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# 1 The Origin: The Philosophy of Physics

## 1 The Origin: The Philosophy of Physics

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker’s thinking has always crossed the borders between physics and philosophy. Being a physicist by training he still feels at home in the physics community, as a philosopher by passion, however, his mind cannot stop thinking at the limits of physics. His physical ideas are based on the general conceptual and methodological preconditions of physical theories. The above quotation does indicate this: Heisenberg’s hint on symmetry as a natural starting point for a physicist—even though already philosophically motivated by Plato—left Weizsäcker “dissatisfied.” He even wanted to explore the reasons for the symmetries themselves.

Such a line of reasoning about the foundations of physics has brought Weizsäcker into an abstract program of a possible reconstruction of physics in terms of yes-no-alternatives, which he called “ur-theory.” I shall start this paper with a review of the basic ideas of ur-theory: the definition of an ur and the connection between ur-spinors and spacetime (Sect. 2: “Yesterday”). I then go over to some of ur-theory’s present borders: the construction of quantized spacetime tetrads and the difficulties to incorporate gravity and gauge theories (Sect. 3: “Today”). It goes without saying that my brief review will be far from being complete—see in particular the developments presented in Castell et al. (1975-1986). In the last section (Sect. 4: “Tomorrow”) I shall discuss the possible prospects of ur-theory—partly with a view to modern quantum gravity approaches, but mainly in connection with its philosophical implications. Here, one of the crucial questions is, whether form, or, modern, information is an entity per se and what particular consequences this may have.

## 2 Yesterday: Urs, Spinors and Spacetime

Weizsäcker’s first book on the philosophy of physics, Zum Weltbild der Physik, appeared in 1943 in its first edition—when his professional main concern still was ‘real physics.’ But already at this time his ‘real interest’ had shifted to the foundations of quantum mechanics. About ten years later, at a spa in Bad Wildungen in 1954, Weizsäcker had the crucial idea: the quantum theory of a binary alternative is the theory of objects in a three-dimensional space. Mathematically, he had just stumbled about the fact that $`SU(2)`$, the quantum theoretical symmetry group of a binary alternative, is locally isomorphic to the three-dimensional rotation group $`SO(3)`$ in Euclidean space. Philosophically, however, this was more “satisfying” than just to start with a certain symmetry, since now the symmetry itself was distinguished by the fact that it is the symmetry of the simplest logical object—a yes-no-alternative. Couldn’t this be a reason for the three-dimensionality of position space?

Weizsäcker’s approach rests on two main ‘ingredients’: firstly, the idea of reducing physics to binary alternatives and, secondly, the connection between spin structures and the structures of time and space. This second motive has caused David Finkelstein (1994) to subsume Weizsäcker’s approach under the heading of “spinorism” and this will be my main concern in this and the following section. For a moment, however, we shall consider the first mentioned, rather philosophical ingredient. Here the idea is that—in its core—physics reduces to predicting measurement outcomes. Measurement outcomes may be restated in terms of empirically decidable n-fold alternatives, and, trivially, any n-fold alternative can be embedded into a (Cartesian) product of binary alternatives. Binary alternatives, in turn, can be considered as bits of information. Thus physics reduces to information or, more precisely, potential information.

Weizsäcker has called the empirically decidable binary alternatives in his reconstruction ur-alternatives (from the German prefix ‘Ur-’: ‘original,’ ‘elementary,’ ‘pre-’). A bit whimsically, he later called them urs. Urs may be considered the fundamental objects in physics. As a matter of principle, any physical object can be built out of them. The reader may note that at this point an interesting conceptual shift has occurred. We started from the notion of information, a subjective notion in the first place, and applied it to the objective notion of a physical object. This is another way of saying that objects are reduced or even ‘made out of’ information. It seems that via this shift information has been gained the status of a substance. In the last section I shall indeed come back to this challenging formula, as our present working hypothesis, however, we will take an information-theoretic reductionist view of physics in the sense that physical objects are entirely characterized by the information which can be gained from them.

In quantum theory in particular, this view has a lot of plausibility. Quantum objects are represented in terms of their Hilbert state spaces, their quantum states correspond to empirically decidable alternatives. Any quantum object may further be de-composed or embedded into the tensor product of two-dimensional objects, nowadays called quantum bits or qubits. Urs, therefore, are in fact nothing but qubits (cf. Sect. 4).

Weizsäcker’s vision of the structure of physics as a quantum theory of ur-alternatives has its roots in the above mentioned fact that the essential symmetry group of urs, which is $`SU(2)`$, is the double covering of the rotational symmetry group of three-dimensional position space. The guiding line is that, if the idea of urs as fundamental entities is true, the symmetry of such urs should play an essential role in the reconstruction of physics and in the phenomenology of our empirical world. And, of course, position space is probably the most essential feature of the empirical world!

But this only gives rise to spinorism in general, the mathematical motive of deriving the spacetime structure from a primarily given spin structure.111To the best of my knowledge, Weizsäcker presented the first hint on spinorism in a short note from 1951 on the occasion of Werner Heisenberg’s 50th birthday, where he drew attention to the fact that both position space and Hilbert space are provided with a quadratic metric and that in order to give a deeper reason for this one presumably needs a property common to both spaces (which indeed could be the spin structure). He closes that perhaps the question of the structure of the state space is fundamental, whereas the structure of position space is a dependent and derived one—a rather bold and visionary remark in 1951 (and, of course, still today)! If we now take the publication date of this note (Weizsäcker 1952), then this Festschrift can simultaneously be considered as celebrating 50 years of Weizsäcker’s idea of spinorism. However, the rather mathematical hint from 1951/52, the second ingredient of ur-theory, was only filled with conceptual life two years later at the above mentioned spa. This little episode also sheds light on the crucial interplay between philosophy and physics in Weizsäcker’s thinking. A more precise ur-theoretic ansatz was chosen in Weizsäcker’s 1958 papers Die Quantentheorie der einfachen Alternative (Komplementarität und Logik II)—internally called “KL II”—and the “Dreimännerarbeit” KL III together with Erhard Scheibe and Georg Süßmann. KL II starts from the well-known and deep connection between tensors and spinors: there always exists a mapping between tensors of order $`n`$ and spinors of order $`2n`$. A lightlike four-vector, in particular, can be written in terms of the Pauli matrices $`\sigma _\mu `$ as

$$k_\mu =\sigma _{\dot{A}B}^\mu u^{\dot{A}}u^B,$$
(1)
where $`u^A`$ is a spinor and dotted indices denote complex conjugate components. This relation highlights the link between the homogeneous Lorentz group $`SO(1,3)`$ and $`SL(2,)`$, the unimodular group in spinor space (the spinors do not obey a unitary norm here). But instead of elaborating the thus defined spin structure of Minkowski space, the focus of KL III lies on Weizsäcker’s idea of “multiple quantization.” Generally speaking, the procedure of quantization can be split into two steps: (i) the transition from a (classically) discrete number of degrees of freedom to infinitely many degrees, and (ii) the transition to operator-valuedness and, hence, appropriate commutation relations. Starting from a simple, classical yes-no-alternative $`a_A`$, step (i) means the construction of a wavefunction $`\varphi (a_A)`$, i.e. a spinor $`u_A\varphi (a_A)`$. Relation (1) allows to transform $`u_Ak_\mu `$, then (ii) implies the transition $`k_\mu \widehat{k}_\mu `$. This is the ‘first quantization’ of a binary alternative. On the level of ‘second quantization’ wavefunctions $`\phi (k_\mu )`$ occur, where operators $`\widehat{k}_\mu `$ act upon. Interpreting $`k_\mu `$ as energy-momentum four-vector, we get quantum mechanical wavefunctions $`\psi (x_\mu )`$ in Minkowski space after Fourier transformation. The next, third level of quantizing $`\psi (x_\mu )`$ corresponds to usual quantum field theory.

Weizsäcker, Scheibe and Süßmann discovered in their paper the Weyl and—after doubling the state space of urs and working with bi-spinors—the Dirac and Klein-Gordon equation and also the homogeneous Maxwell equations as algebraic identities!222Details of the derivation must be left out due to lack of space, the reader may consult KL III or Lyre (1998a, chap. 2.4). Since for a nullvector one obtains $`k_\mu k^\mu =0`$, the massless Klein-Gordon equation follows for instance from

$$\widehat{k}_\mu \widehat{k}^\mu \phi (k_\mu )=0\stackrel{FT}{}\mathrm{}\psi (x_\mu )=0.$$
(2)
Let $`D(\frac{1}{2},0)`$ be the fundamental representation of $`SL(2,)`$ and $`D(0,\frac{1}{2})`$ its complex-conjugate, then the transition to bi-spinors effectively means to work with $`D(\frac{1}{2},0)D(0,\frac{1}{2})`$. I shall show in the next section how this combines with a proper usage of the full spin structure of urs.

We have so far presented ur-theoretic arguments to introduce Minkowski spacetime as a local spacetime model, we shall now go over to global spacetime considerations. We start again with a quantum theory of binary alternatives, but this time with usual quantum bits obeying a unitary norm. The symmetry group of urs then contains $`SU(2)`$, $`U(1)`$ and the complex conjugation. As a Lie group manifold, this yields

$$SU(2)\times U(1)=𝕊^3\times 𝕊^1.$$
(3)
Weizsäcker (1985) has made the far-reaching assumption—for which the above portrayed spinorism is just the motive—that $`𝕊^3`$ itself should be considered a model of global cosmic space. It follows that urs are wavefunctions on $`𝕊^3`$. As Thomas Görnitz (1988) has shown, this leads to a remarkably fresh look at the large numbers in physics on the basis of the multiplicity of the regular representations of $`SU(2)`$, in accordance with the Planck scale and Weizsäcker’s earlier calculations. This will be explained in a moment. Moreover, for the appropriate treatment of global cosmic time and time in general, the distinction between past and future plays a major role in Weizsäcker’s philosophy of physics. He considers it a very precondition of empirical science, on which the concept of separable alternatives has to be built. In my opinion it is therefore highly implausible to take $`U(1)`$ as a model of cosmic time, which would be cyclic then. Obviously, time demands a special treatment (see, however, Castell 1975 for an opposite view).

We now seek to calculate the number of urs, starting from Weizsäcker’s early estimations in the 60’s. As a wavefunction on global space, one ur can be thought of as the alternative of being in the ‘one half’ or the ‘other half’ of the universe. Suppose now we want to localize a nucleon in the universe. The Compton wavelength can be understood as a natural measure of localizing a certain particle. For a nucleon, the ratio between the cosmic radius $`R`$ and the Compton wavelength $`\lambda `$ is about $`10^{40}`$. We therefore have to decide $`10^{40}`$ alternatives in each spatial direction to localize that nucleon. Hence, in ur-theory the assumption is made that a nucleon is $`10^{40}`$ urs (up to two or three orders of magnitude). Accordingly, an electron is about $`10^{37}`$ urs.

