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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Matrix representations of the Maxwell equations are very well-known -. However, all these representations lack an exactness or/and are given in terms of a pair of matrix equations. Some of these representations are in free space. Such a representation is an approximation in a medium with space- and time-dependent permittivity $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and permeability $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$ respectively. Even this approximation is often expressed through a pair of equations using $`3\times 3`$ matrices: one for the curl and one for the divergence which occur in the Maxwell equations. This practice of writing the divergence condition separately is completely avoidable by using $`4\times 4`$ matrices  for Maxwell equations in free-space. A single equation using $`4\times 4`$ matrices is necessary and sufficient when $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$ are treated as ‘local’ constants .

A treatment taking into account the variations of $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$ has been presented in . This treatment uses the Riemann-Silberstein vectors, $`𝑭^\pm (𝒓,t)`$ to reexpress the Maxwell equations as four equations: two equations are for the curl and two are for the divergences and there is mixing in $`𝑭^+(𝒓,t)`$ and $`𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)`$. This mixing is very neatly expressed through the two derived functions of $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$. These four equations are then expressed as a pair of matrix equations using $`6\times 6`$ matrices: again one for the curl and one for the divergence. Even though this treatment is exact it involves a pair of matrix equations.

Here, we present a treatment which enables us to express the Maxwell equations in a single matrix equation instead of a pair of matrix equations. Our approach is a logical continuation of the treatment in . We use the linear combination of the components of the Riemann-Silberstein vectors, $`𝑭^\pm (𝒓,t)`$ and the final matrix representation is a single equation using $`8\times 8`$ matrices. This representation contains all the four Maxwell equations in presence of sources taking into account the spatial and temporal variations of the permittivity $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and the permeability $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$.

In Section-I we shall summarize the treatment for a homogeneous medium and introduce the required functions and notation. In Section-II we shall present the matrix representation in an inhomogeneous medium, in presence of sources.

## 2 Homogeneous Medium

We shall start with the Maxwell equations  in an inhomogeneous medium with sources,

$`\mathbf{}𝑫(𝒓,t)=\rho ,`$
$`\mathbf{}\times 𝑯(𝒓,t){\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}𝑫(𝒓,t)=𝑱,`$
$`\mathbf{}\times 𝑬(𝒓,t)+{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}𝑩(𝒓,t)=0,`$
$`\mathbf{}𝑩(𝒓,t)=0.`$ (1)
We assume the media to be linear, that is $`𝑫=ϵ𝑬`$, and $`𝑩=\mu 𝑯`$, where $`ϵ`$ is the permittivity of the medium and $`\mu `$ is the permeability of the medium. In general $`ϵ=ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu =\mu (𝒓,t)`$. In this section we treat them as ‘local’ constants in the various derivations. The magnitude of the velocity of light in the medium is given by $`v(𝒓,t)=\left|𝒗(𝒓,t)\right|=1/\sqrt{ϵ(𝒓,t)\mu (𝒓,t)}`$. In vacuum we have, $`ϵ_0=8.85\times 10^{12}C^2/N.m^2`$ and $`\mu _0=4\pi \times 10^7N/A^2`$.

One possible way to obtain the required matrix representation is to use the Riemann-Silberstein vector  given by

$`𝑭^+(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(\sqrt{ϵ(𝒓,t)}𝑬(𝒓,t)+\mathrm{i}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu (𝒓,t)}}}𝑩(𝒓,t)\right)`$
$`𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(\sqrt{ϵ(𝒓,t)}𝑬(𝒓,t)\mathrm{i}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu (𝒓,t)}}}𝑩(𝒓,t)\right).`$ (2)
For any homogeneous medium it is equivalent to use either $`𝑭^+(𝒓,t)`$ or $`𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)`$. The two differ by the sign before ‘$`\mathrm{i}`$’ and are not the complex conjugate of one another. We have not assumed any form for $`𝑬(𝒓,t)`$ and $`𝑩(𝒓,t)`$. We will be needing both of them in an inhomogeneous medium, to be considered in detail in Section-III.

If for a certain medium $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$ are constants (or can be treated as ‘local’ constants under certain approximations), then the vectors $`𝑭^\pm (𝒓,t)`$ satisfy

$`\mathrm{i}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}𝑭^\pm (𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\pm v\mathbf{}\times 𝑭^\pm (𝒓,t){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2ϵ}}}(\mathrm{i}𝑱)`$
$`\mathbf{}𝑭^\pm (𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2ϵ}}}(\rho ).`$ (3)
Thus, by using the Riemann-Silberstein vector it has been possible to reexpress the four Maxwell equations (for a medium with constant $`ϵ`$ and $`\mu `$) as two equations. The first one contains the the two Maxwell equations with curl and the second one contains the two Maxwell with divergences. The first of the two equations in (3) can be immediately converted into a $`3\times 3`$ matrix representation. However, this representation does not contain the divergence conditions (the first and the fourth Maxwell equations) contained in the second equation in (3). A further compactification is possible only by expressing the Maxwell equations in a $`4\times 4`$ matrix representation. To this end, using the components of the Riemann-Silberstein vector, we define,

$`\mathrm{\Psi }^+(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{c}F_x^++\mathrm{i}F_y^+\\ F_z^+\\ F_z^+\\ F_x^++\mathrm{i}F_y^+\end{array}\right],\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝒓,t)=\left[\begin{array}{c}F_x^{}\mathrm{i}F_y^{}\\ F_z^{}\\ F_z^{}\\ F_x^{}\mathrm{i}F_y^{}\end{array}\right].`$ (12)
The vectors for the sources are

$`W^+`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2ϵ}}}\right)\left[\begin{array}{c}J_x+\mathrm{i}J_y\\ J_zv\rho \\ J_z+v\rho \\ J_x+\mathrm{i}J_y\end{array}\right],W^{}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2ϵ}}}\right)\left[\begin{array}{c}J_x\mathrm{i}J_y\\ J_zv\rho \\ J_z+v\rho \\ J_x\mathrm{i}J_y\end{array}\right].`$ (21)
Then we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Psi }^+`$ $`=`$ $`v\left\{𝑴\mathbf{}\right\}\mathrm{\Psi }^+W^+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`v\left\{𝑴^{}\mathbf{}\right\}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}W^{},`$ (22)
where ‘’ denotes complex-conjugation and the triplet, $`𝑴=(M_x,M_y,M_z)`$ is expressed in terms of

$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{𝟎}& 1\mathrm{l}\\ 1\mathrm{l}& \mathrm{𝟎}\end{array}\right],\beta =\left[\begin{array}{cccc}1\mathrm{l}& \mathrm{𝟎}& & \\ \mathrm{𝟎}& 1\mathrm{l}& & \end{array}\right],1\mathrm{l}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right].`$ (29)
Alternately, we may use the matrix $`J=\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Both differ by a sign. For our purpose it is fine to use either $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ or $`J`$. However, they have a different meaning: $`J`$ is contravariant and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is covariant; The matrix $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ corresponds to the Lagrange brackets of classical mechanics and $`J`$ corresponds to the Poisson brackets. An important relation is $`\mathrm{\Omega }=J^1`$. The $`M`$-matrices are:

$`M_x`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cccc}0& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\\ 1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& 0\end{array}\right]=\beta \mathrm{\Omega },`$ (34)
$`M_y`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cccc}0& 0& \mathrm{i}& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& \mathrm{i}\\ \mathrm{i}& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{i}& 0& 0\end{array}\right]=\mathrm{i}\mathrm{\Omega },`$ (39)
$`M_z`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right]=\beta .`$ (44)
Each of the four Maxwell equations are easily obtained from the matrix representation in (22). This is done by taking the sums and differences of row-I with row-IV and row-II with row-III respectively. The first three give the $`y`$, $`x`$ and $`z`$ components of the curl and the last one gives the divergence conditions present in the evolution equation (3).

It is to be noted that the matrices $`𝑴`$ are all non-singular and all are hermitian. Moreover, they satisfy the usual algebra of the Dirac matrices, including,

$`M_x\beta =\beta M_x,`$
$`M_y\beta =\beta M_y,`$
$`M_x^2=M_y^2=M_z^2=I,`$
$`M_xM_y=M_yM_x=\mathrm{i}M_z,`$
$`M_yM_z=M_zM_y=\mathrm{i}M_x,`$
$`M_zM_x=M_xM_z=\mathrm{i}M_y.`$ (45)
Before proceeding further we note the following: The pair $`(\mathrm{\Psi }^\pm ,𝑴)`$ are not unique. Different choices of $`\mathrm{\Psi }^\pm `$ would give rise to different $`𝑴`$, such that the triplet $`𝑴`$ continues to to satisfy the algebra of the Dirac matrices in (45). We have preferred $`\mathrm{\Psi }^\pm `$ via the the Riemann-Silberstein vector (2) in . This vector has certain advantages over the other possible choices. The Riemann-Silberstein vector is well-known in classical electrodynamics and has certain interesting properties and uses .

In deriving the above $`4\times 4`$ matrix representation of the Maxwell equations we have ignored the spatial and temporal derivatives of $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$ in the first two of the Maxwell equations. We have treated $`ϵ`$ and $`\mu `$ as ‘local’ constants.

