text:
# Magnetic character of the empty density of states in uranium compounds from X-ray magnetic circurlar dichroism

## I Introduction

In recent years uranium compounds have been the subject of increasing interest because their ground state exhibits a variety of physical properties. They can be Pauli paramagnets or display an ordered magnetic state. The electronic correlations can be very large as revealed by a strong heavy fermion character or Kondo effect . Even more surprising, at low temperature four uranium compounds are both superconductors and magnetic at ambient pressure .

Although the 5$`f`$ electrons of metallic uranium compounds are more easily treated in a localized magnetism framework, their hybridization with the conduction and ligand electrons can not be neglected . Their ground state properties reflect the competition between at least four types of interactions of about the same strength: Coulomb and exchange, crystal field, hybridization and spin-orbit coupling. Due to the complexity of the physics involved, a complete understanding of an uranium compound has not yet been achieved.

In comparison to the vast theoretical literature on the 5$`f`$ electronic properties, experimental microscopic information is scarce. It is usually obtained from photoemission, de Haas-Van Alphen measurements, neutron scattering and muon spin spectroscopy. With the advent of third generation synchrotron radiation sources, new experimental techniques have become available, such as x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) . This paper presents a discussion of published XMCD spectra recorded at the M4,5 edges of uranium atoms in metallics uranium compounds. Our interest here is to compare the XMCD spectra with the purpose to find relations between their characteristics and the electronic structure of the compounds.

## II The x-ray magnetic circular dichroism data

We recall that the XMCD technique consists of recording two spectra at the absorption edges of a spin-orbit split core state chosen to probe the electronic state of interest. The two spectra differ by the handedness of the circularly polarized light used to record them. Information about the $`5f`$ uranium states can be obtained by performing measurements at the uranium M4,5 edges.

The XMCD technique is known to provide information on the orbital and spin magnetic moments through the use of sum rules which only involve the integrated intensity of the absorption and dichroic spectra, i.e. they are independent of the shape of the XMCD spectra. However, measurements of twelve uranium compounds show that in fact the shape at the M5 edge depends strongly on the compound. This is illustrated by two examples in Fig. 1. The dichroism at the M4 edge consists always of a single negative lobe that has no distinct structure. On the other hand, two strong lobes, a positive and a negative one, or a single lobe, can be observed at the M5 edge. In fact, a double-lobe structure is detected for UPd2Al3 , UBe13 and UPt3 , U0.3La0.7S and U0.4La0.6S  and UGe2 . It does not exist (or the second lobe is very small compared to the first one) for the following six compounds: US , USb0.5Te0.5 , UFe2 , URu2Si2 , URhAl  and U0.6La0.4S . XMCD measurements on UNi2Al3 were performed but the signal intensity at the M5 was too small to determine its shape .

We quantify the shape of the XMCD spectra at the M5 edge in Table I by the ratio $`R_a`$ of the algebraic area of the two lobes and the relative energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ at which the dichroism signal vanishes between them. The parameters introduced to characterize the XMCD response are defined in Fig. 2. When known, we also list in the table the Sommerfeld coefficient which is a measure of the density of states at the Fermi level and which is usually taken as a gauge of electronic correlations between the conduction electrons, i.e. larger is $`\gamma `$, stronger are these correlations. However, mechanisms other than electronic correlations can contribute to $`\gamma `$ such as an appreciable low lying crystal field energy level density. We note a remarkable correlation between the values of $`\gamma `$ and of both $`R_a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$: when $`\gamma `$ is large, the two lobes are clearly defined ($`R_a0`$) and the point between the two lobes at which the XMCD spectrum vanishes is shifted to the left of the maximum of the absorption spectrum ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E0`$). To understand these results we first discuss the physical meaning of the XMCD measurements.

## III Implications on the electronic density of states

Due to the selection rules for dipolar electronic transitions induced by light, the structure at the M5 edge of the dichroic resonance provides information on the magnetic character of the density of states (DOS) above the Fermi level .

We recall that the M4 (M5) edge corresponds to $`3d_{3/2}(3d_{5/2})5f`$ transitions. The M4 absorption signal is proportional to the number of $`f_{5/2}`$ holes, while the M5 absorption signal depends primarily on the number of $`f_{7/2}`$ holes. Since the XMCD technique uses circular polarized light, the dichroism contains information about the magnetic character of the sublevels in the DOS.

We first use the atomic picture with the $`jj`$-coupling. For both M4 and M5 edges, within the conventions adopted, the unoccupied sublevels above the Fermi level with negative magnetic quantum number $`m_j`$ give a positive dichroism signal and those with positive $`m_j`$ values a negative one. Qualitatively, it is expected that the two or three $`f`$ electrons (the valency of the compounds under interest is expected to be between $`+4`$ and $`+3`$) mainly occupy the sublevels with negative $`m_{5/2}`$, i.e. $`5/2`$, $`3/2`$ and $`1/2`$, so that most of the hole density is in sublevels with positive $`m_{5/2}`$ values.

With this background, we expect to observe an essentially negative dichroic signal at the M4 edge. Such a feature has been systematically observed for all uranium compounds.

We now consider the M5 edge. The energy sequence of the $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels is opposite to the $`m_{5/2}`$ one: the negative $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels are located at higher energy relative to the positive $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels. This reflects the gain in energy due to the alignment of the spin with the exchange field. Perturbations such as hybridization mix levels with same $`m_j`$ values. Crystal-field, Coulomb and exchange interactions mix levels of similar $`m_s`$ and ml values. Since, within the $`j=5/2`$ levels, the negative $`m_{5/2}`$ sublevels are mostly occupied, it results that the negative $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels are also preferably electron occupied. Therefore, a relatively strong negative lobe at low energy is expected and an eventual weak positive lobe at high energy is possible. These predictions of the atomic model provide a qualitative understanding of the results for the last six compounds of Table I. In the case where the energy splitting of the $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels is small compared to the intrinsic width of the electronic transition (given by the core hole lifetime), the observation of a single lobe remains, of course, expected.

Now, for the first six compounds of Table I, we observe a redistribution of weight between the two lobes. This remarkable feature first implies that the energy splitting within the $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels is large. The high-energy lobe is even the more intense lobe for the first three compounds. This means that the negative $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels are less electron occupied than expected from the atomic $`jj`$-coupling point of view, i.e. the density of empty negative $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels is larger than expected.

We have already pointed out that the compounds with a large $`R_a`$ ratio, i.e. with two lobes, have their $`E_1`$ shifted to an energy smaller than $`E_0`$. We do not have yet an understanding of this effect. Interestingly, we note that the majority of the spectral weight is at an energy smaller than $`E_0`$ for all the compounds, i.e. even for those exhibiting only one lobe. Probably, the observation of the two lobes and of the shift of $`E_1`$ reflect the same physics.

To understand the origin of the double-lobe, we may leave the $`jj`$-coupling scheme and work in the intermediate coupling scheme which allows a mixing of negative $`m_{5/2}`$ with positive $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels. The breakdown of the $`jj`$-coupling scheme for the double-lobe compounds means that the hybridization, Coulomb and exchange and crystal field energies can no longer be taken as a perturbation relative to the 5$`f`$ spin-orbit interaction for these compounds. Indeed, it has been shown that, for example, a crystal field of 1 eV or larger can lead to a double-lobe structure . Although such a strong crystal field is not realistic, it shows that the breaking of the $`jj`$-coupling approximation leads to the double-lobe structure.

Instead of starting from the atomic picture, one may use a band-like approach as done by Shishidou and co-workers . In fact, their computation for US yields a weak high-energy lobe as found experimentally. The band-like picture seems to be appropriate for the compounds with a double-lobe structure because of their large Sommerfeld coefficient which means that their density at the Fermi level is large. However, no matter the starting point of the description, i.e. the atomic or the band limit, our previous conclusion that the double-lobe structure is a signature of a relative large density of empty negative $`m_{7/2}`$ sublevels is a robust result since it arises basically from the selection rules for x-ray induced atomic transitions.

## IV Conclusion

Many experimental methods such as bulk techniques, neutron scattering and $`\mu `$SR spectroscopy have suggested that strongly electronically correlated uranium compounds can be thought of as systems with two components: conduction electrons and local moments. UPd2Al3  seems to be the cleanest example with two localized $`5f`$ electrons per uranium in the U4+ state responsible for the measured magnetic moment, while the remaining $`5f`$ electron density is itinerant. UBe13  and UPt3  are other two examples of the localized-itinerant duality, although for these two compounds there is no magnetic moment (UBe13) or it is very small (UPt3). Recently, UGe2 has been found to be similar to UPd2Al3 . The XMCD results suggest that the low-energy lobe arises from the U4+ state under the influence of the crystal field  and the high-energy lobe is a signature of the itinerant component. Within this picture, the latter component has a strong $`m_{7/2}`$ character, in particular for UPd2Al3. Clearly, band structure computations are needed to test our suggestion.


format: text

text:
# Quantum gravity as a consistent local field theory

## 1 Introduction

There is the only physical argument for the development of string, superstring and M-theories with extended objects in spaces with extra dimensions as well as some other popular topics of mathematical physics . The motivation is the problem on a consistent local quantum field theory of gravitational interactions, since, under the quantization, the classic Einstein–Hilbert action for the gravitational field leads to the nonrenormalizable theory. The nonrenormalizability implies that the quantum loop corrections cannot be calculated in terms of finite number of physical parameters determining the coupling constant of interaction and the normalization of fields. Instead of that, some infinite set of constants appears in the series of operators with growing powers of energy. In this way, a small contribution of such corrections as observed empirically, can be explained by the fact that the standard gravitational interaction is the particular contribution giving the valid description in the restricted region of energy, only. This contribution is originated from a consistent full theory, so that the matching of full theory parameters with the couplings of higher operators results in the suppression of higher operators. The physical reason for the nonrenormalizability is caused by the dimension of gravitational constant determining the interaction of dynamical metric field with the energy-momentum tensor. The presence of fundamental dimensional parameter can be naturally introduced111In the renormalizable gauge theories with local, point-like, fields the dimensional quantities appear due to the spontaneous breaking of symmetry or in the dimensional transmutation in the renormalization group, but in the bare lagrangians. in the theories with the extended objects like the strings, membranes and so on, so that the consistent quantization of such the objects222We mean the quantization with no anomalies. can be done only in the spaces of higher dimensions. In this way, the principles of renormalizability and gauge invariance lose their fundamental role in the construction of action and become auxiliary in the reduction of the theory to the observed four-dimensional world. Thus, the quantum gravity makes the question on the principal consistency and completeness of local field theory.

