• Publicationsclose
• Research softwareclose
• Other research productsclose
• 2018-2022close
• Open Access close
• Preprint close
• IL close
• AE close

We present general guidelines for finding solid-state systems that could serve as coherent spin-photon interfaces and show that transition metal ions in various crystals could comply with these guidelines. As an illustrative example, we focus on divalent nickel ions in magnesium oxide. We perform electron spin resonance spectroscopy and polarization-sensitive magneto-optical fluorescence spectroscopy of a dense ensemble of these ions, and find that (i) the ground-state electron spin stays coherent at liquid-helium temperatures for several microseconds, and (ii) there exists energetically well-isolated excited states which can couple to two ground state spin sublevels via optical transitions of orthogonal polarizations. The latter implies that fast, coherent optical spin control is possible. We then propose schemes for optical initialization and control of the ground-state spin using polarized optical pulses, as well as two schemes for implementing a noise-free, broadband quantum-optical memory at near-telecom wavelengths in this material system. Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures

In this paper we consider an Euler fluid coupled to external electromagnetism. We prove that the Hopfion fluid-electromagnetic knot, carrying fluid and electromagnetic (EM) helicities, solves the fluid dynamical equations as well as the Abanov Wiegmann (AW) equations for helicities, which are inspired by the axial-current anomaly of a Dirac fermion. We also find a nontrivial knot solution with truly interacting fluid and electromagnetic fields. The key ingredients of these phenomena are the EM and fluid helicities. An EM dual system, with a magnetically charged fluid, is proposed and the analogs of the AW equations are written down. We consider a fluid coupled to a nonlinear generalizations for electromagnetism. The Hopfions are shown to be solutions of the generalized equations. We write down the formalism of fluids in 2+1 dimensions, and we dimensionally reduce the 3+1 dimensional solutions. We determine the EM knotted solutions, from which we derive the fluid knots, by applying special conformal transformations with imaginary parameters on un-knotted null constant EM fields. 32 pages, 5 figures; references added

We explore the kinetic paths of structural evolution and formation of block copolymer (BCP) particles using dynamic self-consistent field theory (DSCFT). We show that the process-directed self-assembly of BCP immersed in a poor solvent leads to the formation of striped ellipsoids, onion-like particles and double-spiral lamellar particles. The theory predicts a reversible path of shape transition between onion-like particles and striped ellipsoidal ones by regulating the temperature (related to the Flory-Huggins parameter between the two components of BCP, $\chi_{\rm{AB}}$) and the selectivity of solvent towards one of the two BCP components. Furthermore, a kinetic path of shape transition from onion-like particles to double-spiral lamellar particles, and then back to onion-like particles is demonstrated. By investigating the inner-structural evolution of a BCP particle, we identify that changing the intermediate bi-continuous structure into a layered one is crucial for the formation of striped ellipsoidal particles. Another interesting finding is that the formation of onion-like particles is characterized by a two-stage microphase separation. The first is induced by the solvent preference, and the second is controlled by the thermodynamics. Our findings lead to an effective way of tailoring nanostructure of BCP particles for various industrial applications, ranging from sensors to smart coating to drug delivery.

Estimating the dissipation, or the entropy production rate (EPR), can provide insights into the underlying mechanisms of nonequilibrium driven processes. Experimentally, however, only partial information can be accessed, and the ability to estimate the EPR varies depending on the available data. Here, we test different degrees of observed information stemming from coarse-grained time-series trajectory data, and apply several EPR estimators. Given increasing amount of information, we show a hierarchy of lower bounds on the total EPR. Further, we present a novel approach for utilizing waiting times in hidden states to provide a tighter lower bound on the total EPR. letter: 5 pages, 4 figures. Supplemental Material: 2 pages, 2 figures

Creating compelling captions for data visualizations has been a longstanding challenge. Visualization researchers are typically untrained in journalistic reporting and hence the captions that are placed below data visualizations tend to be not overly engaging and rather just stick to basic observations about the data. In this work we explore the opportunities offered by the newly emerging crop of large language models (LLM) which use sophisticated deep learning technology to produce human-like prose. We ask, can these powerful software devices be purposed to produce engaging captions for generic data visualizations like a scatterplot. It turns out that the key challenge lies in designing the most effective prompt for the LLM, a task called prompt engineering. We report on first experiments using the popular LLM GPT-3 and deliver some promising results.