## 3 Inhomogeneous Medium

In the previous section we wrote the evolution equations for the Riemann-Silberstein vector in (3), for a medium, treating $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$ as ‘local’ constants. From these pairs of equations we wrote the matrix form of the Maxwell equations. In this section we shall write the exact equations taking into account the spatial and temporal variations of $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$. It is very much possible to write the required evolution equations using $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$. But we shall follow the procedure in  of using the two derived laboratory functions

$`\mathrm{Velocity}\mathrm{Function}:v(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{ϵ(𝒓,t)\mu (𝒓,t)}}}`$
$`\mathrm{Resistance}\mathrm{Function}:h(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\mu (𝒓,t)}{ϵ(𝒓,t)}}}.`$ (46)
The function, $`v(𝒓,t)`$ has the dimensions of velocity and the function, $`h(𝒓,t)`$ has the dimensions of resistance (measured in Ohms). We can equivalently use the Conductance Function, $`\kappa (𝒓,t)=1/h(𝒓,t)=ϵ(𝒓,t)/\mu (𝒓,t)`$ (measured in Ohms<sup>-1</sup> or Mhos!) in place of the resistance function, $`h(𝒓,t)`$. These derived functions enable us to understand the dependence of the variations more transparently . Moreover the derived functions are the ones which are measured experimentally. In terms of these functions, $`ϵ=1/\sqrt{vh}`$ and $`\mu =\sqrt{h/v}`$. Using these functions the exact equations satisfied by $`𝑭^\pm (𝒓,t)`$ are

$`\mathrm{i}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}𝑭^+(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`v(𝒓,t)\left(\mathbf{}\times 𝑭^+(𝒓,t)\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\mathbf{}v(𝒓,t)\times 𝑭^+(𝒓,t)\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{v(𝒓,t)}{2h(𝒓)}}\left(\mathbf{}h(𝒓,t)\times 𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{\sqrt{2}}}\sqrt{v(𝒓,t)h(𝒓,t)}𝑱`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{v}(𝒓,t)}{v(𝒓,t)}}𝑭^+(𝒓,t)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{h}(𝒓,t)}{h(𝒓,t)}}𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)`$
$`\mathrm{i}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`v(𝒓,t)\left(\mathbf{}\times 𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\mathbf{}v(𝒓,t)\times 𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{v(𝒓,t)}{2h(𝒓,t)}}\left(\mathbf{}h(𝒓,t)\times 𝑭^+(𝒓,t)\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{\sqrt{2}}}\sqrt{v(𝒓,t)h(𝒓,t)}𝑱`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{v}(𝒓,t)}{v(𝒓,t)}}𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{h}(𝒓,t)}{h(𝒓,t)}}𝑭^+(𝒓,t)`$
$`\mathbf{}𝑭^+(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2v(𝒓,t)}}\left(\mathbf{}v(𝒓,t)𝑭^+(𝒓,t)\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2h(𝒓,t)}}\left(\mathbf{}h(𝒓,t)𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\sqrt{v(𝒓,t)h(𝒓,t)}\rho ,`$
$`\mathbf{}𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2v(𝒓,t)}}\left(\mathbf{}v(𝒓,t)𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)\right)`$ (47)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2h(𝒓,t)}}\left(\mathbf{}h(𝒓,t)𝑭^+(𝒓,t)\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\sqrt{v(𝒓,t)h(𝒓,t)}\rho ,`$
where $`\dot{v}=\frac{v}{t}`$ and $`\dot{h}=\frac{h}{t}`$. The evolution equations in (47) are exact (for a linear media) and the dependence on the variations of $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$ has been neatly expressed through the two derived functions. The coupling between $`𝑭^+(𝒓,t)`$ and $`𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)`$. is via the gradient and time-derivative of only one derived function namely, $`h(𝒓,t)`$ or equivalently $`\kappa (𝒓,t)`$. Either of these can be used and both are the directly measured quantities. We further note that the dependence of the coupling is logarithmic

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{h(𝒓,t)}}\mathbf{}h(𝒓,t)=\mathbf{}\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left(h(𝒓,t)\right)\right\},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{h(𝒓,t)}}\dot{h}(𝒓,t)={\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left(h(𝒓,t)\right)\right\},`$ (48)
where ‘$`\mathrm{ln}`$’ is the natural logarithm.

The coupling can be best summarized by expressing the equations in (47) in a (block) matrix form. For this we introduce the following logarithmic function

$`(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left\{1\mathrm{l}\mathrm{ln}\left(v(𝒓,t)\right)+\sigma _x\mathrm{ln}\left(h(𝒓,t)\right)\right\},`$ (49)
where $`\sigma _x`$ is one the triplet of the Pauli matrices

$`𝝈`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\sigma _x=\left[\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right],\sigma _y=\left[\begin{array}{cc}0\hfill & \hfill \mathrm{i}\\ \mathrm{i}\hfill & \hfill 0\end{array}\right],\sigma _z=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \hfill 0\\ 0\hfill & \hfill 1\end{array}\right]\right].`$ (56)
Using the above notation the matrix form of the equations in (47) is

$`\mathrm{i}\left\{1\mathrm{l}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\right\}\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝑭^+(𝒓,t)& \\ 𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)& \end{array}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`v(𝒓)\sigma _z\left\{1\mathrm{l}\mathbf{}+\mathbf{}\right\}\times \left[\begin{array}{cc}𝑭^+(𝒓,t)& \\ 𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)& \end{array}\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{\sqrt{2}}}\sqrt{v(𝒓,t)h(𝒓,t)}𝑱`$
$`\left\{1\mathrm{l}\mathbf{}\mathbf{}\right\}\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝑭^+(𝒓,t)& \\ 𝑭^{}(𝒓,t)& \end{array}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\sqrt{v(𝒓,t)h(𝒓,t)}\rho ,`$ (64)
where the dot-product and the cross-product are to be understood as

$`\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝑨& 𝑩\\ 𝑪& 𝑫\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{c}𝒖\\ 𝒗\end{array}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{c}𝑨𝒖+𝑩𝒗\\ 𝑪𝒖+𝑫𝒗\end{array}\right]`$ (71)
$`\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝑨& 𝑩\\ 𝑪& 𝑫\end{array}\right]\times \left[\begin{array}{c}𝒖\\ 𝒗\end{array}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{c}𝑨\times 𝒖+𝑩\times 𝒗\\ 𝑪\times 𝒖+𝑫\times 𝒗\end{array}\right].`$ (78)
It is to be noted that the $`6\times 6`$ matrices in the evolution equations in (64) are either hermitian or antihermitian. Any dependence on the variations of $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$ is at best ‘weak’. We further note, $`\mathbf{}\left(\mathrm{ln}\left(v(𝒓,t)\right)\right)=\mathbf{}\left(\mathrm{ln}\left(n(𝒓,t)\right)\right)`$ and $`\frac{}{t}\left(\mathrm{ln}\left(v(𝒓,t)\right)\right)=\frac{}{t}\left(\mathrm{ln}\left(n(𝒓,t)\right)\right)`$. In some media, the coupling may vanish ($`\mathbf{}h(𝒓,t)=0`$ and $`\dot{h}(𝒓,t)=0`$) and in the same medium the refractive index, $`n(𝒓,t)=c/v(𝒓,t)`$ may vary ($`\mathbf{}n(𝒓,t)0`$ or/and $`\dot{n}(𝒓,t)0`$). It may be further possible to use the approximations $`\mathbf{}\left(\mathrm{ln}\left(h(𝒓,t)\right)\right)0`$ and $`\frac{}{t}\left(\mathrm{ln}\left(h(𝒓,t)\right)\right)0`$.

We shall be using the following matrices to express the exact representation

$`𝚺=\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝝈& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& 𝝈\end{array}\right],𝜶=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{𝟎}& 𝝈\\ 𝝈& \mathrm{𝟎}\end{array}\right],𝑰=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1\mathrm{l}& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& 1\mathrm{l}\end{array}\right],`$ (85)
where $`𝚺`$ are the Dirac spin matrices and $`𝜶`$ are the matrices used in the Dirac equation. Then,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝑰& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& 𝑰\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Psi }^+& \\ \mathrm{\Psi }^{}& \end{array}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{v}(𝒓,t)}{2v(𝒓,t)}}\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝑰& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& 𝑰\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Psi }^+& \\ \mathrm{\Psi }^{}& \end{array}\right]`$ (94)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{h}(𝒓,t)}{2h(𝒓,t)}}\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{𝟎}& \mathrm{i}\beta \alpha _y\\ \mathrm{i}\beta \alpha _y& \mathrm{𝟎}\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Psi }^+& \\ \mathrm{\Psi }^{}& \end{array}\right]`$ (99)
$`=v(𝒓,t)\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\left\{𝑴\mathbf{}+𝚺𝒖\right\}& & \mathrm{i}\beta \left(𝚺𝒘\right)\alpha _y\\ \mathrm{i}\beta \left(𝚺^{}𝒘\right)\alpha _y& & \left\{𝑴^{}\mathbf{}+𝚺^{}𝒖\right\}\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Psi }^+& \\ \mathrm{\Psi }^{}& \end{array}\right]`$ (104)
$`\left[\begin{array}{cc}𝑰& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& 𝑰\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{c}W^+\\ W^{}\end{array}\right]`$ (109)
where

$`𝒖(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2v(𝒓,t)}}\mathbf{}v(𝒓,t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathbf{}\left\{\mathrm{ln}v(𝒓,t)\right\}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathbf{}\left\{\mathrm{ln}n(𝒓,t)\right\}`$
$`𝒘(𝒓,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2h(𝒓,t)}}\mathbf{}h(𝒓,t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathbf{}\left\{\mathrm{ln}h(𝒓,t)\right\}`$ (110)
The above representation contains thirteen $`8\times 8`$ matrices! Ten of these are hermitian. The exceptional ones are the ones that contain the three components of $`𝒘(𝒓,t)`$, the logarithmic gradient of the resistance function. These three matrices are antihermitian.

## 4 Concluding Remarks

We have been able to express the Maxwell equations in a matrix form in a medium with varying permittivity $`ϵ(𝒓,t)`$ and permeability $`\mu (𝒓,t)`$, in presence of sources. We have been able to do so using a single equation instead of a pair of matrix equations. We have used $`8\times 8`$ matrices and have been able to separate the dependence of the coupling between the upper components ($`\mathrm{\Psi }^+`$) and the lower components ($`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$) through the two laboratory functions. Moreover the exact matrix representation has an algebraic structure very similar to the Dirac equation. We feel that this representation would be more suitable for some of the studies related to the photon wave function. This representation is the starting point for the exact formalism of Maxwell optics -. This formalism provides a unified treatment of beam-optics and polarization.


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# Optimization of the Coupling of High-Frequency Horn Antenna Array to the ESA PLANCK Submillimeter-Wave Telescope

## I Introduction

The dual-reflector submillimeter-wave telescope on the ESA PLANCK Surveyor is being designed for measuring the temperature anisotropies and polarization characteristics of the cosmic microwave background (CMB).

