195 research outputs found
PTPN22 gene polymorphism in Takayasu's arteritis
Objective. Takayasu's arteritis (TA) is a chronic, rare granulomatous panarteritis of unknown aetiology involving mainly the aorta and its major branches. In this study, genetic susceptibility to TA has been investigated by screening the functional single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of PTPN22 gene encoding the lymphoid-specific protein tyrosine phosphatase. Methods. Totally, 181 patients with TA and 177 healthy controls are genotyped by PCR-RFLP method for the SNP rs2476601 (A/G) of PTPN22 gene. Polymorphic region was amplified by PCR and digested with Xcm I enzyme. Results. Detected frequencies of heterozygous genotype (AG) were 5.1% (9/177) in control group and 3.8% (7/181) in TA group (P = 0.61, odds ratio: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.3, 2.0). No association with angiographic type, vascular involvement or prognosis of TA was observed either. Conclusion. The distribution of PTPN22 polymorphism did not reveal any association with TA in Turkey. © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved
Properties of a single photon generated by a solid-state emitter: effects of pure dephasing
We investigate the properties of a single photon generated by a solid-state
emitter subject to strong pure dephasing. We employ a model in which all the
elements of the system, including the propagating fields, are treated quantum
mechanically. We analytically derive the density matrix of the emitted photon,
which contains full information about the photon, such as its pulse profile,
power spectrum, and purity. We visualize these analytical results using
realistic parameters and reveal the conditions for maximizing the purity of
generated photons.Comment: 25pages(one column), 10 figure
Optical signatures of quantum phase transitions in a light-matter system
Information about quantum phase transitions in conventional condensed matter
systems, must be sought by probing the matter system itself. By contrast, we
show that mixed matter-light systems offer a distinct advantage in that the
photon field carries clear signatures of the associated quantum critical
phenomena. Having derived an accurate, size-consistent Hamiltonian for the
photonic field in the well-known Dicke model, we predict striking behavior of
the optical squeezing and photon statistics near the phase transition. The
corresponding dynamics resemble those of a degenerate parametric amplifier. Our
findings boost the motivation for exploring exotic quantum phase transition
phenomena in atom-cavity, nanostructure-cavity, and
nanostructure-photonic-band-gap systems.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Pulmonary function and fuel use: A population survey
BACKGROUND: In the backdrop of conflicting reports (some studies reported adverse outcomes of biomass fuel use whereas few studies reported absence of any association between adverse health effect and fuel use, may be due to presence of large number of confounding variables) on the respiratory health effects of biomass fuel use, this cross sectional survey was undertaken to understand the role of fuel use on pulmonary function. METHOD: This study was conducted in a village of western India involving 369 randomly selected adult subjects (165 male and 204 female). All the subjects were interviewed and were subjected to pulmonary function test. Analysis of covariance was performed to compare the levels of different pulmonary function test parameters in relation to different fuel use taking care of the role of possible confounding factors. RESULTS: This study showed that biomass fuel use (especially wood) is an important factor for deterioration of pulmonary function (particularly in female). FEV(1 )(p < .05), FEV(1 )% (p < .01), PEFR (p < .05) and FEF(25–75 )(p < .01) values were significantly lower in biomass fuel using females than nonusers. Comparison of only biomass fuel use vs. only LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) use and only wood vs. only LPG use has showed that LPG is a safer fuel so far as deterioration of pulmonary function is concerned. This study observes some deterioration of pulmonary function in the male subjects also, who came from biomass fuel using families. CONCLUSION: This study concluded that traditional biomass fuels like wood have adverse effects on pulmonary function
Non-resonant dot-cavity coupling and its applications in resonant quantum dot spectroscopy
We present experimental investigations on the non-resonant dot-cavity
coupling of a single quantum dot inside a micro-pillar where the dot has been
resonantly excited in the s-shell, thereby avoiding the generation of
additional charges in the QD and its surrounding. As a direct proof of the pure
single dot-cavity system, strong photon anti-bunching is consistently observed
in the autocorrelation functions of the QD and the mode emission, as well as in
the cross-correlation function between the dot and mode signals. Strong Stokes
and anti-Stokes-like emission is observed for energetic QD-mode detunings of up
to ~100 times the QD linewidth. Furthermore, we demonstrate that non-resonant
dot-cavity coupling can be utilized to directly monitor and study relevant QD
s-shell properties like fine-structure splittings, emission saturation and
power broadening, as well as photon statistics with negligible background
contributions. Our results open a new perspective on the understanding and
implementation of dot-cavity systems for single-photon sources, single and
multiple quantum dot lasers, semiconductor cavity quantum electrodynamics, and
their implementation, e.g. in quantum information technology.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
Efficient coupling of photons to a single molecule and the observation of its resonance fluorescence
Single dye molecules at cryogenic temperatures display many spectroscopic
phenomena known from free atoms and are thus promising candidates for