In this paper we develop the idea by Utiyama on the gauge invariance of gravitational interactions  and show how the action quadratic in the strength tensor is reduced to the standard Einstein–Hilbert action with the massless gravitons in the low-energy limit under the spontaneous breaking of symmetry by introducing an ansatz for the vacuum state. As was demonstrated by Stelle , the introduction of terms quadratic in the Riemannian tensor of curvature provides the renormalizability of quantum theory, that is rather natural for the general nonabelian gauge theory. Therefore, we get the real possibility to solve the problem on the formulation of quantum gravity in the framework of local field theory.

## 2 Spontaneous breaking of symmetry

The starting point of consideration is the action of spin-connection gauge-field $`𝒜`$ interacting with the spinor $`\theta `$,

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathrm{det}[h]d^4x\left\{\frac{1}{4g_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}_{\mu \nu ,mn}^{\mu \nu ,mn}+\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}[\overline{\theta }(x)\overline{\sigma }^\mu _\mu \theta (x)+\theta (x)\sigma ^\mu \overline{}_\mu \overline{\theta }(x)]\right\}},`$ (1)
where we accept the usual notations in the textbook by Wess and Bagger , $`h_m^\mu `$ is a tetrad, $`g_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$ is a coupling constant of the gauge interaction. The lagrangian in (1) is invariant under the local gauge transformations by the group SL$`(2,)`$ acting on the Weyl spinors

$$\begin{array}{cccccc}\hfill \theta ^{}& =& M\theta ,\hfill & \hfill \overline{\theta }^{}& =& \overline{\theta }M^{},\hfill \\ \hfill \sigma ^\mu & =& M\sigma ^\mu M^{},\hfill & \hfill \overline{\sigma }^\mu & =& [M^{}]^1\overline{\sigma }^\mu M^1,\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
whereas the infinitesimal transformations with the parameters $`\omega _{mn}`$

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill M=1+\sigma ^{nm}\omega _{nm},& & \\ \hfill [M^{}]^1=1+\overline{\sigma }^{nm}\omega _{nm},& & \end{array}\omega _{nm}0,$$
(3)
are given by the generators

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill [\sigma ^{nm}]_\alpha ^\beta & =& \frac{1}{4}\left[\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^n\overline{\sigma }^{m\dot{\alpha }\beta }\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^m\overline{\sigma }^{n\dot{\alpha }\beta }\right],\hfill \\ \hfill [\overline{\sigma }^{nm}]_{\dot{\beta }}^{\dot{\alpha }}& =& \frac{1}{4}\left[\overline{\sigma }^{n\dot{\alpha }\beta }\sigma _{\beta \dot{\beta }}^m\overline{\sigma }^{m\dot{\alpha }\beta }\sigma _{\beta \dot{\beta }}^n\right].\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
which satisfy the ordinary commutation relations for the spin operators. The covariant derivatives on the left-handed and right-handed chiral spinors

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill _{\mu \alpha }^\beta & =& \delta _\alpha ^\beta _\mu +𝒜_{\mu ,nm}\sigma _\alpha ^{nm\beta },\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{}_{\mu \dot{\beta }}^{\dot{\alpha }}& =& \delta _{\dot{\beta }}^{\dot{\alpha }}_\mu +𝒜_{\mu ,nm}\overline{\sigma }_{\dot{\beta }}^{nm\dot{\alpha }},\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
determine the strength tensor of gauge field $`𝒜`$

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill [_\mu ,_\nu ]& =& _{\mu \nu ,mn}\sigma ^{mn},\hfill \\ \hfill [\overline{}_\mu ,\overline{}_\nu ]& =& _{\mu \nu ,mn}\overline{\sigma }^{mn},\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
so that

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill _{\mu \nu ,mn}& =& _\mu 𝒜_{\nu ,mn}_\nu 𝒜_{\mu ,mn}+2(𝒜_{\mu ,mk}𝒜_{\nu ,ln}𝒜_{\nu ,mk}𝒜_{\mu ,ln})g^{kl}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
The Noether current, which follows from the gauge invariance under the change of equivalent representations of spinor algebra, has the form

$$j^{\mu ,nm}=\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}[\overline{\theta }(x)\overline{\sigma }^\mu \sigma ^{nm}\theta (x)+\theta (x)\sigma ^\mu \overline{\sigma }^{nm}\overline{\theta }(x)].$$
(8)
In the Pauli gauge for the $`\sigma `$-matrices, $`\sigma ^\mu =(1,𝝈)`$, we get

$$j^{\mu ,nm}=\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\mu nm\nu }j^\lambda g_{\nu \lambda },j^\lambda =\overline{\theta }\overline{\sigma }^\lambda \theta .$$
(9)
Further, in the usual way we can derive the current conservation and the Slavnov–Taylor identities (see discussions in the extended version of ).

Introduce some nonzero vacuum fields leading to the spontaneous breaking of symmetry, so that

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill _{\mu \nu ,mn}& =& _{\mu \nu ,mn}^{\mathrm{vac}}+\frac{1}{2}_{\mu \nu ,mn}[\mathrm{\Gamma }]\frac{1}{2}ϵ_{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }\frac{1}{2}_{\alpha \beta ,mn}[\mathrm{\Gamma }^D],\hfill \end{array}$$
(10)
where we suppose the following ansatz:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill _{\mu \nu ,mn}^{\mathrm{vac}}& =& (g_{\mu m}g_{\nu n}g_{\mu n}g_{\nu m})g_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2v^2ϵ_{\mu \nu mn}g_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2v^2,\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
while $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^D`$ are dynamical fields redefined in accordance with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu ,nm}=2𝒜_{\mu ,nm}`$, and $`_{\mu \nu ,mn}[𝒜]=\frac{1}{2}_{\mu \nu ,nm}[\mathrm{\Gamma }]`$, so that $`_{\mu \nu ,nm}[\mathrm{\Gamma }]`$ represents the Riemannian tensor of curvature as we will see below. Then the contribution into the lagrangian linear in the vacuum fields333We remove the terms like $`v^2ϵ^{\mu \nu mn}_{\mu \nu mn}`$, since they are equal to zero with the symmetric connection in the world indices., takes the form

$$_G=\frac{1}{2}v^2[\mathrm{\Gamma }]\frac{1}{2}v^2[\mathrm{\Gamma }^D],$$
(12)
where we have introduced the Ricci tensor $`_{\mu \nu }[\mathrm{\Gamma }]=_{\mu ,\gamma \nu }^\gamma [\mathrm{\Gamma }]`$ and the scalar curvature $`[\mathrm{\Gamma }]=_{\mu \nu }g^{\mu \nu }`$. Following Palatini , we find that the variation of action over the connection gives zero covariant derivative of metric, i.e. it leads to the metric connection expressed in terms of Cristoffel symbols for both $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^D`$, and they are coherent $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }^D`$. The variation over the metric gives the Einstein equations.

The lagrangian of (12) coincides with the Einstein–Hilbert lagrangian of general relativity, if we put $`v^2=\frac{1}{16\pi G},`$ where $`G`$ is the gravitational constant, and then

$$_G=\frac{1}{16\pi G}[\mathrm{\Gamma }].$$
(13)
Let us stress the most important features of suggested mechanism for the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry:

1. The vacuum expectation value of (11) is covariant, and it preserves the symmetry with respect to general transformations of coordinates.
2. The expression of (11) represents the sum of the Riemannian tensor for the space-time with the constant curvature (the first term) and that of dual one.
3. The field of (11) can satisfy the gauge-field equations at zero external sources, if the covariant derivative of metric is equal to zero.
4. The cosmological constant caused by the term quadratic in the vacuum strength-tensor, is equal to zero.

## 3 Conclusion

In this paper we have considered an ansatz for the vacuum state leading to the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry in the theory with the spin connection. To the linear approximation in the background vacuum fields this mechanism leads to the Einstein–Hilbert action for the gravitons. Therefore, we find the opportunity to solve the problem on the formulation of quantum gravity in the framework of local field theory.

If there are no anomalies, the gauge invariance insures the renormalizability of the theory. However, we have to point out the necessity of investigations concerning for massive modes appearing under the spontaneous breaking of symmetry, the canonical quantization and the role of duality, which is discussed in the extended version . In addition, the nonabelian character of gauge group leads to the asymptotic freedom of running coupling constant in the renormalization group. Thus, the principal idea on the quantum gravity supposed in this paper demands a further consideration.

This work is in part supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grants 01-02-99315, 01-02-16585 and 00-15-96645.


text:
# An Upper Limit on the Temporal Variations of the Solar Interior Stratification

## 1 Introduction

Changes in the frequency of the solar $`p`$-mode oscillations have now been observed for more than a decade. Such changes affect both the central frequencies, $`\nu _n\mathrm{}`$, and the frequency splittings, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{n\mathrm{}m}`$ of low degree (Jiménez-Reyes et al., 2001), intermediate degree (Howe et al., 1999; Dziembowski et al., 2000) and very high degree modes (Rajaguru et al., 2001). A number of mechanisms have been proposed to explain these variations on frequency. Libbrecht & Woodard (1990) have argued, on the basis of observations of intermediate degree modes, that the source of the perturbations must lie near the solar surface. Gough & Thompson (1988) and Paternó (1990) concluded that magnetic fields located near the base of the convection zone, with strengths significantly lower than $`10^6`$ G have no observable effect on $`p`$-mode frequencies. The stability analysis for magnetic fields by Moreno-Insertis et al. (1992) has shown that fields with strengths significantly larger than $`10^5`$ G cannot be stored in this region.

