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# Finite size effects in entangled rings of qubits

## I Introduction

Entanglement in many-body systems such as spin chains has recently attracted much attention. The reasons are at least twofold: on one side one is interested in understanding fundamental structures of entangled multipartite states and the natural occurrence of such states in systems with spin-spin interactions, with quantum information processing purposes in mind. On the other side insights from quantum information theory may lead to a deeper understanding of many-body phenomena in strongly interacting systems, such as quantum phase transitions and critical behavior.

Much effort has been devoted to studying the natural appearance of bipartite entanglement in ground states of 1-dimensional spin models with an Ising Hamiltonian or a Heisenberg-type Hamiltonian fazio ; nielsen ; zanardi ; vidal , with special emphasis on properties of entanglement near a quantum phase transition. It has been pointed out that some entanglement remains for finite temperatures (so-called thermal entanglement vedral ), which for some transverse field can even increase with increasing temperature. Recently, it has been shown that maximally entangled states of atoms can be created by crossing a quantum phase transition dorner .

A complementary approach to the phenomenon of entanglement in chains of qubits has been initiated by O’Connor and Wootters wootters  (see also wchain ): they ask (without specifying a Hamiltonian) the fundamental question “what is the maximal entanglement between two neighboring sites of an entangled ring with translational invariance”? An “entangled ring” is defined as a chain of qubits with periodic boundary conditions. Due to the so-called “monogamy of entanglement” it is impossible for a site to be maximally entangled with both its neighbors: shared entanglement is always less than maximal brusspra ; oldwootters . In Ref. wootters  the question of the upper limit for the nearest neighbor entanglement was simplified by introducing two additional restrictions on the allowed states:

* the state is an eigenstate of the $`z`$ component of the total spin,
* neighboring spins cannot both be “up”.

Both restrictions are based on an educated guess for the optimal states for the general problem. O’Connor and Wootters solved the restricted optimization problem by relating it to an effective Hamiltonian for the one-dimensional ferromagnetic $`XY`$ model, and found the maximal nearest-neighbor concurrence to be

$$C^{\text{max}}(N,p)=\frac{2\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{p\pi }{Np}\right)}{N\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi }{Np}\right)},$$
(1)
where $`N`$ is the number of sites and $`p`$ is the number of up-spins. Eq. (1) provides a lower bound for the problem without restriction (ii). For given $`N`$ and $`p`$, it may or may not happen that $`C`$ can be increased by also allowing states where two neighboring spins are up. In the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$, the optimal number of up-spins in Eq. (1) approaches $`p_{opt}0.301N`$. This leads to an asymptotic value of $`C^{\text{max}}0.434`$. Whether this number can be improved by removing restriction (ii) or restriction (i) is an open problem. We will illustrate, however, that for a fixed $`p`$ restriction (ii) tends to play a decreasing role as $`N`$ is increased.

In this article we mainly focus on the problem of optimizing the nearest-neighbor entanglement for given finite $`N`$ and $`p`$, without imposing restriction (ii). Using the methods described below we solve a number of cases analytically. We supplement these results by numerical calculations, and thus arrive at a rather complete picture of the solutions for $`N24`$. Some finite size effects that occur only for specific small numbers of sites will be pointed out.

The paper is organized as follows: In Sec. II we introduce the problem and our notation, and study symmetry under reflections. In Sec. III we describe our analytical results for the maximal nearest-neighbor entanglement in the cases $`p=2`$ and $`p=N/2`$. In Sec. IV we numerically investigate whether the solutions in wootters  are at least still *local* maxima when restriction (ii) is removed. In Sec. V we use a method recently introduced by Wolf et al. cirac , mapping the original nonlinear problem onto a series of linear ones. We discuss some general properties of the mapping, and use it to numerically calculate the maximal nearest-neighbor concurrence for $`N24`$. Finally, in Sec. VII we discuss our results and point out some interesting questions that are still open.

## II Maximal nearest neighbor entanglement

We consider a ring of $`N`$ qubits, out of which $`p`$ are in the state $`|`$ and $`Np`$ are in the state $`|`$. In the following we will use the notation $`||0`$ and $`||1`$, and will refer to $`p`$ as the occupation number. We will always consider translationally invariant states.

### II.1 Translationally invariant states and concurrence

Our aim is to calculate the maximal nearest-neighbor entanglement of two qubits, using the concurrence as a measure. The concurrence is defined as defconc  $`C(\rho )=\mathrm{max}\{\lambda _1\lambda _2\lambda _3\lambda _4,0\}`$, where $`\lambda _1\lambda _2\lambda _3\lambda _40`$ are the square roots of the eigenvalues of $`\rho \stackrel{~}{\rho }`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }:=(\sigma ^y\sigma ^y)\rho (\sigma ^y\sigma ^y)`$ is the spin-flipped density matrix.

The structure of any two-qubit reduced density matrix on the ring is, due to the properties of translational invariance and the occupation number $`p`$ being fixed, given by

$$\varrho ^{(2)}=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}v& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& w& z& 0\\ 0& z^{}& w& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& y\end{array}\right]$$
(2)
with $`v+2w+y=1`$. The basis is chosen as $`(|00,|01,|10,|11)`$. Here the zero entries are due to considering a fixed $`p`$. The diagonal entries in the density matrix are real, and the equality of two of the diagonal elements is caused by the translational invariance. Note that $`v=y+(N2p)/N`$, i.e. the number of down-down pairs of neighboring spins depends on the number of up-up pairs. We will see below that for states with maximal entanglement the off-diagonal element $`z`$ can be taken to be real.

The concurrence of the density matrix (2) is given by wootters

$$C=2\mathrm{max}\{|z|\sqrt{vy},0\}.$$
(3)
As one observes from Eq. (3), the task of finding the state that maximizes the nearest-neighbor concurrence is substantially simplified by requiring $`y=0`$, i.e. two neighboring spins cannot be both “up”. This is the assumption that was made in wootters  — we will relax this constraint throughout our work.

For given $`N`$ and $`p`$ we apparently need to maximize Eq. (3) over all translationally invariant states, that is, over all density matrices fulfilling $`[\varrho ,𝒯]=0`$, where $`𝒯`$ is the operator that implements a translation by one site. As was shown in wootters , the problem splits into $`N`$ maximization problems over *pure* states: since $`\varrho `$ and $`𝒯`$ commute, the spectral decomposition of $`\varrho `$ can be expressed in projectors onto eigenstates of $`𝒯`$, namely

$$\varrho =\underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}p_k|\psi _k\psi _k|,$$
(4)
where $`p_k0`$ and $`_kp_k=1`$. Here the eigenstates of the translation operator are defined by $`𝒯|\psi _k=e^{i\frac{2\pi }{N}k}|\psi _k`$. Since $`C`$ is a convex function, we have

$$C\left(\underset{k}{}p_k|\psi _k\psi _k|\right)\underset{k}{}p_kC(|\psi _k\psi _k|)\underset{k}{\mathrm{max}}\{C(|\psi _k\psi _k|)\},$$
(5)
and it is thus sufficient to first maximize the concurrence over pure states within each eigenspace of the translation operator, and then choose the maximal result over all eigenstates. In fact, the situation is even simpler, since, as shown in wootters , the search can be restricted to the $`k=0`$ eigenstates, i.e. to eigenstates of $`𝒯`$ with eigenvalue 1.

For a given number of sites $`N`$ and a given occupation number $`p`$, the most general eigenstate of $`𝒯`$ with eigenvalue 1 is a superposition that looks as follows:

$$|\psi (N,p)=\underset{\mu }{}a_\mu |\mu ,$$
(6)
with the normalizations

$$\mu |\mu =1\text{and}\underset{\mu }{}|a_\mu |^2=1,$$
(7)
and with

$$|\mu =𝒩_\mu \underset{j=0}{\overset{N1}{}}𝒯^j|\varphi _\mu .$$
(8)
The above notation is as follows: the index $`\mu `$ enumerates all distinct translationally invariant configurations of the ring where the $`p`$ up-spins and $`(Np)`$ down-spins have given relative positions. The state $`|\varphi _\mu `$ is one representative member of the $`\mu `$th configuration. The operator inducing a translation by $`j`$ sites is given by $`T^j`$, and $`𝒩_\mu `$ denotes an appropriate normalization factor. Thus, $`|\mu `$ is a normalized eigenstate of $`𝒯`$ corresponding to the configuration $`\mu `$ and the eigenvalue 1. Note that for a given $`\mu `$ it may happen that $`𝒯^j|\varphi _\mu =|\varphi _\mu `$ already for $`j=\stackrel{~}{N}<N`$; in that case it is not possible to construct eigenstates corresponding to all eigenvalues of $`𝒯`$ from $`|\varphi _\mu `$. This is accounted for by an appropriate value of $`𝒩_\mu `$, which in the general case ($`\stackrel{~}{N}N`$) reads $`𝒩_\mu =\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{N}}/N`$.

