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# Efficient Scheme for Initializing a Quantum Register with an Arbitrary Superposed State

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## Abstract

Preparation of a quantum register is an important step in quantum computation and quantum information processing. It is straightforward to build a simple quantum state such as $`|i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_n`$ with $`i_j`$ being either 0 or 1, but is a non-trivial task to construct an arbitrary superposed quantum state. In this Letter, we present a scheme that can most generally initialize a quantum register with an arbitrary superposition of basis states. Implementation of this scheme requires $`O(Nn^2)`$ standard 1- and 2-bit gate operations, without introducing additional quantum bits. Application of the scheme in some special cases is discussed.

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Research on quantum computers and quantum information processing has been a fast developing interdisciplinary field over the past years. As a new branch of science overlapping quantum physics and classical information theory, it resembles in some ways both of the subfields, but differs from each of them in many other respects. In quantum computation and quantum information processing, the concept of quantum superposition of basis states $`|i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_n`$ is used and massive parallelism is achieved . For instance, a significant speed-up over classical computers, at least theoretically, has been gained in prime-factorization  and quantum searching . Nevertheless, some simple operations for a classical computer can not be easily implemented in a quantum computer. A vivid example is the need of introducing the quantum error correction scheme to overcome the decoherence problem in quantum computers. This has been obtained with admirable genius  whereas the corresponding classical coding scheme is straightforward.

Quantum computing is realized by quantum gate operations. It has been shown that a finite set of basic gate operations can be used to construct any quantum computation gate operation . This universality of quantum computation has been studied by many authors . A quantum circuit, which is a network of gate operations for certain purpose, has been constructed, for example, for basic arithmetic  and efficient factorization .

Initializing a quantum register to an arbitrary superposition of basis states is a seemingly simple, yet difficult problem. Addition of two numbers in a classical computer could not be easier, but addition of two quantum states $`a_1|\psi _1+a_2|\psi _2`$ is not easy at all. However, superposition is the basic ingredient in quantum computing and quantum information processing. An efficient scheme for initializing an arbitrary superposition for a quantum register is very much desired. An efficient scheme for initializing a quantum register for a known function of amplitude distribution was given by Ventura and Martinez (VM) with $`n+1`$ additional quantum bits (qubits) .

In this Letter, we present a general scheme that initializes a quantum register without introducing additional qubits. For some quantum computing tasks, introduction of additional qubits is not permitted. Thus our scheme may be appreciated by these circumstances. Furthermore, qubits are a precious resource in practice, and any saving is a great relief for existing technology, especially at the present time when researchers are striving to make more qubits available.

Starting with the state $`|0\mathrm{}0`$, we want to transform this state to a general superposed state having the form

$`|\psi ={\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}a_i|i.`$ (1)
Normalization of this state vector is assumed. The coefficients $`a_i`$ are in general complex numbers with the requirement $`|a_i|1`$. Here, $`i`$ is a short notation for a set of indices $`\{i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_j\mathrm{}i_n\}`$ with $`n=\mathrm{log}_2N`$ being the total number of qubits in the register, and $`i_j`$ denotes the two possible states (0 or 1) of the $`j`$th qubit. To be concrete, our notation implies

$$i=\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 0& & \{00\mathrm{}00\}\hfill \\ \hfill 1& & \{00\mathrm{}01\}\hfill \\ \hfill 2& & \{00\mathrm{}10\}\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{}& & \\ \hfill N1& & \{11\mathrm{}11\}\hfill \end{array}$$

Thus, $`|\psi `$ in Eq. (1) is a general quantum superposition of $`N`$ basis states, and each of the basis states is a product state of $`n`$ qubits.

Our scheme involves only two kinds of elementary unitary transformations, or gate operations. The first kind of gate operation is a single-bit rotation $`U_\theta `$,

$`U_\theta \left[\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right]=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{cos}\theta & \hfill \mathrm{sin}\theta \\ \hfill \mathrm{sin}\theta & \hfill \mathrm{cos}\theta \end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right].`$ (8)
It differs slightly from an ordinary rotation because it is an ordinary rotation for the $`|0`$ part only, but has a minus sign for the $`|1`$ part. Upon operation, a qubit in the state $`|0`$ is transformed into a superposition in the two state: $`(\mathrm{cos}\theta ,\mathrm{sin}\theta )`$. Similarly, a qubit in the state $`|1`$ is transformed into $`(\mathrm{sin}\theta ,\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$. It is useful to identify some special cases in Eq. (8). When $`\theta =0`$, it does not change $`|0`$, but converts the sign of the state $`|1`$. When $`\theta =\frac{\pi }{4}`$, $`U_\theta `$ is reduced to the Hadamard-Walsh transformation . Finally, when $`\theta =\frac{\pi }{2}`$, it serves as the NOT operation: it changes $`|0`$ to $`|1`$, and $`|1`$ to $`|0`$.

The second kind of gate operation is the controlledk-operations. As illustrated below, it is an operation that has a string of $`k`$ controlling qubits:

The squares represent the controlling qubits, and the circle is a unitary operation on the target qubit. The operation is a conditional one that is activated only when the controlling qubits hold the respective values indicated in the squares. Controlledk-operations can be constructed by $`O(k^2)`$ standard 1- and 2-bit gate operations .

With these basic gate operations at our disposal, we now proceed from simple examples to the most general case. For a 2-qubit system, the transformation can be expressed as

$`|00`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{|a_{00}|^2+|a_{01}|^2}|00+\sqrt{|a_{10}|^2+|a_{11}|^2}|10`$ (9)
$``$ $`|0\left[a_{00}|0+a_{01}|1\right]+|1\left[a_{10}|0+a_{11}|1\right]`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`a_{00}|00+a_{01}|01+a_{10}|10+a_{11}|11`$ (11)
which involves one single-bit rotation $`\alpha _1`$ and two controlled1-operations $`U_{\alpha _{2,i}}`$ ($`i=0,1`$)

$`\alpha _1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{|a_{10}|^2+|a_{11}|^2}{|a_{00}|^2+|a_{01}|^2}}}`$ (12)
$`U_{\alpha _{2,0}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{a_{00}}{\sqrt{|a_{00}|^2+|a_{01}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{01}}{\sqrt{|a_{00}|^2+|a_{01}|^2}}\\ \hfill \frac{a_{01}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{00}|^2+|a_{01}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{00}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{00}|^2+|a_{01}|^2}}\end{array}\right],`$ (15)
$`U_{\alpha _{2,1}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{a_{10}}{\sqrt{|a_{10}|^2+|a_{11}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{11}}{\sqrt{|a_{10}|^2+|a_{11}|^2}}\\ \hfill \frac{a_{11}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{10}|^2+|a_{11}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{10}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{10}|^2+|a_{11}|^2}}\end{array}\right].`$ (18)
The quantum circuit of a 3-qubit system transforms the state $`|000`$ to an arbitrary superposed state with $`N=2^3=8`$ basis states. Starting from the $`|000`$, a rotation with an angle $`\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{\frac{|a_{100}|^2+|a_{101}|^2+|a_{110}|^2+|a_{111}|^2}{|a_{000}|^2+|a_{001}|^2+|a_{010}|^2+|a_{011}|^2}}`$ is operated on the 1st qubit, and this rotation transforms the state to $`\sqrt{|a_{000}|^2+|a_{001}|^2+|a_{010}|^2+|a_{011}|^2}|000`$ \+ $`\sqrt{|a_{100}|^2+|a_{101}|^2+|a_{110}|^2+|a_{111}|^2}|100`$. Then two controlled1-rotations with angles $`\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{\frac{|a_{010}|^2+|a_{011}|^2}{|a_{000}|^2+|a_{001}|^2}}`$ and $`\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{\frac{|a_{110}|^2+|a_{111}|^2}{|a_{100}|^2+|a_{101}|^2}}`$ are applied to the 2nd qubit. The state vector becomes

$`\sqrt{|a_{000}|^2+|a_{001}|^2}|000`$ $`+`$ $`\sqrt{|a_{010}|^2+|a_{011}|^2}|010`$ (19)
$`+\sqrt{|a_{100}|^2+|a_{101}|^2}|100`$ $`+`$ $`\sqrt{|a_{110}|^2+|a_{111}|^2}|110.`$ (20)
Finally 4 controlled2 unitary transformations

$`U_{\alpha _{3,00}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{a_{000}}{\sqrt{|a_{000}|^2+|a_{001}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{001}}{\sqrt{|a_{000}|^2+|a_{001}|^2}}\\ \hfill \frac{a_{001}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{000}|^2+|a_{001}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{000}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{000}|^2+|a_{001}|^2}}\end{array}\right],`$ (23)
$`U_{\alpha _{3,01}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{a_{010}}{\sqrt{|a_{010}|^2+|a_{011}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{011}}{\sqrt{|a_{010}|^2+|a_{011}|^2}}\\ \hfill \frac{a_{011}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{010}|^2+|a_{011}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{010}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{010}|^2+|a_{011}|^2}}\end{array}\right],`$ (26)
$`U_{\alpha _{3,10}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{a_{100}}{\sqrt{|a_{100}|^2+|a_{101}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{101}}{\sqrt{|a_{100}|^2+|a_{101}|^2}}\\ \hfill \frac{a_{101}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{100}|^2+|a_{101}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{100}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{100}|^2+|a_{101}|^2}}\end{array}\right],`$ (29)
$`U_{\alpha _{3,11}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{a_{110}}{\sqrt{|a_{110}|^2+|a_{111}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{111}}{\sqrt{|a_{110}|^2+|a_{111}|^2}}\\ \hfill \frac{a_{111}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{110}|^2+|a_{111}|^2}}& \hfill \frac{a_{110}^{}}{\sqrt{|a_{110}|^2+|a_{111}|^2}}\end{array}\right]`$ (32)
are operated on the 3rd qubit to acquire the general superposed state $`a_{000}|000+a_{001}|001`$ +$`a_{010}|010+a_{011}|011`$ +$`a_{100}|100+a_{101}|101`$ +$`a_{110}|110+a_{111}|111`$. This quantum circuit is illustrated in Fig. 1.

For brevity in notations, we use an “angle” to label a controlledk-operation. If the involved coefficients are all real, it reduces to an ordinary rotation angle. In the above notations for angles of the controlledk-rotations, and in similar notations hereafter, the first subscript (for example, 3 in $`\alpha _{3,01}`$) refers to the target qubit order number and the following subscripts (01 in $`\alpha _{3,01}`$) indicate the quantum states of the controlling qubits.