The $`p`$-mode frequency variations track rather well the changes of the activity strength of the solar cycle with time. It is thus plausible that these frequency shifts are due to variations of the mean magnetic field near the photosphere (Gough & Thompson, 1988; Goldreich et al., 1991). The influence of thin magnetic fibrils on the frequency shifts has been investigated by Bogdan & Zweibel (1985). Another possible cause for these frequency shifts is the presence of sunspots during solar activity (Braun et al., 1992). The dominant effect of sunspots on the propagation of acoustic waves is believed to be the dissipation of the acoustic energy and therefore, should decrease their amplitudes and lifetimes (Hindman & Brown, 1998; Rajaguru et al., 2001), while it has been observed that frequencies increase with increased magnetic activity.

In the work presented here, we explore a mechanism first suggested by Kuhn (1988), in which the sound speed perturbation associated to the observed changes of the photospheric latitudinal temperature distribution might be responsible for the frequency shifts seen during the solar cycle. Changes in the temperature distribution are themselves due to the heat transport through the convection zone induced by the solar dynamo.

Let us suppose that there is a magnetic field anchored below the base of the convection zone. To maintain pressure equilibrium, the gas pressure and thus the density inside the magnetized region must be lower than in its surroundings. The magnetized fluid will thus experience a larger radiative heating and therefore the temperature at the top of the magnetized region will increase. This will also induce a change in the temperature gradient that could be large enough to make the region above the magnetic field convectively unstable. In such a scenario, the base of the convection zone would locally drop, allowing the magnetized fluid to ascend by convective upflows, transporting excess entropy to the photosphere (Kuhn & Stein, 1996).

Numerical experiments by Kuhn & Stein (1996) have shown that entropy perturbations in the deep convection zone can produce strongly peaked temperature changes in regions below $`\tau =1`$ that have a substantial acoustic signature (where $`\tau `$ is the optical depth). They have also shown that the thermal perturbations that account for the solar acoustic variability are consistent with the observed solar irradiance and luminosity changes that occur during the 11 year solar cycle.

Luminosity changes, even if no larger than $`0.1\%`$, must come from the release of energy stored somewhere in the solar interior and must be accompanied by a change in the solar radius. The ratio between relative luminosity and radius changes, hereafter $`W`$, can help estimate the location of the region where this energy is stored (Gough, 2000, and references therein). Theoretical calculations indicate that $`W`$ increases when increasing the depth of the source of the variations in luminosity. For instance $`W210^4`$ if the source is located in the outer layers of the convection zone, while $`W0.5`$ if the source is located in the solar core. Unfortunately there is a large scatter in the observed values of $`W`$. Indeed, recent measurements of $`W`$ range from 0.021 as estimated by Dziembowski et al. (2001) and Antia et al. (2000a) to an upper limit of 0.08 derived by Emilio et al. (2000).

Kuhn (2000) estimated that a $`0.1\%`$ luminosity perturbation integrated over a solar cycle corresponds to about $`10^{39}`$ erg. If this energy originates in the tachocline and if the tachocline thickness is $`0.05R_{}`$, the associated relative variation in sound speed at that depth would be on the order of $`\delta c/c10^5`$ or $`10^6`$. Fractional changes in sound speed as small as $`10^4`$ are easily accessible by helioseismic inversion techniques. Some attempts to find solar-cycle variations of the sound speed asphericity and the latitude-averaged sound speed have been carried out using MDI and/or GONG data (Dziembowski et al., 2001; Howe et al., 1999; Antia et al., 2000b; Antia et al., 2001; Basu & Antia, 2001). However, none of them found any systematic variation of the solar structure at the base of the convection zone that could be associated with the presence of a local toroidal magnetic field.

We have extended the previous analysis to the latest data available, including LOWL data. Only common modes to all data sets were used, in an attempt to obtain comparable and significant results to all instruments. This way, we can give a robust upper limit on the temporal variations of the solar internal stratification during the period 1994-2001.

## 2 Inversion Technique

The inversion for solar structure, in particular sound speed $`c`$ and density $`\rho `$, are commonly based on the linearization of the equations of stellar oscillations around a reference model (Gough & Kosovichev, 1988; Dziembowski et al., 1990; Gough & Kosovichev, 1990). The differences of the structural profile between the actual sun and a model are linearly related to differences between the observed frequencies and those calculated using that model. This relation is obtained using a variational formulation for the frequencies of adiabatic oscillations. A general relation for frequency differences is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \nu _{nl}}{\nu _{nl}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^R_{}}\left[K_{c,\rho }^{nl}(r){\displaystyle \frac{\delta c}{c}}(r)+K_{\rho ,c}^{nl}(r){\displaystyle \frac{\delta \rho }{\rho }}(r)\right]𝑑r`$ (1)
$`+_{nl}^1F(\nu )+ϵ_{nl}`$
where $`\delta \nu _{nl}`$ are the frequency differences between the actual sun and the model for the mode with radial order $`n`$ and degree $`l`$, and $`ϵ_{nl}`$ the corresponding relative error. The sensitivity functions, or kernels, $`K_{c,\rho }^{nl}(r)`$ and $`K_{\rho ,c}^{nl}(r)`$ are known functions, that relate the changes in frequency to the changes in the model. The functions $`\delta c/c`$ and $`\delta \rho /\rho `$ are the unknown parameters to be inverted, i.e.: the relative difference in the sound speed and the density respectively, and $`R_{}`$ is the solar radius. The term $`_{nl}^1F(\nu _{nl})`$ in Eq. 1 is introduced to take into account the so-called surface uncertainties; these include the dynamical effects of convection on the oscillation equations, as well as non-adiabatic processes in the near-surface layers (see Dziembowski et al., 1990, and references therein).

Following standard procedures, we represent $`F(\nu _{nl})`$ as a Legendre polynomial expansion. $`_{nl}`$ is the inertia of the mode, normalized by the inertia that a radial mode of the same frequency would have (for more details, see Gough & Thompson, 1991).

If we take $`\delta \nu _{nl}`$ as the differences in the observed frequencies at two different epochs, rather than the differences in frequency between the actual sun and the model, $`\delta c/c`$ and $`\delta \rho /\rho `$ represent the variation with time of the sun’s internal structure, as long as our underlying theoretical model is very close to the actual sun.

The inverse problem defined by Eq. 1 is well known to be an ill-posed problem (Thompson, 1995), whose solution is not unique. It can be solved using inversion methodologies that can be classified in two different techniques: the regularized least-squares methods (RLS, see Craig & Brown, 1986) and the optimal localized average methods (OLA, Backus & Gilbert, 1968). Both methods compute an estimate of the solution at a target location from a linear combinations of the observables, given a mesh of target locations. We have developed a variant of the RLS technique, that we call the optimal mesh distribution (OMD), that optimizes the mesh of target locations to avoid undesired high-frequency oscillations of the solution. This optimization is achieved by computing a priori the spatial resolution of the solution from the set of available observables and their uncertainties (Eff-Darwich & Pérez-Hernández, 1997). The smoothing function is itself defined also from the spatial resolution analysis and it is weighted differently for each radial point. This method ensures that the smoothing constraint is properly applied over the optimal mesh.

## 3 Observational Data

The observational data consist of mode frequencies computed from time series spanning different epochs and observed with different instruments. Namely, 57 sets based on 108-day-long time series derived from the GONG instruments (Leibacher et al., 1996) and spanning May 1995 to February 2001; 27 sets based on 72-day-long time series derived from the MDI instrument (Schou, 1999) and spanning May 1996 to November 2001; and 6 sets based on 1-year-long time series derived from the LOWL instrument (Jiménez-Reyes, 2000; Tomczyk et al., 1995) and spanning 1994 to 1999.

In order to use consistent data sets, only the modes common to all the sets for a given instrument were taken into account. As a consequence, the low degree modes $`(l<13)`$ present in some GONG data sets had to be rejected. Also this selection reduces the number of MDI and LOWL modes by $`30\%`$ and $`4\%`$ respectively.

The MDI and LOWL sets were further reduced to only include the modes common to both instruments. This was not done with the GONG data set due to the small amount of common modes present. Finally, and again for consistency, we deliberately restricted range of degrees we included to correspond to the highest degree available in the LOWL data set (i.e., $`l100`$).

For each instrument and for each mode we computed the temporal frequency average. We subsequently subtracted the respective averaged frequencies from each set, leaving us with frequency changes with respect to this temporal average as a function of epoch. For the GONG and MDI sets, we also computed averages corresponding to 1-year-long epochs. Such averaging reduced the scatter of the data while producing data sets comparable to the LOWL sets.

## 4 Results

Figure 1 shows the relative change of the sound speed as a function of radius inferred from 1-year-long MDI, GONG and LOWL sets. These profiles show no significant changes at the level of a few times $`10^5`$. The precision and resolution of the inversion is good enough to detect small variations of the stratification at the base of the convection zone. This is demonstrated in Fig. 2, where we show the sound speed profiles inferred from the 1996 averaged MDI, GONG and LOWL data sets as well as sound speed profiles obtained by inverting the same mode sets, but after injecting frequency changes that result from a perturbation in the sound speed (as small as $`3\times 10^6`$ and $`3\times 10^5`$) between $`0.68`$ and $`0.70R_{}`$. This figure indicates that a perturbation of the sound speed at the base of the convection zone on the order of, or slightly smaller than $`5\times 10^5`$, can be detected with the current precision resulting from 1-year-long time-series. Perturbations on the order of $`10^6`$ fall in the noise level of our inversions.

In an attempt to find temporal variations of the solar stratification at the base of the convection zone, we computed the mean value of $`\delta c/c`$ in the radial interval $`0.69r/R_{}0.72`$. This interval contains not only the base of the convection zone, $`r0.7133R_{}`$ (Basu & Antia, 2001), but also the tachocline, $`r0.691R_{}`$ (Corbard et al., 1999), both closely related to the toroidal magnetic field responsible of the solar cycle. The resulting values are shown as a function of time in Fig. 3, for the inversions based on 1-year-long sets for all three instruments (GONG, MDI and LOWL), as well as on the GONG 108-day-long and MDI 72-day-long sets.

