Transition from antibunching to bunching in cavity QED

The photon statistics of the light emitted from an atomic ensemble into a single field mode of an optical cavity is investigated as a function of the number of atoms. The light is produced in a Raman transition driven by a pump laser and the cavity vacuum [M.Hennrich et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4672 (2000)], and a recycling laser is employed to repeat this process continuously. For weak driving, a smooth transition from antibunching to bunching is found for about one intra-cavity atom. Remarkably, the bunching peak develops within the antibunching dip. For saturated driving and a growing number of atoms, the bunching amplitude decreases and the bunching duration increases, indicating the onset of Raman lasing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

An Algorithm for Cellular Reprogramming

The day we understand the time evolution of subcellular elements at a level of detail comparable to physical systems governed by Newton's laws of motion seems far away. Even so, quantitative approaches to cellular dynamics add to our understanding of cell biology, providing data-guided frameworks that allow us to develop better predictions about and methods for control over specific biological processes and system-wide cell behavior. In this paper we describe an approach to optimizing the use of transcription factors in the context of cellular reprogramming. We construct an approximate model for the natural evolution of a synchronized population of fibroblasts, based on data obtained by sampling the expression of some 22,083 genes at several times along the cell cycle. (These data are based on a colony of cells that have been cell cycle synchronized) In order to arrive at a model of moderate complexity, we cluster gene expression based on the division of the genome into topologically associating domains (TADs) and then model the dynamics of the expression levels of the TADs. Based on this dynamical model and known bioinformatics, we develop a methodology for identifying the transcription factors that are the most likely to be effective toward a specific cellular reprogramming task. The approach used is based on a device commonly used in optimal control. From this data-guided methodology, we identify a number of validated transcription factors used in reprogramming and/or natural differentiation. Our findings highlight the immense potential of dynamical models models, mathematics, and data guided methodologies for improving methods for control over biological processes

DIVERGENT ROLES OF THE TCF4 AND LEF1 WNT SIGNALING TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS IN COLON CANCER

The canonical WNT signaling pathway is necessary for guiding cell growth during embryonic development. In adults, WNT signaling maintains tissue stem cells and therefore plays an essential role in tissue homeostasis. In the colon, the WNT transcription factor, TCF4, is necessary for maintaining the intestinal stem cells. The initiating event in colon cancer is the aberrant activation of the WNT signaling pathway, which results in constitutive activity of TCF4. To determine how TCF4 influences colon cancer cell behavior, we silenced TCF7L2, the gene encoding TCF4, and used RNA sequencing and Hi-C to measure changes in transcription and nuclear structure in the SW480 colon cancer cell line. Loss of TCF4 resulted in A/B compartment switching, local chromatin reorganization, and a dramatic up-regulation in transcription. However, A/B compartment switching was not associated with changes in gene expression. We also found that loss of TCF4 resulted in the up-regulation of LEF1, another WNT transcription factor. Expressed LEF1 isoforms were found to be transcriptionally competent and over-compensated for WNT signaling activity upon loss of TCF4, suggesting a WNT-intrinsic feedback mechanism. Over-expression of LEF1 altered WNT signaling output to favor the expression of lymphoid genes, as opposed to a TCF4-based transcriptional program. ChIP-seq demonstrated that TCF4 and LEF1 bind distinct target genes, though they synergize to express MYC. TCF4 was found to bind the LEF1 promoter, indicative of direct repression, though LEF1 did not bind the TCF7L2 promoter. The CtBP1 protein, a known binding partner of TCF4, was found to be the most potent repressor of LEF1 expression. This demonstrates that despite the overall activation of WNT signaling in colon cancer, repressive functions of the WNT transcription factors are still intact, and the repression of LEF1 by TCF4 maintains a TCF4-centric transcriptional program in colon cancer cells

