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# Structural instability of vortices in Bose-Einstein condensates

## Abstract

In this paper we study a gaseous Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) and show that: (i) A minimum value of the interaction is needed for the existence of stable persistent currents. (ii) Vorticity is not a fundamental invariant of the system, as there exists a conservative mechanism which can destroy a vortex and change its sign. (iii) This mechanism is suppressed by strong interactions.

Superfluidity is an intriging concept which dates back to the discovery of He–II , and which is by now textbook material. Among the properties of a superfluid there are irrotational flows, quantization of circulation and stability of persistent currents. The theoretical disadvantage of He–II is that the strong interactions which take place in the liquid prevent a simple microscopical description of the system, and make it impossible to clearly untangle the ultimate cause of superfluidity.

The achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation with ultracold atomic gases has revived the interest on a theoretical description of superfluidity. The first reason is that Bose–Einstein condensation has long been thought to be the cause for the superfluid behavior in He–II . But the second reason is that gaseous condensates can be accurately described with simple mean field models that can be subject of both analytic and numerical study .

In the last few years, the superfluid nature of these condensates has got experimental demonstrations by several means. One of the most striking features of superfluids is the quantization of circulation, which leads to the existence and stability of vortices even with the lack of external forcing. Vortices have been theoretically predicted to be present in gaseous condensates with repulsive interactions , a prediction which has been confirmed in recent experiments  where vortices have been produced and shown to be, at least, long–lived.

The stability of vortices as seen in experiments and in numerical studies, has lead us to consider vortices and their topological charge as robust entities. In this work we prove the surprising fact that a weakly interacting condensate in a stationary trap cannot host stable persistent currents of well defined vorticity, showing that nonlinearity is therefore essential to sustain vortices. We show what is the mechanism for the structural destabilization of vortices and propose a way to verify this prediction with in current experiments.

The model.- In this work we study a dilute gaseous BEC in the zero–temperature limit. This system is ruled by the Gross–Pitaevskii mean field equation

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{\tau }=\left[\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}\mathrm{}+V(𝐫)+\frac{4\pi a_S\mathrm{}}{m}|\mathrm{\Psi }|^2\right]\mathrm{\Psi },$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{}=_{j=1}^n^2/r_j^2`$ is the $`n`$-dimensional Laplacian, $`V(𝐫)=\frac{1}{2}m\omega ^2_{j=1}^n\lambda _jr_j^2`$ is the external potential which confines the condensate and $`a_S`$ is $`s`$–wave scattering length for the binary collisions within the condensate. We will focus on condensates with $`a_S0`$, which represents the repulsive interaction between bosons. The norm of the wavefunction corresponds to the number of bosons in the trap, $`N=\psi ^2`$.

Due to the quantum nature of the system we are studying, the velocity of the fluid can be derived from the macroscopic wavefunction of the condensate

$$𝐯=\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2m}(\mathrm{\Psi }\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Psi })(𝐫)=\frac{i\mathrm{}}{2m}\rho (𝐫)\theta (𝐫).$$
(2)
Here we have separated the wave function into its modulus, $`|\mathrm{\Psi }|=\sqrt{\rho }`$, and its phase, $`\theta =\mathrm{arg}\mathrm{\Psi }`$.

From now on we will use adimensional quantities to ease the analysis. To do so we define a new set of units based on the trap characteristic length, $`a_0=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/m\omega }`$, and period, $`T=1/\omega `$ defined as $`x_j=r_j/a_0,t=\tau /T`$ and a new wavefunction $`\psi (𝐫,t)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐱,\tau )`$ satisfying

$$i\frac{\psi }{t}=\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}+\frac{1}{2}\underset{j}{}\lambda _j^2x_j^2+U|\psi |^2\right]\psi ,$$
(3)
where $`U=4\pi a_S/a_0`$. The value of $`NU`$ measures the relative importance of the nonlinear term $`U|\psi |^2`$. Through this paper we will call a *weakly interacting condensate* a system in which $`NU1`$ as oposed to a *strongly interacting condensate* in which $`NU1`$ .

The energy of the system is given by

$$[\psi ]=\overline{\psi }\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}+V\left(𝐱\right)+\frac{U}{2}\left|\psi \right|^2\right]\psi 𝑑𝐱,$$
(4)
which is a conserved quantity.