The Compton wavelength $`\lambda `$ of a nucleon is actually a distinguished measure of length. If we take the whole energy content of the universe to subdivide space into equal intervals, then $`\lambda `$ drops out. In this sense it is indeed an elementary length. We may of course measure up smaller regions of space, but then, as a matter of principle, do we loose the possibility to perform measurements of other regions at the same time with the same accuracy. In this sense the number of elementary spatial cells, which is $`N=\left(\frac{R}{\lambda }\right)^3=10^{120}`$, is the total number of elementary “events” in the world and, thus, the total number of urs (the one bit decision whether, for instance, a particular cell is occupied by a nucleon). Accordingly, the dimension of the Hilbert space of urs is $`2^{10^{120}}`$. As a result, not as an input, Weizsäcker got the number of nucleons as $`\frac{10^{120}}{10^{40}}=10^{80}`$—in accordance with empirical results!

As already mentioned, Görnitz has refined these estimations and put them on a more solid, group-theoretical basis. He considered the regular representation of $`SU(2)`$, i.e. the representation in terms of square-integrable functions of the Hilbert space $`^2(𝕊^3)`$ on $`SU(2)`$ itself as a homogeneous space $`𝕊^3`$. The multiplicity of the irreducible representations of the reduced tensor product of spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$-representations of $`SU(2)`$ shows a characteristic cut-off at functions with a wavelength of the order $`l_o=\frac{R}{\sqrt{N}}`$, where $`R`$ is the radius of $`𝕊^3`$ and $`N`$ the number of ur-functions (cf. Görnitz 1988 for details). Obviously, $`l_o`$ is now the lower bound of spatial distances which can be measured in a cosmos with $`N`$ urs at maximum. $`l_o`$ is indeed a fundamental elementary length in the sense that it represents the smallest spatial resolution physically possible. Remarkably, from the above $`N=10^{120}`$ we get $`l_o=10^{60}R`$, i.e. the Planck length! Conversely, if we already know about the Planck scale from other considerations (as we usually do), we get $`N=10^{120}`$ as a result—in accordance with Weizsäcker’s original, more hand-waving estimations.

## 3 Today: Tetrads, Gravity and Gauges

In the preceding section we have discussed the possibility of introducing spacetime from an ur-hypothesis and also deriving the form of the basic equations for matter fields (mainly the Dirac equation) and the simplest free interaction field (the homogeneous Maxwell equations). From a broader perspective two questions arise: Shouldn’t the ur-theoretic ansatz, a way of deriving spacetime itself, directly lead to gravity (or, perhaps, even quantum gravity)? Shouldn’t we be able to derive interaction gauge theories in general? Ambitious questions, indeed, but it is perhaps not astonishing that in abstract accounts like ur-theory questions like these arise at the very beginning. And despite of their ambitious character and also far from really answering them I try to discuss in the following some possible ways to tackle these questions.

As a working hypothesis, let us, again, take $`SU(2)=𝕊^3`$ as a model of global position space. Urs can be understood as non-local functions on $`SU(2)`$ and do naturally represent a spinor dyad (with spinors $`u^A`$, $`v^A`$ satisfying $`u_Av^A=v_Au^A=1`$). It is now well-known that a spinor dyad is equivalent to a null-vector vierbein or tetrad, where the four null-vectors have the form (1), but consist of mixed combinations of $`u_A`$ and $`v_A`$ (the details of this and the following paragraph can be found in Lyre 1998b). By considering suitable linear combinations of the null-vectors, such a null-tetrad can generally be written in real-valued form $`\theta _\mu ^\alpha =(t_\mu ,x_\mu ,y_\mu ,z_\mu )`$, where the space-like vectors $`x^\mu ,y^\mu ,z^\mu `$ represent a spatial dreibein tangent to $`𝕊^3`$ together with an orthogonal time-like vector $`t^\mu `$. The interesting point is that, since the tetrad is written in terms of ur-spinor components, a (first) quantization of urs also induces a quantization of the tetrad. Such a quantized ur-tetrad, however, means nothing but quantized coordinates in our spacetime model.

As a remarkable of the quantized ur-tetrad it turns out that the time operator $`\widehat{t}_\mu `$ in is just the ur-number operator $`\widehat{n}=\frac{1}{2}_r\{\widehat{a}_r^+,\widehat{a}_r\}`$ in the Fock space of Bose urs. This is consistent with Weizsäcker’s assumption that the growth of the total number of urs is a measure of temporal cosmic evolution. Now, since the number operator has indeed a lower bound at zero, the global spacetime model $`𝕊^3\times ^+`$ with a time parameter manifold $`^+`$ seems justified (thus avoiding globally closed time-like curves as mentioned in Sect. 2).

Can all this give us a hint how to describe (quantum) gravity in ur-theory? We may think of $`\theta _\mu ^\alpha `$ as representing four vector bosons, i.e. massless ‘gravitons’ with spin 1 and get a corresponding wave equation $`\mathrm{}\theta _\mu ^\alpha (x)=0`$ analogous to (2). This could perhaps describe the gravitational field in non-standard form (i.e. not as a spin-2 field) in the linearized limit. However, what we are really looking for is a recipe to make this field dynamical and couple it to matter. This was actually a main disadvantage of KL III. The theory of the free Maxwell field followed from the fact that $`D(\frac{1}{2},0)D(\frac{1}{2},0)=D(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})D(0,0)`$ consists of a spin-1 triplett and a spin-0 singulett, where the former can be written in terms of an anti-symmetric tensor with the algebraic properties of Maxwell’s field strength tensor. Even if we grant this as a ‘derivation’ of Maxwell’s free theory, and even if we have also obtained Dirac’s equation as a free matter field theory, the dynamical coupling of both fields is still missing.

Today, the usual recipe of coupling matter and interaction fields is the gauge principle. The idea is to start from a global symmetry of the free matter field theory and then to postulate the corresponding local symmetry as well. The geometrical picture is that of a fiber bundle over spacetime, where the fibers are represented by the local symmetry group. It thus turns out that the inhomogeneous term in the covariant derivative (i.e. covariant under local gauge symmetry transformations) has the interpretation of a bundle connection. A word of caution, however: most textbooks present the connection coupling term as a genuine way to introduce a real physical field. But this is certainly an overestimation of a mere symmetry requirement! The appearence of a connection only adjustes the postulate of local gauge symmetry, the connection itself must still be considered flat, i.e. with vanishing bundle curvature. A true physical interaction field requires non-vanishing curvature and hence non-flat connections, but these are clearly not enforced by the logic of the gauge principle. Local gauge transformations must be understood as a mere change in the position representation of the wavefunction and are thus physically vacuous. The situation is analogous to choosing curvilinear coordinates in flat space (which leads to Christoffel symbols, i.e. connections, but no gravitational field, i.e. non-vanishing curvature). Therefore, one needs a true physical input to generally justify the connection term as non-flat. In general relativity this input is the equivalence principle. It has been argued that one possible way to establish the connection term as a real coupling term could be a generalization of the equivalence principle by introducing generalized ‘inertial’ and ‘field charges’ (Lyre 2000). Whatever this physical input may be, in the following I will understand the gauge principle already in such a stronger, truly physical sense.

Now, a gauge theory is characterized by a certain gauge group. One nice starting point for an ur-theoretic gauge theory of gravity could be the fact that the quantized ur-tetrad generates a group which itself could be used as a proper gauge group. It can be shown that the Lie algebra of the ur-tetrad operators is 12-dimensional and that the corresponding Lie group is isomorphic to $`SL(2,)\times SL(2,)`$. Whether and how this group can be used for a proper gauge approach is still an open question. One interesting point to be mentioned is that the operators of this algebra “live” in flat Minkowski spacetime (in ur-theory this is reflected by unimodular groups rather than unitary ones). As in many other gauge approaches of gravity we would therefore describe the gravitational field in a flat space—and perhaps in this sense it is indeed just a local field as other Yang-Mills fields. But the point is that in ur-theory it will nevertheless be possible to have a global spherical model of the cosmos, since we got global curvature right from the beginning by taking $`𝕊^3`$ as the cosmic model.

## 4 Tomorrow: Qubits, Holographic Principle and the Ontology of Information

In this last section I shall come back to the more philosophical issues of ur-theory. In Sect. 2 we already noticed that, ontologically speaking, information in ur-theory seems to gain the status of a modern notion of substance. Two questions are simply unavoidable then: Does information exist without a carrier? Does information exist without an observer or information-gathering system?

Again, the very idea of ur-theory is to characterize physical objects entirely by the information which can be gained from them. The further, novel feature is that even space or spacetime is reconstructed here as a mere device to represent information. By the time Weizsäcker proposed it, this was a revolutionary new perspective. Nowadays, in modern quantum gravity, there is a strikingly similar discussion about the deeper connections between space and information, which has its roots in the considerations of black hole entropy. In the early days, black holes were thought of as characterized by three quantities only: mass, angular momentum and charge (“no hair”-property). But this in turn means that we could use them as ‘entropy graves’ by simply feeding them with the products of high entropy processes. This caused Jakob Bekenstein (1973) to attribute thermodynamical properties to black holes. In particluar, the surface of the event horizon $`A`$ in Planck units turns out as a suitable measure of the entropy content

$$S=\frac{1}{4}A,$$
(4)
thus leading to a generalized second law of thermodynamics.

Formula (4) is in many respects quite remarkable. As Gerard ’t Hooft (cf. his 2001) has pointed out, it does characterize physical objects on the most fundamental level not by the three-dimensional volume they occupy in space, but by a ‘projection’ of their degrees of freedom on a two-dimensional area much like a hologram. He thus calls this idea the holographic principle. From an ur-theoretic point of view, it is rather the characterization of physical objects in terms of pure information, which becomes evident here. Indeed, if we calculate the entropy and, hence, information content of the whole universe in Planck lengths, we get $`S_u(10^{60})^2=10^{120}`$ bits. In the same way we get $`S_n\left(\frac{\lambda }{l_o}\right)^2=10^{40}`$ bits for a nucleon—hence, the ur-numbers Weizsäcker already found in the 60’s! For an electron, however, (4) leads to $`S_e\left(\frac{\lambda _e}{l_o}\right)^2=10^{46}`$ in contrast to the $`10^{37}`$ urs stated in Sect. 2.

