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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Today, cosmology has a comprehensive and self-consistent mathematical model that accounts for all the observed features of the Universe. However, unlike its predecessor, the hot big-bang model or standard cosmology, there is no standard name. For now, I will refer to it as the New Cosmology .

The New Cosmology incorporates the hot big-bang model (every successor theory eats its predecessor whole!), as well as an early inflationary epoch and the present stage of accelerated expansion. The New Cosmology includes a full accounting of the shape and composition of the Universe today: spatially flat, with the critical density distributed as follows: baryons ($`4\pm 1\%`$), nonbaryonic dark matter ($`29\pm 4\%`$) and dark energy ($`67\pm 6\%`$) .

While we can now say that massive neutrinos account for between $`0.1\%`$ and $`5\%`$  of the nonbaryonic dark matter – comparable to the $`0.5\%`$ contributed by stars – most of the dark matter is thought to be slowly moving elementary particles (cold dark matter), with the leading candidates being the axion and neutralino .

Dark energy is the name I use for the mysterious “energy stuff” that dominates the mass-energy budget and whose large negative pressure ($`p<\rho /2`$) is responsible for the accelerated expansion . Dark energy could be as “mundane” as the the energy of the quantum vacuum, or something so exotic that it has thus far eluded the minds of the most creative theorists . Dark energy is truly one of the great mysteries in all of science.

The standard cosmology can properly claim to give a reliable and tested description of the Universe from a fraction of a second onward. While the New Cosmology cannot yet make a similar claim for extending our understanding back to an early, inflationary epoch, inflation is nonetheless a pillar of the New Cosmology, and, as I will describe, precision CMB observations are beginning to test its basic predictions (so far, so good). This is a remarkable development that belies the prediction made by some astronomers (and the fear of many inflationary theorists) that inflation would never be tested.

## 2 The Inflationary Paradigm

Few ideas in theoretical physics have had as much impact as inflation. Introduced by Alan Guth in a 1980 paper  that explained the cosmological virtues of exponential expansion as well as why his version of it (based upon a symmetry-breaking phase transition) did not work(!), inflation has been the driving idea in cosmology since.

The virtues of inflation trace to its ability to lessen the dependence of the present state of the Universe upon initial conditions (though quantifying how successful it is at achieving this is difficult ). In addition to the predictions discussed below, it explains the high degree of homogeneity and isotropy observed in our Hubble volume, the heat of the big bang, and the absence of superheavy magnetic monopoles.

In a flurry of activity during the early 1980s the basic inflation paradigm  was worked out . In brief, essentially all models of inflation can be described in terms of the classical evolution of a single scalar field (dubbed the inflaton) initially displaced from the minimum of its potential \[$`V(\varphi )`$\]:

$`\ddot{\varphi }+3H\dot{\varphi }+V^{}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (1)
$`N{\displaystyle H𝑑t}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{V(\varphi )d\varphi }{V^{}(\varphi )}}`$ (2)
where $`N`$ is the number of e-folds of inflation, prime denotes $`d/d\varphi `$ and dot denotes $`d/dt`$. Models of inflation differ only in the form of their scalar potential and their motivations.

Inflation occurs while the inflaton is slowly rolling: during the “slow roll,” the nearly constant potential energy density associated with the inflaton drives a nearly exponential expansion (“superluminal expansion”). At the end of the slow roll, the inflaton is left oscillating about its potential energy minimum; these oscillations correspond to a condensate of zero-momentum $`\varphi `$ particles. Their decay (by coherent and/or incoherent processes) produces lighter particles which thermalize; this “reheats” the Universe and exponentially increases its entropy (per comoving volume). (Note: The Universe need not be hot before inflation.) The standard hot big bang phase commences thereafter, with the tremendous entropy release accounting its heat.

Quantum fluctuations in $`\varphi `$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi H/2\pi `$) give rise to energy density fluctuations ($`\delta \rho =\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi V^{}`$), which ultimately result in inflation’s signature adiabatic density perturbations. They are of astrophysical interest because of their physical size is stretched from the subatomic to the astrophysical during the period of exponential expansion. Similarly, quantum fluctuations in the metric itself ($`h\delta gH/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$) give rise to a spectrum of gravitational waves with wavelengths of astrophysical interest (fluctuations in other light scalar fields can result in particle production or isocurvature perturbations).

Inflation is a paradigm and not a model because there is no agreed upon identity for the inflaton field. Many models exist, with the inflaton playing a variety of roles, from inducing electroweak symmetry breaking to breaking supersymmetry to the compactification of extra dimension(s), and the energy scale of inflation ranging from $`1`$TeV to $`10^{16}`$GeV . While there is no standard model, each model makes its own set of precise predictions.

That being said, the inflationary paradigm does make a set of generic predictions that can be used to test – and even falsify – it. The basic predictions of inflation are:

* Spatially flat Universe
* Not quite scale-invariant, almost power-law spectrum of Gaussian, adiabatic density perturbations
* Not quite scale-invariant, almost power-law spectrum of gravitational waves

The first two of these predictions are now being tested by precision measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy on sub-degree angular scales, with early results consistent with inflation. The third prediction, which may hold the key to definitively testing inflation and shedding light upon the underlying cause, is inspiring a new generation of very challenging experiments.

## 3 Specific models make specific predictions

While all models of inflation are based upon speculative physics that goes beyond (usually well beyond) the standard model of particle physics, each model makes predictions that sharpen the basic predictions of the paradigm. The reason for this is simple: The physics is speculative but the rules are well defined – the semi-classical evolution of a scalar field.

While models have been constructed where two or more fields evolve during inflation, or where the kinetic term for the inflaton is not canonical, I will discuss the predictions for single-field inflation, assuming that the kinetic term is canonical. More complicated models also make definite predictions, though the relationship of observable quantities to the potential(s) can be different.

The prediction of a flat Universe is not tied to the form of the potential; only that inflation lasts sufficiently long to explain the homogeneity and isotropy. Generally speaking, the duration of inflation far exceeds that needed to produce a flat Universe (although models of inflation have been tuned to give $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ less than 1). The inflationary prediction of a flat Universe corresponds to density parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ is the ratio of the total matter/energy density to the critical density.

The other two predictions of inflation involve the metric perturbations that arise from the quantum fluctuations associated with deSitter space: adiabatic density (or scalar) perturbations from fluctuations in the inflaton potential energy and gravity waves (tensor perturbations) from fluctuations in the metric itself. Their amplitude and variation with scale do depend upon the properties of the scalar-field potential, and this is the basis for the belief that observations may someday pin down the underlying model of inflation

Both the scalar and tensor perturbations have an approximately – but not exactly – scale-invariant spectrum. This fact fundamentally traces to the approximate deSitter space associated with the inflationary phase. In physical terms, that means that the dimensionless strain amplitude of gravity waves when they re-enter the horizon after inflation is almost independent of scale: $`h_{\mathrm{HOR}}H/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V^{1/2}/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$. For density perturbations, it is the amplitude of the density perturbation at horizon crossing that is almost independent of scale: $`(\delta \rho /\rho )_{\mathrm{HOR}}H^2/\dot{\varphi }V^{3/2}/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{3}V^{}`$. Because the post-horizon-crossing evolution of both density perturbations and gravity waves depends upon the time elapsed since horizon crossing – which is longer for longer wavelength perturbations – the spectra of density perturbations and gravity waves is not scale invariant today. The Fourier components of both scalar and tensor perturbations are approximately power-law in wavenumber $`k`$ of the fluctuations; at horizon crossing:

$`(\delta \rho /\rho )_{\mathrm{HOR}}`$ $``$ $`k^{(n1)/2}`$
$`h_{\mathrm{HOR}}`$ $``$ $`k^{n_T/2}`$
where $`n`$ ($`n_T`$) are the power-law indices for scalar (tensor) perturbations.

Both density perturbations and gravity waves lead to fluctuations in the temperature and polarization of the CMB across the sky. Predictions for observable quantities can be expressed in terms of the inflationary potential. For instance, the scalar ($`S`$) and the tensor contributions ($`T`$) to the CMB quadrupole anisotropy are

$`S`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5C_2^S}{4\pi }}2.9{\displaystyle \frac{V/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}}{(m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V^{}/V)^2}}`$ (3)
$`T`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5C_2^T}{4\pi }}0.56(V/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{4})`$ (4)
where $`C_2^S`$ and $`C_2^T`$ are the contribution of scalar and tensor perturbations to the variance of the $`l=2`$ multipole amplitude ($`|a_{2m}|^2=C_2^S+C_2^T`$) and $`V`$ is the value of the inflationary potential when the scale $`k=H_0`$ (present horizon scale) crossed the Hubble radius during inflation. The numerical coefficients in these expressions depend slightly upon the composition of the Universe; the numbers shown are for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.35`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65`$ .

The power-law indices that characterize the scalar and gravity-wave spectra can be expressed in terms of the inflationary potential and its derivatives:

$`n1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V^{}}{V}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}}{4\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V^{}}{V}}\right)^{}`$ (5)
$`n_T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V^{}}{V}}\right)^2`$ (6)
For typical inflationary potentials the deviations from scale invariance are expected to be of order 10%: $`|n1|𝒪(0.1)`$ and $`n_T𝒪(0.1)`$ .

Note that the ratio between the gravity-wave contribution to the CMB quadrupole anisotropy and the density-perturbation contribution to the CMB quadrupole anisotropy provides a consistency test if the tensor spectral index can be measured:

$$T/S=5n_T$$
(7)
for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.35`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65`$ .

The fluctuation spectra are not exact power laws (except in the case of power-law inflation); variations in the power-law indices with $`k`$ may be expressed in terms of higher derivatives of $`V(\varphi )`$ .

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dn}{d\mathrm{ln}k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{8\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{V^{}}{V}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{dn}{d\varphi }}`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{3}V_{}^{\prime \prime \prime }}{V_{}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V_{}^{}}{V_{}}}\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}V_{}^{\prime \prime }}{V_{}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V_{}^{}}{V_{}}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32\pi ^2}}\left(m_{\mathrm{Pl}}{\displaystyle \frac{V_{}^{}}{V_{}}}\right)^4`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dn_T}{d\mathrm{ln}k}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{8\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{V^{}}{V}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{dn_T}{d\varphi }}`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}V^{\prime \prime }}{V}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V^{}}{V}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{Pl}}V^{}}{V}}\right)^4`$
Finally, once the form of the density perturbations and the composition of the Universe are specified, the initial conditions for the formation of structure in the Universe are set. Inflation specifies the form of the density perturbations and the composition of the Universe is known – 29% cold dark matter (with a dash of it in massive neutrinos), 4% baryons and 66% dark energy. This means that the large (and growing) body of observational data that probes the formation of structure in the Universe provides an additional test of the inflationary paradigm. In particular, they have significant potential to determine $`n`$ and test the Gaussian nature of the underlying density perturbations.

## 4 Mid-term report card and future expectations

The three basic predictions of inflation blossom into a series of 9 testable consequences, most of which can also probe the underlying inflationary model.

The cosmic microwave background will play the leading in testing these predictions because its anisotropy and polarization are such a clean probe of the gravity waves and density perturbations produced by inflation. The predictions of inflationary models can be stated in terms of the predicted variances of the multipole amplitudes that characterize CMB anisotropy and polarization ; because there are only $`2\mathrm{}+1`$ multipole amplitudes for multipole $`\mathrm{}`$, even an ideal experiment is limited by sample size (often referred to as cosmic variance) in estimating the true variance.

The discovery of CMB anisotropy on angular scales of order 10 degrees by the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer in 1992  opened the door for testing inflation. The measurement of CMB anisotropy on sub-degree angular scales by balloon-borne and ground-based experiments allowed the serious testing to begin (most of the features and probative power lies in the anisotropy on sub-degree scales) . Presently, it is the results of the BOOMERanG, DASI, CBI, Maxima, CAT, and Archeops experiments that define the state-of-the-art in our knowledge of the CMB angular power spectrum. Soon, the MAP all-sky satellite-based experiment will report its first results and really clean up the anisotropy power spectrum out to $`\mathrm{}900`$. The ESA/NASA Planck satellite is scheduled for launch in 2007; it should provide the definitive power spectrum out to $`\mathrm{}3000`$ as well as significant results on polarization.

The following are the nine predictions, the present status report and prospects for the future. A Table summary is given at the end of this section.

1. Spatial flatness

This prediction is the most straightforward; it simply implies $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1.0\pm 0.00001`$. The ‘$`\pm 0.00001`$’ arises because fluctuations on the current Hubble scale will led to the knowable part of the Universe appearing slightly open (underdensity) or slightly closed (overdensity).

Now: Measurements of the position of the first acoustic peak in the CMB power spectrum indicate that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1.03\pm 0.03`$, consistent with spatial flatness . Further, a direct accounting of the amount of matter and energy leads to an independent, though less precise, determination of the total mass/energy that is reassuringly consistent with spatial flatness, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1\pm 0.25`$.

Future: The precision testing of this prediction lies with MAP, Planck and other future CMB experiments that will probe the smallest angular scales and fix the positions of the acoustic peaks with high precision. Since the positions of the acoustic peaks also depend upon the composition of the Universe, information from large-scale structure measurements that constrains the matter density is also critical. The ultimate precision to which $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ can be probed will likely be in the range $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}0.0050.001`$ and will depend upon how well the composition can be fixed by other independent methods .

2. Density Perturbations from Quantum Fluctuations

The most striking prediction of inflation may be that the density perturbations that seeded structure on scales of millions of light years and larger arose from quantum fluctuations on subatomic scales; if this is true, the CMB is a picture of quantum noise(!). This prediction breaks down into 5 separate testable consequences.

a. Acoustic peaks: Since the density perturbations are impressed at very early times ($`\mathrm{sec}`$), by the time of last scattering ($`t400,000`$yrs) all perturbations are purely “growing mode,” leading to a synchronizing of the perturbations on different scales. Some modes were caught at maximum compression or rarefaction, leading to the prediction of a series of “acoustic peaks” in the angular (multipole) power spectrum .

Now: Current CMB experiments have probed the angular power spectrum out to $`\mathrm{}2000`$; at least three and perhaps as many five peaks have been resolved . There is no question that the acoustic peaks associated adiabatic perturbations have been seen.

Future: Planck and other future CMB experiments that probe the smallest angular scales should resolve six or more acoustic peaks (the damping of anisotropy on very small angular scales due to the finite thickness of the last scattering surface exponentially diminishes the amplitude of successive peaks). These experiments will also be able to separate out any small admixture of isocurvature perturbations (which could arise during inflation or later on).

b. Gaussianity: The inflation-produced density perturbations arise from quantum fluctuations in a very weakly coupled (essentially free) scalar field and hence should be Gaussian to a high degree of precision. The CMB has the greatest power to test this prediction since it probes the density perturbations when they were linear (nonGaussianity automatically develops when gravity drives the amplitude of the perturbations into the nonlinear regime).

Now: There is no evidence for nonGaussianity.

Future: The all-sky CMB mapping experiments (MAP and Planck) which are designed to control systematics have the greatest the potential to test this prediction. Important to quantifying how well the Gaussianity prediction is faring is the construction of a realistic model with nonGaussianity to compare with.

c. Almost scale-invariant spectrum: Inflation predicts an almost, but not quite scale invariant spectrum . Typically, the deviations from scale invariance are of order 10%: $`|n1|𝒪(0.1)`$, with indeterminate sign . This is not only a key test of inflation, but a window to the underlying physics.

Now: Measurements of CMB anisotropy at small angular scales can probe this prediction most sharply. Current observations are beginning to significantly constrain $`n`$: $`n=1.05\pm 0.09`$ , consistent with inflation but not precise enough to test the inflationary prediction sharply.

Future: The Planck Mission should be able to determine $`n`$ to a precision of $`\pm 0.008`$ . An ideal CMB experiment could achieve a precision of almost ten times better ; whether or not a future ground-based and space-based experiment with such capability is carried out remains to be seen.

d. Almost power-law: Inflation predicts that the power-law index varies with scale, with $`dn/d\mathrm{ln}k\pm 10^3`$ for many models and ten times larger for some .

Now: Current CMB measurements, $`dn/d\mathrm{ln}k=0.02\pm 0.04`$ , are consistent with the inflationary prediction, but lack the precision to measure a variation.

Future: It is likely that the CMB offers is the most powerful probe, with Planck projected to do a factor of ten better than the current limit ; an ideal CMB experiment might reach the expected level of variation in $`n`$.

e. CDM scenario for structure formation: Nearly scale-invariant, Gaussian adiabatic density perturbations is one of the two pillars of the highly successful CDM paradigm for structure formation (the other being slowly moving, weakly interacting dark matter particles). As such, tests of the CDM paradigm are tests of inflation. In particular, the study of large-scale can constrain $`n`$ and the abundance of rare objects, such as clusters, can be used to test the Gaussianity prediction.

3. Gravity Waves from Quantum Fluctuations

a. Amplitude: The amplitude of the gravity waves is directly proportional to the energy scale of inflation and does not depend upon the shape of the potential. Unfortunately, theory gives very little advice about the amplitude, and unlike density perturbations which are de rigueur (to seed structure formation) the Universe can live just fine without gravity waves. Huterer and I have explored what can be said about $`T/S`$ without regard to specific potentials by reformulating the equations of motion for inflation. We concluded that if $`n>0.9`$ and the potential has no unnatural features (the key here is the definition of unnatural), $`T/S`$ must exceed $`10^3`$ .

Now: There is no evidence for inflation-produced gravity waves; current limits from the CMB imply $`T/S<𝒪(1)`$ .

Future: There are two basic ways to get at the gravity waves. The first is to use their signature in CMB anisotropy and polarization. Unlike the series of acoustic peaks associated with density perturbations that extend out to $`\mathrm{}3000`$, gravity waves produce a rather featureless angular power spectrum that dies off at around $`\mathrm{}100`$. Because the precision of even a perfect CMB experiment is limited by sampling variance, CMB anisotropy alone can separate the gravity-wave signature only if $`T/S>0.1`$ . However, the polarization signature is not so limited: gravity waves excite a mode of polarization (B-mode or curl) that density perturbations cannot . The only limitations to detecting gravity waves through their polarization signature are sensitivity and foregrounds. It appears that a dedicated polarization experiment might be able to achieve a sensitivity to $`T/S`$ as good as $`10^3`$  (recall, that if $`n>0.9`$ and the potential is “natural”, $`T/S`$ is expected to be this large). By comparison, Planck is expected to achieve $`T/S0.02`$ .

The CMB is only sensitive to the longest wavelength gravity waves, $`\lambda 10^{26}`$cm to $`10^{28}`$ cm; however, the spectrum extends to wavelengths as short as 1 km. Direct detection of inflation-produced gravity waves will be very challenging as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{GW}}`$ is at most $`10^{15}`$ at the mHz-kHz frequencies where the planned detectors will operate: the projected sensitivities of LIGO and LISA to a stochastic background of gravitational waves are $`10^{10}`$ and $`10^{12}`$ respectively , far short of what is expected.

b. Spectrum: The predicted spectral index for one-field models is related to the amplitude, $`n_T=\frac{1}{5}\frac{T}{S}`$, which allows a consistency test if $`n_T`$ can be measured. The combination of direct and CMB detections could measure $`n_T`$ accurately: owing to the long lever-arm between the Hz frequencies of gravity-wave detectors and the very long wavelength of gravity waves that affect the CMB, a factor of 2 precision in each measurement would result in a few percent measurement of $`n_T`$.

c. Consistency: For single-field inflation models $`n_T=\frac{1}{5}\frac{T}{S}`$, as noted above.

## 5 How much of the truth does inflation have and who is $`\varphi `$?

A key to testing inflation and getting at the underlying physics is the detection of gravitational waves. Not only is the amplitude of the gravitational waves directly proportional to the energy scale of inflation, $`TV/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}`$, but this third prediction of inflation is an undeniable smoking gun for inflation.

Let me elaborate and comment. Some would claim that the first two predictions of inflation – flat Universe and scale-invariant density perturbations – have long been considered features of any sensible cosmological model. Certainly both were discussed well before inflation (e.g., flatness by Peebles and Dicke  and scale-invariant density perturbations by Harrison and Zel’dovich ). Thus, there is some truth to this point of view. However, because inflation provides a mechanism for actually producing a flat Universe with almost scale-invariant density perturbations it also makes a prediction about how close to scale invariant they should be. As I have emphasized, an important test of inflation is its prediction that $`|n1|𝒪(0.1)`$ and not $`n=1`$.

In addition to providing a smoking gun for inflation, the detection of gravity waves instantly reveals the epoch and energy scale of inflation:

$`H_I^1`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\times 10^{39}\mathrm{sec}}{\sqrt{T/S}}}`$
$`V^{1/4}`$ $`=`$ $`3\times 10^3m_{\mathrm{Pl}}(T/S)^{1/4}3\times 10^{16}\mathrm{GeV}(T/S)^{1/4}`$
Further, the values of $`T/S`$ and $`n1`$ can be used to solve for the inflationary potential and its first two derivatives:

$`V`$ $`=`$ $`1.8Tm_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}`$ (10)
$`V^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\pm \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{5}}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{S}}}V/m_{\mathrm{Pl}},`$ (11)
$`V^{\prime \prime }`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi \left[(n1)+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{5}}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{S}}\right]V/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ (12)
where the numerical factors depend upon the composition of the Universe and are given for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.35`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65`$ . Measurements of $`T`$, $`S`$, and $`(n1)`$ can be used to shed light on the underlying inflaton potential.

## 6 If it smells like a rose, is it a rose?

Inflation has some of the truth, but it has by no means been verified to the degree that we can safely include it as part of “a new standard cosmology.” Further, while inflation seemed like a bold and expansive step forward twenty years ago, by today’s standards it seems more modest: It only explains the isotropy and homogeneity on a temporary basis (albeit an exponentially long temporary basis); It does not address the question of the initial singularity (or why there is a universe at all); and It still stands disconnected from string theory or any other fundamental theory of elementary particle physics. For all of these reasons we should be open to new ideas. At the moment there are several intriguing ideas – e.g., ekpyrotic/cyclic model  and variable speed of light theories  – but none have reached the point of making sharp predictions like inflation.

The cosmological data that we have seen to date have not only provided the first tests of inflation, but they have also raised the bar for its alternatives. In fact, a die-hard inflationist might well argue that any theory that is able to account for the observable facts without appealing to initial conditions will have to look very much like inflation.

To be specific, the existence of adiabatic density perturbations on superhorizon scales at the time of last scattering and the enormous heat of the big bang (quantified by the entropy of $`10^{90}`$ within our current Hubble volume) require any scenario that does not simply appeal to initial conditions to incorporate superluminal expansion (accelerated expansion or accelerated contraction) and entropy production, the two hallmarks of inflation .

The necessity of each is easy to explain. First, to causally create a density perturbation in an expanding Universe requires that a sub-hubble-scale sized region at very early times ($`l\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}H^1`$) must grow to a size much, much greater than the Hubble length at last scattering. This translates into a kinematic requirement: There must be an epoch where the scale factor grows faster than $`t`$. (More precisely and more generally, the condition is that $`\dot{R}`$ and $`\ddot{R}`$ have the same sign, which is called superluminal expansion.)

Today’s Hubble volume contains an entropy of about $`10^{90}`$ (largely in the form of photons and neutrinos). At early times, the entropy within a Hubble volume is at most $`(m_{\mathrm{Pl}}/T)^3`$ (equality pertaining for a radiation dominated phase). In the absence of massive entropy production the superluminal phase will produce very large, but very empty (low entropy) density perturbations. Entropy production is needed to create enough photons and eventually enough matter to account for the $`10^{68}`$ baryons (and even more dark matter particles) per galaxy. (This same argument could have been worded in terms of producing a smooth region of the Universe corresponding to our present Hubble volume.)

To summarize, an alternative to inflation must involve superluminal expansion and massive entropy production; in addition, if it can be described in 4-dimensions by a the evolution of a single degree of freedom (which could be called a scalar field), an inflation hegemonist might be tempted to call it a realization of inflation, rather than a fundamentally new paradigm. She might have a good case, since inflation is still a paradigm in search of a model.

## 7 Concluding remarks

The chance that any major new idea in theoretical physics has something to do with the truth is very small; in cosmology the odds are even longer. Nonetheless, inflation has passed its first round of major tests and it does appear that inflation has some of the truth.

Precision measurements of CMB anisotropy on sub-degree angular scales by ground-based and balloon-borne experiments have led the way in testing inflation. Over the next decade or so, results from satellite-borne experiments with even greater precision and control of systematics – MAP, Planck and possibly a new satellite mission dedicated to polarization – will sharpen the tests by more than 30 fold and the crucial gravity-wave signature of inflation may be detected.

The challenge and importance of verifying the third prediction of inflation cannot be overstated. Discovery of inflation-produced gravity waves is a smoking gun signature of inflation, immediately identifies the epoch and scale of inflation and reveals information about the inflationary potential. If its spectral index can be measured, the consistency of the single-field inflation paradigm can be checked.

While it is too early to bring on the champagne – plenty could still go wrong – the bar has been raised for any new competitor to inflation. Accounting for the superhorizon-sized adiabatic density perturbations whose existence has been confirmed by detection of acoustic peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum requires both superluminal expansion and entropy, the two hallmarks of inflation.

While the successes of inflation are gratifying, we are very far from understanding the underlying cause. Single-field models require very weakly coupled scalar fields (dimensionless couplings of order $`10^{14}`$ or so) and the potentials seem hopelessly contrived. It could be that our 4-dimensional scalar-field formulation of inflation makes things look unnatural, and that when viewed in higher dimensions or when the scalar field is properly interpreted, the inflaton and its potential will make perfectly good sense.

In addition to the “who is $`\varphi `$ question”, there are other questions: the details of reheating, the possibility of quantum fluctuations during inflation excite isocurvature modes or produce particle relics, the search for a connection between planck scale physics and CMB anisotropy (the modes seen on the CMB sky today were subPlanckian in size during inflation), and the multiverse.

Perhaps the most daunting challenge facing inflation is convincing even ourselves that inflation really happened. Even if inflation passes all of its tests and its gravity waves are detected both by their CMB signature and directly by Hz-frequency laser interferometers, will we be able to say, with the same confidence that use in discussing big-bang nucleosynthesis or the quark/hadron transition, that the Universe really did inflate (rather than inflation provides a consistent way of describing what we see today)? Our confidence in big-bang nucleosynthesis derives from laboratory-based nuclear physics and in the quark/hadron transition from computer simulations and accelerator experiments. Will we be to find a laboratory crosscheck for inflation that will gives us similar confidence?

Finally, there is a downside to inflation: If inflation does succeed in making the present state of the Universe insensitive to its initial state, it will place a veil between us the beginning of the Universe.

### Acknowledgments.

This work was supported by the DoE (at Chicago and Fermilab), NSF (at the CfCP) and by the NASA (at Fermilab by grant NAG 5-7092).


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# Violation of local uncertainty relations as a signature of entanglement

## I Introduction

As more and more experimental realizations of entanglement sources become available, it is necessary to develop efficient methods of testing the entanglement produced by such sources Mai01 ; Vaz02 ; Lam01 ; How02 ; Hag97 ; Guh02 . In particular, the output of entanglement sources is usually in a mixed state due to various decoherence effects. For such mixed states, it can be a difficult task to distinguish whether the output is really entangled, or whether it is separable into some mixture of non-orthogonal product states. Although there are simple formal criteria if the complete density matrix is known, the experimental determination of all matrix elements of an output state requires considerable experimental efforts Whi99 . It is therefore desirable to simplify the verification of entanglement by reducing it to the observation of only a few characteristic statistical properties. One well known statistical property of entanglement is the violation of Bell’s inequalities, and previous experiments often relied on this property as proof of entanglement How02 ; Wei98 . However, the requirements for Bell’s inequality violations are usually more restrictive than the conditions for entanglement Wer89 , and the experiments still require a comparison of at least four different correlation measurements. These complications arise from the fact that Bell’s inequalities test the possibility of local hidden variable models. For entanglement verification, it is not necessary to exclude hidden variable models, since entanglement can be defined entirely within the context of conventional quantum theory, without any reverence to alternative models. A more efficient method may therefore be the definition of a boundary between entangled states and non-entangled states in terms of expectation values of special operators called entanglement witnesses Hor96 ; Lew00 . Each witness operator defines a statistical limitation for separable states derived directly from the topology of Hilbert space. However, the construction of witnesses that can be tested with only a few local von Neumann measurements is still a highly non-trivial task Guh02 . Since the experimental verification of optical entanglement typically uses local von Neumann measurements, it may be desirable to express the criteria for entanglement directly in terms of the measurement statistics obtained in such experiments.

In this paper, we therefore propose an alternative approach to entanglement verification based on the observation that entanglement seems to overcome the uncertainty limit by allowing correlations between sets of non-commuting properties of two systems to be more precise than any local definition of these properties could ever be. Since this precision in the correlations between two spatially separated systems is the property that originally lead to the discovery and definition of entanglement EPR ; Cat , a quantitative evaluation of local uncertainty violations may provide one of the most precise experimental measures of entanglement. A generalized characterization of entanglement as a suppression of noise below the local quantum limit may also be useful in the study of teleportation errors and related problems of quantum communication Pop94 ; Hof02a ; Tsu02  and in the evaluation of the increased precision achieved by applications of entanglement such as quantum lithography Bot00  or atomic clock synchronization Chu00 ; Joz00 .

In the following, we first reformulate the uncertainty principle, adapting it to arbitrary properties of N-level systems. This reformulation of uncertainty provides unconditional limitations for the predictabilities of measurement outcomes for any selection of non-commuting physical properties. We can then derive local uncertainty limits valid for all non-entangled states. Since no separable quantum state can overcome these limits, any violation of such local uncertainty relations is an unambiguous proof of entanglement. Some typical examples are provided and the possibility of obtaining a quantitative measure of entanglement from local uncertainties is discussed.

## II Sum uncertainty relations for N-level systems

The use of uncertainty arguments to study entanglement is well known from continuous variable systems EPR ; Rei89 ; Dua00 . However, these arguments are based on the conventional product uncertainty of position and momentum. This product uncertainty is based on the observation that an eigenstate of position must have infinite momentum uncertainty and vice versa. In N-level systems, all physical properties have upper and lower bounds, making infinite uncertainties impossible. Consequently, the products of N-level uncertainties will always be zero if the system is in an eigenstate of one of the properties concerned. This means that the product uncertainties derived from the commutation relations of operators do not provide a generally valid uncertainty limit for N-level systems. In order to obtain a quantitative definition of uncertainty limits, it is therefore necessary to reformulate and adapt the uncertainty principle to N-level systems.

In its most general form, the uncertainty principle states that it is never possible to simultaneously predict the measurement outcomes for all observables of the system. In terms of quantum theory, the relevant observables of the system are represented by a set of hermitian operators $`\{\widehat{A}_i\}`$. The uncertainty of $`\widehat{A}_i`$ for any given quantum state is then defined as the statistical variance of the randomly fluctuating measurement outcomes,

$$\delta A_i^2=\widehat{A}_i^2\widehat{A}_i^2.$$
(1)
This positive property of the quantum state can only be zero if the quantum state is an eigenstate of $`\widehat{A}_i`$, representing perfect predictability of the measurement outcome. We can therefore conclude that a quantum state with zero uncertainty in all the properties $`\widehat{A}_i`$ must be a simultaneous eigenstate of all the operators in $`\{\widehat{A}_i\}`$. If there is no such simultaneous eigenstate, there must be a non-trivial lower limit $`U>0`$ for the sum of the uncertainties,

$$\underset{i}{}\delta A_i^2U.$$
(2)
The limit $`U`$ is defined as the absolute minimum of the uncertainty sum for any quantum state. It therefore represents a universally valid limitation of the measurement statistics of quantum systems.

Since $`U`$ represents a global minimum, it may be difficult to determine its value in cases where the operators $`\widehat{A}_i`$ have a complicated form. However, there are a number of significant cases where this limit is fairly easy to determine. For N-level systems, one such fundamental limit can be obtained using the spin algebra of the corresponding spin $`l=(N1)/2`$ system with

$`(\widehat{L}_x^2+\widehat{L}_y^2+\widehat{L}_z^2)\psi =l(l+1)\psi `$ (3)
for any state $`\psi `$. The expectation values of $`\widehat{L}_i`$ define a vector with a maximal length equal to the extremal eigenvalues of $`\pm l`$ along any axis. We therefore obtain the uncertainty limit

$$\delta L_x^2+\delta L_y^2+\delta L_z^2=\underset{=l(l+1)}{\underset{}{\widehat{L}_x^2+\widehat{L}_y^2+\widehat{L}_z^2}}\underset{l^2}{\underset{}{\widehat{L}_x^2+\widehat{L}_y^2+\widehat{L}_z^2}}l.$$
(4)
This uncertainty relation defines an absolute limit to the precision of spin variables in any N-level systems. For the commonly studied case of two level systems, the spin variables are often expressed in terms of the normalized Pauli matrices $`\widehat{\sigma }_i`$, which have eigenvalues of $`\pm 1`$ instead of $`\pm 1/2`$. The sum uncertainty relation for the Pauli matrices is then given by

$$\delta \sigma _1^2+\delta \sigma _2^2+\delta \sigma _3^22.$$
(5)
This uncertainty relation provides a quantitative description of the fact that only a single spin component of a two level system can have a well defined value. It is also possible to formulate an uncertainty relation for only two spin components by noting that $`\delta \sigma _i^21`$. This simplified uncertainty relation reads

$$\delta \sigma _1^2+\delta \sigma _2^21.$$
(6)
This is indeed the correct uncertainty minimum. For general spin $`l`$ systems, such a simple derivation of the $`\widehat{L}_x`$-$`\widehat{L}_y`$ uncertainty is not possible, since the maximal uncertainty of $`\widehat{L}_z`$ is equal to $`l^2`$ and therefore exceeds the uncertainty limit for all three spin components. Nevertheless there exists an uncertainty limit of $`\widehat{L}_x`$ and $`\widehat{L}_y`$ for any value of $`l`$, since $`\widehat{L}_x`$ and $`\widehat{L}_y`$ do not have any common eigenstates. For $`l=1`$, we have determined this limit by optimizing the spin squeezing properties of states with average spins in the $`xy`$-plane. The result reads

$$\delta L_x^2+\delta L_y^2\frac{7}{16}.$$
(7)
In the $`\widehat{L}_z`$ basis, the minimum uncertainty state of this relation is given by

$$\varphi =\frac{\sqrt{5}}{4}e^{i\varphi }1+\frac{\sqrt{6}}{4}0+\frac{\sqrt{5}}{4}e^{+i\varphi }+1.$$
(8)
It may be interesting to note that this minimum uncertainty state has an $`\widehat{L}_z`$-uncertainty of $`\delta L_z^2=5/8`$, so that the total of all three spin uncertainties exceeds the limit set by relation (4) by $`1/16`$. Relation (7) is therefore more than just a truncated version of (4).

## III Local uncertainty limits

It is now possible to apply the sum uncertainty relations to define the correlation limit for separable states. In general, a pair of quantum systems A and B can be characterized by the operator properties $`\widehat{A}_i`$ and $`\widehat{B}_i`$ with the sum uncertainty relations given by

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\delta A_i^2`$ $``$ $`U_A`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\delta B_i^2`$ $``$ $`U_B.`$ (9)
It may be worth noting that the two Hilbert spaces of system A and system B do not need to have the same dimension. In principle, local uncertainty limits can be derived for any NxM system. Nor is it necessary that there exists any specific relation between the properties $`\widehat{A}_i`$ and $`\widehat{B}_i`$ other than that there is exactly one property $`\widehat{A}_i`$ in A for every property $`\widehat{B}_i`$ in B. The operator properties $`\widehat{A}_i+\widehat{B}_i`$ then define a set of joint properties of the two systems that can determined by local measurements of $`\widehat{A}_i`$ and $`\widehat{B}_i`$, respectively. For product states, the measurement values are uncorrelated and the uncertainties of $`\widehat{A}_i+\widehat{B}_i`$ are equal to the sum of the local uncertainties,

$`\delta (A_i+B_i)^2`$ $`=`$ $`\delta A_i^2+\delta B_i^2`$
$`\text{for}\widehat{\rho }`$ $`=`$ $`\rho (\text{A})\rho (\text{B}).`$ (10)
Therefore, the measurement statistics of product states are limited by the uncertainty relation

$$\underset{i}{}\delta (A_i+B_i)^2U_A+U_B.$$
(11)
Moreover, this uncertainty limit also applies to all mixtures of product states, since the uncertainties of a mixture are always equal to or greater than the averaged uncertainties of the components. For the general case of $`\widehat{\rho }=_mp_m\widehat{\rho }_m`$ and an arbitrary property $`\widehat{S}`$, this relation between the uncertainties of a mixture and the uncertainty of its components can be obtained from

$`\delta S^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}p_m\text{tr}\left\{\rho _m(\widehat{S}\widehat{S})^2\right\}`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}p_m\left(\underset{=\delta S_m^2}{\underset{}{(\text{tr}\{\rho _m\widehat{S}^2\}\text{tr}\{\rho _m\widehat{S}\}^2)}}+\underset{0}{\underset{}{(\text{tr}\{\rho _m\widehat{S}\}\widehat{S})^2}}\right){\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}p_m\delta S_m^2.`$
It follows from this result that the uncertainty relation (11) for product states also applies to a mixture of product states,

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\delta (A_i+B_i)^2`$ $``$ $`U_A+U_B`$
$`\text{for any}\widehat{\rho }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}p_m\rho _m(\text{A})\rho _m(\text{B}).`$ (13)
Any violation of this uncertainty limit therefore proofs that the quantum state cannot be separated into a mixture of product states. However, entangled states can overcome this limitation, since entanglement describes correlations that are more precise than the ones represented by mixtures of product states. The violation of any local uncertainty relation of the form (III) is therefore a sufficient condition for the existence of entanglement.

## IV Violation of local uncertainty relations

To illustrate how entanglement can overcome the local uncertainty limit defined by (III), it may be useful to consider the properties of maximally entangled states. Using the Schmidt bases $`n_\text{A}`$ and $`n_\text{B}`$ for A and B, these states can be written as

$$E_{\text{max.}}_{\text{A;B}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}\underset{n}{}n;n_{\text{A;B}}.$$
(14)
Such maximally entangled states appear to violate the uncertainty principle because any property of system A can be determined by a corresponding measurement on system B. That is, a measurement of an eigenvalue of $`\widehat{A}_i`$ in A projects the quantum state in B into the eigenstate of $`\widehat{B}_i`$ with the same eigenvalue as the one obtained for $`\widehat{A}_i`$ in A. This means that, for any set of operators $`\widehat{A}_i`$ in A, there is a set of corresponding operators $`\widehat{B}_i`$ in B such that the measurement result of $`\widehat{A}_i`$ is always equal to the measurement result of $`\widehat{B}_i`$. In more formal terms, $`E_{\text{max.}}_{\text{A;B}}`$ is a simultaneous eigenstate of all $`\widehat{A}_i+\widehat{B}_i`$ with eigenvalues of zero Hof02b . Maximally entangled states can thus have a total uncertainty of zero in all properties $`\widehat{A}_i+\widehat{B}_i`$, maximally violating the uncertainty relation (III) with

$`(\widehat{A}_i+\widehat{B}_i)E_{\text{max.}}_{\text{A;B}}=0`$ and $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\delta (A_i+B_i)^2=0`$
$`\text{for}n\widehat{B}_in^{}`$ $`=`$ $`n^{}\widehat{A}_in.`$ (15)
Experimentally, it is then possible to evaluate how close a given mixed state output is to an intended maximally entangled state by measuring the remaining uncertainty due to imperfections in the entanglement generation process. To obtain a quantitative estimate of the quality of entanglement generation, the measured uncertainty can be compared with the uncertainty limit of $`U_A+U_B=2U`$ for separable states. Specifically, the relative violation of local uncertainty may be defined as

$$C_{\text{LUR}}=1\frac{_i\delta (A_i+B_i)^2}{2U}.$$
(16)
Since some amount of entanglement is necessary to overcome the uncertainty limit, $`C_{\text{LUR}}`$ provides a quantitative estimate of the amount of entanglement verified by the violation of local uncertainty. In particular, it may be interesting to determine the minimal amount of entanglement necessary to obtain a given value of local uncertainty violation $`C_{\text{LUR}}`$ for various local uncertainty relations. Once such relations are known, it will be possible to obtain reliable estimates of entanglement from local uncertainty violations without additional assumptions about the quantum state.

## V Application to entanglement between two spin-1 systems

In general, any uncertainty relation of the type given by (2) can be used to define an uncertainty limit for non-entangled states according to relation (III). However, in most cases it will be convenient to define the limit in a highly symmetric way. This can be achieved for any N-level system by using the spin uncertainty (4). The local uncertainty relation for separable states of two spin $`l=(N+1)/2`$ systems is given by

$$\delta (L_x(\text{A})+L_x(\text{B}))^2+\delta (L_y(\text{A})+L_y(\text{B}))^2+\delta (L_z(\text{A})+L_z(\text{B}))^22l.$$
(17)
Any state that violates this uncertainty relation must be entangled. The optimal result of zero total uncertainty is obtained for the singlet state, defined by

$$(\widehat{L}_i(\text{A})+\widehat{L}_i(\text{B}))\text{singlet}_{\text{A;B}}=0.$$
(18)
Experimental methods of generating such singlet states for three level systems ($`l=1`$) have been realized using optical parametric downconversion to create photons entangled in their spatial degrees of freedom Mai01 ; Vaz02 , or to create entanglement between the polarization properties of a pair of two photon states Lam01 ; How02 . The relative violation of local uncertainties defined by equation (16) may serve as an easily accessible quantitative measure of the achievements represented by these experiments.

In order to minimize the experimental effort involved in characterizing the entanglement of three level systems, it is also possible to use the local uncertainty limit based on relation (7),

$$\delta (L_x(\text{A})+L_x(\text{B}))^2+\delta (L_y(\text{A})+L_y(\text{B}))^2\frac{7}{8}.$$
(19)
This inequality requires only two measurement settings corresponding to 18 measurement probabilities for its verification. For comparison, the experimental verification of a Bell’s inequality violation reported in How02  required four settings and 36 measurement probabilities. Moreover, the optimization of the Bell’s inequality violations required measurements at additional settings, while the measurement settings for the local uncertainty relation (19) are defined by the symmetry of the experimental setup and do not have to be varied. Unfortunately, the measurement data given in How02  is not sufficient to allow an analysis of the local uncertainties of this entanglement source. However, the measurement result was interpreted using a simplified noise model given in the $`\widehat{L}_x`$ basis by

$`\widehat{\rho }`$ $`=`$ $`p_s(\text{singlet}\text{singlet})`$ (20)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(1p_s)}{3}}\left(+1;1+1;1+0;00;0+1;+11;+1\right),`$
that is, the correlation along the x-axis of the spin is assumed to be perfect, while the other two correlations fluctuate with

$`\delta (L_x(\text{A})+L_x(\text{B}))^2`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`\delta (L_y(\text{A})+L_y(\text{B}))^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}(1p_s)`$
$`\delta (L_y(\text{A})+L_y(\text{B}))^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}(1p_s).`$ (21)
For this model, the relative violation of the local uncertainty relation (19) is equal to

$$C_{\text{LUR}}=\frac{32p_s11}{21}.$$
(22)
Using the value of $`p_s=0.69`$ reported in How02 , the relative violation of relation (19) achieved in this experiment should be equal to $`C_{\text{LUR}}=0.53`$. It might be interesting to compare this value with direct measurements of local uncertainty violations in future experiments.

## VI Uncertainty violation and concurrence in 2x2 systems

For two level systems, the uncertainty relations (5) and (6) define two different criteria for entanglement verification. The local uncertainty relation based on (5) reads

$$\delta (\sigma _1(\text{A})+\sigma _1(\text{B}))^2+\delta (\sigma _2(\text{A})+\sigma _2(\text{B}))^2+\delta (\sigma _3(\text{A})+\sigma _3(\text{B}))^24.$$
(23)
This uncertainty relation is useful in order to identify the level of singlet state entanglement in a noisy mixture. It includes all three Pauli matrices and is therefore not sensitive to any anisotropy in the noise distribution. The local uncertainty relation based on (6) reads

$$\delta (\sigma _1(\text{A})+\sigma _1(\text{B}))^2+\delta (\sigma _2(\text{A})+\sigma _2(\text{B}))^22.$$
(24)
This local uncertainty relation can be tested with only two measurement settings. It may therefore be useful in cases where it is necessary to test for entanglement with only a limited number of measurements. Since one of the three Pauli matrices is not considered, this condition for separability is sensitive to noise anisotropies. In particular, it corresponds to (23) if the uncertainty in $`\widehat{\sigma }_3(\text{A})+\widehat{\sigma }_3(\text{B})`$ is close to two, and is more difficult to violate otherwise.

While a precise characterization of experimentally generated quantum states is very difficult, a measurement of the uncertainties can provide a comparatively simple test of an essential entanglement property. A complete illustration of the many kinds of errors in entanglement generation that can increase the uncertainty levels and thus degrade the entanglement is beyond the scope of this paper. In fact, the uncertainty limits presented above are useful precisely because they do not require a full characterization of the statistics given by the complete density matrix. Nevertheless it may be useful to look at one specific example to illustrate the relationship between the uncertainty boundaries and the actual entanglement of the density matrix. The most simple case is given by a mixture of a maximally noisy state and the intended maximally entangled state often referred to as a Werner state Wer89 ,

$$\widehat{\rho }=(1p_s)\frac{1}{4}\widehat{1}+p_s\text{singlet}\text{singlet}.$$
(25)
Here, the parameter $`p_s`$ represents the fraction by which the intended entangled state exceeds the background noise. For pairs of two level systems, the amount of entanglement of any quantum state can be expressed in terms of the concurrence $`C`$ Hil97 ; Woo98 . For Werner states, the concurrence is $`C=\text{max}\{(3p_s1)/2,0\}`$. It is interesting to compare this precise measure of the total entanglement of the two systems with the relative violations of local uncertainty defined by relation (23). Since the Werner state is completely isotropic, the uncertainties of each component $`\widehat{\sigma }_i(\text{A})+\widehat{\sigma }_i(\text{B})`$ are given by

$$\delta (\sigma _i(\text{A})+\sigma _i(\text{B}))^2=2(1p_s).$$
(26)
Therefore, relation (23), which gives equal weight to each component, appears to be optimally suited as a measure of entanglement for this class of states. This expectation is indeed confirmed by the relative violation of local uncertainty, which is in this case precisely equal to the concurrence,

$$C_{\text{LUR}}=1\frac{1p_s}{3}=C.$$
(27)
This result shows that for some class of states, the concurrence is exactly equal to the amount of noise suppression achieved in the total spin variables. It is an interesting question how large this class of states is. At present, we would like to note that it is straightforward to extend the result to arbitrary mixtures of Bell states. In general, it seems to be quite significant that the relative violation of uncertainty can be used as an estimate of the concurrence, even though the experimental effort involved in any precise determination of the concurrence greatly exceeds the effort required to measure the relative violation of local uncertainty.

In this context, it may also be interesting to consider uncertainty relation (24), which requires only two measurement settings. Clearly, this uncertainty limit is more difficult to overcome because it does not include the correlations in the third component $`\widehat{\sigma }_3(\text{A})+\widehat{\sigma }_3(\text{B})`$. As a result, the relative violation of this uncertainty for Werner states is lower than the concurrence $`C`$ by

$$C_{\text{LUR}}^{}=1\frac{1p_s}{2}=C\frac{1C}{2}.$$
(28)
However, since the relative violation of (24) is always lower than the relative violation of (23), $`C_{\text{LUR}}^{}`$ may provide a useful lower bound for an experimental estimate of the concurrence using only two measurement settings.

## VII Further possibilities and open questions

As explained in section II, uncertainty relations can be formulated for any operator set $`\{\widehat{A}_i\}`$. It is therefore possible to optimize the choice of operators in the local uncertainty relation with respect to a given physical situation. In particular, it may be possible to classify entangled states according to the types of local uncertainty relations they violate. In any case, it should be kept in mind that the examples given here are far from complete.

As mentioned in section III, local uncertainty relations can also be formulated for NxM entanglement, where the dimensionality of the two Hilbert spaces is different. One application of this possibility may be the investigation of multipartite entanglement, where it allows the formulation of bipartite uncertainty limits for various partitions of the multipartite system foot1 .

As noted in the introduction, local uncertainties may also be useful as a characterization of the increased precision obtained from entanglement in applications such as teleportation, lithography, and clock synchronization Tsu02 ; Hof02b ; Bot00 ; Chu00 ; Joz00 . On the other hand, quantum information protocols usually define entanglement with respect to distillability by local operations and classical communication. This raises the question how the two concepts are related to each other. Does the distillation of entanglement actually decrease the uncertainty in the non-local correlation, or does it merely redistribute the quantum fluctuations foot2 ?

These are just a few of the questions raised by the possibility of quantifying the violation of local uncertainty relations by entangled states. A systematic classification of local uncertainty relations may thus provide many new insights into the physical properties of entangled states.

## VIII Conclusions

In conclusion, we have generalized the uncertainty principle to uncertainty sums of arbitrary sets of physical properties and derived local uncertainty relations valid for all separable states of a pair of N-level quantum systems. Any violation of these local uncertainty relations indicates that the two systems are entangled. The relative violation of a local uncertainty provides a quantitative measure of this entanglement property and may be used to evaluate experimental entanglement generation processes. It should also be possible to obtain valid estimates of the total entanglement from uncertainty measurements. Specifically, the relative violation of local uncertainty is actually equal to the concurrence for some 2x2 cases. In more general cases, it may be possible to identify the minimal amount of entanglement necessary to obtain the observed level of local uncertainty violation, thus establishing a more precise relation between the local uncertainty violation and the total entanglement of the system. Local uncertainty relations may thus provide an interesting starting point for further investigations into the physical properties of entanglement.