Related papers: The importance of quantum decoherence in brain pro…
This work proposes a series of quantum experiments that can, at least in principle, allow for examining microscopic mechanisms associated with decoherence. These experiments can be interpreted as a quantum-mechanical version of…
We find the conditions for one quantum system to function as a classical controller of another quantum system: the controller must be an open system and rapidly diagonalised in the basis of the controller variable that is coupled to the…
Quantum decoherence refers to the phenomenon when the interaction of a quantum system with its environment results in the degradation of quantum coherence. Decoherence is considered to be the most popular mechanism responsible for the…
It has been claimed that decoherence of open quantum systems explains the tendency of macroscopic systems to exhibit quasiclassical behavior. We show that quasiclassicality is in fact an unremarkable property, characterizing generic…
More than a century after the inception of quantum theory, the question of which traits and phenomena are fundamentally quantum remains under debate. Here we give an answer to this question for temporal processes which are probed…
We study the dynamics of quantum systems under classical and quantum noise, focusing on decoherence in qubit systems. Classical noise is described by a random process leading to a stochastic temporal evolution of a closed quantum system,…
Classifying the information content of neural spike trains in a linguistic endeavor, an uncertainty relation emerges between the bit size of a word and its duration. This uncertainty is associated with the task of synchronizing the spike…
Current computers operate at enormous speeds of ~10^13 bits/s, but their principle of sequential logic operation has remained unchanged since the 1950s. Though our brain is much slower on a per-neuron base (~10^3 firings/s), it is capable…
Deviations from classical physics when distant quantum systems become correlated are interesting both fundamentally and operationally. There exist situations where the correlations enable collaborative tasks that are impossible within the…
One of the crucial tasks in computer science is the processing time reduction of various data types, i.e., images, which is important for different fields -- from medicine and logistics to virtual shopping. Compared to classical computers,…
We discuss results recently given in an article by M. Tegmark (quant-ph/9907009) where he argues that neurons can be described appropriately by pure classical physics. This letter is dedicated to the question if this is really the case when…
This paper presents a novel information-theoretic proof demonstrating that the human brain as currently understood cannot function as a classical digital computer. Through systematic quantification of distinguishable conscious states and…
Information processing in the brain requires integration of information over time. Such an integration can be achieved if signals are maintained in the network activity for the required period, as quantified by the intrinsic timescale.…
Markovian regime decoherence effects in quantum computers are studied in terms of the fidelity for the situation where the number of qubits N becomes large. A general expression giving the decoherence time scale in terms of Markovian…
An examination of the concept of using classical degrees of freedom to drive the evolution of quantum computers is given. Specifically, when externally generated, coherent states of the electromagnetic field are used to drive transitions…
Identifying the physiological processes in the central nervous system that underlie our conscious experiences has been at the forefront of cognitive neuroscience. While the principles of classical physics were long found to be…
An initial local excitation in a confined quantum system evolves exploring the whole system, returning to the initial position as a mesoscopic echo at the Heisenberg time. We consider a two weakly coupled spin chains, a spin ladder, where…
The decoherence mechanism signals the limits beyond which the system dynamics approaches the classical behavior. We show that in some cases decoherence may also signal the limits beyond which the system dynamics has to be described by…
Recently some authors have pointed out that there exist nonclassical correlations which are more general, and possibly more fundamental, than entanglement. For these general quantum correlations and their classical counterparts, under the…
Biological information processing is generally assumed to be classical. Measured cellular energy budgets of both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, however, fall orders of magnitude short of the power required to maintain classical states of…