3,863 research outputs found
Searching dark-matter halos in the GaBoDS survey
We apply the linear filter for the weak-lensing signal of dark-matter halos
developed in Maturi et al. (2005) to the cosmic-shear data extracted from the
Garching-Bonn-Deep-Survey (GaBoDS). We wish to search for dark-matter halos
through weak-lensing signatures which are significantly above the random and
systematic noise level caused by intervening large-scale structures. We employ
a linear matched filter which maximises the signal-to-noise ratio by minimising
the number of spurious detections caused by the superposition of large-scale
structures (LSS). This is achieved by suppressing those spatial frequencies
dominated by the LSS contamination. We confirm the improved stability and
reliability of the detections achieved with our new filter compared to the
commonly-used aperture mass (Schneider, 1996; Schneider et al., 1998) and to
the aperture mass based on the shear profile expected for NFW haloes (see e.g.
Schirmer et al., 2004; Hennawi & Spergel, 2005). Schirmer et al.~(2006)
achieved results comparable to our filter, but probably only because of the low
average redshift of the background sources in GaBoDS, which keeps the LSS
contamination low. For deeper data, the difference will be more important, as
shown by Maturi et al. (2005). We detect fourteen halos on about eighteen
square degrees selected from the survey. Five are known clusters, two are
associated with over-densities of galaxies visible in the GaBoDS image, and
seven have no known optical or X-ray counterparts.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted by A&
Orbits of quantum states and geometry of Bloch vectors for -level systems
Physical constraints such as positivity endow the set of quantum states with
a rich geometry if the system dimension is greater than two. To shed some light
on the complicated structure of the set of quantum states, we consider a
stratification with strata given by unitary orbit manifolds, which can be
identified with flag manifolds. The results are applied to study the geometry
of the coherence vector for n-level quantum systems. It is shown that the
unitary orbits can be naturally identified with spheres in R^{n^2-1} only for
n=2. In higher dimensions the coherence vector only defines a non-surjective
embedding into a closed ball. A detailed analysis of the three-level case is
presented. Finally, a refined stratification in terms of symplectic orbits is
considered.Comment: 15 pages LaTeX, 3 figures, reformatted, slightly modified version,
corrected eq.(3), to appear in J. Physics
Control of non-controllable quantum systems: A quantum control algorithm based on Grover iteration
A new notion of controllability, eigenstate controllability, is defined for
finite-dimensional bilinear quantum mechanical systems which are neither
strongly completely controllably nor completely controllable. And a quantum
control algorithm based on Grover iteration is designed to perform a quantum
control task of steering a system, which is eigenstate controllable but may not
be (strongly) completely controllable, from an arbitrary state to a target
state.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, submitte
Limits of control for quantum systems: kinematical bounds on the optimization of observables and the question of dynamical realizability
In this paper we investigate the limits of control for mixed-state quantum
systems. The constraint of unitary evolution for non-dissipative quantum
systems imposes kinematical bounds on the optimization of arbitrary
observables. We summarize our previous results on kinematical bounds and show
that these bounds are dynamically realizable for completely controllable
systems. Moreover, we establish improved bounds for certain partially
controllable systems. Finally, the question of dynamical realizability of the
bounds for arbitary partially controllable systems is shown to depend on the
accessible sets of the associated control system on the unitary group U(N) and
the results of a few control computations are discussed briefly.Comment: 5 pages, orginal June 30, 2000, revised September 28, 200
Implementation of Fault-tolerant Quantum Logic Gates via Optimal Control
The implementation of fault-tolerant quantum gates on encoded logic qubits is
considered. It is shown that transversal implementation of logic gates based on
simple geometric control ideas is problematic for realistic physical systems
suffering from imperfections such as qubit inhomogeneity or uncontrollable
interactions between qubits. However, this problem can be overcome by
formulating the task as an optimal control problem and designing efficient
algorithms to solve it. In particular, we can find solutions that implement all
of the elementary logic gates in a fixed amount of time with limited control
resources for the five-qubit stabilizer code. Most importantly, logic gates
