Born Rule and Noncontextual Probability

The probabilistic rule that links the formalism of Quantum Mechanics (QM) to the real world was stated by Born in 1926. Since then, there were many attempts to derive the Born postulate as a theorem, Gleason's being the most prominent. The Gleason derivation, however, is generally considered rather intricate and its physical meaning, in particular in relation with the noncontextuality of probability (NP), is not quite evident. More recently, we are witnessing a revival of interest in possible demonstrations of the Born rule, like Zurek's and Deutsch's based on the decoherence and on the theory of decisions, respectively. Despite an ongoing debate about the presence of hidden assumptions and circular reasonings, these have the merit of prompting more physically oriented approaches to the problem. Here we suggest a new proof of the Born rule based on the noncontextuality of probability. Within the theorem we also demonstrate the continuity of probability with respect to the amplitudes, which has been suggested to be a gap in Zurek's and Deutsch's approaches, and we show that NP is implicitly postulated also in their demonstrations. Finally, physical motivations of NP are given based on an invariance principle with respect to a resolution change of measurements and with respect to the principle of no-faster-than-light signalling.Comment: 10 page

Nonlinear Tight-Binding Approximation for Bose-Einstein Condensates in a Lattice

The dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in a deep optical lattice is governed by a discrete nonlinear equation (DNL). Its degree of nonlinearity and the intersite hopping rates are retrieved from a nonlinear tight-binding approximation taking into account the effective dimensionality of each condensate. We derive analytically the Bloch and the Bogoliubov excitation spectra, and the velocity of sound waves emitted by a traveling condensate. Within a Lagrangian formalism, we obtain Newtonian-like equations of motion of localized wavepackets. We calculate the ground-state atomic distribution in the presence of an harmonic confining potential, and the frequencies of small amplitude dipole and quadrupole oscillations. We finally quantize the DNL, recovering an extended Bose-Hubbard model

Entanglement and squeezing in continuous-variable systems

We introduce a multi-mode squeezing coefficient to characterize entanglement in $N$-partite continuous-variable systems. The coefficient relates to the squeezing of collective observables in the $2N$-dimensional phase space and can be readily extracted from the covariance matrix. Simple extensions further permit to reveal entanglement within specific partitions of a multipartite system. Applications with nonlinear observables allow for the detection of non-Gaussian entanglement.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

On the dispute between Boltzmann and Gibbs entropy

Very recently, the validity of the concept of negative temperature has been challenged by several authors since they consider Boltzmann's entropy (that allows negative temperatures) inconsistent from a mathematical and statistical point of view, whereas they consider Gibbs' entropy (that does not admit negative temperatures) the correct definition for microcanonical entropy. In the present paper we prove that for systems with equivalence of the statistical ensembles Boltzmann entropy is the correct microcanonical entropy. Analytical results on two systems supporting negative temperatures, confirm the scenario we propose. In addition, we corroborate our proof by numeric simulations on an explicit lattice system showing that negative temperature equilibrium states are accessible and obey standard statistical mechanics prevision.Comment: To appear in Annals of Physic