2,895 research outputs found
A practical scheme for error control using feedback
We describe a scheme for quantum error correction that employs feedback and
weak measurement rather than the standard tools of projective measurement and
fast controlled unitary gates. The advantage of this scheme over previous
protocols (for example Ahn et. al, PRA, 65, 042301 (2001)), is that it requires
little side processing while remaining robust to measurement inefficiency, and
is therefore considerably more practical. We evaluate the performance of our
scheme by simulating the correction of bit-flips. We also consider
implementation in a solid-state quantum computation architecture and estimate
the maximal error rate which could be corrected with current technology.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. Minor typographic change
Neotrusteeship or Mistrusteeship? The Authority Creep Dilemma in United Nations Transitional Administration
State failure poses one of the greatest threats to international peace and security. The collapse of governing institutions breeds civil wars, generates refugee flows, causes enormous civilian suffering, foments instability in neighboring countries, and provides safe havens for transnational criminal and terrorist organizations. As a result, commentators and policymakers have increasingly called for a remedy to the problem of state failure. One of the most compelling arguments is to draw on an old legal institution: international trusteeship by the United Nations (U.N.). This Article argues that while trusteeship may prove effective in managing state failure, it also carries risks. International interventions typically take limited control of the domestic environment of weak countries without absorbing their sovereignty. Trusteeship, in contrast, vests enormous authority and discretion in temporary international administrators, who in turn tend to centralize their power and decision-making in order to meet challenging mission mandates under difficult conditions. This authority creep absorbs sovereignty and in the process risks eroding incentives for leaders of failing states to cooperate with the U.N. Worse, unmitigated authority creep may weaken the political basis for successive international administration and reconstruction efforts. This Article concludes by outlining an alternative system of oversight for U.N. transitional administrators as a means of preserving partial sovereign authority and control for domestic political actors
Use and Abuse of the Fisher Information Matrix in the Assessment of Gravitational-Wave Parameter-Estimation Prospects
The Fisher-matrix formalism is used routinely in the literature on
gravitational-wave detection to characterize the parameter-estimation
performance of gravitational-wave measurements, given parametrized models of
the waveforms, and assuming detector noise of known colored Gaussian
distribution. Unfortunately, the Fisher matrix can be a poor predictor of the
amount of information obtained from typical observations, especially for
waveforms with several parameters and relatively low expected signal-to-noise
ratios (SNR), or for waveforms depending weakly on one or more parameters, when
their priors are not taken into proper consideration. In this paper I discuss
these pitfalls; show how they occur, even for relatively strong signals, with a
commonly used template family for binary-inspiral waveforms; and describe
practical recipes to recognize them and cope with them.
Specifically, I answer the following questions: (i) What is the significance
of (quasi-)singular Fisher matrices, and how must we deal with them? (ii) When
is it necessary to take into account prior probability distributions for the
source parameters? (iii) When is the signal-to-noise ratio high enough to
believe the Fisher-matrix result? In addition, I provide general expressions
for the higher-order, beyond--Fisher-matrix terms in the 1/SNR expansions for
the expected parameter accuracies.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures, previously known as "A User Manual for the
Fisher Information Matrix"; final, corrected PRD versio
Spectral Simplicity of Apparent Complexity, Part II: Exact Complexities and Complexity Spectra
The meromorphic functional calculus developed in Part I overcomes the
nondiagonalizability of linear operators that arises often in the temporal
evolution of complex systems and is generic to the metadynamics of predicting
their behavior. Using the resulting spectral decomposition, we derive
closed-form expressions for correlation functions, finite-length Shannon
entropy-rate approximates, asymptotic entropy rate, excess entropy, transient
information, transient and asymptotic state uncertainty, and synchronization
information of stochastic processes generated by finite-state hidden Markov
models. This introduces analytical tractability to investigating information
processing in discrete-event stochastic processes, symbolic dynamics, and
chaotic dynamical systems. Comparisons reveal mathematical similarities between
complexity measures originally thought to capture distinct informational and
computational properties. We also introduce a new kind of spectral analysis via
coronal spectrograms and the frequency-dependent spectra of past-future mutual
information. We analyze a number of examples to illustrate the methods,
emphasizing processes with multivariate dependencies beyond pairwise
correlation. An appendix presents spectral decomposition calculations for one
example in full detail.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables; most recent version at
http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/compmech/pubs/sdscpt2.ht
Thermodynamics with long-range interactions: from Ising models to black-holes
New methods are presented which enables one to analyze the thermodynamics of
systems with long-range interactions. Generically, such systems have entropies
which are non-extensive, (do not scale with the size of the system). We show
how to calculate the degree of non-extensivity for such a system. We find that
a system interacting with a heat reservoir is in a probability distribution of
canonical ensembles. The system still possesses a parameter akin to a global
temperature, which is constant throughout the substance. There is also a useful
quantity which acts like a {\it local temperatures} and it varies throughout
the substance. These quantities are closely related to counterparts found in
general relativity. A lattice model with long-range spin-spin coupling is
studied. This is compared with systems such as those encountered in general
relativity, and gravitating systems with Newtonian-type interactions. A
long-range lattice model is presented which can be seen as a black-hole analog.
