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# a priori Probability that Two Qubits are Unentangled

## Abstract

In a previous study (Slater, P. B. (2000) Eur. Phys. J. B. 17, 471-480), several remarkably simple exact results were found, in certain specialized $`m`$-dimensional scenarios ($`m4`$), for the a priori probability that a pair of qubits is unentangled/separable. The measure used was the volume element of the Bures metric (identically one-fourth the statistical distinguishability \[SD\] metric). Here, making use of a newly-developed (Euler angle) parameterization of the $`4\times 4`$ density matrices of Tilma, Byrd and Sudarshan, we extend the analysis to the complete 15-dimensional convex set ($`C`$) of arbitrarily paired qubits — the total SD volume of which is known to be $`\frac{\pi ^8}{1680}=\frac{\pi ^8}{2^4357}5.64794`$. Using advanced quasi-Monte Carlo procedures (scrambled Halton sequences) for numerical integration in this high-dimensional space, we approximately (5.64851) reproduce that value, while obtaining an estimate of .416302 for the SD volume of separable states. We conjecture that this is but an approximation to $`\frac{\pi ^6}{2310}=\frac{\pi ^6}{235711}.416186`$. The ratio of the two volumes, $`\frac{8}{11\pi ^2}.0736881`$, would then constitute the exact Bures/SD probability of separability. The SD area of the 14-dimensional boundary of $`C`$ is $`\frac{142\pi ^7}{12285}=\frac{271\pi ^7}{3^35713}34.911`$, while we obtain a numerical estimate of 1.75414 for the SD area of the boundary of separable states.

Key words: Qubits, $`SU(4)`$, density matrix, Bures metric, statistical distinguishability metric, entanglement, Euler angle parameterization, negativity, concurrence, quasi-Monte Carlo, scrambled Halton sequences, numerical integration, isoperimetric inequalities

Życzkowski, Horodecki, Sanpera, and Lewenstein , giving various “philosophical”, “practical” and “physical” motivations, were the first apparently to pose the question of “how many entangled …states there are in the set of all quantum states”. In a sequel to , Życzkowski examined to what extent the choice of a measure in the space of density matrices describing $`m`$-dimensional quantum sytems affects conclusions regarding the relative frequency of entangled and unentangled (separable/classically correlated) states . Also, Życzkowski and Sommers analyzed several product measures in the space of mixed quantum states, in particular measures induced by the operation of partial tracing .

In this general context, it was argued by Slater  — in analogy to the use classically in Bayesian theory of the volume element of the Fisher information metric as Jeffreys’ prior  — that a natural measure on the quantum states would be the volume element of the Bures metric . “…the Bures metric is locally equivalent to a Riemannian metric defined by the quantum analogue of the Fisher information matrix” \[13, p.60\]. “This metric provides a unitarily invariant measure for distinguishing between two quantum states, and has been strongly motivated as physically relevant both on measurement and statistical grounds” . Hall found compelling evidence, at least in the case of the two-dimensional quantum systems, that the Bures metric induces the “minimal-knowledge ensemble” over the space of density matrices . An additional distinguishing feature of the Bures metric is that the associated connection form (gauge field) satisfies the source-free Yang-Mills equation . Chen, Fu, Ungar, and Zhao have interpreted the Bures fidelity between possible states of a qubit in terms of the hyperbolic geometry applicable to special relativity . While the Bures metric fulfills the role of the minimal monotone metric, there are a nondenumerable number of other monotone metrics as well, all satisfying certain desirable statistical properties . It appears that all these other (non-minimal) monotone metrics would lead to lower estimates of the proportion of states that are separable/nonquantum in nature . So, in this sense, the Bures metric provides upper bounds on reasonable/acceptable estimates of separability.

In , specific use was made of the volume element of the Bures metric as a measure to address the question initially posed by Życzkowski et al . This led to a number of quite surprisingly simple probabilities of separability, such as $`\frac{1}{4}`$ (Werner states), $`\frac{1}{2}`$, $`\sqrt{2}1`$ and $`\frac{2}{\pi }\frac{1}{2}`$, when applied to pairs of quantum bits (qubits) in certain restricted low-dimensional scenarios (cf. ) for which exact integrations could be performed. (In several of these instances, the two individual qubits were in the fully mixed or classical state and constraints were placed on possible correlations between the two qubits.) In the present study, we seek to remove any such limitations and determine the Bures probability of separability of two qubits in the full 15-dimensional framework. However, due to the increased dimensionality/complexity, it appears necessary (at least with the current state of development of appropriate mathematical software) to have recourse to numerical methods for the requisite integrations. For this purpose, we rely upon recent developments in quasi-Monte Carlo procedures  — namely, the use of scrambled Halton sequences . Upon the basis of our numerical results, we formulate a conjecture (still awaiting formal proof or disproof), having interesting number-theoretic properties, that the Bures probability of separability of two arbitrarily paired qubits is $`\frac{8}{11\pi ^2}.0736881`$.

The joint state of two qubits is describable by a $`4\times 4`$ density matrix ($`\rho `$)— that is, a Hermitian matrix, having trace 1 and nonnegative eigenvalues. Such a state is separable (that is nonentangled or, equivalently, classically correlated) if it can be expressed as the convex sum of tensor products of pairs of $`2\times 2`$ density matrices (which, in turn, represent the states of individual qubits) . Ensembles of separable states, as well as of bound entangled states can not be “distilled” to obtain pairs in singlet (total spin 0) states for quantum information processing . Let us note that the Bures metric (and the related concept of fidelity) has been an important instrument in the currently widespread study of bipartite and multipartite quantum systems .

As a practical matter, the question of what parameterization of the $`4\times 4`$ density matrices to employ is quite important for computational purposes. In , we used the “polarization matrix density technique” parameterization (based on tensor products of Pauli matrices) \[30, eq. (1)\] , focusing on certain $`m`$-dimensional subsets ($`m4`$) of the fifteen-dimensional space of $`4\times 4`$ density matrices. We were then able to obtain, as already indicated, several simple exact values for the Bures probabilities of separability of two qubits, the possible joint states of which were restricted to these low-dimensional spaces.

In our initial study on the question of relative separability/entanglement , we had relied upon the naive parameterization — $`\rho _{ij}=a_{ij}+ib_{ij}`$, where the $`a`$’s and $`b`$’s are real — of the 15-dimensional convex set of $`4\times 4`$ density matrices, in order to obtain a number of estimates of the full, general Bures probability (as well as the corresponding probability of separability for the 35-dimensional convex set of $`6\times 6`$ density matrices, representing the joint state of a qubit and qutrit). Because no analytical expressions are known for the highly complicated boundary of the domain using this parameterization (cf. ) (as well as for the polarization density matrix technique), it was necessary in  to reject many points of the imposed lattices used for numerical sampling since they turned out to be incompatible with the positivity requirement for density matrices. Additionally, diagonal entries ($`a_{ii}`$) — because they all sum to unity — had to be sampled differently (that is, from a probability simplex rather than a regular lattice) than the off-diagonal entries ($`a_{ij},b_{ij},ij`$). This led us to report several estimates, each depending upon the particular resolutions used for selecting candidate diagonal and off-diagonal entries of the $`4\times 4`$ density matrices \[4, Tables 1-3\]. Most of the resultant estimates of the Bures probability of separability were in the neighborhood of .1. (For an analogous study of the Gaussian two-party quantum states, see .)

In contrast to this somewhat nonideal situation, the recently-reported Euler angle parameterization of Tilma, Byrd and Sudarshan  (based on the diagonalization $`\rho =U\mathrm{\Lambda }U^{}`$, where $`U`$ is unitary) appeared to yield a domain — relatively easy to numerically integrate over — that is simply a 15-dimensional hyperrectangle. However, there was an erroneous claim made in  regarding this, requiring rectification before we can proceed correctly. It was stated that for the choice of ranges of the three spherical angles \[34, eq. (36)\] (the other twelve variables being the Euler angles parameterizing the unitary matrix $`U`$ drawn from the Lie algebra $`SU(4)/Z(4)`$),

$$\frac{\pi }{4}\theta _1\frac{\pi }{2};\mathrm{cos}^1\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\theta _2\frac{\pi }{2};\frac{\pi }{3}\theta _3\frac{\pi }{2},$$
(1)
the vector of (nonnegative) eigenvalues,

$$(\lambda _1,\lambda _2,\lambda _3,1\lambda _1\lambda _2\lambda _3)=(\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _3,\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _3,\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _3,\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _3),$$
(2)
would be strictly ordered, that is, $`\lambda _1\lambda _2\lambda _31\lambda _1\lambda _2\lambda _3`$. However, simple testing of ours revealed that while $`\lambda _1`$ is, in fact, always at least as great as the other three eigenvalues, these last three do not necessarily conform to any particular order within the ranges designated. (We were not yet aware of this difficulty in our earlier study , and were led to erroneously assert there that the desired Bures/SD probability of separability of arbitrarily paired qubits was $`\sqrt{2}/24.0589256`$.)

In  we had specifically addressed the question of generating an ordered vector (lying in the unit simplex). In terms of the parameterization (2), these conditions can be expressed as

$$\frac{\pi }{4}\theta _1\frac{\pi }{2};f(\theta _1)\theta _2\frac{\pi }{2};f(\theta _2)\theta _3\frac{\pi }{2};f(x)=\mathrm{cot}^1\left(\mathrm{cos}x\right).$$
(3)
The Lebesgue measure of the Euclidean domain defined by the three-dimensional volume determined by the ranges (3) is .0564221, while that defined by the ranges (1) is 4.48593 times larger, that is .253106.

We could proceed further with these ranges (3), but in order to avoid loss of the convenient hyperrectangular structure posited in , we have chosen to simply employ

$$0\theta _1,\theta _2,\theta _3\frac{\pi }{2}.$$
(4)
(The Lebesgue measure of which is, of course, $`(\frac{\pi }{2})^33.87578`$.) These ranges generate all possible four-vectors (2) in a unique manner. (Integrals using the ranges (4) would then, in the context here, simply be $`4!=24`$ times those obtained using the set of angular ranges (3).)