We use the following convention to denote $`\mu `$ explicitly: the composite index $`\mu `$ consists of $`p`$ entries, where each entry specifies a distance from one up-spin to the next up-spin in $`|\varphi _\mu `$. We choose the first entry to be the smallest. Note that the $`p`$ entries add up to $`N`$. An example will clarify this notation: let us consider the case of $`N=5`$ qubits and the occupation number $`p=2`$. Then the index $`\mu `$ can only take two combinations of entries, namely 1,4 and 2,3. The most general translationally invariant state with translational eigenvalue $`1`$ is written as

$`|\psi (N=5,p=2)`$ $`=`$ $`a_{1,4}|1,4+a_{2,3}|2,3`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1,4;2,3}{}}a_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{5}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{4}{}}}𝒯^j|\varphi _\mu `$
$`=`$ $`a_{1,4}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{5}}}\left(|11000+|01100+|00110+|00011+|10001\right)+`$
$`a_{2,3}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{5}}}\left(|10100+|01010+|00101+|10010+|01001\right),`$
where the normalization reads $`|a_{1,4}|^2+|a_{2,3}|^2=1`$. The task is then to find the optimal coefficients $`a_\mu `$, such that $`C`$ is maximized.

### II.2 Reflection symmetry

One main big difficulty in the maximization problem of the concurrence is the growing number of free parameters $`a_\mu `$ for higher $`N`$ and $`p`$ 111 One can show that $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{N}{p}\right)/N`$ is a lower bound for the number of different $`\mu `$’s.. In this subsection we will elaborate on a symmetry argument that eliminates nearly half of the parameters.

Recall the state under consideration, Eq. (6), and the definition of the $`p`$-dimensional index $`\mu `$, which specifies the number of steps from one up-spin to the next. It is clear that a cyclic permutation of the entries of $`\mu `$ will always result in the same state $`|\mu `$, whereas an anti-cyclic one will result in a state where all spins are reflected around a certain site. Since $`|\mu `$ is translationally invariant, it does not matter around which site the reflection is performed, and for convenience we can assume that the reflection interchanges the two sites that we are focusing on. Denoting the reflection operator by $``$, it is then obvious that $`\varrho \varrho `$ leads to $`\varrho ^{(2)}\left[\varrho ^{(2)}\right]^\text{T}`$ (in our chosen basis) for any translationally invariant $`\varrho `$. In terms of the matrix elements, reflection causes $`v,w,yv,w,y`$ while $`zz^{}`$. In particular the reflected state has the same concurrence as the original one, $`C(\varrho )=C(\varrho )`$.

Now, let us study the entanglement properties of $`\stackrel{~}{\varrho }=(\varrho +\varrho )/2`$. We arrive at

$$C(\stackrel{~}{\varrho })=|z+z^{}|2\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}(v+v)\frac{1}{2}(y+y)}=C(\varrho ),$$
(10)
and thus it is sufficient to consider states of the form $`\stackrel{~}{\varrho }`$. Note that $`\stackrel{~}{\varrho }`$ commutes with the reflection operator, i.e. $`[\stackrel{~}{\varrho },]=0`$, and therefore can be decomposed into projectors onto eigenstates of the reflection operator. By the same argument that allowed us to reduce the original problem to a pure state problem for each translational eigenvalue, we can now restrict our attention to pure states with translational eigenvalue 1 *and* odd or even reflection symmetry. In fact, using the observation from wootters  that one only needs to consider positive coefficients $`a_\mu `$ in the optimal state, we immediately find that the even states will contain an optimal state. This result is non-trivial, intuitive as it may seem: A non-linear optimization problem could lead to solutions that break the underlying symmetries. Here, however, this is not the case and this fact reduces the dimensionality of the relevant parameter space significantly.

## III Analytical results

In the following we will consider various occupation numbers, starting with the trivial case $`p=1`$: here the state is completely fixed and reads

$$|\psi (N,p=1)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}\underset{i=0}{\overset{N1}{}}𝒯^i|\varphi _N,$$
(11)
which is a generalized W-state. The concurrence between nearest neighbors (in fact, between any two sites) is given as $`C(N,p=1)=2/N`$.

### III.1 Maximal nearest neighbor concurrence for occupation number $`p=2`$

The case $`p=2`$ is already much more involved. The concurrence of a given state can still be written in a compact way for all $`N`$, but it will turn out that the optimization problem can only be solved analytically for some small numbers of sites. The most general translationally invariant state for $`N`$ sites with occupation number $`p=2`$ is given by

$$|\psi (N,p=2)=\underset{\mu }{}a_\mu 𝒩_\mu \underset{i=0}{\overset{N1}{}}𝒯^i|\varphi _\mu ,$$
(12)
where, as explained above, $`\mu `$ is a index with two entries which describes the location of the up-spins in the ring; the first value for $`\mu `$ is $`1,N1`$. As mentioned above, for the optimization problem we can take the coefficients $`a_\mu `$ to be real and positive.

At this point we have to distinguish the cases of even and odd $`N`$:

* Even $`N`$:
The index $`\mu `$ stands for all inequivalent decompositions of $`N`$ into a sum of two terms, starting at $`1,N1`$, then $`2,N2`$ and so forth until $`N/2,N/2`$. The last term of the superposition in Eq. (12) is special, because a translation by $`N/2`$ sites already leads to $`𝒯^{\frac{N}{2}}|\varphi _{N/2,N/2}=|\varphi _{N/2,N/2}`$. Therefore this contribution has a different normalization, as mentioned below Eq. (8).

This becomes immediately clear from looking at an example; let us choose $`N=4`$ and $`p=2`$:

$`|\psi (N=4,p=2)`$ $`=`$ $`a_{1,3}|1,3+a_{2,2}|2,2`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1,3;2,2}{}}a_\mu 𝒩_\mu {\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}𝒯^i|\varphi _\mu `$
$`=`$ $`a_{1,3}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(|1100+|0110+|0011+|1001\right)+`$
$`a_{2,2}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|1010+|0101\right).`$
For better clarity we will from now on simplify the above notation of the composite index $`\mu `$ by dropping the second entry, i.e. $`a_{1,N1}a_1`$ and $`|1,N1|1`$ and so forth. (This short-hand notation is of course only possible for the case $`p=2`$.) Calculating the matrix elements for even $`N`$, one finds

$`y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}a_1^2,`$ (14)
$`v`$ $`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{N}\left(N4+a_1^2\right)\hfill & \text{for }N>3\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array},`$ (17)
$`z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{N}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N/21}{}}}a_ia_{i+1}+\sqrt{2}a_{N/21}a_{N/2}\right),`$ (18)
The concurrence is thus given by the expression

$$C=\frac{2}{N}\mathrm{max}\{2|a_1a_2+a_2a_3+\mathrm{}+a_{N/22}a_{N/21}+\sqrt{2}a_{N/21}a_{N/2}||a_1|\sqrt{N4+a_1^2},0\}.$$
(19)
* Odd $`N`$:
Here the double index $`\mu `$ runs from $`1,N1`$ until $`(N1)/2,(N+1)/2`$. The normalization of all terms in the superposition is identical. An example of the most general state has already been shown for $`N=5`$ in Eq. (9). With the short-hand notation introduced above we find