Inversion profiles inferred from any linear inversion technique always correspond to the convolution of the underlying solution by the resolution kernel (Thompson, 1995). Therefore, even if the mode set used in a sequence of inversions remains identical, the resolution kernels will, at some level, change with time since the uncertainties change with time. Such variation could produce an apparent temporal behavior of the inferred profiles that does not correspond to a real variation of the underlying true solution. To quantify this effect, we computed the averaging kernels at $`r=0.69R_{}`$ for all the inversions based on 1-year-long data sets. These were convolved with an artificial sound speed perturbation of the form:

$$\frac{\delta c}{c}=\{\begin{array}{cc}3\times 10^5\hfill & \text{for }0.67r/R_{}0.71\hfill \\ 5\times 10^5\hfill & \text{for }0.91r/R_{}0.93\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
where the sound speed perturbation centered at $`0.92R_{}`$ attempts to reproduce the results found by Dziembowski et al. (2000); Antia et al. (2001), while a second perturbation at the base of the convection zone is also introduced. The convolutions $`q_{r_o}(t)`$ are then calculated in the following way:

$$q_{r_o}(t)=K(r,r_o,t)\frac{\delta c(r)}{c(r)}𝑑r$$
(3)
The resulting values of $`q_{r_o}(t)`$, at $`r_o=0.69R_{}`$, relative to the average $`q_{av}`$ of all the convolutions calculated for every instrument, are shown in Fig. 4. This figure demonstrates that for the data from all three instruments the effect of the changes in the observed uncertainties on the inverted profiles is negligible, corresponding to levels well below $`10^7`$.

The averaging kernel corresponding to the solution at $`r=0.69R_{}`$ obtained from the 1997 MDI data set is shown in the right panel of Fig. 5. This is well located and indicates that our radial resolution corresponds to $`0.04R_{}`$. We should also point out that the averaging kernels have an important negative non-local contribution near the surface, a feature that affect at some level the solution at the base of the convection zone. The effect of this non-local component of the averaging kernels was quantified, in the case of MDI and GONG data, by performing inversions with data sets expanded to higher degrees, i.e., up to $`l=150`$. The averaging kernel at $`r=0.69R_{}`$ obtained from the MDI 1997 data shows a substantial reduction of the negative component located at $`r0.90R_{}`$ when including higher degree modes. But the temporal behavior of the stratification at the base of the convection zone do not significantly differ when the MDI data sets are expanded from $`l100`$ to $`l150`$, as illustrated in the left panel of Fig. 5.

Therefore, by including the data from all three instruments, and after assessing the effects of temporal changes of the resolution of the solutions, we can safely conclude that there is not significant systematic variations of the stratification at the base of the convection zone at the level of $`3\times 10^5`$, and that this upper limit is constrained by the scatter present in the data.

Vorontsov (2000) analyzed MDI data spanning from 1996 to 2000 and found systematic variations of the radial solar stratification with time, expressed as relative changes of radius of $`2\times 10^5`$. Our results obtained with MDI data are in good agreement with those found by Vorontsov (2000), in the sense that there is a systematic variation in the relative sound speed difference that is well correlated to the magnetic activity in the Sun. The maximum in solar activity corresponds to the maximum variation in sound speed. Since these results are not seen when analyzing LOWL and GONG data they should still be taken with some degree of scepticism.

## 5 Acknowledgments

The Solar Oscillations Investigation - Michelson Doppler Imager project on SOHO is supported by NASA grant NAS5–3077 at Stanford University. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

The GONG project is funded by the National Science Foundation through the National Solar Observatory, a division of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which is operated under a cooperative agreement between the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and the NSF.

The LOWL instrument has been operated by the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research which is supported by the National Science Foundation.

This work was partially supported by NASA – Stanford contract PR–6333 and by NSF grant AST–95–2177.


text:
# THE ANOMALOUS CHROMOMAGNETIC DIPOLE MOMENT OF THE TOP QUARK IN DIFFERENT FRAMEWORKS

## Abstract

We give explicit formulae for the anomalous chromomagnetic dipole moment of the top quark in the framework of the standard model, the two higgs doublet model and the minimal supersymmetric standard model. Finally, we compare the results for this coupling with the bound $`0.03\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa 0.01`$ coming from analysis of $`bs\gamma `$ process whith an on-shell gluon.

The top quark is the heaviest fermion in the standard model (SM) with a mass of $`174\pm 5.2`$ GeV. Anomalous couplings between top quark and gauge bosons might affect top quark production and its decay at high energies. On the other hand, the $`\overline{t}tg`$ coupling correction to the total top quark production cross section at Fermilab was calculated by Stange et. al. , in the framework of the SM. Since the anomalous chromomagnetic dipole moment of the top quark appears in the top quark cross section, it is possible, due to uncertainties, to estimate the constraints that it would impose on the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa `$. For the LHC, the anomalous coupling is constrained to lie in the range $`0.09\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa 0.1`$ . Also the influence of an anomalous $`\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa `$ on the cross section and associated gluon jet energy for $`t\overline{t}g`$ has been analized, it leads to a bound of $`2.1\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa 0.6`$.

Anomalous couplings of the top quark to on-shell gluons would modify the rate for $`BX_s\gamma `$ . Using the recent data from CLEO collaboration for the branching fraction of the process $`B(bs\gamma )`$ , we update the previous analysis done in reference  and get the new allowed region for the anomalous chromomagnetic dipole moment of the top quark to be $`0.03\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa 0.01`$.

Beginning with the SM, the tipical QCD correction through gluon exchange implies two different Feynman diagrams. After the explicit calculation of the loops, the final result is,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa =\frac{1}{6}\frac{\alpha _s(m_t)}{\pi }$$
(1)
where we have a factor $`1/6`$ coming from the color structure in the diagram, $`T^aT^bT^a=T^b/6`$ with $`T^a`$ the generators of $`SU(3)_C`$. The other possible contribution in the framework of the SM comes from electroweak interactions. This contribution reads

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa =\frac{\sqrt{2}G_Fm_t^2}{8\pi ^2}[H_1(m_h)+H_2(m_Z)],$$
(2)
where $`H_i(m)`$ are defined in reference .

The contributions within a general 2HDM will be different from the SM contributions because of the presence of the virtual five physical Higgs bosons which appear in any two Higgs doublet model after spontaneus symmetry breaking: $`H^0`$, $`A^0`$, $`h^0`$, $`H^\pm `$ . The expression for the contribution of the neutral Higgs bosons is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa =\frac{\sqrt{2}G_F}{8\pi ^2}[\lambda _{H^0tt}^2H_1(M_H^2)+\lambda _{h^0tt}^2H_1(M_h^2)+\lambda _{A^0tt}^2H_2(M_A^2)+\lambda _{G^0tt}^2H_2(M_Z^2)]$$
(3)
where $`\lambda _{itt}`$ are the Yukawa couplings in the so-called models type I, II and III . We show in figure 1 the allowed region (top-right) for the plane $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ vs $`m_A`$ with $`m_H=m_h=90(200)`$ GeV for the solid (dashed) line. In this case we only find cuts with the upper limit for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa `$ from $`bs\gamma `$.

Our last step is to calculate the anomalous chromomagnetic dipole moment of the top quark in the framework of the MSSM. We only consider the SUSY QCD contribution which is generated from the exchange of gluinos and sqaurks top. In this framework the SUSY QCD contribution arises from the exchange of $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{1,2}`$ and gluinos. The contribution for the virtual $`\stackrel{~}{t}_1`$ is given in ref . Again, we plot the points which are of the same order of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa `$ from $`bs\gamma `$ in the figure 1, right side.

In conclusion, the anomalous chromomagnetic dipole moment of the top quark gets the wide bound $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa |0.45`$ from the Tevatron experiments under the assumption that it is the only non-zero anomalous coupling. On the other hand, we found a more stringent bound from the transition $`bs\gamma `$, recently measured with improved precision by CLEO collaboration , and the bound is $`0.03\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa 0.01`$. Also, we have calculated the chromomagnetic dipole moment of the top quark in the framework of the SM, 2HDM and SUSY-QCD. We found that in SM the anomalous coupling is of the order of $`\pm 10^2`$ and it is tending to $`0.004`$ in the decoupling limit for the Higgs mass. Furthermore, the anomalous coupling is equal to $`7\times 10^4`$ around a Higgs mass of $`113`$ GeV that is the lower experimental limit from LEP2. Now if we keep in mind the sensitivity of future and current experiments to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa `$  a measurement of this anomalous coupling would suggest the presence of physics beyond the SM. In the 2HDM the anomalous coupling of the top quark can reach $`10^1`$ values, also gotten for the supersymmetric QCD corrections.

This work was supported by COLCIENCIAS, DIB and DINAIN.


text:
# Untitled Document

From Cbits to Qbits:

Teaching Computer Scientists Quantum Mechanics

N. David Mermin

Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-2501

A strategy is suggested for teaching mathematically literate students, with no background in physics, just enough quantum mechanics for them to understand and develop algorithms in quantum computation and quantum information theory. Although the article as a whole addresses teachers of physics, well versed in quantum mechanics, the central pedagogical development is addressed directly to computer scientists and mathematicians, with only occasional asides to their teacher. Physicists uninterested in quantum pedagogy may be amused (or irritated) by some of the views of standard quantum mechanics that arise naturally from this unorthodox perspective.

I. Computer science and quantum mechanics

These “bras” and “kets” — they’re just vectors!

— Newly enlightened computer scientist1 Speaker at second AQIP (Algorithms in quantum information theory) workshop, Chicago, January 1999.

There is a new audience for the teaching of quantum mechanics whose background and needs require a new style of quantum pedagogy. The audience consists of computer scientists. Compared with the usual students in an introductory quantum mechanics course they are mathematically sophisticated, but are often ignorant of and uninterested in physics. They want to understand the applications of quantum mechanics during the past dozen years to information processing, and their focus is exclusively on algorithms (software), not engineering (hardware).