In this work we will consider a BEC placed in a tighly confining pancake type trap , for which the profile of the solution along the confined dimension is very well approximated by a gaussian function . The procedure for reducing the Gross-Pitaevskii equation to an effective two–dimensional equation is described in detail in Ref. . The only relevant difference with Eq. (3) reduced to two spatial dimensions is that the nonlinear term is reduced by a factor related to the trap asymmetry. We will consider then that our effectively two–dimensional system is described by Eq. (3) but with a new $`U=\alpha 4\pi a_S\alpha /a_0`$ .

Noninteracting systems.- A persistent current is a stationary solution in which the velocity field is nonzero, $`𝐯0`$, and remains still, $`_t𝐯=0`$, even without external forcing. Therefore, any solution of Eq. (1) corresponding to a persistent current must have a position dependent phase. To ease the analysis we will write such stationary solution as $`\psi _\mu (𝐱,t)=\varphi _\mu (𝐱)e^{i\mu t}=\psi _{\mu ,r}+i\psi _{\mu ,i}`$, where $`\psi _{\mu ,r}`$ and $`\psi _{\mu ,i}`$ are real functions.

We will first consider the noninteracting case ($`U=0`$), in which the persistent current satisfies

$$H\varphi _\mu =\mu \varphi _\mu ,$$
(5)
with the Hamiltonian $`H=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}+V(𝐱).`$ Remarkably, Eq. (5) implies that $`\psi _{\mu ,r}`$ and $`\psi _{\mu ,i}`$ must be eigenstates of $`H`$ with the same eigenvalue. Therefore, in noninteracting systems, persistent stationary currents can exist only if the spectrum of the Hamiltonian is degenerate.

Furthermore, degeneracy is a very specific situation which can be broken by almost any perturbation –e.g. any small asymmetry of the confining potential–, which leads us to conclude that persistent currents in noninteracting systems are structurally unstable, a term which will be precised later.

To understand what happens to the quantum fluid in the noninteracting regime, let us consider a simple, two dimensional harmonic oscillator whose three lowest energy eigenstates of $`H`$ are $`\varphi _0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{x^2}{2a^2}\frac{y^2}{2b^2}\right),`$ $`\varphi _xx\varphi _0`$, $`\varphi _yy\varphi _0`$, where we make use of the adimensional natural widths of the oscillator, $`a=1/\sqrt{\lambda _x}`$, $`b=1/\sqrt{\lambda _y}`$.

In the case without interaction ($`U=0`$) and radial symmetry ($`a=b`$), vortices are solutions of the type $`\psi (x,y,t)=\sqrt{N/2}\left[\varphi _x+i\varphi _y\right]e^{i\mu t},`$ which is an eigenfunction of $`H`$. The analogous of this current for the asymmetric case ($`ab`$) is $`\psi (x,y,t)\left(x\sqrt{N_x}+iy\sqrt{N_y}e^{i(\mu _y\mu _x)t}\right)e^{i\mu _at}\varphi _0`$. Due to the existence of a time dependent phase between both components, the solution is not stationary and evolves far from the initial configuration. In fact, for $`t=\pi /(\mu _y\mu _x)`$ the relative phase leads to a complete inversion of the topological charge of the vortex from $`m=+1`$ to $`m=1`$ passing through an intermediate state where a dark line breaks the condensate into two pieces.

Structural stability.- Thus, for the noninteracting case: (i) There are no stationary vortex solutions in any stationary asymmetric trap (all eigenfunctions are real). (ii) Vortex type solutions are unstable in those traps since they follow an evolution which leads to an inversion of the topological charge.

The vortex reversal can be induced by any small perturbation that breaks the degeneracy, such as small asymmetries or even spatial noise. This is an example of structural instability. The important difference between stability referred to perturbations of the initial conditions and robustness referred to perturbations of the governing evolution equations, is not always properly appreciated, but it is a key ingredient of the phenomenon discovered here.

It is important to stress that our previous finding implies that there exists a fundamental limitation on the stability of vortices, which makes that as soon as the forcing is removed, these currents will persist only for a period of time that depends on the strength of the interactions and the amount of perturbation.