In the initialization, operations for the first $`n1`$ qubits are controlled rotations where each rotation depends only on a single real parameter. The rotation angles take the following general expressions. In the 1st qubit, there is a 1-qubit rotation. The rotation angle is

$`\alpha _1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\underset{i_2i_3\mathrm{}i_n}{}|a_{1i_2i_3\mathrm{}i_n}|^2}{_{i_2i_3\mathrm{}i_n}|a_{0i_2i_3\mathrm{}i_n}|^2}}}.`$ (33)
In the 2nd qubit, there are two controlled1-rotations

$`\alpha _{2,0}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\underset{i_3i_4\mathrm{}i_n}{}|a_{01i_3i_4\mathrm{}i_n}|^2}{_{i_3i_4\mathrm{}i_n}|a_{00i_3i_4\mathrm{}i_n}|^2}}},`$ (34)
$`\alpha _{2,1}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\underset{i_3i_4\mathrm{}i_n}{}|a_{11i_3i_4\mathrm{}i_n}|^2}{_{i_3i_4\mathrm{}i_n}|a_{10i_3i_4\mathrm{}i_n}|^2}}}.`$ (35)
In general, in the $`j`$th qubit, there are $`2^{j1}`$ controlledj-1-rotations, with each of them having $`j1`$ controlling qubits labeled as $`i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{j1}`$. The rotation angle in the $`j`$th qubit ($`jn`$) is given by

$`\alpha _{j,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{j1}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\underset{i_{j+1}\mathrm{}i_n}{}|a_{i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{j1}1i_{j+1}\mathrm{}i_n}|^2}{_{i_{j+1}\mathrm{}i_n}|a_{i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{j1}0i_{j+1}\mathrm{}i_n}|^2}}}.`$ (36)
The fraction in Eq. (36) can be $`\frac{0}{0}`$ and the rotation angle in this case is undetermined. If this should happen, a simple analysis is sufficient for us to determine which gate operation should be adopted. Examples will be given later.

For the last qubit with $`j=n`$, we have $`2^{n1}`$ controlledn-1 unitary transformations

$`U_{\alpha _{n,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{n1}}}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{A_0}{\sqrt{|A_0|^2+|A_1|^2}}& \hfill \frac{A_1}{\sqrt{|A_0|^2+|A_1|^2}}\\ \hfill \frac{A_1^{}}{\sqrt{|A_0|^2+|A_1|^2}}& \hfill \frac{A_0^{}}{\sqrt{|A_0|^2+|A_1|^2}}\end{array}\right],`$ (39)
with

$`A_0=a_{i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{n1}0},`$ (40)
$`A_1=a_{i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{n1}1}.`$ (41)
If the numbers in Eq. (41) are real, the operation is just a usual rotation, and the angle is given by

$`\alpha _{n,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{n1}}=\mathrm{arctan}{\displaystyle \frac{a_{i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{n1}1}}{a_{i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{n1}0}}}.`$ (42)
In general, the $`N`$ amplitudes $`a_i`$ in Eq. (1) are complex, and together with the normalization, the total number of real parameters for description of a superposed state is $`2N1`$. In our scheme, operations on the first $`n1`$ qubits are all ordinary rotations, and they provide $`1+2+4+\mathrm{}+2^{n2}=N/21`$ real parameters. The $`N/2`$ operations on the last qubit are generally unitary transformations, and each of them depends on 3 real parameters. Altogether, the total number of real parameters involved in the initialization is $`2N1`$. This number can be reduced if the state has special properties. For instance, if all the amplitudes are real, the number is reduced to $`N1`$.

Our scheme requires only $`N1`$ gate operations to initialize a quantum register. In terms of the standard 1- and 2-bit gate operations, the total number of operations is $`O(Nn^2)`$ which is still polynomial in $`N`$. It is more than the number of steps ($`O(Nn)`$) in the VM protocol . This is the price to be paid for saving $`n+1`$ qubits in the register. The present scheme uses $`n`$ qubits, whereas the VM protocol requires $`2n+1`$ qubits to perform a same task. Barenco et al.  pointed out that introduction of one more qubit to workspace will reduce the number of controlledm-gate operations from $`O(m^2)`$ to $`O(m)`$. According to this, the number would increase from $`O(Nn)`$ to $`O(Nn^{n+2})`$ if we want to save $`n+1`$ qubits. It is surprisingly seen that the actual number required in our protocol is much less than the estimation.

In many practical cases, the number of controlled gate operations can be reduced and the circuit is accordingly simplified. Fig. 2 shows an example for part of a circuit where the rotation angles are the same. In this case, one can combine the $`|0`$-controlled Hadamard-Walsh transformation and the $`|1`$-controlled Hadamard-Walsh transformation as one operation, which is equivalent to one Hadamard-Walsh transformation on the target qubit. Consequently, the four controlled operations are reduced to a single-qubit rotation.

If desired superposition has a special form, the quantum circuit can likely be further simplified. Next, we discuss three well-known cases. Starting with $`|0\mathrm{}0`$, we initialize quantum superpositions of 1) the evenly distributed state; 2) the GHZ state; and 3) the state vector $`|\psi =\mathrm{sin}\theta |\tau +\mathrm{cos}\theta |c`$ which is used in Grover’s quantum search algorithm.

1) The evenly distributed state $`|\psi =_i|i`$ is widely used in quantum computation. The Hadamard-Walsh gate operation on each qubit generates this form of superposition from the state $`|0\mathrm{}0`$. This is also true for our scheme. In this special case, all rotation angles in Eqs. (33 \- 42) are $`\frac{\pi }{4}`$, and all gate operations are therefore the Hadamard-Walsh transformation. In each qubit, the controlling qubits exhaust all possible combinations, and hence the $`2^{j1}`$ controlled Hadamard-Walsh gate operations can be reduced to a single Hadamard-Walsh transformation in the $`j`$th qubit.

2) The GHZ state  is the maximally entangled state with the form of superposition $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0\mathrm{}0\pm |1\mathrm{}1)`$. An example that transforms $`|0000`$ to $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0000+|1111)`$ is given in Fig. 3. It can be seen that the circuit is much simplified from the most general one in Fig. 1. According to Eqs. (33 \- 42), the simplification is achieved through the following steps. The rotation in the 1st qubit is the Hadamard-Walsh transformation. For the two controlled rotations in the 2nd qubit, $`\alpha _{2,0}=0`$ means the identity operation which does nothing for the qubit, and $`\alpha _{2,1}=\frac{\pi }{2}`$ corresponds to the controlled NOT operation. So effectively, there is only one controlled NOT gate in the 2nd qubit. There are originally four gate operations in the 3rd qubit. $`\alpha _{3,11}=\frac{\pi }{2}`$ is the $`|11`$-controlled NOT gate and $`\alpha _{3,00}`$ is the identity operation. $`\alpha _{3,01}`$ and $`\alpha _{3,10}`$ are undetermined angles with $`\frac{0}{0}`$. By analyzing this problem, it is easy to see that the angles should be 0, which corresponds to the identity operation. Therefore, there is only one gate operation in the 3rd qubit: $`|11`$-controlled NOT. Similarly, there is only $`|111`$-controlled NOT operation in the 4th qubit. If the circuit consists of more than four qubits, the same analysis applies till the last but one qubit. In the last qubit, the rotation is either $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ for $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0\mathrm{}0+|1\mathrm{}1)`$, or $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ for $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0\mathrm{}0|1\mathrm{}1)`$.

3) In Grover’s quantum search algorithm  and its generalizations , the state vector is built in a two-dimensional space spanned by the marked state $`|\tau `$ and the “rest” state $`|c=_{i\tau }|i`$. At any search step, the state vector has the form $`|\psi =\mathrm{sin}\theta |\tau +\mathrm{cos}\theta |c`$. We now give the quantum circuit for initializing such a superposed state. Let $`|\tau =|i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_n`$ be the marked state, and we now construct $`|\psi `$ from $`|0\mathrm{}0`$. The amplitudes of the basis states in Eq. (1) are $`a_\tau =\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ and $`a_i=\mathrm{cos}\theta /\sqrt{N1}`$ for $`i\tau `$. According to Eq. (33), the rotation angle in the 1st qubit is

$`\alpha _1=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{arctan}\mathrm{\Omega }_1,\hfill & \mathrm{if}i_1=1\hfill \\ \mathrm{arctan}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }_1},\hfill & \mathrm{if}i_1=0\hfill \end{array}`$ (45)
with

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_1=\sqrt{\frac{(N2)\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +2(N1)\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{N\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }}.$$

In the $`k`$-th qubit, the angle for $`|i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{k1}`$-controlled rotation is

$`\alpha _{k,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{k1}}=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{arctan}\mathrm{\Omega }_k,\hfill & \mathrm{if}i_k=1\hfill \\ \mathrm{arctan}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }_k},\hfill & \mathrm{if}i_k=0\hfill \end{array}`$ (48)
with

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_1=\sqrt{\frac{(N2^k)\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +2^k(N1)\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{N\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }}.$$

The other rotation angles in the $`k`$-th qubit are all equal to $`\frac{\pi }{4}`$, corresponding to the Hadamard-Walsh transformation. Thus, the $`2^{k1}1`$ controlled gate operations are reduced to $`k1`$ controlled Hadamard-Walsh transformations. In Fig. 4, we show an example with the marked state $`|\tau =|i_1i_2i_3i_4`$ in a 4-qubit-system. In this example, $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ are all real and positive.

To summarize, we have presented a general scheme for initializing a quantum register to an arbitrary superposed state. The quantum circuits utilize only single-qubit rotations and controlled qubit rotations. General expressions for rotation angles have been derived explicitly, and possibility for simplifying the circuits has been discussed in terms of three well-known superposed states.

Y.S. thanks the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University for warm hospitality, and for support from the senior visiting scholar program. This work is supported by the Major State Basic Research Developed Program Grant No. G2000077400, the China National Natural Science Foundation Grant No. 60073009, the Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation, and the Excellent Young University Teachers’ Fund of Education Ministry of China.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In one of his last articles , John Bell made three charges against quantum ‘measurement’. The third of these was: “ In the beginning natural philosophers tried to understand the world around them.…Experimental science was born. But experiment is a tool. The aim remains: to understand the world. To restrict quantum mechanics to be exclusively about piddling laboratory operations is to betray the great enterprise. A serious formulation \[of quantum mechanics\] will not exclude the big world outside the laboratory.”

