Steady State Entanglement in Cavity QED

We investigate steady state entanglement in an open quantum system, specifically a single atom in a driven optical cavity with cavity loss and spontaneous emission. The system reaches a steady pure state when driven very weakly. Under these conditions, there is an optimal value for atom-field coupling to maximize entanglement, as larger coupling favors a loss port due to the cavity enhanced spontaneous emission. We address ways to implement measurements of entanglement witnesses and find that normalized cross-correlation functions are indicators of the entanglement in the system. The magnitude of the equal time intensity-field cross correlation between the transmitted field of the cavity and the fluorescence intensity is proportional to the concurrence for weak driving fields.Comment: enhanced discussion, corrected formulas, title change, 1 added figur

Enhanced Spontaneous Emission Into The Mode Of A Cavity QED System

We study the light generated by spontaneous emission into a mode of a cavity QED system under weak excitation of the orthogonally polarized mode. Operating in the intermediate regime of cavity QED with comparable coherent and decoherent coupling constants, we find an enhancement of the emission into the undriven cavity mode by more than a factor of 18.5 over that expected by the solid angle subtended by the mode. A model that incorporates three atomic levels and two polarization modes quantitatively explains the observations.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, to appear in May 2007 Optics Letter

High flux cold Rubidium atomic beam for strongly coupled Cavity QED

This paper presents a setup capable of producing a high-flux continuous beam of cold rubidium atoms for cavity QED experiments in the regime of strong coupling. A 2 $D^+$ MOT, loaded by rubidium getters in a dry film coated vapor cell, fed a secondary moving-molasses MOT (MM-MOT) at a rate of 1.5 x $10^{10}$ atoms/sec. The MM-MOT provided a continuous beam with tunable velocity. This beam was then directed through the waist of a 280 $\mu$m cavity resulting in a Rabi splitting of more than +/- 10 MHz. The presence of sufficient number of atoms in the cavity mode also enabled splitting in the polarization perpendicular to the input. The cavity was in the strong coupling regime, with parameters (g, $\kappa$, $\gamma$)/2$\pi$ equal to (7, 3, 6)/ 2$\pi$ MHz.Comment: Journal pape

Extended calibration range for prompt photon emission in ion beam irradiation

Monitoring the dose delivered during proton and carbon ion therapy is still a matter of research. Among the possible solutions, several exploit the measurement of the single photon emission from nuclear decays induced by the irradiation. To fully characterize such emission the detectors need development, since the energy spectrum spans the range above the MeV that is not traditionally used in medical applications. On the other hand, a deeper understanding of the reactions involving gamma production is needed in order to improve the physic models of Monte Carlo codes, relevant for an accurate prediction of the prompt-gamma energy spectrum.This paper describes a calibration technique tailored for the range of energy of interest and reanalyzes the data of the interaction of a 80MeV/u fully stripped carbon ion beam with a Poly-methyl methacrylate target. By adopting the FLUKA simulation with the appropriate calibration and resolution a significant improvement in the agreement between data and simulation is reported.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, Submitted to JINS

Multicenter phase II trial of preoperative induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiation with docetaxel and cisplatin for locally advanced esophageal carcinoma (SAKK 75/02)

Background: This multicenter phase II study investigated the efficacy and feasibility of preoperative induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiation and surgery in patients with esophageal carcinoma. Patients and methods: Patients with locally advanced resectable squamous cell carcinoma or adenocarcinoma of the esophagus received induction chemotherapy with cisplatin 75 mg/m2 and docetaxel (Taxotere) 75 mg/m2 on days 1 and 22, followed by radiotherapy of 45 Gy (25 × 1.8 Gy) and concurrent chemotherapy comprising cisplatin 25 mg/m2 and docetaxel 20 mg/m2 weekly for 5 weeks, followed by surgery. Results: Sixty-six patients were enrolled at eleven centers and 57 underwent surgery. R0 resection was achieved in 52 patients. Fifteen patients showed complete, 16 patients nearly complete and 26 patients poor pathological remission. Median overall survival was 36.5 months and median event-free survival was 22.8 months. Squamous cell carcinoma and good pathologically documented response were associated with longer survival. Eighty-two percent of all included patients completed neoadjuvant therapy and survived for 30 days after surgery. Dysphagia and mucositis grade 3/4 were infrequent (<9%) during chemoradiation. Five patients (9%) died due to surgical complications. Conclusions: This neoadjuvant, taxane-containing regimen was efficacious and feasible in patients with locally advanced esophageal cancer in a multicenter, community-based setting and represents a suitable backbone for further investigatio

