Follow up on the crystal growth experiments of the LDEF

The results of the 4 solution growth experiments on the LDEF have been published elsewhere. Both the crystals of CaCO3, which were large and well shaped, and the much smaller TTF-TCNQ crystals showed unusual morphological behavior. The follow up on these experiments was begun in 1981, when ESA initiated a 'Concept Definition Study' on a large, 150 kg, Solution Growth Facility (SGF) to be included in the payload of EURECA-1, the European Retrievable Carrier. This carrier was a continuation of the European Spacelab and at that time planned for launch in 1987. The long delay of the LDEF retrieval and of subsequent missions brought about reflections both on the concept of crystal growth in space and on the choice of crystallization materials that had been made for the LDEF. Already before the LDEF retrieval, research on TTF-TCNQ had been stopped, and a planned growth experiment with TTF-TCNQ on the SGF/EURECA had been cancelled. The target of the SGF investigation is now more fundamental in nature. None of the crystals to be grown here are, like TTF-TCNQ, in particular demand by science or industry, and the crystals only serve the purpose of model crystals. The real purpose of the investigation is to study the growth behavior. One of the experiments, the Soret Coefficient Measurement experiment is not growing crystals at all, but has it as its sole purpose to obtain accurate information on thermal diffusion, a process of importance in crystal growth from solution

A Note on Asymptotic Freedom at High Temperatures

This short note considers, within the external field approach outlined in hep-ph/0202026, the role of the lowest lying gluon Landau mode in QCD in the high temperature limit. Its influence on a temperature- and field-dependent running coupling constant is examined. The thermal imaginary part of the mode is temperature-independent in our approach and exactly cancels the well-known zero temperature imaginary part, thus rendering the Savvidy vacuum stable. Combining the real part of the mode with the contributions from the higher lying Landau modes and the vacuum contribution, a field-independent coupling alpha_s(T) is obtained. It can be interpreted as the ordinary zero temperature running coupling constant with average thermal momenta \approx 2pi T for gluons and \approx pi T for quarks.Comment: 4 pages; minor changes, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Optimal control of a leaking qubit

Physical implementations of quantum bits can contain coherent transitions to energetically close non-qubit states. In particular, for anharmonic oscillator systems such as the superconducting phase qubit and the transmon a two-level approximation is insufficient. We apply optimal control theory to the envelope of a resonant Rabi pulse in a qubit in the presence of a single, weakly off-resonant leakage level. The gate error of a spin flip operation reduces by orders of magnitude compared to simple pulse shapes. Near-perfect gates can be achieved for any pulse duration longer than an intrinsic limit given by the nonlinearity. The pulses can be understood as composite sequences that refocus the leakage transition. We also discuss ways to improve the pulse shapes.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Study of the D∗ρD^*\rho system using QCD sum rules

In this talk I present a study of the $D^* \rho$ system made by using the method of QCD sum rules. Considering isospin and spin projectors, we investigate the different configurations and obtain three $D^*$ mesons with isospin $I=1/2$, spin $S=0$, $1$, $2$ and with masses $2500\pm 67$ MeV, $2523\pm60$ MeV, and $2439\pm119$ MeV, respectively. The last state can be related to $D^*_2(2460)$ (spin 2) listed by the Particle Data Group, while one of the first two might be associated with $D^*(2640)$, whose spin-parity is unknown. In the case of $I=3/2$ we also find evidences of three states with spin 0, 1 and 2, respectively, with masses $2467\pm82$ MeV, $2420\pm128$ MeV, and $2550\pm56$ MeV.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of the XXXVI Reuni\~ao de Trabalho sobre F\'isica Nuclear no Brasil, Maresias, S\~ao Paulo, Brazi

Extraction of an Entanglement by Repetition of the Resonant Transmission of an Ancilla Qubit

A scheme for the extraction of entanglement in two noninteracting qubits (spins) is proposed. The idea is to make use of resonant transmission of ancilla qubit through the two fixed qubits, controlled by the entanglement in the scatterers. Repetition of the resonant transmission extracts the singlet state in the target qubits from their arbitrary given state. Neither the preparation nor the post-selection of the ancilla spin is required, in contrast to the previously proposed schemes.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

A study of the KNKN-K∗NK^*N coupled systems

We study the strangeness $+1$ meson-baryon systems to obtain improved $KN$ and $K^*N$ amplitudes and to look for a possible resonance formation by the $KN$-$K^*N$ coupled interaction. We obtain amplitudes for light vector meson-baryon systems by implementing the $s$-, $t$-, $u$- channel diagrams and a contact interaction. The pseudoscalar meson-baryon interactions are obtained by relying on the Weinberg-Tomozawa theorem. The transition amplitudes between the systems consisting of pseudoscalars and vector mesons are calculated by extending the Kroll-Ruderman term for pion photoproduction replacing the photon by a vector meson. We fix the subtraction constants required to calculate the loops by fitting our $KN$ amplitudes to the data available for the isospin 0 and 1 $s$-wave phase shifts. We provide the scattering lengths and the total cross sections for the $KN$ and $K^* N$ systems obtained in our model, which can be useful in future in-medium calculations. Our amplitudes do not correspond to formation of any resonance in none of the isospin and spin configurations.Comment: Published version, sent to avoid confusions recently noticed by author