PLANCK will carry two highly complex focal plane instruments, giving the wide frequency coverage ($`30GHz`$ to $`850GHz`$) and high sensitivity (of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T10^6`$) necessary to allow for the clean separation of the CMB from confusing foreground sources of radiation and the determination of the power spectrum of the CMB anisotropies on angular scales down to $`5`$ arcminutes.

Our research is concerned with one of these key instruments, the Far-IR High Frequency Instrument (HFI), which will cover six frequency bands centered at $`100`$, $`143`$,$`217`$, $`353`$, $`545`$ and $`857GHz`$ (wavelength range from $`3mm`$ down to $`350\mu m`$) . At the telescope focal plane the HFI consists of an array of $`36`$ horn antenna structures (Fig. 1) feeding the ultra sensitive bolometric detectors which will be cryogenically cooled to a temperature of $`100mK`$.

One objective of our research is the optimization of the HFI optical design and the determination of the complete set of HFI beam patterns. The challenge of the problem is that the telescope is electrically large ($`D/\lambda =4300`$ at $`\lambda =350\mu m`$) and consists of two essentially defocused ellipsoidal reflectors providing a very large field of view at the focal plane in order to accommodate the two focal plane instruments.

The latter has a detrimental effect on the quality of the imaging introducing coma and astigmatism even at the center of the field of view where the highest frequency channels are placed. Furthermore the focal surface of least confusion has quite an unusual shape and it is extremely important to precisely place the phase centers of the HFI horn antennas on this surface.

Another objective is the characterization of the non-conventional polarization properties of the multi-beam telescope system. The CMB polarization is expected to be at a level of only 10% of the temperature anisotropy quadrupole, and the success of the measurements will depend crucially on the precise knowledge of the polarization properties of the telescope.

## II Formulation of the problem

While the performance of the antenna structures can be thoroughly tested in terrestrial conditions, the coupling of the HFI with the telescope is, basically, optimized through the computer simulations. Such simulations are also needed for the data retrieval from the raw PLANCK measurements once in orbit.

The most intricate part of the problem is the computation of the polarization patterns of the telescope beams from the linearly polarized horns and of the power patterns of multi-moded beams of extremely high frequencies (the beams of $`12`$ modes at $`545GHz`$ and of $`30`$ modes at $`857GHz`$).

Among various simulation techniques, physical optics (PO) is the most adequate one for the given purpose. However, conventional implementations of the technique  do not fit the size of the problem. Commercially available packages are also very limited in their capacity to rigorously answer this sort of questions. For example, even the best commercial software requires about one week of computation of the main beam of the telescope at the relatively low frequency of $`143GHz`$, while all conventional physical optics codes collapse at the highest frequencies of $`545857GHz`$.

To solve the problem, we developed a special PO code  that allowed us to overcome the limitations of a generic approach for large multi-reflector systems and perform typical simulations of the telescope in the order of minutes. With recent improvements, it requires only $`2`$ minutes for the fairly accurate PO simulation of the telescope beam at the frequency of $`143GHz`$ and about $`30`$ minutes for the beam of $`30`$ modes at $`857GHz`$ using a PC Pentium III ($`500MHz`$) under the Linux operating system.

In this paper, we consider the beam of the Gaussian horn HFI-143-1 designed for the separate measuring of the fields of two orthogonal linear polarizations, ’a’ and ’b’, which correspond to the electric field at the beam axis in the sky tilted with respect to the local vertical (defined below) by the angle $`\psi _a=45^{}`$ and $`\psi _b=+45^{}`$, respectively (the angle $`\psi `$ is measured clockwise from the local vertical as seen from the telescope).

We also provide the results of our simulations of the defocusing effect of the $`30`$-mode horn HFI-857-1 from the old layout of the focal plane unit.

The electric field at the aperture of the Gaussian horn HFI-143-1 is linearly polarized and specified by the formula

$$\stackrel{}{E}(r)=E_0\mathrm{exp}(r^2/w_a^2)\stackrel{}{e},0ra$$
(1)
where $`r`$ is the radial coordinate, $`w_a=2.68mm`$ is the beam waist at the aperture, $`a=5.0mm`$ is the aperture radius and $`\stackrel{}{e}=\stackrel{}{e}_{a,b}`$ is the unit polarization vector ($`\stackrel{}{E}(r)=0`$ outside the aperture).

Both the power and phase patterns of such a feed coincide perfectly well with the available experimental data. The far-field pattern of this particular feed satisfies the edge taper requirement of being below $`25dB`$ at the angles $`\theta 25^{}`$.

H-857-1 is a $`30`$-mode back-to-back conical corrugated horn  with the electric field at the aperture specified by the set of hybrid modes similar to those used in  for the HFI-545-1 horn. The total field is defined as a non-coherent superposition of all the modes of all polarizations.

Amplitudes of the aperture fields are normalized so that each polarized mode has the total power $`P_m=1`$.

## III Polarization of the Gaussian beams

Fig. 2 shows the power pattern of the telescope beam H-143-1 as projected on the plane normal to the telescope line-of-sight at the $`(0,0)`$ point ($`a_x`$ and $`a_y`$ are the horizontal and vertical axes on the plane, respectively, measured in degrees). The beam axis is at the point $`a_x=1.365^{}`$, $`a_y=1.197^{}`$ which is defined as the point of maximum power of the beam.

The beam is well shaped down to $`30dB`$ below the maximum and can be approximated by a Gaussian function (at this level, the pattern does not depend on polarization) with a full beam width of $`W_{min}=8.4`$ arcmin and $`W_{max}=9.2`$ arcmin measured at $`3dB`$.

The polarization of the beam is generally elliptical except precisely at the beam axis where it remains linear. In order to achieve the required orientation of the polarization pattern in the sky, we should orient the polarization vector $`\stackrel{}{e}`$ properly on the horn aperture .

For immediate comparison of polarizations measured by different horns when scanning through the sky, we should use easily aligned directions in the sky as equivalent reference polarization axes for different beams. Such directions are the meridians in the spherical frame of the telescope, with the telescope spin axis being the pole (the meridians define local verticals at various observation points, while the parallels are local horizontals that constitute the orthogonal directions).

Also, we should properly define the reference axis for the polarization vectors $`\stackrel{}{e}`$ of tilted horns. We define the reference axis as the direction of $`\stackrel{}{e}`$ in the horn aperture plane that is projected on the vertical axis of the focal plane. The orientation of $`\stackrel{}{e}`$ is specified by the angle $`\varphi `$ in the horn aperture plane measured from this reference in a clockwise direction when looking from the horn to the secondary mirror.

Using these definitions, we have found that the beam of the H-143-1 horn is polarized at its axis at the required angles of (a) $`\psi _a=45^{}`$ and (b) $`\psi _b=+45^{}`$ if the horn polarization vector $`\stackrel{}{e}`$ is specified by the angle $`\varphi _a=46.91^{}`$ and $`\varphi _b=+43.09^{}`$, respectively.

In terms of the coordinate frame $`M1`$ of the primary mirror used as a global frame for the design specification, the unit polarization vectors found above are represented by their components as follows

$`\stackrel{}{e}_a=(0.522212,0.727795,0.444532)`$
$`\stackrel{}{e}_b=(0.628105,0.680820,0.376787).`$ (2)
The deviation of the major axis of the polarization ellipse from the local meridian as a function of the observation point within the beam in each of the two cases is shown in Fig. 3, (a) and (b), respectively.

When the polarization vector $`\stackrel{}{e}`$ is properly oriented, the cross-polarized component of the far field measured along the respective orthogonal direction in the sky is minimized. In such a case, the power pattern of the cross-polarized component is, basically, determined by the power pattern of the semi-minor axis of the polarization ellipse at each observation point of the beam, Fig. 4.

The latter is very much the same for any orientation of the polarization vector and can be approximated as follows

$$P_{cr}=P_{cr0}[(\theta /\theta _0)\mathrm{sin}(\phi \phi _0)]^p\mathrm{exp}[(\theta /\theta _0)^q]$$
(3)
where $`P_{cr0},dB`$, is the maximum power of the minor axis component achieved at the points specified by the polar angle $`\theta _0`$ and the azimuthal angles $`\phi _0\pm 90^{}`$ measured from the center of the pattern which is located at the beam axis (the values of the parameters in this approximation depend on the position of the horn considered).

## IV Simulation of multi-moded horns

Multi-moded horns are designed for receiving maximum microwave power within the required angular resolution consistent with the requirements on the beam taper at the primary mirror of a level of $`25dB`$, with an aspect angle of $`25`$ degrees. These are rather restrictive and contradictory requirements resulting in the big aperture area of the corrugated conical horns specially optimized for the given application .

Since the phase front of the aperture field of a conical horn is convex, the effective focal center is located inside the horn at a distance $`R_C`$ from the aperture. The horn position is specified by the aperture refocus parameter $`R_A=R_F+R_C`$ where $`R_A`$ is the distance from the focal plane to the horn aperture measured along the horn axis and $`R_F`$ is the similar distance to the geometrical focus on this axis as found by the ray-tracing software.

One may try to make an estimate of $`R_C`$ by considering the basic mode of the horn as a Gaussian beam propagating through the horn aperture. For the horn HFI-857-1 (old layout) with the slant length $`L=28mm`$ and the aperture radius $`a=2.55mm`$, the estimate is $`R_C=11.9mm`$ while $`R_F=9.1mm`$ that results in $`R_A=21.0mm`$.

Accurate simulation shows, however, that such an estimate is very misleading. When computing the gain $`G`$ defined as $`G=10\mathrm{log}(4\pi P(0)/P_0)`$ where $`P(0)`$ is the power of the total multi-moded field on the beam axis and $`P_0`$ is the radiated power of a single polarized mode, one can find that $`G`$ as a function of the aperture refocus parameter $`R_A`$ has a maximum at $`R_A=13.0mm`$ (Fig. 5).

The accurate value of $`R_A`$ is different from the rough estimate above by $`\mathrm{\Delta }R_A=8mm=23\lambda `$ that results in an extra gain of about $`2.5dB`$. Thus, the multi-moded horns should be placed slightly further from the secondary mirror compared to the positions found by simple estimates.

