Random Control over Quantum Open Systems

Parametric fluctuations or stochastic signals are introduced into the control pulse sequence to investigate the feasibility of random control over quantum open systems. In a large parameter error region, the out-of-order control pulses work as well as the regular pulses for dynamical decoupling and dissipation suppression. Calculations and analysis are based on a non-perturbative control approach allowed by an exact quantum-state-diffusion equation. When the average frequency and duration of the pulse sequence take proper values, the random control sequence is robust, fault- tolerant, and insensitive to pulse strength deviations and interpulse temporal separation in the quasi-periodic sequence. This relaxes the operational requirements placed on quantum control experiments to a great deal.Comment: 7 pages, 6 firgure

Symmetry restoration and quantumness reestablishment

A realistic quantum many-body system, characterized by a generic microscopic Hamiltonian, is accessible only through approximation methods. The mean field theories, as the simplest practices of approximation methods, commonly serve as a powerful tool, but unfortunately often violate the symmetry of the Hamiltonian. The conventional BCS theory, as an excellent mean field approach, violates the particle number conservation and completely erases quantumness characterized by concurrence and quantum discord between different modes. We restore the symmetry by using the projected BCS theory and the exact numerical solution and find that the lost quantumness is synchronously reestablished. We show that while entanglement remains unchanged with the particle numbers, quantum discord behaves as an extensive quantity with respect to the system size. Surprisingly, discord is hardly dependent on the interaction strengths. The new feature of discord offers promising applications in modern quantum technologies.Comment: 17 pages and 3 figure

Use of isotope dilution method to predict bioavailability of organic pollutants in historically contaminated sediments.

Many cases of severe environmental contamination arise from historical episodes, where recalcitrant contaminants have resided in the environment for a prolonged time, leading to potentially decreased bioavailability. Use of bioavailable concentrations over bulk chemical levels improves risk assessment and may play a critical role in determining the need for remediation or assessing the effectiveness of risk mitigation operations. In this study, we applied the principle of isotope dilution to quantify bioaccessibility of legacy contaminants DDT and PCBs in marine sediments from a Superfund site. After addition of 13C or deuterated analogues to a sediment sample, the isotope dilution reached a steady state within 24 h of mixing. At the steady state, the accessible fraction (E) derived by the isotope dilution method (IDM) ranged from 0.28 to 0.89 and was substantially smaller than 1 for most compounds, indicating reduced availability of the extensively aged residues. A strong linear relationship (R2=0.86) was found between E and the sum of rapid (Fr) and slow (Fs) desorption fractions determined by sequential Tenax desorption. The IDM-derived accessible concentration (Ce) was further shown to correlate closely with tissue residue in the marine benthic polychaete Neanthes arenaceodentata exposed in the same sediments. As shown in this study, the IDM approach involves only a few simple steps and may be readily adopted in laboratories equipped with mass spectrometers. This novel method is expected to be especially useful for historically contaminated sediments or soils, for which contaminant bioavailability may have changed significantly due to aging and other sequestration processes

Non-perturbative Dynamical Decoupling Control: A Spin Chain Model

This paper considers a spin chain model by numerically solving the exact model to explore the non-perturbative dynamical decoupling regime, where an important issue arises recently (J. Jing, L.-A. Wu, J. Q. You and T. Yu, arXiv:1202.5056.). Our study has revealed a few universal features of non-perturbative dynamical control irrespective of the types of environments and system-environment couplings. We have shown that, for the spin chain model, there is a threshold and a large pulse parameter region where the effective dynamical control can be implemented, in contrast to the perturbative decoupling schemes where the permissible parameters are represented by a point or converge to a very small subset in the large parameter region admitted by our non-perturbative approach. An important implication of the non-perturbative approach is its flexibility in implementing the dynamical control scheme in a experimental setup. Our findings have exhibited several interesting features of the non-perturbative regimes such as the chain-size independence, pulse strength upper-bound, noncontinuous valid parameter regions, etc. Furthermore, we find that our non-perturbative scheme is robust against randomness in model fabrication and time-dependent random noise