1,503 research outputs found
Shot noise and conductivity at high bias in bilayer graphene: Signatures of electron-optical phonon coupling
We have studied electronic conductivity and shot noise of bilayer graphene
(BLG) sheets at high bias voltages and low bath temperature K. As a
function of bias, we find initially an increase of the differential
conductivity, which we attribute to self-heating. At higher bias, the
conductivity saturates and even decreases due to backscattering from optical
phonons. The electron-phonon interactions are also responsible for the decay of
the Fano factor at bias voltages V. The high bias electronic
temperature has been calculated from shot noise measurements, and it goes up to
K at V. Using the theoretical temperature dependence of BLG
conductivity, we extract an effective electron-optical phonon scattering time
. In a 230 nm long BLG sample of mobility
cmVs, we find that decreases with increasing
voltage and is close to the charged impurity scattering time fs
at V.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Extended version of the high bias part of version
1. The low bias part is discussed in arXiv:1102.065
Error Prevention Scheme with Four Particles
It is shown that a simplified version of the error correction code recently
suggested by Shor exhibits manifestation of the quantum Zeno effect. Thus,
under certain conditions, protection of an unknown quantum state is achieved.
Error prevention procedures based on four-particle and two-particle encoding
are proposed and it is argued that they have feasible practical
implementations.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, references updated and improved protocol adde
Parthenium Weed (Parthenium hysterophorus L.) Research in Ethiopia: Impacts on Food Production, Plant Biodiversity and Human Health
The highly competitive, adaptable and allergenic weed Parthenium hysterophorus (Compositae) is an invasive annual weed believed to be introduced to Ethiopia in 1970s. Field surveys, plant biodiversity impacts, and analysis of secondary plant compounds in P. hysterophorus and its possible impact on human health have been studied in Ethiopia since 1998. The weed has invaded a variety of habitats ranging from roadsides to grasslands and crop fields. Infestations were found to be greater than 20 plants per m2 and yield losses in sorghum reached 46-97% depending on the location and year. In grasslands dominated by parthenium, native plant species composition and abundance was found to be low. Manual control of parthenium by farmers resulted in the development of skin allergies, itching, fever, and asthma. These reactions could be attributed to the presence of secondary plant compounds (parthenin, chlorogenic acid, isocholorogenic acid, vanilic acid and caffeic acid) which were found in parthenium with significant variation in their concentrations among the different plant parts, dependent on plant locality, moisture content and plant size. The social cost of parthenium in Ethiopia was measured by Disability Adjusted Life Years and its equivalence in terms of monetary value was estimated at US$ 2,535,887 - 4,365,057. More resources have to be invested to tackle the parthenium problem as the estimated loss is disproportionate to the cost of investment in parthenium research and development activities
Quantum Lightning Never Strikes the Same State Twice
Public key quantum money can be seen as a version of the quantum no-cloning
theorem that holds even when the quantum states can be verified by the
adversary. In this work, investigate quantum lightning, a formalization of
"collision-free quantum money" defined by Lutomirski et al. [ICS'10], where
no-cloning holds even when the adversary herself generates the quantum state to
be cloned. We then study quantum money and quantum lightning, showing the
following results:
- We demonstrate the usefulness of quantum lightning by showing several
potential applications, such as generating random strings with a proof of
entropy, to completely decentralized cryptocurrency without a block-chain,
where transactions is instant and local.
- We give win-win results for quantum money/lightning, showing that either
signatures/hash functions/commitment schemes meet very strong recently proposed
notions of security, or they yield quantum money or lightning.
- We construct quantum lightning under the assumed multi-collision resistance
of random degree-2 systems of polynomials.
- We show that instantiating the quantum money scheme of Aaronson and
Christiano [STOC'12] with indistinguishability obfuscation that is secure
against quantum computers yields a secure quantum money schem
Continuous variable quantum cryptography
We propose a quantum cryptographic scheme in which small phase and amplitude
modulations of CW light beams carry the key information. The presence of EPR
type correlations provides the quantum protection.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Neurophysiology
Contains reports on two research projects.Teagle Foundation, IncorporatedNational Institutes of HealthBell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporate
Universally Composable Quantum Multi-Party Computation
The Universal Composability model (UC) by Canetti (FOCS 2001) allows for
secure composition of arbitrary protocols. We present a quantum version of the
UC model which enjoys the same compositionality guarantees. We prove that in
this model statistically secure oblivious transfer protocols can be constructed
from commitments. Furthermore, we show that every statistically classically UC
secure protocol is also statistically quantum UC secure. Such implications are
not known for other quantum security definitions. As a corollary, we get that
quantum UC secure protocols for general multi-party computation can be
constructed from commitments
Gyroid Optical Metamaterials: Calculating the Effective Permittivity of Multidomain Samples
Gold gyroid optical metamaterials are known to possess a reduced plasma frequency and linear dichroism imparted by their intricate subwavelength single gyroid morphology. The anisotropic optical properties are, however, only evident when a large individual gyroid domain is investigated. Multidomain gyroid metamaterials, fabricated using a polyisoprene--polystyrene--poly(ethylene oxide) triblock terpolymer and consisting of multiple small gyroid domains with random orientation and handedness, instead exhibit isotropic optical properties. Comparing three effective medium models, we here show that the specular reflectance spectra of such multidomain gyroid optical metamaterials can be accurately modeled over a broad range of incident angles by a Bruggeman effective medium consisting of a random wire array. This model accurately reproduces previously published results tracking the variation in normal incidence reflectance spectra of gold gyroid optical metamaterials as a function of host refractive index and volume fill fraction of gold. The effective permittivity derived from this theory confirms the change in sign of the real part of the permittivity in the visible spectral region (so, that gold gyroid metamaterials exhibit both dielectric and metallic behavior at optical wavelengths). That a Bruggeman effective medium can accurately model the experimental reflectance spectra implies that small multidomain gold gyroid optical metamaterials behave both qualitatively and quantitatively as an amorphous composite of gold and air (i.e., nanoporous gold) and that coherent electromagnetic contributions arising from the subwavelength gyroid symmetry are not dominant.This research was supported through the Swiss National Science Foundation through the National Center of Competence in Research Bio-Inspired Materials and grant numbers 200021_163220 (to U.S.) and PZ00P2_168223 (to B.D.W.), the Adolphe Merkle Foundation, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the Cambridge NanoDTC EP/G037221/1, EP/L027151/1, and EP/ G060649/1, and ERC LINASS 320503 and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 706329 (to I.G.). Y.G. and U.W. thank the National Science Foundation (DMR-1409105) for financial support
What science can do for democracy – A complexity science approach
Political scientists have conventionally assumed that achieving democracy is a one-way ratchet. Only very recently has the question of ‘democratic backsliding’ attracted any research attention. We argue that democratic instability is best understood with tools from complexity science. The explanatory power of complexity science arises from several features of complex systems. Their relevance in the context of democracy is discussed. Several policy recommendations are offered to help (re)stabilize current systems of representative democracy
One-Way Entangled-Photon Autocompensating Quantum Cryptography
A new quantum cryptography implementation is presented that combines one-way
operation with an autocompensating feature that has hitherto only been
available in implementations that require the signal to make a round trip
between the users. Using the concept of advanced waves, it is shown that this
new implementation is related to the round-trip implementations in the same way
that Ekert's two-particle scheme is related to the original one-particle scheme
of Bennett and Brassard. The practical advantages and disadvantages of the
proposed implementation are discussed in the context of existing schemes.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; Minor edits--conclusions unchanged; accepted for
publication in Physical Review
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