Role of interactions.- Let us now consider the interacting case and look for the simplest stationary currents on a two–dimensional condensate in the very weakly interacting limit. In this limit the ground state of the condensate is almost equal to the ground state of the linear problem $`\psi _0`$, and for the vortices we may use the simple ansatz $`\psi _v=\sqrt{N_x}\varphi _x+i\sqrt{N_y}\varphi _y`$, where $`N_x`$ and $`N_y`$ are variational parameters and can be regarded as the number of atoms on each dipole state. The energy of our ansatz is obtained substituting into Eq. (4)

$`E`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _xN_x+\mu _yN_y+{\displaystyle \frac{U}{8\pi ab}}\left(3N_x^2+3N_y^2+2N_xN_y\right),`$ (6)
where $`\mu _x=\frac{3}{2}\lambda _x+\frac{1}{2}\lambda _y`$ and $`\mu _y=\frac{3}{2}\lambda _y+\frac{1}{2}\lambda _x`$ are the eigenvalues of the $`\varphi _{x,y}`$ basis functions.

We have to search the critical points of (6) over the line $`N=N_x+N_y`$. When $`U=0`$ the energy functional has only two such critical points which correspond to the $`\varphi _x`$ and $`\varphi _y`$ stationary states. When $`U0`$ we still find those two dipole solutions with energies given by

$`E_x`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\mu _x+{\displaystyle \frac{3UN}{8\pi ab}}\right)N,N=N_x,N_y=0`$ (7)
$`E_y`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\mu _y+{\displaystyle \frac{3UN}{8\pi ab}}\right)N,N=N_y,N_x=0.`$ (8)
Furthermore, if and only if the interaction exceeds a critical value

$$UN>2\pi ab|\mu _x\mu _y|=\sigma ,$$
(9)
there exists a third solution, which is a deformed vortex, and whose energy and populations are

$`E^{(v)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _x+\mu _y}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{UN}{4\pi ab}}\right)N{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ab(\mu _x\mu _y)^2}{2U}},`$ (11)
$`N_{x,y}^{(v)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ab}{U}}\left(\mu _{x,y}\mu _{y,x}\right).`$ (12)
According to these equations we classify the $`(N,U)`$ space into several regions. For $`UN\sigma `$, no vortex is found. Above $`UN\sigma `$ not only the vortex exists but it is also energetically more favorable than the dipoles therefore preventing the possibility that the cloud spontaneously splits into two pieces.

Numerical simulations.- To study the sensitivity of the system to finite (but may be “small”) perturbations we have proceeded as follows. First we have found the stationary vortex profile for given asymmetries of the trap and interaction values \[See e.g. Fig. 1(b-c)\] using the numerical method developed in Ref. . Next we have used this stationary solution as initial data for a numerical simulation of the dynamics of Eq. (3) in a perturbed system where the perturbation used consisted on a change of the trap parameters.

For values of $`UN<\sigma `$ we were not able to find any vortex solutions, in agreement with the prediction from the variational analysis.

However, we find that for medium or small $`UN`$, where vortices already exist and are suposed to be linearly stable, the application of finite perturbations leads to the destabilization of the vortex and the generation of a dynamics with some analogues with the vortex inversion mechanism discused above in the framework of the noninteracting system (see Fig. 2). The smaller the value of $`UN`$, the smaller the amount of perturbation which is sufficient to destabilize the system. For moderately large values of the self interaction structural stability adds to the dynamical stability that was previously known to exist . In this case vortices are stable and keep their topological charge even when oscillations are induced to the vortex profile (See e. g. Fig. 3) by strong perturbations of the confinement. In this region, neither small noise nor changes in the confinement are able to break the vortex.

We have also verified that the phenomenon of vortex charge flip is not exclusive of vortices in asymmetric traps. In fact, as the general analysis of the linear problem suggests, any symmetry breaking perturbation should lead to a simmilar phenomenon. To test this idea we have studied numerically the effect of a thin and intense pinning potential placed asymmetrically with respect to the trap center and verified that the same mechanisms involving topological charge inversion are present. This interesting result adds value to the prediction since the study of the effect of pinning potentials on vortices is one of the goals of several experimental groups (see e.g. ). In fact many other dynamical features are found and will be reported in detail in a future paper .

Discussion and conclusions.- In this work we have studied the role of interactions on the properties of vortices of a gaseous, trapped Bose–Einstein condensate. Our main conclusion is that vortices in a weakly interacting condensate are structurally unstable and a critical value of the interaction is required for the condensate to host stable stationary currents.