Although the obstacles to quantum computers becoming a viable technology are formidable, the profound consequences of quantum mechanics for the theory of computation discovered during the past decade ought to be part of the intellectual equipment of every computer scientist, if only because it provides dramatic proof that the abstract analysis of computation cannot be divorced from the physical means available for its execution. Computer scientists of the future ought to learn quantum mechanics.

But how much quantum mechanics? In December 2001 I was at a conference on quantum computation and information at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara. At lunch one day I remarked to the Director of the ITP that I spent the first four or five lectures of my course2 Lecture notes and homework assignments can be found at www.ccmr.cornell.edu/ ~mermin/qcomp/CS483.html. The pedagogical approach sketched below is fleshed out in Chapter 1.  in quantum computation teaching the necessary quantum mechanics to the computer scientists in the class. His response was that any application of quantum mechanics that could be taught after only a four hour introduction to the subject, could not have serious intellectual content. After all, he remarked, it takes any physicist years to develop a feeling for quantum mechanics.

It’s a good point. Nevertheless it is a fact that computer scientists and mathematicians with no background in physics have been able quickly to learn enough quantum mechanics to understand and contribute importantly to the theory of quantum computation, even though quantum computation repeatedly exploits the most notoriously paradoxical features of the subject. There are three main reasons for this:

First, a quantum computer — or, more accurately, the abstract quantum computer that one hopes some day to be able to realize — is an extremely simple example of a physical system. It is discrete, not continuous. It is made up out of a finite number of units, each of which is the simplest possible kind of quantum mechanical system, a 2-state system, whose possible behavior is highly constrained and easily analyzed. Much of the analytical complexity of learning quantum mechanics is connected to mastering the description of continuous (infinite-state) systems in 3+1 dimensional space-time. By restricting attention to discrete transformations acting on collections of 2-state one can avoid much suffering (and lose much wisdom, none of it — at least at this stage of the art — relevant to the theory of quantum computation.)

Second, the hardest part of learning quantum mechanics is to get a good feeling for how the abstract formalism can be applied to actual phenomena in the laboratory. This almost invariably involves formulating oversimplified abstract models of the real phenomena, to which the quantum formalism can effectively be applied. The best physicists have an extraordinary intuition for what features of the actual phenomena are essential and must be represented in the abstract model, and what features are inessential and can be ignored. It takes years to develop such intuition. Some never do. The theory of quantum computation, however, is only concerned with the abstract model — the easy part of the problem.

Third, to understand how to build a quantum computer, or to study what physical systems are promising candidates for realizing such a device, you must indeed have many years of experience in quantum mechanics and its applications under your belt. But if you only want to know what such a device is capable of doing in principle, then there is no reason to get involved in the really difficult physics of the subject.3 There is also an isolated subset of quantum-computational theory called adiabatic quantum computation that requires a somewhat broader view of the quantum theory because it uses the quantum system more like an analogue than a digital compute.  The same holds for ordinary (“classical”) computers: one can be a masterful practitioner of computer science without having the foggiest notion of what a transistor is, not to mention how it works.

So while the approach to quantum mechanics for computer scientists sketched below is focused and limited in scope, it is neither oversimplified nor incomplete, for the special task for which it is designed.

II. Classical bits.

The first step in teaching quantum mechanics to computer scientists is to reformulate the language of conventional (classical) computation in an unorthodox manner that introduces much of the quantum formalism in an entirely familiar setting

To begin with, we need a term for a physical system that can exist in two unambiguously distinguishable states, which are used to represent 0 and 1. Often such a system is called a bit, but this can obscure the important distinction between the abstract bit (0 or 1) and the physical system used to represent it. If one could establish a nomenclature for the field at this late date I would argue for the term Cbit for a classical physical system used to represent a bit, in parallel with with the term Qbit for its quantum generalization. Unfortunately the ugly and orthographically preposterous term qubit currently holds sway for the quantum system, while bit is used for both the classical system and the abstract bit. On the slim chance that it is still not too late for a more sensible nomenclature, I shall indulge myself by using these two unorthodox terms.4 They are inspired by Paul Dirac’s early use of c-number and q-number to describe classical variables and their generalizations to quantum-mechanical operators. The prevailing “qubit” honors the English rule that $`q`$ should be followed by $`u`$ but ignores the equally powerful requirement that $`qu`$ should be followed by a vowel. Although qubit is pronounced “cue-bit”, it’s spelling suggests “k’bit”. No version of Cbit is in general use. Cbit and Qbit are preferable to c-bit and q-bit because the terms themselves often appear in hyphenated constructions: “multi-Qbit” is clearly preferable to the ungainly and ambiguous “multi-q-bit”.

It can be fruitful, even on the strictly classical level, to represent the two states of a Cbit by a pair of orthonormal 2-vectors, denoted by the symbols5 This notation for vectors goes back to Dirac. For reasons too silly to go into, Dirac called such vectors kets, a terminology that has survived to the present day.

$$|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}.$$
$`(1)`$
To do nontrivial computation requires more than one Cbit. It is convenient (and, as we shall see in a moment, even natural) to represent the four states of two Cbits as four orthogonal vectors in four dimensions, formed by the tensor products of two such pairs:

$$|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}.$$
$`(2)`$
One often omits the $``$, writing (2) in the more compact but equivalent form,

$$|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},$$
$`(3)`$
or, more readably,

$$|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}00}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}01}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}11},$$
$`(4)`$
or, most compactly of all, using the decimal representation of the 2-bit number represented by the pair of Cbits,

$$|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}_2|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}_2|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}_2|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}_2.$$
$`(5)`$
The subscript 2 is necessary in the last form (5) because in going from binary to decimal we lose the information of how many Cbits the vector describes, making it necessary to indicate in some other way whether $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}`$ means $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}11}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}_2`$ or $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}011}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}_3`$ or $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0011}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}_4,`$ etc.

As this last remark illustrates, one represents the states of $`n`$ Cbits as the $`2^n`$ orthonormal vectors in $`2^n`$ dimensions,

$$|x_n,0x<2^n,$$
$`(6)`$
given by the $`n`$-fold tensor products of $`n`$ mutual orthogonal pairs of orthogonal 2-vectors.

Thus, for example,

$$|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}19}_6=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}010011}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}.$$
$`(7)`$
That the tensor product is a convenient and highly appropriate way to represent multi-Cbit states becomes clear if one expands the vectors representing each Cbit as column vectors,

$$|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right),|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right).$$
$`(8)`$
The corresponding column vectors for tensor products are

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}y_0\\ y_1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}z_0\\ z_1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}y_0z_0\\ y_0z_1\\ y_1z_0\\ y_1z_1\end{array}\right),$$
$`(9)`$
$$\left(\begin{array}{c}x_0\\ x_1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}y_0\\ y_1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}z_0\\ z_1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}x_0y_0z_0\\ x_0y_0z_1\\ x_0y_1z_0\\ x_0y_1z_1\\ x_1y_0z_0\\ x_1y_0z_1\\ x_1y_1z_0\\ x_1y_1z_1\end{array}\right),$$
$`(10)`$
etc.

Thus, for example, the 8-dimensional column vector representing $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}5}_3`$ is given by

$$|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}5}_3=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}101}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 0\\ 0\\ 0\\ 0\\ 1\\ 0\\ 0\end{array}\right)\begin{array}{c}^__0\\ ^__1\\ ^__2\\ ^__3\\ ^__4\\ ^__5\\ ^__6\\ ^__7\end{array}$$
$`(11)`$
which has a 0 in every entry except for a 1 in the entry labeled by the integer 5 that the three Cbits represent.6 Label the entries by counting down 0,1,2$`\mathrm{}`$ from the top. The small numerals on the extreme right in (11) make this labeling explicit.  This general rule for the column vector representing $`|x_n`$ — 1 in position $`x`$ and 0 everywhere else — is the obvious generalization to $`n`$ Cbits of the form for a 1-Cbit column vector. It is an automatic consequence of standard tensor-product notation.

III. Operations on Cbits.

In quantum computation all operations on Qbits are reversible,7 An example of an irreversible operation is Erase: $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$. It is irreversible because one cannot reconstruct the input from the output: it has no inverse.  except for the process called “measurement” described in Section VI. Measurement plays no role in classical computation (or, perhaps more accurately, a role so trivial that it is not recognized explicitly as a part of the computational process). Since Cbit states turn out to be a (tiny) subset of Qbit states, our reformulation of classical bits and what can be done with them need only consider reversible operations on the Cbits.

There are just two reversible operations on a single Cbit:

(1) Do nothing (identity operator 1):

$$\text{1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\text{1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}.$$
$`(12)`$
(2) Flip it (flip operator X):

$$\text{X}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},\text{X}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}(\sigma _x).$$
$`(13)`$
(I have indicated in parentheses the standard physicists’ notation; quantum computer scientists prefer X to $`\sigma _x`$.)