A possible answer to this charge is to extend the definition of quantum measurement into that big world, with particular emphasis on equilibrium systems . Traditionally quantum measurements take place in the laboratory, but the laboratory is only part of our universe, and all such measurements start out as imitations of natural phenomena. Cloud chambers were based on the physics of clouds, which are natural detectors of charged particles. Spark chambers imitate lightning. We define generalized quantum measurement to mean any process whereby the state of a quantum system influences the value of a classical variable . This definition then applies to the big world.

We take the view of those experimenters in the laboratory who never have any doubt that their apparatus is classical or that quantum mechanics must be used for the internal dynamics of an atom. This is equivalent to assuming that the ‘Heisenberg cut’ between the quantum and the classical occurs between the two, on small scales. The dynamical questions are then moved to the classical domain: whether small changes like the motion of the atom can affect the behaviour of large scale classical variables. This picture, which we apply to processes outside the laboratory, is consistent with the usual treatment of amplifiers and detectors in the laboratory, where quantum mechanics is only used for the early stages.

In this paper, we restrict our attention to Bell’s charge against ‘quantum measurement’ from this viewpoint. We are not concerned with other fundamental issues of the quantum measurement problem(for instance, see  and references therein).

Laboratory quantum measurements include particle states producing the droplets in cloud chambers, bubbles in bubble chambers and sparks in spark chambers . They include photon states producing silver grains in photographic emulsions, and also electrons and photons producing electron avalanches in solid state detectors and photomultipliers.

Generalized quantum measurements include ions producing water droplets in clouds, photon states sending impulses through the optic nerves of owls and the states of cosmic rays that produced small but very long-lived dislocations in mineral crystals in the Jurassic era. This takeover of the physics of laboratory quantum measurement into the world outside the laboratory is here generalized, and one of the questions we have to ask is how far this generalization can go. Where else do we find generalized quantum measurements according to our definition? In particular, are there generalized quantum measurements in equilibrium systems?

This problem cannot be solved without a better understanding of the classical theory of equilibrium systems, in particular the influence of motion at the atomic scale on variables that are normally considered to be classical, like sound waves at audio frequencies, represented by Fourier components of the density of a gas, which is represented here by a model ‘Arnold gas’.

The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the ideas underlying our classical model are given. Subsequently, in Section 3, we introduce the Arnold gas model. It is shown that this model can be solved analytically. In Section 4, we present a detailed analysis of the changes in the Fourier components of the particle density of the molecules in phase space as a result of collisions which are crucial for a quantitative description of fluctuation of the gas density. We conclude in Section 5 that there is a sense in which there are quantum measurements in equilibrium gases.

## 2  Equilibrium gases

Laboratory systems used for quantum measurement are very complicated physical systems, even stripped down to their bare essentials. They involve amplification in one form or another, and so do the natural systems that they imitate.

A gas in equilibrium is simpler, yet we give an example to show that generalized quantum measurement as we have defined it can take place there also. The reason is that the motion of the molecules in the gas is chaotic, and small changes now result in large changes later. In particular changes at the quantum level now produce significant classical fluctuations in the density later. However, unlike earlier examples, we cannot use the classical density fluctuations to learn anything specific about these earlier quantum states, because the chaos causes mixing , which effectively obscures the signal, because the initial conditions of other atoms also change the density. So generalized quantum measurement applied to equilibrium systems does not have all the properties of a laboratory measurement,

In the nineteenth century, Rayleigh recognized that these classical density fluctuations would scatter light, and that the scattering was strongly dependent on the wavelength of the light. The result is the blue of the sky. The growth of droplets of water around the charged particles produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere is a generalized quantum measurement. According to the theory of this paper, so are the density fluctuations in the atmosphere that cause the sky to be blue where there are no clouds. So if you ever look at the sky, as every physicist sometimes should, whether it is clear or overcast, you are seeing one example or another of generalized quantum measurement.

## 3 A soluble model

In order to understand generalized quantum measurement outside the laboratory, it is useful to make a detailed analysis of a model. We consider a classical one-dimensional Arnold Gas which can be analytically solved. In this model, the interaction between two molecules is represented by the Arnold cat map. We are interested in the change of Fourier components of probability density at time $`t=T`$ due to the initial changes of the state of gas at earlier time $`t=0`$. We show that for our model a small change in the state of a single particle produces a significant density fluctuation in the gas after a finite time.

### 3.1 Collisions and subsystems

Our model represents a gas of molecules. We want to find the change in the state of the gas at a time $`t=T`$ due to an earlier change in the coordinate and momentum of a single particle $`P_0`$ at time $`t=0`$. In order to get a solvable model, some simplifications and idealizations must be made. To be specific, we assume the process by which this particle $`P_0`$ affects the other particles in stages, without at first considering the time at which the collisions take place. The first stage in this process is the first collision of particle $`P_0`$ with one other particle $`P_1`$, after which this pair of particles are both affected by the initial coordinate and momentum (state) of the particle $`P_0`$. The subsystem $`S_1`$ after this first stage consists of both particles of the pair.

In the second stage of the process, each particle of $`S_1`$ collides with another particle, assumed to be different, giving the four particles of subsystem $`S_2`$ affected by the initial state of $`P_0`$. Notice that the two collisions of the second stage need not occur at the same time: questions of timing are considered later.

Every particle of subsystem $`S_n`$ belongs to all later subsystems. We also assume for simplicity that every particle of $`S_n`$ collides with a particle which is not in $`S_n`$, so that the number of particles involved doubles at each stage, and the number in subsystem $`S_n`$ is $`2^n`$.

For every collision one of the colliding particles belongs to the previous subsystem $`S_{n1}`$, before the collision, and also to the subsystem $`S_n`$ after the collision. One of the particles is new, and belongs only to $`S_n`$. Starting with particle $`P_0`$, we can follow a sequence of collisions and particles leading to a particle $`P_j^{(n)}`$ of $`S_n`$. For some of these collisions the particle in this sequence after the collision will be the same as the particle before the collision. These collisions are said to be direct. For others, the particle leaving the collision will be one of the new ones, and so it will be a different particle than the one that entered. These collisions are said to be switch collisions. In a typical sequence, the number of direct and switch collisions is roughly equal.

Now consider the gas dynamics.

### 3.2 Dynamics of the Arnold gas

First consider the dynamics of the first collision. Let $`X_0`$ and $`X_1`$ be the initial state (coordinate and momentum) of $`P_0`$ and $`P_1`$, and let $`X_0^{}`$ and $`X_1^{}`$ be the final states of these particles.

Let $`M`$ be the matrix of the Arnold cat map :

$$M=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}1& 1\hfill & & \\ 1& 2\hfill & & \end{array}\right]$$
(1)
with eigenvalues

$$\lambda _\pm =\frac{3\pm \sqrt{5}}{2}.$$
(2)
Then the equations of the collision, in terms of the centers of mass and the relative coordinates are

$$X_0^{}+X_1^{}=X_0+X_1,X_0^{}X_1^{}=M(X_0X_1)$$
(3)
and in terms of the states of the individual particles are

$`X_0^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(I+M)X_0}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(IM)X_1}{2}}=K_+X_0+K_{}X_1,`$ (4)
$`X_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(IM)X_0}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(I+M)X_1}{2}}=K_{}X_0+K_+X_1`$ (5)
In this collision the linear dependence of the final state of a particle on its initial state is given by the matrix $`K_+=(I+M)/2`$. This is the direct matrix. The dependence of the final state of a particle on the initial state of the other particle is given by the switch matrix $`K_{}=(IM)/2`$.

Using direct and switch matrices we can obtain the linear dependence of the state of any particle on the initial state $`X_0`$ of $`P_0`$. For a particle $`P_j^{(n)}`$ of subsystem $`S_n`$, it has the form

$$X_j^{(n)}=\left(K^+\right)^{n_1}\left(K^{}\right)^{n_2}X_0+Y_0,$$
(6)
where

$$n_1+n_2=n,$$
(7)
Here $`n_1`$ is the number of direct matrices and $`n_2`$ is the number of switch matrices in the sequence of particles starting with $`P_0`$ and finishing with $`P_j^{(n)}`$. $`Y_0`$ is independent of $`X_0`$ and represents the initial states of all the other particles of $`S_n`$.

The value of $`n_1`$ and thus of $`n_2`$ depends on the particle $`P_j^{(n)}`$. If it is the same particle as $`P_0`$, then there are no switches and $`n_1=n`$, $`n_2=0`$. If the sequence of particles is a new particle at every stage, from the beginning to the end, then there are $`n`$ switches and $`n_1=0`$, $`n_2=n`$. The others lie between these two extremes. The number of times a pair $`(n_1,n_2)`$ occurs is given by the number of switches, and this forms a binomial distribution, so the mean values are given by

$$n_1/n1/2n_2/n\text{(mean values)},$$
(8)
and the deviation from this mean becomes relatively small as the number of collision $`n`$ increases.

### 3.3 Bounds on dilation factors

Because every collision is represented by a linear map, the same linear relations hold for displacements $`\mathrm{\Delta }X`$ in $`X`$ as for $`X`$ itself, except for additive constants like $`Y_0`$. So if the initial state of $`P_0`$ is displaced by $`\mathrm{\Delta }X_0`$, then the corresponding displacement in $`\mathrm{\Delta }X_j^{(n)}`$ is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }X_j^{(n)}=(K^+)^{n_1}\left(K^{}\right)^{n_2}\mathrm{\Delta }X_0,$$
(9)
where it is assumed that the initial state of every other particle is held constant.

For a single operation of the Arnold cat map $`M`$, the eigenvalues $`\lambda _\pm `$ and corresponding normalized eigenvectors $`\xi _\pm `$ are given by

$$M\xi _\pm =\lambda _\pm \xi _\pm ,\lambda _\pm ={\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}(3\pm \sqrt{5}).$$
(10)
The dilation of the displacement is given by

$$\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }X_j^{(n)}}{\mathrm{\Delta }X_0}\right|,$$
(11)
and this depends on the direction of $`\mathrm{\Delta }X_0`$. For simplicity, suppose it is in the direction of $`\xi _+`$, so that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }X_0=ϵ\xi _+,$$
(12)
where $`ϵ`$ is the amplitude of the initial displacement. Now $`\xi _+`$ is an eigenvector of $`K^+`$ and of $`K^{}`$ as defined in equation (3),

$`K^+\xi _+`$ $`=`$ $`k^+\xi _+`$ (13)
$`K^{}\xi _+`$ $`=`$ $`k^{}\xi _+.`$ (14)
and the corresponding eigenvalues are given by

$`k^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1+\lambda _+}{2}}={\displaystyle \frac{5+\sqrt{5}}{4}}`$ (15)
$`k^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1\lambda _+}{2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1+\sqrt{5}}{4}}`$ (16)
We also need

$$|k^+k^{}|=1+\frac{3}{8}(\sqrt{5}1)1.46.$$
(17)
The approximate mean dilation for the displacement of a single particle after $`n`$ collisions is therefore

$$\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }X_j^{(n)}}{\mathrm{\Delta }X_0}\right||k^+k^{}|^{n/2}1.46^{n/2}1.2^n>1$$
(18)
The important thing to notice here is that the mean displacement for the state of any particle of a subsystem at any later time is greater than the original displacement for the state of $`P_0`$.

