Spin-chain model of a many-body quantum battery

Recently, it has been shown that energy can be deposited on a collection of quantum systems at a rate that scales super-extensively. Some of these schemes for `quantum batteries' rely on the use of global many-body interactions that take the batteries through a correlated short cut in state space. Here, we extend the notion of a quantum battery from a collection of a priori isolated systems to a many-body quantum system with intrinsic interactions. Specifically, we consider a one-dimensional spin chain with physically realistic two-body interactions. We find that the spin-spin interactions can yield an advantage in charging power over the non-interacting case, and we demonstrate that this advantage can grow super-extensively when the interactions are long ranged. However, we show that, unlike in previous work, this advantage is a mean-field interaction effect that does not involve correlations and that relies on the interactions being intrinsic to the battery.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Teaching schools evaluation. Research Brief

This Research Brief reports the findings from a two-year study (2013-15) in to the work of teaching schools and their alliances commissioned by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL). The broad aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness and impact of teaching schools on improvement, and identify the quality and scope of external support that are required to enhance these . This was achieved through combining qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis derived from three research activities: case studies of 26 teaching schools alliances (TSAs), a national survey of the first three cohorts of 345 TSAs, and secondary research and analysis of national performance and inspection results

Mathematics and Morphogenesis of the City: A Geometrical Approach

Cities are living organisms. They are out of equilibrium, open systems that never stop developing and sometimes die. The local geography can be compared to a shell constraining its development. In brief, a city's current layout is a step in a running morphogenesis process. Thus cities display a huge diversity of shapes and none of traditional models from random graphs, complex networks theory or stochastic geometry takes into account geometrical, functional and dynamical aspects of a city in the same framework. We present here a global mathematical model dedicated to cities that permits describing, manipulating and explaining cities' overall shape and layout of their street systems. This street-based framework conciliates the topological and geometrical sides of the problem. From the static analysis of several French towns (topology of first and second order, anisotropy, streets scaling) we make the hypothesis that the development of a city follows a logic of division / extension of space. We propose a dynamical model that mimics this logic and which from simple general rules and a few parameters succeeds in generating a large diversity of cities and in reproducing the general features the static analysis has pointed out.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Measured noise reductions resulting from modified approach procedures for business jet aircraft

Five business jet airplanes were flown to determine the noise reductions that result from the use of modified approach procedures. The airplanes tested were a Gulfstream 2, JetStar, Hawker Siddeley 125-400, Sabreliner-60 and LearJet-24. Noise measurements were made 3, 5, and 7 nautical miles from the touchdown point. In addition to a standard 3 deg glide slope approach, a 4 deg glide slope approach, a 3 deg glide slope approach in a low-drag configuration, and a two-segment approach were flown. It was found that the 4 deg approach was about 4 EPNdB quieter than the standard 3 deg approach. Noise reductions for the low-drag 3 deg approach varied widely among the airplanes tested, with an average of 8.5 EPNdB on a fleet-weighted basis. The two-segment approach resulted in noise reductions of 7 to 8 EPNdB at 3 and 5 nautical miles from touchdown, but only 3 EPNdB at 7 nautical miles from touchdown when the airplanes were still in level flight prior to glide slope intercept. Pilot ratings showed progressively increasing workload for the 4 deg, low-drag 3 deg, and two-segment approaches

Bystander B cells rapidly acquire antigen receptors from activated B cells by membrane transfer: a novel mechanism for enhancing specific antigen presentation

The B cell antigen receptor (BCR) efficiently facilitates the capture and processing of a specific antigen for presentation on MHC class II molecules to antigen specific CD4+ T cells (1). Despite this, the majority of B cells are only thought to play a limited role in CD4+ T cell activation since BCRs are clonotypically expressed. Here we show, however, that activated B cells can, both in vitro and in vivo, rapidly donate their BCR to bystander B cells, a process that is mediated by direct membrane transfer between adjacent B cells and is amplified by the interaction of the BCR with specific antigen. This results in a dramatic expansion in the number of antigen-binding B cells in vivo, with the transferred BCR endowing recipient B cells with the ability to present specific antigen to antigen-specific CD4+ T cells

Simulation Studies of Nanomagnet-Based Architecture

We report a simulation study on interacting ensembles of Co nanomagnets that can perform basic logic operations and propagate logic signals, where the state variable is the magnetization direction. Dipole field coupling between individual nanomagnets drives the logic functionality of the ensemble and coordinated arrangements of the nanomagnets allow for the logic signal to propagate in a predictable way. Problems with the integrity of the logic signal arising from instabilities in the constituent magnetizations are solved by introducing a biaxial anisotropy term to the Gibbs magnetic free energy of each nanomagnet. The enhanced stability allows for more complex components of a logic architecture capable of random combinatorial logic, including horizontal wires, vertical wires, junctions, fanout nodes, and a novel universal logic gate. Our simulations define the focus of scaling trends in nanomagnet-based logic and provide estimates of the energy dissipation and time per nanomagnet reversal

Supersolidity in electron-hole bilayers with a large density imbalance

We consider an electron-hole bilayer in the limit of extreme density imbalance, where we have a single particle in one layer interacting attractively with a Fermi liquid in the other parallel layer. Using an appropriate variational wave function for the dressed exciton, we provide strong evidence for the existence of the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase in electron-hole bilayers with a large density imbalance. Furthermore, within this unusual limit of FFLO, we find that a dilute gas of minority particles forms excitons that condense into a two-dimensional "supersolid".Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Strong-coupling ansatz for the one-dimensional Fermi gas in a harmonic potential

A major challenge in modern physics is to accurately describe strongly interacting quantum many-body systems. One-dimensional systems provide fundamental insights since they are often amenable to exact methods. However, no exact solution is known for the experimentally relevant case of external confinement. Here, we propose a powerful ansatz for the one-dimensional Fermi gas in a harmonic potential near the limit of infinite short-range repulsion. For the case of a single impurity in a Fermi sea, we show that our ansatz is indistinguishable from numerically exact results in both the few- and many-body limits. We furthermore derive an effective Heisenberg spin-chain model corresponding to our ansatz, valid for any spin-mixture, within which we obtain the impurity eigenstates analytically. In particular, the classical Pascal's triangle emerges in the expression for the ground-state wavefunction. As well as providing an important benchmark for strongly correlated physics, our results are relevant for emerging quantum technologies, where a precise knowledge of one-dimensional quantum states is paramount

A comparative analysis of Simplified General Circulation Models of the atmosphere of Venus

Within the context of a working group supported by ISSI (Bern, Switzerland), we have made an intercomparison work between Global Circulation Models using simpli?ed parameterizations for radiative forcing and other physical processes. Even with similar schemes and parameters, the different GCMs produce different circulations, illustrating interesting differences between dynamical model cores