Spooky action put to order: Different types of 'entanglement' classified

June 6, 2013 ? "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." Thus spoke the American physicist Richard Feynman -- underlining that even leading scientists struggle to develop an intuitive feeling for quantum mechanics. One reason for this is that quantum phenomena often have no counterpart in classical physics. A typical example is the quantum entanglement: Entangled particles seem to directly influence one another, no matter how widely separated they are. It looks as if the particles can 'communicate' with one another across arbitrary distances. Albert Einstein, famously, called this seemingly paradoxical behaviour "spooky action at a distance."

When more than two particles are entangled, the mutual influence between them can come in different forms. These different manifestations of the entanglement phenomenon are not fully understood, and so far there exists no general method to systematically group entangled states into categories. Reporting in the journal Science, a group of mathematicians and physicists around Matthias Christandl, professor at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, provides an important contribution towards putting the "spooky action" to order. The team has developed a method that allows them to assigning a given quantum state to a class of possible entanglement states. Such a method is important because, among other things, it helps to predict how potentially useful the quantum state can be in technological applications.

Putting entangled states in their place

Together with Brent Doran, a professor in the Department for Mathematics at ETH Zurich, and David Gross, a professor at the University of Freiburg in Germany, Christandl and his PhD student Michael Walter, first author of the Science publication, introduce a method in which different classes of entangled states are associated with geometric objects known as polytopes. These objects represent the "space" that is available to the states of a particular entanglement class. Whether or not a given state belongs to a specific polytope can be determined by making a number of measurements on the individual particles. Importantly, there is no need to measure several particles simultaneously, as is necessary in other methods. The possibility to characterise entangled states through measurements on individual particles makes the new approach efficient, and means also that it can be extended to systems with several particles.

The ability to gain information about entangled states of several particles is a central aspect of this work, explains Christandl: "For three particles, there are two fundamentally different types of entanglement, one of which is generally considered more 'useful' than the other. For four particles, there is already an infinite number of ways to entangle the particles. And with every additional particle, the complexity of this situation gets even more complex." This quickly growing degree of complexity explains why, despite a large number of works that have been written on entangled states, only very few systems with more than a handful of particles have been fully characterized. "Our method of entanglement polytopes helps to tame this complexity by classifying the states into finitely many families," adds Michael Walter.

Quantum technologies on the horizon

Quantum systems with several particles are of interest because they could take an important role in future technologies. In recent years, scientists have proposed, and partly implemented, a wide variety of applications that use quantum-mechanical properties to do things that are outright impossible in the framework of classical physics. These applications range from the tap-proof transmission of messages, to efficient algorithms for solving computational problems, to tech-niques that improve the resolution of photolithographic methods. In these applications, entangled states are an essential resource, precisely because they embody a fundamental quantum-mechanical phenomenon with no counterpart in classical physics. When suitably used, these complex states can open up avenues to novel applications.

A perfect match

The link between quantum mechanical states and geometric shapes has something to offer not only to physicists, but also to mathematicians. According to Doran, the mathematical methods that have been developed for this project may be exploited in other areas of mathematics and physics, but also in theoretical computer science. "It usually makes pure mathematicians a bit uncomfortable if someone with an 'applied' problem wants to hit it with fancy mathematical machinery, because the fit of theory to problem is rarely good," says Doran. "Here it is perfect. The potential for long-term mutually beneficial feedback between pure mathematicians and quantum information theory and experiment is quite substantial."

The method of entanglement polytopes, however, is more than just an elegant mathematical construct. The researchers have shown in their calculations that the technique should work reliably under realistic experimental conditions, signalling that the new method can be used directly in those systems in which the novel quantum technologies are to be implemented. And such practical applications might eventually help to gain a better understand of quantum mechanics.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/o5_QFewlDMg/130606154710.htm

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SeaEnergy's ship management business sets sail - Proactive Investors

--adds management comments--

Energy services group SeaEnergy () is launching a ship management company for the offshore energy sector.

SeaEnergy Ship Management will be led by Rennie Cameron and his team that operated Brooklyn Shipping, with a particular focus on ?walk to work?.

