Can Classical Noise Enhance Quantum Transmission?

A modified quantum teleportation protocol broadens the scope of the classical forbidden-interval theorems for stochastic resonance. The fidelity measures performance of quantum communication. The sender encodes the two classical bits for quantum teleportation as weak bipolar subthreshold signals and sends them over a noisy classical channel. Two forbidden-interval theorems provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the occurrence of the nonmonotone stochastic resonance effect in the fidelity of quantum teleportation. The condition is that the noise mean must fall outside a forbidden interval related to the detection threshold and signal value. An optimal amount of classical noise benefits quantum communication when the sender transmits weak signals, the receiver detects with a high threshold, and the noise mean lies outside the forbidden interval. Theorems and simulations demonstrate that both finite-variance and infinite-variance noise benefit the fidelity of quantum teleportation.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, replaced with published version that includes new section on imperfect entanglement and references to J. J. Ting's earlier wor

Thermal probe technology for buildings: the transition from laboratory to field measurements

This article reports the results of an investigation into the transfer of thermal probe measurement technology from laboratory use to actual buildings in order to undertake the in situ determination of thermal material properties. The imperative for using in situ measurements is 1) the impact of moisture content on thermal properties, 2) the possible wide range of variation of properties across most materials used in construction, and 3) the lack of data for new and innovative materials. Thermal probe technology offers the prospect of taking building specific data, addressing these issues. Based on commercially available thermal probes a portable measurement kit and accompanying measurement procedure have been developed. Three case study buildings, each having different materials, have been studied to ascertain whether or not the technique can be transferred to relatively uncontrolled environments while remaining capable of achieving a precision that is similar to an ASTM standard that can be related to thermal conductivity measurements of building materials. The results show that this is indeed the case, and that the use of thermal probe technology may yield thermal properties that vary significantly from the laboratory values currently used in building thermal engineering calculations

Identifying the quantum correlations in light-harvesting complexes

One of the major efforts in the quantum biological program is to subject biological systems to standard tests or measures of quantumness. These tests and measures should elucidate if non-trivial quantum effects may be present in biological systems. Two such measures of quantum correlations are the quantum discord and the relative entropy of entanglement. Here, we show that the relative entropy of entanglement admits a simple analytic form when dynamics and accessible degrees of freedom are restricted to a zero- and single-excitation subspace. We also simulate and calculate the amount of quantum discord that is present in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson protein complex during the transfer of an excitation from a chlorosome antenna to a reaction center. We find that the single-excitation quantum discord and relative entropy of entanglement are equal for all of our numerical simulations, but a proof of their general equality for this setting evades us for now. Also, some of our simulations demonstrate that the relative entropy of entanglement without the single-excitation restriction is much lower than the quantum discord. The first picosecond of dynamics is the relevant timescale for the transfer of the excitation, according to some sources in the literature. Our simulation results indicate that quantum correlations contribute a significant fraction of the total correlation during this first picosecond in many cases, at both cryogenic and physiological temperature.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, significant improvements including (1) an analytical formula for the single-excitation relative entropy of entanglement (REE), (2) simulations indicating that the single-excitation REE is equal to the single-excitation discord, and (3) simulations indicating that the full REE can be much lower than the single-excitation RE

Late Wenlock (middle Silurian) bio-events: Caused by volatile boloid impact/s

Late Wenlockian (late mid-Silurian) life is characterized by three significant changes or bioevents: sudden development of massive carbonate reefs after a long interval of limited reef growth; sudden mass mortality among colonial zooplankton, graptolites; and origination of land plants with vascular tissue (Cooksonia). Both marine bioevents are short in duration and occur essentially simultaneously at the end of the Wenlock without any recorded major climatic change from the general global warm climate. These three disparate biologic events may be linked to sudden environmental change that could have resulted from sudden infusion of a massive amount of ammonia into the tropical ocean. Impact of a boloid or swarm of extraterrestrial bodies containing substantial quantities of a volatile (ammonia) component could provide such an infusion. Major carbonate precipitation (formation), as seen in the reefs as well as, to a more limited extent, in certain brachiopods, would be favored by increased pH resulting from addition of a massive quantity of ammonia into the upper ocean. Because of the buffer capacity of the ocean and dilution effects, the pH would have returned soon to equilibrium. Major proliferation of massive reefs ceased at the same time. Addition of ammonia as fertilizer to terrestrial environments in the tropics would have created optimum environmental conditions for development of land plants with vascular, nutrient-conductive tissue. Fertilization of terrestrial environments thus seemingly preceded development of vascular tissue by a short time interval. Although no direct evidence of impact of a volatile boloid may be found, the bioevent evidence is suggestive that such an impact in the oceans could have taken place. Indeed, in the case of an ammonia boloid, evidence, such as that of the Late Wenlockian bioevents may be the only available data for impact of such a boloid

Collisions with ice-volatile objects: Geological implications

The collision of the Earth with extra-terrestrial ice-volatile bodies is proposed as a mechanism to produce rapid changes in the geologic record. These bodies would be analogs of the ice satellites found for the Jovian planets and suspected for comets and certain low density bodies in the Asteroid belt. Five generic end-members are postulated: (1) water ice; (2) dry ice: carbon-carbon dioxide rich, (3) oceanic (chloride) ice; (4) sulfur-rich ice; (5) ammonia hydrate-rich ice; and (6) clathrate: methane-rich ice. Due to the volatile nature of these bodies, evidence for their impact with the Earth would be subtle and probably best reflected geochemically or in the fossil record. Actual boloids impacting the Earth may have a variable composition, generally some admixture with water ice. However for discussion purposes, only the effects of a dominant component will be treated. The general geological effects of such collisions, as a function of the dominant component would be: (1) rapid sea level rise unrelated to deglaciation, (2) decreased oceanic pH and rapid climatic warming or deglaciation; (3) increased paleosalinities; (4) increased acid rain; (5) increased oceanic pH and rapid carbonate deposition; and (6) rapid climatic warming or deglaciation

Long-distance sound propagation over discontinuous impedances

A calculation method is presented for sound propagation over an impedance discontinuity in flat ground with a homogeneous, still atmosphere. The method is based on an approximate solution to a two dimensional boundary integral equation formulation of the problem, which expresses the wave field as the solution for homogeneous ground plus an integral over half of the boundary. Through recognizing this integral as a generalized Fourier integral, asymptotic methods are applied to evaluate the part of the integral most expensive to compute by numerical quadrature. Single frequency excess attenuation results for propagation from a point source above rigid ground to a receiver above absorbing ground are discussed. The results are applied, with air attenuation and A-weighting, to a notional jet engine noise source. Simple trends are noted

Stochastic resonance in Gaussian quantum channels

We determine conditions for the presence of stochastic resonance in a lossy bosonic channel with a nonlinear, threshold decoding. The stochastic resonance effect occurs if and only if the detection threshold is outside of a "forbidden interval". We show that it takes place in different settings: when transmitting classical messages through a lossy bosonic channel, when transmitting over an entanglement-assisted lossy bosonic channel, and when discriminating channels with different loss parameters. Moreover, we consider a setting in which stochastic resonance occurs in the transmission of a qubit over a lossy bosonic channel with a particular encoding and decoding. In all cases, we assume the addition of Gaussian noise to the signal and show that it does not matter who, between sender and receiver, introduces such a noise. Remarkably, different results are obtained when considering a setting for private communication. In this case the symmetry between sender and receiver is broken and the "forbidden interval" may vanish, leading to the occurrence of stochastic resonance effects for any value of the detection threshold.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures. Manuscript improved in many ways. New results on private communication adde