Another calculation may suffice (cf. Görnitz 1988). Suppose spherical symmetry $`A=4\pi R^2`$ and the Schwarzschild radius $`R=2M`$, then (4) transforms to

$$S=4\pi M^2.$$
(5)
Again, for the whole universe $`M_u=10^{60}m_o`$ we get $`S_u=10^{120}`$ bits as above. The information content of a particle with mass $`m`$ then actually is the entropy difference of a universe with or without such a particle, and hence

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S=4\pi \left((M_u+m)^2M_u^2\right)8\pi M_um.$$
(6)
We now get $`S_n10^{40}`$ and $`S_e10^{37}`$ in accordance with the results from Sect. 2. It seems therefore that ur-theory does not directly support the view of the holographic principle—and perhaps this could be a helpful insight for other programs as well.

Indeed, the relevance of the Bekenstein entropy has been acknowledged and partially explained in modern quantum gravity programs—in string theory as well as in the quantum loop approach (cf. Rovelli 1998b). Weizsäcker’s explanation—historically the first—is a further alternative. The Ashtekar-inspired, canonical quantum loop approach has indeed some core similarities with ur-theory. Like Penrose’s twistor approach, quantum loop gravity has its most suitable representation in terms of spin networks. It is certainly the most powerful among the spinoristic programs today, whose key feature is that they are background-free. Of course, all of the programs mentioned are mathematically by far more elaborated than ur-theory, which merely is an outline or perhaps a raw framework of a spinoristic theory. The true advantage of Weizsäcker’s approach is rather its philosophical underpinning—and this may also serve other programs.333For a recent dialogue between philosophy of science and quantum gravity research see Callender and Huggett (2001).

To explore the implications of a true ontology of information in physics, consider equation (5) again. It indeed highlights the ur-theoretic view that energy-matter is information. In a future quantum gravity, formula (5) might obtain the same status as Einstein’s $`E=mc^2`$, which indicates the ontological equivalence of energy and matter. However, would this suffice to consider information as a substance? Surely, the age-old distinction between matter and form lurks behind this question. Aristotle considered a (physical) object a synholon that is a composition of form (eidos) and matter (hyle). Form comes into matter, but none of these can exist independently, as far as physical objects are concerned. For Aristotle the essence of a thing is its form, the collection of all the attributes characterizing the object completely. In modern terms: the total information which can be gained from it. Nevertheless Aristotle insisted in the necessity of matter. He claimed the existence of a prote hyle, a “first matter” as a kind of a neutral, universal substance. The prote hyle is nothing we can specify any further, any form is stripped off from it. It does therefore not belong to the realm of physics, but can be considered the hypokeimenon of form—that on which form is based. Such a concept is clearly a pure metaphysical one and whether we like to make demands on it lies per definitionem beyond physics. What can empirically be known about an object, is per se reducible to information and in this sense physics indeed reduces to information. Perhaps, ur-theory is just the most rigorous anccount to take this insight seriously.

So far, information has been treated in an absolute sense. However, from a conceptual point of view the notion of information is inherently a context-related, relative concept presupposing semantics (cf. Lyre 2002). As Weizsäcker has put it: information does only exist in relation to the difference of two semantical levels. E.g. the sign H on a sheet of paper has its ‘meaning’ as the eighth letter of the Latin capital alphabet or the seventh of the Greek; but it may also mean just a collection of ink molecules. To specify a particular amount of information, a certain semantics must be presupposed, absolute numbers of information are ‘meaningless.’

From this point of view the above derived ur and, hence, bit numbers appear as highly questionable. Under which “context” do they fall? How could one specify the semantics of physical objects? Actually, the idea of (context-) “relatedness” in physics is not at all a new one, relativity theory heavily relies on it. In ur-theory, the generators of the Poincaré group (cf. Castell 1975 and Weizsäcker 1985, p. 407) create and annihilate urs. Quite naturally, then, the information content of a physical state becomes a frame-dependent statement. This even applies to the information content of the universe. We may think of the $`10^{120}`$ bits of the world or its age of $`10^{60}`$ Planck times in relation to observers in the rest-frame of the cosmos only. Proponents of certain quantum gravity approaches, as for instance Carlo Rovelli (1997), advocate that only an extreme relationalist view of space and time holds—as far as general covariance in general relativity and its consequences in quantum gravity are concerned. Ur-theory partially supports this view. On the other hand, there is no other system left outside the universe. Thus, the information content of the universe has an ‘absolute’ meaning in an operational sense. It is therefore not clear to me whether it makes sense to tackle cosmology in a rigorous generally covariant manner, where there is no distinguished observer left. Operationally we are distinguished as inner observers of the universe with respect to its rest-frame. In ur-theory the cosmic model is therefore not derived as a solution of a certain set of basic equations, but as the epitome of the existence of observers and physical objects in spacetime itself: the representation of one ur. Global cosmic spacetime should perhaps be treated significantly different than local considerations.

Heisenberg’s saying that there is no physics left, if we leave aside the possibility of any observers at all, does apply here, too. It was originally intended as a comment on the quantum measurement problem, not on problems about global spacetime. Ur-theory combines both meanings: urs are essentially quantum wavefunctions of the cosmos—“cosmic qubits” so to speak. The relevance of the observer as a ‘device’ whose factual observation ‘creates’ the observed thing is in ur-theory both supported from a rigorous quantum as well as information theoretic basis. As we already indicated in Sect. 2, the ur as a qubit represents potential information. Measurements must be understood as transitions from potential to actual information. The upshot is that indeed the world only comes into being for measuring observers—not for them as particular individuals, but for the idea and possibility of such observers in general. Kant would have called this the transcendental subject. In my view it is the unavoidable epistemological consequence of a fundamental physics of quantum information, and, eventually, the philosophy of physics presumably has to deal with questions of this sort.

Our speculations have come to a certain end now. Perhaps I was able to support a bit the view that ur-theory is an account which allows for challenging considerations on fundamental questions of physics and the philosophy of physics, questions which are not even touched upon within the mainstream. As a physical program, ur-theory surely suffers from mathematical elaboration as compared to other programs and does therefore not even earn the name “theory” in a strict sense. But it is still highly impressing that Weizsäcker had his main starting ideas already at a time, when other programs were far from being born. The main ingredients of ur-“theory”—information and spinorism—do exist as central motives in modern approaches as well (as pointed out in the above). Perhaps the future development may lead to a mutual stimulation between other programs and the ur-hypothesis—at any rate this is what I wish Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker from the heart.

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# Comment on ’Large-scale non-locality in “doubly special relativity” with an energy-dependent speed of light’

## 1 Introduction

In a recent letter  Schützhold and Unruh presented a critical analysis of some possible physical consequences of special relativity theories with two observer-indipendent scales (also known as “Doubly Special Relativity” theories, see e.g.   ). The purpose of the present note is to show how the conclusions presented in  rely on assumptions that after a careful analysis turn out to be inconsistent. In particular we will focus on the apparent loss of coincidence for wave packets described in Section V of , the non-local effects described in section IV and we will conclude with a general observation on the questions raised in Section III.

## 2 Loss of coincidence and field-theoretic example.

The analysis reported in Section IV of  is based on the definition, given in Section II, of a scalar field of space-time coordinates and its analogous in energy-momentum space.
The main assumption in this field-theoretic model is the possibility of writing a (“doubly special”) Lorentz-transformed field in space-time using a chain of Fourier transforms. In particular (see equations (4) in ) in order to get the transformed field222In Section II a model based on a 1+1-dimensional space is introduced, later in Section IV the same construction is assumed to be valid in the 3+1-dimensional case. $`\varphi ^{}(x,t)`$ the authors propose to first Fourier tranform333A further assumption made in Section II is that the usual quantum mechanical relations $`ip\mathrm{}\frac{}{x}`$, etc. hold. In Planckian regimes this seems to be unlikely since it is well known  that quantum-gravitational effects and the presence of a minimal length would give us a “Generalized Uncertainty Principle” instead of the usual Heisenberg uncertainty relation. $`\varphi (x,t)`$ to some $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(E,p)`$ then to make a non-linear relativistic transformation in energy-momentum obtaining $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(E^{},p^{})`$ and finally Fourier transform back this field to coordinate space to get the space-time rotated $`\varphi ^{}(x,t)`$ 444A first attempt in the construction of a consistent field theory formalism in the special case of $`\kappa `$-Minkowski space-time has already been made e.g. in . There some first physical consequences for a scalar field with interaction were derived. .
The validity of the previous construction can be objected if one observes that the definition of Fourier transformation and its inverse in the context of the modified relativity theories under consideration should be handled with care. In fact both in energy-momentum space and in coordinate space-time the integration process could turn out to be non-trivial. Although the space-time structure of DSR theories is not yet completely clear, it has been observed   that a special feature of the new theories might be the non-commmutativity of space-time coordinates with an associated Hopf algebra structure of symmetries . These more complex structures possess a non-trivial integral calculus in which a prescription of “normal ordering” of the non-commuting coordinates is essential. For example in the case of a $`\kappa `$-Minkowski non-commutative space-time (which, with its (Hopf) algebra of symmetries, is one of the most studied examples of DSR-like space-times) the integral of a function over the non-commuting coordinates is

$$f(x)d^4x=_{S,R}d^4x\mathrm{\Omega }_{S,R}(f)$$

where the subscripts $`S,R`$ indicate two different kind of normal ordering of the coordinates (time “symmetrized” and time to the right) which for field theoretic purposes turn out to be equivalent . We can see that in equation (8) of  the normal ordering of the non-commuting coordinates in the exponential would give some extra (non-trivial, i.e. depending on space coordinates) factors which would compromise the validity of equation (10) and thus the whole set of conclusions derived from it.
Moreover the general structure of the yet-to-be-built DSR space-time (not necessarily a type of space-time non-commutativity) might require the presence of an integration measure invariant under the action of a new structure of symmetries which could introduce another factor in equation (10) again affecting the final result.
But even if we restrict our considerations to the energy-momentum space, without specifying any property of the DSR space-time, we have to face a similar problem. In this case, in fact, it is obvious that in order to guarantee the invariance of the integration measure under the non-linear DSR transformations (which can be viewed as a dimensionful deformation of ordinary Lorentz maps) a non-trivial extra factor should be present in equation (10).
Any one of the arguments above is sufficient to conclude that at the end of the back and forth Fourier-Lorentz transforming process the equalities in equations (10) of  do not hold anymore. This means that at the present stage of knowledge of the properties of DSR theories the conclusions about the loss of coincidence of wave packets in Section V of  are not valid.
Furthermore we could recall that one of the key aspects of a DSR framework is the presence of an upper/lower bound for energies/lengths. This physical feature turns out to be rather embarassing when we try to define a Fourier transfrom integrating over all the range of energies/lengths.

## 3 Energy-dependent speed of light and non-locality

A questionable assumption is also at the base of the conclusions reached in Section IV of . In that Section it is argued that the varying speed of light scenario emerging from the non-linear structure of DSR leads to non-local effects on the large scale behaviour of Planckian particles. Following  the authors consider the speed of massless particles given by the usual Hamiltonian relation $`v=\frac{E}{p}`$ which implies, for a general non-linear DSR dispersion relation $`E(p)`$, an energy dependence of the speed of light. Their claim is that if we can follow the trajectory of a Planckian (with a Planckian energy) particle over a macroscopic distance and time (larger than Planck scale and Planck time) then we would get non-local effects. The possibilty of localizing such a particle is required by the need for an operational definition of velocity for our particle-picture based theory.
The basic problem here is that an operational definition of velocity, as the one given by the authors of , turns out to be problematic in a Planckian regime. The localization procedure itself would be dramatically affected in this extreme energy regime. In fact in order to localize with a proper accuracy a Planckian particle one needs Planckian particles which are the only ones able to give the resolution we need. These “detecting” particles will behave according to the unusual schemes of our theory. In particular (besides the obvious difficulties due to their “varying speed” properties) their interactions will be rather complicated and the actual status of the theory can make few predictions on what would eventually happen from a dynamical point of view. Thus whatever kind of detecting device we may try to use it will never be accurate enough to give a real meaning to the concept of “macroscopic trajectory of a Planckian particle” .
In spite of the fact that detections in “laboratory” based experiment could be problematic, the varying speed of light aspects of some DSR theories can indeed predict interesting (and detectable) physical effects like the in-vacuo dispersion for gamma-ray bursts travelling cosmological distances (see for example ).

## 4 Observation on the energy of composite systems

For a final comment we will focus on the problem of the energy of composite systems discussed in section III of  555This issue has already been debated in the literature as the authors point out in the final “note added” in ..
It is obvious that macroscopic bodies have masses well above the Planck energy and do not show any of the DSR-like properties. On the other hand the fact that the Compton wavelength of an elementary particle has to be larger than the Planck length implies that the Planck energy sets an upper limit for the mass of any elementary particle .
Our new relativistic tranformations involving a maximum energy are then valid only for elementary particles in their quantum realm. In particular the transformations of DSR theories will describe the basic relativistic symmetries of a “one (elementary) particle system”. As a consequence we see that the laws of composition of energy and momentum for composite systems need to be derived from a proper “multiparticle” theory. Such a theory should be the analogous of a“ quantum field theory” formulated in the proper framework of “generalized” Lorentz invariance. Only when such a theory has been proposed we can make predictions on processes involving several elementary particles and their interactions and in which each individual energy will be bounded by the Planck energy.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Y. Jack Ng for valuable comments and suggestions. I also thank Stephen Lau for useful discussions.


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# Nonlinear Bloch-wave interaction and Bragg scattering in optically-induced lattices

## Abstract

We study, both theoretically and experimentally, the Bragg scattering of light in optically-induced photonic lattices and reveal the key physical mechanisms which govern nonlinear self-action of narrow beams under the combined effects of Bragg scattering and wave diffraction, allowing for selecting bands with different effective dispersion.

Dispersion and diffraction are the fundamental phenomena of wave physics, and they are responsible for temporal pulse spreading and beam broadening. The rate of wave broadening can be controlled in periodic structures where the effective geometric dispersion provides a key physical mechanism for manipulating waves in various physical systems, including the Bragg gratings in optical fibers Agrawal:1989:NonlinearFiber , waveguide arrays Eisenberg:2000-1863:PRL , and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in optical lattices Eiermann:2003-60402:PRL .

A strong change of the wave dispersion and diffraction occurs in the vicinity of spectrum band gaps where waves experience resonant Bragg scattering from a periodic structure Yeh:1988:OpticalWaves . In the structure shown in Fig. 1, both scattering and spreading depend on the angle between the beam and grating. For broad beams, the evolution of transmitted and scattered waves is defined by the effective dispersion parameters at the spectral peaks Sipe:1988-132:OL , and can be studied in the effective-mass approximation Ashcroft:1984:SolidState . The dynamics of narrow beams and wavepackets becomes more complicated, and it is strongly affected by nonlinearity, as recently discussed in Ref. Eiermann:2003-60402:PRL . However, the key physical mechanisms which govern nonlinear self-action of narrow beams under combined effects of the Bragg scattering and wave diffraction remain largely unexplored.

In this Letter we study, both theoretically and experimentally, light propagation in optically-induced photonic lattices near the Bragg scattering angle. For the first time to our knowledge, we reveal generic relations between the Bloch-wave spectrum of the periodically modulated media and the specific structure of the diffracted waves describing analytically the key patterns of the beam scattering and self-action observed in our experiments. We also study the nonlinear Bloch-wave interaction and observe self-focusing in the spectrum gaps tracing the signatures of the Floquet-Bloch solitons.

Model. Essential features of light scattering in periodic photonic structures and the BEC dynamics in optical lattices can be described by similar mathematical models. For definiteness, we consider the optical beam propagation in a one-dimensional periodic structure described by the dimensionless equation,

$$i\frac{E}{z}+D\frac{^2E}{x^2}+\nu (x)E+(x,|E|^2)E=0.$$
(1)
where $`E(x,z)`$ is the normalized electric field envelope, $`x`$ and $`z`$ are the transverse and propagation coordinates, normalized to the characteristic values $`x_s`$ and $`z_s`$, respectively, $`D=z_0\lambda /(4\pi n_0x_0^2)`$ is the beam diffraction coefficient, $`n_0`$ is the average medium refractive index, and $`\lambda `$ is the vacuum wavelength. Function $`\nu (x)`$ characterizes the periodic modulation of the optical refractive index, $`\nu (x+d)\nu (x)`$, where $`d`$ is the spatial lattice period. The function $`(x,|E|^2)`$ defines the self-induced changes of the refractive index.

The theoretical analysis presented below is equally applicable to the BEC dynamics including the recent experimental results for the BEC dispersion management in optical lattices Eiermann:2003-60402:PRL . In this case, $`E(x,z)`$ stands for the mean-field condensate wave function, $`x`$ is the spatial direction along a cigar-shaped trap, $`z`$ is the normalized time, and $`D`$ is a constant parameter. The periodic function $`\nu (x)`$ defines the effective potential of an optical lattice, and $`(x,|E|^2)\gamma |E|^2`$ characterizes the inter-atomic scattering.

General analytical approach. First, we present our general theory for describing scattering and diffraction of optical beams in periodic photonic structures \[see Fig. 1\] based on the Floquet-Bloch formalism Yeh:1988:OpticalWaves . The Bloch waves are special solutions of the linearized equation (1) of the form, $`E_{\kappa ,n}(x,z)=\psi _{\kappa ,n}(x)\mathrm{exp}(i\kappa x+i\beta _{\kappa ,n}z)`$, where $`\beta _{\kappa ,n}`$ and $`\kappa `$ are the Bloch-wave propagation constant and wavenumber, respectively, and the index $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}`$ marks the transmission band. The Bloch wave $`\psi _{\kappa ,n}(x)`$ has the periodicity of the photonic structure, $`\psi _{\kappa ,n}(x+d)\psi _{\kappa ,n}(x)`$, and this constraint defines a specific dispersion relation $`\beta _{\kappa ,n}`$, as sketched in Fig. 2(a). In a one-dimensional structure, the transmission bands are separated by gaps Yeh:1988:OpticalWaves , where the wave propagation is forbidden ($`\kappa `$ is real). The band-gaps are associated with Bragg reflection of light at certain incident angles.

The Bloch waves form a complete orthogonal set of eigenfunctions, and the linear evolution of an input beam in a periodic lattice is fully defined by its Bloch-wave spectrum $`B(\kappa ,n)`$. Indeed, the electric field envelope $`E`$ can be found at a fixed $`z`$ as follows

$$E(x,z)=\underset{n}{}_{\pi /d}^{+\pi /d}B(\kappa ,n)\psi _{\kappa ,n}(x)e^{i\kappa x+i\beta _{\kappa ,n}z}𝑑\kappa .$$
(2)
The Bloch-wave spectrum can be linked to the Fourier spectrum of the input beam,

$$B(\kappa ,n)=\underset{m}{}C_n(\kappa +2\pi m/d)F(\kappa +2\pi m/d),$$
(3)
where $`F(k)=(2\pi )^1_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}E(x,0)\mathrm{exp}(ikx)𝑑x`$, and $`C_n(\kappa )`$ are the Bloch-wave excitation coefficients, as shown in Fig. 2(d).

In order to capture the essential features of the beam diffraction in a periodic lattice, we calculate the beam profiles in the far field regime. Assuming that $`z`$ exceeds several diffraction lengths, we use the stationary-phase approximation Born:2002:PrinciplesOptics  to separate the leading-order contributions in the integral representation (2) and obtain

$$E(x,z)\sqrt{\pi }\underset{\kappa ,n:x=z\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(1)}}{}\frac{B(\kappa ,n)\psi _{\kappa ,n}(x)}{(|\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(2)}|z)^{1/2}}e^{i\phi },$$
(4)
where $`\phi =\kappa x+\beta _{\kappa ,n}z+(\pi /4)\mathrm{sign}(\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(2)})`$, and $`\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(j)}=^j\beta _{\kappa ,n}/\kappa ^j`$. Solution (4) allows us to link the spatial profile of the diffracted beam and its Bloch-wave spectrum, and it provides a nontrivial generalization of the well-known fact that in a homogeneous medium the profile of a diffracted beam maps directly its Fourier spectrum Born:2002:PrinciplesOptics . According to the summation condition in Eq. (4), $`\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(1)}`$ defines the propagation angle (or the group velocity) of the Bloch waves. The second derivative of the Bloch-wave dispersion, $`\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(2)}`$, characterizes the rate of the beam spatial divergence, and it has a meaning of the effective diffraction coefficient. In the regions where $`\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(2)}<0`$, the beam diffraction is normal (as in a homogeneous medium), and it is anomalous for $`\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(2)}>0`$. As illustrated in Figs. 2(a-c), the group velocity vanishes at the band edges, and it reaches a maximum absolute value inside the band, whereas the beam diffraction changes from normal to anomalous. A fundamental conclusion of our analysis is the following: at any given spatial location $`x`$, the beam profile is found as a superposition of Bloch waves from different spectral bands, and each of the bands gives two contributions associated with both normal and anomalous diffraction. Nonlinearity produces the opposite effects on such waves, resulting in either self-focusing or self-defocusing, and it is the competition of these effects that will define the beam shaping in periodic structures.

Equation (4) becomes formally invalid in the vicinity of a zero-diffraction point, which corresponds to a diffraction catastrophe. The corresponding contribution to the total field can be expressed through the Airy functions by taking into account higher-order diffraction terms. When $`\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(2)}=0`$, the general expression can be simplified, $`2\pi z^{1/3}B(\kappa ,n)\psi _{\kappa ,n}(x)|6/\beta _{\kappa ,n}^{(3)}|^{1/3}[\mathrm{\Gamma }(1/3)]^1`$. The contribution from the zero-diffraction region may become dominant in the far field where $`B(\kappa _1,n)|z\beta _{\kappa _1,n}^{(3)}|^{1/3}B(\kappa _2,n)|z\beta _{\kappa _2,n}^{(2)}|^{1/2}`$. This effect is responsible for the formation of a specific diffraction pattern with two side lobes in waveguide arrays Eisenberg:1998-3383:PRL . In the case of dynamically induced gratings Fleischer:2003-23902:PRL ; Neshev:2003-710:OL , the refractive index contrast is smaller, and the spectral regions with near-zero diffraction are relatively narrow \[see Fig. 2(c)\] and are not expected to make a dominant contribution for experimentally feasible propagation lengths.

Experiment vs. theory.  In order to study the Bragg scattering and Bloch-wave interaction experimentally, we create an optically-induced periodic lattice by interfering two ordinary-polarized coherent laser beams in a biased photorefractive crystal SBN:60, as discussed in Refs. Fleischer:2003-23902:PRL ; Neshev:2003-710:OL . We apply an external electric field (up to 4000 V/cm) to the crystal, creating a periodic modulation of the optical refractive index through the electro-optic effect. In the SBN crystal, orthogonally polarized waves have significantly different electro-optic coefficients. We use the ordinary polarized interfering beams which propagate linearly and create a stable periodic lattice, whereas the extraordinary polarized probe beam experiences strong nonlinear self-action, which can be quantified through the nonlinear change of the refractive index, $`\nu (x)+(x,|E|^2)=\gamma (I_b+I_p(x)+|E|^2)^1`$, where $`I_b`$ is the constant dark irradiance, $`I_p(x)=I_g\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi x/d)`$ is the two-beam interference pattern which induces the periodic lattice, and $`\gamma `$ is the nonlinear coefficient which is proportional to the applied DC field. In order to match the conditions of our experimental observations in the theory and numerical calculations, we use the following parameters: $`\lambda =0.532\mu `$m, $`n_0=2.4`$, $`x_0=1\mu `$m, $`z_0=1`$mm, $`d=15.1`$, $`I_b=1`$, $`I_g=0.4`$, $`\gamma =2.13`$, the crystal length is $`L=15`$mm, and the input beam width is $`21.16\mu `$m. A detailed description of our experimental setup can be found in our earlier paper Neshev:2003-710:OL .

First, we perform numerical analysis of beam scattering in the linear regime using the exact Bloch-wave decomposition \[Eq. (4)\]. When the inclination angle of the scattered beam approaches that of the Bragg resonance, we observe the simultaneous excitation of several spectral bands by an input Gaussian beam, as illustrated in Figs. 3(a,b). These results are in perfect agreement with our general conclusion that a spatial profile of the diffracted beam maps various Bloch-wave spectral components. Indeed, three spectral regions can be excited simultaneously according to Fig. 2(d), where we superimpose the Fourier spectrum of the input beam on top of the Bloch-wave excitation coefficients.

In experiment, first we study the linear scattering when the beam power is low. Experimental results are summarized in Fig. 4, where we show the dependence of the output beam profile on the tilt angle of the periodic lattice. Close to normal incidence, the first band is dominant, whereas at larger angles the excitation of the second band grows. In the vicinity of the Bragg angle \[marked as a dashed line in Fig. 4(left)\], the transmitted beam consists of two parts which correspond mainly to the excitation of the first and second bands, as predicted theoretically (cf. Fig. 3). For angles larger than the Bragg angle, the transmitted beam is composed mostly of the Bloch waves from the second spectral band. We note that the result of scattering very weakly depends on the initial beam position. This happens because the spectral width of the input beam is less than the width of the first Brillouin zone ($`\mathrm{\Delta }k<2\pi /d`$), and according to Eq. (3) the beam shift introduces a uniform phase modulation of the Bloch-wave spectrum but does not change its shape.

As the beam intensity grows, nonlinearity leads to strong changes in the output beam profiles, see results of numerical simulations of the full model Eq. (1) in Figs. 5(a,b). In the nonlinear propagation regime, normally diffracting Bloch-wave components tend to self-focus whereas anomalously diffracting components experience self-defocusing. This fundamental property of the beam scattering suggests a possibility of performing nonlinear Bloch-wave spectroscopy of the optically-induced photonic lattices. In particular, we find that the beam self-action effect depends strongly on the incident angle. When the angle is below the Bragg resonance \[see Figs. 5(a)\], the normally diffracting mode is dominant in the first band, see Fig. 3(a). Therefore, as the beam power grows, the mode experiences self-focusing. At the same time, we observe a strong nonlinearity-induced energy transfer into the right part of the beam, which corresponds to the excitation of the second band. In contrast, for the scattering angles above the Bragg resonance \[see Figs. 5(b)\], the excitation of the second band is dominant, and in the first band anomalously-diffracting mode is stronger, see Fig. 3(b). This leads to defocusing on the left part of the transmitted beam, whereas the right part self-focuses. At higher powers, the beam starts erasing the optically-induced grating, and scattering is significantly reduced for both incident angles. In experiment, we increase the intensity of the probe beam, and observe the transformations of the beam profiles at the crystal output \[see Fig. 6\] in a remarkable agreement with the theoretical predictions \[cf. Fig. 5\]. Numerical calculations indicate that either one or two Floquet-Bloch solitons Mandelik:2003-53902:PRL  can form under appropriate conditions, however the soliton formation distance exceeds the crystal length due to strong Bloch-wave interactions.

In conclusion, we have studied the Bragg scattering and nonlinear Bloch-wave inter-band interaction in optically-induced photonic lattices. We have established generic relations between the Bloch-wave spectrum and the structure of diffracted waves describing theoretically the specific patterns of the beam scattering and self-action observed in experiment.

We thank B. Eggleton, E. A. Ostrovskaya, and C. M. de Sterke for useful discussions. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council.


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# Tailoring photonic entanglement in high-dimensional Hilbert spaces

## Abstract

We present an experiment where two photonic systems of arbitrary dimensions can be entangled. The method is based on spontaneous parametric down conversion with trains of $`d`$ pump pulses with a fixed phase relation, generated by a mode-locked laser. This leads to a photon pair created in a coherent superposition of $`d`$ discrete emission times, given by the successive laser pulses. Entanglement is shown by performing a two-photon interference experiment and by observing the visibility of the interference fringes increasing as a function of the dimension $`d`$. Factors limiting the visibility, such as the presence of multiple pairs in one train, are discussed.

Entanglement is one of the essential features of quantum physics. It leads to non classical correlation between different particles. Entanglement of two-levels systems (qubits) has been extensively studied, both theoretically and experimentally, in order to perform fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and to implement a number of protocols proposed in the burgeoning field of quantum information science (see e.g. tittel01  for a recent review). However, it is interesting to explore higher-dimensional Hilbert spaces. From a fundamental point of view, increasing the complexity of the systems and the dimension of the Hilbert space might lead to a further insight into the subtleties of quantum physics. For instance, high-dimensional entangled states give experimental predictions which differ more radically from classical physics Kaszlikowski00 ; collins02  than entangled qubits. They could also decrease the quantum efficiency required to close the detection loophole in Bell experiments massar01 . In the more applied context of quantum information science, high dimensional entangled states might also be of interest. In particular, high-dimensional systems can carry more information than two-dimensional systems and increase the noise threshold that quantum key distribution protocols can tolerate hbp2000 ; cerf01 . Moreover, using entangled qudits might increase the efficiency of Bell state measurements for quantum teleportation Witthaut03 . Finally, although most of the proposed protocols require only entangled qubits, some protocols involving qutrits (3-dimensional systems) have been recently proposed, such as the Byzantine agreement fitzi01  and quantum coin tossing coin .

Only recently the first experiments started to explore entanglement in higher dimensions. Two directions can be considered. First, one can take profit of multi-photon entanglement, as obtained for example in higher order parametric down conversion Lamas01 ; Howell02 . Second, one can use the entanglement of two high-dimensional systems. Entanglement of orbital angular momentum of photons has been for instance proposed and demonstrated in this context Mair01 ; Vaziri02 . Energy-time entanglement has also been recently analyzed in 3 dimensions thew03Q , using unbalanced 3-arm fiber optic interferometers in a scheme analogous to the Franson interferometric arrangement for qubits.

All these methods so far have been demonstrated only for qutrits and it will be difficult to implement them in higher dimensions. In contrast, we recently proposed a simple method to entangle two photonic systems of arbitrary dimensions. It is based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) with a sequence of pump pulses with a fixed phase relation generated by a mode-locked laser, leading to high-dimensional time-bin entanglement HdR02 . In this paper, we report on an experimental realization of this scheme, where it is possible to choose arbitrarily the dimension of the entangled photons Hilbert space. An advantage of our scheme is that it enables the generation of entangled states in arbitrary dimensions in a scalable way with only two photons note0 . We perform a simple analysis which is sufficient to show entanglement, although it does not provide a full information about the states.

Before describing the experiment, let us recall the basics of high-dimensional time-bin entanglement. Suppose a SPDC process with a train of $`d`$ pump pulses with a fixed phase relation. Providing that the probability of creating more than one pair in $`d`$ pulses is negligible and excluding the vacuum, the state after SPDC is HdR02 :

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{PDC}={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}}c_je^{i\varphi _j}|j,j`$ (1)
where $`|j,j|j_A,j_B`$ corresponds to a photon pair created by the pulse (or time-bin) j, with relative amplitude $`c_j`$ and phase $`\varphi _j`$. The phase reference $`\varphi _1`$ is set at 0. $`A`$ and $`B`$ are the two SPDC modes, $`d`$ is an integer that can be arbitrarily large and $`_{j=1}^dc_j^2=1`$.

This method enables to create any bipartite high-dimensional state. By selecting the number of pump pulses we can choose the dimension of the entangled photons Hilbert space. In our experiment we construct trains of $`d`$ pulses, where $`d`$ can be varied from 1 to 20, with constant amplitudes $`c_j`$ and with constant phase shifts $`\varphi _j\varphi _{j1}=\varphi =cst.`$ Note that by inserting a phase and/or amplitude modulator before the down-converter, we could in principle modulate their amplitudes and phases, thus varying the coefficients $`c_j`$ and $`\varphi _j`$ in order to generate arbitrary non-maximally entangled states.

A complete analysis of such high dimensional entangled states would require the use of d-arm interferometers, such that the amplitudes and phases of all time-bins can be probed. An alternative could be given by the use of fiber loops or Fabry-Perot interferometers, as proposed in HdR02 . Here, we used a 2-arm interferometer, which already shows high-dimensional entanglement. The travel time difference between the long and the short arm of this interferometer is equal to the time between 2 pump pulses $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$ (see Fig. 1). This means that a photon travelling through the short arm will remain in the same time-bin while a photon travelling through the long arm will move to the next time-bin. We restrict ourself to the events where both photons of one pair travel the same path in the interferometer, and are thus detected with a time difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=t_At_B=0`$. In this case, the evolution of the state of Eq.(1) in the interferometer can be written as (not normalized):

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{int}`$ $`=`$ $`|1,1+{\displaystyle \underset{j=2}{\overset{d}{}}}|j,j(e^{\varphi _j}+e^{i(\delta _A+\delta _B+\varphi _{j1})})`$ (2)
$`+`$ $`e^{i(\delta _A+\delta _B+\varphi _d)}|d+1,d+1`$
where $`\delta _{A,B}`$ are the phases introduced in the long arm of the interferometer for the photons $`A`$ and $`B`$ and with $`\varphi _1=0`$. We see that for all time-bins except the first and the last one we have a superposition of two indistinguishable processes. If we record all the processes leading to a coincidence with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0`$, i.e if we don’t postselect the interfering terms, the coincidence count rate varies as

$$R_c1+V_d\mathrm{cos}(\delta _A+\delta _B\varphi )$$
(3)
where $`\varphi _j\varphi _{j1}=\varphi `$ for all $`j`$. From the $`2d`$ different processes, two are always completely distinguishable (the first and the last time bin). Therefore, the maximal visibility of the interference fringes, $`V_d`$, depends on the dimension $`d`$ as:

$$V_d=V_{max}\frac{d1}{d}$$
(4)
where $`V_{max}`$ is the maximum visibility due to experimental imperfections. This analysis is valid if the phase difference between 2 pulses is constant, which is the case in a mode-locked laser. Two contributions might affect the stability. First the laser cavity length may vary slowly due to thermal drift. This drift has been measured ($`2\mu m`$ per hour) and is negligible in the time-scale of a round trip time. Second, one could imagine faster fluctuations of the optical cavity length due e.g. to mechanical vibrations. This seems however unlikely, since important fluctuations would destroy the laser operation. To further confirm this point, we make the following reasoning. If we consider a small phase noise between 2 consecutive pulses with a Gaussian distribution of width $`\delta ϵ`$, the visibility will be reduced to: $`V=V_d\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{2}\delta ϵ^2)`$. The phase noise between pulse j and pulse j+m also has a gaussian distribution of width $`\sqrt{m}\delta ϵ`$, leading to a visibility $`V=V_d\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{2}(m)\delta ϵ^2)`$. Observing a visibility $`V_d`$ close to optimal is thus a confirmation that the phase noise $`\delta ϵ\pi `$ and consequently that the coherence is maintained over many time bins.

In our experiment, we use trains of $`d`$ pump pulses, where $`d`$ can be varied from 1 to 20, and we observe the visibility of the two photon interference as a function of the dimension $`d`$. A schematic of the experiment is presented in Fig. 1. The pump laser is a Ti-Sapphire femtosecond mode-locked laser producing 150fs pulses at a wavelength of 710 nm. The time between 2 pulses is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$ = 13 ns. To construct the pulse trains, the pump beam is focussed into a 380MHz acousto-optic modulator (AOM, from Brimrose) which reflects the incoming beam with an efficiency of $`50\%`$ when it is activated. This activation can be triggered externally, with a TTL signal of variable width synchronized with the laser pulses. The rise time is around 6ns. The width of this signal thus determines the number of pulses per train. The reflected beam containing the pulse trains is then used to pump a non-linear Lithium triborate (LBO) crystal. Non degenerate photon pairs at 1310/1550 nm wavelength are created by SPDC and then sent to the analyzer, which is a two-arm bulk Michelson interferometer, where the long arm introduces a delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$=13 ns with respect to the short one, corresponding to a physical path-length difference of 1.95 m note1 . The pump power is kept low, in order to keep the probability of having more than one pair per train small. Photons exiting one output of the interferometer together are first focussed into an optical fiber and then separated with a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM). The 1310 nm photon is detected by a passively quenched LN2 cooled Ge Avalanche Photo Diode (APD, from NEC), with a quantum efficiency $`\eta `$ of around 10$`\%`$ for 40kHz of dark counts. The 1550 nm photon is detected with an InGaAs photon counting module (from idQuantique), featuring a quantum efficiency of around 30$`\%`$ for a dark count probability of $`10^4`$ per ns and operating in gated mode. The trigger is given by a coincidence between the Ge APD and a 1-ns signal delivered simultaneously with each laser pulse ($`t_0`$), in order to reduce the accidental coincidences. The signals from the APDs are finally sent to a time-to-digital converter, in order to record the photons arrival time histogram. A small coincidence window of around 1 ns is selected around the interfering peak (i.e the peak with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0`$).

If we record the coincidence count rate as a function of the phase shift in the interferometer, we obtain sinusoidal curves with a visibility increasing with the dimension $`d`$ (see Fig.2). Net visibilities (i.e with accidental coincidence count rate subtracted) as a function of the dimension $`d`$ are plotted in Fig.3. The solid line is a fit using Eq. (4). The good agreement between experimental data and theory confirms that the dimension of the entangled photons is given by the number of pump pulses d. We find a maximal visibility of $`91.6\pm 1.2\%`$.

We now discuss the factors limiting the visibility which, as we will see, is not reduced by a possible phase noise between pump pulses. A first factor is the possible creation of more than one pair per pulse train. The spectral bandwidth of the (not filtered) created photons is about 100nm, corresponding to a coherence time of $`25fs`$, much smaller than the duration of the pump pulse. In this limit, any $`2n`$ photons state can be described as $`n`$ independent pairs. The probability of producing $`n`$ pairs in a given pulse is distributed according to the Poissonian distribution of mean value $`\mu `$: $`p_n=e^\mu \frac{\mu ^n}{n!}.`$ The starting point for the calculation of the loss of visibility due to multiple pairs is the fact that the total coincidence count rate can be written

$`R`$ $`=`$ $`R_1(1+V_d\mathrm{cos}\theta )+R_2.`$ (5)
The first term of the sum means that, for each pair created, the two-photon process described above can take place, leading to an interference fringe of visibility $`V_d`$. The additional rate $`R_2`$ is what comes from the multi-pair pulses, when one detects coincidence of photons belonging to independent pairs. In our case there are only two kinds of contributions to $`R_2`$: either the photons were created in the same time-bin ($`R_{2,s}`$), or in consecutive time-bins ($`R_{2,c}`$); if the independent pairs are created in more distant time-bins, no coincidence is registered.

Now, we calculate $`R_1`$, $`R_{2,s}`$ and $`R_{2,c}`$ explicitly. $`R_1`$ is proportional to the mean number of pairs created $`\mu d`$. The factor of proportionality is given by the probability that a photon pair leads to a coincident detection (i.e with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0`$), which is $`\frac{1}{2}`$ note2 . Hence finally $`R_1=\frac{1}{2}\mu d`$. Let us now calculate $`R_{2,s}`$. With $`n`$ pairs in a given time-bin, one can create $`\frac{n(n1)}{2}`$ couples, so the mean number of such couples in d time-bins is $`d_np_n\frac{n(n1)}{2}=d\frac{\mu ^2}{2}`$. By inserting the probability of coincidence note4 , we find: $`R_{2,s}=\frac{\mu ^2}{2}d.`$ Let us finally calculate $`R_{2,c}`$. If $`n_k`$ is the number of pairs in time-bin $`k`$, the number of pairs in consecutive time-bins is $`m=n_1\times n_2+n_2\times n_3+\mathrm{}+n_{d1}\times n_d`$. The average of the random variable $`m`$ is $`m=_{n_1}\mathrm{}_{n_d}p_{n_1}\mathrm{}p_{n_d}m(n_1,\mathrm{},n_d)=(d1)\mu ^2`$. In this case, only half of the processes lead to a coincident detection. We thus obtain $`R_{2,c}=\frac{1}{2}\mu ^2(d1)`$. Inserting these results into (5) we find $`R\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+V(\mu ,d)\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ with

$`V(\mu ,d)`$ $`=`$ $`V_d{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+2\mu \mu /d}}.`$ (6)
To validate our model, we measured the visibility as a function of $`\mu `$, for $`d`$=20 (see Fig. 4). The factor $`\mu `$, which is proportional to the pump power is determined by the side peak method, explained in detail in marcikic02 . The solid line is a fit of Eq.(6), in good agreement with the experimental data.

For the measurement of Fig. 3 (not corrected), $`\mu `$ is kept low ($`<0.025`$) so that we estimate the maximal visibility due to multiple pairs to $`(97\pm 1)\%`$.

Another factor that affects the visibility is the non perfect alignment of the analyzing interferometer. Ideally, the transmission in the long and the short arm should be the same for both wavelength. Due to the fact that the interferometer is long and that the two photons have different wavelengths, obtaining a good alignment is very difficult. To calculate the influence of a misalignment we write $`t_s`$ and $`t_l`$ the transmission probability amplitudes for the short and the long arm respectively. For simplicity, we assume them to be the same for both wavelengths. In this case the coincidence count rate (if we take only the interfering terms) is $`R_ct_s^4+t_l^4+2t_s^2t_l^2\mathrm{cos}(\delta _A+\delta _B\varphi )`$, leading to a visibility:

$$V=\frac{2t_s^2t_l^2}{t_s^4+t_l^4}$$
(7)
In our experiment, we typically obtain transmission differences between the long and the short arm between 1 and 1.5 dB, which limit the maximal visibility to around $`(96\pm 1)\%`$. Moreover, the states we create are not completely maximally entangled, due to the fact that the first and the last pump pulses in a train have a slightly smaller intensity. Finally, the interferometer might not have a perfect visibility. To take into account these last factors, we estimate a maximal visibility of $`(99\pm 1)\%`$.

Considering all the above mentioned factors, we find an optimal visibility of $`(92.2\pm 1.6)\%`$ which fits with the measured value of $`(91.6\pm 1.2)\%`$. This is a confirmation that the phase noise is negligible and consequently that the coherence is kept over many time-bins and that we generate entangled qudits.

In conclusion, we reported an experiment where we entangled two photonic systems of arbitrary discrete dimensions. The simple analysis presented in this paper already allows us to demonstrate the creation of a photon pair in a coherent superposition of $`d`$ emission times, providing evidence of high-dimensional entanglement. More complex analysis with d-arm interferometers should allow to reveal all the quantum information content of such states (e.g. nonlocality).

The authors would like to thank Claudio Barreiro and Jean-Daniel Gautier for technical support. Financial support by the Swiss NCCR Quantum Photonics, and by the European project RamboQ is acknowledged.


text:
# DESY 03-154CERN-TH/2003-228HU-EP-03/70SFB/CPP-03-44KEK-CP-146September 2003 Large cutoff effects of dynamical Wilson fermions Talk given by R. Sommer. Work supported in part by the European Community’s Human Potential Programme, contract HPRN-CT-2000-00145, Hadrons/Lattice QCD and by the DFG in the SFB/TR 09 and the GK 271.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

In the quenched approximation, large cutoff-effects were observed with the original Wilson action. In particular, they appeared as a strong dependence of the PCAC-mass, $`m=\frac{1}{2}\beta |_\mu A_\mu |\alpha /\beta |P|\alpha `$, on the external states, $`|\alpha ,|\beta `$, a dependence which has to be absent in the continuum limit . These $`a`$-effects could be reduced to a tolerable level by non-perturbative $`\mathrm{O}(a)`$-improvement . The necessary improvement coefficient $`c_{\mathrm{sw}}`$ is now known also for the Wilson gauge action with $`N_\mathrm{f}=2`$ flavors of dynamical Wilson fermions (action “W/SW”)  and with the Iwasaki gauge action with $`N_\mathrm{f}=3`$ (I/SW) . It was pointed out already in  that $`\mathrm{O}(a^2)`$ effects may be sizeable at the lowest value of $`\beta `$ considered, which roughly corresponds to $`a0.1\mathrm{fm}`$. Here we report on $`\mathrm{O}(a^2)`$ effects with dynamical fermions, for W/SW and I/SW actions and for comparison we consider also the original Wilson (W/W) and Kogut Susskind (W/KS) actions.

## 2 PCAC MASSES

A family of external states, $`|\alpha ,|\beta `$, can be realized in the Schrödinger Functional (SF) . The (bare) PCAC-mass,

(1)
$`m={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{_0}f_\mathrm{A}(x_0)+c_\mathrm{A}a_0^{}_0f_\mathrm{P}(x_0)}{2f_\mathrm{P}(x_0)}}|_{x_0=L/2},`$
then depends on the resolution $`L/a`$ of the $`L^3\times L`$ space-time, on the spatial periodicity angle $`\theta `$ of the fermion fields and the Dirichlet boundary conditions for the gauge fields. In eq. (1) the standard SF correlation functions of the axial vector and the pseudoscalar density $`f_\mathrm{A},f_\mathrm{P}`$ enter. Chiral symmetry predicts that $`m`$ is (apart from cutoff effects) independent of $`L/a`$ as well as of the other parameters, as long as the gauge coupling and the bare quark mass are kept constant. Denoting by $`m_{\mathrm{}}`$ the PCAC mass computed in large volume with $`|\alpha `$ the $`𝐩=0`$ one $`\pi `$ state and $`|\beta =|0`$, one expects in particular

$`\mathrm{\Delta }mmm_{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{O}(a^2)`$ (2)
in the $`\mathrm{O}(a)`$ improved cases. For W/W this difference is instead $`\mathrm{O}(a)`$.

Indeed, after $`\mathrm{O}(a)`$ improvement $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ is not too large for $`a(2\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})^10.1\mathrm{fm}`$ in the quenched approximation. However for $`N_\mathrm{f}=2`$ it is more than a factor two larger (Table 1) and, although not shown here, this roughly holds also for other such mass differences. Considering several other differences, we convinced ourselves that the only perturbatively known value for $`c_\mathrm{A}`$ is not the origin of the large cutoff effects seen for W/SW and $`N_\mathrm{f}=2`$.

We then considered the Iwasaki gauge action together with the values of $`c_{\mathrm{sw}}`$ used in . We found a much smaller $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$, see Table 1.

## 3 MASS DEPENDENCE OF $`r_0`$

In lattice gauge theory computations, the dependence of $`r_0`$ on the mass(es) of the dynamical quarks has been neglected so far. However, in contrast to the $`q\overline{q}`$ force at very short distance $`r`$ where only an effect of relative size $`\mathrm{O}(\alpha _\mathrm{s}m^2r^2)`$ is present, for the force at $`r0.5\mathrm{fm}`$ this dependence is not obviously that small. It should be computed by lattice gauge theory. Due to spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, a linear term in $`m`$ is expected for small quark masses.

In order to compute the mass dependence on the lattice, one must not introduce spurious mass dependences through renormalization. A mass independent renormalization scheme has to be chosen. In perturbation theory an example is provided by the lattice minimal subtraction scheme with renormalized coupling

$`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{lat}}^2(\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`Z_g(\stackrel{~}{g}_0,a\mu )\stackrel{~}{g}_0^2`$
$`=`$ $`\{12b_0\mathrm{ln}(a\mu )\stackrel{~}{g}_0^2+\mathrm{}\}\stackrel{~}{g}_0^2.`$
The above equation shows that the lattice spacing is fixed by $`\stackrel{~}{g}_0`$, independently of the quark mass. Apart from a small $`\mathrm{O}(a)`$-correction in $`\mathrm{O}(a)`$-improved QCD, which is due to

$`\stackrel{~}{g}_0^2=(1+b_\mathrm{g}am_\mathrm{q})g_0^2,b_\mathrm{g}=\mathrm{O}(g_0^2),`$ (4)
the lattice spacing is determined by $`g_0`$ alone in a mass-independent renormalization scheme. We note in passing that it is also mandatory to choose such a scheme in a comparison of lattice QCD results with chiral perturbation theory predictions.

To define the mass-dependence, we first introduce a reference value $`m_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ of the quark mass via $`r_0^2m_{\mathrm{PS}}^2|_{m=m_{\mathrm{ref}}}=K`$, which we later put to $`K=3`$ in our numerical evaluation. Other choices are possible. The physical mass dependence of $`r_0`$ may then be described by the function $`\rho _{\mathrm{cont}}(x)=r_0(m)/r_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})`$ where $`x=m/m_{\mathrm{ref}}`$ is finite since in the corresponding renormalized ratio the common $`Z`$-factor (defined in the massless scheme) cancels. A precise definition of $`\rho _{\mathrm{cont}}`$ is provided by ($`\widehat{r}_0=r_0/a`$)

$`\rho _{\mathrm{cont}}(x)=\underset{1/\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})0}{lim}\rho (x,1/\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})),`$ (5)
$`\rho (x,1/\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}}))={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{r}_0(m)}{\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})}}|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_0\mathrm{fixed}}.`$ (6)
As a first step we try to understand whether the mass dependence is a large effect and quantify scaling violations. Since we wanted to use results from the literature, it was easier to consider

$`R(x,\frac{1}{\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})})={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{r}_0(m)}{\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})}}|_{\stackrel{~}{g}_0},x={\displaystyle \frac{r_0^2m_{\mathrm{PS}}^2|_m}{r_0^2m_{\mathrm{PS}}^2|_{m_{\mathrm{ref}}}}}`$
which agrees with $`\rho `$ at small quark masses and lattice spacings due to $`mm_{\mathrm{PS}}^2`$. In practice only $`g_0`$ could be kept constant in our evaluation of $`R`$, assuming that the $`b_\mathrm{g}am_\mathrm{q}`$ term is negligible ($`b_\mathrm{g}0.02+\mathrm{O}(g_0^4)`$ for W/SW ). It turns out that $`R`$ is well represented by the Taylor expansion

$`R(x,1/\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}}))=1+s(1/\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}}))(x1)`$ (7)
for the data considered , namely

I/SW $`x[0.4,2.0],\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})[1.8,5.3]`$
W/W $`x[0.8,1.6],\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})4.6`$
W/SW $`x[0.6,2.0],\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})4.8`$
W/KS $`x[0.3,2.0],\widehat{r}_0(m_{\mathrm{ref}})[1.8,4.9]`$
Our figure shows the available results for the slope $`s`$. Both the I/SW numbers and the W/KS ones point to a very small $`|s|`$ in the continuum limit with a rather strong $`a`$-dependence and unclear mutual consistency. The two other actions appear to show even larger cutoff effects at $`a0.1\mathrm{fm}`$.

## 4 DISCUSSION

Our results are not easy to interpret, apart from the general observation that dynamical fermions may introduce significant cutoff effects at $`a0.1\mathrm{fm}`$. We recall some other findings.

* UKQCD found a very small and strongly mass dependent $`0^{++}`$ glueball mass at $`a0.1\mathrm{fm}`$ with $`N_\mathrm{f}=2`$ W/SW .
* For the same action and parameters, the auto-correlation times increase as the quark mass is increased.
* The pure SU(3) gauge theory has a phase transition in the $`\beta _\mathrm{F},\beta _\mathrm{A}>0`$ half-plane not very far from $`a0.1\mathrm{fm}`$.
* The JLQCD collaboration found a phase transition with $`N_\mathrm{f}=3`$ W/SW , preventing simulations unless $`a`$ is quite small.

These hints lead us to the conjecture that for $`N_\mathrm{f}=2`$, W/SW, $`a0.1\mathrm{fm}`$, one may be close to a phase transition and thus suffer from cutoff effects which are not necessarily described by the Symanzik expansion. Concerning the PCAC masses (see section 2), I/SW is much better. However, we are lacking an understanding why this is so and our figure shows significant $`a`$-effects in the mass dependence of $`r_0`$ for I/SW.

At the present time we draw two conclusions.
1) The issue of what is a good action for full lattice QCD deserves more attention and one should investigate scaling properties of actions which are used to compute physical observables.
2) The mass dependence of $`r_0`$ and in particular the lattice artifacts contained in this mass dependence has to be understood before drawing conclusions on the chiral behavior of quantities such as $`F_\pi `$ and $`m_\pi ^2/m`$. Section 3 outlines what needs to be done but our numerical investigation should be considered only as a first step.

Acknowledgements. We thank B. Orth for communicating the PCAC mass (W/W action) , S. Gottlieb for W/KS data on $`r_0`$  and S. Hashimoto for fruitful discussions.


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# Coherent Pion Photoproduction on Deuterium

## 1 INTRODUCTION

In a previous measurement  of the reaction $`\gamma dd\pi ^0`$, covering several backward-pion CM scattering angles and photon energies between 0.5 and 1.0 GeV, a structure has been observed in the excitation function at $`\theta _\pi ^{cm}`$=130 between 0.7 and 0.8 GeV which could not be explained in terms of non-exotic mechanisms . However, an approach including an intermediate on-shell $`\eta `$-meson rescattering (which has been successful in describing a similar feature of the $`\pi d`$ elastic backward excitation function ) might be able to account for such an enhancement around the $`\eta `$-photoproduction threshold. An intermediate on-shell $`\omega `$ formation should appear in the $`\gamma dd\pi ^0`$ excitation function close to the $`\omega `$-photoproduction threshold . Thus, if the finding in  is confirmed, a detailed study of this process extended to higher beam energies and broader angular range may prove to be a valuable tool for studying $`\eta `$N and $`\omega `$N interactions, which is the goal of our efforts.

## 2 EXPERIMENT

The experiment was performed in Hall B at Jefferson Lab using the CLAS detection system . Electrons from the CEBAF accelerator hit a thin gold radiator and produced a bremsstrahlung beam that was then incident on a 10-cm thick liquid-deuterium target. The energies of the incoming photons were measured directly with the Hall-B Photon Tagger , whereas the reaction products were detected using CLAS. The intensity of the photon beam was $``$107 tagged photons/s and the generated luminosity was around $`4\times 10^{30}`$ s-1cm-2. Data were obtained for electron energies of 2.5 and 3.1 GeV, which corresponds to photon energy ranges of 0.5-2.4 and 0.8-2.9 GeV. The number of collected $`d\pi ^0`$ events was $``$$`1.8\times 10^5`$ and $``$$`2.8\times 10^4`$ for the two electron beam energies, respectively.

Since CLAS is very well suited for detecting charged particles and has limited acceptance for neutrals, our analysis is based on detecting the deuteron and applying the missing-mass technique to identify the reaction. The data were divided into 50-MeV-wide photon-energy bins and 0.1- or 0.2- (depending on the statistics) wide cos$`\theta _d^{cm}`$ bins. For each energy and angular bin, background subtraction was done by fitting the background in the deuteron missing-mass-squared distribution and subtracting it from the total yield. In order to determine the detector acceptance, 106 phase-space-distributed $`d\pi ^0`$ events were generated and processed through the GEANT-based simulation code GSIM  and the same analysis chain as the data. The acceptance varies between 40$`\%`$ and 70$`\%`$, depending on the beam energy and CM scattering angle. Roughly estimated, the acceptance systematic uncertainty is at the level of 10$`\%`$. Preliminary cross sections were extracted by normalizing the yields to the photon flux and the number of target nuclei, and applying an acceptance correction.

## 3 RESULTS

After analyzing the 2.5-GeV data set, we were able to extract preliminary differential cross sections up to a photon energy of 1.2 GeV for backward-pion CM scattering angles and up to 2.0 GeV for forward angles. The most backward-pion CM scattering angle accessible in our data is 148 and is defined by the forward hole in CLAS. The most forward accessible CM angle varies between 32 and 76, depending on the beam energy, and is limited by the detector energy acceptance for deuterons.

Our preliminary results for several pion CM scattering angles, compared with previous measurements, are presented in Fig. 1. The uncertainties shown are statistical (3-12$`\%`$) and systematic due to background subtraction (up to 3$`\%`$) added in quadrature. Fairly good agreement with the previous data is observed. All excitation functions corresponding to $`\theta _\pi ^{cm}>`$123 show a structure around the $`\eta `$-production threshold, which becomes more prominent as the CM angle increases. This confirms the finding reported in . However, the shape of the structure we see is somewhat different compared with the results of the previous measurement: at $`\theta _\pi ^{cm}`$=130 our data show an enhancement around 0.7 GeV, whereas the data from  show a broad plateau between 0.7 and 0.8 GeV. In order to understand this difference we are currently in the process of a detailed analysis of the systematics of our experiment. Due to statistics limitations, we might not be able to study the effect of an intermediate on-shell $`\omega `$-state.

## 4 SUMMARY

The reaction $`\gamma dd\pi ^0`$ was measured at photon beam energies above 0.5 GeV. This is the first detailed measurement of that process spanning wide ranges in energy and angle. At photon energies and CM angles where there are existing data, our preliminary cross sections are in good agreement with the previous measurements . We confirm the existence of a structure in the excitation function at $`\theta _\pi ^{cm}`$=130 close to the $`\eta `$-photoproduction threshold. Moreover, our data extend to larger CM angles where the structure is clearly more prominent. An approach including intermediate on-shell $`\eta `$-meson formation  will be used to describe the data in order to study the properties of the $`\eta `$N interaction.


text:
# Open charm production in DIS at HERA

## 1 Introduction

The charm mass, $`m_c`$, is larger than the QCD dimensional scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$, therefore, perturbative QCD is applicable at the scale $`m_c`$. In deep inelastic scattering (DIS), another scale is the squared four-momentum transfer, $`Q^2`$, carried by the exchange photon. The conventional QCD interpretation for $`Q^2m_c^2`$ is that charm is determined solely by the gluon density, i.e. charm quarks are generated dynamically through the boson-gluon fusion (BGF) process. Such approach is called the fixed-flavour-number scheme (FFNS). For a sufficiently high $`Q^2`$, this description may not be adequate, thus the interplay between two independent scales, $`m_c`$ and $`Q`$, embodies interesting QCD physics.

Since the charm quarks are copiously produced via gluon splitting, charm mesons can be used for testing different resummation techniques. The DGLAP resumption is often used together with the BGF process calculated up to next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD (the HVQDIS program pr:d57:2806 ). The BGF mechanism at leading-order QCD is implemented in parton-shower Monte Carlo (MC) models (AROMA cpc:101:1997:135  and RAPGAP cpc:86:147 ). Another description of the charm production is based on the CCFM evolution ccfm  as implemented in the CASCADE model epj:c19:351 . This also starts from the BGF process but convoluted with the unintegrated gluon density.

The ZEUS analysis discussed in this overview was performed with the data ($`82`$ pb-1) taken from 1998 to 2000, when electrons or positrons with energy $`E_e=`$ 27.6 GeV were collided with protons of energy $`E_p=`$ 920 GeV. The H1 Collaboration uses 1996-1997 data, when HERA operated with $`E_p=`$ 820 GeV. In this paper, only high-statistics results based on reconstructed $`D^\pm `$ mesons are discussed (other $`D`$ mesons are discussed in abs096 ). The mesons were identified using the decay channel $`D^+D^0\pi ^+`$ with the subsequent decay $`D^0K^{}\pi ^+`$ and corresponding antiparticle decay.

## 2 Inclusive cross sections

Figure 1 shows the differential $`D^\pm `$ cross section as a function of $`Q^2`$ abs563 . The data falls by about four orders of magnitude in the measured region. The NLO QCD calculations based on the FFNS give a good agreement with the measurements up to $`Q^2=1000`$ GeV2. Predictions using an alternate PDF, CTEQ5F3, and the Lund-string hadronisation extracted from AROMA, instead of the Peterson fragmentation, are shown separately.

The pseudorapidity distribution of $`D^\pm `$ mesons is known to be particularly sensitive to the underlying parton dynamics at small Bjorken $`x`$ baranov . Figure 2 shows that the NLO calculation based on the ZEUS NLO fit pr:d67:012007 , together with the Lund string fragmentation from AROMA, gives the best description of the $`\eta (D^\pm )`$ cross section (and also better than the prediction using GRV98-HO, not shown). The NLO predictions with the CTEQ5F3, and with the Peterson fragmentation, have distributions which are less shifted in the forward region.

The H1 Collaboration also observes differences between data and NLO QCD when the Peterson fragmentation and the CTEQ5F3 PDF is used for the NLO calculations abs074 , Fig. 3. The agreement with the data is better when the CASCADE model based on the CCFM evolution is used. Since both HVQDIS and CASCADE use the Peterson fragmentation, the difference between these models can be attributed to the parton dynamics at low $`x`$.

In contrast, ZEUS uses the MC models with the Lund string fragmentation. In Fig. 4, AROMA and CASCADE are compared with the data. The CASCADE overestimates the data, while AROMA is slightly below. The theoretical uncertainties, which are expected to be larger than for the NLO calculations, were not estimated. At present, data are not precise enough to distinguish between the shapes of the $`\eta (D^\pm )`$ distributions.

The resolved processes, in which the photon displays a hadronic structure, can contribute to the $`D^\pm `$ cross section at low $`Q^2`$. The resolved contribution, as implemented in the RAPGAP model, enhances the $`D^\pm `$ cross section in the rear direction abs074 . Therefore, it is unlikely that the observed differences between the NLO QCD and the data can be explained by the resolved processes.

Generally, the description of the total charm cross section by MC models is not perfect. For more detailed tests, the total inclusive $`D^{}`$ cross section was calculated together with the $`D^{}`$ cross section with associated dijets abs074 , as shown in Fig. 5. The CASCADE model is systematically above the data, while RAPGAP (LO BGF) is below.

Figure 4 shows the ratio of $`e^{}p`$ and $`e^+p`$ $`D^\pm `$ cross sections as a function of $`\eta (D^\pm )`$ for $`Q^2>1.5`$ GeV2. This ratio exhibits a trend to increase with increasing $`Q^2`$ and $`x`$ abs563 . For $`Q^2>40`$ GeV2, there is $`3\sigma `$ difference between $`e^{}p`$ and $`e^+p`$ $`D^\pm `$ cross sections. According to the Standard Model, charm cross sections do not depend on the charge of the lepton in $`ep`$ interactions. This difference is assumed to be a statistical fluctuation, and two sets of the data were combined. More $`e^{}p`$ data from HERA II is necessary to show whether the difference with the $`e^+p`$ data is indeed a statistical fluctuation.

## 3 Extrapolation results

A popular way to look at double differential charm cross sections as functions of $`Q^2`$ and $`x`$ is to reconstruct $`F_2^{c\overline{c}}`$. Integrated cross sections in $`Q^2`$ and $`y`$ kinematic bins were extrapolated to the full phase space using HVQDIS based on the Peterson fragmentation function. Usually, several uncertainties in the extrapolation are considered. The largest uncertainties are those associated with the AROMA model for fragmentation and charm-mass variations ($`\pm 0.15`$ GeV).

Figure 6 shows the $`F_2^{c\overline{c}}`$as a function of $`x`$ at $`Q^2`$ values between 2 and 500 GeV2. The data rise with increasing $`Q^2`$; the rise becoming steeper at lower $`x`$. Comparisons of the ZEUS measurements abs563  with previous results from H1 h1cc  show good agreement. The data are well described by the NLO prediction based on the ZEUS NLO QCD fit.

## 4 Conclusions

The production of $`D^\pm `$ mesons has been measured in DIS at HERA over a wide kinematic range in $`Q^2`$, from $`Q^2=1.5`$ GeV2 to $`Q^2=1000`$ GeV2. The NLO QCD based on the FFNS gives a good agreement with the data up to the highest $`Q^2`$ range measured.

At present, no conclusive statement can be made on the applicability of the CCFM evolution, since other effects related to charm fragmentation and the gluon density inside the proton, are shown to affect the $`D^\pm `$ cross sections.

More data from HERA II is necessary to increase the precision of the measurements and to extend the kinematic range of reconstructed charm mesons. This should allow to understand the applicability of the FFNS at high $`Q^2`$ and the CCFM parton evolution at low $`x`$, as well as to understand whether there is a difference between $`e^{}p`$ and $`e^+p`$ $`D^\pm `$ data.