## V Conclusions

A fast physical optics simulator has been developed for the analysis of the dual-reflector submillimeter-wave telescope on the ESA PLANCK Surveyor. The code overcomes the limitations of a generic approach for large multi-reflector quasi-optical systems and can perform typical simulations of the telescope in the order of minutes.

A study of the power patterns, polarization characteristics, defocusing effects and modal structure of the telescope beams from both Gaussian and multi-moded horns has been performed. Analysis of the beams from the linearly polarized Gaussian horns have shown that the far-field of the telescope is, generally, elliptically polarized except precisely at the beam axis where linear polarization is preserved.

When rotating the polarization vector of the horn field about the horn axis, the major axes of the polarization ellipses at the central part of the telescope beam rotate by very much the same angle about the direction of observation while the power patterns of both the co- and cross-polarized components of the far field remain basically unchanged. Systematic deviations from this basic rule which occur mainly in the peripheral part of the beam can be successfully simulated and taken into account.

Even for the most tilted Gaussian horns located at the edge of the horn array, the power associated with the minor axes of the polarization ellipses in the telescope beam remains at the level of more than $`30dB`$ below the maximum power of the beam.

In order to achieve maximum angular resolution with multi-moded horns, the latter should be located slightly further from the secondary mirror compared to the estimates based on the Gaussian approximation of the basic mode applied to the optimal focal positions as found by the ray tracing techniques.

## VI Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to Yuying Longval for providing updated positions and aiming angles of the high-frequency horns along with the map of the focal plane. V.Y. and J.A.M. would like to acknowledge the support of Enterprise Ireland.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

A main concern of the field of “quantum logic” and related algebraic structures has long been to understand the differences between quantum and classical physical theories by looking for axiomatic, often largely algebraic characterizations of the two types of theories. Usually, appealing axioms having an intuitively understandable meaning have been sought. One might hope to find a nice set $`S`$ of axioms which both kinds of theories satisfy, and two other sets $`Q`$ and $`C,`$ such that $`QS`$ gives classical theory while $`CS`$ gives quantum theory. Such a characterization of the two types of theory would help one understand, what they have in common and how they differ. Changes to either the shared axiom set or the distinctive classical or quantum axioms might help one understand what other kinds of physical theories are possible. Such alternative kinds of theories might be intermediate between the two types (perhaps keeping $`S`$ but substituting some other set for $`C`$ or $`Q`$), or diverging from both on fundamental issues (perhaps differing on $`S`$). I think it is fair to say that quantum logic and related fields have made much progress towards this goal over the years, but that no characterization is yet widely recognized to have met it, although some approaches have come close. Of course, the success of one approach would not mean others should be abandoned: it is possible, even likely, that there are various useful characterizations of quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, and how they differ.

Over the last fifteen or twenty years, the fields of quantum information theory (QIT) and quantum information processing (QIP) have emerged. QIP involves physicists, computer scientists, mathematicians and others in investigating the fact that in a world governed by quantum theory, one can do some tasks of classical information processing faster or better than in a world governed by classical theory. But in investigating these matters, one quickly comes to appreciate the importance of quantum analogues of classical tasks such as data compression and the transmission of states through a noisy channel, in which the data or messages are themselves conceived of as quantum in nature–as quantum information. This has given rise to QIT, a quantum generalization of information theory, which is an analogue of the classical theory in which not just the performance of classical tasks (possibly in superior fashion) by quantum means is considered, but also the performance of tasks which are themselves quantum and may or may not have an analogue in the classical world.

The prime examples of classical information processing by quantum means are quantum computation and quantum cryptography. Quantum computation allows some tasks, such as factoring integers , , to be done in polynomial time whereas no polynomial time classical algorithm is known despite intense effort to find one. It also allows brute-force search (for instance, for solutions to problems in NP) to be done in the square root of the classical time , although this cannot of course speed up an exponential search to a polynomial one. And quantum cryptography allows (with the aid of an authenticated classical channel or a small amount of classical shared key to use in authenticating classical communication) the distribution of a large amount of key material in such a way that eavesdropping is virtually certain to be detected — a classically impossible task. (The amount of key distributed can be much larger than the amount required for the classical authentication in the protocol.)

This has raised the question: what aspects of quantum mechanics are responsible for these better-than-classical feats of information processing? Here there is scope for fruitful interaction between the fields of quantum information and quantum structures. On the one hand, the axiomatic approach of QS suggests varying the axiom set and investigating the information-processing power of the resulting theories. On the other hand, information theory and information-processing considerations may suggest new and physically meaningful axioms, for use in the quantum structures characterization program.

In this paper, I will investigate some of the most promising possibilities for this interaction, and in some cases sketch how I think it might play out. I will also, though tangentially, address the possible usefulness and limitations of such an approach as a way of gaining perspective on possible new physics, for instance quantum gravity.

## 2 An operational approach

An important part of QS is concerned with what I will call “operational structures.” This approach goes back at least to the work of Mackey . I would include in it the work of Ludwig and his school, the convex approach with important contributions from Ludwig, Davies, Edwards, Araki, Gudder, Pulmannová, Beltrametti, and many others, and the “test space” and “effect algebras” approach of Foulis and his coworkers and students, Gudder, Schroeck, and (using initially different terminology) the Italian schools of Giuntini et. al., dalla Chiara, and the Slovak school of Dvurecenskij, Pulmannová and others. (I also think the “Geneva school” may have evolved in this direction, and there are category-theoretic approaches which may also be related.) I will use the term “operational structures” for structures describing an abstraction of a physical theory in terms of operations or measurements one may perform on a system, and the probabilities for outcomes of these procedures.

In this paper I will sometimes adopt a version of the operational point of view which guides much of my own thinking in the area. I will call it the “procedural” point of view since “operational” is already used in various senses in quantum structures. On this view, which I associate particularly with Ludwig and his followers, but which has roots in the work of Mackey or even earlier, the “measurements” which may ultimately be given some formal structure such as that of effect algebra, test space, etc.., are to be viewed as suitable equivalence classes of operational procedures. Any operation which we can perform on a system, including any sequence of two operations in a row, any interaction with an environment followed by an operation or measurement on environment, system, or both, etc., should be included in the set of procedures from which equivalence classes are generated to give us an effect algebra (or whatever structure we get). I am investigating a framework in which one begins with experimental procedures having different possible outcomes, and divides out of the set of outcomes a relation of “probabilistic equivalence” (two outcomes are equivalent if they have the same probability in all physically preparable states). One dubs the equivalence classes thus obtained “effects”, because—as I will show elsewhere—one can embed them into an effect algebra with natural relations (induced by the quotient map) to the Boolean algebras generated by the experimental outcomes themselves. This effect algebra may in general contain additional effects which are not equivalence classes of the original outcomes. If these are not to be countenanced, one obtains a structure I call a “weak effect algebra”: all axioms of an effect algebra hold, except that the associative law is weakened so as not to require the existence and equality of both sides of $`(ab)c=a(bc)`$ whenever one side exists; rather, equality is to hold whenever both sides are defined. This notion of probabilistic equivalence has been criticized, (e.g. in , where it is attributed to Bohr, and ) but I believe it is nevertheless useful. One complaint has been that outcomes which are equivalent in this respect may lead to different probabilities for subsequent measurements . This is correct, but in the framework I am proposing, just means that many different conditional dynamics can correspond to a given effect. A complete theory, including dynamics and conditional dynamics, will need structure beyond that of effects, but effect algebras are nevertheless an important conceptual structure, probably adequate for statics and providing a good starting point for the introduction of dynamical structure. For example, see  for a vigorous start on the project of introducing at least reversible dynamics on effect algebras (via their ambient unigroups), the last three sections of  for similar considerations on test spaces, and  for explicit discussion of conditional dynamics in effect algebras with some convex structure. The construction of effects I have mentioned may well have been carried out previously, by Ludwig, as part of a convex spaces approach to deriving quantum mechanics. I arrived at it as an abstraction of the lovely presentation by Ludwig’s student, Kraus, of the quantum case.

It is natural to suppose that apparatus involving “dice” may be used to prepare (as a mathematical idealization) any convex combination of states, and also to perform any convex combination of measurement procedures. Even though for some physical systems we may not have much freedom to actually perform different preparations, dice or no dice, the supposition may apply to many laboratory systems, and we might argue from some sort of homogeneity considerations that the restrictions, if any, on theory derived from considering convex combination in laboratory systems reveal general structure which we should suppose distant systems, more difficult to manipulate, also to exhibit. In an effect algebra, requiring that measurements can be convexly combined induces a notion of multiplication of an effect by nonnegative real number (and thus also a notion of convex combination of effects); since the orthosum $``$ in most nice effect algebras is a restriction of the sum on a partially ordered Abelian group into which the effect algebra is embedded, one thereby gets a real vector space structure for the effects. 111It is not completely clear to me yet how important convexity is for the introduction of vector-space structure—Foulis and Bennett  show the existence, for any field $`K`$ and effect algbebra $`L`$, of a “universal vector space” for $`L`$ over $`K`$. This goes a long way towards enforcing a representation of probabilities as linear functionals on a real vector space of effects, possibly a step on the way to a Born-like probability rule representing probabilities as $`\mathrm{tr}XT`$ for linear operators $`X`$ representing effects and $`T`$ representing states. Obviously, careful treatments must keep track of the ordering aspect of the relevant structures as well, and an appropriate representation theorem is proved in .

The general operational approach may turn out to be a limiting, or limited, way of viewing physical theories. It seems rather suited, however, to quantum mechanics, particularly ina Copenhagen stylee, and also adequate to treat classical mechanics in its information-processing aspect. The limitations arise because this sort of theory takes “operations,” such as making a measurement on a system, as basic terms in formulating a physical theory. It views a physical theory as a description of the behavior of a “system,” a part of the world viewed as susceptible to the performance of operations on it by, presumably, another “part of the world,” the observer or experimenter (, p. ). It seems, inherently, to renounce the attempt to view the entire world as one structure, and physical theory as describing that structure222In an interesting article (brought to my attention by Chris Fuchs) which relates it to the interpretation of quantum mechanics Bilodeau has termed a similar distinction one between “dynamical” and “geometric” theories.. Inasmuch as many have suggested quantum theory shows that project to be hubris, this is perhaps desirable. Moreover, one might in some theories be able to view the entire world, if desired, as a system of the kind the theory describes, with the “procedures,” or at least those viewed as measurements, imagined performed by some external observer. Classical theory may be such a case. Many believe that quantum mechanics is not. However, Everett’s “relative-state” interpretation (the inspiration for what is sometimes called the “many-worlds interpretation”) attempts such an “objective” interpretation of quantum mechanics. Some, notably Rovelli and Smolin , have proposed making the impossibility of such an external view an axiom for an acceptable physical theory.

