4,056 research outputs found
Prying the lid from the black box: Plotting evaluation strategy for welfare employment and training programs
Upper limits on gravitational-wave signals based on loudest events
Searches for gravitational-wave bursts have often focused on the loudest
event(s) in searching for detections and in determining upper limits on
astrophysical populations. Typical upper limits have been reported on event
rates and event amplitudes which can then be translated into constraints on
astrophysical populations. We describe the mathematical construction of such
upper limits.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur
Adiabatic Elimination in Compound Quantum Systems with Feedback
Feedback in compound quantum systems is effected by using the output from one
sub-system (``the system'') to control the evolution of a second sub-system
(``the ancilla'') which is reversibly coupled to the system. In the limit where
the ancilla responds to fluctuations on a much shorter time scale than does the
system, we show that it can be adiabatically eliminated, yielding a master
equation for the system alone. This is very significant as it decreases the
necessary basis size for numerical simulation and allows the effect of the
ancilla to be understood more easily. We consider two types of ancilla: a
two-level ancilla (e.g. a two-level atom) and an infinite-level ancilla (e.g.
an optical mode). For each, we consider two forms of feedback: coherent (for
which a quantum mechanical description of the feedback loop is required) and
incoherent (for which a classical description is sufficient). We test the
master equations we obtain using numerical simulation of the full dynamics of
the compound system. For the system (a parametric oscillator) and feedback
(intensity-dependent detuning) we choose, good agreement is found in the limit
of heavy damping of the ancilla. We discuss the relation of our work to
previous work on feedback in compound quantum systems, and also to previous
work on adiabatic elimination in general.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures including two subplots as jpeg attachment
A personalised medicine approach for ponatinib-resistant chronic myeloid leukaemia.
BACKGROUND: Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is characterised by the presence of a fusion driver oncogene, BCR-ABL1, which is a constitutive tyrosine kinase. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are the central treatment strategy for CML patients and have significantly improved survival rates, but the T315I mutation in the kinase domain of BCR-ABL1 confers resistance to all clinically approved TKIs, except ponatinib. However, compound mutations can mediate resistance even to ponatinib and remain a clinical challenge in CML therapy. Here, we investigated a ponatinib-resistant CML patient through whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to identify the cause of resistance and to find alternative therapeutic targets. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We carried out WGS on a ponatinib-resistant CML patient and demonstrated an effective combination therapy against the primary CML cells derived from this patient in vitro. RESULTS: Our findings demonstrate the emergence of compound mutations in the BCR-ABL1 kinase domain following ponatinib treatment, and chromosomal structural variation data predicted amplification of BCL2. The primary CD34(+) CML cells from this patient showed increased sensitivity to the combination of ponatinib and ABT-263, a BCL2 inhibitor with a negligible effect against the normal CD34(+) cells. CONCLUSION: Our results show the potential of personalised medicine approaches in TKI-resistant CML patients and provide a strategy that could improve clinical outcomes for these patients
In-loop squeezing is real squeezing to an in-loop atom
Electro-optical feedback can produce an in-loop photocurrent with arbitrarily
low noise. This is not regarded as evidence of `real' squeezing because
squeezed light cannot be extracted from the loop using a linear beam splitter.
Here I show that illuminating an atom (which is a nonlinear optical element)
with `in-loop' squeezed light causes line-narrowing of one quadrature of the
atom's fluorescence. This has long been regarded as an effect which can only be
produced by squeezing. Experiments on atoms using in-loop squeezing should be
much easier than those with conventional sources of squeezed light.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR
Adaptive single-shot phase measurements: The full quantum theory
The phase of a single-mode field can be measured in a single-shot measurement
by interfering the field with an effectively classical local oscillator of
known phase. The standard technique is to have the local oscillator detuned
from the system (heterodyne detection) so that it is sometimes in phase and
sometimes in quadrature with the system over the course of the measurement.