The Aberdeen-based company said the team has a long track record of delivering ?a highly professional, cost-focused ship management service?.

It fits with the company?s strategy of helping offshore oil and gas companies and wind farms produce energy at the lowest cost possible.

In this case, dynamic positioning technology stabilises the ship temporarily, while a gangway allows workers to access a turbine or rig nearby, which chief executive John Aldersey-Williams says is cheaper and safer than flying staff in by helicopter.

?We believe these kinds of vessels [dynamically positioned vessels] are going to have an increasing role in offshore wind farm support and therefore it?s a growth market,? said Aldersey-Williams.

?We?re also seeing increasingly in the North Sea oil and gas sector an appetite for oil companies to use ?walk to work? solutions to put men onto oil and gas platforms to undertake maintenance work.?

It is a service the company itself will need when it comes to have its own vessels in the offshore wind space, the chief executive added.

He says the new division will complement its existing SeaEnergy Marine and consulting businesses.

The team is already in place and Cameron will sign up as managing director of the new business, which starts with immediate revenue, in the next few weeks.

SeaEnergy shares lifted 1.7% to 23p each on Thursday.

Source: http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/57708/seaenergys-ship-management-business-sets-sail-57708.html

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Cosmic CSI team focuses on burned-out stars

June 4, 2013 ? Like a CSI unit, a team of astronomers at observatories worldwide has been digging around in the innards of dead stars, collecting evidence on how they died. One of the dead stars actually ate part of its neighbor; another has a history of other astronomical hijinks.

The Whole Earth Telescope (WET), a worldwide network of observatories with its command center at the University of Delaware, periodically focuses on stars of scientific interest in the galaxy's stellar graveyard.

Working together like a relay team, observers in 17 countries, from the U.S. to China, Brazil to Ukraine, have been focusing their lenses on these target stars whenever they appear in their nighttime sky, effectively operating as a single telescope.

With a marathon two-month-plus observing campaign set to finish up on June 10 -- the longest in WET's history -- the collaboration expects to yield new insights into the astrophysics of white dwarfs, which are dense stars that have burned up their nuclear fuel and are now cooling.

"White dwarfs are so dense that one tablespoon of their matter would weigh as much as five elephants," says Judi Provencal, director of the Delaware Asteroseismic Research Center at the University of Delaware. Provencal operates the WET command center at Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory in Greenville, Del.

The WET team hopes to shed light on the inner workings of these stars, which naturally pulsate, or vibrate.

The team's primary target, the extremely low-mass white dwarf known as WDJ1518, was once part of a two-star or binary system, before eating its companion -- or at least part of it. Discovered only about a year ago by doctoral student J.J. Hermes at the University of Texas at Austin, WDJ1518 is now in a 14-hour orbit around something that is probably another white dwarf or a brown dwarf, according to Provencal. While a white dwarf is massive, a brown dwarf is so light that it can't sustain the nuclear fusion that fuels other stars.

WET's second target star, GD358, waxes and wanes in brightness as the star pulsates, just as other white dwarfs do.

"If you tried to stand on the surface of a white dwarf, you would be squished because it is so dense," Provencal explains. "So, since it would take a large amount of energy to actually expand and contract, white dwarfs slosh from side to side, like an energy wave traveling along the surface."

Astronomers record changes in a white dwarf's luminosity in graphs of light intensity over time called light curves. These graphs typically show regularly repeating sinusoidal waves like a patient's heartbeat or the sound of a ringing bell.

Nearly 20 years ago, in August 1996, GD358 committed what astronomers refer to as a "whoopsie," a period of extreme oscillations that, plotted on a light curve, mimics the track of a monster rollercoaster gone wild.

After two days of giant peaks and dips, the star stopped pulsating for a month, according to Provencal, who began studying it when she was in graduate school.

"It quivered like a bowl of Jell-O for a month," she says. "'Why did it do that, we wondered -- did an asteroid hit it?"

