Spectral properties of photon pairs generated by spontaneous four wave mixing in inhomogeneous photonic crystal fibers

The photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is one of the excellent media for generating photon pairs via spontaneous four wave mixing. Here we study how the inhomogeneity of PCFs affect the spectral properties of photon pairs from both the theoretical and experimental aspects. The theoretical model shows that the photon pairs born in different place of the inhomogeneous PCF are coherently superposed, and a modulation in the broadened spectrum of phase matching function will appear, which prevents the realization of spectral factorable photon pairs. In particular, the inhomogeneity induced modulation can be examined by measuring the spectrum of individual signal or idler field when the asymmetric group velocity matching is approximately fulfilled. Our experiments are performed by tailoring the spectrum of pulsed pump to satisfy the specified phase matching condition. The observed spectra of individual signal photons, which are produced from different segments of the 1.9 m inhomogeneous PCF, agree with the theoretical predictions. The investigations are not only useful for fiber based quantum state engineering, but also provide a dependable method to test the homogeneity of PCF.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev.

A coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical model of jointed hard rock for compressed air energy storage

Renewable energy resources such as wind and solar are intermittent, which causes instability when being connected to utility grid of electricity. Compressed air energy storage (CAES) provides an economic and technical viable solution to this problem by utilizing subsurface rock cavern to store the electricity generated by renewable energy in the form of compressed air. Though CAES has been used for over three decades, it is only restricted to salt rock or aquifers for air tightness reason. In this paper, the technical feasibility of utilizing hard rock for CAES is investigated by using a coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) modelling of nonisothermal gas flow. Governing equations are derived from the rules of energy balance, mass balance, and static equilibrium. Cyclic volumetric mass source and heat source models are applied to simulate the gas injection and production. Evaluation is carried out for intact rock and rock with discrete crack, respectively. In both cases, the heat and pressure losses using air mass control and supplementary air injection are compared

Joint measurement of multiple noncommuting parameters

Although quantum metrology allows us to make precision measurements beyond the standard quantum limit, it mostly works on the measurement of only one observable due to the Heisenberg uncertainty relation on the measurement precision of noncommuting observables for one system. In this paper, we study the schemes of joint measurement of multiple observables which do not commute with each other using the quantum entanglement between two systems. We focus on analyzing the performance of a SU(1,1) nonlinear interferometer on fulfilling the task of joint measurement. The results show that the information encoded in multiple noncommuting observables on an optical field can be simultaneously measured with a signal-to-noise ratio higher than the standard quantum limit, and the ultimate limit of each observable is still the Heisenberg limit. Moreover, we find a resource conservation rule for the joint measurement

V2V Routing in VANET Based on Heuristic Q-Learning

Designing efficient routing algorithms in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) plays an important role in the emerging intelligent transportation systems. In this paper, a routing algorithm based on the improved Q-learning is proposed for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications in VANETs. Firstly, a link maintenance time model is established, and the maintenance time is taken as an important parameter in the design of routing algorithm to ensure the reliability of each hop link. Aiming at the low efficiency and slow convergence of Q-learning, heuristic function and evaluation function are introduced to accelerate the update of Q-value of current optimal action, reduce unnecessary exploration, accelerate the convergence speed of Q-learning process and improve learning efficiency. The learning task is dispersed in each vehicle node in the new routing algorithm and it maintains the reliable routing path by periodically exchanging beacon information with surrounding nodes, guides the node’s forwarding action by combining the delay information between nodes to improve the efficiency of data forwarding. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by NS2 simulator. The results show that the algorithm has a good effect on the package delivery rate and end-to-end delay

V2V Routing in VANET Based on Fuzzy Logic and Reinforcement Learning

To ensure the transmission quality of real-time communications on the road, the research of routing protocol is crucial to improve effectiveness of data transmission in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). The existing work Q-Learning based routing algorithm, QLAODV, is studied and its problems, including slow convergence speed and low accuracy, are found. Hence, we propose a new routing algorithm FLHQRP by considering the characteristics of real-time communication in VANETs in the paper. The virtual grid is introduced to divide the vehicle network into clusters. The node’s centrality and mobility, and bandwidth efficiency are processed by the Fuzzy Logic system to select the most suitable cluster head (CH) with the stable communication links in the cluster. A new heuristic function is also proposed in FLHQRP algorithm. It takes cluster as the environment state of heuristic Q-learning, by considering the delay to guide the forwarding process of the CH. This can speed up the learning convergence, and reduce the impact of node density on the convergence speed and accuracy of Q-learning. The problem of QLAODV is solved in the proposed algorithm since the experimental results show that FLHQRP has many advantages on delivery rate, end-to-end delay, and average hops in different network scenarios