One finds that the analog's temperature and entropy have many properties which
are found in black-holes. Finally, the entropy scaling behavior of a
gravitating perfect fluid of constant density is calculated. For weak
interactions, the entropy scales like the volume of the system. As the
interactions become stronger, the entropy becomes higher near the surface of
the system, and becomes more area-scaling.Comment: Corrects some typos found in published version. Title changed 22
pages, 2 figure
Unambiguous comparison of the states of multiple quantum systems
We consider N quantum systems initially prepared in pure states and address
the problem of unambiguously comparing them. One may ask whether or not all
systems are in the same state. Alternatively, one may ask whether or not the
states of all N systems are different. We investigate the possibility of
unambiguously obtaining this kind of information. It is found that some
unambiguous comparison tasks are possible only when certain linear independence
conditions are satisfied. We also obtain measurement strategies for certain
comparison tasks which are optimal under a broad range of circumstances, in
particular when the states are completely unknown. Such strategies, which we
call universal comparison strategies, are found to have intriguing connections
with the problem of quantifying the distinguishability of a set of quantum
states and also with unresolved conjectures in linear algebra. We finally
investigate a potential generalisation of unambiguous state comparison, which
we term unambiguous overlap filtering.Comment: 20 pages, no figure
The spectrum of quantum black holes and quasinormal modes
The spectrum of multiple level transitions of the quantum black hole is
considered, and the line widths calculated. Initial evidence is found for these
higher order transitions in the spectrum of quasinormal modes for Schwarzschild
and Kerr black holes, further bolstering the idea that there exists a
correspondence principle between quantum transitions and classical ``ringing
modes''. Several puzzles are noted, including a fine-tuning problem between the
line width and the level degeneracy. A more general explanation is provided for
why setting the Immirzi parameter of loop quantum gravity from the black hole
spectrum necessarily gives the correct value for the black hole entropy.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Phase transition in the Jarzynski estimator of free energy differences
The transition between a regime in which thermodynamic relations apply only
to ensembles of small systems coupled to a large environment and a regime in
which they can be used to characterize individual macroscopic systems is
analyzed in terms of the change in behavior of the Jarzynski estimator of
equilibrium free energy differences from nonequilibrium work measurements.
Given a fixed number of measurements, the Jarzynski estimator is unbiased for
sufficiently small systems. In these systems, the directionality of time is
poorly defined and configurations that dominate the empirical average, but
which are in fact typical of the reverse process, are sufficiently well
sampled. As the system size increases the arrow of time becomes better defined.
The dominant atypical fluctuations become rare and eventually cannot be sampled
with the limited resources that are available. Asymptotically, only typical
work values are measured. The Jarzynski estimator becomes maximally biased and
approaches the exponential of minus the average work, which is the result that
is expected from standard macroscopic thermodynamics. In the proper scaling
limit, this regime change can be described in terms of a phase transition in
variants of the random energy model (REM). This correspondence is explicitly
demonstrated in several examples of physical interest: near-equilibrium
processes in which the work distribution is Gaussian, the sudden compression of
an ideal gas and adiabatic quasi-static volume changes in a dilute real gas.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review E
(2012
Statistical Communication Theory
Contains reports on three completed research projects and reports on two current research projects.Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, and U. S. Air Force) under Contract DA 36-039-AMC-03200(E)National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant NsG-496)National Science Foundation (Grant GK-835)National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant (NsG-334
Notes on the integration of numerical relativity waveforms
A primary goal of numerical relativity is to provide estimates of the wave
strain, , from strong gravitational wave sources, to be used in detector
templates. The simulations, however, typically measure waves in terms of the
Weyl curvature component, . Assuming Bondi gauge, transforming to the
strain reduces to integration of twice in time. Integrations
performed in either the time or frequency domain, however, lead to secular
non-linear drifts in the resulting strain . These non-linear drifts are not
explained by the two unknown integration constants which can at most result in
linear drifts. We identify a number of fundamental difficulties which can arise
from integrating finite length, discretely sampled and noisy data streams.
These issues are an artifact of post-processing data. They are independent of
the characteristics of the original simulation, such as gauge or numerical
method used. We suggest, however, a simple procedure for integrating numerical
waveforms in the frequency domain, which is effective at strongly reducing
spurious secular non-linear drifts in the resulting strain.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, matches final published versio
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