Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei

About: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei is a other organization based out in Rome, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Quantum entanglement & Balance of payments. The organization has 97 authors who have published 336 publications receiving 5486 citations.

COVID-19 vaccines: where we stand and challenges ahead.

Abstract: In the eleven months elapsed since the identification of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its genome, an exceptional effort by the scientific community has led to the development of over 300 vaccine projects. Over 40 are now undergoing clinical evaluation, ten of these are in Phase III clinical trials, three of them have ended Phase III with positive results. A few of these new vaccines are being approved for emergency use. Existing data suggest that new vaccine candidates may be instrumental in protecting individuals and reducing the spread of pandemic. The conceptual and technological platforms exploited are diverse, and it is likely that different vaccines will show to be better suited to distinct groups of the human population. Moreover, it remains to be elucidated whether and to what extent the capacity of vaccines under evaluation and of unrelated vaccines such as BCG can increase immunological fitness by training innate immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and pathogen-agnostic protection. Due to the short development time and the novelty of the technologies adopted, these vaccines will be deployed with several unresolved issues that only the passage of time will permit to clarify. Technical problems connected with the production of billions of doses and ethical ones connected with the availably of these vaccines also in the poorest countries, are imminent challenges facing us. It is our tenet that in the long run more than one vaccine will be needed to ensure equitable global access, protection of diverse subjects and immunity against viral variants.

Quantum Information Transfer from Spin to Orbital Angular Momentum of Photons

Abstract: The optical "spin-orbit" coupling occurring in a suitably patterned nonuniform birefringent plate known as a "q plate" allows entangling the polarization of a single photon with its orbital angular momentum (OAM). This process, in turn, can be exploited for building a bidirectional "spin-OAM interface," capable of transposing the quantum information from the spin to the OAM degree of freedom of photons and vice versa. Here, we experimentally demonstrate this process by single-photon quantum tomographic analysis. Moreover, we show that two-photon quantum correlations such as those resulting from coalescence interference can be successfully transferred into the OAM degree of freedom.

Potential for social involvement modulates activity within the mirror and the mentalizing systems

Abstract: Processing biological motion is fundamental for everyday life activities, such as social interaction, motor learning and nonverbal communication. The ability to detect the nature of a motor pattern has been investigated by means of point-light displays (PLD), sets of moving light points reproducing human kinematics, easily recognizable as meaningful once in motion. Although PLD are rudimentary, the human brain can decipher their content including social intentions. Neuroimaging studies suggest that inferring the social meaning conveyed by PLD could rely on both the Mirror Neuron System (MNS) and the Mentalizing System (MS), but their specific role to this endeavor remains uncertain. We describe a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment in which participants had to judge whether visually presented PLD and videoclips of human-like walkers (HL) were facing towards or away from them. Results show that coding for stimulus direction specifically engages the MNS when considering PLD moving away from the observer, while the nature of the stimulus reveals a dissociation between MNS -mainly involved in coding for PLD- and MS, recruited by HL moving away. These results suggest that the contribution of the two systems can be modulated by the nature of the observed stimulus and its potential for social involvement.

The conformal spin and statistics theorem

Abstract: We prove the equality between the statistics phase and the conformal univalence for a superselection sector with finite index in Conformal Quantum Field Theory onS1. A relevant point is the description of the PCT symmetry and the construction of the global conjugate charge.

Optimal quantum cloning of orbital angular momentum photon qubits through Hong–Ou–Mandel coalescence

Abstract: The orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light, associated with a helical structure of the wavefunction, has great potential in quantum photonics, as it allows a higher dimensional quantum space to be attached to each photon1,2. Hitherto, however, the use of OAM has been hindered by difficulties in its manipulation. Here, by making use of the recently demonstrated spin-OAM information transfer tools3,4, we report the first observation of the Hong–Ou–Mandel coalescence5 of two incoming photons having non-zero OAM into the same outgoing mode of a beamsplitter. The coalescence can be switched on and off by varying the input OAM state of the photons. Such an effect has then been used to carry out the 1 → 2 universal optimal quantum cloning of OAM-encoded qubits6,7,8, using the symmetrization technique already developed for polarization9,10. These results are shown to be scalable to quantum spaces of arbitrary dimensions, even combining different degrees of freedom of the photons. The first observation of the Hong–Ou–Mandel coalescence of photons with orbital angular momentum (OAM) is demonstrated, and this is exploited for optimal quantum cloning of OAM-encoded qubits. OAM states may function as units of quantum information in higher-dimensional space and allow increased information content per photon.