$`y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}a_1^2,`$ (20)
$`v`$ $`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{N}\left(N4+a_1^2\right)\hfill & \text{for }N>3\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array},`$ (23)
$`z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{N}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{(N1)/21}{}}}a_ia_{i+1}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a_{(N1)/2}^2\right)`$ (24)
The only differences to the case of even $`N`$ are the last term in $`z`$ being $`\frac{1}{2}a_{(N1)/2}^2`$ instead of $`\sqrt{2}a_{N/21}a_{N/2}`$, and the upper summation bounds for $`z`$. The concurrence for odd $`N`$ reads

$$C=\frac{2}{N}\mathrm{max}\{2|a_1a_2+a_2a_3+\mathrm{}+a_{(N1)/21}a_{(N1)/2}+\frac{1}{2}a_{(N1)/2}^2||a_1|\sqrt{N4+a_1^2},0\}.$$
(25)

From Eqs. (19) and (25) we see immediately that the first amplitude $`a_1`$ has a special role: it is the only one that appears explicitly in the last term of the concurrence, namely the term $`\sqrt{vy}`$. Note that the coefficient $`a_1`$ specifies the only case where two neighboring spins are up. Considering both terms of the concurrence where $`a_1`$ appears, we can find a simple argument when the coefficient $`a_1`$ has to be zero in order to maximize the concurrence: for $`N8`$, the inequality

$$2a_2\sqrt{N4+a_1^2}0$$
(26)
holds for any $`a_2`$ and $`a_1`$. Therefore, the concurrence is always increased by setting $`a_1=0`$. Thus, for more than 8 sites (for both even and odd $`N`$) and the occupation number $`p=2`$ one finds indeed the highest concurrence by using the constraint “no neighboring spins are up”, i.e. $`C^{\text{max}}`$ is given by Eq. (1). Note, however, that the actual coefficients of the optimal state are not trivial to find from the method in wootters . Thus we have also used an alternative method which employs Lagrange multipliers. Our method does not only provide the value of the maximal concurrence, but also the coefficients $`a_\mu `$ that define the corresponding state. The details are described in the Appendix A. Using this method we find e.g. for the case $`N=8`$ and $`p=2`$ the results $`C^{\text{max}}(N=8,p=2)=\sqrt{3}/4`$, where the coefficients of the optimally entangled state are given by $`a_2=\sqrt{1/6},a_3=\sqrt{1/2}`$ and $`a_4=\sqrt{1/3}`$.

For $`N<8`$ we have in general $`a_10`$, and the simple method from the Appendix cannot be applied. One has to maximize the concurrence explicitly. This was done for the cases $`N=4`$ (here it turns out that one can reach the same concurrence as for $`p=1`$, by taking $`a_1=\sqrt{1/3}`$ and $`a_2=\sqrt{2/3}`$); for $`N=5`$ we have only two terms, namely $`|N=5,p=2=a_1|1,4+a_2|2,2`$ and arrive at the optimal solution $`a_1=0.298`$ and $`a_2=0.955`$. The case $`N=6`$ can again be solved analytically: if the state is written as $`|N=6,p=2=a_1|1,5+a_2|2,4+a_3|3,3`$, the concurrence reads

$$C(N=6,p=2)=\frac{2}{3}\left(\sqrt{1a_1^2a_3^2}(a_1+\sqrt{2}a_3)\frac{1}{2}a_1\sqrt{2+a_1^2}\right),$$
(27)
where we have eliminated $`a_2`$ via the normalization constraint. The maximum can be found by demanding that the derivatives with respect to $`a_1`$ and $`a_3`$ have to be zero. This leads to the solution $`a_1=0`$ and $`a_2=a_3=\sqrt{1/2}`$ for the maximal concurrence. Finally, for $`N=7`$ we have $`|N=7,p=2=a_1|1,6+a_2|2,5+a_3|3,4`$ and

$$C(N=7,p=2)=\frac{2}{7}\left(2a_2\sqrt{1a_1^2a_2^2}(a_1a_2)^2+1a_1\sqrt{a_1^2+3}\right),$$
(28)
where this time we have applied the normalization to eliminate $`a_3`$. Calculating $`\text{d}C/\text{d}a_1`$, we find that $`a_1>a_2\text{d}C/\text{d}a_1<0`$, whereas $`\text{d}C/\text{d}a_2=0`$ is equivalent to $`a_1a_2=(a_2^2a_3^2)/a_3`$. The last equality can only be fulfilled for (I) $`a_1>a_2>a_3`$, where as noted $`\text{d}C/\text{d}a<0`$, for (II) $`a_1=a_2=a_3`$ which is clearly not optimal, or for (III) $`a_3>a_2>a_1`$. For the last case, we can use again an argument like for $`N8`$ to show that $`a_1=0`$, $`a_2=\sqrt{(5\sqrt{5})/10}`$, and $`a_3=\sqrt{(5+\sqrt{5})/10}`$ is optimal 222The boundaries $`a_2=0,1`$ are also easily seen to be non-optimal. and gives $`C^{\text{max}}(N=7,p=2)=(1+\sqrt{5})/7`$.

This completes the study of the case $`p=2`$. To summarize, we have found a simple argument to show the solution in wootters  to be optimal for $`N8`$ and $`p=2`$, and have explicitly performed the optimization for rings with seven or less spins. In the case $`N=5`$, the seemingly simple one-parameter optimization results in a fourth-order equation that had to be solved numerically. All other cases were solved analytically. Note that $`N=5`$ is the only non-trivial case where the optimal state contains two neighboring up-spins. We summarize the results for occupation number $`p=2`$ in Tab. 1 (see also Fig. 1).

### III.2 Maximal nearest neighbor concurrence for $`p=\frac{N}{2}`$

The case of half-filling, $`p=N/2`$, is special because the non-linear form of the concurrence (3) then is reduced to

$$C(N,p=N/2)=2\mathrm{max}\{|z||v|,0\},$$
(29)
since here the matrix elements $`v`$ and $`y`$ are equal. As mentioned above, we may restrict ourselves to real and positive $`z`$, i.e. $`2|z|=z+z^{}`$. When this replacement and the equality $`|v|=v`$ is inserted in (29), the concurrence can be written as the expectation value of a Hamiltonian. We start by expressing $`z=01|\varrho |10`$ and $`v=00|\varrho |00`$ in terms of Pauli matrices,

$`z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\text{tr}\left[\varrho (\sigma ^+\sigma ^{})\right],`$ (30)
$`v`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\text{tr}\left[\varrho (\sigma ^z1𝐥)(\sigma ^z1𝐥)\right].`$ (31)
Here $`\sigma ^\pm =(\sigma ^x\pm i\sigma ^y)`$ denote the raising and lowering operators. Due to translational invariance, the matrix elements $`z`$ and $`v`$ are identical for any two neighboring sites. Thus, for non-zero concurrence and real $`z`$ we arrive at

$$C(N,p=N/2)=\text{tr}(\varrho H),$$
(32)
where the corresponding Hamiltonian $`H`$ is given by

$$H=\frac{1}{2N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\sigma _i^x\sigma _{i+1}^x\sigma _1^y\sigma _{i+1}^y+\sigma _i^z\sigma _{i+1}^z+1𝐥\right].$$
(33)
Here we have used that the magnetization per site is $`\sigma _i^z=0`$ in this special case of half-filling. The Hamiltonian (33) describes the Heisenberg model with nearest-neighbor interaction in an external magnetic field. (The relative sign between the $`z`$-coupling and the coupling in $`x`$\- and $`y`$-direction does not change the physical properties of the system, as it can be absorbed by rotating the coordinate system of every second site by $`\pi `$ around the $`z`$-axis.) Note that the identity in $`H`$ corresponds to an overall energy shift of 1/2. The ground state energy for the Heisenberg Hamiltonian in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ is well-known xxz-model  and leads to

$$C(N\mathrm{},p=N/2)=2\mathrm{ln}21=0.386$$
(34)
As explained below, even for the case $`N=20`$ the concurrence is already very close to this value.