When the WET campaign officially concludes in mid-June, nearly 200 gigabytes of images will have been gathered. Over the next several months, the photos will be stitched together digitally and analyzed to help uncover what's really going on inside these dead stars as they continue to cool down, a mystery that astronomers would like to solve.

"This Whole Earth Telescope run has produced the best investigation of extremely low mass white dwarfs, a newly discovered class of objects," Provencal says. "We have also gathered the best light curve of GD358 ever obtained, and we have seen the star alter its pulsations as we watched. All of this will yield new insights into the structure of white dwarfs and help us understand the future of our own sun, which is destined to become a white dwarf in about 4 billion years."

Such research achievements underscore how the Whole Earth Telescope can help fill a void in astronomy, according to Provencal.

While sophisticated instruments such as the Kepler spacecraft can take detailed images of cosmic phenomena on its hunt for habitable planets, the Whole Earth Telescope offers scientists another avenue for exploration right here from Earth.

"Kepler is looking at one little bit of sky near the constellation Cygnus, so if you want to look somewhere else, you're stuck," she explains. "Kepler covers 0.1 percent of the sky, and we've got the rest of it."

And that "we" includes several amateur astronomers in Texas and Delaware, who are contributing to the WET observing run for the first time.

"Anyone with a telescope and a camera can monitor the brightness of stars right from their backyard," she says.

Participating observatories

These observatories are participating in the current Whole Earth Telescope observing campaign:

Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory -- South Korea Canakkale Astrophysics Observatory -- Turkey Kitt Peak National Observatory -- Arizona, U.S. Krakow Observatory -- Poland Laboratorio Nacional de Astrofisica (LNA) -- Brazil Lulin Observatory -- Taipei, Taiwan McDonald Observatory -- Texas, U.S. Paul and Jane Meyer Observatory -- Texas, U.S. Moletai Observatory -- Lithuania Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory -- Delaware, U.S. Mt. John Observatory -- New Zealand Mt. Suhora Observatory -- Poland National Astronomical Observatory -- Nanjing, China Peak Terskol Observatory -- Ukraine, Russia PROMPT (Panchromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes), LCOGT (Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope network) -- Australia, South Africa, Chile, U.S. San Pedro Martir Observatory -- Mexico South African Astronomical Observatory -- South Africa Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope -- Chile Thai National Observatory -- Thailand Tien Shan Observatory -- Kazakhstan Tubitak Observatory -- Turkey Tuebingen Observatory -- Germany

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130604153334.htm

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PFT: NFL in London? Jags look most likely to move

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With the Jaguars playing one home game per year for four straight years in London and Commissioner Roger Goodell recently suggesting that number could double, it doesn?t take a rocket surgeon to come to the conclusion that if/when a team moves to London, the obvious choice will be the Jaguars.

The writing has been spray painted on the wall by a pack of soccer hooligans.? The Jags are trying to build a fan base in London.? If they do, and if the NFL wants to move a team there, why would it be a team other than the team that has built a fan base?

Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports has written a fairly lengthy dissertation on the topic of Jackonville to the land of the Hound of the Baskervilles (Google it), explaining that ?numerous well-connected NFL people have tabbed as the most likely to land there.?

And that has prompted a delicious slice of passive-aggressive CBS-on-CBS crime, with Pete Prisco of CBS Sports saying this on Twitter:? ?I know the NFL wants a team in London. But to just automatically assume it will be Jacksonville is wrong.?

Prisco supports his position by pointing to the assorted misconceptions about the franchise?s ability to sell tickets in Jacksonville.? Still, any team that builds a fan base in London by playing there on an annual basis becomes the obvious choice to move there.

There?s another possibility with the Jaguars, not mentioned in La Canfora?s piece:? A split schedule.

Rumors continue to persist that the Jags could play some games in Jacksonville, and some in London.? Under the basic realities of supply and demand, fewer games in Jacksonville would mean more tickets sold per game.? (Even though the games haven?t been blacked out in recent years, plenty of premium seats remain routinely available.)? And owner Shahid Khan would benefit financially from a two-headed fan base, both in Jacksonville and in England.