Now consider these changes as changes in the state of the whole gas. The initial displacement has magnitude $`ϵ`$. The final displacement in the phase space of the entire gas has a magnitude equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the displacements of each particle. The number of particles of $`S_n`$ is $`2^n`$, so the dilation for the whole gas is bounded below by the inequality

$$\text{dilation for gas}>\sqrt{2^n}=2^{\frac{n}{2}}.$$
(19)
The magnitude of the displacement in the phase space of the whole gas of $`N`$ particles more than doubles in every two stages, and becomes significant after fewer than $`2\mathrm{log}_2N`$ collisions, in the sense described in the next section.

Now we come to the question of times. The stages correspond to different times for different collisions, but the time for $`n`$ collisions is roughly the same when $`n`$ is sufficiently large, and approximately equal to $`n\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is the mean time between two collisions of a single particle.

The time $`T_s`$ for the displacement to become significant, in the sense that a typical particle of the gas of $`N`$ particles at time $`t=T`$ has roughly the same displacement as $`P_0`$ has at time $`t=0`$ is then

$$T_s\mathrm{\Delta }t\mathrm{log}_2N$$
(20)
## 4 Fluctuation of the density

This section is devoted to discuss the fluctuation of the Arnold gas density in phase space. An exponent for the Fourier components of the density is defined. This exponent gives a means of characterizing the fluctuation of the density.

The phase density for a system comprised of $`N`$ particles in a unit square is given by

$$n(X,t)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\delta (X(t)X_i(t))$$
(21)
where

$$X(t)=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}x_i(t)& & & \\ p_i(t)& & & \end{array}\right]$$
(22)
here $`x_i(t)`$ and $`p_i(t)`$ are the position and momentum of $`i`$th particle, respectively. The use of the notation $`n(X,t)`$ for the density should not be confused with the number of iterations. It is easy to see that

$$n(X,t)𝑑X=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\delta (XX_i)𝑑X=N$$
(23)
where $`dX`$ denotes $`dxdp`$. The Fourier expansion of $`n(X,t)`$ is given by:

$$n(X,t)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\delta (X(t)X_i(t))=L^2\underset{k}{}n_k(t)\mathrm{exp}(ikX(t))$$
(24)
with

$$n_k(t)=n(X,t)\mathrm{exp}\left[ikX(t)\right]𝑑X=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{exp}[ikX_i(t)]$$
(25)
where $`L`$ (We choose $`L=1`$) is the length of the square containing $`N`$ particles and $`_k`$ stands for the sum over all possible discrete values of $`k`$ allowed by the imposed boundary condition.

Now we consider the probability density $`\stackrel{~}{n}(X,t)`$:

$$\stackrel{~}{n}(X,t)=\frac{1}{N}n(X,t)$$
(26)
We are now in the position to compute a bound on the ratio of the Fourier component $`\stackrel{~}{n}_k(t)`$ and the initial displacement of a particle, say, particle $`P_0`$. To do so, first, note that

$$\stackrel{~}{n}_k(t)=\frac{1}{N}n_k(t)$$
(27)
Hence, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{n}_k(t)=\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{\Delta }n_k(t)`$. Note that $`t`$ is an integer representing the number of iterations. So the ratio is given by

$$\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{n}_k(t)}{\mathrm{\Delta }X_0}\right|=\left|\frac{_ie^{ikX_i^{(t)}}k\mathrm{\Delta }X_i^{(t)}}{N\mathrm{\Delta }X_0}\right|$$
(28)
Note that

$$k\mathrm{\Delta }X_i^{(t)}=k(K^+)^{n_1}\left(K^{}\right)^{n_2}\mathrm{\Delta }X_0.$$
(29)
If we consider the displacement of the particle $`P_0`$ in the direction of $`\xi _+`$: $`\mathrm{\Delta }X_0=ϵ\xi _+`$, then the equation (29) becomes

$$k\mathrm{\Delta }X_j^{(t)}(1.2)^tϵk\xi _+$$
(30)
An exponent for the Fourier component $`\stackrel{~}{n}_k(t)`$ can be defined as

$$\lambda =\mathrm{ln}\left|\frac{_ie^{ikX_i^{(t)}}(k\xi _+)}{N}\right|^{\frac{1}{t}}+\mathrm{ln}(1.2).$$
(31)
Note that the exponent $`\lambda `$ plays the similar role to the Lyapunov exponent. But unlike the Lyapunov exponent, $`\lambda `$ is not always positive. For sufficiently large $`t`$, the second term in Eq. (31) is dominant. So we have

$$\lambda \mathrm{ln}(1.2)0.18>0$$
(32)
Hence, in the long time limit, with (31) and (32), the dilation of the Fourier component $`\stackrel{~}{n}_k(t)`$ can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{n}_k(t)ϵe^{\lambda t}.$$
(33)
It should be emphasized that the exponent $`\lambda `$ may not be positive at the early stage as can be seen from (31). It only becomes positive when the collisions have significantly influenced the whole gas. This is consistent with our expectation.

It is interesting to make some rough estimations of the time scale. We assume that gas at room temperature($`T300K`$) and atmosphere pressure ($`p10^5\mathrm{Nm}^2`$) is contained in a square with area $`100^2\mathrm{m}^2`$, that is, $`L=1\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}`$. The number of Arnold gas molecules is about $`2.5\times 10^{19}`$. The mean free path is $`l_m=2\times 10^7\mathrm{m}`$. The mean speed of molecules is $`v_m=4\times 10^2`$m/sec. Then the mean free time is $`t_m=l_m/v_m5\times 10^{10}\mathrm{sec}`$ . Now we see that in one second, there are approximately $`2\times 10^9`$(iterations) collisions. We see that the small changes in the phase space of a single particle can produce the exponential difference in the particle probability density $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{n}_k(t)ϵe^{\lambda t}`$.

Finally, let’s take a look at the familiar example of light scattering. For a volume element $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ which is of the dimension of the order of the wavelength of visible light($`5^7`$m), the fluctuation are significant, as shown above. The Rayleigh scattering is due to the fluctuation of the particle density. This is in turn responsible for the blue of the sky.

## 5 Concluding comments

We have constructed a classical model of an equilibrium gas to represent the classical stage of a generalized quantum measurement. An exponent is used to characterize the fluctuation of the gas density relative to the initial displacement of a single particle. To be specific, we have shown that density of the Arnold gas is highly sensitive to a disturbance of the initial position and momentum of one particle.

In some sense, the model looks artificial, because of the following differences between the model gas and a real gas of molecules:

(i) Normal gases are 3-dimensional, not 1-dimensional.

(ii) An ordinary collision between two molecules of a gas does not resemble any kind of linear cat map, even a 6-dimensional cat map. A collision of the cat map here corresponds to a collision and subsequent drift in a real gas.

(iii) After a sufficient number of collisions, the number of molecules in the system $`S_n`$ affected by a displacement of $`P_0`$ does not double at every two stages, because molecules of a subsystem can collide with each other. The number of molecules in $`S_{n+1}`$ is then less than $`2^{n+1}`$. Some of the particles of the subsystem are affected as a result of two or more sequences of collisions, between different particles. For a real gas like the atmosphere, ignoring the effects of radiation, the particles in the subsystem affected by a displacement $`\mathrm{\Delta }X_0`$ is determined by the speed of sound, and increases asymptotically as the cube of the time. Because the number of particles in the real gas is less than for the model gas, the dilation factor is larger for the real gas.

If the displacement in the phase space of the two particles after a collision is more than (not necessarily more than double) the displacement in the phase space of one of the particles before the collision, when the displacement of the other particle is zero, then the displacement of the phase point of the gas grows exponentially at each stage. A typical ratio is more difficult to work out for the nonlinear dynamics of real collisions, partly because ‘collision’ is not clearly defined for potentials of infinite range.

For a particle which receives a displacement as a result of two different sequences of collisions, it may be a good approximation to assume that these displacements are statistically independent, in which case the resultant displacement is equivalent to displacements of different molecules.

The details of these considerations go beyond the scope of this paper. The present paper only serves as a first step towards the generalized quantum measurement theory of equilibrium systems. Of course, the present paper is not complete because we have ignored the relation between quantum fluctuations and classical fluctuations at the ambiguous boundary between the ‘classical’ and the ‘quantum’ domains.

There are many situations in which a generalized quantum measurement is of interest. A remarkable example of this situation arises in the early universe context in which the density fluctuation is important for the early evolution of the universe. Crudely speaking, the long wavelength radiation could serve as the environment field whereas the short wave-length as quantum modes . The interaction between those different modes will be important for the development of early universe such as vacuum particle creation and structural formation.

One of John Bell’s major objections to ‘quantum measurement’ can be overcome by generalizing the definition to include processes in the big world. With this definition, quantum measurement takes place in those equilibrium systems for which the classical motion is chaotic, even though the measurement cannot be used in that case to get detailed information about individual quantum states. Consequently the dynamics of quantum measurement has universal significance and so have its properties.

This paper is a first step towards to a theory of generalized quantum measurement for equilibrium systems.

## Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge helpful and stimulating communications with N. Gisin. This work was supported by the Leverhulme foundation and the ESF.


text:
# Casimir stress on parallel plates in de Sitter space

## 1 Introduction

The Casimir effect is one of the most interesting manifestations of nontrivial properties of the vacuum state in quantum field theory . Since its first prediction by Casimir in 1948 this effect has been investigated for different fields having different boundary geometries\[4-7\]. The Casimir effect can be viewed as the polarization of vacuum by boundary conditions or geometry. Therefore, vacuum polarization induced by a gravitational field is also considered as Casimir effect.
In the context of hot big bang cosmology, the unified theories of the fundamental interactions predict that the universe passes through a sequence of phase transitions. These phase transitions can give rise to domain structures determined by the topology of the manifold $`M`$ of degenerate vacuua . If $`M`$ is disconnected, i.e. if $`\pi (M)`$ is nontrivial, then one can pass from one ordered phase to the other only by going through a domain wall. If $`M`$ has two connected components, e.g. if there is only a discrete reflection symmetry with $`\pi _0(M)=Z_2`$, then there will be just two ordered phase separated by a domain wall. In the domain wall formation models, in the early universe, the space-time changes from de Sitter to the geometry induced by the presence of a domain wall. In  the effects of particle production and vacuum polarization attendant to the domain wall formation have been studied. Casimir stress for parallel plates in the background of static domain wall in four and two dimensions is calculated in . Spherical bubbles immersed in different de Sitter spaces in- and out-side is calculated in .
Our aim is to calculate the Casimir stress on two parallel plates with constant comoving distance having different vacuums between and outside, i.e. with false/true vacuum between/outside. Our model may be used to study the effect of the Casimir force on the dynamics of the domain wall formation appearing in the simplest Goldston model. In this model potential of the scalar field has two equal minima corresponding to degenerate vacuua. Therefore, scalar field maps points at spatial infinity in physical space nontrivially into the vacuum manifold . Domain walls occur at the boundary between these regions of space. One may assume that the outer regions of parallel plates are in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{out}`$ vacuum corresponding to degenerate vacuua in domain wall configuration. In section two we calculate the stress on two parallel plates with Robin boundary conditions. The case of different de Sitter vacuua between and outside of the plates, is considered in section three. The last section conclude and summarize the results.

## 2 Parallel Plates with Robin boundary conditions in de Sitter Space

Consider a massless scalar field coupled conformally to a de Sitter background space. The scalar field satisfies the following Robin boundary condition on two parallel plates within an arbitrary space-time is defined as :

$$(1+\beta _m(1)^{m1}_x)\mathrm{\Phi }(x^\nu )|_{x=a_m}=0,m=1,2,$$
(1)
Here we have assumed that the two plates are normal to the cartesian $`x`$-axis at $`x=a_{1,2}`$.
The Robin boundary condition may be interpreted as the boundary condition on a thick plate . Rewriting(1) in the following form

$$_x\mathrm{\Phi }(x^\nu )=(1)^m\frac{1}{\beta _m}\mathrm{\Phi }(x^\nu ),$$
(2)
where $`|\beta _m|`$, having the dimension of a length, may be called skin-depth parameter. This is similar to the case of penetration of an electromagnetic field into a real metal, where the tangential component of the electric field is proportional to the skin-depth parameter.
It is known that in the Minkowski space-time for the conformally coupled scalar field the perpendicular pressure, $`P`$, is uniform in the region between the plates and is given by

$$P=3\epsilon _c,$$
(3)
where $`\epsilon _c`$ is the Casimir energy density. This Casimir energy has been calculated to be

$$\epsilon =\epsilon _c=\frac{A}{8\mathrm{\Gamma }(5/2)\pi ^{3/2}a^4},$$
(4)
where $`A`$ depends on $`\beta _{1,2}`$ and may be inferred from the Eq.(4.15) from the reference . It has also been shown that for $`\beta _1=\beta _2`$

$$\epsilon =\epsilon _c=\frac{\zeta _R(4)\mathrm{\Gamma }(2)}{(4\pi )^2a^4}=\frac{\pi ^2}{1440a^4},$$
(5)
which is the same as for the Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions.
Consider now two parallel plates in the de Sitter space-time. To make the maximum use of the flat space calculation we use the de Sitter metric in the conformally flat form:

$$ds^2=\frac{\alpha ^2}{\eta ^2}[d\eta ^2\underset{ı=1}{\overset{3}{}}(dx^ı)^2],$$
(6)
where $`\eta `$ is the conformal time:

$$\mathrm{}<\eta <0.$$
(7)
The relation between parameter $`\alpha `$ and cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is given by

$$\alpha ^2=\frac{3}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}.$$
(8)
Using the standard relation between the energy-momentum tensor for conformally coupled situations

$$<T_\nu ^\mu [\stackrel{~}{g}_{\alpha \beta }]>=(\frac{g}{\stackrel{~}{g}})^{\frac{1}{2}}<T_\nu ^\mu [g_{\alpha \beta }^{(M)}]>\frac{1}{2880}[\frac{1}{6}\stackrel{~}{H}_\nu ^{(1)\mu }\stackrel{~}{H}_\nu ^{(3)\mu }],$$
(9)
where $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ are conformal to each other, with their respective determinants $`g`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$. We are going to assume now that $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ is the Minkowski metric. Now, $`<T_\nu ^\mu [g_{\alpha \beta }^{(M)}]>`$, the regulatized energy momentum tensor for a conformally coupled scalar field for the case of parallel plate configuration in flat space-time is given by

$$<T_\nu ^\mu [g_{\alpha \beta }^{(M)}]>=diag(\epsilon ,P,P_{},P_{})=diag(\epsilon ,3\epsilon ,\epsilon ,\epsilon ).$$
(10)
The second term in (9)is the vacuum polarization due to the gravitational field, without any boundary conditions. The functions $`H_\nu ^{(1,3)\mu }`$ are some combinations of curvature tensor components (see ). For massless scalar field in de Sitter space, the term is given by

$$\frac{1}{2880}[\frac{1}{6}\stackrel{~}{H}_\nu ^{(1)\mu }\stackrel{~}{H}_\nu ^{(3)\mu }]=\frac{1}{960\pi ^2\alpha ^4}\delta _\nu ^\mu .$$
(11)
From(3,5,8,9,10) one can obtain vacuum pressure due to the boundary acting on the plates:

$$P_b^{(1,2)}=P_b(x_{1,2})=(\frac{g}{\stackrel{~}{g}})^{\frac{1}{2}}(\frac{3\pi ^2}{1440a^4})=\frac{\eta ^4}{\alpha ^4}(\frac{3\pi ^2}{1440a^4})=\frac{\eta ^4\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{3}\frac{\pi ^2}{1440a^4},$$
(12)
which is attractive. It has been shown that this pressure is zero for $`x<a_1`$ and $`x>a_2`$ . The gravitational part of the pressure according to (11) is equal to

$$P_g=<T_1^1>=\frac{1}{960\pi ^2\alpha ^4}.$$
(13)
This is the same from both sides of the plates, and hence leads to zero effective force. Therefore the effective force acting on the plates are given only by the boundary part.

## 3 Parallel plates with different cosmological constants between and out-side

Now, assume there are different vacuua between and out-side of the plates, corresponding to $`\alpha _{betw}`$ and $`\alpha _{out}`$ in the metric(6). As we have seen in the last section, the vacuum pressure due to the boundary is only non-vanishing between the plates. Therefore, we have for the pressure due to the boundary

$$P_b^{(1,2)}=\frac{\eta ^4}{\alpha _{betw}^4}\frac{3\pi ^2}{1440a^4}=\frac{\eta ^4\mathrm{\Lambda }_{betw}^2}{3}\frac{\pi ^2}{1440a^4}.$$
(14)
Now, the effective pressure created by gravitational part(11), is different for different part of the space-time:

$$P_g^{betw}=<T_1^1>_{betw}=\frac{1}{960\pi ^2\alpha _{betw}^4}=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{betw}^2}{9}\frac{1}{960\pi ^2},$$
(15)
$$P_g^{out}=<T_1^1>_{out}=\frac{1}{960\pi ^2\alpha _{out}^4}=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{out}^2}{9}\frac{1}{960\pi ^2}.$$
(16)
Therefore, the gravitational pressure acting on the plates is given by

$$P_g=P_g^{betw}P_g^{out}=\frac{1}{9\times 960\pi ^2}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{betw}^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{out}^2).$$
(17)
The total pressure acting on the plates, $`P`$, is then given by

$$P=P_g+P_b=\frac{1}{9\times 960\pi ^2}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{betw}^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{out}^2)\frac{\eta ^4\mathrm{\Lambda }_{betw}^2}{3}\frac{\pi ^2}{1440a^4}.$$
(18)
The term $`P_b`$ is always negative corresponding to an attractive force on the plates. The term $`P_g`$, however, may be negative or positive, depending on the difference between the cosmological constants in the two parts of space-time. Given a false vacuum between the plates, and true vacuum out-side, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{betw}>\mathrm{\Lambda }_{out}`$, then the gravitational part is negative. Therefore, the total pressure $`P`$ is always negative leading to a attraction of the plates. For the case of true vacuum between the plates and false vacuum out-side, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{betw}<\mathrm{\Lambda }_{out}`$, the gravitational pressure is positive. Therefore, the total pressure may be either negative or positive. For $`P>0`$, the initial repulsion of the parallel plates may be stopped or not depending on the detail of the dynamics. Given $`P<0`$ initially, it remains negative and there is an attraction between the plates.

## 4 Conclusion

We have considered two parallel plates in de Sitter background with a massless scalar field, coupled conformally to it, satisfying the Robin boundary conditions with constant comoving distance. Our calculation shows that for the parallel plates with false vacuum between and true vacuum outside, the total Casimir force leads to an attraction of the plates. The boundary term is proportional to the forth power of the inverse distance between the plates, and is always negative, which means a huge attractive force for small distances. Therefore, parallel plates with false vacuum in between always attract each other. In contrast, plates with true vacuum between them may repel each other to a maximum distance and attract again. The result may be of interest in the case of formation of the cosmic domain walls in early universe, where the wall orthogonal to the $`x`$axis is described by the function $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i(x)`$ interpolating between two different minima at $`x\pm \mathrm{}`$ .

Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Prof. A. A. Saharian for his valuabel hints and comments. .


text:
# 4U 1957+11: a persistent low-mass X-ray binary and black-hole candidate in the high state?

## 1 Introduction

Low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are systems in which a compact object (either a neutron star or a black hole) accretes matter from a low-mass ($`<`$1 M) companion star. Approximately 150 LMXBs are known (van Paradijs 1995; Liu, van Paradijs, van den Heuvel 2001) and for many of these systems the nature of the compact object could be uniquely identified as a neutron star based on the observation of thermonuclear flashes from the star’s surface (so-called type-I X-ray bursts) or from X-ray pulsations. For several LMXBs (all X-ray transients) the nature of the compact object was deduced to be a black hole based on the large mass-function (and consequently the large lower limit on the mass of the compact object) obtained from those systems when they were in their quiescent state (see, e.g., Filippenko et al. 1999 and McClintock et al. 2001 and references therein). For the remaining LMXBs the nature of the compact is still unknown. However, the possible nature is often deduced from similarities of those systems with LMXBs for which the nature of the primary could be determined. But neutron star and black-hole LMXBs are very similar with respect to their X-ray spectral (e.g., Barret & Vedrenne 1994; Barret et al. 1996) and X-ray timing properties (e.g., van der Klis 1994a, 1994b; Wijnands & van der Klis 1999) and classifications based on resemblances are difficult and subject to errors.

