10,601 research outputs found
Full control of qubit rotations in a voltage-biased superconducting flux qubit
We study a voltage-controlled version of the superconducting flux qubit
[Chiorescu et al., Science 299, 1869 (2003)] and show that full control of
qubit rotations on the entire Bloch sphere can be achieved. Circuit graph
theory is used to study a setup where voltage sources are attached to the two
superconducting islands formed between the three Josephson junctions in the
flux qubit. Applying a voltage allows qubit rotations about the y axis, in
addition to pure x and z rotations obtained in the absence of applied voltages.
The orientation and magnitude of the rotation axis on the Bloch sphere can be
tuned by the gate voltages, the external magnetic flux, and the ratio alpha
between the Josephson energies via a flux-tunable junction. We compare the
single-qubit control in the known regime alpha<1 with the unexplored range
alpha>1 and estimate the decoherence due to voltage fluctuations.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 1 tabl
Testing Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter through LISA
The idea that primordial black holes (PBHs) can comprise most of the dark
matter of the universe has recently reacquired a lot of momentum. Observational
constraints, however, rule out this possibility for most of the PBH masses,
with a notable exception around . These light PBHs may be
originated when a sizeable comoving curvature perturbation generated during
inflation re-enters the horizon during the radiation phase. During such a
stage, it is unavoidable that gravitational waves (GWs) are generated. Since
their source is quadratic in the curvature perturbations, these GWs are
generated fully non-Gaussian. Their frequency today is about the mHz, which is
exactly the range where the LISA mission has the maximum of its sensitivity.
This is certainly an impressive coincidence. We show that this scenario of PBHs
as dark matter can be tested by LISA by measuring the GW two-point correlator.
On the other hand, we show that the short observation time (as compared to the
age of the universe) and propagation effects of the GWs across the perturbed
universe from the production point to the LISA detector suppress the bispectrum
to an unobservable level. This suppression is completely general and not
specific to our model.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures. v3: matching published versio
Mild behavioral impairment in Parkinson's disease: Data from the Parkinson's disease cognitive impairment study (PACOS)
Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) have been frequently described in Parkinson's disease (PD), even in the earliest stages of the disease. Recently the construct of mild behavioral impairment (MBI) has been proposed as an at-risk state for incident cognitive decline and dementia. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the prevalence and associated factors of MBI in PD. Cross-sectional data from 429 consecutive PD patients enrolled in the PArkinson's disease COgnitive impairment Study (PACOS) were included in the study. All subjects underwent neuropsychological assessment, according to the MDS Level II criteria. NPS were evaluated with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to evaluate clinical and behavioral characteristics, which are associated with PD-MBI. The latter was ascertained in 361 (84.1%) subjects of whom 155 (36.1%) were newly diagnosed patients (disease duration ≥1 year) and 206 (48.0%) had a disease duration <1 year. Furthermore, 68 (15.9%) out of 429 subjects were PDw (without MBI). Across the MBI domains, Impulse Dyscontrol was significantly more prevalent among PD-MBI with disease duration <1 year than newly diagnosed patients. The frequency of Social Inappropriateness and Abnormal Perception significantly increased throughout the entire PD-MBI sample with increasing Hoehn andYahr (H&Y) stages. PD-MBI in newly diagnosed PDwas significantly associated with H&Y stage (OR 2.35, 95% CI 1.05-5.24) and marginally with antidepressant drug use (OR 2.94, 95% CI 0.91-9.47), while in patients with a disease duration >1 year was associated with UPDRS-ME (OR 3.37, 95% CI 1.41-8.00). The overall MBI frequency in the PACOS sample was 84% and 36% among newly diagnosed patients. The presence of MBI mainly related to motor impairment and disability
Clues on the evolution of the Carina dwarf spheroidal galaxy from the color distribution of its red giant stars
The thin red giant branch (RGB) of the Carina dwarf spheroidal galaxy appears
at first sight quite puzzling and seemingly in contrast with the presence of
several distinct bursts of star formation. In this Letter, we provide a
measurement of the color spread of red giant stars in Carina based on new BVI
wide-field observations, and model the width of the RGB by means of synthetic
color-magnitude diagrams. The measured color spread, Sigma{V-I}=0.021 +/-
0.005, is quite naturally accounted for by the star-formation history of the
galaxy. The thin RGB appears to be essentially related to the limited age range
of its dominant stellar populations, with no need for a metallicity dispersion
at a given age. This result is relatively robust with respect to changes in the
assumed age-metallicity relation, as long as the mean metallicity over the
galaxy lifetime matches the observed value ([Fe/H] = -1.91 +/- 0.12 after
correction for the age effects). This analysis of photometric data also sets
some constraints on the chemical evolution of Carina by indicating that the
chemical abundance of the interstellar medium in Carina remained low throughout
each episode of star formation even though these episodes occurred over many
Gyr.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journal Letter
Nori 1-motives
Let EHM be Nori's category of effective homological mixed motives. In this
paper, we consider the thick abelian subcategory EHM_1 generated by the i-th
relative homology of pairs of varieties for i = 0,1. We show that EHM_1 is
naturally equivalent to the abelian category M_1 of Deligne 1-motives with
torsion; this is our main theorem. Along the way, we obtain several interesting
results. Firstly, we realize M_1 as the universal abelian category obtained,
using Nori's formalism, from the Betti representation of an explicit diagram of
curves. Secondly, we obtain a conceptual proof of a theorem of Vologodsky on
realizations of 1-motives. Thirdly, we verify a conjecture of Deligne on
extensions of 1-motives in the category of mixed realizations for those
extensions that are effective in Nori's sense
Perfectly Translating Lattices on a Cylinder
We perform molecular dynamics simulations on an interacting electron gas
confined to a cylindrical surface and subject to a radial magnetic field and
the field of the positive background. In order to study the system at lowest
energy states that still carry a current, initial configurations are obtained
by a special quenching procedure. We observe the formation of a steady state in
which the entire electron-lattice cycles with a common uniform velocity.