that are extremely difficult to implement using conventional techniques even
for ideal systems, such as the T-gate for the five-qubit stabilizer code, do
not appear to pose a problem for optimal control.Comment: 18 pages, ioptex, many figure
On the Contractivity of Hilbert-Schmidt distance under open system dynamics
We show that the Hilbert-Schmidt distance, unlike the trace distance, between
quantum states is generally not monotonic for open quantum systems subject to
Lindblad semigroup dynamics. Sufficient conditions for contractivity of the
Hilbert-Schmidt norm in terms of the dissipation generators are given. Although
these conditions are not necessary, simulations suggest that non-contractivity
is the typical case, i.e., that systems for which the Hilbert-Schmidt distance
between quantum states is monotonically decreasing form only a small set of all
possible dissipative systems for N>2, in contrast to the case N=2 where the
Hilbert-Schmidt distance is always monotonically decreasing.Comment: Major revision. We would particularly like to thank D Perez-Garcia
for constructive feedbac
Effect of protein environment and the excitonic coupling on the excited-state properties of the bilinchromophores in C-Phycocyanin
Subunit interactions influence the biochemical and biological properties of Hsp104
Point mutations in either of the two nucleotide-binding domains (NBD) of Hsp104 (NBD1 and NBD2) eliminate its thermotolerance function in vivo. In vitro, NBD1 mutations virtually eliminate ATP hydrolysis with little effect on hexamerization; analogous NBD2 mutations reduce ATPase activity and severely impair hexamerization. We report that high protein concentrations overcome the assembly defects of NBD2 mutants and increase ATP hydrolysis severalfold, changing V(max) with little effect on K(m). In a complementary fashion, the detergent 3-[(3-cholamidopropyl)dimethylammonio]-1-propanesulfonate inhibits hexamerization of wild-type (WT) Hsp104, lowering V(max) with little effect on K(m). ATP hydrolysis exhibits a Hill coefficient between 1.5 and 2, indicating that it is influenced by cooperative subunit interactions. To further analyze the effects of subunit interactions on Hsp104, we assessed the effects of mutant Hsp104 proteins on WT Hsp104 activities. An NBD1 mutant that hexamerizes but does not hydrolyze ATP reduces the ATPase activity of WT Hsp104 in vitro. In vivo, this mutant is not toxic but specifically inhibits the thermotolerance function of WT Hsp104. Thus, interactions between subunits influence the ATPase activity of Hsp104, play a vital role in its biological functions, and provide a mechanism for conditionally inactivating Hsp104 function in vivo
Beyond the pale?: the implications of the RSLG Report for non-CURL modern university libraries: Perspectives on the support libraries group: Final report
We have shown that the cluster-mass reconstruction method
which combines strong and weak gravitational lensing data, developed
in the first paper in the series, successfully reconstructs the
mass distribution of a simulated cluster. In this paper we apply the method to the
ground-based high-quality multi-colour data of RX J1347.5-114
Metagenomic sequencing unravels gene fragments with phylogenetic signatures of O2-tolerant NiFe membrane-bound hydrogenases in lacustrine sediment
Many promising hydrogen technologies utilising hydrogenase enzymes have been slowed by the fact that most hydrogenases are extremely sensitive to O2. Within the group 1 membrane-bound NiFe hydrogenase, naturally occurring tolerant enzymes do exist, and O2 tolerance has been largely attributed to changes in ironâsulphur clusters coordinated by different numbers of cysteine residues in the enzymeâs small subunit. Indeed, previous work has provided a robust phylogenetic signature of O2 tolerance [1], which when combined with new sequencing technologies makes bio prospecting in nature a far more viable endeavour. However, making sense of such a vast diversity is still challenging and could be simplified if known species with O2-tolerant enzymes were annotated with information on metabolism and natural environments. Here, we utilised a bioinformatics approach to compare O2-tolerant and sensitive membrane-bound NiFe hydrogenases from 177 bacterial species with fully sequenced genomes for differences in their taxonomy, O2 requirements, and natural environment. Following this, we interrogated a metagenome from lacustrine surface sediment for novel hydrogenases via high-throughput shotgun DNA sequencing using the Illuminaâą MiSeq platform. We found 44 new NiFe group 1 membrane-bound hydrogenase sequence fragments, five of which segregated with the tolerant group on the phylogenetic tree of the enzymeâs small subunit, and four with the large subunit, indicating de novo O2-tolerant protein sequences that could help engineer more efficient hydrogenases
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