Quantum complementarity of microcavity polaritons

We present an experiment that probes polariton quantum correlations by exploiting quantum complementarity. Specifically, we find that polaritons in two distinct idler-modes interfere if and only if they share the same signal-mode so that "which-way" information cannot be gathered. The experimental results prove the existence of polariton pair correlations that store the "which-way" information. This interpretation is confirmed by a theoretical analysis of the measured interference visibility in terms of quantum Langevin equations

Amphetamine and pseudoephedrine cross-tolerance measured by c-Fos protein expression in brains of chronically treated rats

Background Pseudoephedrine is a drug commonly prescribed as a nasal decongestant and bronchodilator and is also freely available in cold remedies and medications. The structural and pharmacological similarity of pseudoephedrine to amphetamine has led to evaluation of its psychomotor stimulant properties within the central nervous system. Previous investigations have shown that the acute responses to pseudoephedrine were similar to those of amphetamine and other psychostimulants. Results This study examined the effect of chronic administration of pseudoephedrine in rat nucleus accumbens and striatum and identified three further similarities to amphetamine. (i) Chronic exposure to pseudoephedrine reduced the c-Fos response to acute pseudoephedrine treatment suggesting that pseudoephedrine induced tolerance in the animals. (ii) In animals chronically treated with amphetamine or pseudoephedrine the acute c-Fos response to pseudoephedrine and amphetamine was reduced respectively as compared to naïve animals indicating cross-tolerance for the two drugs. (iii)The known involvement of the dopamine system in the response to amphetamine and pseudoephedrine was further confirmed in this study by demonstrating that pseudoephedrine similarly to amphetamine, but with lower potency, inhibited [3H]dopamine uptake in synaptosomal preparations. Conclusion This work has demonstrated further similarities of the effect of pseudoephedrine to those of amphetamine in brain areas known to be associated with drug addiction. The most significant result presented here is the cross tolerance effect of amphetamine and psudoephedrine. This suggests that both drugs induce similar mechanisms of action in the brain. Further studies are required to establish whether despite its considerable lower potency, pseudoephedrine could pose health and addiction risks in humans similar to that of known psychostimulants

Entanglement Typicality

We provide a summary of both seminal and recent results on typical entanglement. By typical values of entanglement, we refer here to values of entanglement quantifiers that (given a reasonable measure on the manifold of states) appear with arbitrarily high probability for quantum systems of sufficiently high dimensionality. We work within the Haar measure framework for discrete quantum variables, where we report on results concerning the average von Neumann and linear entropies as well as arguments implying the typicality of such values in the asymptotic limit. We then proceed to discuss the generation of typical quantum states with random circuitry. Different phases of entanglement, and the connection between typical entanglement and thermodynamics are discussed. We also cover approaches to measures on the non-compact set of Gaussian states of continuous variable quantum systems.Comment: Review paper with two quotes and minimalist figure

Fuzzy logic control for energy saving in autonomous electric vehicles

Limited battery capacity and excessive battery dimensions have been two major limiting factors in the rapid advancement of electric vehicles. An alternative to increasing battery capacities is to use better: intelligent control techniques which save energy on-board while preserving the performance that will extend the range with the same or even smaller battery capacity and dimensions. In this paper, we present a Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Controller (Type-2 FLC) as the speed controller, acting as the Driver Model Controller (DMC) in Autonomous Electric Vehicles (AEV). The DMC is implemented using realtime control hardware and tested on a scaled down version of a back to back connected brushless DC motor setup where the actual vehicle dynamics are modelled with a Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) system. Using the minimization of the Integral Absolute Error (IAE) has been the control design criteria and the performance is compared against Type-1 Fuzzy Logic and Proportional Integral Derivative DMCs. Particle swarm optimization is used in the control design. Comparisons on energy consumption and maximum power demand have been carried out using HIL system for NEDC and ARTEMIS drive cycles. Experimental results show that Type-2 FLC saves energy by a substantial amount while simultaneously achieving the best IAE of the control strategies tested

Spontaneous Conversion from Virtual to Real Photons in the Ultrastrong Coupling Regime

We show that a spontaneous release of virtual photon pairs can occur in a quantum optical system in the ultrastrong coupling regime. In this regime, which is attracting interest both in semiconductor and superconducting systems, the light-matter coupling rate {\Omega}R becomes comparable to the bare resonance frequency of photons {\omega}0. In contrast to the dynamical Casimir effect and other pair creation mechanisms, this phenomenon does not require external forces or time dependent parameters in the Hamiltonian.Comment: To appear on Phys. Rev. Let