Certain runs show an intermediate instability leading to lattice
rearrangements. A Hall resistance can be defined and depends linearly on the
magnetic field with an anomalous coefficient reflecting the manybody
contributions peculiar to two dimensions.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics. IV: Generalization of Maxwell, Claussius-Clapeyron and Response Functions Relations, and the Prigogine-Defay Ratio for Systems in Internal Equilibrium
We follow the consequences of internal equilibrium in non-equilibrium systems
that has been introduced recently [Phys. Rev. E 81, 051130 (2010)] to obtain
the generalization of Maxwell's relation and the Clausius-Clapeyron relation
that are normally given for equilibrium systems. The use of Jacobians allow for
a more compact way to address the generalized Maxwell relations; the latter are
available for any number of internal variables. The Clausius-Clapeyron relation
in the subspace of observables show not only the non-equilibrium modification
but also the modification due to internal variables that play a dominant role
in glasses. Real systems do not directly turn into glasses (GL) that are frozen
structures from the supercooled liquid state L; there is an intermediate state
(gL) where the internal variables are not frozen. Thus, there is no single
glass transition. A system possess several kinds of glass transitions, some
conventional (L \rightarrow gL; gL\rightarrow GL) in which the state change
continuously and the transition mimics a continuous or second order transition,
and some apparent (L\rightarrow gL; L\rightarrow GL) in which the free energies
are discontinuous so that the transition appears as a zeroth order transition,
as discussed in the text. We evaluate the Prigogine-Defay ratio {\Pi} in the
subspace of the observables at these transitions. We find that it is normally
different from 1, except at the conventional transition L\rightarrow gL, where
{\Pi}=1 regardless of the number of internal variables.Comment: 42 pages, 3 figures, citations correcte
A candidate optical counterpart to the middle-aged gamma-ray pulsar PSR J1741-2054
We carried out deep optical observations of the middle-aged -ray
pulsar PSR J1741-2054 with the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We identified two
objects, of magnitudes and , at positions
consistent with the very accurate Chandra coordinates of the pulsar, the
faintest of which is more likely to be its counterpart. From the VLT images we
also detected the known bow-shock nebula around PSR J1741-2054. The nebula is
displaced by \sim 0\farcs9 (at the confidence level) with respect
to its position measured in archival data, showing that the shock propagates in
the interstellar medium consistently with the pulsar proper motion. Finally, we
could not find evidence of large-scale extended optical emission associated
with the pulsar wind nebula detected by Chandra, down to a surface brightness
limit of magnitudes arcsec. Future observations are needed
to confirm the optical identification of PSR J1741-2054 and characterise the
spectrum of its counterpart.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, Astrophysical Journal, in pres
Observations of three young gamma-ray pulsars with the Gran Telescopio Canarias
We report the analysis of the first deep optical observations of three
isolated -ray pulsars detected by the {\em Fermi Gamma-ray Space
Telescope}: the radio-loud PSR\, J0248+6021 and PSR\, J0631+1036, and the
radio-quiet PSR\, J0633+0632. The latter has also been detected in the X rays.
The pulsars are very similar in their spin-down age (40--60 kyrs),
spin-down energy ( erg s), and dipolar surface
magnetic field (-- G). These pulsars are promising
targets for multi-wavelength observations, since they have been already
detected in rays and in radio or X-rays. None of them has been
detected yet in the optical band. We observed the three pulsar fields in 2014
with the Spanish 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). We could not find any
candidate optical counterpart to the three pulsars close to their most recent
radio or {\em Chandra} positions down to limits of ,
, for PSR\, J0248+6021, J0631+1036, and J0633+0632,
respectively. From the inferred optical upper limits and estimated distance and
interstellar extinction, we derived limits on the pulsar optical luminosity. We
also searched for the X-ray counterpart to PSR\, J0248+6021 with \chan\ but we
did not detect the pulsar down to a 3 flux limit of
erg cm s (0.3--10 keV). For all these pulsars, we compared the
optical flux upper limits with the extrapolations in the optical domain of the
-ray spectra and compared their multi-wavelength properties with those
of other -ray pulsars of comparable age.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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