Although the variational approach states that for any $`NU>\sigma `$ vortices exist and become energetically favourable against dipole states, our numerical simulations suggest that there exists a finite range of weak interaction values in which the vortex is close to structural instability and breaks under small perturbations.

It is important to stress that this phenomenon may be experimentally observed using either asymmetric pancake traps  or Feschbach resonances .

As we have discussed above, the effective interaction in a quasi two–dimensional system is reduced by a factor depending on the asymmetry of the trap . Using the numbers of the pancake trap recently depeloped by MIT group to test low dimensionality effects  we get that $`U_{2D}3\times 10^2`$. This estimate implies that a number of particles about $`N10^4`$ would lead to a value of $`UN=30`$ which is in the parameter range in which the phenomenon should be observable. It is interesting that the trap used in  is already asymmetric since $`\omega _x/2\pi =`$ 10 Hz and $`\omega _y/2\pi =`$ 30 Hz, i.e $`\sigma 10`$. These numbers mean that the vortex topological charge inversion should be observable by just placing it into one such trap (using e.g. a rotating pinning such as the ones used by the same group and eliminating it once the vortex is generated). We have verified numerically that the vortex charge flip is present in this parameter range and even for larger values of $`N`$. The fact that in the experimental setup the trasverse asymmetry is not “small” helps in making the phenomenon accesible.

Other possibility for observing the phenomenon could be to reduce the effective interacion using Feschbasch resonances  until a level at which the vortex would become “unstable”. This procedure may be experimentally controlled with high precision and very low loss of atoms (e.g using Rb87 the JILA group has been able to reach a regime of zero effective interactions ). In the later case the preparation of a vortex should not be a problem since it could be generated by using either a rotating trap or a multiple condensate system and subsequent evaporation of one of the species .

The lack of structural stability for vortices is a surprising result. It has been widely accepted that the existence of a macroscopic wave-function is a sufficient condition for the existence and stability of vortices no matter what the actual model is. The dynamical stability of vortices as seen in experiments and in numerical studies with symmetric  and asymmetric  vortices in strongly interacting condensates, and some results with symmetric vortices in weakly interacting condensates , has lead us to consider vortices and their topological charge as robust entities.

Nevertheless, as we have shown in this work there exists a mechanism which changes the topological charge of the vortex while preserving the energy of the cloud. This mechanism is completely different from the dissipative mechanisms usually considered in BEC , which imply loss of energy and induce a spiraling of the vortex out of the condensate. In fact, the mechanism presented here is reminiscent of a phenomenon recently discovered in light beams , where vortices where observed to undergo extremely sharp Berry trajectories that, in the experimental plane of observation, appear as an edge-line dislocation which eventually yields the inversion of the vortex charge.

These predictions, striking as they are, shed light on the essential role played by nonlinearity in these systems and it is another manifestation of the richness of the nonlinear quantum phenomena appearing in BEC.

This work has been supported by grants BFM2000-0521 and TIC2000-1010.


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# The Web of Human Sexual Contacts

Many “real-world” networks are clearly defined  while most “social” networks are to some extent subjective . Indeed, the accuracy of empirically-determined social networks is a question of some concern because individuals may have distinct perceptions of what constitutes a social link. One unambiguous type of connection is sexual contact. Here we analyze data on the sexual behavior of a random sample of individuals , and find that the cumulative distributions of the number of sexual partners during the twelve months prior to the survey decays as a power law with similar exponents $`\alpha 2.4`$ for females and males. The scale-free nature of the web of human sexual contacts suggests that strategic interventions aimed at preventing the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases may be the most efficient approach.

Recent studies of real-world networks  have formalized mathematically the “six-degrees of separation” concept put forth in the classic study of Milgram . This so-called small-world phenomenon  refers to the surprising fact that networks have small average path lengths between nodes while preserving a large degree of “clustering” . Small-world networks may belong to three classes—single-scale, broad-scale, or scale-free—depending on their connectivity distribution $`P(k)`$, where $`k`$ is the number of links connecting to a node . Scale-free networks—which are characterized by a power law decay of the cumulative distribution, $`P(k)k^\alpha `$— may be formed due to preferential attachment, i.e., new links are established preferentially between nodes with high connectivities .

