Zeptometer Metrology Using the Casimir Effect

In this paper, we discuss using the Casimir force in conjunction with a MEMS parametric amplifier to construct a quantum displacement amplifier. Such a mechanical amplifier converts DC displacements into much larger AC oscillations via the quantum gain of the system which, in some cases, can be a factor of a million or more. This would allow one to build chip scale metrology systems with zeptometer positional resolution. This approach leverages quantum fluctuations to build a device with a sensitivity that can’t be obtained with classical systems.

The Design of an Intelligent Robotic Wheelchair Supporting People with Special Needs, including for Their Visual System

The paper aims to study the applicability and limitations of the solution resulting from a design process for an intelligent system supporting people with special needs who are not physically able to control a wheelchair using classical systems. The intelligent system uses information from smart sensors and offers a control system that replaces the use of a joystick. The necessary movements of the chair in the environment can be determined by an intelligent vision system analyzing the direction of the patient’s gaze and point of view, as well as the actions of the head. In this approach, an important task is to detect the destination target in the 3D workspace. This solution has been evaluated, outdoor and indoor, under different lighting conditions. In order to design the intelligent wheelchair, and because sometimes people with special needs also have specific problems with their optical system (e.g., strabismus, Nystagmus) the system was tested on different subjects, some of them wearing eyeglasses. During the design process of the intelligent system, all the tests involving human subjects were performed in accordance with specific rules of medical security and ethics. In this sense, the process was supervised by a company specialized in health activities that involve people with special needs. The main results and findings are as follows: validation of the proposed solution for all indoor lightning conditions; methodology to create personal profiles, used to improve the HMI efficiency and to adapt it to each subject needs; a primary evaluation and validation for the use of personal profiles in real life, indoor conditions. The conclusion is that the proposed solution can be used for persons who are not physically able to control a wheelchair using classical systems, having with minor vision deficiencies or major vision impairment affecting one of the eyes.

Quantum Entanglement in Time

<p>This thesis is in the field of quantum information science, which is an area that reconceptualizes quantum physics in terms of information. Central to this area is the quantum effect of entanglement in space. It is an interdependence among two or more spatially separated quantum systems that would be impossible to replicate by classical systems. Alternatively, an entanglement in space can also be viewed as a resource in quantum information in that it allows the ability to perform information tasks that would be impossible or very difficult to do with only classical information. Two such astonishing applications are quantum communications which can be harnessed for teleportation, and quantum computers which can drastically outperform the best classical supercomputers. In this thesis our focus is on the theoretical aspect of the field, and we provide one of the first expositions on an analogous quantum effect known as entanglement in time. It can be viewed as an interdependence of quantum systems across time, which is stronger than could ever exist between classical systems. We explore this temporal effect within the study of quantum information and its foundations as well as through relativistic quantum information. An original contribution of this thesis is the design of one of the first quantum information applications of entanglement in time, namely a quantum blockchain. We describe how the entanglement in time provides the quantum advantage over a classical blockchain. Furthermore, the information encoding procedure of this quantum blockchain can be interpreted as non-classically influencing the past, and hence the system can be viewed as a `quantum time machine.'</p>

Quantum Entanglement in Time

<p>This thesis is in the field of quantum information science, which is an area that reconceptualizes quantum physics in terms of information. Central to this area is the quantum effect of entanglement in space. It is an interdependence among two or more spatially separated quantum systems that would be impossible to replicate by classical systems. Alternatively, an entanglement in space can also be viewed as a resource in quantum information in that it allows the ability to perform information tasks that would be impossible or very difficult to do with only classical information. Two such astonishing applications are quantum communications which can be harnessed for teleportation, and quantum computers which can drastically outperform the best classical supercomputers. In this thesis our focus is on the theoretical aspect of the field, and we provide one of the first expositions on an analogous quantum effect known as entanglement in time. It can be viewed as an interdependence of quantum systems across time, which is stronger than could ever exist between classical systems. We explore this temporal effect within the study of quantum information and its foundations as well as through relativistic quantum information. An original contribution of this thesis is the design of one of the first quantum information applications of entanglement in time, namely a quantum blockchain. We describe how the entanglement in time provides the quantum advantage over a classical blockchain. Furthermore, the information encoding procedure of this quantum blockchain can be interpreted as non-classically influencing the past, and hence the system can be viewed as a `quantum time machine.'</p>

Observers of quantum systems cannot agree to disagree

Is the world quantum? An active research line in quantum foundations is devoted to exploring what constraints can rule out the postquantum theories that are consistent with experimentally observed results. We explore this question in the context of epistemics, and ask whether agreement between observers can serve as a physical principle that must hold for any theory of the world. Aumann’s seminal Agreement Theorem states that two observers (of classical systems) cannot agree to disagree. We propose an extension of this theorem to no-signaling settings. In particular, we establish an Agreement Theorem for observers of quantum systems, while we construct examples of (postquantum) no-signaling boxes where observers can agree to disagree. The PR box is an extremal instance of this phenomenon. These results make it plausible that agreement between observers might be a physical principle, while they also establish links between the fields of epistemics and quantum information that seem worthy of further exploration.

Survey of NISQ Era Hybrid Quantum-Classical Machine Learning Research

Quantum computing is a rapidly growing field that has received a significant amount of support in the past decade in industry and academia. Several physical quantum computers are now freely available to use through cloud services, with some implementations supporting upwards of hundreds of qubits. These advances mark the beginning of the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era of quantum computing, paving the way for hybrid quantum-classical systems. This work provides an introductory overview of gate-model quantum computing through the Visual IoT/Robotics Programming Language Environment and a survey of recent applications of NISQ era quantum computers to hybrid quantum-classical machine learning.

Contextuality in Neurobehavioural and Collective Intelligence Systems

Contextuality is often described as a unique feature of the quantum realm, which distinguishes it fundamentally from the classical realm. This is not strictly true, and stems from decades of the misapplication of Kolmogorov probability. Contextuality appears in Kolmogorov theory (observed in the inability to form joint distributions) and in non-Kolmogorov theory (observed in the violation of inequalities of correlations). Both forms of contextuality have been observed in psychological experiments, although the first form has been known for decades but mostly ignored. The complex dynamics of neural systems (neurobehavioural regulatory systems) and of collective intelligence systems (social insect colonies) are described. These systems are contextual in the first sense and possibly in the second as well. Process algebra, based on the Process Theory of Whitehead, describes systems that are generated, transient, open, interactive, and primarily information-driven, and seems ideally suited to modeling these systems. It is argued that these dynamical characteristics give rise to contextuality and non-Kolmogorov probability in spite of these being entirely classical systems.