575 research outputs found
Nonlinear Relaxation in Population Dynamics
We analyze the nonlinear relaxation of a complex ecosystem composed of many
interacting species. The ecological system is described by generalized
Lotka-Volterra equations with a multiplicative noise. The transient dynamics is
studied in the framework of the mean field theory and with random interaction
between the species. We focus on the statistical properties of the asymptotic
behaviour of the time integral of the i-th population and on the distribution
of the population and of the local field.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, in press in Int. Journal of Fractals (2001
A simple quantum gate with atom chips
We present a simple scheme for implementing an atomic phase gate using two
degrees of freedom for each atom and discuss its realization with cold rubidium
atoms on atom chips. We investigate the performance of this collisional phase
gate and show that gate operations with high fidelity can be realized in
magnetic traps that are currently available on atom chips.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. One missing reference added in v2. To appear in
European Physical Journal
Collective decoherence of cold atoms coupled to a Bose-Einstein condensate
We examine the time evolution of cold atoms (impurities) interacting with an
environment consisting of a degenerate bosonic quantum gas. The impurity atoms
differ from the environment atoms, being of a different species. This allows
one to superimpose two independent trapping potentials, each being effective
only on one atomic kind, while transparent to the other. When the environment
is homogeneous and the impurities are confined in a potential consisting of a
set of double wells, the system can be described in terms of an effective
spin-boson model, where the occupation of the left or right well of each site
represents the two (pseudo)-spin states. The irreversible dynamics of such
system is here studied exactly, i.e., not in terms of a Markovian master
equation. The dynamics of one and two impurities is remarkably different in
respect of the standard decoherence of the spin - boson system. In particular
we show: i) the appearance of coherence oscillations, i) the presence of super
and sub decoherent states which differ from the standard ones of the spin boson
model, and iii) the persistence of coherence in the system at long times. We
show that this behaviour is due to the fact that the pseudospins have an
internal spatial structure. We argue that collective decoherence also prompts
information about the correlation length of the environment. In a one
dimensional configuration one can change even stronger the qualitative
behaviour of the dephasing just by tuning the interaction of the bath.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, two references adde
Chloroquine supplementation increases the cytotoxic effect of curcumin against Her2/neu overexpressing breast cancer cells in vitro and in vivo in nude mice while counteracts it in immune competent mice
Autophagy is usually a pro-survival mechanism in cancer cells, especially in the course of chemotherapy, thus autophagy inhibition may enhance the chemotherapy-mediated anti-cancer effect. However, since autophagy is strongly involved in the immunogenicity of cell death by promoting ATP release, its inhibition may reduce the immune response against tumors, negatively influencing the overall outcome of chemotherapy. In this study, we evaluated the in vitro and in vivo anti-cancer effect of curcumin (CUR) against Her2/neu overexpressing breast cancer cells (TUBO) in the presence or in the absence of the autophagy inhibitor chloroquine (CQ). We found that TUBO cell death induced by CUR was increased in vitro by CQ and slightly in vivo in nude mice. Conversely, CQ counteracted the Cur cytotoxic effect in immune competent mice, as demonstrated by the lack of in vivo tumor regression and the reduction of overall mice survival as compared with CUR-treated mice. Immunohistochemistry analysis revealed the presence of a remarkable FoxP3 T cell infiltrate within the tumors in CUR/CQ treated mice and a reduction of T cytotoxic cells, as compared with single CUR treatment. These findings suggest that autophagy is important to elicit anti-tumor immune response and that autophagy inhibition by CQ reduces such response also by recruiting T regulatory (Treg) cells in the tumor microenvironment that may be pro-tumorigenic and might counteract CUR-mediated anti-cancer effects
Theoretical analysis of the implementation of a quantum phase gate with neutral atoms on atom chips
We present a detailed, realistic analysis of the implementation of a proposal
for a quantum phase gate based on atomic vibrational states, specializing it to
neutral rubidium atoms on atom chips. We show how to create a double--well
potential with static currents on the atom chips, using for all relevant
parameters values that are achieved with present technology. The potential
barrier between the two wells can be modified by varying the currents in order
to realize a quantum phase gate for qubit states encoded in the atomic external
degree of freedom. The gate performance is analyzed through numerical
simulations; the operation time is ~10 ms with a performance fidelity above
99.9%. For storage of the state between the operations the qubit state can be
transferred efficiently via Raman transitions to two hyperfine states, where
its decoherence is strongly inhibited. In addition we discuss the limits
imposed by the proximity of the surface to the gate fidelity.Comment: 9 pages, 5 color figure
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