Less trivial reversible operations are available on two Cbits. One can, for example, exchange the values of the bits they represent (swap operator S):

$$\text{S}|xy=|yx.$$
$`(14)`$
In manipulating such muti-Cbit operations it is useful to have a compact notion for the action on a many-Cbit state of operations that act on only a single one of the Cbits. One labels the Cbits by integers 0,1,2,$`\mathrm{}`$ (starting with zero on the right) associated with the power of 2 that each Cbit represents. Thus if $`x`$ has the binary expansion $`x=8x_3+4x_2+2x_1+x_0`$, then

$$|x_4=|x_3x_2x_1x_0=|x_3|x_2|x_1|x_0=|x_3|x_2|x_1|x_0.$$
$`(15)`$
An operation that acts only on Cbit #2 is

$$\text{X}_2=\text{1}\text{X}\text{1}\text{1}.$$
$`(16)`$
Clearly the subscript indicating which of the four Cbits is subject to the flip operation X is more transparent than the explicit form of the operator tensor product on the right. The subscript notation is unavoidable when large numbers of Cbits are involved. It follows from the definition of the operator tensor product that, as desired,

$$\text{X}_2\left[|x_3|x_2|x_1|x_0\right]=|x_3\left[\text{X}|x_2\right]|x_1|x_0.$$
$`(17)`$
It is possible to build up meaningful multi-Cbit operations out of single-Cbit operations that, while formally well defined, act an on individual Cbit in a way that has no meaningful classical interpretation. Here, for example, is a meaningless operation on one Cbit which can be used to build up meaningful multi-Cbit operations:

$$\text{Z}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\text{Z}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}=|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}(\sigma _z).$$
$`(18)`$
The action of Z on the state $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$, multiplying it by $`1`$, while mathematically well defined on the 2-dimensional 1-Cbit vector space, produces a vector that has no meaning within the context of Cbits. Only the two vectors $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ have meaning, as the two distinguishable states of the Cbit used to represent 0 and 1. The whole vector space of linear combinations of the two classical states is vastly under-utilized, and indeed, the whole use of a $`2^n`$ dimensional vector space when we are only interested a single set of $`2^n`$ orthonormal basis vectors could be viewed as extravagant conceptual overkill, except for the pleasing structure introduced by the column-vector representation of the tensor product. The only classically meaningful reversible operations on $`n`$ Cbits are the $`(2^n)!`$ different permutations of the $`2^n`$ basis vectors.

Nevertheless a meaningless 1-Cbit operation like Z can acquire classical meaning when used in conjunction with other such meaningless operations in a multi-Cbit context. As an important example, notice that the 2-Cbit operation $`\frac{1}{2}\left(\text{1}+\text{Z}_1\text{Z}_0\right)`$ acts as the identity on the 2-Cbit states $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$, while giving 0 (another classically meaningless output) when acting on $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ or $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$. The operation $`\frac{1}{2}\left(\text{1}\text{Z}_1\text{Z}_0\right)`$, on the other hand, acts as the identity on $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$, while giving 0 on $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$. Evidently both are projection operators in the full vector space spanned by all the 2-Cbit basis states.8 More precisely the projection operators are their linear extensions to the full space from the basis on which they are defined. Quite generally any operation whose action is defined only on the classical basis states can be identified with its linear extension to the whole vector space.  Since the operation $`\text{S}_{10}`$, which exchanges the values of Cbits $`1`$ and $`0`$, acts as the identity if their state is $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}00}`$ or $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}11}`$ and as the double-flip operator $`\text{X}_1\text{X}_0`$ if their state is $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}01}`$ or $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}`$, we are led to the following operator representation of $`\text{S}_{10}`$:

$$\text{S}_{10}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\text{1}+\text{Z}_1\text{Z}_0\right)+\text{X}_1\text{X}_0\frac{1}{2}\left(\text{1}\text{Z}_1\text{Z}_0\right),$$
$`(19)`$
or9 Note that 1-Qbit operators acting on different Qbits (like $`\text{X}_1`$ and $`\text{Z}_0`$) commute even though the 1-Qbit operators (X and Z) do not commute when acting on the same Qbit.

$$\text{S}_{10}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\text{1}+\text{Z}_1\text{Z}_0+\text{X}_1\text{X}_0\text{Y}_1\text{Y}_0\right),$$
$`(20)`$
where

$$\text{Y}=\text{X}\text{Z}\text{ }(i\sigma _y).$$
$`(21)`$
I digress to remark to physicist readers that this “classical” derivation of the exchange operator is much simpler and transparent than the standard quantum mechanical derivation10 One notes that the triplet states of two spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles are symmetric, and the singlet state is antisymmetric, so $`\text{S}_{10}=\text{P}_{\mathrm{triplet}}\text{P}_{\mathrm{singlet}}`$. Because $`s(s+1)=\left(\frac{1}{2}\sigma ^{(1)}+\frac{1}{2}\sigma ^{(0)}\right)^2,`$ in the singlet ($`s=0`$) state, $`0=\frac{3}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\sigma ^{(1)}\sigma ^{(0)}`$, so $`\sigma ^{(1)}\sigma ^{(0)}=3`$, while in every triplet ($`s=1`$) state, $`2=\frac{3}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\sigma ^{(1)}\sigma ^{(0)}`$, so $`\sigma ^{(1)}\sigma ^{(0)}=1`$. So $`\sigma ^{(1)}\sigma ^{(0)}=\text{P}_{\mathrm{triplet}}3\text{P}_{\mathrm{singlet}}`$. Since $`\text{1}=\text{P}_{\mathrm{triplet}}+\text{P}_{\mathrm{singlet}}`$, adding these last two relations together one recovers (20) in the form $`\text{1}+\sigma ^{(1)}\sigma ^{(0)}=2\text{P}_{\mathrm{triplet}}2\text{P}_{\mathrm{singlet}}=2\text{S}_{10}`$, by a considerably more learned but substantially less direct route. , which invokes the full-blown theory of angular momentum.

Another important example of a 2-Cbit operation is the controlled-NOT or reversible XOR:

$$\text{C}_{10}|x|y=\left(\text{X}_0\right)^x|x|y=|x|yx$$
$`(22)`$
(where $``$ denotes addition modulo 2), which flips Cbit 0 (the target Cbit) if and only if Cbit 1 (the control Cbit) has the value 1. We can build this operation out of 1-Qbit projections,

$$\text{C}_{10}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\text{1}+\text{Z}_1\right)+\text{X}_0\frac{1}{2}\left(\text{1}\text{Z}_1\right)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\text{1}+\text{Z}_1+\text{X}_0\text{X}_0\text{Z}_1\right).$$
$`(23)`$
In this form one sees a curious symmetry: interchanging the operations X and Z has the effect of exchanging the roles of target and control Cbit, converting $`\text{C}_{10}`$ to $`\text{C}_{01}`$.

A classically meaningless operation that can be used to perform just this interchange is the Hadamard transform

$$\text{H}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\text{X}+\text{Z})=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 1\\ 1& 1\end{array}\right).$$
$`(24)`$
This takes the Cbit states $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ into the two classically meaningless linear combinations $`\frac{1}{2}\left(|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}\pm |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\right)`$. Since

$$\text{X}^2=\text{Z}^2=\text{1},\text{X}\text{Z}=\text{Z}\text{X},$$
$`(25)`$
it follows that

$$\text{H}^2=\frac{1}{2}(\text{X}+\text{Z})^2=\text{1},\text{H}\text{X}=(\text{X}+\text{Z})\text{X}=\text{Z}(\text{X}+\text{Z})=\text{Z}\text{H},$$
$`(26)`$
and therefore

$$\text{H}\text{X}\text{H}=\text{Z},\text{H}\text{Z}\text{H}=\text{X}.$$
$`(27)`$
Consequently we can use four classically meaningless operations H to achieve a classically meaningful task: interchanging the role of target and control Cbits:

$$\text{C}_{01}=\left(\text{H}_1\text{H}_0\right)\text{C}_{10}\left(\text{H}_1\text{H}_0\right)$$

IV. Quantum bits.

We have represented the states of $`n`$ Cbits as a basis of $`2^n`$ orthonormal vectors in a $`2^n`$-dimensional vector space constructed as the $`n`$-fold tensor product of $`n`$ 2-dimensional vector spaces. While the only classically meaningful operations on these vector spaces consist of permutations of these classical basis vectors, we have been able to construct such operations, or reveal relations among them, by introducing classically meaningless operations that multiply basis vectors by scalars (in particular 0 or $`1`$) or (like the Hadamard transformation (24)) take them into non-trivial linear combinations.11 One such construction, the form (20) of the exchange operator, would achieve an even more pleasing form were we to introduce $`\sqrt{1}`$, replacing Y with $`i\text{Y}`$. This would also restore another symmetry, since $`\text{X}=\sigma _x`$, $`i\text{Y}=\sigma _y`$, and $`\text{Z}=\sigma _z`$ are all hermitian.

One is reminded of arithmetic before the introduction of $`\sqrt{1}`$. By introducing the “meaningless” quantity $`i`$ one is able to achieve great simplifications among certain relations connecting purely “meaningful” real numbers. The bold next step is to declare the meaningless to be just as meaningful, taking full advantage of the expanded number system.

A major part of quantum mechanics consists of an analogous expansion of the notion of the state of a Cbit, called in this extended setting a quantum bit or Qbit. We democratically expand the set of meaningful states from the $`2^n`$ special orthonormal states, known in this broader setting as the classical basis (or, in the prevailing but less informative terminology, the computational basis) to arbitrary unit vectors from the entire vector space consisting of all linear combinations (called superpositions) of classical basis states with complex coefficients (called amplitudes).

Thus the general state of a single Qbit is a superposition of the two classical-basis states

$$|\psi =\alpha |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}+\beta |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},$$
$`(28)`$
where the amplitudes $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are complex numbers constrained only by the normalization condition

$$|\alpha |^2+|\beta |^2=1.$$
$`(29)`$
The general state of $`n`$ Qbits has the form

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\underset{0x<2^n}{}\alpha _x|x_n,$$
$`(30)`$
with complex amplitudes constrained only by the normalization condition

$$\underset{0x<2^n}{}|\alpha _x|^2=1.$$
$`(31)`$
Physics offers many examples of physical systems — Qbits —whose natural description is in terms of states that are precisely these peculiar generalizations of the states of classical bits that expand the constrained set of classical basis vectors to the entire complex vector space that they span.12 The most elementary physical examples are the polarization states of a photon or the spin states of a spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particle. For an understanding of quantum-computational algorithms it is no more important to know about the detailed physics of such systems than it is to know about the detailed physics of transistors for an understanding of classical algorithms.