We analyze data gathered in a 1996 Swedish survey of sexual behavior . The survey—involving a random sample of 4781 Swedish individuals (ages 18–74 yr)—used structured personal interviews and questionnaires to collect information. The response rate was 59 percent, corresponding to 2810 respondents. Two independent analyses of non-response error reveal that elderly people, and especially elderly women, are under-represented in the sample; apart from this skewness, the sample is representative in all demographic dimensions.

Connections in the network of sexual contacts appear and disappear as sexual relations are initiated and terminated. To analyze the connectivity of this dynamic network, whose links may be quite short lived, we first analyze the number $`k`$ of sex partners over a relatively short time window—the twelve months prior to the survey. Figure 1a shows the cumulative distribution $`P(k)`$ for both female and male respondents. The data follow closely a straight line in a double-logarithmic plot, consistent with a power law dependence. The data shows that males report a larger number of sexual partners than do females , but that both have the same scaling properties.

These results contrast with the exponential or Gaussian distributions—for which there is a well-defined scale—as was recently found for friendship networks . Plausible mechanisms that could account for the observed structure include: (i) increased skill in getting new partners as the number of previous partners grows, (ii) different levels of attractiveness, (iii) the need to have many new partners to maintain self-image. Thus, the data are consistent with the preferential attachment mechanism. Perhaps, in sexual contact networks, as in other scale-free networks, “the rich do get richer .

We next analyze the total number $`k_{\text{tot}}`$ of partners in the respondent’s life up until the time of the survey. This quantity is not relevant to the “instantaneous” structure of the network but may help elucidate the mechanisms responsible for the distribution of number of partners. Figure 1b shows the cumulative distribution $`P(k_{\text{tot}})`$. For values of $`k_{\text{tot}}>20`$, the data follow a straight line in a double-logarithmic plot, consistent with a power law dependence in the tails of the distribution.

Our major finding is the scale-free nature of the connectivity of an objectively defined, non-professional, social network. This result shows that the concept of the “core group” considered in epidemiological studies  is somewhat arbitrary as there is no well-defined threshold or boundary separating the core group from other individuals (as there would for a bimodal distribution).

Our findings also have possible epidemiological implications. First, epidemics arise and propagate much faster in scale-free networks than in single-scale networks . Second, measures to contain or stop the propagation of diseases in a network must be radically different for scale-free networks. Specifically, the study of scale-free networks indicates that they are resilient to random failure, but are highly susceptible to destruction of the best connected nodes , while single-scale networks are not susceptible to attack even of the best connected nodes. Hence, the possibility that the web of sexual contacts has a scale-free structure indicates that strategic targeting of safe-sex education campaigns to those individuals with a large number of partners may have a significant effect in reducing the propagation of sexually-transmitted diseases.

We thank M. Buchanan, G. Franzese, S. Mossa, and C. M. Roman for helpful suggestions and discussions, and especially G. Helmius for making the survey data availble to us. FL and YÅ thank STINT(97/1837) and HSFR(F0688/97), and CE thanks HSFR(F0624/1999) for support. LANA and HES thank NIH/NCRR (P41 RR13622) for support.

Fredrik Liljeros1, Christofer R. Edling1, Luís A. Nunes Amaral2, H. Eugene Stanley2, and Yvonne Åberg1
1Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
2Center for Polymer Studies & Dept. of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA


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# References

Lorentz transformations of open systems
ASHER PERES and DANIEL R. TERNO

Department of Physics, Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, 32000 Haifa, Israel

Abstract.  We consider open dynamical systems, subject to external interventions by agents that are not completely described by the theory (classical or quantal). These interventions are localized in regions that are relatively spacelike. Under these circumstances, no relativistic transformation law exists that relates the descriptions of the physical system by observers in relative motion. Still, physical laws are the same in all Lorentz frames.

1. A tale of two magicians

Many years ago, some time in the twentieth century, there were two itinerant magicians (probably Gypsies) who went from village to village and entertained people with sleight of hand tricks. One of them called himself a quantum magician. He claimed to have supernatural power, to use supersymmetric particles and to send quantum information with superluminal velocity. The crowds were amazed by his supernatural legerdemain.

