Transport properties of partially equilibrated quantum wires

We study the effect of thermal equilibration on the transport properties of a weakly interacting one-dimensional electron system. Although equilibration is severely suppressed due to phase-space restrictions and conservation laws, it can lead to intriguing signatures in partially equilibrated quantum wires. We consider an ideal homogeneous quantum wire. We find a finite temperature correction to the quantized conductance, which for a short wire scales with its length, but saturates to a length-independent value once the wire becomes exponentially long. We also discuss thermoelectric properties of long quantum wires. We show that the uniform quantum wire is a perfect thermoelectric refrigerator, approaching Carnot efficiency with increasing wire length.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

Bounds on Information Propagation in Disordered Quantum Spin Chains

We investigate the propagation of information through the disordered XY model. We find, with a probability that increases with the size of the system, that all correlations, both classical and quantum, are suppressed outside of an effective lightcone whose radius grows at most polylogarithmically with |t|.Comment: 4 pages, pdflatex, 1 pdf figure. Corrected the bound for the localised propagator and quantified the probability it bound occur

On the comparison of stable and unstable P-completion

In this note we show that a p-complete nilpotent space X has a p-complete suspension spectrum if and only if its homotopy groups pi X-* are bounded p-torsion. In contrast, if pi X-* is not all bounded p-torsion, we locate uncountable rational vector spaces in the integral homology and in the stable homotopy groups of X. To prove this, we establish a homological criterion for p-completeness of connective spectra. Moreover, we illustrate our results by studying the stable homotopy groups of K(Z(p), n) via Goodwillie calculus

On single-photon quantum key distribution in the presence of loss

We investigate two-way and one-way single-photon quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols in the presence of loss introduced by the quantum channel. Our analysis is based on a simple precondition for secure QKD in each case. In particular, the legitimate users need to prove that there exists no separable state (in the case of two-way QKD), or that there exists no quantum state having a symmetric extension (one-way QKD), that is compatible with the available measurements results. We show that both criteria can be formulated as a convex optimisation problem known as a semidefinite program, which can be efficiently solved. Moreover, we prove that the solution to the dual optimisation corresponds to the evaluation of an optimal witness operator that belongs to the minimal verification set of them for the given two-way (or one-way) QKD protocol. A positive expectation value of this optimal witness operator states that no secret key can be distilled from the available measurements results. We apply such analysis to several well-known single-photon QKD protocols under losses.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Approximate locality for quantum systems on graphs

In this Letter we make progress on a longstanding open problem of Aaronson and Ambainis [Theory of Computing 1, 47 (2005)]: we show that if A is the adjacency matrix of a sufficiently sparse low-dimensional graph then the unitary operator e^{itA} can be approximated by a unitary operator U(t) whose sparsity pattern is exactly that of a low-dimensional graph which gets more dense as |t| increases. Secondly, we show that if U is a sparse unitary operator with a gap \Delta in its spectrum, then there exists an approximate logarithm H of U which is also sparse. The sparsity pattern of H gets more dense as 1/\Delta increases. These two results can be interpreted as a way to convert between local continuous-time and local discrete-time processes. As an example we show that the discrete-time coined quantum walk can be realised as an approximately local continuous-time quantum walk. Finally, we use our construction to provide a definition for a fractional quantum fourier transform.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, corrected typ

Advances in Composite Manufacturing of Helicopter Parts

This study investigates and compares different methods for improving standard autoclave composite manufacturing in order to find suitable approaches to a more efficient composite production. The goal is not only a reduction in manufacturing times and costs but also quality enhancement. Improved part quality while decreasing costs enables a manufacturer of composite parts to expand its market share, especially in the helicopter market, which has been constantly shrinking over the last two years. Various approaches such as improved tooling technology, the use of automated systems for lamination as well as outsourcing are examined to provide an overview of possible advancements in the area of autoclave manufacturing. The results firstly suggest that a thermal tooling optimization provides significant improvements; secondly, the use of automated systems and outsourcing will improve efficiency only under the condition that the relationship of potential cost reduction and the required investment is beneficial