Given the (restored/modified) hyperrectangular structure, it is simple to rescale each of the fifteen coordinates, so as to obtain a hypercubic domain, with all edges equal to unity in length. Most available quasi-Monte Carlo computer routines are written with such a regular framework in mind .

Having so converted to the unit hypercubic structure, we placed 65 million (“low discrepancy”) points over the hypercube, devised so as to be near to uniformly distributed. The specific method employed was that of scrambled Halton sequences . One of the classical low-discrepancy sequences is the van der Corput sequence in base $`b`$, where $`b`$ is any integer greater than one. The uniformity of the van der Corput numbers can be further improved by permuting/scrambling the coefficients in the digit expansion of $`m`$ in base $`b`$. The scrambled Halton sequence in $`m`$-dimensions — which we employ — is constructed using the so-scrambled van der Corput numbers for $`b`$’s ranging over the first $`m`$ prime numbers \[22, p. 53\].

Let us now discuss an issue largely of terminology, but important to keep in mind in implementing various formulas. Braunstein and Caves  showed that the Bures metric (as stipulated in ) was equal to identically one-quarter of their statistical distinguishability (SD) metric (cf. \[14, eq. (2.29)\]). However, Hall , citing , spoke in terms of the Bures metric, but actually employed the formulas for the SD metric \[14, eq. (24)\]. This, of course, is a matter of no consequence if one computes weighted averages or probabilities with respect to the volume element of one metric or another. It is pertinent, however, when absolute rather than relative volumes are to be determined, with a factor of $`4^{\frac{m(m1)}{2}}`$ difference occurring for $`m`$-level systems. Thus, the Bures volumes themselves will be $`4^6`$ times smaller than the SD ones (of a somewhat more appealing form) given below for our case of $`m=4`$.

We computed the corresponding statistical distinguishability (SD) volume element (“quantum Jeffrey’s prior” ) at each point of the scrambled Halton sequence in 15 dimensions. This volume element is the product of the Haar volume element over the twelve Euler angles parameterizing $`SU(4)/Z(4)`$ \[34, eqs. (24), (25)\] and the conditional SD volume element over the three-dimensional simplex of eigenvalues \[38, eqs. (16), (17)\].

The conditional SD volume element ($`\text{d}D_n`$) over an $`(m1)`$-dimensional simplex of (nonnegative) eigenvalues, constrained to sum to 1, can be expressed as (cf. \[14, eq. (24)\]),

$$\text{d}D_m=\frac{\text{d}\lambda _1\mathrm{}\text{d}\lambda _{m1}}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Pi }_{i=1}^m\lambda _i}}\mathrm{\Pi }_{1i<j}^m\frac{4(\lambda _i\lambda _j)^2}{(\lambda _i+\lambda _j)}.$$
(5)
(If the factor of 4 is omitted, this becomes the conditional Bures volume element.) Integrating (5) over the simplices for various $`m`$, we obtain, as far as we have been able to compute exactly,

$$D_2=2\pi 6.28319;D_3=\frac{64\pi }{35}=\frac{2^6\pi }{57}5.74463;D_4=\frac{2\pi ^2}{35}=\frac{2\pi ^2}{57}.563977;$$
(6)
$$D_5=\frac{8388608\pi ^2}{156165009}=\frac{2^{23}\pi ^2}{37^21113171923}.530159.$$

(Also, $`D_6\frac{4^{15}\pi ^3}{1.5363610^{16}}2.1643610^6`$.)

The “truncated” Haar volume of the Lie algebra $`SU(4)/Z(4)`$, using the Euler angle parameterization , is $`\frac{\pi ^6}{96}`$ , so the total (separable plus nonseparable) SD volume ($`V^{s+n}`$) of the 15-dimensional convex set of four-level quantum systems is the product of this term and the term $`D_4`$ \[14, eq. (24)\],

$$V^{s+n}=\frac{\pi ^6}{96}\frac{2\pi ^2}{35}=\frac{\pi ^8}{1680}=\frac{\pi ^8}{2^4357}5.64794.$$
(7)
“Truncation” occurs because three of the fifteen Euler angles, corresponding to diagonal Lie generators, become irrelevant (that is, “drop out”) in the formation of $`\rho `$. Without truncation, the appropriate Haar volume would equal $`\frac{\pi ^9}{288\sqrt{2}}`$ \[34, eq. (B24)\].

We also determined whether or not the density matrix corresponding to each of the 65 million points of the scrambled Halton sequences was separable. (“Essentially, the mathematical context is one of two nested compact convex sets and the determination of whether a point in the larger set is in the smaller set” .) For this purpose, we employed the partial transposition criterion of Peres  and the Horodecki trio . (The partial transpose of a $`4\times 4`$ density matrix can be obtained by transposing in place each of its four $`2\times 2`$ blocks.) In fact, since no more than one eigenvalue of the partial transpose of a $`4\times 4`$ density matrix can be negative \[41, Thm. 5\] , one could simply employ the sign of the determinant of the partial transpose as the test for separability, rather than the positivity of all four eigenvalues (cf. ). That is, a positive determinant of the partial transpose informs us that the density matrix which has been partially transposed is separable in nature, while a negative determinant tells us it is nonseparable or entangled.

For the scrambled Halton sequence of 65 million points, distributed in a near-to-uniform manner over the 15-dimensional unit hypercube, we obtained 5.64851 as an estimate of the (known) total Bures volume (5.64794) and .416302 for an estimate of the (unknown) Bures volume of the separable states. (For the initial 10 million points, the analogous figures were 5.64615 and .415716, and for the initial 20 million, 5.64829 and .416775.)

Multiplying $`V^{s+n}`$ by the probability $`\frac{8}{11\pi ^2}.0736881`$, we obtain what — on the basis of our numerical evidence plus considerations of mathematical simplicity/elegance, buttressed by our previous findings of simple exact solutions in low-dimensional settings  — we conjecture to be the SD volume of the separable $`4\times 4`$ density matrices, that is,

$$V^s=\frac{8}{11\pi ^2}V^{s+n}=\frac{\pi ^6}{2310}=\frac{\pi ^6}{235711}=\frac{\pi ^6}{11\mathrm{\#}}.416186.$$
(8)
The notation $`p\mathrm{\#}`$ denotes the products of the primes less than or equal to $`p`$ , so $`V^{s+n}`$ can be expressed as $`\frac{\pi ^8}{2^37\mathrm{\#}}`$. Let us point out that the pair of integers (1680, 2310), occurring in the denominators of $`V^{s+n}`$ and $`V^s`$, are the last two members of a certain sequence (denoted A064377) of number-theoretic interest , in that it has been conjectured by E. Lábos  that 1680 and 2310 are the two largest integers for which the sum of the fourth power of their divisors exceeds the fifth power of the number (Euler’s totient function) of positive integers relatively prime to them.

Since our numerical (quasi-Monte Carlo) estimate of $`V^{s+n}`$, that is $`5.64851>5.64794`$, errs on the positive side, it is rather natural also to expect that our numerical estimate of $`V^s`$ would err in the same direction. Subject to the validity of our conjecture (8), this is, in fact, the case, since $`.416302>.416186`$.

In the computational process described above, we also determined the average Bures/SD entanglement of each of the 65 million density matrices generated, using two possible measures — the negativity and the concurrence, the former always being no greater than the latter . For the mean negativity we obtained .177162 and for the mean concurrence, .197284 (cf. \[3, Figs. 4(b), 5(a)\]). (Another interesting measure of entanglement to similarly study would be the Bures distance of a quantum state to the separable states  (cf. ).)

Since the Bures/SD probability of separability conjectured here ($`\frac{8}{11\pi ^2}.0736881`$) of a pair of qubits is somewhat less in value than those estimates ($`.1`$) arrived at previously in , using the naive parameterization ($`\rho _{ij}=a_{ij}+ib_{ij}`$) of the $`4\times 4`$ density matrices, we are led to assert that the “world is even more quantum”  than previously indicated. In  it appeared that the Bures probability of separability provides a natural upper bound on an entire class (corresponding to the monotone metrics ) of possible prior probability measures. (The Bures metric serves as the minimal monotone metric .) On a qualitative level, then, knowledge that the joint state of two qubits is separable would be considerably more “informative” — in allowing us to estimate the underlying parameters of the state — than knowledge that it is entangled.

In a study  of the eight-dimensional convex set of the $`3\times 3`$ density matrices, we developed explicit formulas for the entries ($`g_{ij}`$) of the Bures metric tensor, based on the Euler angle parameterization of $`SU(3)`$ . Several pairs ($`i,j`$) of the eight variables there were found to be mutually orthogonal (that is, $`g_{ij}=0,ij`$). We have examined the question of mutual orthogonality also in the present $`SU(4)`$ case  (but have not yet attempted to obtain simplified explicit formulas for the $`g_{ij}`$’s, in general). Our conclusions based on strong numerical evidence — obtained by implementing the “explicit formulae for the Bures metric” of Dittmann  — are that: the twelve Euler angles $`\alpha `$’s (in the notation of ) are each mutually orthogonal to the three (mutually orthogonal) $`\theta `$’s, parameterizing the eigenvalues (2); $`\alpha _6`$ is orthogonal to $`\alpha _5`$ and also to all $`\alpha _i,i>6`$; $`\alpha _9`$ is orthogonal to both $`\alpha _{10}`$ and $`\alpha _{12}`$; and $`\alpha _{10},\alpha _{11},\alpha _{12}`$ are all mutually orthogonal. In the important inverse matrix ($`g_{ij}^1`$) the twelve $`\alpha `$’s are again, obviously, all orthogonal with the three $`\theta `$’s, but no other such pairs were found (unlike the SU(3) case ).

Additionally, of course, we would like to study in similar ways higher-dimensional bipartite and multipartite quantum systems than that examined here. Tilma and Sudarshan have given, along with other higher-dimensional systems, Euler angle-based parameterizations of the $`8\times 8`$ density matrices of three qubits , and indicated to the author the parameterization for the $`6\times 6`$ density matrices, corresponding to a paired qubit and qutrit. (It would be desirable for any such analyses to know beforehand the precise conditional SD volumes, $`D_m`$, $`m>5`$, seeing that knowledge of $`D_4`$ was crucial in our being able to formulate the conjecture as to the Bures volume of separable $`4\times 4`$ density matrices.) We recall that for $`m>6`$, the Peres-Horodecki partial transposition criterion provides a necessary, but not sufficient condition for separability . As the Hilbert space dimensions of coupled $`l`$ and $`m`$-dimensional quantum systems increase, we expect the corresponding Bures/SD probability of separability to decrease .