A few days later, came the second magician. That one wanted to be an educator. He showed how to mimic quantum uncertainties with a mundane deck of cards . He indeed repeated every trick of the quantum magician, and he then explained how to perform it, using only the ordinary laws of classical mechanics. People were dismayed. They realized that they had been fooled: in the preceding shows they had not seen anything supernatural. No one liked the second magician, and no one thanked him for his lessons.

For instance, the quantum magician produced two spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles in a singlet state, far away from each other. His assistant Alice measured one of the spin components, and instantaneously the wave function collapsed all over spacetime. All over spacetime? This makes no sense. A wave function does not live in spacetime, but in a Hilbert space; and in a Hilbert space, the notion of velocity does not exist.

The second magician just took a piece of ordinary matter at rest. He made it explode into two fragments which carried opposite angular momenta, whose directions were unpredictable and had an isotropic Liouville distribution. The magician’s assistant, called Bob, measured the angular momentum of one of the fragments and, lo and behold, the Liouville distribution instantaneously collapsed all over spacetime. All over spacetime? Of course not. Liouville distributions do not live in spacetime, but in phase space. Phase space has a symplectic structure, and does not admit the notion of velocity.

2. Two quantum particles

The twentieth century witnessed two revolutions in our conception of nature. The first one was relativity theory: Einstein found that simultaneity had no absolute meaning and that distant events might have different time orderings when referred to observers in relative motion. Einstein’s theory elicited strong opposition when it was proposed, but is generally accepted by now. On the other hand, the revolution caused by quantum theory still produces uneasy feelings among some physicists. Einstein himself was puzzled by what seemed to be instantaneous transmission of quantum information. In his autobiography  he used terms such as “telepathically” (p. 85) and “spook” (p. 683).

Since then, the “peaceful coexistence”  of special relativity and quantum measurement theory was the subject of numerous theoretical articles . The first attempts to discuss the compatibility of both theories were rather naive: the only relativistic feature that was used was the existence of an upper bound, the velocity of light, on the speed of propagation of physical effects. This mere limitation does not do justice to the fundamentally new concepts introduced by Einstein’s relativity (one could as well imagine information theory limited by the speed of sound, or that of the postal service).

A more subtle issue, that came under scrutiny in later years, is that a physical situation involving several observers in relative motion cannot be described by wave functions with a relativistic transformation law . This is true even if we allow that law to be nonlocal. (Apparatuses with parts in relative motion have been the subject of recent experiments ). The root of the difficulty we have to transform quantum expressions from one Lorentz frame to the other is that the process called “quantum measurement” is an intervention in the quantum dynamics by an “exosystem” , namely by an apparatus which is not completely described by the quantum formalism .

Consider the following simple example, illustrated by Fig. 1 which shows the world lines of two observers (“Alice” and “Bob”) who are receding from each other. Two spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles are initially prepared in identical states, $`|\sigma _x=1`$, far away from each other, in the frame of reference of the quantum magician, where they are at rest. Note that these particles are not entangled: the problem we are discussing has no relation whatsoever to quantum entanglement. Alice and Bob, as seen in that frame, move in opposite $`\pm x`$ directions. They simultaneously measure the values of $`\sigma _y`$ of their particles, in regions A and B respectively. Actually these are not quite the same variables $`\sigma _y`$, because Alice and Bob are in relative motion in the $`x`$ direction and there is a transformation law between their operators $`\sigma _y`$ . However, this detail is irrelevant in the present discussion. The main point is that their results, $`\pm 1`$, are equiprobable and unpredictable, except statistically.

For example, suppose that Alice finds $`\sigma _{yA}=1`$ and Bob finds $`\sigma _{yB}=1`$. Then at time $`t_A=0`$ (in Alice’s frame), namely after Alice performed her measurement but before Bob performed his, the state of the physical system is described by her as

$$|\psi (t_A=0)=|(\sigma _{yA}=1)|(\sigma _{xB}=1).$$
(1)
(Alice knows that $`\sigma _{xB}=1`$ because she is cognizant of the preparation procedure of the two particles.) Likewise, the state at time $`t_B=0`$ is described by Bob as

$$|\psi (t_B=0)=|(\sigma _{xA}=1)|(\sigma _{yB}=1).$$
(2)
No relativistic linear transformation can convert these expressions into one another, in a way that would be valid for all possible results $`\sigma _y=\pm 1`$.