We shall return momentarily to the consequences of a set of Qbits having such nonclassical states, but the first thing to note is that by expanding the set of states from the classical basis vectors to arbitrary unit vectors in the entire space spanned by the classical basis, we have already introduced one of the most profound differences between Cbits and Qbits:

The most general possible state of two Cbits has the form

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=|x_1|x_0.$$
$`(32)`$
This can be described as a state in which Cbit #1 has the state $`|x_1`$ and Cbit #0, the state $`|x_0`$: each individual Cbit has a state of its own. On the other hand, the most general possible state of two Qbits has the form

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill |\mathrm{\Psi }& =\alpha _3|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}_2+\alpha _2|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}_2+\alpha _1|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}_2+\alpha _0|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}_2\hfill \\ & =\alpha _3|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\alpha _2|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}+\alpha _1|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\alpha _0|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(33)`$
If each Qbit had a state of its own, this 2-Qbit state would be, under the obvious generalization of the rule for multi-Cbit states, the tensor product of those two 1-Qbit states. The 2-Qbit state would thus have the general form

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill |\psi |\varphi & =\left(\alpha |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\beta |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}\right)\left(\gamma |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\delta |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}\right)\hfill \\ & =\alpha \gamma |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\alpha \delta |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}+\beta \gamma |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\beta \delta |\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(34)`$
But the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in (33) cannot have this form unless $`\alpha _3\alpha _0=\alpha _2\alpha _1`$.

So in a general multi-Qbit state each individual Qbit has no state of its own. This is the first major way in which Qbits differ from Cbits.

States of $`n`$ Qbits in which no subset of fewer than $`n`$ have states of their own are called entangled. Generic $`n`$-Qbit states are entangled. The amplitudes in the expansion (30) have to satisfy special constraints for the state to be a tensor product of states associated with fewer than $`n`$ Qbits.

V. Operations on Qbits

Quantum algorithms are built up out of operations that act linearly on the state of $`n`$-Qubits, while preserving the normalization condition (31). The linear norm-preserving operators on a complex vector space are the unitary operators. So the basic ingredients of a quantum algorithms are unitary operators on the $`2^n`$-dimensional complex space:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }\text{U}|\mathrm{\Psi },\text{U}\mathrm{unitary}.$$
$`(35)`$
The classical operations13 More precisely, their linear extensions, from the basis on which they are defined, to the whole space.  — permutations of the $`2^n`$ classical basis vectors — are special cases of such operators,

The problem of how to implement physically such unitary transformations is a question of quantum-computational engineering, just as the question of how to produce permutations of the values of a collection of Cbits is a question of classical-computational engineering. All that need concern the designer of quantum-computational software, however, is that unitary transformations constitute the full field of available operations (except for measurement, as described in Sec. VI.) For practical reasons — software designers should be willing to take into account constraints suggested by engineering practicalities — the available set of unitary transformations is usually restricted to those that can be built up out of products of unitary transformations, each of which act only on single Qbits or only on pairs of Qbits, and an important part of the ingenuity of quantum programming is devoted to how best to build up more interesting transformations as products of these basic units.

So if we view the $`2^n`$ states of $`n`$ classical bits as the $`2^n`$ orthonormal basis vectors $`|x_n`$ in a $`2^n`$ dimensional vector space, and the reversible operations we can perform on the Cbits as simply the permutations of these basis vectors, then the generalization to $`n`$ quantum bits is extremely simple: the states of Qbits consist of all the normalized complex linear combinations of the classical basis vectors, and the reversible operations we can perform on the Qbits consist of all unitary transformations. The classical states and classical operations are a very small subset of the quantum states and quantum operations.

It looks as if the extension from Cbits to Qbits opens up an enormously richer landscape of computational possibilities. While the state of one Cbit is specified by a single bit of information, to specify the state of one Qbit requires an infinite amount of information: two complex numbers constrained only by the normalization condition (29). And instead of being limited to shuffling a finite collection of Cbit states through permutation, one can act on Qbits with a continuous collection of unitary transformations. Since it is no more complex a matter to prepare a given state for Qbits than it is for Cbits and since it is no more complex a matter to implement a broad range of unitary transformations on Qbits than it is to implement permutations on Cbits, the extension from Cbits to Qbits would appear to bring us to a new level of computational power.

But there is a catch! Qbits suffer from a major limitation which does not afflict Cbits. Although their state contains vast amounts of information, given $`n`$ Qbits in some state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ there is nothing you can do to the Qbits that enables you to learn what $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is. There is thus no way to extract anything like the huge amount of information contained in the amplitudes $`\alpha _x`$.

What, then, are Qbits good for? How can we exploit their greater flexibility to do anything useful at all?

VI. Measurement: how to squeeze information out of Qbits

A. The Born rule.

The very limited possibilities for extracting information is the second major way in which Qbits differ from Cbits. If we have $`n`$ Cbits in the general classical state $`|x_n`$ finding out what the state is — i.e. learning the number $`x`$ — is unproblematic. Indeed, it is so straightforward that the act of learning the state is generally not even regarded as a formal part of the computation. One simply looks (on a display or a printout). Importantly, the state of the Cbits is unaltered by this acquisition of information. Once the computer has ceased to operate on the Cbits, their state remains $`|x_n`$ whether or not anybody takes the trouble to ascertain the particular value of $`x`$.

Things could not be more different for Qbits. If one has $`n`$ Qbits in the state

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_n=\underset{x}{}\alpha _x|x_n$$
$`(36)`$
there is nothing one can do to them to learn the values of the amplitudes $`\alpha _x`$. There is only one way to extract any information from the Qbits: to measure them. Measuring $`n`$-qubits consists of subjecting them to a device which produces (at a display or a printout) an integer $`x`$ in the range $`0x<2^n`$. The only link between the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ one may have labored to impose on the Qbits and the value of $`x`$ revealed by the measurement is this: the probability of getting the output $`x`$ is just $`p_x=|\alpha _x|^2`$, where $`\alpha _x`$ is the amplitude of $`|x_n`$ in the expansion (36) of $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_n`$.14 The condition that the states be unit vectors is thus the condition that the sum of the probabilities of all the possible measurement outcomes should be 1.  This is known as the Born rule, after the physicist Max Born.

You might think that by measuring repeatedly one could at least get some good statistics on the distribution of the magnitudes $`|\alpha _x|`$ but this possibility of additional partial information about $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is ruled out by a second fundamental proviso of the Born rule: once the value $`x`$ has been indicated by the measurement, the state of the $`n`$ Qbits is no longer $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_n`$, but $`|x_n`$. The postmeasurement state contains no trace of the information present in the premeasurement state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and is nothing more than the classical state associated with the value of $`x`$ indicated by the measuring device.

Physicists, in a nomenclature that invites misinterpretation, like to say that the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_n`$ collapses or is reduced to the state $`|x_n`$ by the measurement. The conservative way to put it is simply to state the relation between the states immediately before and immediately after the measurement, in a way that suggests no mechanism for the change of state, confers no objective status on it, and makes no commitment to what (if anything) a change in state implies about what (if anything) has happened to the Qbits themselves.

You might wonder how one can learn anything at all of computational interest under these wretched conditions. The general trick is to produce, through a cunningly constructed unitary transformation, a superposition (36) in which most of the amplitudes $`\alpha _x`$ are zero or very close to zero, with useful information being carried by any of the values of $`x`$ that have a significant probability of being indicated by the measurement. It is also important to be seeking information which, once possessed, can easily be confirmed (e.g. the factors of a large number) so that one is not misled by the occasional irrelevant low probability outcome.

Clearly the action of a measurement on the state of $`n`$ Qubits is irreversible: any state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_n`$ with non-zero amplitude $`\alpha _x`$ is capable of becoming the state $`|x_n`$ after a measurement. There is no way to reconstruct the input from the output. Measurement is, however, the only irreversible operation on Qbits. All other operations are unitary.

The Born rule contains, as a special case, the unproblematic character of extracting information from Cbits. If the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of $`n`$ Qbits happens to be one of the $`2^n`$ classical-basis states $`|x_0_n`$ then $`\alpha _x=0,xx_0`$ and $`\alpha _{x_0}=1`$. So the result of measuring the Qbits is $`x_0`$ with probability 1. The second proviso of the Born rule then requires that after the measurement the state of the Qbits is $`|x_0_n`$ — i.e. the post-measurement state continues to be what it was before the measurement. The statistical, state-altering character of the outcome of a measurement of $`n`$ Qbits in a general state becomes the deterministic, state-preserving, unproblematic classical extraction of information when the state is one of the $`2^n`$ classical states.

A technical remark for physicists: In this approach to quantum mechanics it is useful to restrict the term “measurement” to what a broader and more conventional use of the term would characterize as “measurement in the classical basis.” Since measurement in any other basis can be accomplished by applying an appropriate unitary transformation — one that takes the basis of interest into the classical basis — followed by measurement in the classical basis, this restriction of the scope of the term “measurement” does not preclude any of the more general possibilities.

B. Generalization of the Born rule to partial measurements.

There is a generalization of the Born rule, not often explicitly noted in quantum-mechanics texts, that often arises in quantum computations. This happens when only some of the Qbits are measured. Suppose we have $`m+n`$ Qbits and we decide to measure only $`m`$ of them. By representing the $`m+n`$ bit number $`z`$ as $`x,y`$, the concatenation of the $`m`$ and $`n`$ bit binary strings representing $`x`$ and $`y`$, we can write the state of the $`m+n`$ Qbits as

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{m+n}=\underset{x,y}{}\alpha _{x,y}|x,y_{m+n}.$$
$`(37)`$
Suppose we we decide to measure only the $`m`$ Qbits on the left.15 Although we take the $`m`$ Qbits on the left as the ones to be measured, the rule for the more general case is the obvious generalization of the one enunciated below.  The generalized Born rule states that the measurement will indicate $`x`$$`0x<2^m,`$ with probability

$$p_x=\underset{0y<2^n}{}|\alpha _{x,y}|^2,$$
$`(38)`$
and that after the value of $`x`$ is indicated, the state of the $`m+n`$ Qbits changes from $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{m+n}`$ to $`|x_m|\mathrm{\Phi }_x_n`$, where

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_x_n=p_x^{1/2}\underset{y}{}\alpha _{x,y}|y_n.$$
$`(39)`$
If one immediately follows a measurement of the $`m`$ Qbits on the left, with a measurement of the remaining $`n`$ Qbits on the right, then this ought to be tantamount to directly measuring all $`m+n`$ Qbits. And indeed, if one applies the generalized Born rule twice — first to the measurement of the $`m`$ Qbits on the left and then to the measurement of the remaining $`n`$ on the right — one does indeed recover the ordinary Born rule.

Although the generalized Born rule does not follow from the ordinary Born rule, it is equivalent to the ordinary Born rule supplemented by two very reasonable further conditions:

(1) Suppose that between time $`t`$ and $`t^{}`$ no unitary transformations act on the $`m`$ Qbits on the left, but arbitrary unitary transformations may act on the $`n`$ Qbits on the right — i.e. the only unitary transformations acting on the $`m+n`$ Qbits between $`t`$ and $`t^{}`$ are of the form $`\text{U}=\text{1}_m\text{V}_n`$. Then the statistical distribution of outcomes if all $`m+n`$ Qbits are measured at time $`t^{}`$ is unaltered if the $`m`$ Qbits on the left are measured at any earlier time between $`t`$ and $`t^{}`$. Informally, once the computer ceases from further action on any group of Qbits, you do not have to wait to the end of the full computation before measuring those Qbits.

(2) For a group of $`n`$ Qbits to be in the state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ means nothing more (or less) than that if the Qbits are measured after the application of an arbitrary unitary transformation V, then the distribution of measurement outcomes will be that specified by the Born rule for $`n`$ Qbits in the state $`\text{V}|\mathrm{\Phi }`$.

The most important principles formulated in Sections II-VI are in the table that follows, which summarizes the relevant features of Qbits by contrasting them to the analogous features of Cbits. In the table I have introduced the term “Bit” (with an upper-case $`B`$) to mean “Qbit or Cbit” (as opposed to “bit” (with a lower-case $`b`$, which meas “0 or 1”).

CLASSICAL vs. QUANTUM BITS  Cbits Qbits  States of $`n`$ Bits $`|x_n,0x<2^n`$ $`\alpha _x|x_n,|\alpha _x|^2=1`$  Subsets of $`n`$ Bits  Always have states Generally have no states   Reversible operations on states  Permutations  Unitary transformations   Can state be learnt from Bits?  Yes No  To get information from Bits Just look Measure  Information acquired $`x`$ $`x`$ with probability $`|\alpha _x|^2`$   State after information acquired   Same: still $`|x`$ Different: now $`|x`$

VII. Cautionary remarks and quasi-philosophical reflections

A. An important warning

It is extremely important to avoid a very tempting misinterpretation — a gross oversimplification — of quantum superpositions of classical states, as illustrated by the following simple example:

A Qbit in the state $`|\psi =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ is not the same as as a Qbit that is either in state $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ or state $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ with equal probability, even though in either case a measurement will indicate 0 or 1 with equal probability. To see that the two cases are inherently different, suppose a Hadamard transformation $`\text{H}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\text{X}+\text{Z}\right)`$ is applied to the Qbit just before the measurement is made. Since

$$\text{H}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}+|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}),\text{H}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}),$$
$`(40)`$
in the second case, whether the initial state is $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ or $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$, the measurement after H is applied will continue to indicate 0 or 1 with equal probability. But in the first case, in which the initial state is $`|\psi =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}+|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\right)`$, we have $`\text{H}|\psi =|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ so the measurement after H is applied must necessarily indicate 0.

A Qbit in a superposition of classical-basis states is distinctly different from a Qbit that is in one of those classical states with a probability given by the squared modulus of the corresponding amplitude. Superpositions have no classical interpretation. They are sui generis, an intrinsically quantum-mechanical construct, whose meaning derives only from the rules that characterize the reversible operations (unitary) that can be performed on them and the available means (measurement) for extracting information from them.

B. Meaning of the quantum state

People have been arguing about the meaning of the quantum state ever since the concept first appeared, with no indication that we are getting any closer to a consensus. These conceptual issues are unimportant for an understanding of quantum computation which only requires one to know how states are built up from other states (by appropriate unitary transformations) and how information can be extracted from Qbits in a given state (by measurement, according to the Born rules).

The initial state on which the unitary transformations operate is usually a classical-basis state $`|x_n`$. Such a state can be unambiguously identified as the post-measurement state of $`n`$ Qbits after a measurement that indicated the value $`x`$. From this point of view the computational process begins and ends with a measurement, and the entire role of the state of the Qbits at any stage of a succession of unitary transformations is to encapsulate the probability of the outcomes, should the final measurement be made at that stage of the process, or to enable one to calculate outcome probabilities should further unitary transformations be applied before the measurement.

The notion that the state of $`n`$ Qbits is simply a convenient compact mathematical device for calculating the correlations between the outcomes of two measurements on those Qbits, between which an arbitrary unitary transformation may have been applied, is often associated with the constellation of ideas about quantum mechanics called the Copenhagen interpretation. It is to be contrasted with the notion that the state of $`n`$ Qbits is an objective physical property of those Qbits, in the same strong sense that we can view the state of $`n`$ Cbits — the unique value $`x`$ that they represent — as an objective property of those Cbits. People who regard the quantum state as objective in this sense tend to make a fuss about the fact that there are two quite different ways in which Qbits can change: deterministically and continuously (if one builds each unitary transformation out of many infinitessimal ones) via unitary transformations, and statistically and discontinuously via measurements. This dichotomy looses its content if one replaces “Qbits” by “the state of Qbits” and recognizes that the state is nothing but a catalog of how different unitary transformations will result in different distributions of measurement outcomes — classical basis states, which alone can be viewed as objective.

Another pitfall of taking their state to be an objective property of the Qbits is that one can then succumb to the temptation to believe that the application of a series of unitary transformations to the Qbits implements a physical computation of all the resulting amplitudes $`\alpha _x`$. The clue that this has not been accomplished lies in the fact, noted above, that given the Qbits there is nothing whatever you can do with them to reveal the values of those amplitudes.

There are nevertheless some who believe that all the amplitudes $`\alpha _x`$ have acquired the status of objective physical quantities, inaccessible though those quantities may be. Such people then wonder how that vast number of high-precision calculations ($`10^{30}`$ different amplitudes if you have 100 Qbits) could all have been physically implemented. Those who ask such questions like to provide sensational but fundamentally silly answers involving vast numbers of parallel universes, invoking a point of view known as the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. My own opinion is that, imaginative as this vision may appear, it is symptomatic of a lack of a much more subtle kind of imagination, which can grasp the exquisite distinction between quantum states and objective physical properties that quantum physics has forced upon us.

C. Where’s Planck’s constant?

Where’s h-bar? Where is h-bar?!

— Disgruntled quantum optician.16 Private communication to the author at the International Conference on Quantum Information, Rochester, June 2001.  Like my disapproving colleague, some physicists may be appalled to have finished what purports to be an exposition of quantum mechanics — indeed, of applied (well, gedanken applied) quantum mechanics — without ever having run into Planck’s constant. How can this be?

The answer goes back to my first reason why enough quantum mechanics to understand quantum computation can be taught in a mere four hours. We are interested in discrete (2-state) systems and discrete (unitary) transformations. But Planck’s constant only appears in the context of continuously infinite systems (position eigenstates) and continuous families of transformations (time development) that act on them. Its role is to relate the conventional units in which we measure space and time, to the units in which it is quantum-mechanically natural to take the generators of the unitary transformations that produce translations in space or time.

If we are not interested in location in continuous space and are only interested in global rather than infinitessimal unitary transformations, then $`\mathrm{}`$ need never enter the story. The engineer, who must figure out how to implement unitary transformations acting over time on Qbits located in different regions of physical space, must indeed deal with $`\mathrm{}`$ and with Hamiltonians that generate the unitary transformations out of which the computation is built. But the designer of algorithms for the finished machine need only deal with the resulting unitary transformations, from which $`\mathrm{}`$ has disappeared as a result, for example, of judicious choices by the engineers of the times over which the interactions that produce the unitary transformations act.

Deploring the absence of $`\mathrm{}`$ from expositions of quantum computer science is rather like complaining that the $`I`$-$`V`$ curve for a $`p`$-$`n`$ junction never appears in expositions of classical computer science. It is to confuse computer science with computer engineering.

VIII. That is all you need to know

Armed with the contents of Sections II-VI, one is ready to embark on the exposition of quantum computer science. To be sure, there will be times when it is convenient to expand upon the minimal formalism developed above. But such expansions, for example the introduction of bras (as linear functionals on the kets), the introduction of density matrices, or the useful connection between X, Y, and Z and the group of 3-dimensional rotations, are all technical mathematical refinements within the basic structure of the complex vector space of Qbits. They require no new physical principles for their development.

Sections II-VI provide all the quantum mechanics one needs to develop fully the factorization algorithm of Peter Shor, the search algorithm of Lov Grover, and their later generalizations. Only in developing the very important subject of quantum error correction is it necessary to introduce a new physical assumption, that the formalism developed to describe Qbits — quantum states, unitary transformations, the Born rules — describes not only Qbits, but anything else in the world that the Qbits might happen to interact with.

If this far from modest extension of the scope of the formalism proves too big a pill for computer scientists to swallow, one can compromise with a more limited model of error correction, in which the computer contains large numbers of extraneous Qbits. Ideally, these irrelevant Qbits are perfectly uncoupled to the Qbits of interest, in the sense that all unitary transformations act only on the Qbits of interest or only (unimportantly and uninterestingly) on the extraneous Qbits. But unfortunately there is a small amount of unintended coupling between the two sets of Qbits — unitary transformations whose action is not restricted to either the relevant or irrelevant Qbits — whose disruptive action on the relevant Qbits it is the task of error correction to undo. One can then remark, as an aside, that parts of the world outside the computer (or computationally irrelevant internal degrees of the computer), that cannot be be perfectly isolated from the parts that do the computation, can always be well modeled as just such collections of extraneous Qbits.

A detailed view of how to erect the edifice of quantum computation on this foundation can be found in Chapters 2-5 of Ref. 2. Chapter 6 describes a few further topics in the broader area of quantum information that can be built on this same foundation.

Acknowledgment. Supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. PHY0098429.