2,560 research outputs found
An Adiabatic Theorem without a Gap Condition
The basic adiabatic theorems of classical and quantum mechanics are
over-viewed and an adiabatic theorem in quantum mechanics without a gap
condition is described.Comment: Talk at QMath 7, Prague, 1998. 10 pages, 7 figure
The expression pattern of MUC1 (EMA) is related to tumour characteristics and clinical outcome of invasive ductal breast carcinoma
Aims: To clarify MUC1 patterns in invasive ductal breast carcinoma and to relate them to clinicopathological parameters, coexpression of other biological markers and prognosis. Methods and results: Samples from 243 consecutive patients with primary ductal carcinoma were incorporated into tissue microarrays (TMAs). Slides were stained for MUC1, oestrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), Her2/neu, p53 and cyclin D1. Apical membrane MUC1 expression was associated with smaller tumours (P = 0.001), lower tumour grades (P < 0.001), PR positivity (P = 0.003) and increased overall survival (OS; P = 0.030). Diffuse cytoplasmic MUC1 expression was associated with cyclin D1 positivity (P = 0.009) and increased relapse-free survival (RFS; P = 0.034). Negativity for MUC1 was associated with ER negativity (P = 0.004), PR negativity (P = 0.001) and cyclin D1 negativity (P = 0.009). In stepwise multivariate analysis MUC1 negativity was an independent predictor of both RFS [hazard ratio (HR) 3.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.5, 8.5; P = 0.005] and OS (HR 14.7, 9 5% Cl 4.9, 44. 1; P < 0.001). Conclusions: The expression pattern of MUC1 in invasive ductal breast carcinoma is related to tumour characteristics and clinical outcome. In addition, negative MUC1 expression is an independent risk factor for poor RFS and OS, besides 'classical' prognostic indicators
Remarks on the method of comparison equations (generalized WKB method) and the generalized Ermakov-Pinney equation
The connection between the method of comparison equations (generalized WKB
method) and the Ermakov-Pinney equation is established. A perturbative scheme
of solution of the generalized Ermakov-Pinney equation is developed and is
applied to the construction of perturbative series for second-order
differential equations with and without turning points.Comment: The collective of the authors is enlarged and the calculations in
Sec. 3 are correcte
Hyperasymptotic solutions for certain partial differential equations
We present the hyperasymptotic expansions for a certain group of solutions of
the heat equation. We extend this result to a more general case of linear PDEs
with constant coefficients. The generalisation is based on the method of Borel
summability, which allows us to find integral representations of solutions for
such PDEs.Comment: 17 page
Longitudinal Atomic Beam Spin Echo Experiments: A possible way to study Parity Violation in Hydrogen
We discuss the propagation of hydrogen atoms in static electric and magnetic
fields in a longitudinal atomic beam spin echo (lABSE) apparatus. Depending on
the choice of the external fields the atoms may acquire both dynamical and
geometrical quantum mechanical phases. As an example of the former, we show
first in-beam spin rotation measurements on atomic hydrogen, which are in
excellent agreement with theory. Additional calculations of the behaviour of
the metastable 2S states of hydrogen reveal that the geometrical phases may
exhibit the signature of parity-(P-)violation. This invites for possible future
lABSE experiments, focusing on P-violating geometrical phases in the lightest
of all atoms.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Ray and wave chaos in asymmetric resonant optical cavities
Optical resonators are essential components of lasers and other
wavelength-sensitive optical devices. A resonator is characterized by a set of
modes, each with a resonant frequency omega and resonance width Delta
omega=1/tau, where tau is the lifetime of a photon in the mode. In a
cylindrical or spherical dielectric resonator, extremely long-lived resonances
are due to `whispering gallery' modes in which light circulates around the
perimeter trapped by total internal reflection. These resonators emit light
isotropically. Recently, a new category of asymmetric resonant cavities (ARCs)
has been proposed in which substantial shape deformation leads to partially
chaotic ray dynamics. This has been predicted to give rise to a universal,
frequency-independent broadening of the whispering-gallery resonances, and
highly anisotropic emission. Here we present solutions of the wave equation for
ARCs which confirm many aspects of the earlier ray-optics model, but also
reveal interesting frequency-dependent effects characteristic of quantum chaos.