Aside from quantum gravity aspects, the main interest the Rovelli-Smolin approach holds for me is, ironically, that it suggests a framework in which quantum mechanics is good for describing things from the point of view of subsystems, but not appropriate for the entire universe, but in which nevertheless there exists a mathematical structure—something like a topological quantum field theory (TQFT)—in which these local subsytem points of view are coordinated into an overall mathematical structure which, while its terms may be radically different from those we are used to, may still be viewed as in some sense “objective.” However, it is far from clear yet that this can be done while avoiding the more grotesque aspects (proliferating macroscopic superpositions viewed as objectively existing) and remaining conceptual issues (how to identify a preferred tensor factorization, and/or preferred bases, in which to identify “relative states”) of the Everett interpretation.

## 3 Statics versus dynamics, composite systems, and the “local” nature of operational theories

A large part of quantum structures has concentrated on the statics of states and measurements or propositions. It is certainly reasonable to examine statics on its own, all the more so because in some cases the concern is with theories which may become part of a generalization of quantum theory, a model, say for quantum gravity or a field-theoretic approach, rather than a simple dynamical theory in which time is an external parameter. In such a situation, it may be desirable to develop a static algebraic structure first, and then to integrate it into a dynamical, spacetime, or some more general physical framework. The $`C^{}`$-algebraic approach to quantum field theory    is one example of this, in which the local structures are taken to be $`C^{}`$-algebras, and they are to be coordinated into “nets” consistent with relativistic spacetime structure. The external-time Hilbert space dynamics of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is another, more straightforward one. Rovelli-Smolin is an attempt to coordinate “local” algebraic structure (Hilbert space) into larger structures exhibiting some properties of gravitation and quantum field theory. However, it could also turn out (in my view this is very likely) that the nature of the appropriate local structure requires input from the global structure or the dynamics. For one thing, we should arguably be able to take an “external” view of the operations performed by one part of the global structure on another, as dynamical interactions between two systems considered as a single composite system, say. It could even turn out that the composite of A and B is not described by quite the same type of local theory as are A and B themselves. In fact, although in TQFT’s the local theory type is the same (complex inner product spaces), only in special cases does composition of systems induce the tensor product of the local systems.

For information-processing or computation, both dynamical considerations and composite systems are of the utmost importance. Since the environment which induces noise in a system or the apparatus used by an information-processing agent must be considered together with the system, a notion of composite system is needed. And notions of composition are basic to computational complexity, where the question may be how many bits or qubits are needed, as a function of the size of an instance of a problem (number of bits needed to write down an integer to be factored, say) to solve that instance. Indeed, the very notion of Turing computability is based on a factorization of the computer’s state space (as a Cartesian product of bits, or of some higher-arity systems), in terms of which a “locality” constraint can be imposed. The constraint is, roughly, that only a few of these subsystems can interact in one “time-step.” The analogous quantum constraint allows only a few qubits to interact at a time. In general operational models, some notion of composition of systems, such as a tensor product, together with a theory describing what dynamics can be implemented on a subsystem, could allow for circuit or Turing-machine models involving “bits” or other local systems of a nature more general than quantum or classical systems. There may be much to learn from a study of computational complexity in such general systems. For example, I think we are likely to find intuitively meaningful, very general properties of operational physical theories, shared by quantum and classical mechanics but also by a wider class of theories, which forbid, for conceptually clear reasons, exponential speed-ups of brute-force search. These properties may be linked to other properties of theories: for example, the second law of thermodynamics (impossibility of a perpetuum mobile), or the impossibility of instantaneous signalling between subsystems of a composite system. Richard Jozsa has suggested that the impossibility of such speedups could serve as a constraint on proposed new physics. In this regard, Lloyd and Abrams’ demonstration that theories of “nonlinear quantum mechanics” do permit such exponential speedups is relevant. It is particularly interesting in light of the fact that nonlinear quantum mechanics also appears inconsistent with the second law of thermodynamics . Moreover, Polchinski  has argued that a class of nonlinear modifications of quantum mechanics (which includes Weinberg’s  proposal) either allow superluminal signalling (because they allow instantaneous signalling between subsystems, which may be spacelike-separated) or, if they do not allow superluminal signalling, allow something he calls an “Everett phone.” This latter phenomenon involves a sequence of spin measurements, in which the outcome of a later spin-measurement, conditional on the first spin-measurement having resulted in spin up, depends on what the observer would have proceeded to measure if the first measurement had resulted in spin down. Polchinski discusses the Everett phone in the framework of the “relative states” interpretation of quantum mechanics. It would appear to be inconsistent with a more standard view of quantum mechanics, for example as an “operational theory” of the sort we have been considering. On such a view, the probability of a measurement result is taken to be independent of the context in which it is measured—i.e., of the other outcomes tested. (Such context-independence is automatic on the procedural point of view described above: it is enforced by the definition of effects as probabilistic equivalence classes of measurement outcomes.)

The “modern” quantum formalism of “Positive Operator Valued Measures”—resolutions of unity, into positive operators $`F_i0,_iF_i=I`$— and completely positive maps on the space of operators on a Hilbert space as representing the dynamics of a system conditional on getting measurement result $`i`$, is the stock in trade of the quantum information processing theorist. The CP-maps represent the most general physical process that an encoder, decoder, or programmer initially independent of the system can hope to get a system to undergo. CP-maps may also represent the effect of an interaction with an environment on a quantum system. Frequently, one looks for the optimal CP-map with respect to some information-processing criterion, or shows that no CP-map with certain information-processing properties exists.

There are several equivalent characterizations of CP-maps. Write $`B(H)`$ for the set of positive operators on a (finite-dimensional) Hilbert space $`H`$. The definition of complete positivity says that the map not only takes positive operators to positive operators, but that any extension of the map by the identity map on an additional system preserves the positivity of operators on the extended system. That is, a CP-map $`𝒜`$ satisifies $`(\rho ^{AB}0)^B𝒜^A(\rho ^{AB})0`$. If such a map is trace preserving, it represents a general open-system dynamics not conditioned on any measurement outcome or additional information about the $`B`$ system. If it is trace-decreasing, it may represent dynamics conditional on a measurement outcome (the trace of the output operator when a trace-one operator is put in, is the measurement probability). An equivalent characterization of TPCP maps is that the map’s action on $`B(A)`$ is obtained by considering a reversible dynamics, i.e. a unitary operation, on $`A`$ and some environment $`E`$, but considering its effect only on $`A`$. An equivalent characterization for trace-decreasing maps is as the effect, on $`B(A)`$, of unitary interaction between $`A`$ and $`E`$ (so that elements of $`B(A)`$ are conjugated by $`U^{AE}`$) followed by the action of an operator $`G^EI^A`$ (also by conjugation), representing a measurement made on the environment. (This corresponds to an effect $`G^{}G`$ on the environment, and the trace-decreasing condition imposes $`G^{}GI`$. It is easily seen that $`G^{}G`$ is all that matters to the operation realized on the system.) For arbitrary CP-maps (with no trace constraints), $`G`$ may be an arbitrary operator on $`E`$.) Still another characterization of $`CP`$-maps, this one referring only to the system $`A`$, but having little prima facie intuitive motivation, is that their action may be written $`𝒜(X)=_iA_iXA_i^{}`$. Trace-preservation is the condition $`_iA_i^{}A_i=I`$.

A condition for exploring information-processing in operational theories is an understanding of the dynamics we may use to achieve our information processing goals (and that nature, or an adversary, may use to foil us). A promising approach is to generalize one or more of the above characterizations of $`CP`$-maps. The first two, which are the ones whose conceptual significance is clearest, are the easiest to generalize. Doing so requires notions of composite system and of dynamics on such systems. Additionally, the first requires a notion of reversible dynamics, while the second requires the notion of extension of subsystem dynamics by the identity. The third characterization of CP-map, though not requiring a notion of composite system, probably requires more algebraic structure on a single system than do the first two, since it makes use of the product of operators.

A notable example of the introduction of additional structure is Gudder and Greechie’s introduction of the sequential product on effect algebras, which abstracts some properties of the product $`AB=A^{1/2}BA^{1/2}`$ on effect algebras. We have $`\mathrm{tr}A^{1/2}BA^{1/2}\rho =\mathrm{tr}B^{1/2}A^{1/2}\rho A^{1/2}B^{1/2}`$, which is the probability of measuring the effect $`B`$ after obtaining the effect $`A`$ from a prior measurement, when the conditional dynamics of the first measurement are the “square-root dynamics’ $`\rho A^{1/2}\rho A^{1/2}`$. The square-root dynamics is a natural generalization of the projection postulate and “Lüder’s rule” to effects that are not projections, and it shares important features with them. For instance, when a given resolution of unity is measured, the square-root dynamics are the conditional dynamics that cause the least expected disturbance to an initial pure state picked uniformly from Hilbert space , .

## 4 Composite systems, and tensor products

As mentioned above, I believe that the “procedural” approach to operational theories leads naturally to theories whose statics is described by an effect algebra. This notion is simultaneously an abstraction of the unit interval of operators $`0eI`$ on a (say, finite-dimensional) Hilbert space, and the space of positive valued functions $`f`$ bounded above by unity on a (for convenience, let us say finite) set. (The latter represents possibly “fuzzy” classical measurement outcomes.) An effect algebra is a set on which is defined a partial binary operation $``$, sometimes called the orthosum. (In effect algebras of Hilbert-space operators, $``$ is just addition of operators, except that it is not defined when $`X+Y>I`$, since then $`X+Y,`$ while positive is not in the unit interval. The operation is commutative and associative in the strong sense that when the effect referrred to by one side of the commutative or associative law is defined, so are the effects mentioned on the other side, and they are equal. Additionally the algebra contains special elements $`0`$ and $`1`$. These satisfy $`x0=x`$, and $`xy=xy=0`$. Importantly, for every effect $`x`$ there is exactly one other effect, its orthosupplement $`x^{}`$, which can be added to it to get $`I`$.

