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# On the Origin of Nuclear Star Clusters in Late Type Spiral Galaxies

## 1. Introduction

Recently, interest has been growing in the compact stellar clusters found in the centers of late-type spiral galaxies (Carollo et al., 1997; Böker, van der Marel & Vacca, 1999; Matthews et al., 1999; Böker et al., 2001, 2002; Matthews & Gallagher, 2002; Böker, Stanek & van der Marel, 2003; Schinnerer, Böker & Meier, 2003; Böker et al., 2004). Imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope of the central regions of $`75\%`$ (Böker et al., 2002) of late-type spirals (Hubble type Scd or later) has revealed young, compact stellar systems with luminosities $`14M_I9`$ that dominate the photocenters of these disk galaxies possessing no discernable stellar bulge. The “nuclear star clusters” (NSCs) have half-light radii $`R_{\mathrm{cl}}5\text{ pc}`$ and luminosity masses $`10^410^7M_{}`$ (Böker et al., 2002; Böker et al., 2004). The dynamical masses of the NSCs, $`10^610^8M_{}`$, are an order of magnitude higher than would be expected from stellar synthesis models, indicating the presence of older stellar generations that have faded (Walcher et al., 2004)111See http://www.ociw.edu/ociw/symposia/series/symposium1/proceedings.html.. Some of the NSC host galaxies exhibit spiral structure, dust lanes, and other morphological complexities, but many do not, leading Böker et al. (2002) to suggest that the NSC phenomenon is not related to nonaxisymmetric features in the galactic disk. Böker et al. (2004) find no evidence for a correlation between the presence of a cluster and the presence of a large-scale stellar bar. Stellar disks of the host galaxies have exponential surface brightness profiles to within hundreds of parsecs of the center. Surface brightness profiles of the inner few hundred parsecs but outside the NSC frequently exhibit brightness excess above the exponential law (Böker, Stanek & van der Marel, 2003).

The formation mechanism of NSCs is unknown. The central rotation curves of some Scd galaxies rise linearly with radius (Matthews & Gallagher, 2002), implying near solid-body rotation and a shallow potential well. Rotation curves of NSC host galaxies resemble those of low surface brightness and dwarf spiral galaxies. Radial mass profiles of the latter two classes of galaxies have been extensively studied (e.g., de Blok et al. 2003; Swaters et al. 2003; Simon et al. 2003). Models of the combined dark matter and baryonic density profiles that are finite at the center (e.g., Burkert 1995), as well as those that are mildly divergent $`\rho r^\gamma `$ with $`\gamma 1`$ (e.g., Navarro, Frenk & White 1997), both yield admissible fits to the rotation curves, while steeper profiles are ruled out.

Two scenarios for the origin of NSCs are possible. They could have assembled in situ from the material available in the central region of the disk. Alternatively, they could have formed remotely and have subsequently migrated to the center via dynamical friction. We test these scenarios on a model (§ 2) of the closest and the well-studied NSC host galaxy M33. In § 3, we argue that the first scenario—in situ formation—is the likely origin of NSCs. In § 4 we demonstrate that the alternative migratory scenario fails to deliver NSCs to their observed locations, and we discuss observable implications of our model.

## 2. A Model Host Galaxy: M33

The nucleus of M33 contains a compact star cluster that has elicited attention for a decade (e.g., Kormendy & McClure 1993; Lauer et al. 1998; Matthews et al. 1999; Davidge 2000) because of its resemblance to the massive black hole inhabited nucleus of the Galaxy. No massive black hole, however, has been found in M33 (Merritt, Ferrarese & Joseph, 2001; Gebhardt et al., 2001). The interstellar medium and the magnetic field of M33 have also been extensively studied (e.g., Wilson & Scoville 1989; Engargiola et al. 2003; Beck 2000). Rotation curves of the more distant NSC host galaxies appear to be rising even more slowly (Matthews & Gallagher, 2002) than that of M33 (Corbelli & Salucci, 2000).

We adopt the following parameters for M33: present NSC mass $`M_{\mathrm{cl}}10^5M_{}`$ (Lauer et al., 1998; Long, Charles & Dubus, 2002), surface density of H I of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }10M_{}\text{ pc}^2`$ (Engargiola et al., 2003), H I disk scale length $`R_010\text{ kpc}`$ (Engargiola et al., 2003), average total magnetic field strength $`B6\mu \text{G}`$ (Beck, 2000), and a thermal sound speed of $`c_s10\text{ km s}^1`$.

## 3. Formation of Nuclear Star Clusters In Situ

Given a dynamical mechanism that transports gas from larger to smaller radii in the disk, an NSC can form from the gas that accumulates at the center of the disk. The source of radial transport in non self-gravitating disks is the magnetic stress if the magnetorotational instability (MRI) develops in the disk. When there is differential rotation, torques arise between concentric rings of interstellar gas. The Alfvén velocity in a fluid with density $`\rho `$, velocity $`𝐮`$ relative to the circular orbit motion, and magnetic field $`𝐁`$ is given by $`𝐮_A=(4\pi \rho )^{1/2}𝐁`$. The few microgauss magnetic field measured in the disks of galaxies such as M33 is compatible with being in equipartition with the observed velocity dispersion ($`10\text{ km s}^1`$), where the density is estimated via $`\rho \mathrm{\Sigma }v/c_sR`$ ($`v`$ is the velocity of the rotation curve of the galaxy at radius $`R`$). Sellwood & Balbus (1999) pointed out that the velocity dispersion could be a result of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence.

Ignoring self-gravity of the fluid, the stress tensor $`T_{R\varphi }=\rho (u_Ru_\varphi u_{AR}u_{A\varphi })`$ is an average of Reynolds and Maxwell stresses, where we have adopted cylindrical coordinates $`(R,\varphi ,z)`$. Correlations between velocity and magnetic field components, which give rise to Reynolds and Maxwell stresses, induce an outward angular momentum flux and an inward mass flux (Balbus & Hawley, 1998). The mass-weighted vertically averaged specific stress tensor is given by $`W_{R\varphi }=T_{R\varphi }/\rho `$ and has dimensions of square velocity.

We parameterize the average stress tensor as $`W_{R\varphi }=\alpha c_s^2`$, where $`\alpha `$ is a parameter introduced by Shakura & Sunyaev (1973) that can be determined by measuring the stress-to-pressure ratio in numerical simulations. We assume that $`\alpha `$ and $`c_s`$ are weak functions of radius. The accretion rate is then given by (e.g., Frank, King, & Raine 2002)

$$\dot{M}=\frac{4\pi \alpha c_s^2\mathrm{\Omega }}{\kappa ^2R}\frac{}{R}(R^2\mathrm{\Sigma }),$$
(1)
where $`\kappa =[R^3d/dR(R^4\mathrm{\Omega }^2)]^{1/2}`$ is the epicycle frequency.