Let us apply the formula (5) for the conditional SD volume $`\text{d}D_m`$, with $`m=4`$, but now setting, say, $`\lambda _10`$ (by taking $`\theta _10`$). Then, integrating the resulting expression, to high accuracy, over the 2-dimensional simplex, we obtain .871513859457. Multiplying this by a factor of four (to account for the possibility that $`\lambda _2,\lambda _3,\lambda _4`$ or $`1\lambda _1\lambda _2\lambda _3`$ is the zero eigenvalue) and then by the truncated Haar volume, $`\frac{\pi ^6}{96}`$, we get 34.9110002722. This is the 14-dimensional SD surface area ($`A^{s+n}`$) of the boundary ($`|\rho |=0`$) of the 15-dimensional convex set of $`4\times 4`$ density matrices. It appears overwhelmingly convincing that

$$A^{s+n}=\frac{142\pi ^7}{12285}=\frac{271\pi ^7}{3^35713}34.91100027222665.$$
(9)
(The denominator 12,285 is the number of permutations of 15 items in which exactly 4 of them change places \[45, seq. A060008\].) For the $`3\times 3`$ density matrices, the SD area of the boundary $`|\rho |=0`$ is $`3(512/63)(\pi ^3/2)=256\pi ^3/21377.981`$, and for the $`5\times 5`$ density matrices, $`5(.00736276442200)(\pi ^{10}/18432).187041154554`$. Note that $`2439209213\pi /5716630.00736276442200`$ with $`5716630=254173191`$ and $`2439209213=7348458459`$. For the $`6\times 6`$ density matrices — forming a 35-dimensional space — we have $`6(3.8575910^6)(\pi ^{15}/35389440).00001874312`$. Observe that $`168\pi ^2/v.3854810^6`$, where $`v=430,137,400`$ is the number of permutations of 35 items in which exactly 6 of them change places. (For the simplest case of the $`2\times 2`$ density matrices, we get $`2\pi ^2`$ for the SD volume and $`16\pi `$ for the SD area of the pure state boundary.)

We have also estimated $`A^s`$ itself — based on the first 11,800,000 points given by scrambled Halton sequences, now in 14-dimensional space. Of these 11,800,000, we found 8,083,953 of them for which there existed at least one acceptable value (that is, lying between 0 and 1) of the 15-th coordinate (taken to be the rescaled form of $`\theta _3`$) for which the corresponding density matrix lay on the separable-nonseparable boundary (as indicated by a zero determinant of its partial transpose). (DiVincenzo, Terhal, and Thapliyal considered situations is which a mixed state is “marginally separable, in the first case because the partial transpose of the state has zero eigenvalues, and in the second because the state is defined as the complement (in a larger Hilbert space) of a barely completable product basis” .) In total, we obtained 15,330,369 such (boundary) density matrices. We then determined the associated SD area elements (identically $`\pi ^1`$ times in value the corresponding SD volume elements). The computations gave an estimate of $`A^s1.75414`$. (Based on just the first 3,200,000 points of this sequence, the estimate of $`A^s`$ was 1.74893.) If the SD area does, in fact, have a simple exact expression, it might possibly be

$$A^s=\frac{\pi ^5}{175}=\frac{\pi ^5}{5^27}1.74868.$$
(10)
(But also $`\pi ^6/5481.75436`$.)

It would be of interest to study the relations between $`A^{s+n}`$ and $`V^{s+n}`$, as well as between $`A^s`$ and $`V^s`$, in terms of isoperimetric inequalities  — taking into account known curvature properties of the Bures metric  (cf. ). The scalar curvature of the Bures metric on a $`4\times 4`$ density matrix ($`\rho `$) has been expressed as ,

$$S^1=6\frac{63e_4+35e_3^243e_2e_37e_33e_2^2}{e_4+e_3^2e_2e_3},$$
(11)
where $`e_i`$ is the elementary invariant of degree $`i`$ of $`\rho `$ (that is, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{i=1}^m(\lambda _it)=_{i=0}^me_{mi}(t)^i`$), so that the scalar curvature depends only on the eigenvalues ($`\lambda `$’s) of $`\rho `$. It is unbounded for $`m>2`$ and achieves its minimum, $`(5m^24)(m^21)/2`$, at the fully mixed or classical state, having the $`m\times m`$ density matrix $`\rho =\frac{1}{m}\mathrm{𝟏}`$, so this minimum is 570 for $`m=4`$ . (The sectional curvature is also always greater than 1 \[60, eq. (6.2)\].) Also, the $`(m^21)`$-dimensional space of $`m\times m`$ density matrices, representing the $`m`$-level quantum systems, is not locally symmetric for $`m>2`$ . (We might also observe that a Euclidean 15-sphere (having a radius of 1.19682) with volume equal to $`V^{s+n}`$ has a surface area of 70.7865 (cf. 34.911), while such a 15-sphere (having a radius of 1.01128) with volume equal to $`V^s`$ has an area 6.20661 (cf. 1.74893).)

If, in addition, to the scalar curvature (11), the Ricci curvature were also bounded below, in particular, by
$`(m^21)1=14`$, then we could directly apply the “Levy-Gromov” isoperimetric inequality \[62, p. 520\]. In this case, the ratio (.318581) of the area $`A^s1.75414`$ of the boundary of separable states to the volume $`V^{s+n}=\pi ^8/1680`$ would be greater than the ratio ($`w`$) of $`s(\alpha )`$ to the volume $`\stackrel{~}{V}=256\pi ^7/2027025`$ of a unit ball in 15-dimensional space. Now $`\alpha `$ itself is the ratio $`V^s/V^{s+n}=8/11\pi ^2`$ and $`s(\alpha )`$ is the area of the boundary of a ball in 15-dimensional space having a volume equal to $`\alpha \stackrel{~}{V}`$. This gives us $`w=1.31521`$, so the Levy-Gromov inequality fails, since $`.3185811.31521`$ and we are left to conclude that the Ricci curvature for the qubit-qubit states endowed with the Bures metric must somewhere assume a value less than 14. (However, for the qubit-qutrit case , no contradiction with the corresponding inequality appears to hold.) To continue along these lines, there is an extension \[64, Thm. 6.6\] of the Levy-Gromov result from the case where the Ricci curvature is bounded below not simply by $`m^21`$ but by $`(m^21)\kappa `$ (where $`\kappa `$ is interpreted as the constant sectional curvature of a 15-dimensional sphere of radius $`1/\sqrt{\kappa }`$). Then, the corresponding isoperimetric inequality would not be inconsistent with our particular values of $`V^s,V^{s+n}`$ and $`A^s`$ if the Ricci curvature were bounded below by $`.780703`$ (but nothing higher).

###### Acknowledgements.

I would like to express appreciation to the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics for computational support in this research, to Mark Byrd and Karol Życzkowski for encouragement at various stages of this research program, and to Giray Ökten for making available his MATHEMATICA program  for computing scrambled Halton sequences. (Ökten has also recently prepared software for scrambled Faure sequences, which may yield more accurate estimates, as well as statistical error analyses.) The final revision of the manuscript was undertaken at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals with the kind technical assistance of Mian Zainulabadin Khurrum of the Information Technology Center there.


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# Multiple Light Echoes from Supernova 1993J

## 1 Introduction

Supernova (SN) 1993J was a type II SN (Ripero et al., 1993) in the nearby galaxy NGC 3031 (M81), the closest SN seen in the past decade. It’s spectrum quickly lost most of its hydrogen emission lines, indicating that most of the progenitor’s hydrogen envelope had been stripped, and justifying classification of the SN as type IIb (Nomoto et al., 1993). The lost material probably formed a circumstellar shell, as evidenced by emission in X-rays (Zimmerman et al., 1994), radio (Bartel et al., 1994), and narrow optical lines (Benetti et al., 1994; Matheson et al., 2000).

Since the SN exploded near a spiral arm in M81, it is expected to illuminate interstellar and circumstellar material in the form of light echoes. Such echoes have been reported for e.g., SN 1998bu (Cappellaro et al., 2001), SN 1991T (Schmidt et al., 1994; Sparks et al., 1999) and SN 1987A (Crotts, 1988). Light echoes from SN 1987A have revealed structures on interstellar and circumstellar scales (Crotts, Kunkel & Heathcote, 1995; Crotts et al., 2001, and references therein), which have been used to map the surrounding material in three dimensions and tie it to kinematic information (Xu et al., 1995; Xu & Crotts, 1999; Crotts & Heathcote, 2000), offering unique insights into the history of the associated stars and gas.

Recently, Liu et al. (2002) discovered a light echo around SN 1993J based on data taken on 2001 June 4 on the WF4 detector of the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We have reanalyzed these now publicly available data, and others (§2), and have found yet another distinct echo. Using image subtraction and PSF-fitting techniques we have also produced detailed analyses (§3) of the structure and reflectivity of both echoing structures. These results already reveal intriguing details about the interstellar medium in M81, and are likely to continue to do so in the future.

## 2 Observations and Reductions

The SN has been visited with HST/WFPC2 several times: UT 1994 April 18, 1995 January 31 and 2001 June 4, respectively 1.00, 1.79 and 8.13y after maximum light \[UT 19 April 1993; Benson et al. (1994)\]. We make use of publically-available data listed in Table 1; in other bands and at other epochs, the data are insufficient in exposure time or number of visits for useful comparison.

Pipeline-calibrated images were processed as in Sugerman et al. (2002). When necessary, stars were removed with Tiny Tim model PSFs. All images were geometrically registered to a common orientation with residuals $`0.1`$ pixel rms. Light echoes are transient sources, and are best detected via difimphot image-subtraction (Tomaney & Crotts, 1996), in which Fourier techniques match empirically-derived stellar profiles between images to remove sources of constant flux. Even with PSF-matching, reduced data can be unusually noisy – we could not difference the 1995 F439W from the 2001 F450W images, since the noise from resampling PC images to the highly-undersampled WF4 resolution, and from the different passbands, was greater than any echo signal. Instead, stellar sources were removed from the 2001 F450W integration using daophot. We use standard HST photometric calibrations, which we checked against secondary standards used to monitor SN 1993J (L. Wells, private communication; Silvestri et al., 1994), and which agree to within 5%. We measured the SN centroid in the 1994 epoch (with $`V19`$), providing its unambiguous position.

