Talks

The k-essence theories admit the superluminal propagation of the perturbations on classical nontrivial backgrounds. In this talk I will review our arguments from arXiv:0708.0561v1 and show that in spite of the superluminal propagation the causal paradoxes do not arise in these theories and in this respect they are not less safe than General Relativity.

We investigate the effect of evaporating primordial black holes on the ionization history of the universe, with emphasis on limits derivable from the CMB and future 21-cm observations of high-redshift neutral hydrogen.

The cosmological power of Type Ia Supernovae depends on their ability to determine distances. The astrophysical limitations, like reddening, local velocity inhomogeneities and intrinsic variations, are a severe impediment for the cosmological applications of these cosmic explosions. Overcoming these systematic restrictions must be the goal of any future supernova projects.

In this talk we discuss how large classes of classical spin models, such as the Ising and Potts models on arbitrary lattices, can be mapped to the graph state formalism. In particular, we show how the partition function of a spin model can be written as the overlap between a graph state and a complete product state. Here the graph state encodes the interaction pattern of the spin model---i.e., the lattice on which the model is defined---whereas the product state depends only on the couplings of the model, i.e., the interaction strengths. As main examples, we find that the 1D Ising model corresponds to the 1D cluster state, the 2D Ising model without external field is mapped to Kitaev's toric code state, and the 2D Ising model with external field corresponds to the 2D cluster state---but the mappings are completely general in that arbitrary graphs, and also q-state models can be treated. These mappings allow one to make connections between concepts in (classical) statistical mechanics and quantum information theory and to obtain a cross-fertilization between both fields. As a main application, we will prove that the classical Ising model on a 2D square lattice (with external field) is a "complete model", in the sense that the partition function of any other spin model---i.e., for q-state spins on arbitrary lattices---can be obtained as a special instance of the (q=2) 2D Ising partition function with suitably tuned (complex) couplings. This result is obtained by invoking the above mappings from spin models to graph states, and the property that the 2D cluster states are universal resource states for one-way quantum computation. Joint work with Wolfgang Duer and Hans Briegel, see PRL/ 98 117207 (2007)/ and quant-ph/0708.2275. For related work, see also S. Bravyi and R. Raussendorf, quant-ph/0610162.

I will discuss an alternative approach to simulating Hamiltonian flows with a quantum computer. A Hamiltonian system is a continuous time dynamical system represented as a flow of points in phase space. An alternative dynamical system, first introduced by Poincare, is defined in terms of an area preserving map. The dynamics is not continuous but discrete and successive dynamical states are labeled by integers rather than a continuous time variable. Discrete unitary maps are naturally adapted to the quantum computing paradigm. Grover's algorithm, for example, is an iterated unitary map. In this talk I will discuss examples of nonlinear dynamical maps which are well adapted to simple ion trap quantum computers, including a transverse field Ising map, a non linear rotor map and a Jahn-Teller map. I will show how a good understanding of the quantum phase transitions and entanglement exhibited in these models can be gained by first describing the classical bifurcation structure of fixed points.