The values of $`\alpha `$ associated with the MRI have been measured in three-dimensional simulations (e.g., Hawley, Gammie, & Balbus 1995; Stone et al. 1996; Armitage 1998). For the relevant isothermal equation of state, $`\alpha 0.1`$ when the initial (weak) magnetic field is uniform and perpendicular to the disk plane and $`\alpha 0.01`$ when it is nonuniform. Recently, Kim, Ostriker, & Stone (2003) conducted shearing-box simulations of a section of a gaseous galactic disk with an initial weak vertical magnetic field and measured $`\alpha 0.150.3`$.

Atomic gas in a galactic disk can be treated as an ideal magnetic fluid if a sufficient fraction of ions are interspersed among the neutral atoms to provide for an inertial coupling of the neutrals to the magnetic field. Blaes & Balbus (1994) showed that adequate coupling is achieved when the collision frequency of a neutral with the ions exceeds the local epicyclic frequency, $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }\rho _i\kappa `$, where $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }=(m_n+m_i)^1\sigma v_{ni}+\zeta /\rho _i`$ is expressed in terms of the density of ions $`\rho _i`$, the momentum rate coefficient $`\sigma v_{ni}1.9\times 10^9\text{ cm}^3\text{ s}^1`$ (Draine, Roberge & Dalgarno, 1983). Here, $`m_n`$ and $`m_i`$ are, respectively, the masses of the neutrals and the ions (taken here to be the hydrogen mass), and $`\zeta `$ is the total ionization rate per molecule.

Wolfire et al. (2003) argue that in the Galactic disk, the ionizing flux is made of extreme UV photons, soft X-rays, and cosmic rays, with a total of $`\zeta 5\times 10^{17}\text{ s}^1`$. They also evaluate the ionization fraction as a function of the density of neutrals, $`\chi _e(n)10^3(n/10\text{ cm}^3)^1`$, consistent with earlier estimates (Kulkarni & Heiles 1987 and references therein). In H I, the first term in the expression for $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }`$ dominates. This implies that the MRI can develop if $`\kappa 2\times 10^{11}\text{ s}^1`$. Using the available rotation curve data for M33 and borrowing the ionization fraction from the Galaxy, we estimate that $`\kappa 10^{12}\text{ s}^1`$ at $`R=1\text{ pc}`$ and $`\kappa 3\times 10^{15}\text{ s}^1`$ at $`R=1\text{ kpc}`$. (Solid-body rotation would correspond to the maximum epicycle frequency of $`\kappa 3\times 10^{12}\text{ s}^1`$.) Therefore $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }\rho _i\kappa `$ throughout the disk, implying that ideal magnetic fluid is a good approximation to H I in disks of Scd galaxies, provided that conditions in these disks are similar to those in the Galactic disk.

Our goal is to evaluate the gas mass accumulated at the center of the disk in time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. We assume that the total dynamical mass enclosed within radius $`R`$ in the center of the galaxy is a power-law of radius $`M_{\mathrm{dyn}}(R)=R_1V_1^2G^1(R/R_1)^{3\gamma }`$, where again $`\gamma =d\mathrm{log}\rho /d\mathrm{log}r`$. We have parameterized the dynamical mass—including dark matter, stars, and gas—by the circular velocity $`V_1`$ at some fixed radius $`R_1`$. Circular velocity at a generic radius is $`V(R)=V_1(R/R_1)^{1\gamma /2}`$ and thus $`\mathrm{\Omega },\kappa R^{\gamma /2}`$. Surface density in the disk is in a quasi-steady state if the flux of mass through radius $`R`$ is independent of radius, $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{gas}}/R=0`$. This requires that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }R^{\gamma /2}`$, and thus $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{gas}}=2\pi \alpha c_s^2R_1\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_1)V_1^1`$.

The quasi-steady state is reached only at radii $`R<R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ with accretion times $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}\pi R^2\mathrm{\Sigma }/\dot{M}_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ shorter than the age of the disk $`t_{\mathrm{disk}}`$, where $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is the maximum such radius. If we assume that the age of the disk of M33 is $`t_{\mathrm{disk}}1\text{ Gyr}`$ and that the viscosity parameter is $`\alpha 0.1`$, we obtain $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}500\text{ pc}`$.

We compare the gas density profile $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{central}}R^{\gamma /2}`$ just inside $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ to the profile $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{exp}}e^{R/R_0}`$ obtained by extrapolating the exponential density profile that describes the disk at larger radii unaffected by accretion. Since $`(\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{central}}/R)/(\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{exp}}/R)=\gamma R_0/2R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ at $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, the density at $`R<R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ exceeds the extrapolated density when $`\gamma >2R_{\mathrm{acc}}/R_00.1`$. If the star formation rate (SFR) per unit gas mass is uniform in the disk, the excess gas density in the central few hundred parsecs implies an excess in the surface brightness profile of the stellar light.

We proceed to evaluate the accreted mass. The gas mass accumulating at the center of the disk in time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ equals

$`M_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ $``$ $`10^7M_{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{10^9\text{ yr}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{c_s}{10\text{ km s}^1}}\right)^2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{\mathrm{acc}})}{10M_{}\text{ pc}^2}}\right]`$ (2)
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{0.1}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_{\mathrm{acc}}}{500\text{ pc}}}\right)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{V(R_{\mathrm{acc}})}{40\text{ km s}^1}}\right]^1.`$
If $`10\%`$ of this gas is converted into stars, a cluster forms with a total initial stellar mass of $`10^6M_{}`$. This is compatible with the mass of a typical NSC.

Given that the development of MRI is contingent on differential rotation in the disk, do disks in near solid-body rotation exhibit the same central accumulation? The instability can develop if the Alfvén speed is not larger than the vertical sound speed times a function quantifying the degree of differential rotation (see Balbus & Hawley 1998, eq. ). The condition for instability can be written as $`u_A(2/\pi )q^{1/2}c_s`$, where $`q=|d\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Omega }/d\mathrm{log}R|`$.

A disk could thus evade MRI if the rotation were solid body, i.e., if the total mass density were uniform. The growth time of the instability $`2\mathrm{\Omega }^1q^1`$, which here equals $`t_{\mathrm{grow}}5\times 10^7\gamma ^1(R/500\text{ pc})(V/40\text{ km s}^1)^1\text{ yr}`$, is short $`t_{\mathrm{grow}}t_{\mathrm{disk}}`$ even in very shallow ($`\gamma 0.1`$) density profiles (note that $`\rho R^\gamma `$). Therefore the development of MRI and its consequences—the radially inward transport and the central accumulation of gas—are universal in disks residing in singular host dark matter halo profiles, however mild that singularity may be. After instability develops, the transport rate is independent of the dark halo density profile.