3. Two classical particles

We shall now show that a similar situation arises for a classical system whose state is given in any Lorentz frame by a Liouville function . Recall that a Liouville function expresses our probabilistic description of a physical system—what we can predict before we perform an actual observation—just as the quantum wave function is a mathematical expression used for computing probabilities of events .

To avoid any misunderstanding, we emphasize that there is no consistent relativistic statistical mechanics for $`N`$ interacting particles, with a $`6N`$-dimensional phase space defined by the canonical coordinates $`𝐩_n`$ and $`𝐪_n`$ ($`n=1,\mathrm{},N`$). Any relativistic interaction must be mediated by fields, having an infinity of degrees of freedom. (The same is true in quantum mechanics: we need quantum field theory to have interactions compatible with special relativity.) A complete Liouville function, or rather Liouville functional, must therefore contain not only all the canonical variables $`𝐩_n`$ and $`𝐪_n`$, but also all the fields. However, once this Liouville functional is known (in principle), we can define from it a reduced Liouville function, by integrating the functional over all the degrees of freedom of the fields. The result is a function of $`𝐩_n`$ and $`𝐪_n`$ only (just as we have reduced density matrices in quantum theory). The time evolution of such reduced Liouville functions cannot be obtained directly from canonical Hamiltonian dynamics, without explicitly mentioning the fields, yet these functions are well defined in any Lorentz frame, and their relativistic transformation is unambiguous .

As a simple example, consider two equal point masses $`m`$, identically prepared by the second magician, far away from each other. These masses are restricted to move along straight segments with fixed positions on the $`x`$-axis in the magician’s frame. In that frame, the masses move with constant velocity and they bounce elastically when they reach the extremities of their segments. Their momenta thus are $`\pm p`$, and their energy is $`E_0=(m^2+p^2)^{1/2}`$. At some arbitrary time $`t`$ in the magician’s frame, each mass receives a kick $`k`$, due to an external agent, so that its momentum becomes $`k\pm p`$. Its energy becomes

$$E_\pm =\sqrt{m^2+(k\pm p)^2}.$$
(3)
As before, Alice and Bob have opposite velocities with respect to the above inertial frame, and they wish to describe the dynamical evolution of the physical system in terms of their times, $`t_A`$ and $`t_B`$, respectively. The problem is that they know only statistically the sign of $`\pm p`$ before the kick, and therefore the correct sign to use in Eq. (3).

Let us assume that the kicks $`k`$ occurred in spacetime regions A and B like those in Fig. 1. Then, according to Alice, the situation at time $`t_A=0`$ is the following: the particle that was kicked in region A has equal probabilities to have energy $`E_1=E_\pm `$, and the other particle still has energy $`E_0`$ with certainty. (These are the values of the energies in the magician’s frame. They may be transformed to Alice’s frame if we wish to do so.) The Liouville function, averaged over all the variables except the energies of the two particles, is concentrated in two points as shown in Fig. 2(a). If Alice actually measures $`E_1`$, one of the two points disappears. Bob’s description, on the other hand, is given by Fig. 2(b). Likewise, if he measures $`E_2`$, one of the two points of Fig. 2(b) disappears. No Lorentz transformation of the Liouville function  can relate these different descriptions.

Note that for spacelike planes that intersect the past light-cones of events A and B , the Liouville function is concentrated at a single point in the $`E_1E_2`$ plane, namely $`E_1=E_2=E_0`$. For those intersecting the future light-cones of both events, the Liouville function has a support consisting of four points if no measurement is performed, because both $`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$ can have values $`E_\pm `$. It is only for spacelike planes that intersect the future light cone of one of these regions, and the past light cone of the other one, that we get two incompatible descriptions, if measurements are performed at times $`t_A`$ and $`t_B`$, respectively.

4. Open systems

The purpose of this article was to show that similar problems (or “paradoxes”) occur in classical and quantum relativistic dynamics, if there are incompletely described physical agents for which we have only probabilistic data. This is a general property of open physical systems, irrespective of the details of their dynamics.