fundamental quantum optical studies. However, the existing techniques for the
detection of single molecules have either sacrificed the information on the
coherence of the excited state or have been inefficient. Here we show that
these problems can be addressed by focusing the excitation light near to the
absorption cross section of a molecule. Our detection scheme allows us to
explore resonance fluorescence over 9 orders of magnitude of excitation
intensity and to separate its coherent and incoherent parts. In the strong
excitation regime, we demonstrate the first observation of the Mollow triplet
from a single solid-state emitter. Under weak excitation we report the
detection of a single molecule with an incident power as faint as 150 attoWatt,
paving the way for studying nonlinear effects with only a few photons.Comment: 6 figure
Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics: Coherent Coupling of a Single Photon to a Cooper Pair Box
Under appropriate conditions, superconducting electronic circuits behave
quantum mechanically, with properties that can be designed and controlled at
will. We have realized an experiment in which a superconducting two-level
system, playing the role of an artificial atom, is strongly coupled to a single
photon stored in an on-chip cavity. We show that the atom-photon coupling in
this circuit can be made strong enough for coherent effects to dominate over
dissipation, even in a solid state environment. This new regime of matter light
interaction in a circuit can be exploited for quantum information processing
and quantum communication. It may also lead to new approaches for single photon
generation and detection.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Nature, embargo does
apply, version with high resolution figures available at:
http://www.eng.yale.edu/rslab/Andreas/content/science/PubsPapers.htm
Hide The Modulus: A Secure Non-Interactive Fully Verifiable Delegation Scheme for Modular Exponentiations via CRT
Security protocols using public-key cryptography often requires large number of costly modular exponentiations (MEs). With the
proliferation of resource-constrained (mobile) devices and advancements in cloud computing, delegation of such expensive computations to powerful server providers has gained lots of attention. In this paper, we address the problem of verifiably secure delegation of MEs using two servers, where at most one of which is assumed to be malicious (the OMTUP-model). We first show verifiability issues of two recent schemes: We show that a scheme from IndoCrypt 2016 does not offer full verifiability, and that a scheme for simultaneous MEs from AsiaCCS 2016 is verifiable only with a probability instead of the author\u27s claim with a probability for . Then, we propose the first non-interactive fully verifiable secure delegation scheme by hiding the modulus via Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT). Our scheme improves also the computational efficiency of the previous schemes considerably. Hence, we provide a lightweight delegation enabling weak clients to securely and verifiably delegate MEs without any expensive local computation (neither online nor offline). The proposed scheme is highly useful for devices having (a) only ultra-lightweight memory, and (b) limited computational power (e.g. sensor nodes, RFID tags)
Photonic quantum technologies
The first quantum technology, which harnesses uniquely quantum mechanical
effects for its core operation, has arrived in the form of commercially
available quantum key distribution systems that achieve enhanced security by
encoding information in photons such that information gained by an eavesdropper
can be detected. Anticipated future quantum technologies include large-scale
secure networks, enhanced measurement and lithography, and quantum information
processors, promising exponentially greater computation power for particular
tasks. Photonics is destined for a central role in such technologies owing to
the need for high-speed transmission and the outstanding low-noise properties
of photons. These technologies may use single photons or quantum states of
bright laser beams, or both, and will undoubtably apply and drive
state-of-the-art developments in photonics
Quantum nature of a strongly-coupled single quantum dot-cavity system
Cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) studies the interaction between a
quantum emitter and a single radiation-field mode. When an atom is in strong
coupling with a cavity mode1,2, it is possible to realize key quantum
information processing (QIP) tasks, such as controlled coherent coupling and
entanglement of distinguishable quantum systems. Realizing these tasks in the
solid state is clearly desirable, and coupling semiconductor self-assembled
quantum dots (QDs) to monolithic optical cavities is a promising route to this
end. However, validating the efficacy of QDs in QIP applications requires
confirmation of the quantum nature of the QD-cavity system in the strong
coupling regime. Here we find a confirmation by observing quantum correlations
in photoluminescence (PL) from a photonic crystal (PC) nanocavity3-5
interacting with one, and only one, QD located precisely at the cavity electric
field maximum. When off-resonance, photon emission from the cavity mode and QD
excitons is anti-correlated at the level of single quanta, proving that the
mode is driven solely by the QD despite an energy mis-match between cavity and
excitons. When tuned into resonance, the exciton and photon enter the
strong-coupling regime of cavity-QED and the QD lifetime reduces by a factor of
120. The photon stream from the cavity becomes anti-bunched, proving that the
coupled exciton/photon system is in the quantum anharmonic regime. Our
observations unequivocally show that QIP tasks requiring the quantum nonlinear
regime are achievable in the solid state.Comment: 14 pages 4 figure
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