## 4. NSC Could Not Have Migrated to the Center

Here we evaluate the alternative scenario in which NSCs migrate to disk centers after forming elsewhere. We estimate the time for migration from radius $`R`$. Assuming that the host dark matter halo is spherical and concentric with the galactic disk, the total mass density inside the scale radius of the halo is $`\rho (𝐫)=\rho _0(r/r_0)^\gamma +\mathrm{\Sigma }_0\mathrm{exp}(R/R_0)\delta (z)`$, where $`R=(x^2+y^2)^{1/2}`$ and $`\gamma `$, $`\rho _0`$, $`r_0`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$, and $`R_0`$ are constant parameters. Assume that the cluster of mass $`M_{\mathrm{cl}}`$ forms on a disk-planar circular orbit at distance $`R`$ from the center. The timescale for orbital decay via dynamical friction is given by $`tv_{\mathrm{circ}}^3/4\pi G^2M\rho _<\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (Chandrasekhar, 1943), where $`v_{\mathrm{circ}}`$ is the circular velocity, $`\rho _<`$ denotes the density in dark matter particles moving slower than $`v_{\mathrm{circ}}`$, and $`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the Coulomb logarithm. The ratio $`\rho _</\rho `$ is unknown as it depends on the phase-space structure of the dark halo. To derive a lower bound on the decay time we optimistically set $`\rho _<=\rho =(3\gamma )v_{\mathrm{circ}}^2/4\pi Gr^2`$. Furthermore, Velázquez & White (1999) found that $`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }2`$ for satellites sinking in galaxy disks with $`\gamma =1`$ halos. The decay time scale is then given by

$$t3\times 10^9\text{ yr}\left(\frac{v_{\mathrm{circ}}}{50\text{ km s}^1}\right)\left(\frac{r}{1\text{ kpc}}\right)^2\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{cl}}}{10^6M_{}}\right)^1.$$
(3)
Dynamical friction due to the disk is a more delicate issue. Because of the linear response of disks to perturbations (e.g., Goldreich & Tremaine 1979), positive and negative torques simultaneously act on the satellite. Negative torque is exerted by the horseshoe orbits in the disk and amounts to (Quinn & Goodman, 1986)

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }2|AB|H^4Rd\mathrm{\Sigma }/dR,$$
(4)
where $`A=d\mathrm{\Omega }/d\mathrm{log}R`$ and $`B=A\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are the Oort parameters, and $`H=(GM_{\mathrm{cl}}/4A^2)^{1/3}`$ is the radius of the Hill sphere centered on the cluster within which the cluster potential dominates differential flow in the disk.

Equation (4) is valid when the Hill radius is larger than the disk scale height $`h`$. For a smaller $`M_{\mathrm{cl}}`$ with $`H<h`$, the torque is smaller by fraction $`(H/h)^2`$. If the rotation curve is “flat” $`\mathrm{\Omega }R^1`$, this result coincides with the detailed contribution from corotation resonances evaluated by Donner & Sundelius (1993). Higher order resonances also contribute negative torque terms when $`RR_0`$ but their contribution is comparable or smaller (Wahde, Donner & Sundelius, 1996) than that of the corotation resonances and can be ignored.

The inspiral time due to the torque in equation (4) is

$`t`$ $``$ $`2\times 10^{10}\text{ yr}{\displaystyle \frac{(4\gamma )\gamma ^{5/3}}{2\gamma }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{v_{\mathrm{circ}}}{50\text{ km s}^1}}\right)^{5/3}\left({\displaystyle \frac{R}{1\text{ kpc}}}\right)^{2/3}`$ (5)
$`\times `$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_0}{10M_{}\text{ pc}^2}}\right)^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{cl}}}{10^6M_{}}}\right)^{1/3}\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_0}{3\text{ kpc}}}\right)e^{R/R_0},`$
where $`\gamma `$ henceforth denotes the negative logarithmic slope of the combined dark matter and baryonic density profiles. Deceptively, the timescale in equation (5) formally becomes infinitesimal when the disk is in near solid rotation $`\gamma 0`$. The implicit assumption $`HR`$ breaks down in this limit, and we may try to replace $`H`$ with $`R`$ in equation (4) to obtain $`tt_{\mathrm{dyn}}M_{\mathrm{cl}}/M_{\mathrm{gas}}(R)`$, where $`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}=R/v_{\mathrm{circ}}`$ is the dynamical time and $`M_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ is the enclosed gas mass. However, at radii where $`M_{\mathrm{cl}}/M_{\mathrm{gas}}(R)1`$, the outward horseshoe orbits that provide the negative torque are depleted, and the net torque thus changes sign, thereby reversing the sense of the migration.

We contrast the exceptionally long timescales derived above with the estimated stellar ages of NSCs. Using the bolometric luminosities and the density of stars on the asymptotic giant branch in the nucleus of M33, Stephens & Frogel (2002) inferred twin starbursts at $`0.5`$ and $`2`$ Gyr. These ages could be reconciled with dynamical friction facilitated infall only by starting with very small initial radii ($`1\text{ kpc}`$). Furthermore, the best-fitting starburst models of Gordon et al. (1999) and Long, Charles & Dubus (2002) imply the presence of another, very recent ($`5070\text{ Myr}`$) star formation episode yielding a stellar mass of $`10^4M_{}`$ or about $`12\%`$ of the total mass. Similarly, Böker, van der Marel & Vacca (1999) determined the mean age of $`10^{6.8}10^{7.8}\text{ yr}`$ for the nucleus of the giant Scd spiral IC 342 hosting a $`6\times 10^6M_{}`$ cluster. Davidge & Courteau (2002) infer enhanced star formation in the recent $`0.1\text{ Gyr}`$ in the nuclei of nearby Sc galaxies NGC 247 and NGC 2403. This evidence suggests that some NSCs are much younger (or contain a much younger component) than the migration times, and we thus reject the migratory hypothesis.

## 5. Discussion and Conclusions

When present, nonaxisymmetric features (bars and spiral structure) channel gas toward the center of the galaxy (Shlosman, Frank & Begelman, 1989). However, some NSC host galaxies exhibit negligible departures from axisymmetry. Self-gravity in a disk gives rise to an effective kinematic viscosity (e.g., Lin & Pringle 1987). Stability of disks against self-gravity requires $`Q>1`$ where $`Q=c_s\kappa /\pi G\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (Toomre, 1964). The disks of NSC host galaxies are largely stable. Although that of M33 contains approximately equal masses in stars and gas, Corbelli & Salucci (2000) infer $`Q>1`$ throughout, while our model implies $`Q1`$. Failure of the Toomre criterion to explain the SFR in M33 is well known (Wilson & Scoville, 1989; Martin & Kennicutt, 2001). Furthermore, Engargiola et al. (2003) argue that giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in M33 are transients forming directly from the atomic gas with a characteristic mass $`7\times 10^4M_{}`$, which is much smaller than the Jeans mass $`c_s^4/G^2\mathrm{\Sigma }3\times 10^7M_{}`$ of the disk. Therefore the GMCs are not like projectiles that facilitate radial transport through cloud-cloud interactions (e.g., Silk & Norman 1981).