The category of effect algbebras, $`𝒜`$, presents aspects which are quite fascinating and appealing, but some of those same aspects also suggest that we may need to focus on some subcategory of $`𝒜`$, especially in order to focus on differences between quantum and classical information processing. A consideration of composite systems allows us to define relatively natural notions of tensor product of effect algebras333This may be done using the standard category-theoretic definition of tensor product in terms of universal properties of bimorphisms; for QIT theorists unfamiliar with this construction,  Chapters 1 and 7, are an excellent introduction. For effect algebras, the is due to Dvurecenskij ; for a nice alternative construction of this tensor product see Wilce . These constructions are similar to Foulis and Randall’s , ,  pioneering construction of the tensor product of (most) test spaces and Foulis and Bennett’s construction  for orthoalgebras. This notion may be derived (in one of several ways) by essentially requiring that it include all elements of the cartesian product of the two factors, that the partial operation “$``$” of the algebra be such that all locally implementable measurements (consisting in doing a measurement on one system and, conditional on the result of that measurement, doing a measurement on the other system) are measurements in the product algebra. All states on the new effect algebra will automatically add up to one on such measurements. Remarkably, the tensor product may also be derived from the requirement that it contain as a subset the cartesian product $`E\times F`$, exhibit no instantaneous influence in either direction, and that it be a universal object satisfying these requirements

Beautiful as this construction is, when we apply it to Hilbert space effect algebras, we see that it does not give the effect algebra of the tensor product Hilbert space. For the algebra of sharp Hilbert-space effects (projectors), this was noted by , , but it clearly extends to the algebra of all effects. There are states on this tensor product reproducing the statistics of all the quantum states, including the entangled ones, as far as tensor product measurements are concerned. But there exist other states, given by tracing with Hermitian operators that are positive on pure tensors but negative on some entangled outcomes, with statistics different from the quantum ones even for product measurements. “Entangled measurements” (perhaps we could abstract this notion!) are not available in this structure, so negativity on entangled outcomes does not prevent these from being legitimate states on the tensor product of the effect algebras. An independent construction of what is essentially the Dvurecenskij tensor product of two Hilbert space effect algebras appears in , .

It would be fascinating to investigate the computational power of a model starting with, say, Hilbert effect algebras of a given dimensionality and building up composite systems via the DW tensor product. The competition between the availability of more states and the availability of fewer measurements makes this particularly interesting. But it also suggests the need for a new kind of operational structure—a new category, perhaps—that will give us the correct notion of tensor product in the quantum-mechanical case as well as the classical case. A variety of additional requirements have been imposed on effect algebras—convex structure, “S-domination,” existence of a sequential product—and these seem to get us closer to the Hilbert space structure (while still leaving open the possibility of classical effect algebras). But probably none is quite satisfactory yet, either for for characterizing the Hilbert space effect algebras, or for the somewhat different project I have suggested here, of creating a category (call it little category $`𝒵`$) with the property (call it VOOM!) that the subcategory of Hilbert-space effect algebras is closed under formation of the $`𝒵`$ tensor product. With collaborators, I am attempting to find such a $`𝒵`$ which is a subcategory of the category of effect algebras.

In either $`𝒜`$ or $`𝒵`$, we could proceed to investigate general open-system conditional dynamics. On the other hand, dynamics could provide a source of requirements helping to define the category $`𝒵`$. For instance, we could require that the first two definitions of complete positivity, when appropriately generalized to the category $`𝒵`$, coincide. We could investigate the generalized measurement problem in $`𝒵`$. For starters, we could require that any measurement $`M`$ that can be done on $`A𝒵`$ can also be done by interacting $`A`$ (probably reversibly) with $`B`$ and measuring $`B`$ (in the sense that both the measurement probabilities and the conditional dynamics associated with $`M`$ can be achieved thus), and vice versa, that any procedure of the type: reversibly interact and then measure the apparatus $`B`$ corresponds to a measurement in $`𝒵`$.

Sequential measurements raise the question of the relation of the operations considered to the parameter of time. Up to now, I have considered operations independently of the length of time they take; and that is perhaps reasonable, since the time they take may depend on how they are implemented. But clearly this is an important question for complexity theory. A related question is whether the set of operations implementable at one time is the same as that implementable later. Perhaps this is the operational version of the question of time translation invariance. In both classical and quantum theory the set of operations is time-translation invariant. In a general setting, this property is likely to make for a more tractable and probably more interesting theory. Possibly we will want to get by, in a truly operational theory, without an absolute notion of time: rather, we might define time by using some subsemigroup of dynamical operations as a clock (cf. e.g. ).

## 5 Distinguishability

An important tool in quantum information theory, and QIP theory, has been measures of distinguishability of two, possibly mixed, quantum states. A copious supply of such measures may be obtained in a general operational setting using a strategy which has proved useful in quantum information theory. We starts by considering classical measures of distinguishability of probability distributions. Say our operational theory consists of a subcategory $``$ of the category of effect algebras, together with a convex set $`𝒮`$ of states on algebras in this subcategory, and a set of possible dynamical evolutions on this subcategory (probably a convex subset of the morphisms of the subcategory). We simply define the distinguishability of two states $`\rho ,\omega 𝒮`$ as the maximum over effect-tests $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (sets of effects $`e_i`$ such that $`_ie_i=1`$) of the distance between the classical probability distributions $`p_{\mathrm{\Sigma },\rho }`$ and $`p_{\mathrm{\Sigma },\omega }`$ induced by $`\rho `$ and $`\omega `$ on the outcomes in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$:

$`D_{}(\omega ,\rho ):=\underset{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{\mathrm{max}}D_{cl}(p_{\mathrm{\Sigma },\rho },p_{\mathrm{\Sigma },\omega }).`$ (1)
The question then arises: when $`D_{cl}`$ is nonincreasing under classical dynamics, is the induced $`D_{}`$ also nonincreasing, under the notion of dynamical evolution incorporated into $``$? I suspect a counterexample can be found even in the quantum case. There has been extensive study of the distance measures which are contractive under the morphisms appropriate to the operational category of standard nonrelativistic quantum systems (i.e., unital completely positive linear maps on operators interpreted as observables, or, dually, trace-preserving completely positive linear maps on the state space of such systems). Petz  and Lesniewski and Ruskai  are particularly noteworthy. It may well be that the contractiveness of an appropriate set of distance measures is a principle that (combined with a tensor product structure of system composition which may well, as it does in the cases of orthoalgebras and effect algebras, automatically prohibit instantaneous inter-system influence) renders exponential speedup of brute-force search impossible.

Other concepts applicable to classical probability, such as entropy, can similarly be extended to the noncommutative case. Entropy may prove a bit tricky because, in the quantum-mechanical case, it needs to be minimized over finegrained, sharp measurements (rank-one projectors), not just all measurements. Thus one might need to define sharp and finegrained measurements in $`𝒜`$;  and  considered these notions; also, the notions of principal and characteristic elements (cf. ) may be relevant.

## 6 Information-disturbance tradeoffs and quantum cryptography

One of the most remarked-on differences between quantum and classical mechanics is that in quantum mechanics our gaining information about the identity of an unknown state in general disturbs it. This difference is between the quantum analogue of a classical task, and the classical task. (Should one encode classical information into quantum states so that it can be reliably read out, as different states of an orthonormal basis, for instance, the information about which of these states obtains can be extracted without disturbing them.) Closely related is the impossibility of cloning an unknown quantum state. (If you could make an independent copy of an unknown quantum state, you could measure it and extract information without disturbing the original.) Quantitative expressions of this information-disturbance relationship as a monotonic tradeoff have been developed, for example, in , ,  and . Such tradeoffs could be studied in more general settings. The information-disturbance tradeoff lies at the heart of the possibility of eavesdropping-proof quantum distribution of classical secret key. Such protocols use nonorthogonal states (or similar devices involving entanglement) to encode prospective key-material. An eavesdropper who gains information about the key will reveal herself by the disturbance she causes to these states (some of which Alice and Bob sacrifice, by measuring them and discussing the results in order to detect disturbance). After they are satisfied there has been no eavesdropping, Alice and Bob are able to use the states, via some measurements and some discussion, to generate shared, secret, classical key.

At one time, some thought that quantum mechanics could be used for another purpose that is known to be classically impossible without relying on assumed computational limitations of the parties: bit committment. In a bit commitment protocol, Alice can perform some action which assures Bob that Alice has committed to a choice of value (0 or 1) for a bit. At some later time, Alice can perform an action which reveals that bit to Bob. In a successful protocol, nothing Bob can do allows him to gain more than a negligible amount of information about the bit before Alice reveals it, and nothing Alice can do allows her more than a negligible probability of being able to change the bit after she has committed to it. This is impossible in quantum mechanics, as in classical mechanics , . The impossibility of bit-committment is another candidate for the axiom-set $`S`$, of information-processing limitations shared by quantum and classical mechanics. This was suggested by Gilles Brassard; Chris Fuchs and Brassard also speculated that the combination of no-bit-committment and eavesdropping-proof key distribution might single out quantum mechanics. This intriguing suggestion is spun into a thought-provoking fantasy in .