## IV Is the solution without neighboring up-spins a local maximum?

The analytical solution for the maximal concurrence for any $`N`$ and $`p`$ was found in wootters  by making the further restriction (ii) of no neighboring up-spins. This leads to $`y=0`$ in Eq. (3), and one only needs to consider $`z`$. The matrix element $`z`$ can be written as a quadratic form in the coefficients of Eq. (6): $`z=𝐚^TZ𝐚`$, where $`𝐚`$ denotes the vector with entries $`a_\mu `$, and $`Z`$ is a matrix, the dimension of which depends on $`N`$ and $`p`$. Thus, the problem of maximizing the concurrence corresponds to finding the maximal eigenvalue of $`Z`$, i.e.

$$C^{\text{max}}(N,p)=2\underset{k}{\mathrm{max}}\{\lambda _k(Z)\},$$
(35)
where $`\lambda _k(A)`$ denotes the $`k`$th eigenvalue of $`A`$. This diagonalization problem can be solved by the Jordan-Wigner transformation jordan .

It is in general a very hard problem to prove whether the solution in wootters  — we will call it OW solution from now on — is indeed optimal. In Sec. III.1 we showed that for $`p=2`$ and $`N6`$ no better solution can be found, but for general $`N`$ and $`p`$ even numerical approaches are very demanding due to the many free parameters and the non-linear character of the problem. As we explain in this section, it is, however, much easier to numerically verify whether the solution in wootters  is at least a *local* maximum of the concurrence when the restriction of no neighboring up-spins is removed.

What we basically need to do, is to expand Eq. (3) around the solution in wootters . In principle, the restriction (ii) leads to $`y=0`$ and thus to $`\sqrt{vy}=0`$, which means that $`C`$ as such is not a differentiable function of the coefficients of the state. Thus, one has to be slightly more subtle than simply finding the gradient of $`C`$. First of all, we observe that there is a natural grouping of the coefficients according to how many up-up pairs the corresponding state contains: the maximal number is $`p1`$, the minimal 0. A useful notation is thus to split the index on the coefficients $`a_\mu `$ in a “group” index $`\pi `$ counting the number of up-up pairs and a second index $`j`$ distinguishing the members of each group:

$$a_\mu =a_{\pi j}=(𝐚_\pi )_j.$$
(36)
The last notation is meant to emphasize that each $`𝐚_\pi `$ can be viewed as a vector in its own right. The constraint (ii) allows only the coefficients in the 0-group to be non-vanishing, i.e. leads to $`𝐚_\pi =(0,0,\mathrm{},0)^\text{T}`$ for $`\pi >0`$.

If we restrict ourselves to cases where $`\text{gcd}(p,N)=1`$, all normalization factors $`𝒩_\mu `$ in Eq. (8) are equal to $`1/\sqrt{N}`$, and a given coefficient’s contribution to $`y`$ only depends on its group:

$$y(𝐚)=\frac{1}{N}\underset{\pi }{}\pi |𝐚_\pi |^2.$$
(37)
Since the number of up-up pairs gives directly the number of down-down pairs, a similar relation holds for $`v`$:

$$v(𝐚)=\frac{1}{N}\underset{\pi }{}(N+\pi 2p)|𝐚_\pi |^2=\frac{N2p}{N}+y.$$
(38)
As for $`z`$, things are naturally more complicated: $`z`$ represents the mean value of $`|1001|`$ and this flip of a down-up pair can at most create (or destroy) one up-up pair, i.e. there are cross-terms between $`\pi `$ and $`\pi \pm 1`$. In a natural matrix notation we get:

$`z(𝐚)`$ $`=𝐚^TZ𝐚`$ (39)
$`=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}𝐚_0^T& 𝐚_1^T& \mathrm{}& 𝐚_{p1}^T\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{cccccc}Z_{00}& Z_{01}& 0& & & \\ Z_{10}& Z_{11}& Z_{12}& 0& \mathrm{}& \\ 0& Z_{21}& Z_{22}& & & \\ & 0& & \mathrm{}& & \\ & \mathrm{}& & & & Z_{p2p1}\\ & & & & Z_{p1p2}& Z_{p1p1}\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{c}𝐚_0\\ 𝐚_1\\ \\ \mathrm{}\\ \\ 𝐚_{p1}\end{array}\right],`$ (40)
where the $`Z_{\pi \pi ^{}}`$ are still matrices with indices running inside the groups. If we take the derivative of $`z`$ at OW’s solution $`𝐚=𝐰`$, we get

$`{\displaystyle \frac{z}{a_{\pi j}}}(𝐰)`$ $`=2[Z𝐰]_{\pi j}`$
$`=2\delta _{\pi 0}[Z_{00}𝐰_0]_j+2\delta _{\pi 1}[Z_{10}𝐰_0]_j`$
$`=2\delta _{\pi 0}z(𝐰)[𝐰_0]_j+2\delta _{\pi 1}[Z_{10}𝐰_0]_j,`$ (41)
where have used that $`𝐰_\text{0}`$ is an eigenvector (belonging to the largest eigenvalue) of $`Z_{00}`$. Since we have the further constraint $`|𝐚|^2=1`$, only the component of the gradient perpendicular to the OW solution is interesting, i.e. only the second term in Eq. (IV) needs to be considered. From the $`\delta _{\pi 1}`$ we see that any local first order improvement of OW’s solution can only be found by adding a small component from the space with exactly one up-up pair. Of course, when we do that $`y`$ will no longer be zero, the square root in Eq. (3) will grow and this will possibly cancel the benefits we could get from $`z`$ alone. A priori we should test all directions in the $`\pi =1`$ space, but since $`y`$ does not discriminate between them, the one suggested by $`z`$ suffices: if $`C`$ does not grow when adding an infinitesimal component along $`Z_{10}𝐰_0`$, the solution of OW is a local maximum. The exact condition for this to happen reads:

$$2|Z_{10}𝐰_0|<\sqrt{v(𝐰)}=\sqrt{12\frac{p}{N}}.$$
(42)
If, on the other hand, this inequality is fulfilled in the other direction, we know that OW’s solution can be improved even locally and is thus for sure not the global maximum.

In Fig. (2) we will present the results of a numerical investigation of Eq. (42) for various $`N`$ and $`p`$, together with the results of the non-perturbative investigation described in the following section.

## V Mapping to a series of Hamiltonian problems

In Sec. III.2 we saw how the non-linear problem of optimizing the concurrence could be stated as a linear one in the special case of $`p=N/2`$. A method which exploits this idea further has recently been introduced by Wolf et al. cirac : The maximal value of Eq. (3) on translationally invariant states (for non-zero concurrence and $`z`$ real and positive) coincides with the maximum of

$$C(s)=z+z^{}\left(sy+\frac{1}{s}v\right),$$
(43)
where the maximization is done over all translationally invariant states *and* all $`s>0`$. To see that this holds, simply note that the minimal value of $`sy+v/s`$ with respect to $`s`$ is $`2\sqrt{yv}`$, which is reached for $`s=\sqrt{v/y}`$. Thus, after performing first the maximization of Eq. (43) with respect to $`s`$, one returns to the original problem.

If on the other hand we optimize in the opposite order, then for a given $`s`$ we can generalize the method from Sec. III.2 and relate $`C(s)`$ to the expectation value of a Hamiltonian. Explicitly we have

$$C(s)=\text{tr}[\varrho H(s)],$$
(44)
where

$$H(s)=\frac{1}{2N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\sigma _i^x\sigma _{i+1}^x\sigma _i^y\sigma _{i+1}^y+\mathrm{\Delta }(s)\left(\sigma _i^z\sigma _{i+1}^z+1𝐥\right)+B(s)\sigma _i^z\right].$$
(45)
This Hamiltonian corresponds to the quantum XXZ-model with an external magnetic field $`B(s):=s1/s`$ and an anisotropy parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }(s):=(s+1/s)/2`$. For $`s=1`$ Eq. (45) reduces to Eq. (33). The XXZ-model is completely integrable, and in principle all eigenvalues and eigenstates of the Hamiltonian (45) can be found using the Bethe ansatz gaudin . Unfortunately for general $`p`$, corresponding to general magnetization, the solution is very difficult to handle even in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ xxz-model , and we have to resort to numerical solutions.