This enables both quadratures of the system to be measured, from which the
phase can be estimated. One of us [H.M. Wiseman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4587
(1995)] has shown recently that it is possible to make a much better estimate
of the phase by using an adaptive technique in which a resonant local
oscillator has its phase adjusted by a feedback loop during the single-shot
measurement. In Ref.~[H.M. Wiseman and R.B. Killip, Phys. Rev. A 56, 944] we
presented a semiclassical analysis of a particular adaptive scheme, which
yielded asymptotic results for the phase variance of strong fields. In this
paper we present an exact quantum mechanical treatment. This is necessary for
calculating the phase variance for fields with small photon numbers, and also
for considering figures of merit other than the phase variance. Our results
show that an adaptive scheme is always superior to heterodyne detection as far
as the variance is concerned. However the tails of the probability distribution
are surprisingly high for this adaptive measurement, so that it does not always
result in a smaller probability of error in phase-based optical communication.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures (concatenated), Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Entanglement distribution by an arbitrarily inept delivery service
We consider the scenario where a company C manufactures in bulk pure
entangled pairs of particles, each pair intended for a distinct pair of distant
customers. Unfortunately, its delivery service is inept - the probability that
any given customer pair receives its intended particles is S, and the customers
cannot detect whether an error has occurred. Remarkably, no matter how small S
is, it is still possible for C to distribute entanglement by starting with
non-maximally entangled pairs. We determine the maximum entanglement
distributable for a given S, and also determine the ability of the parties to
perform nonlocal tasks with the qubits they receive.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. v2 includes minor change
The Uncertainty Relation in "Which-Way" Experiments: How to Observe Directly the Momentum Transfer using Weak Values
A which-way measurement destroys the twin-slit interference pattern. Bohr
argued that distinguishing between two slits a distance s apart gives the
particle a random momentum transfer \wp of order h/s. This was accepted for
more than 60 years, until Scully, Englert and Walther (SEW) proposed a
which-way scheme that, they claimed, entailed no momentum transfer. Storey,
Tan, Collett and Walls (STCW) in turn proved a theorem that, they claimed,
showed that Bohr was right. This work reviews and extends a recent proposal
[Wiseman, Phys. Lett. A 311, 285 (2003)] to resolve the issue using a
weak-valued probability distribution for momentum transfer, P_wv(\wp). We show
that P_wv(\wp) must be wider than h/6s. However, its moments can still be zero
because P_wv(\wp) is not necessarily positive definite. Nevertheless, it is
measurable in a way understandable to a classical physicist. We introduce a new
measure of spread for P_wv(\wp): half of the unit-confidence interval, and
conjecture that it is never less than h/4s. For an idealized example with
infinitely narrow slits, the moments of P_wv(\wp) and of the momentum
distributions are undefined unless a process of apodization is used. We show
that by considering successively smoother initial wave functions, successively
more moments of both P_wv(\wp) and the momentum distributions become defined.
For this example the moments of P_wv(\wp) are zero, and these are equal to the
changes in the moments of the momentum distribution. We prove that this
relation holds for schemes in which the moments of P_wv(\wp) are non-zero, but
only for the first two moments. We also compare these moments to those of two
other momentum-transfer distributions and \hat{p}_f-\hat{p}_i. We find
agreement between all of these, but again only for the first two moments.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, submitted to J. Opt.
Multiple-copy state discrimination: Thinking globally, acting locally
We theoretically investigate schemes to discriminate between two
nonorthogonal quantum states given multiple copies. We consider a number of
state discrimination schemes as applied to nonorthogonal, mixed states of a
qubit. In particular, we examine the difference that local and global
optimization of local measurements makes to the probability of obtaining an
erroneous result, in the regime of finite numbers of copies , and in the
asymptotic limit as . Five schemes are considered:
optimal collective measurements over all copies, locally optimal local
measurements in a fixed single-qubit measurement basis, globally optimal fixed
local measurements, locally optimal adaptive local measurements, and globally
optimal adaptive local measurements. Here, adaptive measurements are those for
which the measurement basis can depend on prior measurement results. For each
of these measurement schemes we determine the probability of error (for finite
) and scaling of this error in the asymptotic limit. In the asymptotic
limit, adaptive schemes have no advantage over the optimal fixed local scheme,
and except for states with less than 2% mixture, the most naive scheme (locally
optimal fixed local measurements) is as good as any noncollective scheme. For
finite , however, the most sophisticated local scheme (globally optimal
adaptive local measurements) is better than any other noncollective scheme, for
any degree of mixture.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figure
- âŠ