We find that the radial transport of interstellar gas in galactic disks susceptible to MRI is sufficient to facilitate an accumulation of gas in the central few hundred parsecs and the formation of a compact stellar system at the disk center. The sizes and the ages of the central stellar systems in this model correspond closely to those of the NSCs in Scd galaxies.

We speculate that after a cluster forms in the disk, the supply of gas flowing toward the nascent cluster is temporarily interrupted by the stellar winds and the supernova blast waves. During the life time of O and B stars $`5\times 10^7\text{ yr}`$, the stellar energy output fuels a hot low-density “superbubble” centered on the cluster. The radius of the bubble reaches about the disk scale height $`100\text{ pc}`$ (e.g., Mac Low & McCray 1988). After the stars with masses $`8M_{}`$ have been expended, fresh gas returns to the bubble and accumulates toward a subsequent starburst. The star formation history of an NSC is therefore punctuated by periodic starbursts separated by $`10^8\text{ yr}`$.

The radial transport of neutral gas in the disk implies a surface density enhancement inside a radius $`R_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ measuring hundreds of parsecs. Remarkably, a “central light excess” a few hundred parsecs in radius, attributable neither to the NSC nor to the exponential stellar disk, has been observed in several host galaxies (Böker et al. 2003) including M33 (Kent, 1987). The excess is a natural consequence of the transport. Indeed, while the excess is observed in the stellar light and it is the gas that is transported by the MRI, the SFR in the overdense region may well trace gas density as elsewhere in the disk ($`Q`$ is independent of radius for $`RR_{\mathrm{acc}}`$; see § 3).

Bright nuclear disk components of the late-type spirals devoid of luminous NSCs, such as in the superthin galaxy UGC 7321 (Matthews, 2000), could also be the result of radial transport of interstellar gas. We expect that the NSC luminosities depend strongly on the time elapsed since the most recent starburst episode. As dynamical data on NSCs become available, it will be possible to estimate the period between, and the magnitude of the consecutive episodes, which may lend insight into the assembly of bulges and “pseudobulges” (Kormendy, 1993).

We thank T. Böker, M. Kamionkowski, and the anonymous referee for detailed comments on the manuscript and P. Goldreich, J. Hawley, L. Ho, W. Kim, A. MacFadyen, S. Phinney, and R. Sari for valuable discussions. This research was supported at Caltech by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation.


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# Photometric study of southern SU UMa-type dwarf novae and candidates – III: NSV 10934, MM Sco, AB Nor, CAL 86

## 1 Introduction

Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are close binary systems consisting of a white dwarf and a red-dwarf secondary transferring matter via Roche-lobe overflow. SU UMa-type dwarf novae comprise an important subgroup of CVs, which is characterized by the presence of superoutbursts and superhumps. The superhumps and superoutbursts are now widely believed to be a result of the combination of two types of disk-instabilities (thermal and tidal instabilities), which have provided a laboratory to understand the basic astrophysical processes, such as the origin of viscosity and resonant actions on a fluid disk in close binaries (see a review by Osaki (1996); see also Ogilvie 2002 for recent theoretical development). We, the VSNET Collaboration (Kato et al., 2003d),111 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/.  have been studying the properties of (mostly new) southern SU UMa-type dwarf novae, candidates, and related systems with a perspective described in Kato et al. (2003c). In this paper, we report on the detection of superhumps in three systems, and also report on photometric observations of an SU UMa-type candidate which underwent a likely normal outburst.

## 2 CCD Observation

The observers, equipment and reduction software are summarized in Table 1. All observers performed aperture photometry, and the magnitudes were determined relative to a nearby comparison star, which was confirmed to be constant during the observation by a comparison with a check star. The observations used unfiltered CCD systems having a response close to Kron-Cousins $`R_\mathrm{c}`$ band for outbursting dwarf novae. The errors of single measurements are typically less than 0.01–0.03 mag unless otherwise specified. The observers abbreviations will be used in “Obs” field in the later observing logs.

Barycentric corrections to the observed times were applied before the following analysis.

## 3 NSV 10934

### 3.1 Introduction

NSV 10934 was originally discovered as a large-amplitude suspected variable star of unknown classification. Kato et al. (2002a) noticed the identification with a bright ROSAT source (1RXS J184050.3$``$834305), and suggested that the object is a cataclysmic variable. Kato et al. (2002a) indeed detected multiple outbursts. These outbursts generally bore resemblance to dwarf nova outbursts, but are unusual in the rapid decline during the terminal stages of these outbursts. From these findings, Kato et al. (2002a) suggested that NSV 10934 may be an analogous object to the intermediate polar (IP), HT Cam, which shows brief dwarf nova-like outbursts (Ishioka et al., 2002; Kemp et al., 2002). Kato et al. (2002a) also predicted that the orbital period of NSV 10934 would be slightly longer than that of HT Cam (86 min), if NSV 10934 indeed turns out to be an HT Cam-like object.

Since then, NSV 10934 has been monitored by one of the authors (Rod Stubbings), and it has been established, by the end of 2002, that the object shows short outbursts, as described in Kato et al. (2002a), at rather regular intervals of 40–60 d. Following a call for observing campaign in 2002 December (vsnet-campaign-dn 3141222 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/
campaign-dn3000/msg00141.html. ), the object went into a superoutburst, which will be described in the next subsection. A recent long-term visual light curve is shown in Figure 1.

### 3.2 2003 January Outburst

The outburst was first detected on 2003 January 2.480 UT at a visual magnitude of 15.0 by Rod Stubbings. On January 2.767 UT, the object was observed to further brighten to 11.9 mag (vsnet-alert 7601333 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/alert7000/
msg00601.html. ). A time-resolved CCD photometric campaign started on the next night of this detection. The object was still rising in brightness. As described later, this outburst was confirmed to be a superoutburst by the detection of secure superhumps. The log of observation is summarized in Table 2.

Figure 2 shows the entire light curve of this superoutburst drawn from CCD observations. The CCD magnitudes (system close to $`R_\mathrm{c}`$) are given relative to GSC 9523.351 ($`R_\mathrm{c}`$11.8). The zero point is adjusted to the most comprehensive Peter Nelson’s observations.

### 3.3 Superhumps

Figure 3 shows nightly light curves of NSV 10934 during the 2003 January superoutburst. The light curve on January 3 showed almost no feature of superhumps. On January 4, superhumps started to grow. The amplitudes of the superhumps reached a maximum at around January 5–6. We first determined the mean superhump period using Phase Dispersion Minimization (PDM: Stellingwerf 1978), after removing the linear decline trend during the plateau stage (January 5–13) of the superoutburst. The result is shown in Figure 4. The strongest signal at a frequency of 13.373(1) d-1 corresponds to the best superhump period of 0.07478(1) d. The selection of the correct alias has been confirmed by independent analyses of continuous nightly observations.

Figure 5 shows the mean superhump profile (of the plateau phase of the superoutburst), phase-averaged with the period of 0.07478 d. The rapid rise and slower decline are characteristic of SU UMa-type superhumps (Vogt, 1980; Warner, 1985).

