arXiv subjects

Robert B. Mann

Publications and source records attributed to Robert B. Mann.

At least 217 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

A classification of open Gaussian dynamics

We introduce a classification scheme for the generators of bosonic open Gaussian dynamics, providing instructive diagrams description for each type of dynamics. Using this classification, we discuss the consequences of imposing complete positivity on Gaussian dynamics. In particular, we show that non-symplectic operations must be active to allow for complete positivity. In addition, non-symplectic operations can, in fact, conserve the volume of phase space only if the restriction of complete positivity is lifted. We then discuss the implications for the relationship between information and energy flows in open quantum mechanics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Gaussian ancillary bombardment

We analyze in full detail the time evolution of an open Gaussian quantum system rapidly bombarded by Gaussian ancillae. As a particular case this analysis covers the thermalization (or not) of a harmonic oscillator coupled to a thermal reservoir made of harmonic oscillators. We derive general results for this scenario and apply them to the problem of thermalization. We show that only a particular family of system-environment couplings will cause the system to thermalize to the temperature of its environment. We discuss that if we want to understand thermalization as ensuing from the Markovian interaction of a system with the individual microconstituents of its (thermal) environment then the process of thermalization is not as robust as one might expect.

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arXiv2018

Transition to light-like trajectories in thin shell dynamics

It was recently shown that a massive thin shell that is sandwiched between a flat interior and an exterior geometry given by the outgoing Vaidya metric becomes null in a finite proper time. We investigate this transition for a general spherically-symmetric metric outside the shell and find that it occurs generically. Once the shell is null its persistence on a null trajectory can be ensured by several mechanisms that we describe. Using the outgoing Vaidya metric as an example we show that if a dust shell acquires surface pressure on its transition to a null trajectory it can evade the Schwarzschild radius through its collapse. Alternatively, the pressureless collapse may continue if the exterior geometry acquires a more general form.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Harvesting Entanglement from the Black Hole Vacuum

We implement the entanglement harvesting protocol, in which two Unruh-DeWitt detectors become entangled through local interactions with a quantum field, for the first time in the vicinity of a black hole. Our study, focusing on the BTZ black hole, reveals that black holes inhibit entanglement harvesting. The entanglement harvested rapidly falls to zero when two detectors with fixed proper separation approach the horizon. This effect is a combination of black hole radiation and gravitational red shift, both generic properties of horizons, suggesting it is a general result for black holes.

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arXiv2017

Unruh thermal hadronization and the cosmological constant

We use black holes with a negative cosmological constant to investigate aspects of the freeze-out temperature for hadron production in high energy heavy-ion collisions. The two black hole solutions present in the anti-de Sitter geometry have different mass and are compared to the data showing that the small black hole solution is in good agreement. This is a new feature in the literature since the small black hole in general relativity has different thermodynamic behavior from that of the large black hole solution. We find that the inclusion of the cosmological constant (which can be interpreted as the plasma pressure) leads to a lowering of the temperature of the freeze-out curve as a function of the baryochemical potential, improving the description previously suggested by Castorina, Kharzeev, and Satz.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Breakdown of the Equal Area Law for Holographic Entanglement Entropy

We investigate a holographic version of Maxwell's equal area law analogous to that for the phase transition in the black hole temperature/black hole entropy plane of a charged AdS black hole. We consider proposed area laws for both the black hole temperature/holographic entanglement entropy plane and the black hole temperature/2-point correlation function plane. Despite recent claims to the contrary, we demonstrate numerically that neither proposal is valid. We argue that there is no physical reason to expect such a construction in these planes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Planck scale Corrections to the Harmonic Oscillator, Coherent and Squeezed States

The Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP) is a modification of Heisenberg's Principle predicted by several theories of Quantum Gravity. It consists of a modified commutator between position and momentum. In this work we compute potentially observable effects that GUP implies for the harmonic oscillator, coherent and squeezed states in Quantum Mechanics. In particular, we rigorously analyze the GUP-perturbed harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian, defining new operators that act as ladder operators on the perturbed states. We use these operators to define the new coherent and squeezed states. We comment on potential applications.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Sufficient condition for nonexistence of symmetric extension of qudits using Bell inequalities

We analyze the connection between Bell inequality violations and symmetric extendibility of quantum states. We prove that 2-qubit reduced states of multiqubit symmetric pure states do not violate the Bell Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality. We then prove the more general converse that any 2-qubit state that violates the CHSH inequality cannot have a symmetric extension. We extend our analysis to qudits and provide a test for symmetric extendibility of 2-qudit states. We show that if a 2-qudit Bell inequality is monogamous, then any 2-qudit state that violates this inequality does not have a symmetric extension. For the specific case of 2-qutrit states, we use numerical evidence to conjecture that the Collins-Gisin-Linden-Massar-Popescu (CGLMP) inequality is monogamous. Hence, the violation of the CGLMP inequality by any 2-qutrit state could be a sufficient condition for the nonexistence of its symmetric extension.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Taming an Optical Schroedinger's cat - A quantum non-demolition approach

An interferometric experiment is described that characterizes an optical cat state in a cavity mode. Our method describes how to measure the amplitude and phase of the different coherent states that make up the cat states. We show that using a recently proposed quantum nondemolition measurement technique, we can circumvent the problem of decoherence inherent in measurement involving superposition of coherent states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Black Hole Squeezers

We show that the gravitational quasi-normal modes (QNMs) of a Schwarzschild black hole play the role of a multimode squeezer that can generate particles. For a minimally coupled scalar field, the QNMs "squeeze" the initial state of the scalar field (even for the vacuum) and produce scalar particles. The maximal squeezing amplitude is inversely proportional to the cube of the imaginary part of the QNM frequency, implying that the particle generation efficiency is higher for lower decaying QNMs. Our results show that the gravitational perturbations can amplify Hawking radiation.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Over the horizon: distinguishing the Schwarzschild spacetime and the $\mathbb{RP}^3$ spacetime using an Unruh-DeWitt detector

We show that a particle detector can distinguish the $\mathbb{RP}^3$ geon from the Schwarzschild black hole, even though they differ only by a topological identification beyond the event horizon. This shows that the detector can read out information about the non-local structure even when separated from the non-locality by an event horizon. Our analysis of the dependence of the transition on the detector gap is novel, and in principle presents an interesting observational signal.