## 3 Analysis and Discussion

Figure 1a shows the F555W image from 2001, and Figure 1b shows its difference from the F555W integration of 1995. The 450W image from 2001, with stellar sources removed (§2), is shown in Figure 1c, and the difference image in F814W (with obviously lower signal-to-noise ratio) corresponding to panel (b) is show in Figure 1d. These clearly show two echoes from 2001 (lighter shade) as well as a confusion due to poor subtraction within $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$ of the SN. The outermost echo is seen at radii extending from $`\theta =1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}84`$ to $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}95`$ from the SN, at position angles 170$`<`$PA$`<`$290, with the largest radii near PA 225. These correspond to distances from the SN sightline $`r=\theta D=32.4`$ to 34.3 pc ($`D=3.63`$ Mpc: Freedman et al. 1994). Since it is a light echo, one can compute the foreground distance (along the SN sightline) $`z=r^2/2ctct/2=209`$ to 235 pc, implying a tilt of about 37 with the southwest side farther in front of the SN. An echo at the same $`z`$ distance would occur at $`\theta =0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}89`$ on 1995 January 31, and indeed there is some marginal indication of such a feature (dark in Figures 1b and 1d) between PA 190 and 260. This is far from definite, but may indicate a shrinking of the echo cloud in PA at earlier epochs, hence the possibility that the echo cloud does not extend in front of the SN.

The inner echo lies at $`\theta 1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}15`$ (all at the same radius, to within the errors) in 2001, over 0$`<`$PA$`<`$60. In 1995, this same $`z`$ would correspond to $`\theta 0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}55`$, which is bordering the confusion region of the bright PSF of the SN. The echo lies at a foreground distance $`z=81`$ pc, and is perpendicular to the line of sight to within about 25. The geometry of all echoes is shown in Figure 2. Radial profiles through the echoes in F555W are plotted in Figure 3, demonstrating that these detections are above the background noise (e.g. $`\sigma _{\mathrm{F555W}}=1.5`$ DN pix-1).

Using the naming convention of Xu et al. (1995), we denote the outer echo as SW770 and the inner echo as NE260. M81, with an angular momentum vector inclined 59 along PA 62 (Rots, 1975) (such that the southwest side of the disk is closer to Earth), and SN 1993J, southwest of the nucleus of M81, would imply that the tilt of the NE260 dust sheet is roughly perpendicular to the disk of the galaxy. In comparison, the SW770 echo is inclined to within $`30^{}`$ of the disk plane. The SN, with its massive progenitor contained within a dense gas cloud, is presumed to lie near the disk plane (shown in Fig. 2). We thus detect two dust structures, both extending more than one gas scale-height (c.f. Brouillet et al. 1998) above the plane. SW770 sits a roughly constant 110 pc above the disk plane in M81, while NE260 appears to miss this plane by $``$40 pc and extends at least 60 pc above the disk. Without requiring the SN to lie in the disk plane, one might hypothesize that the disk plane passes near both echoing structures, implying the SN may lie $`7090`$ pc behind the disk.

SW770 has measurable surface brightnesses over the PA range 160–280. Over 190$`<`$PA$`<`$250, all three bands (F450W, F555W and F814W) track each other in surface brightness consistently. For $`190<`$PA$`<250`$, $`\mu =23.3\pm 0.1`$, $`23.3\pm 0.1`$ and $`24.6\pm 0.2`$ in STMAG, respectively transforming to vegamag colors111 Color transformations from STMAG to Johnson-Cousins (vegamags) were determined using synphot and the Bruzual-Persson-Gunn-Stryker Spectrophotometry Atlas. of roughly $`BV=0.6\pm 0.2`$ and $`VI_C=0.0\pm 0.3`$. The spatial variation in surface brightness is similar in $`B`$ and $`V`$, both rising with inreasing PA values. At PA$`270`$, $`\mu _{450}=23.0\pm 0.1`$ and $`\mu _{555}=23.1\pm 0.1`$, while at PA$``$180, $`\mu _{450}=23.6\pm 0.2`$ and $`\mu _{555}=24.1\pm 0.2`$. In contrast $`\mu _{814}`$ is nearly equally faint at both extremal PAs, $`\mu _{814}=25.1\pm 0.4`$, implying colors at PA$`270`$ of $`BV=0.5\pm 0.3`$ and $`VI_C=0.9\pm 0.5`$. In comparison, NE260 has approximately the same global colors as SW770 (over 190$`<`$PA$`<`$250): $`BV=0.5\pm 0.4`$ and $`VI_C=0.2\pm 0.4`$, and there is little evidence for such a color gradient. The surface brightnesses themselves are fainter by about 0.5 mag arcsec-2 compared to SW770.

In order to interpret these surface colors in terms of reflectivity, we must know the colors of the incident echoing flux. Integrating over the entire SN lightcurve (Benson et al., 1994; Richmond et al., 1994) from $`3`$ to 127 days after core collapse yields $`BV=0.73`$, $`VI_C=0.69`$ for the fluence of the (nearly) entire event. The color change due to dust reflectivity for NE260 and SW770 (with PA$`<`$250) is $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)=0.1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(VI_C)=0.7`$, while for SW770 with PA$`>`$250, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)=0.2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(VI_C)=1.6`$. The largest changes in color are imparted in the Rayleighan scattering regime by very small particles. Integration of the scattering efficiency $`S(\lambda ,a)`$ (Xu, Crotts & Kunkel, 1994) using the dust scattering parameters of Weingartner & Draine (2001, and references therein), we find $`S\lambda ^{4.3}`$ for $`a<0.01\mu m`$, yielding $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)_{\mathrm{max}}=0.96`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(VI_C)_{\mathrm{max}}=1.72`$. As the observed color shifts are smaller, the echoes should be consistent with a galactic dust distribution. Dust modeling will be examined in detail by Sugerman (2003).

Attributing the blue color of SW770 at PA$`>`$250 to a small-grain-only hypothesis is sufficiently improbable as to warrant alternative explanations. Any extinction mechanism for F814W light should more-strongly affect the F450W and F555W bands. One might invoke additional flux from mechanisms beyond direct reflection to increase the flux in F450W and F555W over F814W for PA$`<`$250. Extended red emission (Witt & Boroson, 1990) would contribute significantly to the F814W band but not the bluer bands. However, we caution that this very blue $`VI_C`$ SW770 color is near the detection threshold, and we cannot rule out a “hot pixel” or variable star producing an erroneous image-subtraction residual in the F814W image.

For the sake of this discussion, we adopt a dust model with isotropically-scattering grains. We note that this assumption disagrees with some measurements of Galactic interstellar dust (Witt, Oliveri & Schild, 1990; Matila, 1979; Toller, 1981). Using this model, we calculate the ratio of dust densities in the two echoes from the surface brightnesses and echo geometry. For an echo cloud that is thick relative to the the depth of dust echoing at a given time ($`t_s\left|\frac{dz}{dt}\right|`$), the surface brightness is predicted by Chevalier (1986):

$$\mu (\theta )=\frac{n_dQ_s\sigma _d}{4\pi D^2}\frac{L_\nu t_s}{4\pi R^2}\left|\frac{dz}{dt}\right|F(\alpha ),$$

where the average apparent luminosity $`L_\nu /4\pi D^2`$ over the SN light pulse duration $`t_s`$ is observed directly from the SN. The geometric factors $`R=\sqrt{(z^2+r^2)}`$ (the SN-to-cloud distance), $`\alpha `$ (the scattering angle), and $`|dz/dt|=r^2/2ct^2+c/2`$ (describing the depth of the echoing region), are determined precisely by $`\theta `$ from the light-travel-delay equation of an echo. This leaves: the grain scattering efficiency $`Q_s`$ and geometric cross-section $`\sigma _d`$ (assumed equal in the two echoing clouds); the dust number density $`n_d`$; and the scattering phase function $`F(\alpha )=(1g^2)/(1+g^22g\mathrm{cos}\alpha )^{3/2}`$ \[Henyey & Greenstein 1941 – which does quite well for small $`\alpha `$ such as here (Witt, 1989)\], where $`g=\overline{\mathrm{cos}\alpha }`$ is the degree of forward scattering, here assumed to be zero. The ratio of the geometric factors $`F(\alpha )|\dot{z}|/R^2`$ for the two echoes is 1.52 (inner/outer), but SW770 is spread over $`r_{outer}/r_{inner}=1.71`$ times the area. Since the echoes are underresolved by WFPC2, SW770 should be about 1.13 times higher observed surface brightness than NE260, if they have the same dust properties and density. In truth, we measure SW770 to be about 1.6 times brighter, implying either a 40% higher dust density in SW770, or the SW770 cloud is 40% thicker along the line of sight. If, instead, the clouds are geometrically thin compared to $`t_s\left|\frac{dz}{dt}\right|`$, geometric factors would predict an inner echo brightness 2.56 times that of SW770 (for equivalent dust), implying that the SW770 cloud contains 4.1 times higher dust surface density. How do these numbers change if we instead invoke a non-zero $`g`$? For reasonable values ($`g0.5`$), the above brightness ratios change by only 1% or less, since the scattering angles for the two echoes are very similar ($`\alpha =10\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ for NE260 versus $`8\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ for SW770.)

The echo’s effective width is given by $`w=t_sdr/dt`$ where $`dr/dt=c(z+ct/2)/\sqrt{(2z+ct/2)ct}`$, and $`t_s`$ is the total fluence in $`V`$ ($`6.31\times 10^7`$ ergs cm-2 Å-1) divided by the maximum light flux, yielding $`t_s=3.5\times 10^6`$s and $`w=0.23`$ pc. A thin sheet of isotropic reflectors at the position of SW770 in year 2001 (with 170$`<`$PA$`<`$290) diverts no more than 0.0026% of the SN flux seen at Earth. We observe a flux in F555W of $`4.3\times 10^{18}`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 Å-1 from the echo, versus a corresponding maximum flux from the SN of $`1.8\times 10^{13}`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 Å-1, or about 0.0024%. SW770, over the position observed, appears to be optically thick. This implies NE260 also has $`A_v\frac{1}{4}`$.