### 3.4 Superhump period change

We extracted the maximum times of superhumps from the light curve by eye. The averaged times of a few to several points close to the maxima were used as representatives of the maximum times. Thanks to the high-precision data, the errors of the maximum times are usually less than $``$0.001 d. The resultant superhump maxima are given in Table 3. The values are given to 0.0001 d in order to avoid the loss of significant digits in a later analysis. The cycle count ($`E`$) is defined as the cycle number since BJD 2452643.9874. A linear regression to the observed superhump times gives the following ephemeris (the errors correspond to 1$`\sigma `$ errors at $`E`$ = 48):

$$\mathrm{BJD}(\mathrm{maximum})=2452644.0033(16)+0.074851(38)E.$$
(1)
Figure 6 shows the ($`OC`$)’s against the mean superhump period (0.074851 d) from a linear regression (equation 1). The diagram clearly shows the decrease in the superhump period throughout the superoutburst plateau. The superhump maxima during the plateau phase (13$`E`$110) is well expressed by a quadratic term corresponding to a period derivative of $`\dot{P}/P`$ = $``$10.2$`\pm `$1.0 $`\times `$ 10-5. The earlier stage ($`E<`$13) shows a large deviation from this quadratic fit, which is probably a result of the rapid evolution of superhumps at this stage. The observed decrease of the superhump period is one of the largest among known SU UMa-type dwarf novae (cf. Kato et al. 2003c).

### 3.5 Super-QPOs?

On January 4 (just after the initial growth time of the superhumps), there was an indication of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) superimposed on superhumps (Figure 7). The lower panel of Figure 7 is to better illustrate the QPO signal, by subtracting the mean superhump profile by using a Fourier decomposition of the superhump profile from these data up to the fourth harmonics. Figure 8 shows the power spectrum of the QPOs. The strongest signal was found at a frequency of 65 d-1, corresponding to a period of 0.015 d. No comparable QPOs were observed on preceding and following nights. This transient appearance of the QPO signal is very reminiscent of “super-QPOs” in some SU UMa-type dwarf novae, which only appear during the early stage of the superhump evolution (Kato et al., 1992; Kato, 2002). Warner & Woudt (2002) suggested that these super-QPOs would be a result of interaction between the weak magnetism of the white dwarf and some kind of wave in the inner accretion disk. If this interpretation could apply to NSV 10934, the possible intermediate polar-type interpretation of this object (Kato et al., 2002a) would be consistent with the present finding.

### 3.6 NSV 10934 as an SU UMa-Type Dwarf Nova

Although the supercycle length of NSV 10934 has not yet been established, the intervals between normal outbursts (40–60 d) are typical values for an SU UMa-type dwarf nova in the intermediate activity class (Vogt, 1993). The apparent lack of terminal brightening during the superoutburst plateau also fits the general properties of SU UMa-type dwarf nova with this superhump period (Kato et al., 2003b). However, the presence of terminal rapid declines during normal outbursts (Kato et al., 2002a) is rather unusual, because the contribution from quiescent luminosity usually works to slow down the decline rate near the terminal stage of such outbursts (e.g. van Paradijs et al. 1994). It may be that the inner accretion disk is truncated by the weak magnetic field of the white dwarf to produce such rapid terminal declines (e.g. Ishioka et al. 2002), while the field strength is not strong enough to moderate dwarf nova-type outburst properties (e.g. Angelini & Verbunt 1989). As stated in section 3.5, the supposed presence of a weak magnetic field would naturally explain the appearance of super-QPOs at the same time. A search for a coherent signal in X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical wavelengths is encouraged. The only other SU UMa-type dwarf nova which was proposed to be an IP is VZ Pyx (Remillard et al., 1994; Alvarez et al., 1995; Kato & Nogami, 1997; Kiyota, 1999). Although this object was originally proposed to be an IP, the modern observational evidence is rather against this classification (cf. Kato & Nogami 1997; Warner et al. 2003).444 The well-known SU UMa-type dwarf nova SW UMa is also suspected to be an IP (Shafter et al., 1986; Robinson et al., 1987; Szkody et al., 1988; Rosen et al., 1994), although the outburst parameters of SW UMa are rather unusual among SU UMa-type dwarf novae (Shafter et al., 1987; Howell et al., 1995a, b). It is possible that this possible IP nature may be responsible for the most striking appearance of super-QPOs (Kato et al., 1992).

## 4 MM Sco

### 4.1 Introduction

MM Sco was discovered as a dwarf nova on Harvard plates (cf. Glasby 1970; Walker & Olmsted 1958). Petit (1956) suggested, from the apparently long outburst interval ($``$500 d), that MM Sco may a similar object to UV Per, which is currently known as an SU UMa-type dwarf nova with long supercycles (Udalski & Pych 1992; Kato 1990; see also Kato et al. 2001b for a discussion on the relation to WZ Sge-type dwarf novae). This cycle length was adopted in Kukarkin et al. (1969). However, F. M. Bateson suggested that the mean outburst cycle length ($``$28 d) is much shorter than what has been believed, and observed maxima were fainter than the originally reported magnitude (see the description in Vogt (1983); this period was adopted in Kholopov et al. (1985); for a more recent reference, see Bateson et al. 1997). The reported outburst characteristics of MM Sco was thus rather controversial.555 In a most recent publication, Mason & Howell (2003) listed MM Sco as a candidate SU UMa-type dwarf nova, though they reported that no superhumps have yet been observed.

### 4.2 2002 September Outburst

MM Sco has been monitored by the VSNET members since the outburst in 1997 (cf. vsnet-alert 946666 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/vsnet-alert/
msg00946.html. ) because of its apparently low frequency of outbursts, which is a rather commonly met signature of SU UMa-type dwarf novae.

The 2002 September outburst was detected by Rod Stubbings on 2002 September 5.428 UT at a visual magnitude of 14.0 (vsnet-outburst 4485777 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/outburst4000/
msg00485.html. ). The object further brightened to a magnitude of 13.4 next night, indicating that the present outburst may be a long, bright outburst. We carried out time-resolved CCD photometry upon this information. The log of observation is summarized in Table 4.

Figure 9 shows the nightly light curves of MM Sco. Superhumps were clearly visible on all nights; this confirms the SU UMa-type nature of MM Sco. Figure 10 shows the result of a period analysis using PDM applied to the entire data set after removing the nightly linear decline trends. The strongest signal at a frequency of 16.298(11) d-1 corresponds to the best superhump period of 0.06136(4) d.

Figure 11 shows the mean superhump profile phase-averaged with the period of 0.06136 d. The rapid rise and slower decline are characteristic of SU UMa-type superhumps. We did not attempt to determine a period derivative (e.g. Kato et al. 2003c, a) because of the short baseline of the observation. The less sharp appearance of the superhump maximum, compared to other fully grown superhumps of SU UMa-type dwarf novae (e.g. Harvey & Patterson (1995)), was probably because the observation started $``$5 d after the start of the superoutburst. The superhumps may have entered its decaying phase at the time of our observation. Further detailed observations of the full evolutionary course of the superhumps, as well as determination of the orbital period, are strongly encouraged to fully understand the behavior of superhumps in this system.