For a given $`s`$, we minimize Eq. (45) by direct diagonalization. It turns out that the dependence of the ground-state energy on $`s`$ is rather simple, such that the final optimization with respect to $`s`$ provides only a modest complication. In Fig. 1 we plot the results obtained for all relevant $`p`$ as $`N`$ ranges from $`1`$ to $`24`$. “Relevant” $`p`$ are those with $`pN/2`$, as the concurrence is identical for occupation number $`p`$ and $`Np`$. For a fixed $`p`$ the maximal concurrence has in general the following behavior as a function of $`N`$: from the first relevant $`N=2p`$, it slightly decreases and then grows to a maximum around $`N=3p`$, after which it tends slowly to $`0`$ as $`N\mathrm{}`$.

In order to analyze more carefully when OW’s result is optimal, in Fig. 2 we show parts of the $`C^{\text{max}}(N)`$ curves for the OW constraint of no neighboring up-spins, for the improvement via perturbation theory, and for the exact solution. As can be clearly seen, optimal states with no neighboring up-spins can be found for small numbers of sites, namely for $`N`$ smaller than the value for which the concurrence has its maximum for a given $`p`$. Note also that the local optimization via perturbation theory and the exact calculation always start to deviate from the OW curve at the same $`N`$. This implies that when the OW state is locally optimal, it is also globally optimal.

It is furthermore interesting to study the values for the optimal $`s`$ as a function of $`N`$ and $`p`$, see Fig. 3. These values immediately give the physical interaction that leads to the ground state with maximal nearest-neighbor concurrence. Notice that $`s=1`$ for $`p=N/2`$, and that for any value of $`p`$ the optimal value of $`s`$ goes to infinity with $`N\mathrm{}`$. This indicates that the OW solution is indeed optimal for large $`N`$, and that the occurrence of neighboring up-spins for the maximization of the concurrence is a true finite size effect.

Let us also mention the exceptional case $`N=8`$. In wootters , no solution with a concurrence above the asymptotic value $`C^{\text{max}}(N\mathrm{})0.434`$ was found for any $`p`$. Is this an artifact of the restriction to no neighboring up-spins, or a true finite size effect? Our studies show that the latter is true: we find $`C^{\text{max}}(N=8,p=3)0.431`$. Thus, together with the results presented in Table 1, the occupation number $`p=2`$ is shown to be optimal for $`N=8`$. However, $`C^{\text{max}}(N=8,p=2)=\sqrt{3}/40.433<C^{\text{max}}(N\mathrm{})`$ holds — a peculiar feature of a spin chain with $`8`$ sites.

## VI Beyond nearest neighbor entanglement

A natural extension to the analysis done in the previous section is to examine entanglement between spins separated by at least one site. In principle, the formalism of Sec. III.1 can be applied to the maximization problem of the concurrence between spins separated by any number of sites. This approach yields results similar to those of Sec. III.1. For example, when maximizing the next-nearest neighbor entanglement for $`p=2`$, we find that using the constraint “no next-nearest neighbors are both up”, i.e. taking $`a_2=0`$, does not decrease the concurrence for $`N8`$.

In this section we will treat the issue of reducing the $`q`$th-neighbor maximization problem of a ring with $`N`$ sites to a nearest-neighbor maximization problem of a ring with less than $`N`$ sites. In contrast to the previous sections, we will not fix the number of up-spins; we simply look for the maximum of $`C`$ with translational invariance and no superpositions of different $`p`$.

Assume first that $`q`$ divides $`N`$, i.e. $`q|N`$. From now on we will denote the maximal $`q`$th-neighbor concurrence of a ring with $`N`$ sites by $`C^{\text{max}}(N,q)`$. We denote by $`|N^{\text{opt}}`$ a state that reaches this value and by $`p^{\text{opt}}`$ the corresponding number of up spins.

Consider now the decomposition of the large ring into $`q`$ smaller rings. Each of them consists of every $`q`$th qubit of the large ring and has $`N/q`$ sites. The example of a ring with 8 sites and next-nearest-neighbor entanglement, i.e. the case $`N=8`$ and $`q=2`$, is illustrated in Fig. 4. The state that maximizes the nearest-neighbor concurrence of a small ring, $`C^{\text{max}}(N/q,1)`$, will be denoted by $`|N/q^{\text{opt}}`$. The $`q`$-fold tensor product of this state is a candidate for the state $`|N^{\text{opt}}`$: it is translationally invariant since $`𝒯`$ can be decomposed into a permutation of the set of small rings and translations within them. We thus have:

$$C(\underset{q\text{times}}{\underset{}{|N/q^{\text{opt}}\mathrm{}|N/q^{\text{opt}}}},q)C^{\text{max}}(N,q)=C(|N^{\text{opt}},q)$$
(46)
To show than one cannot do better than using this candidate, we note that the entanglement between the first and the $`q`$th site of the state $`|N^{\text{opt}}`$ is calculated by tracing over all states but the first and $`q`$th. In particular, we trace over all but one small ring. Let us denote the state obtained by tracing out the $`q1`$ irrelevant rings by $`\varrho ^{\text{(s.r.)}}`$, i.e.

$$\varrho ^{(\text{s.r.})}=\text{tr}_{\text{other rings}}|NN|^{\text{opt}}.$$
(47)
Therefore,

$$C(|N^{\text{opt}},q)=C(\varrho ^{(\text{s.r.})},1).$$
(48)
Now, because the full $`\varrho `$ was translationally invariant, $`\varrho ^{(\text{s.r.})}`$ is also translationally invariant. This means by definition that

$$C(\varrho ^{(\text{s.r.})},1)C^{\text{max}}(N/q,1)=C(|N/q^{\text{opt}},1).$$
(49)
Since the tensor product of Eq. (46) saturates this inequality, it must be optimal. We conclude that when $`q|N`$,

$$C^{\text{max}}(N,q)=C^{\text{max}}(N/q,1).$$
(50)
Let us now drop our assumption $`q|N`$ and assume that $`N`$ and $`q`$ are coprime, $`\mathrm{gcd}(N,q)=1`$. If one then tries to construct “small rings” by taking steps of $`q`$ sites, one will eventually visit all sites, i.e. one only finds one such ring. This simply reflects the fact that $`𝒯^q`$ generates the same group of translations as $`𝒯`$ does. Then it is clear that by reordering of the spins one can construct a ring on which all spins that were formerly separated by $`q`$ sites are now adjacent *and* on which translational invariance is equivalent to translational invariance with respect to the original ordering. Therefore, when $`\mathrm{gcd}(N,q)=1`$,

$$C^{\text{max}}(N,q)=C^{\text{max}}(N,1).$$
(51)
In general, constructing small rings by taking steps of $`q`$ sites will lead to $`\mathrm{gcd}(N,q)`$ rings, each of length $`\stackrel{~}{N}=N/\mathrm{gcd}(N,q)`$. On these rings the former $`q`$th neighbors are now nearest neighbors, and an optimal state $`|N,q^{\text{opt}}`$ can be constructed similarly to the $`q|N`$ case above as a tensor product of small ring states $`|\stackrel{~}{N},1^{\text{opt}}`$. In this way, the problem can always be reduced to the case of nearest neighbors with the result that for any $`N`$ and $`q`$:

$$C^{\text{max}}(N,q)=C^{\text{max}}(N/\mathrm{gcd}(N,q),1).$$
(52)
The method of this section naturally generalizes to other symmetry groups acting on $`N`$ qubits: If we choose to optimize a given pair’s entanglement, the symmetry group will give some restrictions, but these may “factor” so that tensor product solutions of smaller problems can be applied. In the ring symmetry case, Eq. (52) shows that the reduction is maximal in the sense that there is essentially only one class of problems, namely nearest neighbors on a ring with translational symmetry. This is due to the particularly simple structure of the group of translations; in general one symmetry group may give rise to many fundamentally different optimization problems.

## VII Discussion and Summary

In this paper we have studied maximal bipartite entanglement in translationally invariant spin chains with periodic boundary conditions, where our only restriction was to consider eigenstates of the $`z`$ component of the total spin. We have concentrated on bipartite entanglement, as entanglement in this case is fully understood, contrary to multipartite entanglement.

Naturally, some related questions arise:

* What is the maximal entanglement between one spin and the rest of the ring?
* What is the possible structure of three- or multi-party entanglement in the ring?
* What is the optimal nearest-neighbor entanglement on a 2-dimensional lattice?

Here we will only answer the first question: states with fixed occupation number $`p`$ are the eigenstates of the $`z`$ component of the total spin, i.e. they are invariant under a global rotation around the $`z`$-axis, $`U=_{i=1}^N\sigma _i^z`$. This leads to $`[\sigma ^z,\varrho ^{(1)}]=0`$, where $`\varrho ^{(1)}`$ denotes the one-particle reduced density matrix, which is identical for all sites due to translational invariance. Thus, $`\varrho ^{(1)}`$ is diagonal, i.e. $`\varrho ^{(1)}=(1𝐥+s^z\sigma ^z)/2`$. Here $`s^z=\sigma ^z`$ is the magnetization in $`z`$-direction for one site. The explicit form of the reduced density matrix is therefore

$$\varrho ^{(1)}=\frac{1}{N}\left[\begin{array}{cc}(Np)& 0\\ 0& p\end{array}\right].$$
(53)
Note that this form is independent of the choice of coefficients $`a_\mu `$, and results only from translational invariance and the condition of fixed $`p`$. The von Neumann entropy of this density matrix is a good measure for the entanglement of one qubit with the rest of the chain. Therefore, we find maximal entanglement in this sense when $`p=N/2`$.

In summary, we have investigated the maximal nearest-neighbor concurrence in translationally invariant entangled rings, where the number of up-spins $`p`$ is fixed. We presented analytical results for small $`N`$ and $`p=2`$. It also turned out that the solutions in wootters  can be improved by simple perturbation theory. We then used a linearized version of the concurrence, which simplified the numerical calculations, and with this method determined the maximal entanglement for any $`p`$ with $`N24`$. The maximal entanglement was shown to be related to the ground state energy of an XXZ Hamiltonian. Let us emphasize our observation that a state with maximal nearest-neighbor entanglement corresponds to a Hamiltonian with only nearest-neighbor interactions. For small numbers of sites $`N`$ and fixed $`p`$ we gave the explicit structure of the Hamiltonian which leads to the state with maximal entanglement of nearest neighbors. We found the peculiar result that for the exceptional case $`N=8`$ the maximal entanglement is below the entanglement in the thermodynamic limit. Finally, we reduced the problem of finding the maximal entanglement between spins which are separated by more than one site to the problem of nearest-neighbor entanglement.

This work has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 407 and Schwerpunkt “Quanteninformationsverarbeitung”), the European Union RTN “Cold Quantum Gases”, and the Danish Natural Science Research Council.

*

## Appendix A

Here we describe a method to find the maximal concurrence and the according state for the case $`N8`$ and $`p=2`$. We take the normalization constraint, namely $`_ia_i^2=1`$, into account via Lagrange multipliers.

For even $`N`$ we then have to solve the system of equations

$`a_3+2a_2\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`a_2+a_4+2a_3\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`a_3+a_5+2a_4\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`\mathrm{}`$
$`a_{N/22}+\sqrt{2}a_{N/2}+2a_{N/21}\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`\sqrt{2}a_{N/21}+2a_{N/2}\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (54)
where $`\lambda `$ is the Lagrange multiplier. For odd $`N`$ the last two equations in the system of equations look slightly different:

$`+a_3+2a_2\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`a_2+a_4+2a_3\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`a_3+a_5+2a_4\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`\mathrm{}`$
$`a_{(N5)/2}+a_{(N1)/2}+2a_{(N3)/2}\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`a_{(N3)/2}+a_{(N1)/2}+2a_{(N1)/2}\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (55)
In both cases we now multiply the first equation with $`a_2`$, the second with $`a_3`$ and so on, and then add all equations. This leads to the expression

$$C_{max}=\frac{4\lambda }{N}$$
(56)
for the maximal concurrence. Note that this equality holds for both even and odd $`N`$. By inserting the first equation in the system of equations (54) into the second, the new one into the third, and consecutively until the last equation, one finds a polynomial equation for $`\lambda `$ of order $`N/21`$ for even $`N`$. By proceeding with (55) in the same way one arrives at a polynomial equation of order $`(N3)/2`$ for odd $`N`$. For small $`N`$, these polynomial equations can be solved analytically, and for larger $`N`$ one can still find the zeros of the polynomial numerically.

Let us illustrate this method with a simple explicit example, namely the case $`N=8`$ and $`p=2`$. This is also a particularly interesting case, because in wootters  in was shown that the maximal concurrence for this case (with the constraint of no two neighboring spins being up) is smaller than for the thermodynamical limit $`N\mathrm{}`$.

The system of equations for $`N=8`$ and $`p=2`$ is

$`a_3+2a_2\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`a_2+\sqrt{2}a_4+2a_3\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`\sqrt{2}a_3+2a_4\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (57)
By inserting these equations successively into each other we arrive at

$$4\lambda ^33\lambda =0.$$
(58)
In order to maximize the concurrence in Eq. (56) we have to find the minimal solution for $`\lambda `$, which is $`\lambda =\sqrt{3}/2`$. Therefore $`C(N=8,p=2)=\sqrt{3}/4`$. The coefficients of the optimal entangled state are then easily found to be $`a_2=\sqrt{1/6},a_3=\sqrt{1/2}`$ and $`a_4=\sqrt{1/3}`$. The results of other cases of small $`N`$ are given in the main text.


text:
# Structure of baryons in a relativistic quark model

## 1 Introduction

Baryonic resonance spectra exhibit some striking features: Linear Regge-trajectories, which hint at a linear confinement potential; moderately large hyperfine splittings (e.g. the $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$-splitting) hinting at a strong spin-spin interaction; parity doublets, such as e.g. $`N_{\frac{5}{2}^+}^{}(1680)`$\- $`N_{\frac{5}{2}^{}}^{}(1675)`$, which all are a challenge to explain theoretically. The most successful approaches to account for these have been constituent quark models (in non-relativistic or ’relativized’ versions), see e.g. the excellent review by Capstick and Roberts  and references therein, which use one-gluon-exchange or Goldstone-boson-exchange as quark interaction in addition to a linear confinement potential. Although the results from such calculations are in general satisfactory, they do not reproduce the details of the $`N`$-Regge-trajectory nor explain the parity doublets found. Moreover, the role of the spin-orbit parts of the residual interactions remains obscure. On top of this the conventional constituent quark models have no real field theoretical basis and lack relativistic covariance. As an extension of an earlier relativistic quark model description of mesons , we therefore developed a relativistic quark-model for baryons on the basis of the three-particle Bethe-Salpeter equation.

The details of our approach are extensively described in , here we shall merely quote the basic assumptions and features. Starting point is the Bethe-Salpeter-Equation for bound states of three fermions, which is a homogeneous integral equation involving full quark propagators and irreducible interaction kernels in terms of the 8 relative momentum variables of the quarks. In order to solve this equation we assumed, inspired by the apparent success of the non-relativistic constituent quark model, that the self-energy in the quark propagators can be suitably approximated by introducing an effective, constituent quark mass in the free Feynman-propagator and, furthermore, that the interaction kernels do not depend on the relative energy variables of the quarks in the rest-frame of the baryon. Although this also implies a technical simplification (Salpeter equation), the main reason is that we want to implement confinement by an instantaneous linearly rising three-body potential. These assumptions, after introducing an effective instantaneous kernel which approximates retardation effects in two-body interactions, allow for a formulation of the resulting Salpeter equation as an eigenvalue equation, which is solved by expanding the amplitudes in a suitable large, but finite, basis.

## 2 The model

Confinement is implemented by a string-like three body potential, which rises linearly with inter-quark distances and comprises a spin structure which was chosen such, that spin-orbit splittings are suppressed, see  for details. In order to account for the hyperfine structure we adopted an effective two-body interaction based on instanton effects, which has the decisive property to solve the $`U_A(1)`$-problem in the pseudoscalar meson spectrum . For two quarks it is a short-range two-body interaction acting on quark pairs with vanishing spin which are antisymmetric in flavour. Consequently this force does not act on the flavour symmetric $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-resonances. The Regge-trajectory in this sector is then used to determine the (non-strange) constituent quark mass and the constant and string tension parameters of the confinement potential. The three parameters of the instanton force are determined from the ground-state octet-decuplet splittings. The remaining spectrum is then a genuine prediction.

## 3 Mass spectra

The resulting mass spectra, see e.g. Fig. 1

for non-strange and strange baryons can be found in  and , respectively. In general a very satisfactory description of the masses of states up to 2.5 GeV is found. The most prominent features are: Once the strengths of the instanton induced interaction are fixed from the ground state splittings the other prominent hyperfine splittings in the spectrum can be explained quite naturally: In contrast to earlier non-relativistic quark model calculations with the same interaction, in the present relativistic setup the instanton-induced interaction is strong enough to account almost quantitatively for the low position of the Roper-resonances and its analogues in the strange sectors. In addition, the $`N`$\- and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$\- Regge trajectory can be very nicely reproduced, indicating that this force leads to a constant shift in $`M^2`$ for these states, in accordance with experimental data. Moreover this force also accounts for the occurrence of the parity doublets mentioned above: selectively those states from a particular shell (in the harmonic oscillator classification), which show scalar diquark configurations are lowered enough to become degenerate with some states of the lower oscillator shell with opposite parity .

## 4 Electromagnetic observables

On the basis of the Salpeter amplitudes, the baryonic vertex function(amputated Bethe-Salpeter amplitude) can be reconstructed for any on-shell baryon momentum und thus form factors and various couplings can be calculated covariantly within the Mandelstam formalism, in impulse approximation without any additional parameters. The details and results of the calculation of static moments, electroweak form factors and photon couplings of non-strange baryons have been published recently . Here we will briefly discuss a novel approach to calculate magnetic moments directly from the Salpeter amplitudes and some new results for semi-leptonic and strong decays.

### 4.1 Magnetic moments

The interaction energy of a baryon in an external electromagnetic field is given by the matrix element of $`\widehat{j}_\mu A^\mu `$ where $`\widehat{j}`$ is the electromagnetic current. The magnetic moment is then the coefficient of the term linear to a static magnetic field and can be expressed as

$$\mu =\frac{1}{4M}\epsilon _{3jk}i\left[\frac{}{\overline{P}^j}\overline{M},S,S_3=S\left|j^k(x^0,\stackrel{}{0})\right|\overline{P},S,S_3=S\right]_{\overline{P}=0},$$
(1)
where $`|\overline{M},S`$ and $`|\overline{P},S`$ involve the vertex functions of a baryon with mass $`M`$ and spin $`S`$ in the rest frame and of a baryon with momentum $`\overline{P}`$, respectively. Evaluating this expression we then find, that in impulse approximation the magnetic moment can be expressed in momentum space as the expectation value of a local operator $`\widehat{\mu }`$ with respect to the Salpeter amplitudes $`\mathrm{\Phi }_M^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, normalized to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_M^\mathrm{\Lambda }|\mathrm{\Phi }_M^\mathrm{\Lambda }=2M`$:

$$\mu =\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_M^\mathrm{\Lambda }\left|\widehat{\mu }\right|\mathrm{\Phi }_M^\mathrm{\Lambda }}{2M},\text{ where }\widehat{\mu }^3=\frac{\omega _1+\omega _2+\omega _3}{M}\left(\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{\widehat{e}_\alpha }{2\omega _\alpha }\left(\widehat{\mathrm{}}_\alpha ^3+\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\alpha ^3\right)\right)\widehat{\mu }_C^3,$$
(2)
where $`\omega _\alpha =\sqrt{m_\alpha ^2+p_\alpha ^2}`$ represents the relativistic energy of quark $`\alpha `$ with mass $`m_\alpha `$ and charge $`\widehat{e}_\alpha `$, $`\widehat{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$ represent the single particle angular momentum– and (twice the) spin–operator, respectively, and where $`\widehat{\mu }_C^i=\epsilon _{ijk}\frac{1}{M}_{\alpha _0}^3\frac{\widehat{e}_\alpha }{2\omega _\alpha }p_\alpha ^k_{\beta =1}^3\omega _\beta \frac{}{p_\beta ^j}.`$ corrects for the relativistic center of charge motion. We think that this is a remarkable expression, to our knowledge not to be found in the literature. The non-relativistic limit of this expression is of course obvious. The results for octet baryons are given in Table 1 .

### 4.2 Semi-leptonic decays

Some new, representative results for semi-leptonic decays, calculated from the weak baryonic currents in the Mandelstam formalism, are listed in Table 2.

## 5 Strong decays and the problem of ”missing resonances”

Figure 2. Lowest order quark-loop contribution to the strong $`N^{}N+M`$-decay of excited baryons.

In the framework of the Mandelstam formalism the amplitude for the strong mesonic decay of excited baryons can be obtained in lowest order by evaluating the simple quark loop diagram of Fig. 2, which involves the vertex functions (amputated Bethe-Salpeter-amplitudes) of the participating meson, obtained from a previous calculation on mesons , and baryons. Although in general the calculated partial widths are too small to account for the experimental values quantitatively, appreciable decay widths are found only for the well established resonances, the predicted values for higher lying resonances being in general smaller by at least an order of magnitude, see also Fig. 1, thus explaining why these have not been observed so far in elastic pion-nucleon scattering. This observation is in accordance with the findings cited in  .

## 6 Conclusion

In conclusion we think that we have demonstrated, that a fully relativistic treatment of the quark dynamics and their electromagnetic couplings on the basis of the instantaneous Bethe-Salpeter equation with quark forces from a confinement potential and an instanton-induced interaction indeed leads to an encouraging description of the major features of the baryonic excitation spectrum upto 3 GeV, including numerous electromagnetic and strong decay observables, This description still can and, in view of the approximate treatment of retardation effects from the two-body interaction, must be improved.

Major contributions by Christian Haupt, Dirk Merten, Sascha Migura and Herbert Petry are gratefully acknowledged. We thank the DFG for financial support.


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# Dynamical Correlation Length near the Chiral Critical Point

## 1 Introduction

The main goal of colliding heavy ions at high energies is to produce matter at high temperature and baryon density. In matter at such extreme conditions chiral symmetry may be approximately restored (for a review of signatures for hot and dense matter see e.g. Scherer:1999qq ). In particular, it has been argued that a line of first-order phase transitions in the phase diagram of QCD could end in a second-order critical point, where the correlation length diverges Stephanov:1998dy . The critical point in the temperature vs. baryon-chemical potential plane has been located on the lattice Fodor:2001pe . Here, we study the dynamics of the chiral fields near a critical point and determine the behavior of the correlation length in finite and rapidly expanding systems, such as the ones encountered in heavy-ion collisions.

## 2 Chiral Hydrodynamics

In Chiral Hydrodynamics Mishustin:1997iz ; Paech:2003fe  it is assumed that the long-wavelength (classical) modes of the chiral fields evolve in the effective potential generated by the thermalized degrees of freedom, which are the matter fields (and possibly also hard modes of the chiral field). In our model, the latter are described as a perfect relativistic fluid, whose equation of state is in turn determined by the chiral field (via the effective mass), and which can exchange energy and momentum with the chiral fields. The chiral symmetry breaking dynamics is described by an effective field theory, in our case the SU(2)$`\times `$SU(2) linear $`\sigma `$-model:

$``$ $`=`$ $`\overline{q}\left[i\gamma ^\mu _\mu g(\sigma +\gamma _5\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi })\right]q`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(_\mu \sigma ^\mu \sigma +_\mu \stackrel{}{\pi }^\mu \stackrel{}{\pi }\right)U(\sigma ,\stackrel{}{\pi }).`$
The potential $`U(\sigma ,\stackrel{}{\pi })`$, which exhibits both spontaneously and explicitly broken symmetry, is given by

$$U(\sigma ,\stackrel{}{\pi })=\frac{\lambda ^2}{4}(\sigma ^2+\stackrel{}{\pi }^2v^2)^2h_q\sigma .$$
(2)
Here $`q`$ is the constituent-quark field $`q=(u,d)`$. The scalar field $`\sigma `$ and the pseudoscalar field $`\stackrel{}{\pi }`$ together form a chiral field $`\varphi =(\sigma ,\stackrel{}{\pi })`$. The vacuum expectation values of the condensates are $`\sigma =f_\pi `$ and $`\stackrel{}{\pi }=0`$, where $`f_\pi =93`$ MeV is the pion decay constant.

For $`g>0`$, the finite-temperature one-loop effective potential includes a contribution from the quarks, and is given by

$$V_{\mathrm{eff}}(\varphi ,T)=U(\varphi )d_q\frac{d^3\stackrel{}{p}}{(2\pi )^3}T\mathrm{log}\left[1+e^{E/T}\right]$$

$`V_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ depends on the order parameter field through the effective mass of the quarks, $`m_q=g|\varphi |`$, which enters the expression for the energy $`E`$.

For sufficiently small $`g`$ one finds a smooth transition between the two phases. For large coupling, however, the effective potential exhibits a first-order phase transition Scavenius:1999zc . Along the line of first-order transitions the effective potential has two minima. At $`T=T_c`$ these two minima are degenerate and are seperated by a barrier. As one lowers the value of $`g`$ the barrier gets smaller and the two minima approach each other. At $`g_c3.7`$, finally, the barrier vanishes, and so does the latent heat. Below, we study the hydrodynamic expansion near this chiral critical point.

The classical equations of motion for the chiral fields are

$$_\mu ^\mu \varphi +\frac{\delta V_{\mathrm{eff}}}{\delta \varphi }=0$$

The dynamical evolution of the thermalized degrees of freedom (fluid of quarks) is determined by the local conservation laws for energy and momentum. Note that we do not assume that the chiral fields are in equilibrium with the heat bath of quarks. Hence, the fluid pressure $`p`$ depends explicitly on $`|\varphi |`$, see Paech:2003fe  for more details. Due to the interaction between fluid and field the total energy and momentum is the conserved quantity:

$$_\mu \left(T_{\mathrm{fluid}}^{\mu \nu }+T_\varphi ^{\mu \nu }\right)=0.$$
(3)
We emphasize that we employ eq. (2) not only to propagate the mean field through the transition but fluctuations as well. The initial condition includes some generic “primordial” spectrum of fluctuations (see below) which then evolve in the effective potential generated by the matter fields. Near the critical point, those fluctuations have small effective mass and “spread out” to probe the flat effective potential.

## 3 Correlation Length

The correlation length provides a measure for the typical length scale over which fluctuations of the fields are correlated. Following the Ginzburg-Landau theory, for an infinite system in global thermal equilibrium one can expand the free energy $`F`$ arround the thermodynamic expectation value $`\varphi _0`$ \- which is given by the minimum of the free energy - in a power series:

$$F(\overline{\varphi })=a_0+a_1\overline{\varphi }+a_2\overline{\varphi }^2+a_3\overline{\varphi }^3+a_4\overline{\varphi }^4+\mathrm{}+a_\mathrm{N}\overline{\varphi }^N$$
(4)
where $`\overline{\varphi }=\frac{\varphi \varphi _0}{f_\pi }`$ and $`a_\mathrm{N}>0`$. The correlation length $`\xi `$ is defined as the second derivative of the free energy

$$\frac{1}{\xi ^2}=\frac{d^2F(\overline{\varphi })}{d\overline{\varphi }^2}|_{\overline{\varphi }=0}=2a_2.$$
(5)
The correlation length is finite for $`TT_c`$ since the effective potential has a finite curvature there. At $`T_c`$ the potential about $`\varphi _0`$ becomes flat and thus the correlation length diverges as the system approaches the critical point. Of course, this can only be true for an infinite system in global thermodynamic equilibrium. In high-energy heavy ion collisions instead one deals with finite and rapidly expanding systems where the true dynamical correlation length is finite.

## 4 Results

### 4.1 Initial Conditions

To study the effects of a finite and expanding system we choose the following initial conditions. The distribution of the fluid energy density at $`t=0`$ is taken to be spherical:

$$e(t=0,r)=e_{\mathrm{eq}}\mathrm{\Theta }(Rr),$$
(6)
where $`e_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ denotes the equilibrium value of the energy density taken at a temperature of $`T_i160`$ MeV which is well above the transition temperature $`T_c138`$ MeV. $`R`$ denotes the initial size of the system. For the fluid velocity we assume a linear profile

$$v_r(t=0,r)=\frac{r}{R}\mathrm{\Theta }(Rr).$$
(7)
Note that the expansion rate (Hubble constant) equals $`1/R`$, hence larger systems also correspond to less rapid expansion.

The initial conditions for the chiral fields are

$`\sigma (t=0,\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`\delta \sigma (\stackrel{}{x})+f_\pi +`$
$`(f_\pi +\sigma _{\mathrm{eq}})\left[1+\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{rR}{a}}\right)\right]^1`$
$`\stackrel{}{\pi }(t=0,\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`\delta \stackrel{}{\pi }(\stackrel{}{x}),`$ (8)
$`a=0.3`$ fm is the surface thickness of this Woods-Saxon like distribution. Here $`\sigma _{\mathrm{eq}}0`$ is the value of the $`\sigma `$ field corresponding to $`e_{\mathrm{eq}}`$. Thus, the chiral condensate nearly vanishes at the center, where the energy density of the quarks is large, and then quickly interpolates to $`f_\pi `$ where the matter density is low.

$`\delta \sigma (\stackrel{}{x})`$ and $`\delta \stackrel{}{\pi }(\stackrel{}{x})`$ represent Gaussian random fluctuations of the fields. We correlate them over an initial correlation length of $`\xi _01.2`$ fm as described in Paech:2003fe . Our focus now is on how those “primordial” fluctuations evolve through the transition and how the correlation length depends on the system size.

### 4.2 Extraction of Correlation Length

To analyse the time evolution of $`\xi `$ in our finite and expanding system we need to know the dynamical effective potential probed by the fluctuating fields. This is done by extracting a histogram of the field distribution at every time step, within a sphere of radius 1 fm around $`r=0`$. This histogram has been averaged over a few random initial field configurations, picked according to eq. (8).

The probability distribution is related to the 4-d effective action by

$$P[\varphi ]\mathrm{exp}\left\{S_{\mathrm{eff}}\right\},$$
(9)
and thus we can extract the effective action ”seen” by the chiral fields by fitting a polynomial of the form (4) to

$$S_{\mathrm{eff}}(\varphi )\mathrm{log}\{P[\varphi ]\}.$$
(10)
### 4.3 Numerical Results

Fig. 1 depicts the time evolution of the extracted correlation length $`\xi `$ for different system sizes. Evidently, the correlation length is always finite. For a system of initial radius $`R=1`$ fm, $`\xi (t)\xi _0`$ remains approximately constant during the expansion, equal to the initial correlation length. However, for larger $`R`$, it develops a maximum at intermediate times, roughly twice $`\xi _0`$. Its maximum value appears to grow only very slowly with $`R`$ (once $`R3`$ fm), i.e. the approach towards $`\xi =\mathrm{}`$ for $`R\mathrm{}`$ is slow. Both observations are in line with Berdnikov:1999ph  who studied finite-time effects for infinitely large systems, and estimated that $`\xi `$ can not exceed $`23`$ times $`\xi _0`$, and that the maximum value of $`\xi `$ grows only slowly with decreasing cooling rate. This implies that experimental observables will not exhibit “fully developped” critical behavior even for trajectories through the critical point. On the other hand, one might hope for some signals to show up even for trajectories that miss the critical point somewhat, since the growth of $`\xi `$ is damped by dynamical effects anyways. We also observe from our real-time analysis that the time interval during which $`\xi `$ is near its maximum grows steadily with $`R`$. This might be relevant for observables that integrate over the entire collision history.

The behavior of other couplings $`a_i`$ ($`i>2`$) belonging to marginal or irrelevant operators will be reported elsewhere.

## Acknowledgment

I thank the organizers for support and the opportunity to attend EPS-2003, Adrian Dumitru for continuous motivation and advice, the Josef Buchmann Foundation for a fellowship, and the Frankfurt Center for Scientific Computing for providing computational resources.