Ross D. Hoehn

Entropic uncertainty relations for Markovian and non-Markovian processes under a structured bosonic reservoir

The uncertainty relation is a fundamental limit in quantum mechanics and is of great importance to quantum information processing as it relates to quantum precision measurement. Due to interactions with the surrounding environment, a quantum system will unavoidably suffer from decoherence. Here, we investigate the dynamic behaviors of the entropic uncertainty relation of an atom-cavity interacting system under a bosonic reservoir during the crossover between Markovian and non-Markovian regimes. Specifically, we explore the dynamic behavior of the entropic uncertainty relation for a pair of incompatible observables under the reservoir-induced atomic decay effect both with and without quantum memory. We find that the uncertainty dramatically depends on both the atom-cavity and the cavity-reservoir interactions, as well as the correlation time, τ, of the structured reservoir. Furthermore, we verify that the uncertainty is anti-correlated with the purity of the state of the observed qubit-system. We also propose a remarkably simple and efficient way to reduce the uncertainty by utilizing quantum weak measurement reversal. Therefore our work offers a new insight into the uncertainty dynamics for multi-component measurements within an open system, and is thus important for quantum precision measurements.

Generalized Remote Preparation of Arbitrary m-qubit Entangled States via Genuine Entanglements

Herein, we present a feasible, general protocol for quantum communication within a network via generalized remote preparation of an arbitrary m-qubit entangled state designed with genuine tripartite Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger-type entangled resources. During the implementations, we construct novel collective unitary operations; these operations are tasked with performing the necessary phase transfers during remote state preparations. We have distilled our implementation methods into a five-step procedure, which can be used to faithfully recover the desired state during transfer. Compared to previous existing schemes, our methodology features a greatly increased success probability. After the consumption of auxiliary qubits and the performance of collective unitary operations, the probability of successful state transfer is increased four-fold and eight-fold for arbitrary two- and three-qubit entanglements when compared to other methods within the literature, respectively. We conclude this paper with a discussion of the presented scheme for state preparation, including: success probabilities, reducibility and generalizability.

Hydrogen bonding and orientation effects on the accommodation of methylamine at the air-water interface

Methylamine is an abundant amine compound detected in the atmosphere which can affect the nature of atmospheric aerosol surfaces, changing their chemical and optical properties. Molecular dynamics simulation results show that methylamine accommodation on water is close to unity with the hydrophilic head group solvated in the interfacial environment and the methyl group pointing into the air phase. A detailed analysis of the hydrogen bond network indicates stronger hydrogen bonds between water and the primary amine group at the interface, suggesting that atmospheric trace gases will likely react with the methyl group instead of the solvated amine site. These findings suggest new chemical pathways for methylamine acting on atmospheric aerosols in which the methyl group is the site of orientation specific chemistry involving its conversion into a carbonyl site providing hydrophilic groups for uptake of additional water. This conversion may explain the tendency of aged organic aerosols to form cloud condensation nuclei. At the same time, formation of NH2 radical and formaldehyde is suggested to be a new source for NH2 radicals at aerosol surfaces, other than by reaction of absorbed NH3. The results have general implications for the chemistry of other amphiphilic organics, amines in particular, at the surface of atmospherically relevant aerosols.

Neuroreceptor Activation by Vibration-Assisted Tunneling

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) constitute a large family of receptor proteins that sense molecular signals on the exterior of a cell and activate signal transduction pathways within the cell. Modeling how an agonist activates such a receptor is fundamental for an understanding of a wide variety of physiological processes and it is of tremendous value for pharmacology and drug design. Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) has been proposed as a model for the mechanism by which olfactory GPCRs are activated by a bound agonist. We apply this hyothesis to GPCRs within the mammalian nervous system using quantum chemical modeling. We found that non-endogenous agonists of the serotonin receptor share a particular IET spectral aspect both amongst each other and with the serotonin molecule: a peak whose intensity scales with the known agonist potencies. We propose an experiential validation of this model by utilizing lysergic acid dimethylamide (DAM-57), an ergot derivative, and its deuterated isotopologues; we also provide theoretical predictions for comparison to experiment. If validated our theory may provide new avenues for guided drug design and elevate methods of in silico potency/activity prediction.

