Survey of current Swiss pig feeding practices and potential for ammonia emission reduction

Controlling potentially harmful and polluting emissions from farms is important in the developed world, where legislation exists in many countries limiting emissions such as ammonia and controlling how manure is disposed of from intensive farming operations. In Switzerland, there are legal agreements concerning controls of ammonia emissions, most especially from farms. Ammonia production from pig farms can be controlled by dietary intervention, such as reducing protein levels, which in turn reduces excretion, mainly via urine. The following paper surveys current practices for nitrogen use on Swiss pig farms, and how feeding strategies may assist in controlling ammonia production from pig production systems. The survey found that 70-75% of all feeds used for pigs of all categories were reduced in protein and nitrogen, with 90% being reduced in protein in high animal density areas. Regression analysis showed that CP levels explained up to 49% of the nitrogen efficiency, suggesting that other factors are important in pollution control. Although piglet diets are more tightly regulated in terms of controlling N input, excessive protein levels in so-called reduced protein diets for finisher pigs and dry sows are common in the market. Hence, there is considerable potential to reduce N-input and ammonia emissions from Swiss pig production, which could be implemented at no or minimal extra cost

Quantum teleportation on a photonic chip

Quantum teleportation is a fundamental concept in quantum physics which now finds important applications at the heart of quantum technology including quantum relays, quantum repeaters and linear optics quantum computing (LOQC). Photonic implementations have largely focussed on achieving long distance teleportation due to its suitability for decoherence-free communication. Teleportation also plays a vital role in the scalability of photonic quantum computing, for which large linear optical networks will likely require an integrated architecture. Here we report the first demonstration of quantum teleportation in which all key parts - entanglement preparation, Bell-state analysis and quantum state tomography - are performed on a reconfigurable integrated photonic chip. We also show that a novel element-wise characterisation method is critical to mitigate component errors, a key technique which will become increasingly important as integrated circuits reach higher complexities necessary for quantum enhanced operation.Comment: Originally submitted version - refer to online journal for accepted manuscript; Nature Photonics (2014

Photon-noise-tolerant dispersive readout of a superconducting qubit using a nonlinear Purcell filter

Residual noise photons in a readout resonator become a major source of dephasing for a superconducting qubit when the resonator is optimized for a fast, high-fidelity dispersive readout. Here, we propose and demonstrate a nonlinear Purcell filter that suppresses such an undesired dephasing process without sacrificing the readout performance. When a readout pulse is applied, the filter automatically reduces the effective linewidth of the readout resonator, increasing the sensitivity of the qubit to the input field. The noise tolerance of the device we fabricated is shown to be enhanced by a factor of three relative to a device with a linear filter. The measurement rate is enhanced by another factor of three by utilizing the bifurcation of the nonlinear filter. A readout fidelity of 99.4% and a QND fidelity of 99.2% are achieved using a 40-ns readout pulse. The nonlinear Purcell filter will be an effective tool for realizing a fast, high-fidelity readout without compromising the coherence time of the qubit.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure

Integrated Photonic Sensing

Loss is a critical roadblock to achieving photonic quantum-enhanced technologies. We explore a modular platform for implementing integrated photonics experiments and consider the effects of loss at different stages of these experiments, including state preparation, manipulation and measurement. We frame our discussion mainly in the context of quantum sensing and focus particularly on the use of loss-tolerant Holland-Burnett states for optical phase estimation. In particular, we discuss spontaneous four-wave mixing in standard birefringent fibre as a source of pure, heralded single photons and present methods of optimising such sources. We also outline a route to programmable circuits which allow the control of photonic interactions even in the presence of fabrication imperfections and describe a ratiometric characterisation method for beam splitters which allows the characterisation of complex circuits without the need for full process tomography. Finally, we present a framework for performing state tomography on heralded states using lossy measurement devices. This is motivated by a calculation of the effects of fabrication imperfections on precision measurement using Holland-Burnett states.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

On-chip low loss heralded source of pure single photons

A key obstacle to the experimental realization of many photonic quantum-enhanced technologies is the lack of low-loss sources of single photons in pure quantum states. We demonstrate a promising solution: generation of heralded single photons in a silica photonic chip by spontaneous four-wave mixing. A heralding efficiency of 40%, corresponding to a preparation efficiency of 80% accounting for detector performance, is achieved due to efficient coupling of the low-loss source to optical fibers. A single photon purity of 0.86 is measured from the source number statistics without filtering, and confirmed by direct measurement of the joint spectral intensity. We calculate that similar high-heralded-purity output can be obtained from visible to telecom spectral regions using this approach. On-chip silica sources can have immediate application in a wide range of single-photon quantum optics applications which employ silica photonics.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

On the experimental verification of quantum complexity in linear optics

The first quantum technologies to solve computational problems that are beyond the capabilities of classical computers are likely to be devices that exploit characteristics inherent to a particular physical system, to tackle a bespoke problem suited to those characteristics. Evidence implies that the detection of ensembles of photons, which have propagated through a linear optical circuit, is equivalent to sampling from a probability distribution that is intractable to classical simulation. However, it is probable that the complexity of this type of sampling problem means that its solution is classically unverifiable within a feasible number of trials, and the task of establishing correct operation becomes one of gathering sufficiently convincing circumstantial evidence. Here, we develop scalable methods to experimentally establish correct operation for this class of sampling algorithm, which we implement with two different types of optical circuits for 3, 4, and 5 photons, on Hilbert spaces of up to 50,000 dimensions. With only a small number of trials, we establish a confidence >99% that we are not sampling from a uniform distribution or a classical distribution, and we demonstrate a unitary specific witness that functions robustly for small amounts of data. Like the algorithmic operations they endorse, our methods exploit the characteristics native to the quantum system in question. Here we observe and make an application of a "bosonic clouding" phenomenon, interesting in its own right, where photons are found in local groups of modes superposed across two locations. Our broad approach is likely to be practical for all architectures for quantum technologies where formal verification methods for quantum algorithms are either intractable or unknown.Comment: Comments welcom

On Multifractal Structure in Non-Representational Art

Multifractal analysis techniques are applied to patterns in several abstract expressionist artworks, paintined by various artists. The analysis is carried out on two distinct types of structures: the physical patterns formed by a specific color (``blobs''), as well as patterns formed by the luminance gradient between adjacent colors (``edges''). It is found that the analysis method applied to ``blobs'' cannot distinguish between artists of the same movement, yielding a multifractal spectrum of dimensions between about 1.5-1.8. The method can distinguish between different types of images, however, as demonstrated by studying a radically different type of art. The data suggests that the ``edge'' method can distinguish between artists in the same movement, and is proposed to represent a toy model of visual discrimination. A ``fractal reconstruction'' analysis technique is also applied to the images, in order to determine whether or not a specific signature can be extracted which might serve as a type of fingerprint for the movement. However, these results are vague and no direct conclusions may be drawn.Comment: 53 pp LaTeX, 10 figures (ps/eps