## 7 Axioms revisited

In the axiomatic approach to characterizing classical and quantum theories mechanics, one meets several types of axioms. Some, usually in the shared set $`S`$, set up a general framework for operational theories: axioms for effect algebras, convexity, and the like. Others might be dubbed “conceptual,”. One task conceptual axioms frequently do is distinguish classical from quantum mechanics. These are axioms like the existence, in some abstract sense, of superpositions of states or the requirement, within the convex approach, that the state space be a Choquet simplex (that the decomposition of states into extremal states be unique, which holds classically but not quantum-mechanically). Many axioms abstracted from quantum information considerations will fall into this class—axioms such as the existence of information-disturbance tradeoffs for ensembles of states with certain properties, or axioms about the behavior of measures of distinguishability of states. The “conceptual” content of these axioms varies from extremely operational and task-related (possibility/impossibility of specific types of protocols) through an intermediate level (conceptual properties viewed as probably responsible for certain tasks, e.g. information- disturbance tradeoffs) to relatively abstract and mathematical notions (such as the Choquet simplex axiom, or perhaps no-cloning) which nevertheless naturally arise when one looks at states abstractly as information.

It is likely, however, that in addition to such axioms a characterization of quantum and classical mechanics will involve what I will call “regularity axioms.” Probably these form a continuum with “conceptual” axioms, rather than a clear dichotomy, but the polarity is still relevant. Regularity axioms may impose a high degree of symmetry on structures, possibly through the introduction of a group action on them , . Another example of regularity appears in Hardy’s derivation of quantum mechanics. Here, t he convex structures approach (redeveloped independently in a simple finite-dimensional version) gets one, as it has often been used to do, representations of probabilities as linear functionals. Then two key notions of “dimensionality” $`N`$ of a system (defined in an operational way not immediately dependent on the vector space notion, though of course in the end related to it) and of “number of degrees of freedom” $`K`$ are introduced. $`K`$ represents the number of measurement outcomes whose probabilities one needs to know in order to know the entire state (the probabilities of all measurement outcomes). In quantum mechanics, $`K`$ is the square of the dimension: one needs the probabilities of a set of effects which are linearly independent in the real vector space of Hermitian operators. Hardy postulates that a theory (or theory-type) must have a “universal” relation between $`K`$ and $`N`$, specifying one as a function of the other. I consider this an example of a “regularity” axiom, and it goes a very long way towards pinning us down to a choice between classical and quantum mechanics. Hardy’s composite system axiom, that $`K`$ and $`N`$ for composite systems are the products of those for the subsystems, has the flavor of regularity, but it may also arise conceptually, through as part of the notion of composite system—perhaps through an intimate relation of this notion with the category-theoretic one of tensor product. This is the sort of thing that deserves more investigation. In fact, one may sometimes discover alternative formulations of a regularity axiom, or of its conjunction with other axioms, that give it a more conceptual interpretation. The prospect of such discoveries is yet another reason for pursuing the axiomatic approach to operational theories.

I suspect that even after much conceptual content has been wrung from axioms initially motivated by regularity or symmetry, regularity and symmetry axioms will still remain an essential part of axiomatic formulations of quantum and classical mechanics as well as generalizations and alternatives. Investigation of the “irregular” structures that arise when they are relaxed will be an important part of understanding their meaning, and the meaning of the conceptual axioms that impose less regularity. For example, while finite-dimensional quantum and finite classical systems both obey Hardy’s universal $`KN`$ relationship, the category of quantum systems with superselection sectors does not. (Of course, in other senses this is still a fairly “regular” category of theories, and I am not aware of a completely conceptual characterization of it.)

## 8 Conclusion

I hope to have convinced both the quantum structures community and the more abstractly inclined sectors of the quantum computation/information community that there are important contributions to both fields to be made by collaboration and exchange of tools, methods, and ideas. A crisper delineation of what makes certain quantum protocols work, using notions from quantum logic, may not only lead to clearer understanding of these protocols but may suggest new ones. And considerations from quantum information, whether they involve the abstract approach of considering various kinds of operational theory as embodying different kinds of “information,” or the more concrete approach of considering the power of different kinds of operational theories to do particular tasks of classical information-processing, provide ideas for use in the quantum structures project of characterizing, classifying, and inventing types of operational physical theories. Critical to this project will be understanding the interplay between composition of physical systems, and the dynamics of those systems, in order to generalize the “modern” quantum mechanical formalism of effect-valued measures and completely positive maps, so effective in quantum information theory, to more general operational settings.

## Acknowledgements

Discussions with Carlton Caves, Dave Foulis, Chris Fuchs, Lucien Hardy, Richard Jozsa, and Alex Wilce, among others, have influenced my thoughts on these matters. I thank the IQSA and the organizers of the 2001 IQSA meeting in Cesena for the opportunity to travel to and speak at the meeting. I thank the US Department of Energy and the European Union (under the QAIP consortium, IST-1999-11234) for funding while the work resulting in this paper was being done.


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# Doping Dependence of Anisotropic Resistivities in Trilayered Superconductor Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ (Bi-2223)

Corresponding author, Present address: \]Department of Applied Physics, School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan

Present address: \]NTT Photonics Laboratories, Kanagawa 243-0198, JAPAN.

## Abstract

The doping dependence of the themopower, in-plane resistivity $`\rho _{ab}`$($`T`$), out-of-plane resistivity $`\rho _c`$($`T`$), and susceptibility has been systematically measured for high-quality single crystal Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ. We found that the transition temperature $`T_c`$ and pseudogap formation temperature $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$, below which $`\rho _c`$ shows a typical upturn, do not change from their optimum values in the ”overdoped” region, even though doping actually proceeds. This suggests that, in overdoped region, the bulk $`T_c`$ is determined by the always underdoped inner plane, which have a large superconducting gap, while the carriers are mostly doped in the outer planes, which have a large phase stiffness.

The Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system consists of many superconducting phases with a number of CuO2 planes in a unit cell. In the bilayer Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (Bi-2212) system, the CuO2 planes are homogeneously doped, since these planes are crystallographically equivalent. On the other hand, the trilayered Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+δ (Bi-2223) system has two crystallographically inequivalent CuO2 planes, an inner CuO2 plane with a square (four) oxygen coordination and two outer CuO2 planes with a pyramidal (five) oxygen coordination. Then, there is a possibility of inhomogeneous doping amoung layers. Recently, Kivelson kivelson  proposed that such a inhomogeneous doping helps to increase $`T_c`$ and accounts for the higher $`T_c`$’s in the multi-layered system. There, a high pairing energy scale is derived from the underdoped planes and a large phase stiffness from the optimally or overdoped ones. The combination of these two may provide a key to achieve the higher $`T_c`$ in the cuprate system. Therefore, it is very important to study the actual muli-layer system in detail.

In high $`T_c`$ cuprates, there is a consensus that the sets of CuO2 planes separated by the blocking layer are only weakly coupled and the interaction between them can be understood as a tunneling process. This is known as the confinement efect from the theoretical point of view PW . However, it is still unknown whether the confinement works for the CuO2 planes within the unit cell, that was assumed in the above mentioned Kivelson’s theory. The inhomogeneous charge distribution provides a new way of investigating such an effect.

The difference of carrier concentration between the inner and outer planes has been reported in NMR studies of multilayered systems NMR ; NMR2 ; NMR3 ; NMR4 ; NMR5 ; Ctoku . In the case of (Cu0.6C0.4)Ba2Ca3Cu4O12+y, which consists of two inner planes and two outer planes, it was reported that the magnetic and superconducting properties are distinctly different between the inner and outer planes, and the bulk $`T_c`$ is triggered by the underdoped inner planes. However, all these experiment were performed by using polycrystalline sample, which is magnetically alligned along the $`c`$-axis and there have been few investigations of precise doping dependence of single crystal because high-quality samples of multilayered system have not been available. Here, we have successfully grown high-quality single crystals of the trilayered system Bi-2223 Cfujii , and measured the doping dependence of in-plane resistivity $`\rho _{ab}`$, out-of-plane resistivity $`\rho _c`$, thermopower $`S`$, and normal state susceptibility $`\chi `$ for the first time. Based on the results, we discuss the possibility of charge distribution among the CuO2 planes and the interaction between the CuO2 planes within the unit cell.

High-quality single crystals were grown using the traveling solvent floating zone (TSFZ) method Cfujii . The X-ray diffraction pattern showed only sharp Bi-2223 peaks, confirming the good crystallinity of our samples. The $`c`$-axis length was estimated from the fitting method using the Nelson-Riley function. The oxygen content $`\delta `$ was controlled by annealing a sample with varying Ar and O2 gas flow ratios and/or temperatures. A highly oxygenated sample was prepared by high O2 pressure (400 atm) annealing using a hot isostatic pressing (HIP) furnace. The annealing conditions for Bi-2223 samples used in this paper are a: O2 5$`\times `$10-3 torr 600C, b: O2 0.01% 600C, c: O2 0.1% 600C, d: O2 1% 600C, e: O2 10% 600C, f: O2 600C, g: O2 500C, h: O2 400C, i: HIP O2 400atm 500C, (These discriptions are used in all Figures). The superconducting transition temperatures $`T_c`$ were defined by the onset of the Meissner effect. For normal state susceptibility measurement, we used a large single crystal ($``$10 mg) and applied high magnetic field (5 T). $`\rho _{ab}`$ was measured with the standard four-probe method, while $`\rho _c`$ was measured with four-probe-like method with the voltage contacts attached to the center of the $`ab`$ plane and the current contacts covering almost all of the remaining surface wataB . The thermopower was measured using a steady-state technique, where a temperature gradient of 1 K/cm was generated by a small resistive heater and was monitored by differential thermocouple made of copper-constantan.

Figure 1(a) shows the normalized transition temperature $`T_c`$ plotted against the relative change of the $`c`$-axis length from that of the sample ”f”. The relation between the $`T_c`$ and $`c`$-axis length of Bi-2212 is also plotted for comparison. (The $`\delta `$ of Bi-2212 is determined by the $`P_{O_2}T`$ phase diagram obtained by our previous thermogravimetric measurement wata1 .) The $`T_c`$ and $`c`$-axis length are 89 K, 30.864 Å for optimally-doped Bi-2212 and 108 K, 37.119 Å for Bi-2223 (sample ”f”) respectively. The $`c`$-axis length monotonically decreases with increasing $`\delta `$ both in Bi-2212 and Bi-2223, indicating that oxygen is actually incorporated into crystals. In the case of Bi-2212, reflecting the bell-shaped doping dependence of $`T_c`$, which is common behavior in mono- or bilayer cuprates, $`T_c`$ increases with decreasing $`c`$-axis length, reaches its maximum, and then decreases with decreasing $`c`$-axis length. On the other hand, $`T_c`$ of Bi-2223 increases with decreasing $`c`$-axis length quite similar to Bi-2212. However, $`T_c`$ keeps its maximum value ihara  when the $`c`$-axis length is further decreased.