For small deformations the lifetime is controlled by evanescent leakage, the
optical analogue of quantum tunneling. We find that the lifetime is much
shortened by a process known as `chaos-assisted tunneling'. In contrast, for
large deformations (~10%) some resonances are found to have longer lifetimes
than predicted by the ray chaos model due to `dynamical localization'.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX with 7 Postscript figure
High-fidelity quantum driving
The ability to accurately control a quantum system is a fundamental
requirement in many areas of modern science such as quantum information
processing and the coherent manipulation of molecular systems. It is usually
necessary to realize these quantum manipulations in the shortest possible time
in order to minimize decoherence, and with a large stability against
fluctuations of the control parameters. While optimizing a protocol for speed
leads to a natural lower bound in the form of the quantum speed limit rooted in
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, stability against parameter variations
typically requires adiabatic following of the system. The ultimate goal in
quantum control is to prepare a desired state with 100% fidelity. Here we
experimentally implement optimal control schemes that achieve nearly perfect
fidelity for a two-level quantum system realized with Bose-Einstein condensates
in optical lattices. By suitably tailoring the time-dependence of the system's
parameters, we transform an initial quantum state into a desired final state
through a short-cut protocol reaching the maximum speed compatible with the
laws of quantum mechanics. In the opposite limit we implement the recently
proposed transitionless superadiabatic protocols, in which the system perfectly
follows the instantaneous adiabatic ground state. We demonstrate that
superadiabatic protocols are extremely robust against parameter variations,
making them useful for practical applications.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
Atomic Physics: Neutral atoms put in charge
An elegant experiment shows that atoms subjected to a pair of laser beams
can behave like electrons in a magnetic field, as demonstrated by the
appearance of quantized vortices in a neutral superfluid
Sub-Planck spots of Schroedinger cats and quantum decoherence
Heisenberg's principle states that the product of uncertainties of
position and momentum should be no less than Planck's constant . This is
usually taken to imply that phase space structures associated with sub-Planck
() scales do not exist, or, at the very least, that they do not
matter. I show that this deeply ingrained prejudice is false: Non-local
"Schr\"odinger cat" states of quantum systems confined to phase space volume
characterized by `the classical action' develop spotty structure
on scales corresponding to sub-Planck . Such
structures arise especially quickly in quantum versions of classically chaotic
systems (such as gases, modelled by chaotic scattering of molecules), that are
driven into nonlocal Schr\"odinger cat -- like superpositions by the quantum
manifestations of the exponential sensitivity to perturbations. Most
importantly, these sub-Planck scales are physically significant: determines
sensitivity of a quantum system (or of a quantum environment) to perturbations.
Therefore sub-Planck controls the effectiveness of decoherence and
einselection caused by the environment. It may also be relevant in
setting limits on sensitivity of Schr\"odinger cats used as detectors.Comment: Published in Nature 412, 712-717 (2001
Geometric quantum computation with NMR
The experimental realisation of the basic constituents of quantum information
processing devices, namely fault-tolerant quantum logic gates, requires
conditional quantum dynamics, in which one subsystem undergoes a coherent
evolution that depends on the quantum state of another subsystem. In
particular, the subsystem may acquire a conditional phase shift. Here we
consider a novel scenario in which this phase is of geometric rather than
dynamical origin. As the conditional geometric (Berry) phase depends only on
the geometry of the path executed it is resilient to certain types of errors,
and offers the potential of an intrinsically fault-tolerant way of performing
quantum gates. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) has already been used to
demonstrate both simple quantum information processing and Berry's phase. Here
we report an NMR experiment which implements a conditional Berry phase, and
thus a controlled phase shift gate. This constitutes the first elementary
geometric quantum computation.Comment: Minor additions at request of referees. 4 pages revtex including 2
figures (1 eps). Nature in pres
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