809 research outputs found
Quantum-fluctuation-induced repelling interaction of quantum string between walls
Quantum string, which was brought into discussion recently as a model for the
stripe phase in doped cuprates, is simulated by means of the
density-matrix-renormalization-group method. String collides with adjacent
neighbors, as it wonders, owing to quantum zero-point fluctuations. The energy
cost due to the collisions is our main concern. Embedding a quantum string
between rigid walls with separation d, we found that for sufficiently large d,
collision-induced energy cost obeys the formula \sim exp (- A d^alpha) with
alpha=0.808(1), and string's mean fluctuation width grows logarithmically \sim
log d. Those results are not understood in terms of conventional picture that
the string is `disordered,' and only the short-wave-length fluctuations
contribute to collisions. Rather, our results support a recent proposal that
owing to collisions, short-wave-length fluctuations are suppressed, but
instead, long-wave-length fluctuations become significant. This mechanism would
be responsible for stabilizing the stripe phase
Metal-insulator transition in the one-dimensional Holstein model at half filling
We study the one-dimensional Holstein model with spin-1/2 electrons at
half-filling. Ground state properties are calculated for long chains with great
accuracy using the density matrix renormalization group method and extrapolated
to the thermodynamic limit. We show that for small electron-phonon coupling or
large phonon frequency, the insulating Peierls ground state predicted by
mean-field theory is destroyed by quantum lattice fluctuations and that the
system remains in a metallic phase with a non-degenerate ground state and
power-law electronic and phononic correlations. When the electron-phonon
coupling becomes large or the phonon frequency small, the system undergoes a
transition to an insulating Peierls phase with a two-fold degenerate ground
state, long-range charge-density-wave order, a dimerized lattice structure, and
a gap in the electronic excitation spectrum.Comment: 6 pages (LaTex), 10 eps figure
Quantum-fluctuation-induced collisions and subsequent excitation gap of an elastic string between walls
An elastic string embedded between rigid walls is simulated by means of the
density-matrix renormalization group. The string collides against the walls
owing to the quantum-mechanical zero-point fluctuations. Such ``quantum
entropic'' interaction has come under thorough theoretical investigation in the
context of the stripe phase observed experimentally in doped cuprates. We found
that the excitation gap opens in the form of exponential singularity DeltaE ~
exp(-Ad^sigma) (d: wall spacing) with the exponent sigma =0.6(3), which is
substantially smaller than the meanfield value sigma=2. That is, the excitation
gap is much larger than that anticipated from meanfield, suggesting that the
string is subjected to robust pinning potential due to the quantum collisions.
This feature supports Zaanen's ``order out of disorder'' mechanism which would
be responsible to the stabilization of the stripe phase
The power of quantum systems on a line
We study the computational strength of quantum particles (each of finite
dimensionality) arranged on a line. First, we prove that it is possible to
perform universal adiabatic quantum computation using a one-dimensional quantum
system (with 9 states per particle). This might have practical implications for
experimentalists interested in constructing an adiabatic quantum computer.
Building on the same construction, but with some additional technical effort
and 12 states per particle, we show that the problem of approximating the
ground state energy of a system composed of a line of quantum particles is
QMA-complete; QMA is a quantum analogue of NP. This is in striking contrast to
the fact that the analogous classical problem, namely, one-dimensional
MAX-2-SAT with nearest neighbor constraints, is in P. The proof of the
QMA-completeness result requires an additional idea beyond the usual techniques
in the area: Not all illegal configurations can be ruled out by local checks,
so instead we rule out such illegal configurations because they would, in the
future, evolve into a state which can be seen locally to be illegal. Our
construction implies (assuming the quantum Church-Turing thesis and that
quantum computers cannot efficiently solve QMA-complete problems) that there
are one-dimensional systems which take an exponential time to relax to their
ground states at any temperature, making them candidates for being
one-dimensional spin glasses.Comment: 21 pages. v2 has numerous corrections and clarifications, and most
importantly a new author, merged from arXiv:0705.4067. v3 is the published
version, with additional clarifications, publisher's version available at
http://www.springerlink.co
Proton radiation effect on InAs avalanche photodiodes
With increasing interest over the past decade in space-related remote sensing and communications using near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths, there is a need for radiation studies on NIR avalanche photodiodes (APDs), due to the high radiation environment in space. In this work, we present an experimental study of proton radiation effects on performance parameters of InAs APDs, whose sensitivity extends from visible light to ∼3.5 μm. Three irradiation energies (10.0, 31.4, and 58.8 MeV) and four fluences (109 to 1011 p/cm2) were used. At the harshest irradiation condition (10.0 MeV energy and 1011 p/cm2 fluence) the APDs' avalanche gain and leakage current showed a measurable degradation. However, the responsivity of the APDs was unaffected under all conditions tested. The data reported in this article is available from the figshare digital repository (DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15131/shef.data.4560562)
