Perturbative Gadgets at Arbitrary Orders

Adiabatic quantum algorithms are often most easily formulated using many-body interactions. However, experimentally available interactions are generally two-body. In 2004, Kempe, Kitaev, and Regev introduced perturbative gadgets, by which arbitrary three-body effective interactions can be obtained using Hamiltonians consisting only of two-body interactions. These three-body effective interactions arise from the third order in perturbation theory. Since their introduction, perturbative gadgets have become a standard tool in the theory of quantum computation. Here we construct generalized gadgets so that one can directly obtain arbitrary k-body effective interactions from two-body Hamiltonians. These effective interactions arise from the kth order in perturbation theory.Comment: Corrected an error: U dagger vs. U invers

Optical mode crossings and the low temperature anomalies of SrTiO3

Optical mode crossing is not a plausible explanation for the new broad Brillouin doublet nor for the strong acoustic anomalies observed at low temperatures in SrTiO3. Data presented to support that explanation are also inconclusive.Comment: This is a comment to a paper from J.F. Scott (same ZFP volume

HD2D is a Regulator of Abscisic Acid Responses in Arabidopsis

Histone deacetylases have important roles in development and stress response in plants. To further investigate their function, the HD2D gene, of the plant specific HD2 family, was studied. An hd2d-1 mutant and two HD2D overexpression lines were used in this study. Germination was delayed in hd2d-1 and HD2D overexpression seeds only in the presence of ABA. HD2D was found to positively regulate the expression of members of the ABA-response pathway (ABI1, ABI5, and RD29A) leading to increased resistance to drought and salinity treatments. Furthermore, HD2D expression delayed flowering by positively regulating FLC expression. Using bimolecular fluorescence complementation, the HD2D protein was found to interact with the ABA pathway members ABI1, ABI2, and ABI5. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that HD2D is a regulator of ABA responses in Arabidopsis. By expanding the knowledge of plant stress response, this research will help lead to long-term improvements of drought tolerance

Experimental study of ultracold neutron production in pressurized superfluid helium

We have investigated experimentally the pressure dependence of the production of ultracold neutrons (UCN) in superfluid helium in the range from saturated vapor pressure to 20bar. A neutron velocity selector allowed the separation of underlying single-phonon and multiphonon pro- cesses by varying the incident cold neutron (CN) wavelength in the range from 3.5 to 10{\AA}. The predicted pressure dependence of UCN production derived from inelastic neutron scattering data was confirmed for the single-phonon excitation. For multiphonon based UCN production we found no significant dependence on pressure whereas calculations from inelastic neutron scattering data predict an increase of 43(6)% at 20bar relative to saturated vapor pressure. From our data we conclude that applying pressure to superfluid helium does not increase the overall UCN production rate at a typical CN guide.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures Version accepted for publication in PR

Three and Four-Body Interactions in Spin-Based Quantum Computers

In the effort to design and to construct a quantum computer, several leading proposals make use of spin-based qubits. These designs generally assume that spins undergo pairwise interactions. We point out that, when several spins are engaged mutually in pairwise interactions, the quantitative strengths of the interactions can change and qualitatively new terms can arise in the Hamiltonian, including four-body interactions. In parameter regimes of experimental interest, these coherent effects are large enough to interfere with computation, and may require new error correction or avoidance techniques.Comment: 5 pages incl. 4 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. For an expanded version including detailed calculations see http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cond-mat/030201

A new perturbative approach to the adiabatic approximation

A new and intuitive perturbative approach to time-dependent quantum mechanics problems is presented, which is useful in situations where the evolution of the Hamiltonian is slow. The state of a system which starts in an instantaneous eigenstate of the initial Hamiltonian is written as a power series which has a straightforward diagrammatic representation. Each term of the series corresponds to a sequence of "adiabatic" evolutions, during which the system remains in an instantaneous eigenstate of the Hamiltonian, punctuated by transitions from one state to another. The first term of this series is the standard adiabatic evolution, the next is the well-known first correction to it, and subsequent terms can be written down essentially by inspection. Although the final result is perhaps not terribly surprising, it seems to be not widely known, and the interpretation is new, as far as we know. Application of the method to the adiabatic approximation is given, and some discussion of the validity of this approximation is presented.Comment: 9 pages. Added references, discussion of previous results, expanded upon discussion of main result and application of i

Quantum games via search algorithms

We build new quantum games, similar to the spin flip game, where as a novelty the players perform measurements on a quantum system associated to a continuous time search algorithm. The measurements collapse the wave function into one of the two possible states. These games are characterized by a continuous space of strategies and the selection of a particular strategy is determined by the moments when the players measure.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Grover's algorithm on a Feynman computer

We present an implementation of Grover's algorithm in the framework of Feynman's cursor model of a quantum computer. The cursor degrees of freedom act as a quantum clocking mechanism, and allow Grover's algorithm to be performed using a single, time-independent Hamiltonian. We examine issues of locality and resource usage in implementing such a Hamiltonian. In the familiar language of Heisenberg spin-spin coupling, the clocking mechanism appears as an excitation of a basically linear chain of spins, with occasional controlled jumps that allow for motion on a planar graph: in this sense our model implements the idea of "timing" a quantum algorithm using a continuous-time random walk. In this context we examine some consequences of the entanglement between the states of the input/output register and the states of the quantum clock