For a dust albedo of 0.5 and grain diameter of 0.1 $`\mu `$m (the largest Rayleigh-like particle), unit optical depth corresponds to $`15\mu `$g cm-2 for grains of density 1 g cm-3. If the gas-to-dust ratio is 100, this corresponds to $`N_H8\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 for SW770. At the position of the SN, $`N_{\text{H}\text{i}}10^{21}`$ cm-2, so SW770 structure is consistent with the dominant locus of gas along the Earth-SN sightline.

The velocity structure of this region of the galaxy has been studied in H I 21 cm emission and optical/UV absorption (of the SN itself). This structure is relatively smooth and locally centered near $`v_{lsr}=135`$ km s-1 (Rots, 1975), with some gas over the range $`155<v_{lsr}<115`$ km s-1 (Rots & Shane, 1975). In absorption against SN 1993J, the predominant M81 interstellar components are $``$119 and $``$135 km s-1, with possible lesser components at $`110`$ and $`100`$ km s-1 (Vladilo et al., 1994). The former two interstellar components are each at least twice as strong in Ca II column density as the latter two (hence containing about 56% and 26% of the interstellar gas), and appear to be cold. In IUE spectra of UV absorption lines (Marggraf & de Boer, 2000), a strong component at $``$130 km s-1 and a weaker one at $``$90 km s-1 is seen in low-ionization species, probably consistent with the Ca II components.

It is possible that the inner and outer echoes correspond to the two dominant absorption features ($``$119 and $``$135 km s-1), but this is difficult to state with certainty given the limited amount of data and the partial covering factor of the structures involved. The structure and strength of the echoes seems to imply, however, that major portions of interstellar material in this part of the disk may be broken into fragments and perhaps even propelled a scale height or more out of the disk plane.

## 4 Future Prospects

One prospect that is unlikely is using these echoes to measure the distance to M81. The maximum-polarization technique (Sparks et al., 1996) requires 90 scattering, a condition unlikely for these echoes, but potentially attainable for circumstellar echoes yet to be observed. (This has been implemented for SN 1987A’s circumstellar echoes, for instance - Crotts et al. in preparation.) The use of interstellar echoes to measure the distance to M81 will require centuries of observation before their power-law expansion behavior begins to break down, and even then the intrinsic geometry of the echoing structure seems unlikely to cooperate in performing a distance determination.

As time progresses, we expect more light echoes will appear. At small radii, one must compete with the bright central source, making echo detection difficult for $`\theta <0.5`$ arcsec, or $`r<8`$ pc. In year 2002 this radius corresponds to $`z16`$ pc and will continue to decrease (roughly as $`1/t`$). This foreground distance is well beyond the likely circumstellar region around the SN progenitor. Eventually, the echo from the circumstellar material itself might become apparent. The SN progenitor evidently has been emitting a dense wind with outflow velocity of at least $`10`$ km s-1 (Fransson, Lundqvist & Chevalier, 1996), probably for $`10^6`$ y. Depending on the density of interstellar material into which this wind is propagating, dense circumstellar nebulosity may extend beyond the PSF of the central source, and more careful analysis may reveal echoes at even smaller radii.

Pursuing these and further echoes around SN 1993J with a series of PC (or ACS) images would be valuable, particularly in bands near F555W, offering the best sensitivity. Since SW770 is expanding at a rate corresponding to the PSF width of HST every 0.8 y, an annual visit to image the echoes of SN 1993J will probe of new material each time. Over the course of a decade or so, we should be able to build a more detailed, three-dimensional view of the interstellar medium in a $`10^6`$ pc3 volume of M81’s spiral arm, and begin to glimpse the outer edges of the region affected by the mass loss from SN 1993J’s progenitor.

This research was supported by grants AST 02-06048 from the NSF and #8806, 8872 and 9328 from the STScI.


text:
# Phonon drag of electrons at high temperatures

## I Introduction

Thermoelectric power phenomenon was found out in 1821. This phenomenon arises in current-conducting materials at presence of temperature gradient. This physical phenomenon is caused by diffusion of mobile charges carriers in volume of a material under temperature gradient and is considered to be proportional to the temperature gradient. Factor of proportionality consist of two components which take into account the contributions of electrons ($`\alpha _n`$) and holes ($`\alpha _p`$) Seeg73  :

$$\alpha =\alpha _n+\alpha _h.$$
(1)
If relaxation time of wave pulses for electrons and holes depend on energy (E) as $`E^r`$ then in nondegenerated semiconductor

$$\alpha _n=\frac{k}{|e|}(r+\frac{5}{2}\frac{F_e}{kT}),\alpha _h=+\frac{k}{|e|}(r+\frac{5}{2}\frac{F_h}{kT}),$$
(2)
where $`k`$ \- Boltzman constant, e - electron charge, r - dissipation parameter, $`F_e`$ and $`F_h`$ \- Fermi levels for electrons and holes, T - temperature. In some semiconductor materials at low temperatures the experimental magnitude of TEP exceed the magnitude which was predicted on basis of the TEP diffusion theory. This disagreement between theory and experiment was explained by another physical phenomenon - phonon drag of electrons (PDE). The PDE represents the additional contribution in thermoelectric power. The PDE component is not connected with diffusion of mobile charges carriers but is caused by their moving under phonons flow action due to electron-phonon coupling.

For the first time L. Gurevich has predicted the PDE existence in metals and has specified the opportunity of the phenomenon existence in semiconductors Gur45 . G. Pikus investigated this phenomenon theoretically in semiconductors and in 1951 has deduced the formula for PDE which arise as a result of interaction of incoherent phonons flow with mobile charge carriers. He has shown that the magnitude of the PDE depend on the relation between relaxation times for wave pulses of phonons and electrons and has come to a conclusion about insignificant magnitude of the effect. However it was shown experimentally that the PDE in semiconductors can many times over exceed the magnitude which predicted by diffusion theory of thermoelectric power Fred53  \- Geba54 . It was established that the PDE is caused by flow of those phonons which interact with electrons Fred53 ; Herr53 ; Herr58 . Or else, the PDE arises at presence of coupling between electrons and phonons.

The PDE component of TEP which take into account phonons flow interaction with mobile electrons may be described by coefficient

$$\alpha _{ph}=(\frac{k}{e})\frac{m^{}v^2}{kT}\frac{<\tau _{ph}>}{<\tau >}$$
(3)
where $`<\tau _{ph}>`$ \- middle time for phonons wave pulse relaxation, $`<\tau >`$ \- middle time for electrons wave pulse relaxation, $`m^{}`$ \- fictitious mass and $`v`$ \- speed of movable charge carriers Herr58 . In accordance to counting the long-wave acoustical phonons participation in the PDE effect the coefficient $`\alpha _{ph}`$ depend from temperature as $`T^{7/2}`$ and decrease at heating.

The PDE effect was observed at temperatures above 70 K. Ones came to a conclusion that given effect is impossible to detect at T $`>`$ 70 K. Absence of the given effect at T $`>`$ 70 K was explained by weak electron-phonon coupling. Therefore the semi-conductor materials containing electron-vibrational centers (EVC) are attractive for supervision of the PDE effect arX99  because inherent oscillations of such centers are capable to couple with electrons, phonons and hence to supply strong coupling between electrons and phonons.

The purpose of the given work is to research the phonon drag of electrons in crystals and crystal structures containing an electron-vibrational centers.

## II Experiments, results and discussion

### II.1 Description of experiments

Industrial polished semiconductor plates by thickness 200 microns were used in our experiments. The semiconductor samples contained local electron-vibrational centers with representative strong electron-phonon coupling.

GaP samples with impurities of aluminum GaP(Al) or sulphur GaP(S) were investigated. Impurity concentrations of Al or S was equal to about $`510^{15}`$cm-3. Such impurities were chosen because atoms Al and S have masses vastly exceed mass of atom Ga. This promote emergence of electron-vibrational centers. Before measurements the samples were subjected to heating in vacuum within 5 minutes at temperature T = 600 K and cooled up to room temperature within 0.2 minutes to activate EVC.

Samples of Si, InSb, InAs were irradiated by fast electrons integer flow $`10^{18}cm^2`$ with energy 1 MeV to introduce EVC. Silicon samples with impurities of phosphorus ($`510^{15}`$cm-3) and oxygen ($`10^{18}`$cm-3) : Si(P,O) were used. Concentration of oxygen impurity in Si was determined on basis of the data about distinctive for oxygen impurity optical absorption in spectral band near 9 mkm Kais56 . The main type of EVC in silicon samples was A-center which represent association of impurity oxygen atom with vacancy. In accordance to results of IR absorption spectra measurements the concentration of A-centers was equal to $`10^{15}cm^3`$ and the Huang-Rhyce constant Hua50  for electron-phonon interaction $`S5`$. Single crystals of InSb and InAs were investigated. Initial concentration of mobile electrons (before irradiation by fast electrons) at room temperature was equal $`1.6810^{14}cm^3`$ for InSb and $`610^{12}cm^3`$ for InAs. Epitaxial layers of InSb and InAs with thickness up to 20 mkm on semiinsulator GaAs substrates with thickness 200 mkm were investigated else. Concentration of mobile electrons in initial InSb layer (before irradiation by fast electrons) was equal to $`310^{16}cm^3`$. Concentration of mobile electrons in initial InAs layer was equal to $`310^{16}cm^3`$, but after the irradiation it was near to inherent concentration. Supposedly EVC in the samples were formed by impurity oxygen atoms which usually are contained in significant concentrations in these semiconductor materials.