One of the persistent LMXBs for which the exact nature of the compact object is still a subject of debate is 4U 1957+11. Its soft X-ray spectrum led White & Marshall (1984) to suggest that 4U 1957+11 is a candidate to harbor a black hole (a black-hole candidate or BHC). However, such a soft spectrum is not a strong conclusive argument and can be interpreted in different ways. For example, the spectral studies reported in the literature both give evidence for a neutron star (Ginga: Yaqoob, Ebisawa, & Mitsuda 1993; EXOSAT: Singh, Apparao, & Kraft 1994) or a black hole (EXOSAT: Ricci, Israel, & Stella 1995) primary. The study performed by Nowak & Wilms (1999; using data obtained with the X-ray satellites Rosat, ASCA, and the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer \[RXTE\]) showed that the spectrum of 4U 1957+11 can be understood in different ways and that the nature of the compact object remains elusive.

The optical counterpart of 4U 1957+11 (V1408 Aquilae) was discovered by Margon, Thorstensen, & Bowyer (1978) and its orbital period of 9.33 hr by Thorstensen (1987). Hakala, Muhli, & Dubus (1999) studied V1408 Aquilae in more detail and reported that the optical light curve pulse shape over the orbital period changed between their study and the study of Thorstensen (1987). They proposed that these changes are due to an evolving accretion disc structure. From their models a large inclination angle of 70–75 was obtained, which Nowak & Wilms (1999) combined with the 117 day period they reported in the RXTE All Sky Monitor (ASM) light curve of 4U 1957+11 to propose that the X-ray spectrum and its variations are due to a warped precessing accretion disc.

In this paper, we present data of 4U 1957+11 obtained with the proportional counter array (PCA) on board RXTE when the source was at luminosities up to four times higher than during the observations reported by Nowak & Wilms (1999). We also analyzed a more extensive RXTE/ASM data set and conclude the long-term behaviour significantly changes with time. We discuss our spectral and timing results with respect to the nature of the compact object.

## 2 Observations

During Cycle 2 of RXTE, 4U 1957+11 was observed for $``$29 ksec when the source was at low luminosities (Fig. 1; see also Nowak & Wilms 1999; hereafter referred to as the AO2 observations). To study the spectral and timing behaviour of this source at higher luminosity levels, we had proposed to perform Cycle 4 RXTE TOO observations on this source when its count rate would exceed 3 ASM counts s-1. This programme was approved, and observations (hereafter referred to as the AO4 observations) were indeed triggered, resulting in a total of 38.6 ksec of data (see Table 1 for a log of the observations). We reanalyzed the AO2 data to obtain an homogeneous analysis for all observations.

During all observations data were collected in the Standard 1 (1/8 s time resolution in one photon energy channel for the energy range 2–60 keV) and the Standard2f (129 channels for 2–60 keV; 16 s time resolution) modes. Simultaneously, data were also collected during the AO2 data with the GoodXenon1\_16s and GoodXenon2\_16s modes (together they have 256 channels for 2–60 keV and a time resolution of $``$ 1 $`\mu `$s). During the AO4 observations, data were collected in one event mode (E\_125us\_64M\_0\_1s: 128 $`\mu `$s time resolution in 64 channels from 2–60 keV), one single bit mode (SB\_125us\_0\_249\_1s: 128 $`\mu `$s time resolution in 1 channel from 2–60 keV), and a burst trigger (TLA\_1s\_10\_249\_1s\_10000\_F) and catcher (CB\_8MS\_64M\_0\_249\_H) mode. The last three modes were active in order to study type-I X-ray bursts (the single bit mode for high time resolution and the catcher mode for high spectral resolution at modest time resolution) in case 4U 1957+11 should harbor a neutron star. However, no bursts were found and we do not discuss the data obtained in these modes further in our paper.

The five PCA detectors (called proportional counter units or PCUs) each have a slightly different energy response. Due to aging of the electrodes and processes as gas leakage, the gain of the individual detectors drifts slowly in time. More sudden changes in the gain are caused by changes in the high voltage settings (which are occasionally made in order to preserve the detectors), resulting in (so far) four major gain epochs. The AO2 observations and the first one of the AO4 observations (observation number 5 in Table 1) were taken during gain epoch 3 and the other observations during gain epoch 4. Not all of the five detectors were always on during our observations, resulting in a different number of active detectors (between 2 and 5, see Table 1) throughout our study.

## 3 Analysis and results

### 3.1 The RXTE/ASM light curve

We used the quick-look one-day averaged RXTE/ASM data111the quick-look data can be obtained from http://xte.mit.edu/ASM\_lc.html and is provided by the ASM/RXTE team. See Levine et al. (1996) for a detailed description of the ASM. of 4U 1957+11 in order to study its long-term variability. The resulting long-term ASM light curve of 4U 1957+11 is shown in Figure 1. The source smoothly varies between $``$1 and $``$6 ASM count s-1, with clear episodes of low and high luminosities. In this figure, we have indicated when the pointed RXTE AO2 (first solid vertical line) and our AO4 observations (the other solid vertical lines) were performed. Clearly our strategy to observe 4U 1957+11 at high luminosities succeeded, resulting in 38.6 ksec of data during which the luminosity of the source was 2–4 times higher than during the AO2 observations.

Nowak & Wilms (1999) reported a 117 day period in the RXTE/ASM long-term X-ray light curve of 4U 1957+11. They used the available data up to 1998 November 20. Since then, a significantly larger data set has become available and therefore we decided to analyze all ASM data available up to the writing of this paper (2001 January 18). We made a Lomb-Scargle diagram (Lomb 1976; Scargle 1982) of the ASM data (see Fig. 2a). This figure clearly shows multiple peaks above 100 days. The most significant peak is the one at 250–260 days, but several other peaks between 100 and 400 days are also present. These peaks are in the range of the ones found by Nowak & Wilms, but they are not exactly similar. This could indicate that no complete stable period is present in the system.

In order to study this possibility, we made Lomb-Scargle diagrams of the data used by Nowak & Wilms (1999; up to 20 November 1998; Fig. 2b) and of the data taken after that (up to 18 January 2001; Fig. 2c). The 117 day peak is clearly the most significant in the first data set, however, in the second data set this peak is nearly absent but a dominant peak is present around 250 days. This result strongly suggest that the long-term variability behaviour of 4U 1957+11 is more complicated than suggested by the 117 day period reported by Nowak & Wilms (1999).

### 3.2 The RXTE/PCA light curve

We used the Standard2f data in order to create a RXTE/PCA light curve for the total RXTE/PCA energy range of 2–60 keV (see Fig. 3a). The count rates were background subtracted but no dead-time correction was applied. However, we estimate that the correction factor would be $`<`$0.5%, which is considerable smaller than the errors on the count rates due to counting statistics. From Figure 3a and from Table 1, it can been seen that we have obtained RXTE/PCA data of 4U 1957+11 at a count rate which is up to 4 times higher than its count rate observed during the AO2 observations. This allows us to study the 3–20 keV X-ray spectrum and the rapid X-ray variability of this source at different luminosities.

The count rates during the individual observations vary only slightly (typically between 5%–15%). However, one observation (observation 6) behaved differently. In Figure 3b, the PCA light curve of this observation is shown. At the beginning of the observation, the source was at $``$85 counts s-1 PCU-1, but it steadily increased with time. Due to an occultation of the source by the Earth, the data are interrupted. However, when the source could be observed again with RXTE, it was clear that the count rate increase had continued. This continuation can still be seen in beginning of the second data set in Figure 3b. The source then reached its highest count rate ($``$165 counts s-1 PCU-1) at which approximately level it stayed for the remainder of the observation. Similar behaviour was not observed during the other observations. Hereafter, we refer to the rising part of this observation as ’the rise’ or observation 6a, and to the rest as ’the plateau’ or observation 6b.

### 3.3 The rapid X-ray variability

We made power spectra, using 16 s data segments, of the combined GoodXenon mode data of the AO2 observations and of the AO4 event mode data in order to study the X-ray fluctuations. No significant rapid X-ray variability was observed in the individual observations for frequencies above 0.1 Hz, with typical rms amplitude upper limits of 1%–3% on a power-law noise component with index 1 (for the 2–60 keV energy range and a 0.1–10 Hz frequency range). These limits are consistent with what has been measured by Nowak & Wilms (1999) using only the AO2 data. In order to study the variability at lower frequencies (a possible very-low frequency noise component or VLFN), we also made power spectra using 1024 s data segments. Again, only upper limits could be determined for most observations, except for observation 6a during which a band-limited noise component was present. Although the statistics did not allow for constraints on the exact shape of this noise component, we fitted it with a power-law. The fit parameters obtained are listed in Table 2. The noise during this observation was significantly stronger ($``$6% rms; 0.001–10 Hz) than the upper limits (95% confidence levels) obtained for the other observations (typically a few percent), in particular for observation 6b which followed observation 6a immediately. However, this strong noise during observation 6a is very likely caused by the rising trend in this observation.

In order to improve our sensitivity for VLFN we combined all the AO4 observations together (except observation 6) to see if a VLFN component is present below 0.1 Hz. The resulting power spectrum is shown in Figure 4a. We indeed detect a VLFN with a rms amplitude of 1.82%$`\pm `$0.07% (0.001–10 Hz; 2–60 keV) and an index of 1.36$`\pm `$0.07. For a source as weak as 4U 1957+11, part (if not all) of the observed variability might be due to the fluctuations in the background. To investigate this possibility, we made similar power spectra of a large number of RXTE/PCA background observations performed near the dates of our 4U 1957+11 observations. A power-law shaped noise component was indeed detected with an rms amplitude of 1%–2%. Although this noise is of similar strength as the VLFN noise component in 4U 1957+11, its index ($``$2) is considerably larger than that observed for 4U 1957+11. Furthermore, a large amount of extra source counts are present in the 4U 1957+11 and if all the variability observed for 4U 1957+11 would have been only due to background fluctuations then the observed strength of the VLFN component should be weaker than we observe. Therefore, we conclude that at least part of the observed variability is due to intrinsic variability of 4U 1957+11.

