Anomalies of weakened decoherence criteria for quantum histories

The theory of decoherent histories is checked for the requirement of statistical independence of subsystems. Strikingly, this is satisfied only when the decoherence functional is diagonal in both its real a n d imaginary parts. In particular, the condition of consistency (or weak decoherence) required for the assignment of probabilities appears to be ruled out. The same conclusion is obtained independently, by claiming a plausible dynamical robustness of decoherent histories.Comment: 3pp, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Micrometre-scale refrigerators

A superconductor with a gap in the density of states or a quantum dot with discrete energy levels is a central building block in realizing an electronic on-chip cooler. They can work as energy filters, allowing only hot quasiparticles to tunnel out from the electrode to be cooled. This principle has been employed experimentally since the early 1990s in investigations and demonstrations of micrometre-scale coolers at sub-kelvin temperatures. In this paper, we review the basic experimental conditions in realizing the coolers and the main practical issues that are known to limit their performance. We give an update of experiments performed on cryogenic micrometre-scale coolers in the past five years

Localization of Relative-Position of Two Atoms Induced by Spontaneous Emission

We revisit the back-action of emitted photons on the motion of the relative position of two cold atoms. We show that photon recoil resulting from the spontaneous emission can induce the localization of the relative position of the two atoms through the entanglement between the spatial motion of individual atoms and their emitted photons. The result provides a more realistic model for the analysis of the environment-induced localization of a macroscopic object.Comment: 8 pages and 4 figure

Many worlds in one

A generic prediction of inflation is that the thermalized region we inhabit is spatially infinite. Thus, it contains an infinite number of regions of the same size as our observable universe, which we shall denote as \O-regions. We argue that the number of possible histories which may take place inside of an \O-region, from the time of recombination up to the present time, is finite. Hence, there are an infinite number of \O-regions with identical histories up to the present, but which need not be identical in the future. Moreover, all histories which are not forbidden by conservation laws will occur in a finite fraction of all \O-regions. The ensemble of \O-regions is reminiscent of the ensemble of universes in the many-world picture of quantum mechanics. An important difference, however, is that other \O-regions are unquestionably real.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, comments and references adde

A physical distinction between a covariant and non covariant reduction process in relativistic quantum theories

Causality imposes strong restrictions on the type of operators that may be observables in relativistic quantum theories. In fact, causal violations arise when computing conditional probabilities for certain partial causally connected measurements using the standard non covariant procedure. Here we introduce another way of computing conditional probabilities, based on an intrinsic covariant relational order of the events, which differs from the standard one when these type of measurements are included. This alternative procedure is compatible with a wider and very natural class of operators without breaking causality. If some of these measurements could be implemented in practice as predicted by our formalism, the non covariant, conventional approach should be abandoned. Furthermore, the description we promote here would imply a new physical effect where interference terms are suppressed as a consequence of the covariant order in the measurement process.Comment: 7 pages, latex file, 1 ps figure. Major presentation changes. To appear in New Journal of Physic

Entanglement of a Double Dot with a Quantum Point Contact

Entanglement between particle and detector is known to be inherent in the measurement process. Gurvitz recently analyzed the coupling of an electron in a double dot (DD) to a quantum point contact (QPC) detector. In this paper we examine the dynamics of entanglement that result between the DD and QPC. The rate of entanglement is optimized as a function of coupling when the electron is initially in one of the dots. It decreases asymptotically towards zero with increased coupling. The opposite behavior is observed when the DD is initially in a superposition: the rate of entanglement increases unboundedly as the coupling is increased. The possibility that there are conditions for which measurement occurs versus entanglement is considered

Electron Wave Filters from Inverse Scattering Theory

Semiconductor heterostructures with prescribed energy dependence of the transmittance can be designed by combining: {\em a)} Pad\'e approximant reconstruction of the S-matrix; {\em b)} inverse scattering theory for Schro\"dinger's equation; {\em c)} a unitary transformation which takes into account the variable mass effects. The resultant continuous concentration profile can be digitized into an easily realizable rectangular-wells structure. For illustration, we give the specifications of a 2 narrow band-pass 12 layer $Al_cGa_{1-c}As$ filter with the high energy peak more than {\em twice narrower} than the other.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex with one eps figur

Extraction of scattering lengths from final-state interactions

A recently proposed method based on dispersion theory, that allows to extract the scattering length of a hadronic two-body system from corresponding final-state interactions, is generalized to the situation where the Coulomb interaction is present. The steps required in a concrete practical application are discussed in detail. In addition a thorough examination of the accuracy of the proposed method is presented and a comparison is made with results achieved with other methods like the Jost-function approach based on the effective-range approximation. Deficiencies of the latter method are pointed out. The reliability of the dispersion theory method for extracting also the effective range is investigated.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, some corrections to text, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Quantum origin of the primordial fluctuation spectrum and its statistics

The usual account for the origin of cosmic structure during inflation is not fully satisfactory, as it lacks a physical mechanism capable of generating the inhomogeneity and anisotropy of our Universe, from an exactly homogeneous and isotropic initial state associated with the early inflationary regime. The proposal in [A. Perez, H. Sahlmann, and D. Sudarsky, Classical Quantum Gravity, 23, 2317, (2006)] considers the spontaneous dynamical collapse of the wave function, as a possible answer to that problem. In this work, we review briefly the difficulties facing the standard approach, as well as the answers provided by the above proposal and explore their relevance to the investigations concerning the characterization of the primordial spectrum and other statistical aspects of the cosmic microwave background and large-scale matter distribution. We will see that the new approach leads to novel ways of considering some of the relevant questions, and, in particular, to distinct characterizations of the non-Gaussianities that might have left imprints on the available data.Comment: 27 pages. Revision to match the published versio