The entanglement dynamics of interacting qubits embedded in a spin environment with Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya term

We investigate the entanglement dynamics of two interacting qubits in a spin environment, which is described by an XY model with Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya (DM) interaction. The competing effects of environmental noise and interqubit coupling on entanglement generation for various system parameters are studied. We find that the entanglement generation is suppressed remarkably in weak-coupling region at quantum critical point (QCP). However, the suppression of the entanglement generation at QCP can be compensated both by increasing the DM interaction and by decreasing the anisotropy of the spin chain. Beyond the weak-coupling region, there exist resonance peaks of concurrence when the system-bath coupling equals to external magnetic field. We attribute the presence of resonance peaks to the flat band of the self-Hamiltonian. These peaks are highly sensitive to anisotropy parameter and DM interaction.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

Evolution of black-hole intermediate-mass X-ray binaries: the influence of a circumbinary disc

Justham, Rappaport & Podsiadlowski (2006) recently suggested that black-hole low-mass X-ray binaries (BHLMXBs) with short orbital periods may have evolved from black-hole intermediate-mass X-ray binaries (BHIMXBs). In their model the secondaries in BHIMXBs are assumed to possess anomalously high magnetic fields, so that magnetic braking can lead to substantial loss of angular momentum. In this paper we propose an alternative mechanism for orbital angular momentum loss in BHIMXBs. We assume that a small fraction $\delta$ of the transferred mass from the donor star form a circumbinary disc surrounding the binary system. The tidal torques exerted by the disc can effectively drain orbital angular momentum from the binary. We have numerically calculated the evolutionary sequences of BHIMXBs, to examine the influence of the circumbinary disc on the binary evolution. Our results indicate when \delta\la 0.01-0.1 (depending on the initial orbital periods), the circumbinary disc can cause secular orbital shrinking, leading to the formation of compact BHLMXBs, otherwise the orbits always expand during the evolution. This scenario also suggests the possible existence of luminous, persistent BHLMXBs, but it suffers the same problem as in Justham, Rappaport & Podsiadlowski (2006) that, the predicted effective temperatures of the donor stars are significantly higher than those of the observed donor stars in BHLMXBs.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Automatic Prediction Of Small Group Performance In Information Sharing Tasks

In this paper, we describe a novel approach, based on Markov jump processes, to model small group conversational dynamics and to predict small group performance. More precisely, we estimate conversational events such as turn taking, backchannels, turn-transitions at the micro-level (1 minute windows) and then we bridge the micro-level behavior and the macro-level performance. We tested our approach with a cooperative task, the Information Sharing task, and we verified the relevance of micro- level interaction dynamics in determining a good group performance (e.g. higher speaking turns rate and more balanced participation among group members).Comment: Presented at Collective Intelligence conference, 2012 (arXiv:1204.2991