Pressure shift of the superconducting T_c of LiFeAs

The effect of hydrostatic pressure on the superconductivity in LiFeAs is investigated up to 1.8 GPa. The superconducting transition temperature, T_c, decreases linearly with pressure at a rate of 1.5 K/GPa. The negative pressure coefficient of T_c and the high ambient pressure T_c indicate that LiFeAs is the high-pressure analogue of the isoelectronic SrFe_2As_2 and BaFe_2As_2.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

Topological obstructions to fatness

Alan Weinstein showed that certain characteristic numbers of any Riemannian submersion with totally geodesic fibers and positive vertizontal curvatures are nonzero. In this paper we explicitly compute these invariants in terms of Chern and Pontrjagin numbers of the bundle. This allows us to show that many bundles do not admit such metrics.Comment: 32 pages. To appear in Geom. Topo

Some Directions beyond Traditional Quantum Secret Sharing

We investigate two directions beyond the traditional quantum secret sharing (QSS). First, a restriction on QSS that comes from the no-cloning theorem is that any pair of authorized sets in an access structure should overlap. From the viewpoint of application, this places an unnatural constraint on secret sharing. We present a generalization, called assisted QSS (AQSS), where access structures without pairwise overlap of authorized sets is permissible, provided some shares are withheld by the share dealer. We show that no more than $\lambda-1$ withheld shares are required, where $\lambda$ is the minimum number of {\em partially linked classes} among the authorized sets for the QSS. Our result means that such applications of QSS need not be thwarted by the no-cloning theorem. Secondly, we point out a way of combining the features of QSS and quantum key distribution (QKD) for applications where a classical information is shared by quantum means. We observe that in such case, it is often possible to reduce the security proof of QSS to that of QKD.Comment: To appear in Physica Scripta, 7 pages, 1 figure, subsumes arXiv:quant-ph/040720

Non-adaptive Measurement-based Quantum Computation and Multi-party Bell Inequalities

Quantum correlations exhibit behaviour that cannot be resolved with a local hidden variable picture of the world. In quantum information, they are also used as resources for information processing tasks, such as Measurement-based Quantum Computation (MQC). In MQC, universal quantum computation can be achieved via adaptive measurements on a suitable entangled resource state. In this paper, we look at a version of MQC in which we remove the adaptivity of measurements and aim to understand what computational abilities still remain in the resource. We show that there are explicit connections between this model of computation and the question of non-classicality in quantum correlations. We demonstrate this by focussing on deterministic computation of Boolean functions, in which natural generalisations of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) paradox emerge; we then explore probabilistic computation, via which multipartite Bell Inequalities can be defined. We use this correspondence to define families of multi-party Bell inequalities, which we show to have a number of interesting contrasting properties.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, final version accepted for publicatio

Tuberculosis in Dr Granville's mummy: a molecular re-examination of the earliest known Egyptian mummy to be scientifically examined and given a medical diagnosis

‘Dr Granville's mummy’ was described to the Royal Society of London in 1825 and was the first ancient Egyptian mummy to be subjected to a scientific autopsy. The remains are those of a woman, Irtyersenu, aged about 50, from the necropolis of Thebes and dated to about 600 BC. Augustus Bozzi Granville (1783–1872), an eminent physician and obstetrician, described many organs still in situ and attributed the cause of death to a tumour of the ovary. However, subsequent histological investigations indicate that the tumour is a benign cystadenoma. Histology of the lungs demonstrated a potentially fatal pulmonary exudate and earlier studies attempted to associate this with particular disease conditions. Palaeopathology and ancient DNA analyses show that tuberculosis was widespread in ancient Egypt, so a systematic search for tuberculosis was made, using specific DNA and lipid biomarker analyses. Clear evidence for Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex DNA was obtained in lung tissue and gall bladder samples, based on nested PCR of the IS6110 locus. Lung and femurs were positive for specific M. tuberculosis complex cell-wall mycolic acids, demonstrated by high-performance liquid chromatography of pyrenebutyric acid–pentafluorobenzyl mycolates. Therefore, tuberculosis is likely to have been the major cause of death of Irtyersenu

Optimality of private quantum channels

We addressed the question of optimality of private quantum channels. We have shown that the Shannon entropy of the classical key necessary to securely transfer the quantum information is lower bounded by the entropy exchange of the private quantum channel $\cal E$ and von Neumann entropy of the ciphertext state $\varrho^{(0)}$. Based on these bounds we have shown that decomposition of private quantum channels into orthogonal unitaries (if exists) is optimizing the entropy. For non-ancillary single qubit PQC we have derived the optimal entropy for arbitrary set of plaintexts. In particular, we have shown that except when the (closure of the) set of plaintexts contains all states, one bit key is sufficient. We characterized and analyzed all the possible single qubit private quantum channels for arbitrary set of plaintexts. For the set of plaintexts consisting of all qubit states we have characterized all possible approximate private quantum channels and we have derived the relation between the security parameter and the corresponding minimal entropy.Comment: no commen

First-Principles Study for the Anisotropy of Iron-based Superconductors toward Power and Device Applications

Performing the first-principles calculations, we investigate the anisotropy in the superconducting state of iron-based superconductors to gain an insight into their potential applications. The anisotropy ratio $\gamma_\lambda$ of the c-axis penetration depth to the ab-plane one is relatively small in BaFe2As2 and LiFeAs, i.e., $\gamma_\lambda \sim 3$, indicating that the transport applications are promising in these superconductors. On the other hand, in those having perovskite type blocking layers such as Sr2ScFePO3 we find a very large value, $\gamma_\lambda \sim 200$, comparable to that in strongly anisotropic high-Tc cuprate Bi2Sr2CaCu2O{8-\delta}. Thus, the intrinsic Josephson junction stacks are expected to be formed along the c-axis, and novel Josephson effects due to the multi-gap nature are also suggested in these superconductors.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure