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# Electron dephasing near zero temperature: an experimental review

## I Introduction

The electron dephasing time, $`\tau _\varphi `$, is one of the most important quantities governing quantum-interference phenomena in mesoscopic structures. Recently, the behavior of the dephasing time near zero temperature, $`\tau _\varphi ^0=\tau _\varphi (T0)`$, has attracted vigorous experimental Webb97a ; Birge00 ; Lin01a ; Natelson01 ; Ovadyahu01 ; Bird99c ; Marcus99  and theoretical Alt98 ; Zaikin98 ; Zawa99 ; Imry99 ; Kaminski01 ; Imry02  attention. One of the central themes of this renewed interest is concerned with whether $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ should reach a finite or an infinite value as $`T`$ 0. The connection of the $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ behavior with fundamental condensed-matter physics problems, such as the validity of the Fermi-liquid picture Webb98b , the possibility of the occurrence of a quantum phase transition, the persistent current problem in metals Mohanty99 ; persist , and also the feasibility of quantum computing, has been intensively addressed Mohanty00 . Conventionally, it is accepted that $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ should reach an infinite value in the presence of only Nyquist electron-electron (e-e) and electron-phonon (e-ph) scattering. However, several recent careful measurements, performed on metal and semiconductor mesoscopic structures, have revealed that $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ depends only very weakly on temperature, if at all, when $`T`$ is sufficiently low. Until now, there is no generally accepted process of electron–low-energy-excitation interaction that can satisfactorily explain the widely observed saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$.

This article discusses existing proposals for the observed saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ and surveys recent systematic efforts aimed at testing these proposals. We argue that recent measurements have extensively demonstrated electron heating, external microwave noise, and very dilute magnetic impurities cannot be the dominant source for the finite value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ found in the experiments. We suggest that “the saturation problem” can be most unambiguously addressed using tailor-made samples covering a wide range of material properties. We also propose that three-dimensional (3D) mesoscopic structures can shed light on this issue.

## II Extracting $`\tau _\varphi `$ from magneto-transport measurements

In quantum-interference studies, the electron dephasing time $`\tau _\varphi `$ is given by Alt85

$$\frac{1}{\tau _\varphi (T,\mathrm{})}=\frac{1}{\tau _\varphi ^0(\mathrm{})}+\frac{1}{\tau _\mathrm{i}(T,\mathrm{})},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the electron elastic mean free path, $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ is presumed to be independent of temperature, and $`\tau _\mathrm{i}`$ is the relevant inelastic electron scattering time(s) in question. The temperature dependence of $`\tau _\varphi `$ is controlled entirely by the $`T`$ dependence of $`\tau _\mathrm{i}`$, while $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ determined the value of the dephasing time in the limit of very low $`T`$. In three dimensions (3D), the e-ph scattering is the sole, dominating inelastic scattering Lin02r ; Gershen99  and $`\tau _\mathrm{i}^1\tau _{ep}^1T^p`$, with $`2p4`$. In lower dimensions, the Nyquist e-e scattering dominates Alt85  and, generally, $`\tau _\mathrm{i}^1\tau _{ee}^1T^p`$ at a few kelvins and lower, with $`p`$ = 2/3 in one dimension (1D) and $`p`$ = 1 in two dimensions (2D).

It is well established that very reliable values of $`\tau _\varphi `$ in mesoscopic structures can now be extracted from magneto-transport measurements Lin02r . For example, Fig. 1 shows the variation of $`\tau _\varphi `$ with $`T`$ for a thick and a thin Sb films obtained from weak-localization (WL) studies. One sees that, at the highest measurement temperatures, e-ph scattering dominates and $`\tau _\varphi `$ reveals a strong $`T`$ dependence. In the thick film, $`\tau _\varphi ^1\tau _{ep}^1`$ all the way down to about 2 K; while in the thin film, e-e scattering gradually becomes more important and, thus, $`\tau _\varphi ^1\tau _{ee}^1`$ below about 5$``$6 K. In both cases, a progressively weakened $`T`$ dependence is observed at the lowest measurement temperatures. We notice that (i) the overlap of the values of $`\tau _{ep}`$ for the two films at high measurement temperatures, and (ii) the crossover of $`\tau _\varphi `$ to e-e scattering in the thin film (but not in the thick film!) at lower temperatures, provide a convincing consistency check for the experimental $`\tau _\varphi `$ inferred from WL studies.

Figure 2 shows the variation of $`\tau _\varphi `$ with temperature for a DC- and a RF-sputtered Pd60Ag40 thick films obtained from WL studies. These two thick films are 3D and have a similar level of disorder. Notice that they assumes a similar value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ as $`T0`$, independent of the different fabrication methods. This observation provides an alternative convincing consistency check for the experimental $`\tau _\varphi `$ extracted. (See further discussion below.)

## III Electron heating and related effects

Of the prominent interest on this subject is “the saturation problem”, i.e., a finite experimental value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ extracted as $`T0`$. In particular, in the WL studies, the saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ is inferred from the low-field magnetoresistance, which does not increase as fast as expected with decreasing $`T`$ Natelson01 ; Lin02r . For instance, Natelson et al. Natelson01  found, in wide AuPd wires, that the magnetoresistance changed by less than 40% even when the temperature was significantly decreased from 4.2 down to 0.08 K. On the other hand, it should be noted that the temperature insensitive magnetoresistance at low $`T`$ is found in a $`T`$ regime where the electron gas is in thermal equilibrium with the lattice, i.e. the weak dependence is not caused by electron heating (due to either the measurement current or external noise). This assertion is clearly confirmed by the observation of a continuous resistance rise with decreasing temperature down to the lowest temperatures in each measurement Natelson01 ; Webb97a ; Lin01a ; Ikoma96 . (The resistance rise can generally be ascribed to e-e interaction effects in metal samples Alt85 ; Fuku85 .) This assertion is also confirmed in other quantum-interference studies. For example, Bird et al. Bird90  have extracted estimates for the dephasing length, $`L_\varphi =\sqrt{D\tau _\varphi }`$, where $`D`$ is the diffusion constant, in quasi-ballistic GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wires from the amplitude of the universal conductance fluctuations. They found that $`L_\varphi `$ remained independent of $`T`$ below 1 K, even though the amplitude of the fluctuations themselves increased by a factor of 4 over the same range they .

Microwave-noise dephasing. Altshuler et al. Alt81b  have considered the electron dephasing by non-equilibrium high-frequency electromagnetic noise. They have argued that the microwave noise can already be large enough to cause dephasing, while still too small to cause significant Joule heating of the conduction electrons Alt98 ; Gershen99 . Careful experimental measurements have recently been designed to test these predictions. These experiments Marcus99 ; Webb98a ; Burke02  explicitly demonstrated that direct dephasing due to radiation could not be the cause of the widely observed saturation. More precisely, Webb et al. Webb98a  and Huibers et al. Marcus99  found that there was heating by the high-frequency noise, before it affected dephasing, i.e. electron heating preceded dephasing by high-frequency noise. Burke et al. Burke02  have very recently investigated the effect of externally applied broadband Nyquist noise on the intrinsic dephasing rate of electrons in 2D GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunctions at low temperatures. They also found no major change in the measured $`\tau _\varphi `$ even when their sample was subject to large-amplitude, externally-applied, voltage fluctuations. (At the same time, heating was unimportant in their measurements.) These measurements, therefore, strongly suggests that the effect of microwave noise on electron dephasing and heating requires further theoretical clarification.

## IV Magnetic impurities: spin-spin scattering

Over the years, the saturation behavior of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ has often been ascribed to a finite spin-spin scattering rate, due to the presence of a tiny amount of magnetic impurities in the sample. Such a finite scattering rate will eventually dominate over the relevant inelastic scattering in the limit of sufficiently low $`T`$, Eq. (1). This idea of magnetic-scattering-induced dephasing immediately became widely accepted since the discovery of WL effects two decades ago Hikami80 . In addition to many early studies that often attributed the observed finite value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ to spin-spin scattering, there are some recent studies that also argue in favor of the role of magnetic impurities. Especially, the Saclay-MSU group Birge00  has measured both the energy exchange rate between quasiparticles and the dephasing time of quasiparticles in several Cu, Ag, and Au narrow wires. They found in one Ag wire and one Au wire that $`\tau _\varphi `$ varies as $`T^{2/3}`$ down to 40 mK. (The $`T^{2/3}`$ variation is expected from 1D Nyquist e-e scattering Alt85 ; Fuku85 .) Comparing these two complementary measurements, they concluded that a saturation of $`\tau _\varphi `$ occurs only in wires that contain a small amount of magnetic impurities. In those wires where they found no anomalous energy exchange, they also found no sign of saturation in $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$. The Saclay-MSU group experimental results have triggered several theoretical studies Kaminski01 ; Goppert01 ; Kroha02  of the inference of one-channel and two-channel Kondo effects on the energy-relaxation and dephasing rates. We notice that the metal wires studied by the Saclay-MSU group are relatively “clean”, namely, their wires have a diffusion constant $`D`$ 100$``$200 cm2/s.

Proposal for non-magnetic origin. In sharp contrast to the conclusion reached by the Saclay-MSU group discussed just above, Mohanty et al. Webb97a  have tested and argued for a non-magnetic origin for the finite value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$. Mohanty et al. first studied a series of very pure Au wires, finding that there was always a saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$. From these measurements, they realized that both the value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ and the onset temperature of saturation could be tuned by adjusting the sample parameters such as the wire length, resistance, and diffusion constant. To explore this idea, Webb et al. Webb98a ; Webb98c  reported further measurements on several carefully fabricated Au wires and films, whose onset temperature of saturation was indeed pushed down to unattainable temperatures ($``$ 40 mK). Webb et al. also noticed that a finite value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ is also often observed in semiconductor mesoscopic structures. Since such structures are thought to contain only the smallest concentration of magnetic impurities, they concluded that the widely observed saturation must be universal, and cannot be simply due to magnetic scattering. (They suggested that the saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ is intrinsic and is a signature of the breakdown of the independent single-electron picture in mesoscopic systems as $`T0`$.)

The contradicting conclusion of the Saclay-MSU group and Webb et al. illustrates well the subtlety and complexity of “the saturation problem”. First, it is not a trivial experimental task to unambiguously determine the influence of magnetic scattering on $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$, because the level of magnetic contamination is probably so low that it cannot be readily detected with state-of-the-art material-analysis techniques. Secondly, since there are no known physical properties that are more sensitive to spin-flip scattering than the dephasing process, the problem of whether there is a tiny amount of magnetic contamination in the sample, thus, cannot be readily verified with other complimentary measurements. Moreover, the situation becomes even more serious when lower-dimensional systems are considered. In the case of low-dimensional structures, surface effects due to interfaces, substrates, and paramagnetic oxidation Haesendonck88  are likely to be non-negligible. Then, it is not straightforward to ascribe the observed saturation behavior of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ to either intrinsic material properties or surface effects.

## V Systematic measurements and the importance of three-dimensional systems

To resolve the underlying physics of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$, the usual experimental approach of measuring the inelastic electron processes via temperature-dependent magnetoresistance studies is not very useful. In the case of inelastic scattering, the microscopic physics of the relevant electron–low-energy-excitation interactions is extracted through the measured variation of the scattering time with $`T`$. However, in the case of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$, there is only a very weak, or no, $`T`$ dependence involved. It is then desirable to seek variations of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ with the material characteristics of the samples, such as the amount of disorder Lin01a , the sample geometry Natelson01 , the effect of annealing Lin02 ; Lin87b , and the effect of the microscopic quality of disorder Ovadyahu01 ; Lin02r . Systematic information about the influence of sample properties on $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ should shed light on the origins of the zero-$`T`$ dephasing mechanism.

As discussed above, an explanation for the saturation behavior of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ based on magnetic scattering cannot be easily discerned experimentally. This experimental difficulty results in several groups insisting on the presence of magnetic impurities in the sample as the origin of saturation. In our opinion, this problem may be resolved by studying a series of samples covering a sufficiently wide range of sample properties. For instance, Lin and Giordano Lin87b  have performed systematic measurements of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ on a number of as-sputtered and annealed AuPd thin films with varying sheet resistance. They found a $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ increasing with decreasing sheet resistance, which led them to conclude that magnetic scattering could not be the mechanism responsible. They suggested that the strength of the impurity scattering which is responsible for $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ could be very sensitive to the metallurgical properties of the films, which are in turn a function of both thickness and annealing, etc. Since two-level systems (TLS) are closely associated with the presence of dynamical defects in the microstructures in the sample, their observation of a sensitive, metallurgical-property, influence on $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ has recently inspired several theoretical studies of the interaction between conduction electrons and TLS Zawa99 ; Imry99 .

### V.1 Three-dimensional polycrystalline metals

Lin and Kao Lin01a  have recently studied the electron dephasing times $`\tau _\varphi `$ in numerous 3D polycrystalline disordered metals. Their samples were made of various materials, using various fabrication techniques (see the caption to Fig. 3). Since one of the major issues in this direction of research is to study whether there might exist a universal saturation behavior of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$, the use of many kinds of samples with distinct characteristics is highly desirable. Any behavior of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ common to all these materials, if found, should bear important information on the nature of the zero-$`T`$ dephasing. Regardless of the very different preparation and measurement conditions, the authors found in numerous metals that there is a saturation of $`\tau _\varphi `$ at sufficiently low $`T`$. Most surprisingly, they found that their experimental $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ varied with the diffusion constant with a simple power law as

$$\tau _\varphi ^0D^\alpha ,\alpha 1$$
(2)
where $`\alpha `$ is close to or slightly larger than 1.

Figure 3 shows the variation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ with $`D`$ measured by Lin and Kao. This figure indicates that the values of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ for all samples fall essentially on a universal dependence. Particularly, it reveals that, regardless of the distinct material characteristics (e.g., electronic structure) of the various samples, all that matters in determining the value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ is $`D`$. (Figure 2 is a straight manifestation of this observation.) This observation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0D^\alpha `$, with $`\alpha 1`$, is totally unexpected. This result implies that the functional form of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ on disorder may be universal for a given dimensionality and a given kind of sample structure, while it may not be universal over different dimensionalities and different sample (e.g., polycrystalline, amorphous or well-textured semiconductor) structures. On the contrary, it is often conjectured that $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ should increase with reducing disorder, at least in lower dimensions Webb97a ; Ikoma96 . Until now, it is not known exactly how differently $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ should behave in different dimensionalities and in different sample structures. This observation may also suggest that the saturation behavior of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ can be very different between “clean” and “dirty” metals. For comparison, the diffusion constant considered in Fig. 3 is typically 1 to 2 orders of magnitude smaller than that in the metal wires studied by the Saclay-MSU group Birge00  and Mohanty et al. Webb97a ; Webb98a . On the other hand, the diffusion constant in the AuPd wires and films studied by Natelson et al. Natelson01  is similar to that considered in Fig. 3. Consequently, Natelson et al. obtained corresponding values of $`\tau _\varphi `$ very close to that shown in Fig. 3.

The result of Fig. 3 argues against the role of magnetic scattering as the dominant dephasing process in 3D polycrystalline metals as $`T0`$. This is asserted since the numerous samples considered in Fig. 3 were made from very different high-purity sources, using very different fabrication techniques. It is hard to conceive that spin-flip scattering due to “unintentional” magnetic contamination could have caused the “systematic” variation given by Eq. (2). If magnetic scattering were responsible for the measured $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ in Fig. 3, then the unintentional magnetic impurity concentration, $`n_m`$, must vary randomly from sample to sample, and hence one should expect a random $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ ($`n_m^1`$), independent of disorder. Besides, any spin-spin scattering that might result from surface effects (substrates, paramagnetic surface oxidation, etc.) should be largely minimized in these 3D samples. Therefore, the result of Fig. 3 cannot be simply explained in terms of magnetic scattering.

The observation of Fig. 3 is still not understood. Nevertheless, this result unambiguously indicates that the saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ in this case is certainly not due to microwave noises, because microwave-noise dephasing should result in a $`\tau _\varphi ^0D^{1/3}`$ dependence in 3D Alt81b .

### V.2 Effect of annealing: 3D polycrystalline metals

The effect of annealing on 3D polycrystalline metals has been studied very recently. Lin et al. Lin02  have performed systematic measurements of $`\tau _\varphi `$ on several series of as-sputtered and subsequently annealed AuPd and Sb thick films. Such controlled annealing measurements such  are crucial for testing theoretical models of dephasing that invoke the role of magnetic scattering and dynamical defects. Figure 4(a) shows a plot of the variation of $`\tau _\varphi `$ with $`T`$ for one of their as-prepared and subsequently annealed AuPd thick film. This figure clearly indicates that $`\tau _\varphi `$ is increased by annealing. At first glance, it appears that this observation is easily explained. Suppose that annealing results in the rearrangement of lattice atoms and a relaxation of grain boundaries, thereby making the film less disordered. Because TLS are closely associated with defects in the microstructures, their number concentration, $`n_{\mathrm{TLS}}`$, is therefore reduced by annealing. Assuming that dynamical defects are effective scatterers as $`T0`$, one can then understand Fig. 4(a) in terms of a TLS picture, i.e. $`\tau _\varphi ^0n_{\mathrm{TLS}}^1`$. However, it is impossible to perform a quantitative comparison of the experiment with TLS theories Zawa99 ; Imry99 . The difficulties lie in the facts that (i) the number concentration $`n_{\mathrm{TLS}}`$ in a particular sample is unknown, (ii) the strength of coupling between conduction electrons and a TLS is poorly understood, and (iii) the dynamical properties of real defects (impurities, grain boundaries, etc.) are even less clear. Moreover, further measurements of Lin et al. indicate that the nature of low-$`T`$ dephasing in polycrystalline metals is not so straightforward. They found that the effect of annealing on $`\tau _\varphi `$ is distinctly different in samples having much higher resistivities.

In addition to the study of Fig. 4(a), Lin et al. Lin02  have also carried out measurements on AuPd thick films containing much higher levels of disorder. Surprisingly, they discovered that annealing has a negligible effect on $`\tau _\varphi `$ in strongly disordered AuPd thick films. Figure 4(b) shows the variation of $`\tau _\varphi `$ with temperature for a strongly disordered AuPd thick film. This figure demonstrates that the values of $`\tau _\varphi `$ for the as-prepared and annealed samples are essentially the same, even though the resistance is changed by the annealing by a factor of more than 6. The absence of an appreciable annealing effect in this case implies that, in addition to the usual TLS addressed above, strongly disordered films also contain other defects that cannot be readily cured by annealing. This ineffectiveness of thermal annealing may suggest that there are two kinds of TLS. On the other hand, it may suggest that, despite a large effort in this direction, no real defects of any nature have dynamical properties which can explain the saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ found in the experiments Zawa99 . Inspection of the large discrepancy in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b) strongly indicates that low-$`T`$ dephasing is very sensitive to the microstructures in the samples.

We return to the issue of magnetic scattering. The result of Figs. 4(a) and 4(b) indicates that magnetic scattering should play a subdominant role, if any, in inducing the saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$. The reasons are given as follows. (i) Suppose that there is a low level of magnetic contamination in the as-sputtered film. Upon annealing, the magnetic impurity concentration $`n_m`$ should be left unchanged. If the original saturation in the as-sputtered sample is caused by spin-spin scattering, one should then expect the same value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ ($`n_m^1`$) after annealing. However, the result of Fig. 4(a) indicates an increased $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ with annealing, which is in disagreement with this assumption. (ii) Blachly and Giordano ng95  have found that the Kondo effect is very sensitive to disorder, namely that increasing disorder suppresses the Kondo effect. Along these lines, if the original saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ found in Fig. 4(b) were really due to magnetic scattering, one should then argue that annealing that suppresses disorder should enhance the Kondo effect. Therefore, a decreased $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ should be expected with annealing. Since the measured $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ does not change, even when the sample resistivity is reduced by a factor of more than 6 by annealing, Fig. 4(b) thus cannot be reconciled with a magnetic-scattering scenario. This picture of a suppressed Kondo effect with increasing disorder is also incompatible with the result for the moderately disordered film considered in Fig. 4(a), where an increased, instead of a decreased, $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ is found after annealing. In short, systematic annealing measurements in both thin Lin87b  and thick Lin02  films cannot be reconciled with magnetic scattering being responsible for the saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ at low temperatures.

### V.3 The importance of three-dimensional structures

It is worth noting that the saturation problem can be better addressed in 3D, rather than lower-dimensional, structures. This is because of the increased contrast between the saturation and the strong dependence of $`\tau _\mathrm{i}(T)`$ in 3D. As discussed in §2, the inelastic electron scattering rate $`\tau _\mathrm{i}^1\tau _{ep}^1T^p`$, with $`p2`$ in 3D. Such a $`T`$ variation is much stronger than the dominating $`p=2/3`$ in 1D and the $`p=1`$ in 2D. For example, inspection of the solid line, which is drawn proportional to $`T^2`$, in Fig. 4(b) clearly reveals that the measured $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ at 0.5 K is already more than one order of magnitude lower than would be extrapolated from the measured $`\tau _{ep}`$ at a few degrees Kelvin. Obviously, such a large discrepancy cannot simply be ascribed to experimental uncertainty. (The increasing contrast between the saturation and the dependence of $`\tau _\mathrm{i}(T)`$ with increasing sample dimensionality is already directly manifested in Fig. 1.) There is another advantage of using 3D structures in the studies of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$. Compared with the fabrication of narrow wires, the preparation of 3D samples usually does not require sophisticated lithographic processing, thereby greatly minimizing any (magnetic) contamination that might eventually act like a spin-flipper as $`T0`$.

## VI Conclusion

Over the years, the advances in our understanding of quantum-interference effects have made feasible systematic and quantitative measurements of $`\tau _\varphi `$ ($`\tau _\varphi ^0`$). Despite extensive efforts in theoretical calculations and experimental measurements of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$, our current understanding of the microscopic origins for the zero-$`T`$ dephasing in real conductors is still incomplete. Experimentally, carefully designed low-$`T`$ magneto-transport measurements employing tailor-made structures, with sample specifics varying over a wide range of disorder and dimensionality, would be highly desirable to help with discerning the underlying physics of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$. In addition to the systematic studies on high-disorder 3D polycrystalline metals Lin01a ; Lin02 , combined measurements of the electron energy exchange rate, dephasing rate, and Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in the presence of a high magnetic field will shed light on this issue Birge00 . Thus far, systematic measurements have ruled out electron heating, microwave noise, and magnetic scattering as the dominant source for the saturation behavior of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ observed in the experiments.

In addition to the case of disordered metals in the diffusive regime, a saturation of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ has also been observed in semiconductor, diffusive and quasi-ballistic, quantum wires, and ballistic dots Lin02r . In many regards, the features of this saturation appear reminiscent of that found in dirty metal wires. The saturated value of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ is typically of similar order in semiconductor wires and dots, and is also of comparable magnitude to that found in studies of dirty metal wires and films. The characteristic temperature for onset of the saturation also varies widely in these structures—again reminiscent of the behavior found in dirty mesoscopic systems. It is intriguing, and deserves serious investigation, why semiconductor quantum structures and dirty metals reveal similar saturation behavior of $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$.

Another important issue revealed in a number of studies is a sensitivity of the electron dephasing to the microscopic quality of disorder. For instance, Ovadyahu Ovadyahu01  has measured $`\tau _\varphi `$ at low temperatures in diffusive In2O3-x and In2O3-x:Au thin films. He found that, although the Au doping is only $``$ 3% in In2O3-x:Au thin films, the behavior of the dephasing time in these two materials could be significantly different. Bird and co-workers Bird98a  have studied semiconductor quantum dots and found that their $`\tau _\varphi `$ can show significant dot-to-dot variations, in samples realized in materials with similar mobilities. These measurements reflect a critical sensitivity of the dephasing processes to disorder. These experiments clearly suggest that $`\tau _\varphi ^0`$ is not only dependent on the total level of disorder, but are also very sensitive to the microscopic quality of the disorder. This can be particularly crucial for mesoscopic devices, whose disorder profile is know to be highly sample specific. This is a key point that needs to be taken into consideration in future theories of electron dephasing times.

## VII Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Taiwan National Science Council through Grant No. NSC90-2112-M-009-037.


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# 1 The traditional separation of quark physics, the physics of the nucleon/delta and nucleon-nucleon interaction and nuclear physics

Evolving QCD***Supported by the European Network on Electron Scattering off Confined Partons (ESOP) under
contract no. HPRN-CT-2000-00130

H.J. Pirner
Institut für Theoretische Physik der Universität Heidelberg

()

## Abstract

We give an overview of the current theoretical status of proper time renormalization group flow equations applied to QCD. These equations give the evolution of coupling constants in an effective QCD Lagrangian as a function of an infra-red cut-off parameter. This parameter characterizes the resolution with which the system is looked at. Decreasing resolution transforms partonic quarks into constituent quarks and generates pion bound states. The evolution equations can also be applied to finite temperature and finite density QCD.

Quarks and gluons are the ultimate building blocks of hadrons. Their interaction is governed by the QCD coupling which grows dynamically for low energies. With the increasing coupling gluons and quark-antiquark pairs multiply indefinitely. Therefore QCD forms new structures of dominant collective units in the infra-red. The renormalization group is the principal tool to investigate the formation of these new structures. Its importance in quantum field theory can only be compared to the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics. In this paper I use the term renormalization group in a wide sense including the evolution of systems of Lagrangians. It may well be that the degrees of freedom change under evolution. Such an approach is not so well researched yet, but the necessity of a theoretical framework for it - especially in QCD - is universally recognized. I will try to give a summary of our work using renormalization group techniques to handle quark degrees of freedom evolving into hadronic bound states.

The quark-hadron transition governs strong interaction physics when the resolution is lowered below $`1`$ GeV. Hadronic physics is well researched up to a mass scale of $`1.5`$ GeV. Its spectroscopy still lacks a clear identification of glueballs and hybrid states. Yukawa models like the sigma model are natural to describe hadron physics at low energies. In order to bridge the gap between quark and meson physics we choose a hybrid approach where the original action contains a four-quark interaction which is bosonized into sigma and pion fields. These mesonic degrees of freedom are not propagating fields in the ultraviolet, i.e., their kinetic term is zero. They couple to the quark fields and mimic the local four-fermion interaction. In principle all the mesonic couplings arising from the Fierz transformation of a local color exchange interaction should be taken into account. Mean field theory shows a basic ambiguity to the possible Fierz transformations . The RG-equations can overcome this problem. At the ultraviolet scale the meson-quark Yukawa coupling can be set to unity. There is only the mass parameter of the combined sigma and pion fields in the Wigner mode which sets the mass scale for the evolving system. The renormalized Yukawa coupling decreases strongly in the infra-red which makes the evolution infra-red stable. In the approximation with meson loops we have indications that the infra-red evolution has fixed point character. Reversely the divergence of the Yukawa coupling for large scales signals the unsatisfactory high energy behaviour of the hadronic theory. Above the $`1`$ GeV scale the compositeness of hadronic objects becomes important and one has to choose a quark-gluon basis.

In Fig. 1 we summarize the traditional approach to hadronic and nuclear physics indicating the hierarchy between quark physics, nucleon-mesonic physics and nuclear physics. A division into these subfields is highly efficient when special topics in a field are researched, because then refined methods can be applied to get maximum insight into a detailed aspect. On the other hand it is refreshing to cross the borderlines of these fields and see how things are connected. Indeed modern high energy experiments in nuclear physics look at nuclei with high resolution in electron nucleus collisions and at high excitation energies in relativistic heavy ion collisions. They naturally relate nuclear physics to quark physics.

The renormalization group connects regions of different length scales and is the appropriate tool for such an interdisciplinary approach. It avoids the appearance of arbitrary cut-off functions when additional quantum corrections appear. Going beyond the large $`N_c`$ approximation in the Nambu Jona Lasinio (NJL) model one needs to include meson loops which necessitates an additional cut-off in the Schwinger-Dyson approach. The unifying aspect of the renormalization group is shown in Fig. 2 and illustrated by the work here. Starting from the renormalization group in the vacuum, which only tests physics along the resolution axis, I will cover high temperature physics and high density investigations in the same theoretical framework.

Renormalization group flow equations describe the average of an effective action and represent the continuum analogue of a block spin transformation. I have tried before to use the Monte Carlo renormalization group to extend the lattice gluon action of Wilson into the long distance region . This approach introduces new collective variables into the lattice action, namely the colordielectric fields. The resulting QCD action has a strong coupling which is modulated by the colordielectric field and confines. It reproduces results obtained on the finer lattice with an accuracy of $`10`$ %. A large numerical effort is needed to solve a set of overdetermined Schwinger-Dyson equations. Already at that time it was desirable to have an analytic scheme to follow the flow of couplings when high momenta larger than a coarse-graining scale $`k`$ are integrated out. The flow equations proposed by Wegner and Houghton , Polchinsky , Wetterich and Berges  present such a scheme. They are ultraviolet and infra-red finite through the introduction of a scale dependent cut-off function. We use renormalization group flow equations with a heat kernel cut-off  which we think are more practical. Moreover, they are so simple that they are ideally suited to learn and teach renormalization in field theory. No infinities appear at any time. All integrals can be done analytically and have a simple form. The solution of these RG-equations includes complicated summations of diagrams which are similar to solutions of a coupled set of Schwinger-Dyson equations. The heat kernel regularization method  preserves the symmetries of the theory and keeps the physical interpretation of the evolution equations particularly simple for phenomenological applications.

We choose as a starting action at the UV scale the NJL Lagrangian

$$S_{\text{NJL}}=d^4x[\overline{q}i\gamma q+G\left\{(\overline{q}q)^2+(\overline{q}i\stackrel{}{\tau }\gamma _5q)^2\right\}]$$
(1)
which is embedded into a linear $`\sigma `$-model with $`Z_q=`$ $`1`$, a vanishing wave function renormalization constant $`Z_\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ and an effective potential $`U(\mathrm{\Phi }^2)=\frac{m^2\mathrm{\Phi }^2}{2}`$. We assume the linear $`\sigma `$-model to be a valid description of nature below scales of $`1.5`$ GeV. In this region the gluon degrees of freedom are supposed to be already frozen out. Confinement is not dealt with correctly. The physics is governed by chiral symmetry, which is spontaneously broken in the infra-red. The Euclidian action of the linear $`\sigma `$-model in generalized form is given by

$$S[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{q},q]=d^4x\left(Z_q(\mathrm{\Phi }^2)\overline{q}\gamma q+\frac{1}{2}Z_\mathrm{\Phi }(\mathrm{\Phi }^2)\left(_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^a\right)\left(_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^b\right)+g(\mathrm{\Phi }^2)\overline{q}Mq+U(\mathrm{\Phi }^2)\right).$$
(2)
The quark and meson fields are $`\overline{q},q`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }=(\sigma ,\stackrel{}{\pi })`$ is the $`O(4)`$\- and $`M=\sigma +i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi }\gamma _5`$ the chiral $`SU(2)_LSU(2)_R`$-representation of the meson fields. We consider this action to be preserved during the evolution and follow the generalized couplings and the effective potential during evolution by calculating the effective action $`S_{eff}`$ in a one-loop approximation.

$$S_{eff}[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{q},q]=S[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{q},q]\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{log}S_{\overline{q}q}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{log}\left(S_{\mathrm{\Phi }^i\mathrm{\Phi }^j}2S_{\mathrm{\Phi }^iq}S_{\overline{q}q}^1S_{\overline{q}\mathrm{\Phi }^j}\right),$$
(3)
with

$`S_{\overline{q}q}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2S[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{q},q]}{\delta \overline{q}(x)\delta q(y)}}|_{av},`$ (4)
$`S_{\mathrm{\Phi }^i\mathrm{\Phi }^j}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2S[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{q},q]}{\delta \mathrm{\Phi }^i(x)\delta \mathrm{\Phi }^j(y)}}|_{av}.`$ (5)
The first logarithm results from the fermion loop fluctuations, whereas the two terms in the second logarithm are the contributions of the bosonic and the mixed loop, respectively. The derivative of $`S_{eff}`$ with respect to the evolution scale can be computed after a cut-off function is introduced. For this purpose we represent the fluctuation determinants by Schwinger proper time integrals with the cut-off function $`f(k^2\tau )=\left(1+k^2\tau +\frac{1}{2}(k^2\tau )^2\right)\mathrm{e}^{k^2\tau }`$

$$\mathrm{Tr}log(A)=\mathrm{Tr}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\tau }{\tau }e^{\tau A}f(k^2\tau ).$$
(6)
The heat kernel cut-off function $`f`$ suppresses all fluctuations with momenta below the cut-off scale $`k`$. Going to $`k0`$ means to include more and more infra-red modes. Finally, all modes are included, because of the limiting behaviour $`f_{k0}1`$. The ultraviolet region is left undisturbed due to the extra $`\tau `$ and $`\tau ^2`$ terms in front of the exponential. Therefore we can extend the $`\tau `$-integration to the interval $`[0,\mathrm{}]`$. We further replace the masses and couplings of the classical action by the running masses and running couplings of the effective action $`S_{eff}`$. Generically, we obtain the following evolution equation for $`S_{eff}`$ which contains its second order derivatives $`S_{eff}^{\prime \prime }`$ indicated in Eqs.(4,5):

$$\frac{S_{eff}}{k}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}\frac{d\tau }{\tau }e^{S_{eff}^{^{\prime \prime }}(k)}\frac{}{k}f(k^2\tau ).$$
(7)
This replacement of $`S^{\prime \prime }`$ by $`S_{eff}^{\prime \prime }`$ turns the one-loop equation into a renormalization group improved flow equation, which goes beyond the standard one-loop renormalization group running and includes higher loop terms successively into the proper time integral. Therefore it is capable to include nonperturbative physics in the strong coupling region. The evolution equations are obtained by comparing the derivative on $`S_{eff}(k)`$ with respect to $`k`$ with the formal expression of Eq. (2) which contains the generalized couplings and the effective potential as functions of $`k`$. The local potential terms are easy to evaluate and lead to nonlinear partial differential equations containing derivatives of the potential with respect to $`\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$. The evolution of the other couplings can be obtained in a derivative expansion which is an expansion in derivatives (momentum) over mass. This expansion is well controlled because of two reasons. Firstly, we approach the infra-red, so momenta become always smaller, we need only few terms in the expansion. Secondly, the infra-red cut-off scale $`k`$ acts like a mass cut-off, so the expansion is well defined even if the excitations themselves are massless, like the quarks in the ultraviolet or the mesons in the infra-red region.

Let me give an overview of the results we have achieved so far. We have solved in local potential approximation the vacuum evolution, the finite temperature evolution and finite baryon density evolution . There are strong similarities between the vacuum evolution as a function of resolution scale and as a function of temperature. Both show the transition from partons to constituent quarks which has also been phenomenologically checked in deep inelastic scattering at fixed energy $`\sqrt{s}`$ as a function of photon virtuality $`Q^2`$ see Ref.  and Fig. (2). Numerically, the transition temperature $`2\pi T_c`$ is about equal to the chiral symmetry breaking scale $`k_{\chi sb}`$ where the quarks condense in the vacuum. Going from the ultraviolet to the infra-red the strong attractive quark-antiquark interaction leads to a condensation of quark pairs in the vacuum. At the resolution $`k_{\chi sb}`$ the effective mass parameter of the mesons equals zero. The critical exponents agree with the $`0(4)`$ critical exponents, but differ from the mean field values .

In large $`N_c`$ approximation we have shown that the renormalization group flow equations are identical to the gap equations of the NJL model . Further it is possible to calculate the eigenmode spectrum of the Euclidean Dirac operator  which previously was only known for very small eigenvalues in random matrix theories.

The full equations possess extra complexity via the expansion of all running couplings and wavefunction renormalization parameters in $`\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$. As mentioned above the global form of the meson potential $`U(\mathrm{\Phi }^2)`$ changes from the parabolic shape in the ultraviolet to a mexican hat shape in the infra-red. This evolution leads to a change of the minimum of the effective potential with resolution $`k`$. We track all couplings in Taylor series around this running minimum with terms up to 5th order in $`\mathrm{\Phi }^2`$. This leads to 20 coupled non-linear differential equations. Including meson loop terms the infra-red properties of the system depend only on the mass term in the ultraviolet and no longer on the starting ultraviolet cut-off. We have a real fixed point behaviour for the pion decay constant, meson quark coupling, constituent quark mass and quark condensate. In comparison to NJL the flow equations have predictive power since only one mass scale fixes all the other dimensionful parameters.

For finite density  the model has similar deficiences as the conventional NJL model. It overbinds and restores the chiral symmetry too early. We have improved the model by including $`\omega `$-repulsion and plan to do this calculation including loop corrections.

The very successful chiral perturbation theory alone cannot connect to QCD in the ultraviolet. Typically it starts to fail when the resolution scale is of the order of half the $`\rho `$ mass. Hybrid models like the one presented here containing meson degrees of freedom and quarks extend to larger momentum scales, which is a definite advantage. There are, however, two problems: Firstly, the number of mesons in the theory should include also the vector mesons. Secondly, the size of the scalar Yukawa couplings increases dramatically in the ultraviolet, therefore it seems difficult to cross over to the asymptotically free gauge theory of QCD. For nuclei a theory with quarks and nucleons  seems to be the most efficient way to describe the transition from purely nucleonic matter to quark matter at high baryon density . Our model like most of the other hybrid models lacks a field theoretic mechanism to avoid the appearance of free quarks as asymptotic states. A major progress would be to capture the smooth infra-red limit of lattice QCD in a field theoretic continuum picture.

Acknowledgements: We thank B. J. Schaefer for his critical reading of the manuscript.


text:
# Heavy to light vector meson semileptonic decays presented by Federico Mescia at “Lattice 2002”, Boston. This work is supported in part by the European Network “Hadron Phenomenology and Lattice QCD”, HPRN-CT-2000-00145.

## Abstract

New (preliminary) results for the form factors relevant for the semileptonic decays of heavy pseudoscalar to a light vector meson are presented. In particular, we discuss the form factors for $`DK^{}`$ and $`B\rho `$ modes.

The main source of uncertainty in the extraction of the CKM matrix elements from the simple decay processes is our incomplete knowledge of the non-perturbative dynamics that is necessary to compute the relevant hadronic matrix elements. In particular, to extract $`|V_{cs}|`$ and $`|V_{ub}|`$ from experimentally measured $`DK^{}\mathrm{}\nu `$ and $`B\rho \mathrm{}\nu `$ decay rates requires a reliable QCD based computation of the following matrix elements:

$`V(p^{},\epsilon _\lambda )|\overline{q}\gamma _\mu Q|H(p)=iϵ_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }\epsilon ^\nu p^\alpha p^\beta {\displaystyle \frac{2V(q^2)}{m_H+m_V}},`$ (1)
$`V(p^{},\epsilon _\lambda )|\overline{q}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5Q|H(p)={\displaystyle \frac{2m_V(\epsilon ^{}q)}{q^2}}A_0(q^2)q_\mu +`$ (2)
$`(m_H+m_V)A_1(q^2)\left(\epsilon _\mu ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}q}{q^2}}q_\mu \right)`$ (3)
$`A_2(q^2){\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}q}{m_H+m_V}}\left[(p+p^{})_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{m_H^2m_V^2}{q^2}}q_\mu \right],`$
where we consider a generic $`HV\mathrm{}\nu `$ decay and use the standard decomposition in terms of four Lorentz invariant form factors, $`V`$, $`A_{1,2,0}`$, which depend on $`q^2=(pp^{})^2`$. At $`q^2=0`$, the axial form factors satisfy

$`2m_VA_0(0)`$ $`=`$ $`(m_H+m_V)A_1(0)`$ (5)
$`(m_Hm_V)A_2(0).`$
We compute the above matrix elements on the lattice using the complete $`𝒪(a)`$ non-perturbatively improved Wilson quark action and operators, working in the quenched approximation. We generated two sets of independent gauge field configurations: $`200`$ on $`24^3\times 64`$ lattice at $`\beta =6.2`$ ($`a^1=2.7(1)`$ GeV), and $`100`$ on $`32^3\times 70`$ at $`\beta =6.45`$ ($`a^1=3.7(1)`$ GeV).

We compute the following two- and three-point correlation functions:

$`C_V^{(2)}(t)=<{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{x}}{}}e^{i(\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{q})\stackrel{}{x}}\left(\overline{q}\gamma _\mu q\right)_0^{}\left(\overline{q}\gamma _\mu q\right)_{\stackrel{}{x},t}>,`$
$`C_H^{(2)}(t)=<{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{x}}{}}e^{i\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{x}}\left(\overline{Q}\gamma _5q\right)_0^{}\left(\overline{Q}\gamma _5q\right)_{\stackrel{}{x},t}>,`$
$`C_{\mu \alpha }^{(3)}(t)=`$
$`<{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y}}{}}e^{i\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{x}i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{y}}\left(\overline{q}\gamma _5Q\right)_{\stackrel{}{x},t_F}^{}\left(\overline{q}\gamma _\mu Q\right)_{\stackrel{}{y},t}\left(\overline{q}\gamma _\alpha q\right)_0>.`$
At $`\beta =6.2`$ we have 3 light ($`q`$) and $`4`$ heavy ($`Q`$) quark masses, whereas at $`\beta =6.45`$ we work with $`4`$ light and $`6`$ heavy quarks. The directly simulated vector mesons lie in the range $`m_V(0.9,1.1)`$ GeV, which means that the $`K^{}`$-meson is within the grasp of our lattice study, while for the $`\rho `$-meson an extrapolation is needed. As for the heavy-light mesons, after sending the light quark mass (linearly) to zero, their masses at $`\beta =6.2`$ are $`m_{H_d}(1.7,2.6)`$ GeV. On the finer lattice ($`\beta =6.45`$) that interval extends to $`m_{H_d}(1.7,3.6)`$ GeV. In other words, the $`charm`$ sector is simulated directly, while the $`beauty`$ can be reached through an extrapolation (a normal feature of current lattice studies in which fully relativistic heavy quarks are used). The form factors are extracted from the ratios

$`R_{\mu \alpha }(t)={\displaystyle \frac{C_{\mu \alpha }^{(3)}(t)\sqrt{𝒵_V𝒵_H}}{C_V^{(2)}(t)C_H^{(2)}(t_Ft)}}`$ (6)
$`\stackrel{t_Ft0}{}V(p^{})|\overline{q}\gamma _\mu Q|H(p).`$ (7)
To study the functional dependence of the form factors on $`q^2`$, we also consider $`7`$ different combinations of three-momenta for the interacting hadrons (for more details, please see ref. ). Discrete symmetries have been used to average over the equivalent momentum configurations. A suitable kinematical situation for a comparison of the lattice data at two values of the lattice spacing is when both mesons are at rest (i.e. at $`q^2=q_{max}^2`$), because only the form factor $`A_1`$ contributes. In fig. 1 we plot the signal for $`A_1(q_{max}^2)`$ as extracted from the ratio (6)

for both of our lattice spacings and for almost the same masses of mesons (in physical units). From this exercise we see that there are no large discretisation artefacts, when $`|\stackrel{}{p}|=|\stackrel{}{p}^{}|=0`$.

For each fixed heavy quark mass and combination of momenta $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}^{}`$, the leading dependence of each $`F(V,A_1,A_2,A_0)`$ on the light final vector meson mass is expected and seen to be linear, i.e.

$`F(m_V)=\alpha +\beta m_V,`$
Fitting to this give the form factors for the transitions $`HK^{}`$ and $`H\rho `$. The discussion of the dependence on the heavy quark (meson) mass is tightly related to the $`q^2`$-shapes of the form factors. We chose to fit our (directly computed) form factors to the pole/dipole forms

$`V(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{V(0)}{(1q^2/M_V^2)^2}},`$ $`A_1(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{A_1(0)}{(1q^2/M_1^2)}},`$
$`A_2(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{A_2(0)}{(1q^2/M_2^2)^2}},`$ $`A_0(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{A_0(0)}{(1q^2/M_0^2)^2}},`$
additionally constrained by the condition (5). The pole/dipole forms (Heavy to light vector meson semileptonic decays thanks: presented by Federico Mescia at “Lattice 2002”, Boston. thanks: This work is supported in part by the European Network “Hadron Phenomenology and Lattice QCD”, HPRN-CT-2000-00145.) reconcile the $`t`$-channel pole dominance with the HQET scaling laws, according to which (for small recoil momenta) the form factor $`A_1`$ ($`V`$, $`A_{2,0}`$) multiplied by $`m_{H}^{}{}_{}{}^{+1/2}`$ ($`m_{H}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/2}`$) scales as a constant, up to $`1/m_H`$ corrections . In addition, the forms (Heavy to light vector meson semileptonic decays thanks: presented by Federico Mescia at “Lattice 2002”, Boston. thanks: This work is supported in part by the European Network “Hadron Phenomenology and Lattice QCD”, HPRN-CT-2000-00145.) are consistent with the “$`m^{3/2}`$” scaling law arising in the limit in which the light meson is very energetic (LEL) .

With the $`HK^{}`$ and $`H\rho `$ form factors fitted to the pole/dipole forms (Heavy to light vector meson semileptonic decays thanks: presented by Federico Mescia at “Lattice 2002”, Boston. thanks: This work is supported in part by the European Network “Hadron Phenomenology and Lattice QCD”, HPRN-CT-2000-00145.) we can interpolate in the inverse heavy meson mass to reach $`m_H=m_D`$, and extrapolate to $`m_H=m_B`$. To that end, we use the HQET scaling laws, and for a fixed value of $`vp^{}=(m_H^2+m_K^{}^2q^2)/(2m_H)`$, we fit our data to

$`F(vp^{})m_H^{d/2}=a+b/m_H+c/m_H^2.`$ (9)
where $`d=+1`$ for $`F=A_1`$, and $`d=1`$ otherwise. The difference between this form and the linear one ($`c=0`$) is used to estimate the systematic error (as in ref. ). Such a difference is completely negligible in the case of $`D`$-meson because $`m_D`$ is very close to the lightest of the heavy-light mesons directly simulated on the lattice. $`DK^{}`$ transition form factors are shown in fig. 2,

and the result of the fit to the forms (Heavy to light vector meson semileptonic decays thanks: presented by Federico Mescia at “Lattice 2002”, Boston. thanks: This work is supported in part by the European Network “Hadron Phenomenology and Lattice QCD”, HPRN-CT-2000-00145.) is given in tab. 1.

We also remind the reader that $`A_0`$ does not enter the expression for the decay rate (see eg. ). $`A_2`$, instead, enters the part describing the longitudinally polarised vector meson. Since the quality of our signals for $`A_2`$ is low (much worse than for $`A_0`$), we use the exact relation (5) to compute $`A_2(0)`$. From the results of tab. 1, for the integrated decay rate, we obtain

$`|V_{cs}|^2\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^{}K^0\mathrm{}\nu )=0.066(14)ps_{[\beta =6.2]}^1,`$
$`0.062(15)ps_{[\beta =6.45]}^1,`$
which after comparison to the recently measured branching ratio  lead to $`|V_{cs}|=0.99(9)`$ and $`|V_{cs}|=1.03(12)`$, respectively.

An additional comparison with the experimental data is provided for the ratios of the form factors at $`q^2=0`$. Our results

$`V/A_1=1.48(12)_{\beta =6.2},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.46}(11)_{\beta =6.45},`$
$`A_2/A_1=0.6(3)_{\beta =6.2},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.0}(2)_{\beta =6.45},`$
agree very well with $`(V/A_1)^{exp.}=1.50(7)`$ . The agreement with $`(A_2/A_1)^{exp.}=0.88(9)`$  is only marginal, as discussed above.

We next discuss the $`B\rho `$ form factors. The results of (quadratic) extrapolation (9), for each fixed $`(vp^{})`$, are shown in fig. 3. We observe the standard effect that after the heavy quark extrapolation the form factors fall into the region $`q^2>10\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. As compared to the benchmark calculation by UKQCD , our results have larger errors (in spite of the fact that our statistics is higher). In particular, the errors for our $`A_2^{B\rho }(q^2)`$ are of $`𝒪(100\%)`$.

To compute the decay rate we have to integrate over the entire phase space. Therefore we combine the lattice results for $`(d\mathrm{\Gamma }/dq^2)_{q^2>10\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2}`$ with lightcone sumrule results for $`(d\mathrm{\Gamma }/dq^2)_{q^2<10\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2}`$  (which are expected to be reliable for low values of $`q^2`$).

To obtain $`(d\mathrm{\Gamma }/dq^2)_{q^2>10\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2}`$, we use the pole/dipole forms (Heavy to light vector meson semileptonic decays thanks: presented by Federico Mescia at “Lattice 2002”, Boston. thanks: This work is supported in part by the European Network “Hadron Phenomenology and Lattice QCD”, HPRN-CT-2000-00145.), eliminating $`F(0)`$ in favour of one of our points $`F(q_0^2)`$. We choose $`q_0^2=14.6\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ in the middle of the region covered by our results and fit to

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F(q^2)}{F(q_0^2)}}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{1q_0^2/M_F^2}{1q^2/M_F^2}}\right)^p,`$ (10)
where $`p=1`$ for the case $`F=A_1`$, and $`p=2`$ otherwise.

Results of this single parameter interpolation procedure are listed in tab. 2. Notice that we neglect the slope of $`A_2`$, for which a flat $`q^2`$-form with $`𝒪(100\%)`$ of error on the central value should be conservative enough. We finally obtain

$`|V_{ub}|^2\mathrm{\Gamma }(\overline{B}^0\rho ^+\mathrm{}\nu )=(17\pm 3)ps_{[\beta =6.2]}^1,`$
$`(19\pm 4)ps_{[\beta =6.45]}^1,`$
which we then match with the experimental branching ratio (as measured by CLEO, BaBar and Belle ) to extract $`|V_{ub}|`$. We find

$`|V_{ub}|=0.0034(6),`$
where we added all the errors in quadrature.

As a final exercise, we check the relation among form factors which holds true in the LEL (for a recent discussion see refs. ), namely

$`{\displaystyle \frac{A_1(q^2)}{V(q^2)}}={\displaystyle \frac{2E_\rho m_B}{(m_B+m_\rho )^2}}.`$ (11)
This relation is verified in the LCSR approach (note that $`E_\rho m_B/2`$ for $`q^20`$ in the $`B`$-meson rest frame). In fig. 4, we plot the ratio of our $`B\rho `$ form factors (computed on the lattice), and compare them to the r.h.s. of eq. (11). Interestingly, we do not see deviations from that relation (11) in spite of the fact that the lattice results are produced at large $`q^2`$.


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# Advances on String Theory in Curved Space Times

## 1 Multistring Solutions: A new feature for strings in curved spacetime

The discovery of the multistring property   in the propagation of strings in curved spacetimes is the consequence of several developments :
(i) The classical string equations of motion plus the string constraints were shown to be exactly integrable in D-dimensional De Sitter spacetime and equivalent to a sinh-Gordon model with a Hamiltonian unbounded from below . Generalization of this result including the Cosh-Gordon and Liouville equations, for strings and multistrings in constant curvature spacetimes have been given in ref .
(ii)  Exact  string solutions were systematically found by soliton methods using the linear system associated to the problem (the so-called dressing method in soliton theory) . In particular, exact circular string solutions were found in terms of elementary  and elliptic functions .
(iii) All these solutions describe one string, several strings or even an infinite number of different and independent strings. A single world-sheet simultaneously describes  many  different strings. This new feature appears as a consequence of the coupling of the strings with the spacetime geometry. Here, interaction among the strings (like splitting and merging) is neglected, the only interaction is with the curved background.
Different types of behaviour appear in the multistring solutions. For some of them the energy and proper size are bounded (“stable strings”) while for many others the energy and proper size blow up for large radius of the universe (“unstable strings”).
In all these works, strings are test objects propagating on the given fixed backgrounds. The string energy momentum tensor was computed and the string equation of state derived from the string dynamics in cosmological and black hole spacetimes. Strings obey the perfect fluid relation

$$p=(\gamma 1)\rho $$

with three different behaviours :
(i) Unstable for large R, with negative pressure;
(ii) Dual for small R, with positive pressure, (as radiation);
(iii) Stable for large R, with vanishing pressure, (as cold matter).
We find the back reaction effect of these strings on the spacetime . This is achieved by considering selfconsistently the strings as matter sources for the Einstein equations, as well as for the complete effective string equations, for cosmological spacetimes at the classical level. The selfconsistent solution of the Einstein-Friedman equations for string dominated universes exhibits the realistic matter dominated behaviour for large times and the radiation dominated behaviour for early times. That is, the standard cosmological evolution is well generated by strings. It must be noticed that there is no satisfactory derivation of inflation in the context of the effective string equations. De Sitter universe does not emerge as solution of the effective string equations. The effective string action (whatever be the dilaton, its potential and the central charge term) is not the appropriate framework in which to address the question of string driven inflation.
More recently, , new classes of exact multistring solutions were found. The multistring solutions were classified and their physical properties described.
In Anti de Sitter spacetime, the solutions describe an infinity number of infinitely long stationary strings of equal energy but different pressures. In De Sitter spacetime, outside the horizon, they describe infinitely many dynamical strings, infalling non radially, scattering at the horizon and going back to spatial infinity in different directions. For special values of the constant of motion, there are families of solutions with selected finite numbers of different and independent strings. The strings appear distributed in packets, the number of strings in each packet, the number of “turns” or “festoons” in each string is precisely determined and solely dictated by the dynamics, exactly solved in terms of elliptic functions.
In Black hole spacetimes, (without cosmological constant) no multistring solutions are found . In the Schwarzschild black hole, inside the horizon, the string infalls, with indefinitely growing size and energy, into the r=0 singularity and the string motion stops there.
In the (2+1)- black hole anti-de Sitter background, the string stops at r=0 with finite length ; the reason being that the point r=0 is not a strong curvature singularity in the (2+1)-black hole anti- de Sitter spacetime. Outside the horizon, in this spacetime, the multistring solution describes infinitely many, infinitely long open strings.

## 2 The String Mass Spectrum in the presence of Cosmological Constant

The string mass spectrum in the presence of a cosmological constant (for both de Sitter and Anti de Sitter spacetimes) was found , . New features as compared to the string spectrum in flat spacetime appear, as a fine structure effect (splitting of levels) at all the states beyond the graviton, (in both de Sitter (dS) and AntideSitter (AdS) spacetimes), and the absence of a critical Hagedorn temperature in AdS spacetime (the partition function for a gas of strings in AdS spacetime is well defined for all temperature).
The presence of a cosmological constant reduces (although do not totally removes) the degeneracy of states as compared with flat Minkowski spacetime. In AdS spacetime, the density of states $`\rho `$(m) grows like $`\mathrm{exp}`$\[($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ m)$`^{\frac{1}{2}}`$\], (while, as is known, in Minkowski spacetime, $`\rho `$(m) grows like the Exponential of the mass m). The high mass spectrum changes drastically with respect to flat Minkowski spacetime. The level spacing grows with the eigenvalue of the number operator, N, in AdS spacetime, while is approximatively constant (although smaller than in Minkowski spacetime and slightly decreasing) in dS spacetime. There is an infinite number of states with arbitrarily high mass in AdS space time in dS there is a finite number of oscillating states only.
The string mass has been expressed in terms of the Casimir operator C = Lμν Lμν of the O(3,1) De Sitter group \[O(2,2) group in Anti deSitter . See also section 3 below.

## 3 Spatial Curvature Effects

The effects of the spatial curvature on the classical and quantum string dynamics is studied in ref.. The general solution of the circular string motion in static Robertson-Walker spacetimes with closed or open sections has been found . This is given closely and completely in terms of elliptic functions.
The back reaction effect of these strings on the spacetime is found : the self-consistent solution to the Einstein equations is a spatially closed (K$`>`$0) spacetime with a selected value of the curvature index K, K = (G/$`\alpha `$’)$`^{\frac{2}{3}}`$ (the scale factor is normalized to unity). No self-consistent solutions with K$`<`$0 exist. We semiclassically quantize the circular strings and find the mass m in each case. For K$`>`$0, the very massive strings, oscillating on the full hypersphere, have

$$𝐦^2\mathrm{𝐊𝐍}^\mathrm{𝟐},(𝐍ϵ𝐍_0)$$

independent of $`\alpha `$’ and the level spacing grows with n, while the strings oscillating on one hemisphere (without crossing the equator) have

$$𝐦^2\alpha ^{}𝐍$$

and a finite number of states N $``$ 1/(K$`\alpha `$’). For K $`<`$0, there are infinitely many strings states with masses

$$𝐦\mathrm{log}𝐦𝐍,$$

that is the level spacing grows slower than N.
The stationary string solutions as well as the generic string fluctuations around the center of mass are also found and analyzed in closed form.

## 4 Classical Splitting

We find exact solutions of the string equations of motion and constraints describing the classical splitting of a string into two . For the same Cauchy data, the strings which split have smaller action that the string without splitting. This phenomenon is already present in flat space- time. The splitting process takes place in real (lorentzian signature spacetime).
The solutions in which the string splits are perfectly natural within the classical theory of strings. There is no need of extra interactions, (nor extra terms in the action to produce splitting). The difference with the non splitting solutions is on the boundary conditions.
The mass, energy and momentum carried out by the strings are computed. We show that the splitting solution describes a natural decay process of one string of mass M into two strings with a smaller total mass and some kinetic energy. The standard non-splitting solution is contained as a particular case.
We also described the splitting of a closed string in the background of a singular gravitational plane wave, and showed how the presence of the strong gravitational field increases (and amplifies by an overall factor) the negative difference between the action of the splitting and non-splitting solutions.

## 5 General String Evolution in Constant Curvature Space-Times

In ref. , we have found that the fundamental quadratic form of the classical string propagation in (2+1)-dimensional constant curvature spacetimes, solves the sinh-Gordon equation, the cosh-Gordon equation, or the Liouville equation. In both de Sitter and anti-de Sitter spacetimes, (as well as in the 2+1 black hole anti-de Sitter spacetime), all three equations must be included to cover the generic string dynamics. This is particularly enlightening since generic properties of the string evolution can be thus directly extracted from the properties of these three equations and their associated Hamiltonians or potentials, irrespective of any solution.
These results complete and generalize our previous results on this topic (until now, only the sinh-Gordon sector in de Sitter spacetime was known).
We also construct new classes of multistring solutions, in terms of elliptic functions, to all three equations in both de Sitter and anti de Sitter spacetimes, which generalize our previous ones.
These results can be straighforwardly generalized to constant curvature spacetimes of arbitrary dimension, by replacing the sinh-Gordon equation, the cosh-Gordon equation, and the Liouville equation by their higher dimensional generalizations.
Our results indicate the existence of various kinds of dualities relating the different sectors and their solutions in de Sitter and anti-de Sitter spacetimes : in the sinh-Gordon sector of de Sitter spacetime, small strings are dual (that is, under S $``$ 1/S, S being the proper string size, they are mapped) to large strings. And, similarly, in the sinh-Gordon sector of anti-de Sitter spacetime. Furthermore, in the cosh-Gordon sector, small (large) strings in de Sitter spacetime are dual to large (small) strings in the anti-de Sitter spacetime.

## 6 Conformal Invariance Effects

Classical and quantum strings in the conformally invariant background corresponding to the $`SL(2R)`$ WZWN model has been studied in ref . This background is locally anti-de Sitter spacetime with non-vanishing torsion. Conformal invariance is expressed as the torsion being parallelizing; and the precise effect of the conformal invariance on the dynamics of both circular and generic classical strings has been extracted .
In particular, the conformal invariance gives rise to a repulsive interaction of the string with the background which precisely cancels the dominant attractive term arising from gravity.
We perform both semi-classical and canonical string quantization, in order to see the effect of the conformal invariance of the background on the string mass spectrum. Both approaches yield that the high-mass states are governed by

$$mHN(NN_0,N\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}\mathrm{large}^{\prime \prime }),$$

where m is the string mass and H is the Hubble constant.
It follows that the level spacing grows proportionally to N :

$$\frac{d(m^2\alpha ^{^{}})}{dN}N,$$

while the string entropy goes like

$$S\sqrt{m}.$$

Moreover, it follws that there is no Hagedom temperature, so that the partition function is well defined at any positive temperature.
All results are compared with the analogue results in anti-de Sitter spacetime, which is a nonconformal invariant background.It appears that conformal invariance simplifies the mathematics of the problem but the physics remains mainly unchanged. Differences between conformal and non-conformal backgrounds only appear in the intermediate region of the string mass spectrum, but these differences are minor. For low and high masses, the string mass spectra in conformal and non-conformal backgrounds are identical.
Interestingly enough, conformal invariance fixes the value of the spacetime curvature to be $`69/(26\alpha ^{^{}})`$.
It has been known for some time that the SL(2,R) WZWN model reduces to Liouville theory. In ref  we give a direct and physical derivation of this result based on the classical string equations of motion and the proper string size. This allows us to extract precisely the physical effects of the metric and antisymmetric tensor, respectively, on the exact string dynamics in the SL(2,R) background. The general solution to the proper string size has been also found .
We show that the antisymmetric tensor (corresponding to conformal invariance) generally gives rise to repulsion, and it precisely cancels the dominant attractive term arising from the metric. Both the sinh-Gordon and the cosh-Gordon sectors of the string dynamics in non-conformally invariant AdS spacetime reduce here to the Liouville equation (with different signs of the potential), while the original Liouville sector reduces to the free wave equation.
Only the very large classical string size is affected by the torsion. Medium and small size string behaviors are unchanged.
We also find illustrative classes of string solutions in the SL(2,R) background: dynamical closed as well as stationary open spiralling strings, for which the effect of torsion is somewhat like the effect of rotation in the metric. Similarly, the string solutions in the 2+1 BH-AdS background with torsion and angular momentum are fully analyzed .


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# Critical wetting in power-law wedge geometries

## References


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# Physical limitations on quantum nonlocality in the detection of gamma photons emitted from positron/electron annihilation

## Abstract

Recent experimental measurements of the time interval between detection of the two photons emitted in positron/electron annihilation have indicated that collapse of the spatial part of the photon’s wavefunction, due to detection of the other photon, does not occur. Although quantum nonlocality actually occurs in photons produced through parametric down-conversion, the recent experiments give strong evidence against measurement-induced instantaneous spatial-localization of high-energy gamma photons. A new quantum-mechanical analysis of the EPR problem is presented which may help to explain the observed differences between photons produced through parametric down-conversion and photons produced through positron/electron annihilation. The results are found to concur with the recent experiments involving gamma photons.

Quantum non-locality in measurements involving polarization and two-photon interference of correlated photons has been experimentally confirmed at many independent laboratories \[1-4\]. It has been generally postulated that non-local effects may also occur in regard to the spatial wavefunctions of the emitted photons. As an example, detection of one of the photons produced in parametric down conversion is predicted to cause “instantaneous” localization of the other photon, subsequently eliminating any uncertainty in the time of arrival of the second photon at a second detector. Experimental support of this prediction has been reported by Hong et al. . The two-photon interference method utilized in Ref.  indicates that the minimum time uncertainty, in the time interval between detection of the two down-converted photons, is less than $`100fs`$. This uncertainty in time is much less than the coherence time of the initial pump photons, which subsequently gives strong indication of nonlocal collapse of the photon wave-function.

One may expect to observe similar nonlocal effects involving photons emitted from positron/electron annihilation. Recent high-resolution measurements of the time interval between the two photons emitted in positron/electron annihilation have been carried out by Irby . The results of the measurements indicate that the absolute minimum uncertainty in detection time between arrival of the two photons is $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{QM}=117\pm 9ps`$, which surprisingly, agrees with the lifetime of positrons in bulk sodium ($`119ps`$) predicted by quantum electrodynamics  . Although nonlocal effects are observed to occur in the case of down converted photons, the experimental results give strong evidence against the instantaneous spatial-localization of gamma photons emitted from annihilation events.

In this paper, we present a quantum-mechanical analysis of the time interval between detection of correlated photons. The analysis is basically the same as that first presented by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) in 1935 . The main difference, however, is that we include time dependence in the quantum wavefunctions and also take into account restrictions on photon momenta due to energy conservation.

As in the original EPR paper, we assume that the total momentum before the particles interact (or are emitted) is zero. In addition, we assume that the particles interact at times $`t<0`$. The total wavefunction can then be written (for $`t0`$)

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x_1,x_2,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\psi _p(x_2,t)u_p(x_1,t)𝑑p,$$
(1)
where $`u_p(x_1,t)`$ are eigenstates of particle one’s momentum and energy

$$u_p(x_1,t)=e^{ipx_1/\mathrm{}}e^{iEt/\mathrm{}}.$$
(2)
In order to conserve momentum, let us also assume

$$\psi _p(x_2,t)=e^{ip(x_2+x_o)/\mathrm{}}e^{iEt/\mathrm{}},$$
(3)
which are eigenstates of particle two’s momentum and energy. ($`x_o`$ is an arbitrary constant introduced in the original EPR paper. In this case, however, since we are including the explicit time dependence, we will set $`x_o=0`$). Note that if a measurement of particle one’s momentum yields a value of $`p`$, the total wavefunction collapses to

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x_1,x_2,t)=\psi _p(x_2,t)u_p(x_1,t),$$
(4)
which has momentum eigenvalues of $`p`$ and $`p`$ respectively for particles one and two. Before any measurement takes place, the total wavefunction is thus given by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x_1,x_2,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}e^{ip(x_1x_2)/\mathrm{}}e^{i2Et/\mathrm{}}𝑑p.$$
(5)
The total wavefunction can also be written in terms of instantaneous position eigenstates $`v_x(x_1,t)`$ of particle one

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x_1,x_2,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\varphi _x(x_2,t)v_x(x_1,t)𝑑x,$$
(6)
where particle two’s wavefunction $`\varphi _x(x_2,t)`$ has yet to be specified. Since the position eigenstates of particle one, measured at time $`t`$, are Dirac delta-functions $`v_x(x_1,t)=\delta (xx_1)`$, with eigenvalues $`x_1`$, Eq. 6 reduces to

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x_1,x_2,t)=\varphi _{x_1}(x_2,t),$$
(7)
where $`x_1`$ now represents an eigenvalue measured at time $`t`$. Therefore, the spatial wavefunction of particle two is dependent on the position measurement $`x_1`$ of particle one:

$$\varphi _{x_1}(x_2,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}e^{ip(x_1x_2)/\mathrm{}}e^{i2Et/\mathrm{}}𝑑p.$$
(8)
Let us first consider the case where the particles have non-zero rest mass. If particle one’s position $`x_1`$ is measured at $`t=0`$ , Eq. 8 reduces to

$`\varphi _{x_1}(x_2,0)={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}e^{ip(x_1x_2)/\mathrm{}}𝑑p,`$ (9)
$`\varphi _{x_1}(x_2,0)=\mathrm{}\delta (x_1x_2),`$ (10)
resulting in particle two being localized at $`x_2=x_1`$ (which is the same result as presented in the original EPR paper with $`x_o=0`$). If particle one’s position $`x_1`$ is measured at a time other than zero, particle two’s wavefunction at the measurement time $`t`$ is then explicitly given by

$$\varphi _{x_1}(x_2,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}e^{ip(x_1x_2)/\mathrm{}}e^{i2\sqrt{(pc)^2+(mc^2)^2}t/\mathrm{}}𝑑p.$$
(11)
Thus, if particle one’s position $`x_1`$ is measured at a time other than $`t=0`$, particle two will not be localized. Particle two is only localized at one instant, namely $`t=0`$. Furthermore, regardless of when particle two is localized, particle two’s wavefunction will always immediately and rapidly disperse as time progresses.

In contrast, since $`E=pc`$ for photons, dispersion no longer exists. The spatial wavefunction for photons is given by

$`\varphi _{x_1}(x_2,t)={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}e^{ip(x_1x_2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}ct)/\mathrm{}}𝑑p,`$ (12)
$`\varphi _{x_1}(x_2,t)=\mathrm{}\delta (x_1x_2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}ct).`$ (13)
Thus, after measurement of photon one’s location $`x_1`$ at time $`t`$, photon two is instantaneously localized at $`x_2=x_12ct`$. In contrast with particles of non-zero rest mass, once photon two is localized, it will remain localized (propagating at c).

The result, given in Eq. 11 above, contradicts the experimental measurements. Localization of the second photon should eliminate any uncertainty in arrival time between the two photons. This glaring contradiction between theory and experiment can, however, be elieviated by properly taking into account necessary restrictions on photon momenta.

For the case of positron/electron annihilation, the emitted photons are restricted to a small range of possible momenta $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$ centered at $`p=mc`$ in order for energy to be conserved. In order to take into account conservation of energy, let $`|f(p)|^2dp`$ be the probability of photons having momenta between $`p`$ and $`p+dp`$. The total wavefunction is then given by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x_1,x_2,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}f(p)\psi _p(x_2,t)u_p(x_1,t)𝑑p.$$
(14)
Once photon one is detected, photon two’s wavefunction is then given by

$$\varphi _{x_1}(x_2,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}f(p)e^{ip(x_1x_2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}ct)/\mathrm{}}𝑑p,$$
(15)
which is no longer equal to a Dirac delta-function. As Eq. 13 indicates, restrictions on emitted photon momenta prohibits instantaneous and complete localization of the second photon.

The prohibition on nonlocality indicated above may also be described in terms of partial entanglement  . As is well known in the quantum-optics community, if a particular observable is subject to physical restrictions, any other conjugate observable, associated with a non-commuting operator, will exhibit a corresponding restriction in terms of nonlocality. This can be more easily shown in terms of spin measurements.

Let us assume that two particles are emitted such that the total spin wave function, measured along the $`x`$ axis, is given by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_x=a|_1|_2b|_1|_2,$$
(16)
where $`a^2+b^2=1`$. If $`a=b`$, then individual spin measurements (along $`x`$) for either particle are unrestricted and completely uncertain. If $`ab`$, there exists partial restriction. If either $`a`$ or $`b`$ is equal to zero, spin measurements are completely restricted. Note that the above wavefunction will always exhibit maximum nonlocality (for measurements along $`x`$) regardless of the values of $`a`$ and $`b`$. A measurement of $`|_1`$ will always yield $`|_2`$.

Particle spin along the $`z`$ axis, however, is a conjugate observable. For spin measurements along the $`z`$ axis, the total wavefunction can easily be shown to be

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_z=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_1\left\{\frac{(ab)}{\sqrt{2}}|_2\frac{(a+b)}{\sqrt{2}}|_2\right\}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_1\left\{\frac{(a+b)}{\sqrt{2}}|_2\frac{(ab)}{\sqrt{2}}|_2\right\}.$$
(17)
If $`a=b`$, observables associated with spin measurements along $`x`$ are unrestricted. For spin measurements along $`z`$, Eq. 15 reduces to (with $`a=b`$)

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_z=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_1|_2+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_1|_2.$$
(18)
In this case, spin measurements along the $`z`$ axis exhibit maximum nonlocality, or maximum entanglement.

In contrast, let us assume $`a=0.8`$ and $`b=0.6`$ In this case, spin measurements along $`x`$ are only slightly restricted. For spin measurements along the z axis, Eq. 15 reduces to

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_z=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_1\left\{0.141|_2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.989}|_2\right\}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_1\left\{0.989|_2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.141}|_2\right\}.$$
(19)
In this case, spin measurements along $`z`$ no longer exhibit maximum nonlocality. If a measurement of particle one’s spin yields $`|_1`$, only $`98\%`$ of the time will particle two yield $`|_2`$.

On the other extreme, if $`b=0`$, the observables associated with spin measurements along $`x`$ are maximally restricted. For spin measurements along the $`z`$ axis, Eq. 15 reduces to (with $`b=0`$)

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_z=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_1\left\{\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_2\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_2\right\}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_1\left\{\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_2\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|_2\right\}.$$
(20)
In this case, measurement of particle one’s spin does not in any way influence the measurement of the spin of particle two. Nonlocality is erased.

As the above analysis indicates, measurements involving a particular observable may or may not exhibit nonlocality, depending upon the degree of physical restraints that may exist on conjugate observables. In the case of photons being emitted from positron/electron annihilation, photon momenta are, for all practical purposes, maximally restricted. This then essentially eliminates nonlocality in the conjugate position observables. Therefore $`\mathrm{}t_{QM}0`$. (However, partial entanglement still, nonetheless, exists. In the limit of well defined momenta, $`\mathrm{}t_{QM}\mathrm{}`$ for the case of no entanglement). In striking contrast, parametric down-converted photons exhibit a much stronger correlation in time than that of gamma photons. This may be attributed to the fact that down-converted photons possess much larger uncertainties in emission energy than those of gamma photons.


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# Untitled Document

The data need to be re-analyzed.