Weight, volume, and center of mass of segments of the human body

Weight, volume, and center of mass of segments of human bod

General criterion for the entanglement of two indistinguishable particles

We relate the notion of entanglement for quantum systems composed of two identical constituents to the impossibility of attributing a complete set of properties to both particles. This implies definite constraints on the mathematical form of the state vector associated with the whole system. We then analyze separately the cases of fermion and boson systems, and we show how the consideration of both the Slater-Schmidt number of the fermionic and bosonic analog of the Schmidt decomposition of the global state vector and the von Neumann entropy of the one-particle reduced density operators can supply us with a consistent criterion for detecting entanglement. In particular, the consideration of the von Neumann entropy is particularly useful in deciding whether the correlations of the considered states are simply due to the indistinguishability of the particles involved or are a genuine manifestation of the entanglement. The treatment leads to a full clarification of the subtle aspects of entanglement of two identical constituents which have been a source of embarrassment and of serious misunderstandings in the recent literature.Comment: 18 pages, Latex; revised version: Section 3.2 rewritten, new Theorems added, reference [1] corrected. To appear on Phys.Rev.A 70, (2004

Is Quantum Mechanics Compatible with a Deterministic Universe? Two Interpretations of Quantum Probabilities

Two problems will be considered: the question of hidden parameters and the problem of Kolmogorovity of quantum probabilities. Both of them will be analyzed from the point of view of two distinct understandings of quantum mechanical probabilities. Our analysis will be focused, as a particular example, on the Aspect-type EPR experiment. It will be shown that the quantum mechanical probabilities appearing in this experiment can be consistently understood as conditional probabilities without any paradoxical consequences. Therefore, nothing implies in the Aspect experiment that quantum theory is incompatible with a deterministic universe.Comment: REVISED VERSION! ONLY SMALL CHANGES IN THE TEXT! compressed and uuencoded postscript, a uuencoded version of a demo program file (epr.exe for DOS) is attached as a "Figure

Entropy inequalities and Bell inequalities for two-qubit systems

Sufficient conditions for (the non-violation of) the Bell-CHSH inequalities in a mixed state of a two-qubit system are: 1) The linear entropy of the state is not smaller than 0.5, 2) The sum of the conditional linear entropies is non-negative, 3) The von Neumann entropy is not smaller than 0.833, 4) The sum of the conditional von Neumann entropies is not smaller than 0.280.Comment: Errors corrected. See L. Jakobcyk, quant-ph/040908

Quantum Holography

We propose to make use of quantum entanglement for extracting holographic information about a remote 3-D object in a confined space which light enters, but from which it cannot escape. Light scattered from the object is detected in this confined space entirely without the benefit of spatial resolution. Quantum holography offers this possibility by virtue of the fourth-order quantum coherence inherent in entangled beams.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to Optics Expres

Qubits from Number States and Bell Inequalities for Number Measurements

Bell inequalities for number measurements are derived via the observation that the bits of the number indexing a number state are proper qubits. Violations of these inequalities are obtained from the output state of the nondegenerate optical parametric amplifier.Comment: revtex4, 7 pages, v2: results identical but extended presentation, v3: published versio

Proof of Kolmogorovian Censorship

Many argued (Accardi and Fedullo, Pitowsky) that Kolmogorov's axioms of classical probability theory are incompatible with quantum probabilities, and this is the reason for the violation of Bell's inequalities. Szab\'o showed that, in fact, these inequalities are not violated by the experimentally observed frequencies if we consider the real, ``effective'' frequencies. We prove in this work a theorem which generalizes this result: ``effective'' frequencies associated to quantum events always admit a Kolmogorovian representation, when these events are collected through different experimental set ups, the choice of which obeys a classical distribution.Comment: 19 pages, LaTe

New optimal tests of quantum nonlocality

We explore correlation polytopes to derive a set of all Boole-Bell type conditions of possible classical experience which are both maximal and complete. These are compared with the respective quantum expressions for the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) case and for two particles with spin state measurements along three directions.Comment: 10 page

Atomic vapor-based high efficiency optical detectors with photon number resolution

We propose a novel approach to the important fundamental problem of detecting weak optical fields at the few photon level. The ability to detect with high efficiency (>99%), and to distinguish the number of photons in a given time interval is a very challenging technical problem with enormous potential pay-offs in quantum communications and information processing. Our proposal diverges from standard solid-state photo-detector technology by employing an atomic vapor as the active medium, prepared in a specific quantum state using laser radiation. The absorption of a photon will be aided by a dressing laser, and the presence or absence of an excited atom will be detected using the ``cycling transition'' approach perfected for ion traps. By first incorporating an appropriate upconversion scheme, our method can be applied to a wide variety of optical wavelengths.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Decoherence of matter waves by thermal emission of radiation

Emergent quantum technologies have led to increasing interest in decoherence - the processes that limit the appearance of quantum effects and turn them into classical phenomena. One important cause of decoherence is the interaction of a quantum system with its environment, which 'entangles' the two and distributes the quantum coherence over so many degrees of freedom as to render it unobservable. Decoherence theory has been complemented by experiments using matter waves coupled to external photons or molecules, and by investigations using coherent photon states, trapped ions and electron interferometers. Large molecules are particularly suitable for the investigation of the quantum-classical transition because they can store much energy in numerous internal degrees of freedom; the internal energy can be converted into thermal radiation and thus induce decoherence. Here we report matter wave interferometer experiments in which C70 molecules lose their quantum behaviour by thermal emission of radiation. We find good quantitative agreement between our experimental observations and microscopic decoherence theory. Decoherence by emission of thermal radiation is a general mechanism that should be relevant to all macroscopic bodies.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure