Search results for "Statistical physics"
showing 10 items of 1402 documents
L\'{e}vy flights in inhomogeneous environments
2009
We study the long time asymptotics of probability density functions (pdfs) of L\'{e}vy flights in different confining potentials. For that we use two models: Langevin - driven and (L\'{e}vy - Schr\"odinger) semigroup - driven dynamics. It turns out that the semigroup modeling provides much stronger confining properties than the standard Langevin one. Since contractive semigroups set a link between L\'{e}vy flights and fractional (pseudo-differential) Hamiltonian systems, we can use the latter to control the long - time asymptotics of the pertinent pdfs. To do so, we need to impose suitable restrictions upon the Hamiltonian and its potential. That provides verifiable criteria for an invarian…
Global stability of protein folding from an empirical free energy function
2013
The principles governing protein folding stand as one of the biggest challenges of Biophysics. Modeling the global stability of proteins and predicting their tertiary structure are hard tasks, due in part to the variety and large number of forces involved and the difficulties to describe them with sufficient accuracy. We have developed a fast, physics-based empirical potential, intended to be used in global structure prediction methods. This model considers four main contributions: Two entropic factors, the hydrophobic effect and configurational entropy, and two terms resulting from a decomposition of close-packing interactions, namely the balance of the dispersive interactions of folded an…
Doubling the success of quantum walk search using internal-state measurements
2015
In typical discrete-time quantum walk algorithms, one measures the position of the walker while ignoring its internal spin/coin state. Rather than neglecting the information in this internal state, we show that additionally measuring it doubles the success probability of many quantum spatial search algorithms. For example, this allows Grover's unstructured search problem to be solved with certainty, rather than with probability 1/2 if only the walker's position is measured, so the additional measurement yields a search algorithm that is twice as fast as without it, on average. Thus the internal state of discrete-time quantum walks holds valuable information that can be utilized to improve a…
Quantum Walk Search through Potential Barriers
2015
An ideal quantum walk transitions from one vertex to another with perfect fidelity, but in physical systems, the particle may be hindered by potential energy barriers. Then the particle has some amplitude of tunneling through the barriers, and some amplitude of staying put. We investigate the algorithmic consequence of such barriers for the quantum walk formulation of Grover's algorithm. We prove that the failure amplitude must scale as $O(1/\sqrt{N})$ for search to retain its quantum $O(\sqrt{N})$ runtime; otherwise, it searches in classical $O(N)$ time. Thus searching larger "databases" requires increasingly reliable hop operations or error correction. This condition holds for both discre…
One-directional quantum mechanical dynamics and an application to decision making
2020
In recent works we have used quantum tools in the analysis of the time evolution of several macroscopic systems. The main ingredient in our approach is the self-adjoint Hamiltonian $H$ of the system $\Sc$. This Hamiltonian quite often, and in particular for systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom, gives rise to reversible and oscillatory dynamics. Sometimes this is not what physical reasons suggest. We discuss here how to use non self-adjoint Hamiltonians to overcome this difficulty: the time evolution we obtain out of them show a preferable arrow of time, and it is not reversible. Several applications are constructed, in particular in connection to information dynamics.
Non-Markovianity and memory of the initial state
2017
We explore in a rigorous manner the intuitive connection between the non-Markovianity of the evolution of an open quantum system and the performance of the system as a quantum memory. Using the paradigmatic case of a two-level open quantum system coupled to a bosonic bath, we compute the recovery fidelity, which measures the best possible performance of the system to store a qubit of information. We deduce that this quantity is connected, but not uniquely determined, by the non-Markovianity, for which we adopt the BLP measure proposed in \cite{breuer2009}. We illustrate our findings with explicit calculations for the case of a structured environment.
Unifying approach to the quantification of bipartite correlations by Bures distance
2014
The notion of distance defined on the set of states of a composite quantum system can be used to quantify total, quantum and classical correlations in a unifying way. We provide new closed formulae for classical and total correlations of two-qubit Bell-diagonal states by considering the Bures distance. Complementing the known corresponding expressions for entanglement and more general quantum correlations, we thus complete the quantitative hierarchy of Bures correlations for Bell-diagonal states. We then explicitly calculate Bures correlations for two relevant families of states: Werner states and rank-2 Bell-diagonal states, highlighting the subadditivity which holds for total correlations…
An entropic analysis of approximate quantum error correction
2013
The concept of entropy and the correct application of the Second Law of thermodynamics are essential in order to understand the reason why quantum error correction is thermodynamically possible and no violation of the Second Law occurs during its execution. We report in this work our first steps towards an entropic analysis extended to approximate quantum error correction (QEC). Special emphasis is devoted to the link among quantum state discrimination (QSD), quantum information gain, and quantum error correction in both the exact and approximate QEC scenarios.
Geometric measures of quantum correlations: characterization, quantification, and comparison by distances and operations
2016
We investigate and compare three distinguished geometric measures of bipartite quantum correlations that have been recently introduced in the literature: the geometric discord, the measurement-induced geometric discord, and the discord of response, each one defined according to three contractive distances on the set of quantum states, namely the trace, Bures, and Hellinger distances. We establish a set of exact algebraic relations and inequalities between the different measures. In particular, we show that the geometric discord and the discord of response based on the Hellinger distance are easy to compute analytically for all quantum states whenever the reference subsystem is a qubit. Thes…
Hard-Core Thinnings of Germ‒Grain Models with Power-Law Grain Sizes
2013
Random sets with long-range dependence can be generated using a Boolean model with power-law grain sizes. We study thinnings of such Boolean models which have the hard-core property that no grains overlap in the resulting germ‒grain model. A fundamental question is whether long-range dependence is preserved under such thinnings. To answer this question, we study four natural thinnings of a Poisson germ‒grain model where the grains are spheres with a regularly varying size distribution. We show that a thinning which favors large grains preserves the slow correlation decay of the original model, whereas a thinning which favors small grains does not. Our most interesting finding concerns the c…