Van der Waals and resonance interactions between accelerated atoms in vacuum and the Unruh effect

We discuss different physical effects related to the uniform acceleration of atoms in vacuum, in the framework of quantum electrodynamics. We first investigate the van der Waals/Casimir-Polder dispersion and resonance interactions between two uniformly accelerated atoms in vacuum. We show that the atomic acceleration significantly affects the van der Waals force, yielding a different scaling of the interaction with the interatomic distance and an explicit time dependence of the interaction energy. We argue how these results could allow for an indirect detection of the Unruh effect through dispersion interactions between atoms. We then consider the resonance interaction between two accelerated atoms, prepared in a correlated Bell-type state, and interacting with the electromagnetic field in the vacuum state, separating vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction contributions, both in the free-space and in the presence of a perfectly reflecting plate. We show that nonthermal effects of acceleration manifest in the resonance interaction, yielding a change of the distance dependence of the resonance interaction energy. This suggests that the equivalence between temperature and acceleration does not apply to all radiative properties of accelerated atoms. To further explore this aspect, we evaluate the resonance interaction between two atoms in non inertial motion in the coaccelerated (Rindler) frame and show that in this case the assumption of an Unruh temperature for the field is not required for a complete equivalence of locally inertial and coaccelerated points of views.Comment: 8 pages, Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop DICE 2016 Spacetime - Matter - Quantum Mechanic

Mean Escape Time in a System with Stochastic Volatility

We study the mean escape time in a market model with stochastic volatility. The process followed by the volatility is the Cox Ingersoll and Ross process which is widely used to model stock price fluctuations. The market model can be considered as a generalization of the Heston model, where the geometric Brownian motion is replaced by a random walk in the presence of a cubic nonlinearity. We investigate the statistical properties of the escape time of the returns, from a given interval, as a function of the three parameters of the model. We find that the noise can have a stabilizing effect on the system, as long as the global noise is not too high with respect to the effective potential barrier experienced by a fictitious Brownian particle. We compare the probability density function of the return escape times of the model with those obtained from real market data. We find that they fit very well.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Casimir-Polder interatomic potential between two atoms at finite temperature and in the presence of boundary conditions

We evaluate the Casimir-Polder potential between two atoms in the presence of an infinite perfectly conducting plate and at nonzero temperature. In order to calculate the potential, we use a method based on equal-time spatial correlations of the electric field, already used to evaluate the effect of boundary conditions on interatomic potentials. This method gives also a transparent physical picture of the role of a finite temperature and boundary conditions on the Casimir-Polder potential. We obtain an analytical expression of the potential both in the near and far zones, and consider several limiting cases of interest, according to the values of the parameters involved, such as atom-atom distance, atoms-wall distance and temperature.Comment: 11 page

Anomalous lack of decoherence of the Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions based on phase-covariant Quantum Cloning

We show that all Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions (MQS) based on phase-covariant quantum cloning are characterized by an anomalous high resilence to the de-coherence processes. The analysis supports the results of recent MQS experiments and leads to conceive a useful conjecture regarding the realization of complex decoherence - free structures for quantum information, such as the quantum computer.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Phase estimation via quantum interferometry for noisy detectors

The sensitivity in optical interferometry is strongly affected by losses during the signal propagation or at the detection stage. The optimal quantum states of the probing signals in the presence of loss were recently found. However, in many cases of practical interest, their associated accuracy is worse than the one obtainable without employing quantum resources (e.g. entanglement and squeezing) but neglecting the detector's loss. Here we detail an experiment that can reach the latter even in the presence of imperfect detectors: it employs a phase-sensitive amplification of the signals after the phase sensing, before the detection. We experimentally demonstrated the feasibility of a phase estimation experiment able to reach its optimal working regime. Since our method uses coherent states as input signals, it is a practical technique that can be used for high-sensitivity interferometry and, in contrast to the optimal strategies, does not require one to have an exact characterization of the loss beforehand.Comment: 4 pages + supplementary information (10 pages), 3 + 4 figure

Noise driven translocation of short polymers in crowded solutions

In this work we study the noise induced effects on the dynamics of short polymers crossing a potential barrier, in the presence of a metastable state. An improved version of the Rouse model for a flexible polymer has been adopted to mimic the molecular dynamics by taking into account both the interactions between adjacent monomers and introducing a Lennard-Jones potential between all beads. A bending recoil torque has also been included in our model. The polymer dynamics is simulated in a two-dimensional domain by numerically solving the Langevin equations of motion with a Gaussian uncorrelated noise. We find a nonmonotonic behaviour of the mean first passage time and the most probable translocation time, of the polymer centre of inertia, as a function of the polymer length at low noise intensity. We show how thermal fluctuations influence the motion of short polymers, by inducing two different regimes of translocation in the molecule transport dynamics. In this context, the role played by the length of the molecule in the translocation time is investigated.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, to appear in J. Stat. Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, 200

Thermal noise suppression: how much does it cost?

In order to stabilize the behavior of noisy systems, confining it around a desirable state, an effort is required to suppress the intrinsic noise. This noise suppression task entails a cost. For the important case of thermal noise in an overdamped system, we show that the minimum cost is achieved when the system control parameters are held constant: any additional deterministic or random modulation produces an increase of the cost. We discuss the implications of this phenomenon for those overdamped systems whose control parameters are intrinsically noisy, presenting a case study based on the example of a Brownian particle optically trapped in an oscillating potential.Comment: 6 page

The problem of analytical calculation of barrier crossing characteristics for Levy flights

By using the backward fractional Fokker-Planck equation we investigate the barrier crossing event in the presence of Levy noise. After shortly review recent results obtained with different approaches on the time characteristics of the barrier crossing, we derive a general differential equation useful to calculate the nonlinear relaxation time. We obtain analytically the nonlinear relaxation time for free Levy flights and a closed expression in quadrature of the same characteristics for cubic potential.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, presented at 5th International Conference on Unsolved Problems on Noise, Lyon, France, 2008, to appear in J. Stat. Mech.: Theory and Experimen

Van der Waals Interactions in a Magneto-Dielectric Medium

The van der Waals interaction between two ground-state atoms is calculated for two electrically or magnetically polarizable particles embedded in a dispersive magneto-dielectric medium. Unlike previous calculations which infer the atom-atom interaction from the dilute-medium limit of the macroscopic, many-body van der Waals interaction, the interaction is calculated directly for the system of two atoms in a magneto-dielectric medium. Two approaches are presented, the first based on the quantized electromagnetic field in a dispersive medium without absorption and the second on Green functions that allow for absorption. We show that the correct van der Waals interactions are obtained regardless of whether absorption in the host medium is taken into account.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Cyber attacks, spillovers and contagion in the cryptocurrency markets

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This paper examines mean and volatility spillovers between three major cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum) and the role played by cyber-attacks. Specifically, trivariate GARCH-BEKK models are estimated which include suitably defined dummies corresponding to different types, targets and number per day of cyber-attacks. Significant dynamic linkages (interdependence) between the three cryptocurrencies under investigation are found in most cases when cyber-attacks are taken into account, Bitcoin appearing to be the dominant cryptocurrency. Further, Wald tests for parameter shifts during episodes of turbulence resulting from cyber-attacks provide evidence that the latter affect the transmission mechanism between cryptocurrency returns and volatilities (contagion). More precisely, cyber-attacks appear to strengthen cross-market linkages, thereby reducing portfolio diversification opportunities for cryptocurrency investors. Finally, the conditional correlation analysis confirms the previous findings