### 4.3 Astrometry and Quiescent Counterpart

We measured the position of the outbursting object with respect to the UCAC1 reference frame and yielded R. A. = 17h 30m 45s.254, Decl. = $``$42 11 42′′.69 (J2000.0) (Fig. 12). Vogt & Bateson (1982) exactly points the object at this position. On the other hand, the DSS 2 images of this region show an only faint object, implying that MM Sco was accidentally caught in a slightly brightened state in Vogt & Bateson (1982). The DSS 2 star apparently moved in the west-southwest direction between two plates ($`I`$-band, epch 1980.478 and $`R`$-band, epoch 1997.249). This star is likely the object marked on Downes’ online atlas.888 http://icarus.stsci.edu/downes/cvcat.  There is a possibility that MM Sco in true quiescence is fainter than the limit of the DSS 2 images and that the apparently moving object is an unrelated star. If it is the case, the outburst amplitude could exceed 6 mag. Definite quiescent identification and precise amplitude measurement should await deep direct imaging with higher spatial resolution.

### 4.4 MM Sco as an SU UMa-Type Dwarf Nova

Figure 13 shows the long-term visual light curve of MM Sco. Table 5 lists the observed outbursts. Six well-defined superoutbursts (JD 2450712, 2451010, 2451385, 2451729, 2452025, and 2452523) with durations longer than 8 d are unambiguously identified. The supercycle lengths are thus in the range of 298–497 d. There does not seem to be a fixed supercycle length as recorded in KK Tel (Kato et al., 2003c).

In spite of the relatively bright superoutburst magnitudes (usually 13.3–13.8), very few normal outbursts have been detected, which could have easily reached detectable magnitudes. Although the small number of observations makes it difficult to draw a firm conclusion on the type of outburst, the outburst on JD 2450596 was the only candidate normal outburst since 1997. Such a low number ratio normal outbursts over superoutbursts is exceptional (cf. Warner 1995; Nogami et al. 1997). In combination with the relatively short superhump period (0.06146 d), the initially proposed analogy (Petit, 1956) with UV Per ($`P_{\mathrm{SH}}`$ = 0.06641 d) looks likes to be more strengthened. The shortest intervals (28 d) of outbursts may have corresponded to a precursor outburst or a rebrightening phenomenon, both of which are relatively commonly observed in SU UMa-type dwarf novae with short superhump periods and less frequent normal outbursts (Lemm et al., 1993; Patterson et al., 1993; Howell et al., 1995b; Kato, 1997; Nogami et al., 1998; Baba et al., 2000; Kato et al., 2001a; Ishioka et al., 2001).

This finding makes a contrast to what was originally suggested by F. M. Bateson (Vogt, 1983). It may be either possible that the finding by F. M. Bateson did not correctly describe the outburst behavior of this object due to the lack of appropriate information at that time, or that the outburst characteristics exhibited a long-term variation. Since some SU UMa-type dwarf novae are known to show dramatic long-term variation, particularly in the number of normal outbursts (e.g. V503 Cyg: Kato et al. (2002b); DM Lyr: Nogami et al. (2003a); MN Dra = Var73 Dra: Nogami et al. (2003b)), this possibility in MM Sco needs to be carefully checked by future observations.

## 5 AB Nor

### 5.1 Introduction

AB Nor was discovered by Swope & Caldwell (1930) during the photographic survey of the southern Milky Way. Only little had been studied until very recent years. Petit (1960) simply provided a “long?” recurrence period in the table of dwarf nova candidates. Vogt & Bateson (1982) proposed a quiescent counterpart based on its blue color, but the direct attempt to identify the object by recording an outburst was not successful. The first outburst reported to VSNET was in 1997 (section 5.4); the object has been regularly monitored since then.

An outburst in 2000 April, detected by the Rod Stubbings, was most unusual. Five days after the initial brightness peak decayed, the object sudden underwent a rebrightening (vsnet-alert 4574999 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/alert4000/
msg00574.html. ). Since such an early-stage rebrightening is usually associated with a superoutburst triggered by an immediately preceding precursor (Marino & Walker 1979; Warner 1985; Kato 1997; see also the PU CMa case in Kato et al. (2003c)) in SU UMa-type dwarf novae, AB Nor was thereby strongly suspected to be an SU UMa-type dwarf nova. Upon this alert in VSNET, W. S. G. Walker reported on the possible presence of a 0.4 mag superhump (vsnet-alert 4589101010 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/alert4000/
msg00589.html. ). Walker reported an approximate superhump period of 0.078–0.079 d, based on the second-night observation (vsnet-alert 4597111111 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/alert4000/
msg00597.html. ). Although the suggested SU UMa-type nature of AB Nor was almost confirmed by this observation, the lack of long-baseline, time-resolved observation at this moment required us another opportunity for independent confirmation of superhumps, as well as precisely determining their period and evolution.

### 5.2 2002 August–September Outburst

The next chance arrived two years later. The 2002 August–September Outburst was detected by Rod Stubbings on August 31.437 UT at a visual magnitude of 14.0 (vsnet-alert 7457121212 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/alert7000/
msg00457.html. ). We conducted a CCD time-series photometry campaign during this outburst.

The log of observation is summarized in Table 6.

The initial observation was performed only one day later than the initial detection. The observation during this night clearly caught the evolutionary stage of the superhumps (Figure 14).

Figure 15 shows the nightly light curves of AB Nor. Unavoidable gaps are present between observations, mainly because of the wide gap in longitudinal distribution of the two observers. The superhumps had grown on September 2. The September 12 observation was performed just before the object started fading rapidly from the superoutburst plateau.

As is naturally expected from the early epoch observation coincident with the rapid evolutionary stage of the superhumps, and partly owing to the gap in observation, we have not been able to uniquely determine the superhump period common to the entire observing period. We thereby divided the data into three segments (1) early evolutionary stage: September 1, (2) fully developed stage: September 2–4, and (3) late stage: September 11–12, and first determined the superhump periods within respective segments. A period analysis of the early evolutionary stage yielded a signal around a frequency of 12.1(1) d-1, corresponding to a period of 0.0829(9) d. The significance of this periodicity is 93%. This periodicity did not appear in the later segments, and it likely reflected the stage of a rapid change in the superhump period. During the latter two segments, a common frequency around 11.87(3) d-1, corresponding to a period of 0.0842(3) d, was present. The selection of the alias was based on the proximity to the period derived from the segment 1 and the common presence in segment 2 (significance $`>`$99.9%) and segment 3 (significance 87%). From the combination of segment 2 and 3, we obtained a period of 0.08438(2) d (Figure 16). We consider that this period is the representative superhump period of AB Nor, although a better coverage of a future superoutburst is desired to decisively identify the superhump period and its evolution.

### 5.3 Astrometry and Quiescent Counterpart

We measured the position of AB Nor with the outburst image taken by P. Nelson on 2002 Sept. 1.438 UT. The derived position with respect to UCAC1 reference stars is R. A. = 15h 49m 15s.475, Decl. = $``$43 04 48′′.49 (J2000.0), with a fitting error of about 0′′.2 for each coordinate (Fig. 18). This result is almost identical with the value derived by A. Henden using 2000 April outburst images taken by Walker (B. Sumner, vsnet-chat 2800131313 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/chat2000/
msg00800.html. ). The quiescent counterpart is clearly seen in every DSS images at mag about 20. No proper motion of this object was detected by the examination of available archived images.

### 5.4 AB Nor as an SU UMa-Type Dwarf Nova

Figure 19 shows the long-term visual light curve of AB Nor. Table 7 lists the observed outbursts. Two well-defined superoutbursts (JD 2451636 and 2452517) with durations longer than 12 d are unambiguously identified. The outburst on JD 2450746 is also likely a superoutburst based on its brightness. The outburst on JD 2451320 is probably a normal outburst based on its faintness. Although there are observational gaps, there seems to be little chance of many missed outbursts. The supercycle of AB Nor is thereby estimated to be $``$880/$`N`$ d, where $`N`$ is either 1 or 2. We suggest that AB Nor belongs to SU UMa-type dwarf novae with long supercycle lengths.

The derived superhump period of 0.08438 d is the one of the longest periods among SU UMa-type dwarf novae below the period gap. The other long-period systems include TY PsA ($`P`$=0.08765 d: Barwig et al. 1982; Warner et al. 1989), BF Ara ($`P`$=0.08797 d: Kato et al. 2003a) and YZ Cnc ($`P`$=0.09204 d: Patterson 1979; van Paradijs et al. 1994; Kato 2001a), which show frequent outbursts and superoutbursts. Among SU UMa-type dwarf novae with similar superhump periods, EF Peg ($`P`$=0.08705 d: Kato 2002), V725 Aql ($`P`$=0.09909 d: Uemura et al. 2001) and DV UMa ($`P`$=0.08869 d: Nogami et al. 2001) have a low frequency of outbursts comparable to that of AB Nor. Both EF Peg and V725 Aql are considered to be unusual in its outburst frequency and behavior (Uemura et al., 2001; Kato, 2002), and may have low mass-transfer rate comparable to WZ Sge-type dwarf novae (Kato et al., 2001b). Being easily observable at minimum (compared to EF Peg and V725 Aql), further detailed observation of AB Nor in quiescence will be helpful identifying the nature of these long-period SU UMa-type dwarf novae with supposed low mass-transfer rates.

## 6 CAL 86

### 6.1 Introduction

CAL 86 = 1RXP J054610$``$6835.1 = 1RXS J054613.6$``$683523 is a cataclysmic variable in the direction of the Large Megellanic Cloud (LMC). This star was originally selected as an Einstein X-ray source. Schmidtke et al. (2002) reported the detection of its short (0.066 d) orbital period and at least five outbursts from the MACHO observations. Some of the outbursts reached $`V`$ = 14 (amplitude 5 mag). This orbital period, together with the presence of large-amplitude outbursts, makes CAL 86 a good SU UMa-type candidate. Upon this information we undertook a monitoring campaign (vsnet-campaign-dn 2561141414 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/
campaign-dn2000/msg00561.html. ) since 2002 December. Only one outburst was observed (in 2003 February) up to 2003 August.

### 6.2 2003 February Outburst

The 2003 February outburst was detected at a visual magnitude of 13.2 on February 23.454 UT by Rod Stubbings (vsnet-alert 7645151515 http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/Mail/alert7000/
msg00645.html. ). The outburst very quickly faded after the outburst detection (Figure 20). The mean fading rate of the initial 2.5 d was 1.1 mag d-1, which is a typical value for a normal outburst of an SU UMa-type dwarf nova (Bailey, 1975; Kato et al., 2002c).

The log of observation is summarized in Table 8.

Figure 21 shows the light curve drawn from the time-resolved CCD observations. The object was rapidly and smoothly fading during this observing period. A period analysis of the data did not reveal any superhump-type variation with an amplitude larger than 0.05 mag. Figure 22 shows an “orbital” light curve phase-averaged at the reported orbital period of 0.066 d, after removing the trend of steady decline from Figure 21. Only a marginal (0.02 mag) modulation was detected, which is not inconsistent with the general lack of orbital signatures in outbursting non-eclipsing dwarf novae (see also Kato 2001b).

### 6.3 Astrometry and Quiescent Counterpart

Since CAL 86 is located in the LMC field with a huge number of faint stars, we tried to make independent astrometry and identification using the outburst CCD images. The position with respect to UCAC1 frame was derived to be R. A. = 05h 46m 14s.973, Decl. = $``$68 35 23′′.76 (J2000.0), with a fitting error less than 0′′.1 for each coordinate (Fig. 23). This star is identical to the one labeled as “Star No. 2” in the chart of Schmidtke et al. (1994), and to a USNO-B1.0 star having position end figures of 14s.98, 24′′.1 ($`r_2`$ mag 18.77). The examination of archived images revealed no detectable proper motion of this object, which was accidentally caught in outburst on an image taken on 1987 Jan. 24 as noted in Downes et al.’s online catalog. The USNO-B1.0 entry also shows no proper motion.

## 7 Summary

We photometrically observed four southern dwarf novae in outburst (NSV 10934, MM Sco, AB Nor and CAL 86). We succeeded in measuring the superhump periods of the first three systems, and clarified the long-term outburst characteristics from long-term visual observations.

(1) NSV 10934 was confirmed to be an SU UMa-type dwarf nova with a mean superhump period of 0.07478(1) d. The star also showed transient appearance of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) during the final growing stage of the superhumps. Combined with the recent theoretical interpretation and with the rather unusual rapid terminal fading of normal outbursts, NSV 10934 may be a candidate intermediate polar showing SU UMa-type properties.

(2) We determined the mean mean superhump periods of the newly identified SU UMa-type dwarf nova MM Sco to be 0.06136(4) d. The combination of a short superhump period and a low frequency of outbursts suggests that MM Sco belongs to a class of infrequently outbursting SU UMa-type dwarf novae resembling UV Per. The true quiescence of MM Sco may be fainter than has been believed.

(3) We determined the mean superhump period of AB Nor, whose SU UMa-type nature is established by this study, to be 0.08438(2) d. We suggest that AB Nor belongs to a rather rare class of long-period SU UMa-type dwarf novae with low mass-transfer rates.

(4) We also observed an outburst of the suspected SU UMa-type dwarf nova CAL 86. We identified this outburst as a normal outburst and determined the mean decline rate of 1.1 mag d-1.