A team based in America that plays some of its regular-season home schedule in London helps the NFL with an overlooked but important logistical problem.? What happens when a team based in London is hosting playoff games, and the road teams have to travel over to England and back and then (if they win) play again in a week?

Having a team play some home games in the U.S. and some in London allows all postseason games to be played in the place that is much easier for the visiting teams to get to.

So regardless of tickets sales or sellouts or any other factor, if the Jags are going to play on London on a regular basis, of course they?re the most obvious choice to play there even more regularly.? Whether that all or only some of their annual schedule remains to be seen.

It also remains to be seen whether they can actually build a fan base in London.? If they don?t, then there?s no reason to expand their presence.? If they do, then there?s no reason not to.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/05/jaguars-seen-as-most-likely-team-to-move-to-london/related/

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Stars come out to congratulate UFC champ Benson Henderson for black belt

UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson already has a shiny gold belt for his UFC championship. On Monday, he received his black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Even as fighters win championships, they still covet the black belt because of what it means in how they've progressed in one area of the sport.

The black belt was also special to Henderson's coach, John Crouch. He contacted a wide group of friends, from NFL player Larry Fitzgerald to actor Ed O'Neil, to say congratulations to Henderson. Though the stars are fun to watch, it's particularly moving to hear from Henderson's mom and his wrestling coaches.

Related coverage on Yahoo! Sports:
? Assembly speaker standing in the way of law legalizing MMA in New York
? Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua won't be fighting in UFC 161 after all
? Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson signs with Bellator

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/stars-come-congratulate-ufc-champ-benson-henderson-black-130435607.html

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Naval Academy investigating alleged sexual assault

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. Naval Academy is investigating allegations that three football team members sexually assaulted a female midshipman at an off-campus house more than a year ago, a Pentagon spokesman said Friday, and a lawyer for the woman says she was "ostracized" on campus after she reported it.

The Pentagon did not make public the names of the players, and the school's athletic director referred questions to a Naval Academy spokesman, who said the Annapolis military college's leaders were monitoring the investigation but declined further comment.

Navy criminal investigators have concluded their work and submitted a report with additional corroborating evidence to Naval Academy Superintendent Michael Miller, who closed an investigation into the same allegations last year without charges, said Susan Burke, a lawyer for the female midshipman.

"The entire (Naval Academy) community knows about this," Burke said in an interview.

The nation's military academies have struggled for years with sexual assault and harassment allegations, and a string of sexual assault cases has recently drawn attention in Congress and at the Pentagon and The White House. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the chiefs of each military branch are scheduled to testify next week at a Senate hearing, and President Barack Obama addressed the problem of sex assaults in the military while giving the Naval Academy commencement address.

Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren confirmed the investigation of the midshipmen Friday but said he had no further details. He said academy officials are evaluating options for adjudicating the case. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is determined to stamp out the problem, Warren said.

The alleged assault occurred in April 2012 at an off-campus house in Annapolis. According to Burke, the woman woke up with bruises after a night of heavy drinking and later learned from friends and social media that three football players ? whom she considered friends ? were claiming to have had sex with her while she was intoxicated and blacked out, Burke said.

The woman reported the allegations to Navy criminal investigators and was disciplined for drinking while the athletes, one of whom discouraged her from cooperating, were permitted to continue playing, Burke said. The female midshipman remains a student in good standing.

"The institution sent her a message loud and clear about its values," she said.

The Navy agreed to reopen the investigation this year after the woman sought legal help, Burke said. The new investigation involved wiretapped conversations that Burke said further substantiated her account. She said the scheduled graduation of one of the three students was put on hold because of the allegations, while the other two were not scheduled to graduate this year.

Naval Academy spokesman Cmdr. John Schofield declined to respond to Burke's statements, saying in a statement, "It is completely inappropriate to make any other public comment on this investigation or any ongoing investigation as we risk compromising the military justice process."

____

Associated Press Writers Robert Burns and Dave Ginsburg contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/naval-academy-investigating-alleged-sexual-assault-212634175.html

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The Daily Roundup for 05.31.2013

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/the-daily-roundup-for-05-31-2013/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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