SummaryThe Na+channels that are important for action potentials show rapid inactivation, a state in which they do not conduct, although the membrane potential remains depolarized1,2. Rapid inactivation is a determinant of millisecond scale phenomena, such as spike shape and refractory period. Na+channels also inactivate orders of magnitude more slowly, and therefore have impacts on excitability over much longer time scales than those of a single spike or a single inter-spike interval3-9. Here, we focus on the contribution of slow inactivation to the resilience of axonal excitability10,11when ion channels are unevenly distributed across the axonal membrane. We study models in which the voltage-gated Na+and K+channels are unevenly distributed along axons with different variances, capturing the heterogeneity that biological axons display12. In the absence of slow inactivation many conductance distributions result in spontaneous tonic activity. Faithful axonal propagation is achieved with the introduction of Na+channel slow inactivation. This “normalization” effect depends on relations between the kinetics of slow inactivation and the firing frequency. Consequently, neurons with characteristically different firing frequencies will need to implement different sets of channel properties to achieve resilience. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of the intrinsic biophysical properties of ion channels in normalizing axonal function.HighlightsVariation in ion channel density in axons may compromise axonal spike propagation.Slow inactivation of Na+channels modulates their availability.Na+channel slow inactivation increases the reliability of spike propagation.Normalization by slow inactivation can compensate for uneven channel distributions.

We develop and implement a novel pulse-based ansatz, which we call PANSATZ, for more efficient and accurate implementations of variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) on today's noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers. Our approach is applied to quantum chemistry. Specifically, finding the ground-state energy associated with the electron configuration problem, using the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithm for several molecules. We manage to achieve chemical accuracy both in simulation for several molecules and on one of IBM's NISQ devices for the $H_2$ molecule in the STO-3G basis. Our results are compared to a gate-based ansatz and show significant latency reduction - up to $7\times$ shorter ansatz schedules. We also show that this ansatz has structured adaptivity to the entanglement level required by the problem.

We propose a 6D RGB-D odometry approach that finds the relative camera pose between consecutive RGB-D frames by keypoint extraction and feature matching both on the RGB and depth image planes. Furthermore, we feed the estimated pose to the highly accurate KinectFusion algorithm, which uses a fast ICP (Iterative Closest Point) to fine-tune the frame-to-frame relative pose and fuse the depth data into a global implicit surface. We evaluate our method on a publicly available RGB-D SLAM benchmark dataset by Sturm et al. The experimental results show that our proposed reconstruction method solely based on visual odometry and KinectFusion outperforms the state-of-the-art RGB-D SLAM system accuracy. Moreover, our algorithm outputs a ready-to-use polygon mesh (highly suitable for creating 3D virtual worlds) without any postprocessing steps.

We initiate a study of a new model of property testing that is a hybrid of testing properties of distributions and testing properties of strings. Specifically, the new model refers to testing properties of distributions, but these are distributions over huge objects (i.e., very long strings). Accordingly, the model accounts for the total number of local probes into these objects (resp., queries to the strings) as well as for the distance between objects (resp., strings). Specifically, the distance between distributions is defined as the earth mover���s distance with respect to the relative Hamming distance between strings. We study the query complexity of testing in this new model, focusing on three directions. First, we try to relate the query complexity of testing properties in the new model to the sample complexity of testing these properties in the standard distribution testing model. Second, we consider the complexity of testing properties that arise naturally in the new model (e.g., distributions that capture random variations of fixed strings). Third, we consider the complexity of testing properties that were extensively studied in the standard distribution testing model: Two such cases are uniform distributions and pairs of identical distributions, where we obtain the following results. - Testing whether a distribution over n-bit long strings is uniform on some set of size m can be done with query complexity ��(m/����), where �� > (log���m)/n is the proximity parameter. - Testing whether two distribution over n-bit long strings that have support size at most m are identical can be done with query complexity ��(m^{2/3}/����). Both upper bounds are quite tight; that is, for �� = ��(1), the first task requires ��(m^c) queries for any c < 1 and n = ��(log m), whereas the second task requires ��(m^{2/3}) queries. Note that the query complexity of the first task is higher than the sample complexity of the corresponding task in the standard distribution testing model, whereas in the case of the second task the bounds almost match. LIPIcs, Vol. 215, 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022), pages 78:1-78:19