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arXiv2017

Role of evaporation in gravitational collapse

We investigate the possibility that quantum effects responsible for black hole radiation do not allow for hori- zon crossing of gravitationally collapsing matter in a finite time as seen by distant observers. We consider this in the context of the collapse of evaporating massive thin dust shells using two families of metrics to describe the exterior geometry: the outgoing Vaidya metric and the retarded Schwarzschild metric. We describe how this hypothesis results in a modified equation of motion for the shell. In each case the collapse is accelerated due to evaporation, but the Schwarzschild radius is not crossed. Instead the shell is always at a certain sub-Planckian distance from this would-be horizon that depends only on the mass and evaporation rate, while a comoving observer encounters firewall-like energy density and flux with a natural cutoff.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Phase structure of complete asymptotically free SU($N_c$) theories with quarks and scalar quarks

We determine the phase diagram of complete asymptotically free SU($N_c$) gauge theories featuring $N_s$ complex scalars and $N_f$ Dirac quarks transforming according to the fundamental representation of the gauge group. The analysis is performed at the maximum known order in perturbation theory. We unveil a very rich dynamics and associated phase structure. Intriguingly we discover that the complete asymptotically free conditions guarantee that the infrared dynamics displays long distance conformality, and in a regime when perturbation theory is applicable. We conclude our analysis by determining the quantum corrected potential of the theory and summarising the possible patterns of radiative symmetry breaking. These theories are of potential phenomenological interest as either elementary or composite ultraviolet finite extensions of the Standard Model.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Higher Order Corrections to Holographic Black Hole Chemistry

We investigate the holographic Smarr relation beyond the large N limit. By making use of the holographic dictionary, we find that the bulk correlates of sub-leading 1/N corrections to this relation are related to the couplings in Lovelock gravity theories. We likewise obtain a holographic equation of state, and check its validity for a variety of interesting and non-trivial black holes, including rotating planar black holes in Gauss-Bonnet-Born-Infeld gravity, and non-extremal rotating black holes in minimal 5d gauged supergravity. We provide an explanation of the N-dependence of the holographic Smarr relation in terms of contributions due to planar and non-planar diagrams in the dual theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Emergent Dark Energy in Classical Channel Gravity with Matter

Motivated by the recent increased interest in energy non-conserving models in cosmology, we extend the analysis of the cosmological consequences of the Classical Channel Model of Gravity (CCG). This model is based on the classical-quantum interaction between a test particle and a metric (classical) and results in a theory with a modified Wheeler-deWitt equation that in turn leads to non conservation of energy. We show that CCG applied to a cosmological scenario with primordial matter leads to an emergent dark fluid that at late times behaves as a curvature term in the Friedmann equations, showing that the late time behaviour is always dominated by the vacuum solutions. We discuss possible observational constraints for this model and that, in its current formulation, CCG eludes any meaningful constraints from current observations.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Do event horizons exist?

Event horizons are the defining feature of classical black holes. They are the key ingredient of the information loss paradox which, as paradoxes in quantum foundations, is built on a combination of predictions of quantum theory and counterfactual classical features: neither horizon formation nor its crossing by a test body is observable. Furthermore, horizons are unnecessary for the production of Hawking-like radiation. We demonstrate that when this radiation is taken into account it prevents horizon crossing/formation in a large class of models. We conjecture that horizon avoidance is a general feature of collapse. The non-existence of event horizons dispels the paradox, but opens up important questions about thermodynamic properties of the resulting objects and correlations between different degrees of freedom.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Relativistic geoids and time dependence: quasilocal frames versus isochronometric surfaces

In a recent paper [D. Philipp, V. Perlick, D. Puetzfeld, E. Hackmann, and C. Lämmerzahl, Phys. Rev. D 95, 104037 (2017)], a definition of a general-relativistic geoid, restricted to stationary spacetimes, was presented in terms of "isochronometric surfaces". In this note, we explicate how this definition is just a special, highly restrictive case of our earlier formulation of the general-relativistic geoid using quasilocal frames, which is valid for generic, non-stationary spacetimes [M. Oltean, R.J. Epp, P.L. McGrath, and R.B. Mann, Class. Quantum Grav. 33, 105001 (2016)]. Moreover, like the isochronometric surface geoid, we show how our "geoid quasilocal frame" (GQF) can also be defined, simply and operationally, in terms of redshift measurements.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Entanglement harvesting and divergences in quadratic Unruh-DeWitt detectors pairs

We analyze correlations between pairs of particle detectors quadratically coupled to a real scalar field. We find that, while a single quadratically coupled detector presents no divergences, when one considers pairs of detectors there emerge unanticipated persistent divergences (not regularizable via smooth switching or smearing) in the entanglement they acquire from the field. We have characterized such divergences, discussed whether a suitable regularization can allow for fair comparison of the entanglement harvesting ability of the quadratic and the linear couplings, and finally we have found a UV-safe quantifier of harvested correlations. Our results are relevant to future studies of the entanglement structure of the fermionic vacuum.

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