Fast cavity-enhanced atom detection with low noise and high fidelity

Cavity quantum electrodynamics describes the fundamental interactions between light and matter, and how they can be controlled by shaping the local environment. For example, optical microcavities allow high-efficiency detection and manipulation of single atoms. In this regime fluctuations of atom number are on the order of the mean number, which can lead to signal fluctuations in excess of the noise on the incident probe field. Conversely, we demonstrate that nonlinearities and multi-atom statistics can together serve to suppress the effects of atomic fluctuations when making local density measurements on clouds of cold atoms. We measure atom densities below 1 per cavity mode volume near the photon shot-noise limit. This is in direct contrast to previous experiments where fluctuations in atom number contribute significantly to the noise. Atom detection is shown to be fast and efficient, reaching fidelities in excess of 97% after 10 us and 99.9% after 30 us.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; extensive changes to format and discussion according to referee comments; published in Nature Communications with open acces

90Y-DOTA-nimotuzumab: synthesis of a promising β⁻ radiopharmaceutical

BACKGROUND: Nimotuzumab is a humanized anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibody, nowadays used for tumour immunochemotherapy. This study aimed to label the conjugate DOTA-nimotuzumab with yttrium-90, in order to provide a beta- emitting radioimmunoconjugate (90Y-DOTA-nimotuzumab) potentially useful to assess the feasibility of a new radio-guided surgery approach.METHODS: The synthesis of 90Y-DOTA-nimotuzumab was performed in two days. Nimotuzumab was conjugated with a 50 fold excess of DOTA and then labelled with 90Y3+. The 90Y-DOTA-nimotuzumab preparation was optimized considering several parameters such as pH, temperature and reaction volume. Moreover, the 90Y-DOTA-nimotuzumab stability was evaluated in human plasma.RESULTS: The radioimmunoconjugate 90Y-DOTA-nimotuzumab was obtained with a radiochemical purity greater than 96%, and showed a good stability at 20°C as well as at 37°C in human plasma.CONCLUSIONS: The optimized conditions for a mild and easy preparation of 90Y-DOTA-nimotuzumab joined to a promising stability under physiological conditions suggest to propose this radioimmunoconjugate as a potential diagnostic radiopharmaceutical for beta- radio-guided surgery

From the bench to practice - Field integration of community-based services for older citizens with different levels of functional limitation across European Regions

The meeting of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIPonAHA) action group A3 together with members of the Reference site collaborative network (RSCN) in December 2019 in Rome focused on integration of evidence-based approaches on health and care delivery for older citizens at different levels of needs with expertise coming from stakeholder across Europe. It was the final aim of the group to co-create culturally sensitive pathways and facilitate co-ownership for further implementation of the pathways in different care systems across Europe. The study design is a mixed method approach. Based on data analysis from a cohort of community-dwelling over-65 citizens in the framework of a longitudinal observational study in Rome, which included health, social and functional capacity data, three personas profiles were developed: the pre-frail, the frail and the very frail personas. Based on these data, experts were asked to co-create care pathways due to evidence and eminence during a workshop and included into a final report. All working groups agreed on a common understanding that integration of care means person-centered integration of health and social care, longitudinally provided across primary and secondary health care including citizens' individual social, economic and human resources. Elements for consideration during care for pre-frail people are loneliness and social isolation, which, lead to limitation of physical autonomy in the light of reduced access to social support. Frail people need adaption of environmental structures and, again, social resource allocation to maintain at home. Very frail are generally vulnerable patients with complex needs. Most of them remain at home because of a strong individual social support and integrated health care delivery. The approach described in this publication may represent a first approach to scaling-up care delivery in a person-centered approach