In order to determine if the strength and the steepness of this noise component are correlated with the count rate, we combined only those observations which had approximately similar count rates. We obtained four count rate intervals and we could detect the VLFN in all of these selections (see Tab. 2). Note that we did not use observation 6 in this analysis because of the unusual behaviour of 4U 1957+11 during this observation compared to the other observations. The rms amplitude and the index of the VLFN are plotted in Figures 4b and 4c versus the average count rate of the selection. The range in count rate observed during the observations which were combined, served as an error on the count rates. This is a rather conservative error and causes the error bars on the average count rate to overlap in Figure 4b and 4c. Yet, a clear trend is visible in that the strength of the VLFN increased with increasing count rate. As explained above, not all the observed variability of 4U 1957+11 can be due to background fluctuations. The fact that we observe the strongest variability when the source is brightest, is also consistent with this interpretation (if the background was the dominant source of the variability, it would be expected that the strength would decrease with count rate as more and more source counts are added). However, at the lowest count rate selections, it is possible that most of the variability is due to background fluctuations, but this will only make the trend in Figure 4b more apparent. The fact that the VLFN index seems to increase when the count rate decreases also indicates that the variability becomes background dominated at the lowest count rates.

From Figure 4b it is also clear that observation 6 does not follow the trend. During the rise part of this observation the average count rate was $``$101 counts s-1 PCU-1 but the VLFN strength was $``$6% rms, considerably stronger than expected from this correlation. We note again that this strong VLFN component is very likely due to the rising trend. However during the plateau phase of this observation the upper limit (95% confidence level) on a VLFN component was only 1.1% rms which was lower than expected from this correlation. Clearly, during observation 6, 4U 1957+11 behaved quite differently compared to its behaviour during the other observations.

### 3.4 The X-ray spectra

We extracted the spectral data obtained in the Standard2f mode to investigate the spectral characteristics of 4U 1957+11 in each observation. Due to the variable number of active detectors and to obtain the fullest spectral response, we chose to fit the data from all layers of all active PCUs in each observation. Background subtraction and the creation of response matrices were accomplished using the tools available through LHEASOFT version 5.0 (“pcabackest” using the “bright source” background model, and “pcarsp,” respectively). Fits to an observation of the Crab (nearly a pure power-law at PCA resolution) made near to the time of the AO4 observations of 4U 1957+11 indicate that the response matrices perform well above 3 keV, and we therefore adopt this as the lower bound on our fitting range. Those fits also show energy dependent residuals which can be as large as 1.0%; we therefore add 1% systematic errors when fitting data from 4U 1957+11 (this has become standard in fitting PCA data, see, e.g., Miller et al. 2001, McClintock et al. 2001). We adopt 20 keV as an upper bound for our fits to 4U 1957+11, as the spectrum is background-dominated above this energy. As the RXTE/PCA is not very sensitive to the absorption column towards 4U 1957+11, we fixed the $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ to $`1.3\times 10^{21}`$ atoms cm-2 (Dickey & Lockman 1990). Errors on the fit parameters were calculated for 90% confidence.

The X-ray spectra of LMXBs and of 4U 1957+11 in particular can be fit with a variety of models (e.g., Christian & Swank 1997; Nowak & Wilms 1999). However, 4U 1957+11 is a potential BHC and the X-ray spectra of these sources are usually fitted with a two-component model: a multi-colour disc black-body (MCD) and a power-law. A similar consensus is not present for the models for neutron-star systems. Therefore, we only use the MCD plus power-law model for 4U 1957+11. If this source contains a neutron star, we might obtain unusual results using this model.

Our fits to the Crab data shows a slight excess near 6 keV with an equivalent width (EW) of about 40–60 eV. In order to obtain acceptable fits, we also included a line in our 4U 1957+11 spectral fits with a fixed energy of 6.5 keV. The obtained EWs of these lines are considerably larger than 40–60 eV (see Tab. 3), which suggest that a line or a complex of lines might be present around 6.5 keV. Including the line, the fit had 39 degrees of freedom (41 without line). The reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of the fits were below (but near) 1 except for observations 1 and 2 were they were $``$1.7. A typical spectrum of 4U 1957+11 is shown in Figure 5a (see also Nowak & Wilms 1999 for another spectrum of 4U 1957+11, but without a power law) and the fit parameters are listed in Table 3.

From Figure 5b–d it is clear that a power-law component was required in most observations (except for the AO2 observations; upper limits on the flux from a possible power-law component were obtained by fixing the power-law index to 2.5) and that the addition of a line at 6.5 keV also improved the fit (in this particular instance the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ decreased from 2.1 without the line to 0.4 with the line). Some results of the fits are plotted in Figure 6 and 7. From Figure 6a it is clear that, when not taking observation 6 into account, the disc flux steadily increases with the total unabsorbed flux. It is also clearly visible that the data of observation 6 (both the rise and the plateau part) are significantly below this correlation. In Figure 6b, it can be seen that the flux in the power-law tends to increase when the overall flux increases, and the data during observation 6 have the largest power-law fluxes. Only in this observation the power-law flux equals the disc flux, but for the other observations the power-law flux/disc flux ratio is well below 0.5. Interesting is also the correlation between the temperature of the disc with the disc flux (Figure 7). The temperature is correlated with the disc flux except again for the data obtained during observation 6. However, when using the total unabsorbed flux instead of the disc flux, the data of observation 6 line up much better.

### 3.5 The X-ray colours

We made a colour-colour diagram (CD; Fig. 8a) and hardness-intensity diagrams (HIDs; Figs. 8b and c) using the AO4 Standard2f data (except for observation 5). We used only the data of the two detectors (PCUs 0 and 2) which were always active. The colours used to produce these diagrams are listed in the caption of Figure 8. Note that both colours have the same soft band. This was done to ensure the linearity of the CD: any linear combination of two spectral models lies on the straight-line segment connecting their locations in the CD (see Belloni et al. 2000 and Homan et al. 2001 for this procedure). In the CD, the lines of a pure black-body spectrum and a pure power-law spectrum are included. The AO2 data and observation 5 were obtain during gain epoch 3 and the other observations during epoch 4. Due to the different responses of the PCUs during each epoch, the CDs obtained for each epoch cannot be compared directly with each other. We do not show the epoch 3 CD because the AO2 data all fall in the same place and the long-term gain drift in the PCUs make it difficult to compare observation 5 with the AO2 data.

From Figure 8a it is clear that, except for observation 6, the source spectra are dominated by the MCD component with only little contribution of the power-law component. The evolution (i.e., hardening) of the source spectra during observation 6 is mainly due to the increase of the temperature of the MCD component, but with a significant contribution of an decrease of the power-law index. All these features are in good accordance with the results obtained via the spectral fits (section 3.4, Tab. 3). The soft colour and the hard colour (except observation 6) are also well correlated with the count rate (Fig. 8b and c). The hard colour for observation 6a is significantly larger than during the other observations with similar count rates. It is unclear whether the hard colours of observation 6b are correlated in the same manner with the count rate as the hard colours of the other observations, or that this observation by chance lines up with the other observations. From Fig. 8c it can also been seen that the hard colours during the other observations are not always completely correlated with the count rate; small excursions to higher hard colours at the same count rates can be observed.

## 4 The distance to 4U 1957+11

Margon et al. (1978) estimated the distance to 4U 1957+11 to be 7 kpc. They obtained this distance estimate by comparing the optical and X-ray properties of 4U 1957+11 to that of the bright neutron star LMXB Sco X-1. Although a valid method at the time, nowadays it is clear that Sco X-1 and 4U 1957+11 are likely different kinds of objects and a direct comparison of their properties will likely produce invalid results. Moreover, Margon et al. (1978) used an assumed distance to Sco X-1 of only 500 pc. However, recent high-resolution parallax measurements of Sco X-1 showed that the most likely distance to this source is 2.8$`\pm `$0.3 kpc (Bradshaw, Fomalont, & Geldzahler 1999). Following the reasoning of Margon et al. (1978) this revised distance would result in a new distance estimate of 29 kpc for 4U 1957+11. This distance seems highly unlikely demonstrating that Sco X-1 and 4U 1957+11 are indeed different types of objects. Therefore, we regard the distance to 4U 1957+11 as unknown. We note however that this does not mean that we assume that 4U 1957+11 is further away than 7 kpc and thus more luminous than previous thought. In fact the source might be much closer and might be less luminous than $`10^{3637}`$ erg s-1.

## 5 Discussion

We have observed 4U 1957+11 at a variety of X-ray luminosities (using both the RXTE/ASM and PCA data) and studied its spectral and temporal behaviour at those different luminosities. We first compare our results with those obtained previously for 4U 1957+11 and then with other LMXBs.

### 5.1 Comparison with other 4U 1957+11 observations

Our spectral results for 4U 1957+11 agree very well with those listed in the literature for this source (e.g., Yaqoob et al. 1993; Ricci et al. 1995; Nowak & Wilms 1999). In particular, the same hardening of the source spectrum we see with increasing flux had already been found earlier (e.g., Yaqoob et al. 1993; Ricci et al. 1995). Yaqoob et al. (1993) even found the same small excursion of the source in the HID towards harder colours at the same intensity as we do (e.g., compare their Figure 2 with our Figure 8; here we do not mean the enigmatic behaviour of observation 6, but the very small excursions in the HID mentioned at the end of section 3.5). The lack of rapid X-ray variability reported in the literature (e.g., Ricci et al. 1995; Nowak & Wilms 1999) is also consistent with the very low amplitude noise we found. The only unusual observation in our data is observation 6 for which no similar observation has been reported in the literature. Besides this observation, the behaviour of 4U 1957+11 seems to be very stable over many years as observed with several different X-ray instruments.

Nowak & Wilms (1999) claimed a 177 day period in 4U 1957+11. As shown above (§ 3.1), the long-term X-ray variability of this source is much more complicated than one single period. Also, we found that the luminosity of 4U 1957+11 can change by a factor of at least 4, which is significantly larger than what had been observed previously for this source. These variations cannot be due to changes in the column density because the high column densities ($`10^{23}`$ cm-2) needed to account for such large luminosity fluctuations would easily have been observed in our spectra. These findings suggest that the reason behind the long-term variability is most likely not a precessing accretion disc as suggested by Nowak & Wilms (1999) but might have another cause, possibly variations in the mass accretion rate onto the compact object. This conclusion seems to confirm a recent theoretical study about precessing warped accretion discs in X-ray binaries. Ogilvie & Dubus (2001) showed that the orbital radius of 4U 1957+11 is well below the critical radius for a stable precessing accretion disc to evolve in this system. A possible mechanism for the long-term fluctuations in systems like 4U 1957+11 might be that a modulation of the accretion rate through the disc can occur when a viscously unstable disc is irradiated by a constant X-ray flux (Ogilvie & Dubus 2001; G. Dubus 2001 private communication; see also Dubus et al. 2001 in preparation).