Experimental evaluation of the generalized vibrational theory of G protein-coupled receptor activation

Significance Herein, we test the present iteration of the vibrational theory of protein activation by comparing predictions obtained from Turin’s vibrational theory for the activation of olfactory receptors measuring affinity and activation at a nonolfactory receptor family of G protein-coupled receptors. This was done at the CNS serotonin receptor family h5-HT2 and with both the 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine and N,N-dimethyllysergamide agonists. Invalidation was performed through a comparative analysis of agonist behavior between isotopologues. Recently, an alternative theory concerning the method by which olfactory proteins are activated has garnered attention. This theory proposes that the activation of olfactory G protein-coupled receptors occurs by an inelastic electron tunneling mechanism that is mediated through the presence of an agonist with an appropriate vibrational state to accept the inelastic portion of the tunneling electron’s energy. In a recent series of papers, some suggestive theoretical evidence has been offered that this theory may be applied to nonolfactory G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), including those associated with the central nervous system (CNS). [Chee HK, June OS (2013) Genomics Inform 11(4):282–288; Chee HK, et al. (2015) FEBS Lett 589(4):548–552; Oh SJ (2012) Genomics Inform 10(2):128–132]. Herein, we test the viability of this idea, both by receptor affinity and receptor activation measured by calcium flux. This test was performed using a pair of well-characterized agonists for members of the 5-HT2 class of serotonin receptors, 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI) and N,N-dimethyllysergamide (DAM-57), and their respective deuterated isotopologues. No evidence was found that selective deuteration affected either the binding affinity or the activation by the selected ligands for the examined members of the 5-HT2 receptor class.

Effects of Hawking Radiation on the Entropic Uncertainty in a Schwarzschild Space-Time

Heisenberg uncertainty principle describes a basic restriction on observers ability of precisely predicting the measurement for a pair of non-commuting observables, and virtually is at the core of quantum mechanics. We herein aim to study entropic uncertainty relation under the background of the Schwarzschild black hole and its control. Explicitly, we develop dynamical features of the measuring uncertainty via entropy in a practical model where a stationary particle interacts with its surrounding environment while another particle --- serving as a quantum memory reservoir --- undergoes freefall in the vicinity of the event horizon of the Schwarzschild space-time. It shows higher Hawking temperatures would give rise to an inflation of the entropic uncertainty on the measured particle. This is suggestive the measurement uncertainty is strongly correlated with degree of mixing present in the evolving particles. Additionally, based on information flow theory, we provide a physical interpretation for the observed dynamical behaviors related with the entropic uncertainty in such a realistic scenario. Finally, an efficient strategy is proposed to reduce the uncertainty by non-tracing-preserved operations. Therefore, our explorations may improve the understanding of the dynamic entropic uncertainty in a curved space-time, and illustrate predictions of quantum measurements in relativistic quantum information sciences.

The interference effect of laser-assisted bremsstrahlung emission in Coulomb fields of two nuclei

In this paper, the spontaneous bremsstrahlung emission from an electron scattered by two fixed nuclei in an intense laser field is investigated in details based upon the Volkov state and the Dirac-Volkov propagator. It has been found that the fundamental harmonic spectrum from the electron radiation exhibits distinctive fringes, which is dependent not only upon the internucleus distance and orientation, but also upon the initial energy of the electron and the laser intensity. By analyzing the differential cross section, we are able to explain these effects in terms of interference among the electron scattering by the nuclei. These results could have promising applications in probing the atomic or molecular dressed potentials in intense laser fields.

Analytic ab initio-based molecular interaction potential for the BrO⋅H2O complex.

Radical halogen oxide species play important roles within atmospheric processes, specifically those responsible for the removal of O3. To facilitate future investigations on this family of compounds, RCCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVQZ-level electronic structure calculations were employed to generate individual-molecule optimized geometries, as well as to determine the global minimum energy structure for the BrO⋅H2O complex. This information facilitated the generation of several one-dimensional potential energy surface (PES) scans for the BrO⋅H2O complex. Scans were performed for both the ground state and the first excited state; this inclusion is due to a low-lying first electronic excited-state energy. These rigid-geometry PES scans were used both to generate a novel analytic interaction potential by modifying the existing Thole-type model used for water and to the fitted potential function. This interaction potential features anisotropic atomic polarizabilities facilitating appropriate modeling of the physics regarding the unpaired electron residing within the p-orbitals of the oxygen atom of the bromine oxide radical. The intention of this work is to facilitate future molecular dynamics simulations involving the interaction between the BrO radical and water clusters as a first step in devising possible novel chemistries taking place at the water interface of clouds within the atmosphere.

Probing entropic uncertainty relations under a two-atom system coupled with structured bosonic reservoirs

The uncertainty principle imposes constraints on an observer’s ability to make precision measurements for two incompatible observables; thus, uncertainty relations play a key role in quantum precision measurement in the field of quantum information science. Here, our aim is to examine non-Markovian effects on quantum-memory-assisted entropic uncertainty relations in a system consisting of two atoms coupled with structured bosonic reservoirs. Explicitly, we explore the dynamics of the uncertainty relations via entropic measures in non-Markovian regimes when two atomic qubits independently interact with their own infinite degree-of-freedom bosonic reservoir. We show that measurement uncertainty vibrates with periodically increasing amplitude with growing non-Markovianity of the observed system and ultimately saturates toward a fixed value at a long time limit. It is worth noting that there are several appealing conclusions raised by us: First, the uncertainty’s lower bound does not entirely depend on the quantum correlations within the two-qubit system, being affected by an interplay between the quantum discord and the minimal von Neumann conditional entropy