Direct observation of the effective bending moduli of a fluid membrane: Free-energy cost due to the reference-plane deformations
Effective bending moduli of a fluid membrane are investigated by means of the
transfer-matrix method developed in our preceding paper. This method allows us
to survey various statistical measures for the partition sum. The role of the
statistical measures is arousing much attention, since Pinnow and Helfrich
claimed that under a suitable statistical measure, that is, the local mean
curvature, the fluid membranes are stiffened, rather than softened, by thermal
undulations. In this paper, we propose an efficient method to observe the
effective bending moduli directly: We subjected a fluid membrane to a curved
reference plane, and from the free-energy cost due to the reference-plane
deformations, we read off the effective bending moduli. Accepting the
mean-curvature measure, we found that the effective bending rigidity gains even
in the case of very flexible membrane (small bare rigidity); it has been rather
controversial that for such non-perturbative regime, the analytical prediction
does apply. We also incorporate the Gaussian-curvature modulus, and calculated
its effective rigidity. Thereby, we found that the effective Gaussian-curvature
modulus stays almost scale-invariant. All these features are contrasted with
the results under the normal-displacement measure
Proximity effect in ultrathin Pb/Ag multilayers within the Cooper limit
We report on transport and tunneling measurements performed on ultra-thin
Pb/Ag (strong coupled superconductor/normal metal) multilayers evaporated by
quench condensation. The critical temperature and energy gap of the
heterostructures oscillate with addition of each layer, demonstrating the
validity of the Cooper limit model in the case of multilayers. We observe
excellent agreement with a simple theory for samples with layer thickness
larger than 30\AA . Samples with single layers thinner than 30\AA deviate from
the Cooper limit theory. We suggest that this is due to the "inverse proximity
effect" where the normal metal electrons improve screening in the
superconducting ultrathin layer and thus enhance the critical temperature.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Destruction of diagonal and off-diagonal long range order by disorder in two-dimensional hard core boson systems
We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the effect of disorder, in
the form of a disordered chemical potential, on the phase diagram of the hard
core bosonic Hubbard model in two dimensions. We find numerical evidence that
in two dimensions, no matter how weak the disorder, it will always destroy the
long range density wave order (checkerboard solid) present at half filling and
strong nearest neighbor repulsion and replace it with a bose glass phase. We
study the properties of this glassy phase including the superfluid density,
energy gaps and the full Green's function. We also study the possibility of
other localized phases at weak nearest neighbor repulsion, i.e. Anderson
localization. We find that such a phase does not truly exist: The disorder must
exceed a threshold before the bosons (at weak nn repulsion) are localized. The
phase diagram for hard core bosons with disorder cannot be obtained easily from
the soft core phase diagram discussed in the literature.Comment: 7 pages, 10 eps figures include
Exponential Decay of Correlations Implies Area Law
We prove that a finite correlation length, i.e. exponential decay of
correlations, implies an area law for the entanglement entropy of quantum
states defined on a line. The entropy bound is exponential in the correlation
length of the state, thus reproducing as a particular case Hastings proof of an
area law for groundstates of 1D gapped Hamiltonians.
As a consequence, we show that 1D quantum states with exponential decay of
correlations have an efficient classical approximate description as a matrix
product state of polynomial bond dimension, thus giving an equivalence between
injective matrix product states and states with a finite correlation length.
The result can be seen as a rigorous justification, in one dimension, of the
intuition that states with exponential decay of correlations, usually
associated with non-critical phases of matter, are simple to describe. It also
has implications for quantum computing: It shows that unless a pure state
quantum computation involves states with long-range correlations, decaying at
most algebraically with the distance, it can be efficiently simulated
classically.
The proof relies on several previous tools from quantum information theory -
including entanglement distillation protocols achieving the hashing bound,
properties of single-shot smooth entropies, and the quantum substate theorem -
and also on some newly developed ones. In particular we derive a new bound on
correlations established by local random measurements, and we give a
generalization to the max-entropy of a result of Hastings concerning the
saturation of mutual information in multiparticle systems. The proof can also
be interpreted as providing a limitation on the phenomenon of data hiding in
quantum states.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figures; v2 minor corrections; v3 published versio
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