Current approaches to the problems of dark energy and unification generically predict the existence of new fields (quintessence dilatons etc.) that will in principle couple with different strengths to different standard-model fields. These different coupling strengths will cause test materials of different compositions to fall at different rates in the same gravitational field violating the Equivalence Principle the foundation of General Relativity. A sufficiently sensitive measurement of the relative accelerations of different test bodies in orbit around the earth could detect or rule out these new fields complementing existing or proposed experiments in high-energy physics (colliders) and observational cosmology (space telescopes). To do this convincingly such an experiment needs at least three test materials spanning the largest possible volume in the space of atomic and molecular properties and a sensitivity to EP violations of as little as a part in $10^{18}$ (attainable only in space and at low temperatures). I discuss one such experiment the Satellite Test of the Equivalence Principle which has reached an advanced stage of prototype development and is currently awaiting a path toward a flight program.
A
crucial question in any approach to quantum information processing
is: first, how are classical bits
encoded
physically in the quantum system, second, how are they then manipulated and,
third, how are they finally read out?
These
questions are particularly challenging when investigating quantum
information processing in a relativistic spacetime. An obvious
framework for such an investigation is relativistic quantum field
theory. Here, progress is hampered by the lack of a universally
applicable rule for calculating the probabilities of the outcomes of ideal
measurements on a relativistic quantum field in a collection of spacetime
regions. Indeed,
a straightforward relativistic generalisation of the non-relativistic formula
for these probabilities leads to superluminal signalling.
Motivated
by these considerations we ask what interventions/ideal measurements can we in
principle make, taking causality as our guiding criterion. In the course
of this analysis we reconsider various aspects of ideal measurements in QFT,
detector models and the probability rules themselves. In particular, it is
shown that an ideal measurement of a one–particle wave packet state of a
relativistic quantum field in Minkowski spacetime enables superluminal
signalling. The result holds for a measurement that takes place over an
intervention region in spacetime whose extent in time in some frame is longer
than the light crossing time of the packet in that frame.
I'll describe a special information-theoretic property of
quantum field theories with holographic duals: the mutual informations among
arbitrary disjoint spatial regions A,B,C obey the inequality I(A:BC) >=
I(A:B)+I(A:C), provided entanglement entropies are given by the Ryu-Takayanagi
formula. Inequalities of this type are known as monogamy relations and are
characteristic of measures of quantum entanglement. This suggests that
correlations in holographic theories arise primarily from entanglement rather
than classical correlations. Moreover, monogamy property implies that the
Ryu-Takayanagi formula is consistent with all known general inequalities obeyed
by the entanglement entropy, including an infinite set recently discovered by
Cadney, Linden, and Winter; this constitutes significant evidence in favour of
its validity.
The fundamental properties of quantum
information and its applications to computing and cryptography have been
greatly illuminated by considering information-theoretic tasks that are
provably possible or impossible within non-relativistic quantum mechanics. In this talk I describe a general framework
for defining tasks within (special) relativistic quantum theory and illustrate
it with examples from relativistic quantum cryptography.
We present a general, analytic recipe to compute the entanglement that is generated between arbitrary, discrete modes of bosonic quantum fields by Bogoliubov transformations. Our setup allows the complete characterization of the quantum correlations in all Gaussian field states. Additionally, it holds for all Bogoliubov transformations. These are commonly applied in quantum optics for the description of squeezing operations, relate the modedecompositions of observers in different regions of curved spacetimes, and describe observers moving along non-stationary trajectories. We focus on a quantum optical example in a cavity quantum electrodynamics setting: an uncharged scalar field within a cavity provides a model for an optical resonator, in which entanglement is created by non-uniform acceleration.We show that the amount of generated entanglement can be magnified by initialsingle-mode squeezing, for which we provide an explicit formula.Applications to quantum fields in curved spacetimes, such as an expanding universe, are discussed.
Recent analysis of closed timelike curves from an information-theoretic perspective has led to contradictory conclusions about their information-processing power. One thing is generally agreed upon, however, which is that if such curves exist, the quantum-like evolution they imply would be nonlinear, but the physical interpretation of such theories is still unclear. It is known that any operationally verifiable instance of a nonlinear, deterministic evolution on some set of pure states makes the density matrix inadequate for representing mixtures of those pure states. We re-cast the problem in the language of operational quantum mechanics, building on previous work to show that the no-signalling requirement leads to a splitting of the equivalence classes of preparation procedures. This leads to the conclusion that any non-linear theory satisfying certain minimal conditions must be regarded as inconsistent unless it contains distinct representations for the two different kinds of mixtures, and incomplete unless it contains a rule for determining the physical preparations associated with each type. We refer to this as the `preparation problem' for nonlinear theories.
Bases of orthonormal localized states are constructed in Rindler coordinates and applied to an Unruh detector with good time resolution and an accelerated rod-like array detector.
Using the Deutsch approach, we show that the no-cloning theorem can be circumvented in the presence of closed timelike curves, allowing the perfect cloning of a quantum state chosen randomly from a finite alphabet of states. Further, we show that a universal cloner can be constructed that when acting on a completely arbitrary qubit state, exceeds the no-cloning bound on fidelity. Since the “no cloning theorem” has played a central role in the development of quantum information science, it is clear that the existence of closed timelike curves would radically change the rules for quantum information technology.
An unsolved problem in relativistic quantum information
research is how to model efficient, directional quantum communication between
localised parties in a fully quantum field theoretical framework. We propose a
tractable approach to this problem based on calculating expectation values of
localized field observables in the Heisenberg Picture. We illustrate our
approach by analysing, and obtaining approximate analytical solutions to, the
problem of communicating quantum states between an inertial sender, Alice and
an accelerated homodyne receiver, Rob. We discuss the effect on quantum
protocols carried out over such a communication channel.
In the Unruh effect, long-distance correlations in a pure
quantum state cause accelerated observers to experience the state as a thermal
bath. We discuss a similar phenomenon for quantum states that contain
correlations between the distant future and the distant past. Examples include
Minkowski half-space with a static mirror and an eternal black hole with an
unusual global structure behind the horizon. The question of utilising the
future-past correlations in quantum information tasks is raised.
After an introduction to generalized uncertainty
principle(s), we study uncertainty relations as formulated in a crystal-like
universe, whose lattice spacing is of order of
Planck length. For Planckian energies, the uncertainty relation for
position and momenta has a lower bound equal to zero. Connections of this
result with 't Hooft's deterministic quantization proposal, and with double
special relativity are briefly presented. We then apply our formulae to
(micro) black holes, we derive a new mass-temperature
relation for Schwarzschild black holes, and we discuss the new thermodynamic
entropy and heat capacity.
In contrast to standard results based on Heisenberg and
stringy uncertainty relations, we obtain both a finite Hawking's temperature
and a zero rest-mass remnant at the end of the (micro) black hole evaporation.
[Ref.Paper: PRD 81, 084030 (2010). arXiv:0912.2253]