We investigated the carbon nanotube films with thickness $``$ 0.1 mkm with surface resistance $`10^3Ohmcm^2`$ on quartz substrate. These samples were fabricated by dispersion of graphite single crystal by electron beam in vacuum Kos92 . Carbon nanotube films where consisted from single walled nanotubes. Diameter of nanotubes was about 10 nm. The nanotubes were oriented along normal to substrate surface and form two-dimensional regular structure. In accordance to investigated IR reflectance spectra and activation energies of resistivity the EVC in these samples were formed by carbon atoms. Supposedly the EVC existence is connected with variation of nanotube chirality.

The TEP were measured at temperatures is higher 77 K where the PDE existence was considered as impossible. Temperature difference between electrical contacts to every sample was not more than 3K, probable inaccuracy at temperature measurements was not more than 0.2 K and at voltage measurements it was not more than $`10^6`$ V.

### II.2 Experimental results

Typical temperature dependency of thermoelectric power for GaP(S) samples is shown in Fig. 1 by curve A. Curve A keeps pius which marked by arrows and by letters. Temperature dependency of the TEP for GaP(Al) is like the curve A. Curve B in Fig. 1 is the TEP temperature dependency which was calculated by using Eqs. (1, 2) for GaP sample with close to inherent conductivity.

Typical temperature dependency of thermoelectric power for Si(P,O) samples is shown in Fig. 2 by curve A. This curve has pius specified by arrows and by letters. Curve B on Fig. 2 is temperature dependency of the TEP for Si single crystal with close to inherent conductivity which was calculated by using Eqs. (1, 2).

Temperature dependencies of the TEP for irradiated by fast electrons single crystals of InSb and InAs are shown in Fig. 3. Characteristic temperature dependency of thermoelectric power for irradiated epitaxial layer of InSb on semi-insulating GaAs substrate (InSb/GaAs) is represented in Fig. 4. Some pius on the curve are pointed out by arrows.

Characteristic temperature dependencies of thermoelectric power for irradiated by fast electrons epitaxial layer of InAs on semi-insulating GaAs substrate (InAs/GaAs) are represented in Fig. 5.

Typical temperature dependencies of thermoelectric power for carbon nanotube film is shown in Fig. 6 by curve A. The TEP for silicon epitaxial layer by thickness 14 mkm on quartz substrate with impurity of Phosphorus ($`10^{14}cm^3`$) is shown in Fig. 6 by curve B which is increased in 4 times in relation to valid curve.

### II.3 Discussion

Curve A in Fig. 1 contain pius whose polarity agree with the diffusion TEP polarity. Pius a, b, c, f are situated at Debye temperatures of phonons in GaP Mar64 : 95 K (TA, 8.2 meV); 168 K (TA, 14.25 meV); 288 K (LA, 24.42 meV); 542 K (LO, 44.75 meV). Broad pius d ($`345K`$) and e ($`475K`$) may to be explained by combinations of phonons: (TA + TA, 28.6 meV) and (TA + LA, 38.67 meV). Curve B in Fig. 1 is the TEP which was calculated for GaP with close to inherent conductivity and without an account of interaction between electrons and phonons flow. This curve is smooth and does not contain any pius. Therefore located at Deby temperatures of phonons the narrow PDE pius in GaP(S) and GaP(Al) definitely may be connected with the EVC which are formed by impurity atoms of Sulfur or Aluminum.

Investigations of resistivity temperature dependencies, infra-red reflection spectra and the TEP temperature dependencies in GaP(Al) and GaP(S) show that impurity atoms of Al and S form the EVC in GaP due to which nuclei oscillations (inherent, I-oscillations) of Al and S actively interact with phonons and electrons and supply strong electron-phonon coupling. The I-oscillations can spread in crystals, interact with electrons and give rise to waves of I-oscillations and electrical currents. This is confirmed by particularities of the TEP. In connection with the given results it is possible to consider that I-oscillations of the EVC, which are formed by impurity atoms Al and S, are the reason of the narrow TEP peaks at Deby temperatures of phonons. It is possible to explain pius a, b, c, d by phonon drag of electrons and pius e, f by phonon drag of holes at Deby temperatures of the same phonons which effectively interact with EVC and supply strong electron-phonon coupling.

Curve A in Fig. 2 contain pius a, b, c which are situated at Debye temperatures of known characteristic acoustic phonons in Si whose wave vectors directed along certain directions in Brillouin zone Aub63 : $`<`$111$`>`$, 200.4 K (16.7 meV); $`<`$110$`>`$, 214.8 K (17.9 meV); $`<`$100$`>`$, 252 K (21.0 meV). Curve B on Fig. 2 is the TEP temperature dependence which was calculated for Si with close to inherent conductivity without any account of interaction between electrons and phonons flow. Comparison of curves A and B in Fig. 2 allows to connect the pius a, b, c in curve A with presence of A - centers and to explain them by phonon drag of electrons. Pius d and e we connect with TO phonons drag of holes in Si.

Represented in Fig. 3 the TEP temperature dependencies contain some narrow pius. The temperatures of most significant TEP pius for InSb are submitted in Table I together with Deby temperatures, energies and types of determined optically suitable phonons in InSb single crystal Mar64 ; Lyd41 . Taking into account the data from Table I the TEP peaks in InSb may be connected with phonons participation.

Identical data concerning InAs sample with data about suitable phonons in InAs single crystal Lor65  are submitted in Table II. Contained in the Table II data allow to connect the TEP pius in InAs with participation of phonons. It is visible from Table II that the most intensive PDE pius at temperatures 173 K and 178 K have not suitable phonons. These pius differ from the PDE pius at temperatures 208 K and 212 K on $`34K`$ and may be explained by participation in the PDE effect of acoustical phonons with $`T_D34K(2.9meV)`$. It may be possible because such acoustical phonons can influence on EVC inherent oscillations, make them coherent, enable to arise coherent areas, heat superconductivity and hyperconductivity in different semiconductors arX00 .

One can see from Fig. 4 that temperature dependence of the TEP for InSb/GaAs contain some pius at different temperatures though according to the TEP theory similar curves for InSb and GaAs can not contain of such narrow pius. Temperature of these pius are inserted in Table III. Debye temperatures of suitable phonons energies and types of the phonons for single crystals InSb Lyd41 ; Mar64  and GaAs Coc61  are inserted in the Table III also. It is visible from Table III that the temperatures of some pius TEP cannot confidently be identified with phonons in InSb and their greater number is possible to explain only by combination of such phonons. Examination of contained in Table III data enable with the more probability to refer the TEP pius in InSb/GaAs to participation of GaAs substrate phonons.

The temperatures of TEP pius visible in Fig. 5 for InAs/GaAs are inserted in Table IV together with Debye temperatures and energies of suitable phonons in single crystals InAs Lor65  and GaAs Coc61 . Examination of inserted in Table IV data enable with high probability to connect the TEP pius in InAs/GaAs with definite role of GaAs substrate phonons.

Represented in Fig. 6 temperature dependencies of the TEP for carbon nanotube film and for silicon film on quatz substrate are similar with each other in common features. This similarity of curves A and B in Fig. 6 give definite basis to connect the pius of the curves with participation of quartz substrate phonons in phonon drag phenomenon.

### II.4 Conclusion

Earlier the PDE in semiconductors was observed as narrow pius of the TEP at temperatures below 70 K. Taking into account the new data about the PDE pius located close to Debye temperatures of phonons the well known PDE effect at low temperatures in different materials may be explained as PDE pius caused by participation of acoustical phonons with low Debye temperatures $`(T_D<70K)`$. Absence of the PDE at T $`>`$ 70 K earlier was explained by insufficiently strong coupling between electrons and phonons. Nevertheless the temperature dependence of thermoelectric power in ropes of carbon nanotubes supposedly was explained by the PDE contribution at temperatures from 4.2 K to 300 K Hon98 . The narrow thermoelectric power pius observable in semiconductor materials and structures undoubtedly are connected with the phonon drag of electrons (or holes). It is necessary to take into account that the phonons frequencies can be changed or splitted under interactions between EVC and appropriate Debye temperatures can be changed. Therefore there is no basis to wait of strict concurrence of the TEP pius temperatures with Debye temperatures for phonons. The TEP pius in semiconductors single crystals are located near to Debye temperatures of phonons but in epitaxial semiconductor layers on semiinsulator substrates such pius are located near to Debye temperatures of substrate phonons. The electron-phonon coupling which supplied by electron-vibrational centers in semiconductor crystals, in epitaxial layers and else in carbon nanotube films on substrates probably is sufficiently strong for the PDE effect realization even at high Debye temperatures.

The represented experimental data specify participation in PDE effect not only long-wave acoustic phonons which are taken into account in known PDE theory but also short-wave acoustic and optical phonons in points of Brillouin zone with high density of phonons frequencies. In connection with these data it is desirable to expand the PDE theory on a case of strong electron-phonon interaction provided by electron-vibrational centers at high temperatures.

The investigation of the PDE pius enable to study the phonons types, their energies, Debye temperatures in containing electron-vibrational centers semiconductor materials and structures.

###### Acknowledgements.

I thank Dr. Z. Ya. Kosakovskaya for carbon nanotube films on substrates given for researches.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Structure functions have been investigated since 1970’s. We can test both perturbative and non-perturbative aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) by their measurements. From measured $`Q^2`$ dependence of the structure functions, we learned that it agrees with perturbative QCD predictions. From their $`x`$ dependent measurements, parton distribution functions (PDFs) have been extracted. They are valuable for testing non-perturbative aspects such as predictions by lattice QCD and various phenomenological models. Furthermore, the PDF studies have wide applications to heavy-ion physics, neutrino oscillation experiments, and exotic event searches at extremely large $`Q^2`$ beyond the current theoretical framework.

Now, the unpolarized PDFs of the nucleon are relatively well established through a variety of experimental measurements. There are three established groups: CTEQ (Coordinated Theoretical/Experimental Project on QCD Phenomenology and Tests of the Standard Model), GRV (Glück, Reya, and Vogt), and MRST (Martin, Roberts, Stirling, and Thorne). All the distributions agree rather well, which convinces us that the unpolarized PDFs in the nucleon are well determined except for extreme kinematical regions.

On the contrary, polarized PDFs and nuclear PDFs are not reliably determined at this stage. The European Muon Collaboration (EMC) discovery on the proton spin triggered enthusiastic investigations on high-energy spin physics. Even a decade has passed since the EMC finding, we do not understand yet how the proton spin consists of quarks and gluons. Of course, we have rough ideas on the spin carriers mainly through the electron and muon scattering data. However, they are not enough to determine all the polarized PDFs.