To confirm the carrier doping in the constant $`T_c`$ region, we measured the doping dependence of the thermopowers $`S`$ (Fig. 1(b)). The magnitude of the thermopower monotonically decreases with increasing $`\delta `$. This result clearly shows that the carrier was doped continuously even in the constant $`T_c`$ region. The room temperature thermopower is considered to be an universal measure of the doping level obert . By using this measure, the (average) doping level of sample ”f” can be assigned to ”optimal” doping. Then, the sample ”i” would be assigned to slightly overdoping with carrier concentration about p=0.185. Thus it would show the $`T_c`$ of 102 K, if the carriers were homogeneously doped. We will call, hereafter, the constant $`T_c`$ region as overdoped region.

The temperature dependence of in-plane resistivity $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ with various $`\delta `$ is shown in Fig. 2. The absolute values of $`\rho _{ab}`$ and the overall slopes $`d\rho _{ab}`$/$`dT`$ monotonically decrease with increasing $`\delta `$, indicating that the carriers are actually doped with increasing $`\delta `$. In all doping level, they show negative residual resistivity as indicated by the solid lines in Fig. 2. High-$`T_c`$ materials with $`T_c`$ larger than 100 K tend to show negative residual resistivity. The Bi-2223 also seems to belong this class, although we do not know its relevance to $`T_c`$. As seen in the inset of Fig. 2, $`T_c`$ determined by zero resistivity increases from 100 to 110 K with increasing doping level from ”b” to ”f”. However, in the overdoped region, $`T_c`$ does not change from 110 K. The underdoped samples (denoted by b, d, e, and f) show a downward deviation from high-temperature $`T`$-linear behavior below a certain temperature $`T_{\rho _{ab}}^{}`$, similarly to that of Bi-2212 wata1 . $`T_{\rho _{ab}}^{}`$ increases with decreasing doping as $`T_{\rho _{ab}}^{}`$=168, 192, 203, and 213 K for the samples labeled as f, e, d, and b, respectively as indicated by arrows in Fig. 2. Here, $`T_{\rho _{ab}}^{}`$ was determined as a temperature at which $`\rho _{ab}`$ deviates 1% from the high temperature $`T`$-linear resistivity using a similar analysis shown in Ref. itoPRL .

Figure 3 shows the c-axis resistivity $`\rho _c(T)`$ for various $`\delta `$. Similarly to $`\rho _{ab}`$, we can see that $`T_c`$ is pinned at the maximum value in the overdoped region. The overall magnitude of $`\rho _c`$ decreases with increasing $`\delta `$. We have previously shown that the pseudogap formation in the elastic (coherent) tunneling model is an effective explanation for the insulating $`\rho _c`$ wata2 . The decrease in the absolute value of $`\rho _c`$ with $`\delta `$ would imply an increase in the in-plane density of states (DOS) and semiconductive behavior would be attributed to the decrease of DOS due to the pseudogap formation. The underdoped samples from ”a” to ”f” show semiconductive $`\rho _c`$ in all temperature regions measured. As seen in the inset of Fig. 3, in samples ”g”, ”h”, and ”i”, $`\rho _c`$ decreases linearly with decreasing temperature at higher temperature and show a semiconductive upturn below the characteristic temperature $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$ (shown by the arrow in the inset of Fig. 3). Here, the straight lines are linear extrapolations of $`\rho _c`$ at higher temperatures. We estimated $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$ as the temperature below which $`\rho _c`$ deviates 1% from the linear straight lines takenaka . Recent ARPES experiment showed that the pseudogap begins to open from the ($`\pi `$, 0) direction (hot spot) ARPES ; ARPES2 . $`\rho _c`$ should be particularly sensitive to the onset of the pseudogap formation shiba , since the hopping probability $`t_c`$ in the $`c`$-axis direction will be dominated by carriers around hot spot on the anisotropic Fermi surface \[It is expressed as $`t_c`$(cos$`k_xa`$-cos$`k_ya`$)2ioffe . We can see that the $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$ remains unchanged ($``$220 K) for doping levels higher than ”g”, while the absolute value of $`\rho _c`$ continues to decrease.

The magnetic susceptibilities $`\chi _{ab}(T)`$ for various $`\delta `$ are shown in Fig. 4, where a magnetic field of 5 T was applied parallel to $`a`$-axis. The overall magnitude of $`\chi _{ab}`$ monotonically increases with increasing $`\delta `$. We interpret this in terms of an increase in the DOS near the Fermi level with carrier doping. At all doping levels, the behavior of temperature dependence of $`\chi _{ab}`$ is quite similar to that of Bi-2212 wata2 . The susceptibilities for the underdoped sample (denoted by b, c, and d) monotonically decrease with decreasing temperature, implying a decrease in DOS due to the pseudogap formation. The sample near the optimum-doping level (denoted by f, g, and h) show Pauli paramagnetic behavior at high temperature. And then, the susceptibilities decrease below characteristic temperature $`T_\chi ^{}`$. $`T_\chi ^{}`$ is estimated as 210, 260, and 315 K for the sample labeled h, g, and f, respectively. Here, $`T_\chi ^{}`$ was determined as the temperature at which $`\chi _{ab}`$ deviates 1% from high-temperature $`T`$-linear behavior. Heavily oxygenated (HIPed) sample ”i” shows negative temperature dependence ($`d\chi /dT`$ 0), and the dependence is approximately linear. We consider this behavior to be an anomalous DOS effect due to the existence of a van Hove singularity for an overdoped sample wata2 ; matsuda .

The anomalous $`T_c`$ and $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$ pinning in the overdoped region can be understood by considering inequivalent hole doping between the inner and outer planes. In the overdoped region, the carriers would be mostly doped in the outer planes, and the inner plane would remain at the underdoping level. Here, the coupled system, which Kievelkson assumed, seems to be realized. Highest Tc’s would be maintained by the combination of inner plain’s large superconducting gap and the outer plain’s large superfluid density uemura ; uemura2 , which controls the stiffness of the system to phase fluctuations. From the practical point of view, the phase stiffness is very important for sustaining a large superconducting curent, as well as $`T_c`$. This gives a promissing way of improving the characteristics of high $`T_c`$ materials.

On the other hand, $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$ pinning in the overdoped region, as well as semiconducting $`\rho _c`$ behavior, is also determined by the always optimally-doped inner plane, which is known to have a pseudogap. Since the outer planes are overdoped, the transport between outer planes separated by the Bi2O2 layer may not show a pseudogap effect. Then the observed pseudogap effect may come from the transport between the outer and inner planes. This indicates that the interaction between the CuO2 planes within a unit cell is very weak, like that between the CuO2 planes separated by the blocking layer. Thus, in multilayered system, there already exist an array of weakly coupled planes, which was assumed in the above-mentioned Kivelson’s theory.

In Bi-2212, the characteristic temperatures $`T_\chi ^{}`$ and $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$ coincide for all doping levels and shift to lower temperature with increasing doping level wata2 . Thus, as mentioned above, semiconductive $`\rho _c`$ and the decrease in susceptibility are explained by the decrease in the DOS due to the pseudogap formation. However, in Bi-2223, $`T_\chi ^{}`$ does not coincide with $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$. This is also considered to be result of inequivalent hole doping between the inner and outer planes. The susceptibility of Bi-2223 is considered to be the sum of the susceptibilities of inner plane and outer planes. Then, the negative temperature dependence in outer planes may conceal the pseudogap effect of the inner plane in the overdoped region, because the overall magnitude and the weight of the outer planes are larger than those of the inner plane.

On the other hand, $`T_{\rho _{ab}}^{}`$ is also considered to be an indication of pseudogap formation wata1 ; itoPRL , because, in the case of YBa2Cu3O6+δ, $`T_{\rho _{ab}}^{}`$ coincides with $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$ takenaka  as well as $`T_\chi ^{}`$. However, in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (Bi-2212), we have previously pointed out that $`T_{\rho _{ab}}^{}`$ does not coincide with $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$. The same tendency can be seen in the case of Bi-2223. The anomaly seen at $`T_{\rho _{ab}}^{}`$ can be understood if we consider the strongly $`k`$-dependent quasiparticle lifetime. The carriers around the hot spot, where the pseudogap first opens up, will not contribute to the in-plane conduction, in contrast to $`\rho _c`$.

In summary, we measured a doping dependence of the thermopower, in-plane resistivity, out-of-plane resistivity, and susceptibility of high quality single crystal Bi-2223 for the first time. The room temperature thermopower, as well as the absolute value of resistivity ($`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\rho _c`$), and c-axis length, continuously decrease with increasing $`\delta `$, and the overall magnitude of susceptibility increases with increasing $`\delta `$. All the results indicate that the carrier is properly controlled by our annealing method in the whole doping region. When the doping proceeds from underdope to optimum-dope, transition temperature $`T_c`$ increases quite similar to Bi-2212. However, it does not change in the overdoped region. On the other hand, we clearly observed the pseudogap formation in the $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\rho _c`$, which is similarly seen in Bi-2212. From the doping dependence of $`\rho _c`$, which is very sensitive to the onset of the pseudogap formation, we found that the pseudogap formation temperature $`T^{}`$ does not change from its optimum value in the overdoped region. These results suggest that there is large difference in the carrier concentration between the inner and outer planes and in the overdoped region, the carriers may be mostly doped in the outer planes and the inner plane would remain at the underdoped level. As pointed by Kivelson, the combination of a large superconducting gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the inner plane and a large superfluid density of the outer planes would help to keep the highest $`T_c`$ in the overdoped region. On the other hand, $`T_{\rho _c}^{}`$ pinning indicates that the pseudogapped inner plane also determines the $`c`$-axis transport property. This suggests that the carriers in the normal state are weakly coupled or confined to individual CuO2 planes.