Is There a 'Conservation of Information Law' for the Universe?

What are the implications if the total 'information' in the universe is conserved? Black holes might be 'logic gates' recomputing the 'lost information' from incoming 'signals' from outside their event horizons into outgoing 'signals' representing evaporative or radiative decay 'products' of the reconfiguration process of the black hole quantum logic 'gate'. Apparent local imbalances in the information flow can be corrected by including the effects of the coupling of the vacuum 'reservoir' of information as part of the total information involved in any evolutionary process. In this way perhaps the 'vacuum' computes the future of the observable universe.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, minor corrections and reference adde

Condition (K) for inverse semigroups and the ideal structure of their C∗C^*-algebras

Inspired by results for graph $C^*$-algebras, we investigate connections between the ideal structure of an inverse semigroup $S$ and that of its tight $C^*$-algebra by relating ideals in $S$ to certain open invariant sets in the associated tight groupoid. We also develop analogues of Conditions (L) and (K) for inverse semigroups, which are related to certain congruences on $S$. We finish with applications to the inverse semigroups of self-similar graph actions and some relevant comments on the authors' earlier uniqueness theorems for inverse semigroups.Comment: 32 pages; version to appear in the Journal of Algebr

Reducing Tile Complexity for the Self-Assembly of Scaled Shapes Through Temperature Programming

This paper concerns the self-assembly of scaled-up versions of arbitrary finite shapes. We work in the multiple temperature model that was introduced by Aggarwal, Cheng, Goldwasser, Kao, and Schweller (Complexities for Generalized Models of Self-Assembly, SODA 2004). The multiple temperature model is a natural generalization of Winfree's abstract tile assembly model, where the temperature of a tile system is allowed to be shifted up and down as self-assembly proceeds. We first exhibit two constant-size tile sets in which scaled-up versions of arbitrary shapes self-assemble. Our first tile set has the property that each scaled shape self-assembles via an asymptotically "Kolmogorov-optimum" temperature sequence but the scaling factor grows with the size of the shape being assembled. In contrast, our second tile set assembles each scaled shape via a temperature sequence whose length is proportional to the number of points in the shape but the scaling factor is a constant independent of the shape being assembled. We then show that there is no constant-size tile set that can uniquely assemble an arbitrary (non-scaled, connected) shape in the multiple temperature model, i.e., the scaling is necessary for self-assembly. This answers an open question of Kao and Schweller (Reducing Tile Complexity for Self-Assembly Through Temperature Programming, SODA 2006), who asked whether such a tile set existed

On the spectrum bo∧tmfb{\rm o} \wedge tmf

M. Mahowald, in his work on $b{\rm o}$-resolutions, constructed a $b{\rm o}$-module splitting of the spectrum $b{\rm o} \wedge b{\rm o}$ into a wedge of summands related to integral Brown-Gitler spectra. In this paper, a similar splitting of b{\rm o} \sm tmf is constructed. This splitting is then used to understand the $b{\rm o}_*$-algebra structure of $b{\rm o}_* tmf$ and allows for a description of $b{\rm o}^* tmf$.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Neutrino Physics: A Selective Overview

Neutrinos in the Standard Model of particle physics are massless, neutral fermions that seemingly do little more than conserve 4-momentum, angular momentum, lepton number, and lepton flavour in weak interactions. In the last decade conclusive evidence has demonstrated that the Standard Model's description of neutrinos does not match reality. We now know that neutrinos undergo flavour oscillations, violating lepton flavour conservation and implying that neutrinos have non-zero mass. A rich oscillation phenomenology then becomes possible, including matter-enhanced oscillation and possibly CP violation in the neutrino sector. Extending the Standard Model to include neutrino masses requires the addition of new fields and mass terms, and possibly new methods of mass generation. In this review article I will discuss the evidence that has established the existence of neutrino oscillation, and then highlight unresolved issues in neutrino physics, such as the nature of three-generational mixing (including CP-violating effects), the origins of neutrino mass, the possible existence of light sterile neutrinos, and the difficult question of measuring the absolute mass scale of neutrinos.Comment: Proceedings of the Lake Louise Winter Institute 2006; 30 pages, 8 figure

Strong bounds on required resources for quantum channels by local operations and classical communication

Given a protocol ${\cal P}$ that implements multipartite quantum channel ${\cal E}$ by repeated rounds of local operations and classical communication (LOCC), we construct an alternate LOCC protocol for ${\cal E}$ in no more rounds than ${\cal P}$ and no more than a fixed, constant number of outcomes for each local measurement, the same constant number for every party and every round. We then obtain another upper bound on the number of outcomes that, under certain conditions, improves on the first. The latter bound shows that for LOCC channels that are extreme points of the convex set of all quantum channels, the parties can restrict the number of outcomes in their individual local measurements to no more than the square of their local Hilbert space dimension, $d_\alpha$, suggesting a possible link between the required resources for LOCC and the convex structure of the set of all quantum channels. Our bounds on the number of outcomes indicating the need for only constant resources per round, independent of the number of rounds $r$ including when that number is infinite, are a stark contrast to the exponential $r$-dependence in the only previously published bound of which we are aware. If a lower bound is known on the number of product operators needed to represent the channel, we obtain a lower bound on the number of rounds required to implement the given channel by LOCC. Finally, we show that when the quantum channel is not required but only that a given task be implemented deterministically, then no more than $d_\alpha^2$ outcomes are needed for each local measurement by party $\alpha$.Comment: Also see next arXiv article by Leung, Winter and Yu for related results. Comments welcom

'Photosynthetic' Quantum Computers?

Do quantum computers already exist in Nature? It is proposed that they do. Photosynthesis is one example in which a 'quantum computer' component may play a role in the 'classical' world of complex biological systems. A 'translation' of the standard metabolic description of the 'front-end' light harvesting complex in photosynthesis into the language of quantum computers is presented. Biological systems represent an untapped resource for thinking about the design and operation of hybrid quantum-classical computers and expanding our current conceptions of what defines a 'quantum computer' in Nature.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

On some permanence properties of exact groupoids

A locally compact groupoid is said to be exact if its associated reduced crossed product functor is exact. In this paper, we establish some permanence properties of exactness, including generalizations of some known results for exact groups. Our primary goal is to show that exactness descends to certain types of closed subgroupoids, which in turn gives conditions under which the isotropy groups of an exact groupoid are guaranteed to be exact. As an initial step toward these results, we establish the exactness of any transformation groupoid associated to an action of an exact groupoid on a locally compact Hausdorff space. We also obtain a partial converse to this result, which generalizes a theorem of Kirchberg and Wassermann. We end with some comments on the weak form of exactness known as inner exactness.Comment: 28 pages. This version includes some minor changes to improve readability. This is the final version that will appear in the Houston Journal of Mathematic

Feynman Clocks, Casual Networks, and the Origin of Hierarchical 'Arrows of Time' in Complex Systems from the Big Bang to the Brain

A theory of 'time' as a form of 'information' is proposed. New tools such as Feynman Clocks, Collective Excitation Networks, Sequential Excitation Networks, Plateaus of Complexity, and Causal Networks are used to unify previously separate 'arrows of time'.Comment: 21 pages, corrected equations, revised conten

On the structure of LOCC: finite vs. infinite rounds

Every measurement that can be implemented by local quantum operations and classical communication (LOCC) using an infinite number of rounds is the limit of a sequence of measurements each of which requires only a finite number of rounds. This rather obvious and well-known fact is nonetheless of interest as it shows that these infinite-round measurements can be approximated arbitrarily closely simply by using more and more rounds of communication. Here we demonstrate the perhaps less obvious result that (at least) for bipartite systems, the reverse relationship also holds. Specifically, we show that every finite-round bipartite LOCC measurement is the limit of a continuous sequence of LOCC measurements, where each measurement in that sequence can be implemented by LOCC, but only with the use of an infinite number of rounds. Thus, the set of LOCC measurements that require an infinite number of rounds is dense in the entirety of LOCC, as is the set of finite-round LOCC measurements. This means there exist measurements that can only be implemented by LOCC by using an infinite number of rounds, but can nonetheless be approximated closely by using one round of communication, and actually in some cases, no communication is needed at all. These results follow from a new necessary condition for finite-round LOCC, which is extremely simple to check, is very easy to prove, and which can be violated by utilizing an infinite number of rounds.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, comments welcome. For version 2, some terminology and notation have been modified, along with numerous other editorial changes, and a distance measure on quantum measurements has been formally defined. All results are the same as in version