Nuclear PDFs are in the similar situation to the polarized. There are available experimental information from the deep inelastic scattering (DIS) and Drell-Yan processes. They enable us to find rough $`x`$ dependence of valence and antiquark distributions. However, it is still difficult to determine gluon distributions in nuclei. Furthermore, analysis technique has not been well developed for the nuclear parametrization.

Considering these situations, we think that the JHF could contribute to these PDF studies. There are two major possibilities. One is to use the primary 50 GeV proton beam, and the other is to use a neutrino factory. The proton beam will certainly become available in the near future, so that proton reactions could be used for the PDF studies. On the other hand, the possibility of the Japanese neutrino factory is not very clear at this stage. Neutrino factories have been considered in Europe, USA, and Japan, so that we hope that at least one of them will be materialized.

In this paper, we discuss possible PDF studies at JHF. In Sec. 2, primary proton topics are discussed. Then, neutrino-factory possibilities are discussed in Sec. 3. These topics are summarized in Sec. 4.

## 2 Primary proton beam

The JHF is a unique facility to investigate physics associated with secondary beams. Feasibility has been extensively studied in such fields. On the other hand, topics associated with the primary proton beam are not well investigated. One of the possibilities is to use the facility for the PDF studies. Because the beam energy is 50 GeV, we should inevitably focus on the medium and large $`x`$ regions of the parton distributions.

### 2.1 Drell-Yan processes

In the proton reactions, Drell-Yan processes provide important constraints for the parton distributions. For example, Fermilab-E866/NuSea data made important contribution to the determination of $`\overline{u}/\overline{d}`$ asymmetry in the nucleon. The difference between $`\overline{u}`$ and $`\overline{d}`$ was first suggested by the New Muon Collaboration (NMC) in the studies of Gottfried-sum-rule violation. However, the NMC data were not sufficient to conclude actual antiquark flavor asymmetry due to the lack of small $`x`$ data. The Fermilab and CERN Drell-Yan measurements indicated the ratio $`\overline{u}/\overline{d}`$ directly, and the data enabled us to determine the difference between $`\overline{u}`$ and $`\overline{d}`$. In this way, the lepton DIS and the Drell-Yan process are complementary in establishing precise PDFs.

First, let us discuss the kinematical region to be probed by the possible JHF Drell-Yan measurements. In the Drell-Yan process, an antiquark (quark) with momentum fraction $`x_1`$ in the projectile interacts with a quark (antiquark) with $`x_2`$ to produce a dimuon pair with mass $`m_{\mu \mu }`$. If the center-of-mass (c.m.) energy is $`\sqrt{s}`$, they are related by

$$x_1x_2=\frac{m_{\mu \mu }^2}{s}.$$
(1)
The dimuon-mass square $`m_{\mu \mu }^2`$ is equal to $`Q^2`$ of the virtual photon, and it should be larger than a few GeV2 in order to apply perturbative QCD picture. Considering the c.m. energy $`\sqrt{s}`$=10 GeV, we estimate that the target momentum fraction $`x_2`$ should be limited by $`x_2>0.1`$. This means that the medium and large $`x`$ regions could be investigated by the primary proton beam.

The feasibility of such Drell-Yan measurements has been investigated in detail by J. C. Peng el al.  for the JHF project. For example, the facility could contribute to the topic of the antiquark flavor asymmetry . The present experimental situation is shown in Fig. 1. Experimentally, the Drell-Yan cross sections for the proton-proton and proton-deuteron reactions have been measured. Then, the cross-section difference is converted to the antiquark flavor asymmetry in Fig. 1. The experimental data are taken by the E866/NuSea  and NA51  collaborations. It is clear from the figure that $`\overline{d}`$ is larger than $`\overline{u}`$ in the $`x`$ region, $`x=0.040.2`$. Possible JHF experiments could extend the measured region to larger $`x`$, where current data are not accurate enough or even not available.

Next, the Drell-Yan experiments could be used for determining nuclear antiquark distributions in the medium $`x`$ region. The situation of determining nuclear PDFs is much worse than the one for the nucleon in the sense that a variety of experimental data are not available and that analysis technique has not been well developed. For example, although the nuclear antiquark distributions could be roughly determined by the measurements of the $`F_2`$ structure functions at small $`x`$, their determination is not possible at medium $`x`$ due to the lack of data. The present situation is typically shown in Fig. 3, where E772 data are shown for the cross-section ratios, $`\sigma ^{pCa}/\sigma ^{pD}`$ and $`\sigma ^{pFe}/\sigma ^{pD}`$ . We should note that the cross-section ratios are almost equal to the antiquark ratios, $`\overline{q}^{Ca}/\overline{q}^D`$ and $`\overline{q}^{Fe}/\overline{q}^D`$ in the region, $`x<0.1`$. The data indicate small nuclear corrections in the antiquark distributions at $`x0.1`$. However, they are not accurate enough at larger $`x`$, so that the determination is almost impossible in the medium $`x`$ region. This fact makes a nuclear $`\chi ^2`$ analysis difficult for fitting various experimental data . In the parametrization of the nuclear PDFs , nuclear $`F_2`$ data are used together with the Drell-Yan data to produce the optimum distributions. If the medium $`x`$ data are taken at JHF as indicated in Fig. 3, the antiquark distributions are easily constrained at medium $`x`$, and the $`\chi ^2`$ analysis becomes much reliable.

Another application is for polarized PDFs. The polarized distributions in the nucleon have been obtained by using polarized electron and muon DIS experimental data. They are taken mainly for the structure function $`g_1`$, but there are also available semi-inclusive data. Several parametrizations have been proposed for explaining the polarized experimental data. However, the data are still taken in a limited kinematical range, and a variety of data are not available yet. This situation makes accurate determination of polarized antiquark distributions difficult. It is clearly illustrated in Fig. 3 . Three antiquark distributions are shown in the figure, and they are obtained by Leader-Sidrov-Stamenov (LSS), Spin Muon Collaboration (SMC), and Asymmetry Analysis Collaboration (AAC). It is obvious from the figure that the antiquark distributions at medium $`x`$ are much different depending on the analysis methods. The JHF project probes the medium $`x`$ range as shown in Fig. 3 if the proton is polarized, so that its data are also valuable for the high-energy spin physics, especially for the determination of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{q}`$ at medium $`x`$.

### 2.2 Drell-Yan processes with polarized deuteron target

Using a polarized deuteron target, we could investigate polarized proton-deuteron processes. The reactions have never been investigated experimentally, whereas there are a few theoretical studies. There are two major purposes. One is to investigate new tensor structure functions, which do not exist for the spin-1/2 nucleon, and the other is to find flavor asymmetry for the polarized antiquark distributions.

First, we discuss the tensor structure functions. The polarized proton-proton (pp) reactions have been extensively investigated theoretically, and experimental studies are in progress as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) Spin project. We expect that nucleon spin structure will be partially clarified in the near future. However, it is important that different aspects of spin physics should be also investigated in order to test our knowledge of high-energy spin. One of such quantities is the tensor structure of the deuteron, and it could be studied by the tensor structure functions . In the electron and muon scattering, there are leading-twist structure functions $`b_1`$ and $`b_2`$, which are related by the Callan-Gross type relation $`2xb_1=b_2`$. The antiquark part of the tensor structure could be investigated by polarized proton-deuteron (pd) Drell-Yan processes in the same way as the unpolarized Drell-Yan reactions in Sec. 2.1.

A theoretical formalism of the polarized $`pd`$ Drell-Yan was investigated in Ref. . In comparison with the $`pp`$ Drell-Yan processes, there are additional structure functions associated with the tensor structure of the deuteron. Among them, a quadrupole spin asymmetry $`A_{UQ_0}`$ is sensitive to the $`b_1`$ distributions:

$$A_{UQ_0}=\frac{_ae_a^2\left[f_1(x_1)\overline{b}_1(x_2)+\overline{f}_1(x_1)b_1(x_2)\right]}{_ae_a^2\left[f_1(x_1)\overline{f}_1(x_2)+\overline{f}_1(x_1)f_1(x_2)\right]}.$$
(2)
The notation $`UQ_0`$ indicates that the proton is unpolarized and a tensor spin combination is taken for the deuteron. The functions $`f_1(x)`$ and $`\overline{f}_1(x)`$ are unpolarized quark and antiquark distributions, and $`b_1(x)`$ and $`\overline{b}_1(x)`$ are tensor-polarized distributions. In the large $`x_F`$ region, the spin asymmetry becomes

$$A_{UQ_0}\text{(large }x_F\text{)}\frac{_ae_a^2f_1(x_1)\overline{b}_1(x_2)}{_ae_a^2f_1(x_1)\overline{f}_1(x_2)}\text{at large }x_F.$$
(3)
It indicates that the tensor polarized antiquark distributions can be obtained by the spin asymmetry measurements in the polarized $`pd`$ reactions. This is complementary to the studies of the tensor structure in the electron and muon scattering, where the antiquark distributions cannot be determined in the medium $`x`$ region.

Second, the polarized $`pd`$ Drell-Yan could be used for investigating the polarized antiquark flavor asymmetry $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{u}/\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{d}`$ . As shown in Sec. 2.1, the difference between the $`pp`$ and $`pd`$ cross sections is attributed to the difference between $`\overline{u}`$ and $`\overline{d}`$. In the same way, the difference between the polarized $`pp`$ and $`pd`$ cross sections should be associated with the difference between $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{u}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{d}`$. Another important point is that it enables us to determine $`\mathrm{\Delta }_T\overline{u}/\mathrm{\Delta }_T\overline{d}`$ for the transversity distributions, because the transversity cannot be measured by the $`W`$ production process. The cross-section ratio for the $`pp`$ and $`pd`$ reactions is

$$R_{pd}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}\sigma _{pd}}{2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}\sigma _{pp}}=\frac{_ae_a^2\left[\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}q_a\left(x_1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}\overline{q}_a^d\left(x_2\right)+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}\overline{q}_a\left(x_1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}q_a^d\left(x_2\right)\right]}{2_ae_a^2\left[\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}q_a\left(x_1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}\overline{q}_a\left(x_2\right)+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}\overline{q}_a\left(x_1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}q_a\left(x_2\right)\right]},$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{(T)}q`$ denotes a polarized distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }_Tq`$ depending on the longitudinal or transverse polarization. If the large $`x_F`$ ($`=x_1x_2`$) region is considered, the ratio becomes

$$R_{pd}\left(x_F1\right)=\frac{1}{2}\left[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}\overline{d}\left(x_2\right)}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{\left(T\right)}\overline{u}\left(x_2\right)}\right]_{x_20},$$
(5)
which is directly proportional to the flavor asymmetry ratio. It indicates that the flavor asymmetry could be measured especially at large $`x_F`$.