Radiative Corrections to πl2\pi_{l2} and Kl2K_{l2} Decays

We reexamine radiative corrections to $\pi_{l2}$ and $K_{l2}$ decays. We perform a matching calculation, including vector and axial vector resonances as explicit degrees of freedom in the long distance part. By considering the dependence on the matching scale and on the hadronic parameters, and by comparing with model independent estimates, we scrutinize the model dependence of the results. For the pseudoscalar meson decay constants, we extract the values f_pi = (92.1 \pm 0.3) MeV and f_K = (112.4 \pm 0.9) MeV. For the ratios R_pi and R_K of the electronic and muonic decay modes, we predict R_pi = (1.2354 \pm 0.0002) 10^{-4} and R_K = (2.472 \pm 0.001) 10^{-5}.Comment: 8 pages, Latex, uses epsfig. Revised version: Major changes in the presentaion, but no changes in the results. To appear in Phys. Lett.

Predicting the energy output of wind farms based on weather data: important variables and their correlation

Pre-print available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.1922Wind energy plays an increasing role in the supply of energy world wide. The energy output of a wind farm is highly dependent on the weather conditions present at its site. If the output can be predicted more accurately, energy suppliers can coordinate the collaborative production of different energy sources more efficiently to avoid costly overproduction. In this paper, we take a computer science perspective on energy prediction based on weather data and analyze the important parameters as well as their correlation on the energy output. To deal with the interaction of the different parameters, we use symbolic regression based on the genetic programming tool DataModeler. Our studies are carried out on publicly available weather and energy data for a wind farm in Australia. We report on the correlation of the different variables for the energy output. The model obtained for energy prediction gives a very reliable prediction of the energy output for newly supplied weather data. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.Ekaterina Vladislavleva, Tobias Friedrich, Frank Neumann, Markus Wagne

The boundaries and twist defects of the color code and their applications to topological quantum computation

The color code is both an interesting example of an exactly solved topologically ordered phase of matter and also among the most promising candidate models to realize fault-tolerant quantum computation with minimal resource overhead. The contributions of this work are threefold. First of all, we build upon the abstract theory of boundaries and domain walls of topological phases of matter to comprehensively catalog the objects realizable in color codes. Together with our classification we also provide lattice representations of these objects which include three new types of boundaries as well as a generating set for all 72 color code twist defects. Our work thus provides an explicit toy model that will help to better understand the abstract theory of domain walls. Secondly, we discover a number of interesting new applications of the cataloged objects for quantum information protocols. These include improved methods for performing quantum computations by code deformation, a new four-qubit error-detecting code, as well as families of new quantum error-correcting codes we call stellated color codes, which encode logical qubits at the same distance as the next best color code, but using approximately half the number of physical qubits. To the best of our knowledge, our new topological codes have the highest encoding rate of local stabilizer codes with bounded-weight stabilizers in two dimensions. Finally, we show how the boundaries and twist defects of the color code are represented by multiple copies of other phases. Indeed, in addition to the well studied comparison between the color code and two copies of the surface code, we also compare the color code to two copies of the three-fermion model. In particular, we find that this analogy offers a very clear lens through which we can view the symmetries of the color code which gives rise to its multitude of domain walls

Poking Holes and Cutting Corners to Achieve Clifford Gates with the Surface Code

The surface code is currently the leading proposal to achieve fault-tolerant quantum computation. Among its strengths are the plethora of known ways in which fault-tolerant Clifford operations can be performed, namely, by deforming the topology of the surface, by the fusion and splitting of codes, and even by braiding engineered Majorana modes using twist defects. Here, we present a unified framework to describe these methods, which can be used to better compare different schemes and to facilitate the design of hybrid schemes. Our unification includes the identification of twist defects with the corners of the planar code. This identification enables us to perform single-qubit Clifford gates by exchanging the corners of the planar code via code deformation. We analyze ways in which different schemes can be combined and propose a new logical encoding. We also show how all of the Clifford gates can be implemented with the planar code, without loss of distance, using code deformations, thus offering an attractive alternative to ancilla-mediated schemes to complete the Clifford group with lattice surgery