### 5.2 Comparison with neutron-star LMXBs

The behaviour displayed by 4U 1957+11 is not that typical for neutron-star LMXBs. For such neutron-star systems, the X-ray spectrum can also be described by a soft component below 3 keV and a power-law component above 10 keV. However, the power-law component becomes significantly weaker when the luminosities or the inferred mass accretion rates of these systems increase (see, e.g., Di Salvo et al. 2000 and references therein), which is completely opposite to what we observe for 4U 1957+11. It is possible that for 4U 1957+11 the mass accretion rate is anti-correlated with the X-ray luminosity as observed in the brightest neutron star LMXBs (the so-called Z sources; see Hasinger & van der Klis 1989), but we regard this possibility as unlikely. At times when the luminosity is thought to be anti-correlated with the mass accretion rate in Z sources (on their “normal branch”), the intrinsic luminosity is close to the Eddington luminosity, but 4U 1957+11 seems to be significantly weaker (the source has to be unlikely distant in order to have near-Eddington luminosities).

Also, quasi-periodic oscillations near 7 Hz and 50–60 Hz are often reported in the Z sources when they are on their normal branches together with band-limited noise which increases in strength when the source becomes harder (up to 10%–15% rms amplitude; see van der Klis 1995 for a review about the timing properties of Z sources). Such strong noise and quasi-periodic oscillations have never been observed for 4U 1957+11, despite the range in luminosities sampled and the different instruments used (Ricci et al. 1995; Nowak & Wilms 1999). We tentatively suggest that it is more likely that 4U 1957+11 harbors a black hole than a neutron star.

### 5.3 Comparison with black-hole X-ray binaries

It has already been noted that the soft X-ray spectrum of 4U 1957+11 resembles that of BHCs when they are in their high state (e.g., White & Marshall 1984; see Homan et al. 2001 for a recent detailed discussion of black-hole states). The very low amplitude variability observed for 4U 1957+11 is also consistent with this. Several arguments were put forward against a black-hole nature of 4U 1957+11. A main argument is that the luminosity of 4U 1957+11 is considerably lower than that of BHCs in their high state. But, as already explained above (§ 4), the distance to the source is not well known. Although the true luminosity of 4U 1957+11 could be considerably higher than the normal 5–10 $`\times 10^{36}`$ erg s-1 assumed, it could also be less. However, for several BHCs (e.g., GRO J1655–40; XTE J1550–564; Méndez, Belloni, & van der Klis 1998, Sobczak et al. 1999; Homan et al. 2001) it has been found that high state episodes can occur also in those sources at relatively low luminosities ($`<10^{37}`$ erg s-1). This demonstrates that the luminosity argument against 4U 1957+11 being a black hole is not well founded.

Another argument is that the obtained inner disc radius obtained from the spectral fits (several km) is too low and the temperature of the disc ($`1.5`$ keV) too high to be in agreement with what has been found for other BHCs (e.g., Yaqoob et al. 1993). However, the disc radius depends on the unknown distance and inclination of the system and they might be larger than usually assumed (see also Nowak & Wilms 1999). Disc temperatures close to those observed for 4U 1957+11 have also been observed during the high states of other BHC, such as LMC X-3 (see below) and XTE J1748–288 (Miller et al. 2001). For the enigmatic BHC GRS 1915+105 disc temperatures up to 2 keV have been observed during its high state (e.g., Rao, Yadav, & Paul 2000), although it is unclear if a comparison between 4U 1957+11 and GRS 1915+105 is really valid because of the very unusual behaviour of GRS 1915+105. However, this demonstrates that although the disc temperature of 4U 1957+11 is relatively high compared to most BHCs, it is not a compelling reason to dismiss the possibility that 4U 1957+11 contains a black hole. Especially a comparison of this source with the strong black-hole X-ray binary LMC X-3 suggests a black-hole nature for 4U 1957+11.

### 5.4 Comparison with LMC X-3

LMC X-3 is a strong BHC with a black-hole mass of $`>`$5.8 M (see Soria et al. 2001 and references therein). This source is unusual in that it spends most of its time in the canonical black-hole high state although occasionally it makes excursions to the black-hole low state (see Boyd et al. 2000, Wu et al. 2001, and Wilms et al. 2001 for observations of LMC X-3 in its low state). The spectrum of LMC X-3 is very similar to that of 4U 1957+11 (although its disc temperature is at maximum only $``$1.3 keV; Nowak et al. 2001; Wilms et al. 2001). Its spectrum hardens with increasing luminosity (Cowley et al. 1991; Ebisawa et al. 1993; Wilms et al. 2001; note that dramatic spectral hardening also occur when the source luminosity decreases considerably, thus when the source transit from its normal high state to its low state; see Boyd et al. 2000 and Wilms et al. 2001) in a way similar to what we observed for 4U 1957+11 (the hardening is mostly due to an increase of the disc temperature). And as for 4U 1957+11, hardly any variability on short time scale could be detected (e.g., Nowak et al. 2001) and the source exhibits strong long-term X-ray fluctuations (Cowley et al. 1994; Wilms et al. 2001; factor of 5 for LMC X-3 and at least 4 for 4U 1957+11). The only apparent differences between the two sources is the fact that LMC X-3 can be as bright as $`10^{38}`$ erg s-1 (2–10 keV) and that 4U 1957+11 is most likely considerably weaker. As explained above (§ 4), the distance to 4U 1957+11 is not well-constrained and the source could be further away than the (usually) assumed distance of 7 kpc (Margon et al. 1978). However, this last effect might only account for a small increase in the luminosity of 4U 1957+11 because the source should be far away to have an intrinsic luminosity similar to what is usually observed from LMC X-3.

It is possible that the black-hole mass in 4U 1957+11 is considerably lower than that of the black hole in LMC X-3. If the specific accretion rate above which a black-hole X-ray binary enters the high state is tied to the mass of the black hole (e.g., such transition occurs at a fixed fraction of the critical Eddington mass accretion rate), then it will be reached earlier in 4U 1957+11 than in LMC X-3. This could explain why 4U 1957+11 is not as bright as LMC X-3. A possible other solution might be the lower metallicity in the LMC compared to the Galaxy. This might give higher luminosities for accreting X-ray binaries (as proposed to explain the on averaged higher luminosities for the X-ray binaries in the SMC and LMC; see, e.g., Clark et al. 1978). It remains to be determined whether this could explain the luminosity difference between the two sources.

Despite this difference in intrinsic luminosity, the many similarities between these two sources suggest that, similar to LMC X-3, 4U 1957+11 harbors a black hole and the long-term fluctuations are due to changes in the mass accretion rate. If this can be proven, then 4U 1957+11 would be the only persistent Galactic BHC which is continuously observed in the black-hole high state. The other persistent galactic BHCs (e.g., Cyg X-1, 1E 1740.7–2942) are most often observed in the black-hole low state and only rarely make excursions to the high state (the other persistent BHC which spends all of its time in the black-hole high state is LMC X-1, also in the LMC, and is a wind-fed system).

Several predictions can be made if we assume that 4U 1957+11 is indeed is black-hole binary. It is possible that at very high luminosities (higher than so far observed), the source might transit to the black-hole very high state and strong quasi-periodic oscillations might be observed. At the lowest end of the luminosity range, it might be possible that the source will enter the black-hole low state and the spectrum will then considerably harden and strong rapid X-ray variability will be observed. Such a transition was recently observed for LMC X-3 (Boyd et al. 2000; Wilms et al. 2001) suggesting that such a change is also possible for 4U 1957+11. Observing either state in 4U 1957+11 would strongly confirm that this source is a BHC.

It is possible that the excursion of the source to a harder state during observation 6, can be identified with a very high state, but the weak variability of the source during this observation and the non-detections of quasi-periodic oscillations around 6 Hz does not seem to be consistent with this scenario. However, in other BHCs strong variability or quasi-periodic oscillations have not always been observed when they were at high luminosities and exhibited hard spectra. For example, for XTE J1550–564 it was observed that, when this source was relatively bright, it occasionally exhibited short excursions to hard states without a significant increase in the strength of the rapid X-ray variability (see Homan et al. 2001 and in particular the small flares discussed by these authors). Also, Wijnands et al. (2001) reported that only weak noise (less than a few percent rms amplitude) could be detected during some very-high state observations of GRS 1739–278. Therefore, it is still possible that 4U 1957+11 might have exhibited very-high state like behaviour during observation 6.

If indeed 4U 1957+11 exhibits state behaviour similar to other BHCS, then during those hard states an increase in radio luminosity is also expected and a monitoring radio campaign on the source might be able to reveal radio emission from this source at the extreme end of the luminosity range. The only radio observations of 4U 1957+11 reported so far, did not reveal any strong radio emission from the source (Nelson & Spencer 1988), however, it is unclear what the X-ray luminosity was at the time of those observations. However, our RXTE observations show that 4U 1957+11 spends most (if not all) of its time in the soft state and it is likely it was in a similar state during the Nelson & Spencer (1988) observation. This would be consistent with their non-detection in the radio band, because black-hole candidates do not show strong radio emission in their soft states (e.g., Fender 2001). Note also, that null results from a monitoring radio campaign will not exclude the possibility that 4U 1957+11 is a BHC because it might well be possible that the high or low accretion rates needed for the state changes to occur are not reached in this system.

## 6 Conclusion

The conclusions obtained from our analysis of the RXTE data of 4U 1957+11 are:

* The X-ray luminosity of 4U 1957+11 can vary by at least a factor of 4.
* The 3–20 keV spectrum can be adequately described by a multi-colour disc black-body and a power-law component.
* The spectrum significantly hardens when the luminosity increases, both as a result of an increase of the disc temperature and, although to a lesser degree, an increase in the power-law flux contribution to the total flux.
* Only very weak variability on short time scales could be observed (of order one percent rms amplitude).
* A comparison of 4U 1957+11 with other X-ray binaries, i.e., LMC X-3, suggests that 4U 1957+11 contains a black hole and not a neutron star. The spectral and temporal properties of 4U 1957+11 indicate that the source is a black-hole LMXB persistently in the black-hole high state. If confirmed, the source would be the only such source known.
* The long-term variability of the source is highly complex and most likely due to variations in the accretion rate onto the black hole.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship grant number PF9-10010 awarded by CXC, which is operated by SAO for NASA under contract NAS8-39073. This work was also supported in part by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific research (NWO). This research has made use of data obtained through the HEASARC Online Service, provided by the NASA/GSFC and quick-look results provided by the ASM/RXTE team. RW thanks Guillaume Dubus for useful discussions.