### 2.3 Comments on other processes

We have discussed the PDF studies by the Drell-Yan processes; however, there are other possibilities. For example, $`J/\psi `$ production could be used for investigating the antiquark flavor asymmetry . Furthermore, the process is known to be sensitive to the gluon distribution, so that the production measurements could impose constraints on the unpolarized and polarized gluon distributions.

On the other hand, the feasibility of direct photon measurements has not been studied for the JHF project. Since the beam energy is not high, direct photons from perturbative processes could be mixed with other background contributions. However, if the measurements are possible, the JHF contributes to the gluon determination at medium $`x`$. Several years ago, the CDF (Collider Detector at Fermilab) group reported anomalous events in their jet cross sections for the $`p+\overline{p}`$ reaction at $`\sqrt{s}=1.8`$ TeV. Because they cannot be explained by the next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD, the events were considered to be a signature beyond the current theoretical framework . However, it was revealed that the gluon distribution at large $`x`$ could be the reason for the discrepancy from the QCD prediction. In fact, according to Ref. , the events could be explained by a gluon enhancement at large $`x`$. We think that unexpected events for new physics should be found at extremely large $`Q^2`$, which inevitably means large $`x`$. As shown by the anomalous CDF events and also similar ones at HERA, the PDFs at large $`x`$ should be known precisely in order to find any exotic signatures. In this sense, the JHF has potential to contribute to such a large $`x`$ determination.

## 3 Neutrino factory

In addition to the primary proton beam, there is another passibility for the PDF studies at JHF by using neutrinos from accelerated muons. It is called a neutrino factory. Its feasibility studies are still at the early stage. However, we hope that at least one of the neutrino factory plans in Europe, USA, and Japan will be realized. At this stage, a 30 GeV neutrino factory is considered as a possibility within the 50 GeV proton ring. In neutrino-nucleon scattering, the Bjorken scaling variable is given by $`x=Q^2/(2M_N\nu )`$, where $`M_N`$ is the nucleon mass and $`\nu `$ is the energy transfer. In order to be considered as DIS data, $`Q^2`$ should be larger than at least 1 GeV2, and $`\nu `$ should be smaller than the neutrino beam energy. Therefore, the minium $`x`$ is $`x_{min}=1/(2130)0.017`$. In the following, we discuss nucleon and nuclear PDF studies at such a neutrino facility.

### 3.1 Comments on unpolarized structure functions in the nucleon

There have been already measurements of neutrino DIS. In fact, the data have been included in the unpolarized PDF parametrizations. Especially, the opposite sign dimuon events are crucial for the determination of the strange quark distribution, and $`F_3`$ structure functions are valuable for the valence-quark distributions. In the recent parametrization, the CCFR (Columbia-Chicago-Fermilab-Rochester) data have been used. It should be, however, noticed that the target is iron instead of the proton. Although some nuclear corrections, which are suggested by nuclear $`F_2`$ modification, are applied, it is not obvious that proper PDFs in the “nucleon” have been extracted from the CCFR iron data. A future neutrino factory could clarify the distributions in the nucleon if the proton and deuteron targets could be used with an intense neutrino beam.

### 3.2 Polarized structure functions

Polarized structure functions $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$ have been measured by electron and muon DIS. In the neutrino scattering, there are additional ones, $`g_3`$, $`g_4`$, and $`g_5`$, due to a parity-violation nature of the reaction. These additional structure functions have not been measured experimentally, and there are not sufficient theoretical studies. It is typically reflected in confusing definitions of $`g_3`$, $`g_4`$, and $`g_5`$. Various definitions are summarized in Ref. , where we notice that someone’s $`g_3`$ structure function could be $`g_5`$ for some others and vice versa. In reading the papers on these structure functions, one should be careful about their definitions. In the following, the conventions of Ref.  are used. In the leading order (LO), they are related to the polarized parton distributions as

$`(g_4^{\nu p}+g_5^{\nu p})/2x`$ $`=g_3^{\nu p}=(\mathrm{\Delta }d+\mathrm{\Delta }s\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{u}\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{c}),`$
$`(g_4^{\overline{\nu }p}+g_5^{\overline{\nu }p})/2x`$ $`=g_3^{\overline{\nu }p}=(\mathrm{\Delta }u+\mathrm{\Delta }c\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{d}\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{s}).`$ (6)
Combining these structure functions, we have

$`g_3^{\nu p}+g_3^{\overline{\nu }p}=`$ $`(\mathrm{\Delta }u_v+\mathrm{\Delta }d_v)(\mathrm{\Delta }s\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{s})(\mathrm{\Delta }c\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{c}),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[g_3^{\overline{\nu }(p+n)}g_3^{\nu (p+n)}]=`$ $`(\mathrm{\Delta }s+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{s})(\mathrm{\Delta }c+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{c}).`$ (7)
The differences $`\mathrm{\Delta }s\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{s}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }c\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{c}`$ are expected to be small, so that the first combination $`g_3^{\nu p}+g_3^{\overline{\nu }p}`$ could be used for determining the polarized valence-quark distributions. The second combination $`g_3^{\overline{\nu }(p+n)}g_3^{\nu (p+n)}`$ is sensitive to the strange and charm distributions.

There is additional importance in the neutrino scattering. The quark spin content of the nucleon has been controversial for a decade. The EMC finding initiated many theoretical and experimental investigations. Despite such efforts, the spin content $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is not still clear. As shown in Fig. 3, the obtained antiquark distributions have different $`x`$ dependence in the small $`x`$ region due to the lack of small $`x`$ data. It makes the determination of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ rather difficult. In fact, the obtained $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ ranges from 5% to 30% depending on the models in Fig. 3. In order to clarify $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, the neutrino reactions are very useful. The $`g_1`$ structure functions are expressed in the parton model as

$`g_1^{\nu p}=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }d+\mathrm{\Delta }s+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{u}+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{c},`$
$`g_1^{\overline{\nu }p}=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }u+\mathrm{\Delta }c+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{d}+\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{s}.`$ (8)
Combining these expressions, we find

$$𝑑x(g_1^{\nu p}+g_1^{\overline{\nu }p})=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma },$$
(9)
in the LO. Although there are NLO and higher-order corrections, the spin content could be obtained directly without resorting to low-energy semi-leptonic data for fixing the first moments of the valence-quark distributions.

In this way, if the neutrino factory is realized in future at JHF, it could contribute to the high-energy spin physics significantly.

### 3.3 Nuclear structure functions

We mentioned that many of the actual neutrino data are taken for the iron target, so that neutrino-nucleus DIS data already exist. However, experimental nuclear modification has not been discussed seriously for the neutrino reactions because accurate deuteron data are not obtained yet. At the neutrino factory, accurate deuteron data are expected. It is especially interesting to investigate nuclear $`F_3`$ structure functions which are specific for parity-violating neutrino scattering. For example, combining functions of different reactions, we obtain

$$\frac{1}{4}[F_3^{\nu (p+n)}+F_3^{\overline{\nu }(p+n)}]=u_v+d_v+(s\overline{s})+(c\overline{c})u_v+d_v,$$
(10)
for investigating the valence-quark distributions.

The nuclear PDFs can be determined by analyzing nuclear DIS data together with the Drell-Yan data . The obtained valence-quark distributions are shown in Fig. 4, where the curves indicate $`q_v^{Ca}/q_v^D`$. The dashed curve is obtained by removing the Drell-Yan data from the analysis data set. The neutrino factory should provide strong constraints on the $`x`$ dependence in the region $`x>0.02`$. In addition, if the beam energy is large enough, the shadowing region could be probed. In the $`F_2`$ structure functions for the electron and muon DIS, the shadowing phenomenon is well known. However, there is no experimental information on the $`F_3`$ shadowing. Although the valence-quark distributions are constrained by the baryon number and charge, there is no strong restriction on the small $`x`$ behavior. In principle, anti-shadowing is not completely ruled out in the present situation. Experimental measurements of the $`F_3`$ shadowing or anti-shadowing phenomenon are important for understanding high-energy nuclear reactions precisely .

## 4 Summary

We have explained possible measurements of structure functions and parton distribution functions in the nucleon and nuclei at JHF. There are two possibilities. On is to use the primary proton beam, and the other is to use the neutrino factory. These facilities should provide important data, which cannot be obtained by other laboratories. The Drell-Yan measurements should clarify the antiquark distributions at medium $`x`$, especially the flavor asymmetry ratios $`\overline{u}/\overline{d}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{u}/\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{d}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_T\overline{u}/\mathrm{\Delta }_T\overline{d}`$. Furthermore, nuclear antiquark distributions should be determined in the medium $`x`$ region. We hope that feasibility of other processes, such as the charmonium and direct-photon productions, will be seriously studied in the near future.

The Japanese neutrino factory has been considered at JHF. Although long baseline physics (neutrino oscillation) has been rather well studied in the Japanese particle physics community, short baseline physics (hadron structure) has not been well discussed. The facility could be important for finding the details of the polarized PDFs especially in connection with the quark spin content. There are also new structure functions $`g_3`$, $`g_4`$, and $`g_5`$ which do not exit in the electron and muon scattering. Furthermore, the nuclear valence-quark distributions should be clarified by the $`F_3`$ structure functions in nuclei. It is particularly interesting to find whether the $`F_3`$ shadowing is similar to the observed $`F_2`$ shadowing.

* Email: kumanos@cc.saga-u.ac.jp. URL: http://hs.phys.saga-u.ac.jp.