.g. in 3-by-3 dimensional systems)

Approximating Fractional Time Quantum Evolution

An algorithm is presented for approximating arbitrary powers of a black box unitary operation, $\mathcal{U}^t$, where $t$ is a real number, and $\mathcal{U}$ is a black box implementing an unknown unitary. The complexity of this algorithm is calculated in terms of the number of calls to the black box, the errors in the approximation, and a certain `gap' parameter. For general $\mathcal{U}$ and large $t$, one should apply $\mathcal{U}$ a total of $\lfloor t \rfloor$ times followed by our procedure for approximating the fractional power $\mathcal{U}^{t-\lfloor t \rfloor}$. An example is also given where for large integers $t$ this method is more efficient than direct application of $t$ copies of $\mathcal{U}$. Further applications and related algorithms are also discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure