Influence of Indefinite Causal Order on Otto Heat Engine

Quantum effect plays important roles in quantum thermodynamics, and recently the application of indefinite causal order to quantum thermodynamics has attracted much attentions. Based on two trapped ions, we propose a scheme to add an indefinite causal order to the isochoric cooling stroke of Otto engine through reservoir engineering. Then, we observe that the quasi-static efficiency of this heat engine is far beyond the efficiency of a normal Otto heat engine and may reach 1. When the power is its maximum, the efficiency is also much higher than that of a normal Otto heat engine. This enhancement may origin from the non-equilibrium of reservoir and the measurement on control qubit.

Leadership and Creativity in Organizational Behavior

Because leadership and creativity represent two of the most popular topics in the fields of management and organizational behavior, it should not be surprising that a large body of literature has emerged in which the two are jointly examined. Leadership is a commonly studied independent variable, whereas creativity is an outcome of paramount importance for organizations, and the two are also theoretically connected in several ways, suggesting that leadership could precipitate followers’ creative outcomes. This relationship pattern, called “creative leadership,” is the most common way leadership and creativity interact in the extant scholarship. Most of the existing work has focused on “facilitating” creative leadership, in which followers (but not leaders) generate creative outputs, often as a result of leadership behaviors and styles, relationships, or the characteristics of their leader. This work generally finds that positive leadership precipitates positive creative outcomes, although some findings have emerged suggesting that considerable nuance may exist in these relationships, a promising area for future research. Much less scholarship has examined how leaders might direct others to implement their own creative visions, or how leaders might integrate their own creative efforts with those of their followers to enhance overall creativity. Research on these forms of creative leadership is often limited to specific creativity-relevant industries, such the culinary field and the arts, but there is opportunity to examine how they might operate in more general organizational fields. Other phenomena linking leadership and creativity are plausible but less understood. For instance, leaders may assemble creative contexts, engage in unconventional behavior, or emerge as leaders regardless of their hierarchical positions. Least explored of all is the idea of an opposite causal order—that of creativity affecting leadership, such that creative acts or experiences by an organizational member might drive or alter leadership emerging from themselves, their managers, or their followers. After review of the extant literature in these areas, potential topics for future scholarship are identified within and among the different research streams.

Abstract Objects in the Causal Order

<p>Abstract entities have long been viewed as entities that lack causal powers; that is, they cannot be constitutive of causes or effects. This thesis aims to reject this claim and argue that abstract objects are indeed part of the causal order. I will call this thesis ‘AOCO’ for short. In the first chapter I argue that other philosophers have committed themselves to the claim that some abstract objects have been caused to come into existence. In the second chapter, I argue that the best solution to Benacerraf’s problem is to concede that abstract objects have a causal influence on what we believe. In the third chapter I examine and evaluate objections to AOCO.</p>

Abstract Objects in the Causal Order

<p>Abstract entities have long been viewed as entities that lack causal powers; that is, they cannot be constitutive of causes or effects. This thesis aims to reject this claim and argue that abstract objects are indeed part of the causal order. I will call this thesis ‘AOCO’ for short. In the first chapter I argue that other philosophers have committed themselves to the claim that some abstract objects have been caused to come into existence. In the second chapter, I argue that the best solution to Benacerraf’s problem is to concede that abstract objects have a causal influence on what we believe. In the third chapter I examine and evaluate objections to AOCO.</p>

Quantum non-gaussianity from an indefnite causal order of Gaussian operations

Quantum non-Gaussian states are considered a useful resource for many tasks in quantum information processing, from quantum metrology and quantum sensing to quantum communication and quantum key distribution. Another useful tool that is gaining attention is the newly constructed quantum switch. Its applications in many tasks in quantum information have been proved to outperform many existing schemes in quantum communication and quantum thermometry. In this contribution, we demonstrate this to be very useful for engineering highly non-Gaussian states from Gaussian operations whose order is controlled by degrees of freedom of a control qubit. The nonconvexity of the set of Gaussian states and the set of Gaussian operations guarantees the emergence of non-Gaussianity after post-selection on the control qubit deterministically, in contrast to existing protocols in the literature. The nonclassicality of the resulting states is discussed accordingly.

Functorial Evolution of Quantum Fields

We present a compositional algebraic framework to describe the evolution of quantum fields in discretised spacetimes. We show how familiar notions from Relativity and quantum causality can be recovered in a purely order-theoretic way from the causal order of events in spacetime, with no direct mention of analysis or topology. We formulate theory-independent notions of fields over causal orders in a compositional, functorial way. We draw a strong connection to Algebraic Quantum Field Theory (AQFT), using a sheaf-theoretical approach in our definition of spaces of states over regions of spacetime. We introduce notions of symmetry and cellular automata, which we show to subsume existing definitions of Quantum Cellular Automata (QCA) from previous literature. Given the extreme flexibility of our constructions, we propose that our framework be used as the starting point for new developments in AQFT, QCA and more generally Quantum Field Theory.