Shareholder Voting and the Chicago School: Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent

We have simulated the effect of different parameters in location-aware information sharing policies for crowd-based information exchange systems. The purpose of this simulation was to find out which parameters improved the upload time, battery life and success rate for nodes trying to upload a large file under bad conditions. To test the effect of these parameters on a larger scale, we simulated an area where a large number of nodes were moving around. Our test results showed that nodes greatly improved their battery life and the upload time by limiting the number of nodes they send data to, rather than sharing data with all nodes within reach. However, sending the oldest collected data performed very bad in regards of battery life time and had a relatively high amount of nodes that did not manage to upload their file. We concluded that nodes should not share their data with all available nodes at all times, and be restrictive in the amount of data they share with other nodes to conserve battery

Blackbody Radiation and the Scaling Symmetry of Relativistic Classical Electron Theory with Classical Electromagnetic Zero-Point Radiation

It is pointed out that relativistic classical electron theory with classical electromagnetic zero-point radiation has a scaling symmetry which is suitable for understanding the equilibrium behavior of classical thermal radiation at a spectrum other than the Rayleigh-Jeans spectrum. In relativistic classical electron theory, the masses of the particles are the only scale-giving parameters associated with mechanics while the action-angle variables are scale invariant. The theory thus separates the interaction of the action variables of matter and radiation from the scale-giving parameters. Classical zero-point radiation is invariant under scattering by the charged particles of relativistic classical electron theory. The basic ideas of the matter -radiation interaction are illustrated in a simple relativistic classical electromagnetic example.Comment: 18 page

Solid-state photonic interfaces using semiconductor quantum dots

New technologies based on the properties of quantum mechanics promise to revolutionise the way information is processed by outperforming what is possible using classical devices. Examples include massively parallel processing using quantum computers, verifiably secure communication using quantum cryptography, and measurement with sensitivity beyond classical limitation with quantum metrology. Realising the full potential of these technologies necessitates the ability to communicate quantum information over large distances, a key requirement for future quantum networks. However, developing practical implementations of long-distance quantum communication is challenging as it necessitates three major ingredients: light-matter interfaces, elementary quantum operations, and quantum memories. This thesis describes work that has been undertaken to address these requirements using semiconductor nanotechnology. We have first demonstrated that single InAs quantum dots embedded inside conventional diode structures constitute high-fidelity controllable interfaces between optical qubits and solid-state qubits. Indeed, the polarisation state of a photon was transferred into the spin state of an electron-hole pair and eventually restored through radiative recombination of the electron and the hole with a fidelity up to 95%. Moreover, spins were manipulated using subnanosecond modulation of a vertical electric field applied to the quantum dots. By controlling this electrical modulation, we demonstrated elementary phase-shift and spin-flip gate operations with near-unity fidelities. An electron-hole pair confi ned in a single quantum dot has a short radiative lifetime limiting therefore its use as an excitonic quantum memory. The solution we proposed was to use a quantum dot molecule to control the spatial separation of the electron and the hole and therefore prevent their recombination. Comprehensive studies of electric field eff ects upon the photoluminescence of quantum dot molecules lead to a clear understanding and a good control over their physical properties. Single photons were stored in individual quantum dot molecules up to 1μs and read out on a subnanosecond time scale. Moreover, the circular polarisation of individual photons was transferred into the spin state of electron-hole pairs with a fidelity above 90%, which does not degrade for storage times up to the 12.5 ns repetition period of the experiment. Our work on single quantum dots could be extended in the near future to allow for two-qubits quantum operations by con fining a second electron-hole pair to be electrically manipulated. Storage of a superposition of spin states in a quantum dot molecule should also be possible if the spin states are made degenerate, which is feasible using the electric fi eld dependence of the energy splitting between the spin states discussed in this thesis. We believe that combining both approaches will lead to the development of a controllable multi-qubit quantum memory for polarised light, a building block for long distance quantum communication based on semiconductor nanotechnology

Gravity and the Quantum Vacuum Inertia Hypothesis

In previous work it has been shown that the electromagnetic quantum vacuum, or electromagnetic zero-point field, makes a contribution to the inertial reaction force on an accelerated object. We show that the result for inertial mass can be extended to passive gravitational mass. As a consequence the weak equivalence principle, which equates inertial to passive gravitational mass, appears to be explainable. This in turn leads to a straightforward derivation of the classical Newtonian gravitational force. We call the inertia and gravitation connection with the vacuum fields the quantum vacuum inertia hypothesis. To date only the electromagnetic field has been considered. It remains to extend the hypothesis to the effects of the vacuum fields of the other interactions. We propose an idealized experiment involving a cavity resonator which, in principle, would test the hypothesis for the simple case in which only electromagnetic interactions are involved. This test also suggests a basis for the free parameter $\eta(\nu)$ which we have previously defined to parametrize the interaction between charge and the electromagnetic zero-point field contributing to the inertial mass of a particle or object.Comment: 18 pages, no figures. Annalen der Physik, 2005, in press. New version reformatte

Particle dynamics in a relativistic invariant stochastic medium

The dynamics of particles moving in a medium defined by its relativistically invariant stochastic properties is investigated. For this aim, the force exerted on the particles by the medium is defined by a stationary random variable as a function of the proper time of the particles. The equations of motion for a single one-dimensional particle are obtained and numerically solved. A conservation law for the drift momentum of the particle during its random motion is shown. Moreover, the conservation of the mean value of the total linear momentum for two particles repelling each other according with the Coulomb interaction is also following. Therefore, the results indicate the realization of a kind of stochastic Noether theorem in the system under study. Possible applications to the stochastic representation of Quantum Mechanics are advanced.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Derivation of the Planck Spectrum for Relativistic Classical Scalar Radiation from Thermal Equilibrium in an Accelerating Frame

The Planck spectrum of thermal scalar radiation is derived suggestively within classical physics by the use of an accelerating coordinate frame. The derivation has an analogue in Boltzmann's derivation of the Maxwell velocity distribution for thermal particle velocities by considering the thermal equilibrium of noninteracting particles in a uniform gravitational field. For the case of radiation, the gravitational field is provided by the acceleration of a Rindler frame through Minkowski spacetime. Classical zero-point radiation and relativistic physics enter in an essential way in the derivation which is based upon the behavior of free radiation fields and the assumption that the field correlation functions contain but a single correlation time in thermal equilibrium. The work has connections with the thermal effects of acceleration found in relativistic quantum field theory.Comment: 23 page

An algorithm to describe the solution set of any tropical linear system A x=B x

An algorithm to give an explicit description of all the solutions to any tropical linear system A x=B x is presented. The given system is converted into a finite (rather small) number p of pairs (S,T) of classical linear systems: a system S of equations and a system T of inequalities. The notion, introduced here, that makes p small, is called compatibility. The particular feature of both S and T is that each item (equation or inequality) is bivariate, i.e., it involves exactly two variables; one variable with coefficient 1 and the other one with -1. S is solved by Gaussian elimination. We explain how to solve T by a method similar to Gaussian elimination. To achieve this, we introduce the notion of sub-special matrix. The procedure applied to T is, therefore, called sub-specialization