In real life, there are no closed physical systems. We may, if we wish, imagine that closed systems exist, but since there is no communication with them, their properties are irrelevant. Still, when we learn (or teach) physics, physical laws are usually formulated in a language appropriate to closed systems. For example, Maxwell’s equations are written in terms of vectors E and B. The components of these vectors have no objective physical meaning. Their values depends on the choice of the coordinate system. On the other hand, it is impossible to formulate the dynamical laws in terms of the scalar quantities $`𝐄^\mathrm{𝟐}𝐁^\mathrm{𝟐}`$ and $`𝐄𝐁`$. We need E and B explicitly. Therefore, a complete description would have to include not only the components of the electromagnetic field, but also the material realization of the coordinate system used for defining these vector components. When we say that Maxwell’s equations are rotationally invariant, this actually means that if the material rods that serve us as coordinate axes are rigidly rotated, then the components of E and B have to be replaced by appropriate linear combinations, in such a way that the equations have the same appearance, in terms of the new coordinates and new field components.

Moreover, to give a physical meaning to the symbols E and B, we should specify how their numerical values are actually measured, say by means of electrometers and magnetometers, or other suitable instruments. Now, normally we don’t want to be bothered by how the field components are actually measured, even less by how the spacetime coordinates are materialized. These technical details are, after all, irrelevant to electromagnetic theory. It is tacitly assumed that coordinates are well defined and that precise measuring instruments exist at every spacetime point, and we can proceed with the calculations without having to think about them. However, as shown in this paper, what is acceptable and convenient in a deterministic classical theory becomes problematic if stochastic features are present in the dynamical evolution, as it happens in quantum phenomena and also in classical statistical mechanics. The “spooky” long range quantum correlations that were mentioned by Einstein  also appear in classical systems if the latter are incompletely specified and treated statistically by means of Liouville functions (correlations have a meaning only in statistical analyses).

The crucial feature common to both models discussed above is the intervention of “exosystems”  (the measuring apparatus and the $`k`$-kicker) that are not described by the dynamical formalism of the “endosystem” under consideration, and induce a stochastic behavior of the latter. The point is that a physical system is “open” when parts of the universe are excluded from its description. At time $`t_A=0`$, one of the exosystems has intervened at A but the other one, that did not intervene as yet, is irrelevant and need not be excluded. Conversely, at time $`t_B=0`$ it is the first exosystem that is irrelevant and need not be excluded. Therefore at times $`t_A=0`$ and $`t_B=0`$ different parts of the universe are excluded, the two systems are different, and this explains why no Lorentz transformation exists that relates them. This argument can also be rephrased in terms of quantum contextuality .

It is noteworthy that another causality problem is related to stochastic exosystems: causal loops (that is, hypothetical effects of future events on past ones) are dynamically inconsistent if, and only if, we allow exophysical agents to influence the evolution of physical systems . For closed systems, fully described by the theory, causal loops lead to no inconsistency and there is effectively no difference between past and future.

5. Concluding remarks

Just as the second magician, we don’t expect anyone to thank us for dispelling some of the “paradoxes” of the quantum folklore. It is unfortunate that these fallacious paradoxes are often invoked as a source of dissatisfaction with the axioms of quantum mechanics. We have shown that similar features also appear in classical theory. They are solely due to the introduction of exosystems, which are necessary for the interpretation of the theory, but are not described by the latter .

One may be tempted to say that it is stochasticity, not quantum theory, that requires “peaceful coexistence”  with special relativity. However, there is more in quantum theory than just the existence of probabilistic data. A true quantum magician, using Bell’s theorem , would be able to display long range correlations that cannot be reproduced by a classical magician. Bell’s theorem implies severe restrictions on our ability to have together realism and locality. The essential point we wanted to make in this paper is that in discussions of these fundamental issues, the fact that physical systems are open should never be forgotten.

Acknowledgments

We thank Larry Schulman and Abner Shimony for helpful comments. Work by AP was supported by the Gerard Swope Fund and the Fund for Encouragement of Research. DRT was supported by a grant from the Technion Graduate School.

FIG. 1. Events that occur simultaneously (in the magicians’ frame) in regions A and B have different time orderings when described in the Lorentz frames of Alice and Bob.

FIG. 2. Liouville functions, projected on the energy plane $`E_1E_2`$, at times $`t_A=0`$ and $`t_B=0`$, respectively, if no measurements are performed to resolve the indeterminacy. The dots indicate values of $`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$ for which the value of the Liouville function does not vanish.