## Acknowledgments

This work is partly supported by a grant-in-aid \[13640239, 15037205 (TK), 14740131 (HY)\] from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The CCD operation of the Bronberg Observatory is partly sponsored by the Center for Backyard Astrophysics. The CCD operation by Peter Nelson is on loan from the AAVSO, funded by the Curry Foundation. This research has made use of the Digitized Sky Survey producted by STScI, the ESO Skycat tool, the VizieR catalogue access tool.


text:
# The Minimum Distance Problem for Two-Way Entanglement Purification11footnote 1Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.

## 1 Introduction

In order to build a quantum computer, we will probably need to use quantum error correcting codes (QECCs) to protect the computational qubits from noisy operations (see  for an introduction to quantum error correction). Similarly, quantum error correction will help preserve qubits stored in a quantum memory. Another application is to protect quantum data being transmitted over a distance from Alice to Bob.

For the last application, though, a better possibility exists. In an entanglement purification protocol (EPP) ,222The current trend is to instead use the name “entanglement distillation protocol,” or EDP. However, in this paper we retain the older and more widespread term EPP. Alice prepares a number of EPR pairs and transmits half of each to Bob over a noisy quantum channel. Alice and Bob then make some measurements on their parts of the EPR pairs and compare results over a noiseless classical side channel. Based on their measurements, they then perform local quantum operations to their remaining qubits to produce a smaller number of more reliable EPR pairs. Then, using these EPR pairs and the classical side channel, Alice teleports her qubits to Bob. If the EPP has succeeded, the noise rate in the qubits emerging from the teleportation protocol is much lower than the noise rate in the channel.

If we allow Alice to transmit classical information to Bob, but Bob cannot transmit information to Alice, the EPP is a one-way EPP (or 1-EPP).  showed that 1-EPPs are equivalent to QECCs: there is a straightforward procedure to convert any QECC to a 1-EPP and vice-versa. These protocols are useful, for instance, to create a quantum memory, in which quantum information is stored for some time before being used. The decoder has to decode the message using only information stored in the memory, and the encoding cannot depend on information about the errors which may be gained during decoding. Thus, the communication is one-way: from the encoder to the decoder.

In contrast, if an EPP is used to transmit information between two parties, Alice and Bob, there is no reason to prevent Bob from transmitting classical information to Alice. An EPP in which Alice and Bob both transmit classical information is known as a two-way EPP (or 2-EPP). While a back channel does not help for transmitting classical data over a classical noisy channel, the classical back channel does help in transmitting quantum data over a noisy quantum channel. 2-EPPs typically tolerate a much higher error rate than 1-EPPs , and in some cases are known to also allow substantially higher data rates even for low error rates .

This channel capacity problem is usually considered in the model where errors occur independently on different qubits with some fixed probability, and the goal is to produce a received state with very high fidelity in the asymptotic limit of many transmitted qubits. If we only wish to transmit a few qubits, it makes more sense to consider a small block code. For QECCs (and indeed classical error-correcting codes), we often consider what is known as the minimum distance scenario, in which we transmit $`n`$ qubits to protect $`k`$ data qubits against up to $`t`$ single-qubit errors during transmission (or in fact against an arbitrary error which affects $`t`$ qubits). When there are $`t`$ or fewer errors, the decoding procedure leaves us with exactly the correct state on the $`k`$ data qubits. When there are more than $`t`$ errors, the state can be wrong in arbitrary ways.

We can define the minimum distance problem for $`t`$ errors as follows:

###### Problem 1.

Find a protocol which allows Alice to transmit $`k`$ qubits to Bob with perfect fidelity. The protocol may use a quantum channel which transmits $`n`$ qubits and applies the operation $`𝒮I`$, where $`𝒮`$ is some superoperator acting on $`t`$ of the qubits (not necessarily the first $`t`$) and $`I`$ is the identity on the remaining $`nt`$ qubits. The protocol may use classical side channels, but cannot depend on any properties of the quantum channel operation except the fact that it acts nontrivially on at most $`t`$ qubits.

The usual solution to the minimum distance problem is a QECC with distance $`d=2t+1`$, which requires no classical side channels.

In this paper, we consider the minimum distance problem for 2-EPPs. Alice prepares $`n`$ EPR pairs and transmits half of each to Bob over the noisy quantum channel. The channel, as described above, has the property that it applies an arbitrary superoperator affecting at most $`t`$ of the pairs. Then the goal of Alice and Bob is to produce, by talking back and forth over the classical side channels and performing local operations, at least $`k`$ good EPR pairs. Note that, given the promise that there are at most $`t`$ errors, we insist that the protocol always works: While some of the protocols we present will sometimes produce more than $`k`$ good pairs, we require that they never produce fewer than $`k`$ correct EPR pairs. We also require that the EPR pairs produced are precisely correct (fidelity $`1`$ to perfect EPR pairs). A 2-EPP that achieves this will then provide a solution to the minimum distance problem via quantum teleportation.

Note that for a QECC, the distance encapsulates a number of properties of the code. In particular, the distance determines the number of errors that can be detected and the number of correctable erasure errors as well as the number of general errors that can be corrected. For a 2-EPP, there does not appear to be any single quantity that encapsulates such a broad set of properties, so 2-EPPs do not have a “distance” in the conventional sense.

## 2 Stabilizer QECCs & 1-EPPs

We begin by reviewing the basic theory of stabilizer quantum error-correcting codes  and the relationship between QECCs and 1-EPPs.

###### Definition 1.

The Pauli group $`𝒫`$ is a group consisting of tensor products of the three matrices

$$X=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right),Y=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i\\ i& 0\end{array}\right),Z=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)$$
(1)
and the identity $`I`$ with overall phase $`\pm 1`$, $`\pm i`$.

Note that $`X`$, $`Y`$, and $`Z`$ anticommute with each other (e.g., $`XZ=ZX`$) and that any two elements of the Pauli group either commute or anticommute. Furthermore, the Pauli group on $`t`$ qubits is a basis for the space of all matrices corresponding to operators acting on $`t`$ qubits.

###### Definition 2.

A stabilizer $`S`$ is an Abelian subgroup of $`𝒫`$ which does not contain $`1`$ or $`\pm i`$. Let the coding space $`C`$ be the set of states $`|\psi `$ for which $`M|\psi =|\psi `$ for all $`MS`$. Suppose the stabilizer $`S`$ has $`r`$ generators $`M_1,\mathrm{},M_r`$. The error syndrome of $`P𝒫`$ is the $`r`$-bit string whose $`i`$th bit is $`0`$ if $`P`$ commutes with $`M_i`$ and is $`1`$ if $`P`$ anticommutes with $`M_i`$. Let $`N(S)`$ be the set of Pauli matrices which have error syndrome $`0`$ — i.e., which commute with the stabilizer.

The motivation for the definition of error syndrome and for using this formalism for defining quantum codes is that if a state $`|\psi `$ is a $`+1`$-eigenvector of an operator $`M`$, and $`E`$ anticommutes with $`M`$ ($`EM=ME`$), then $`E|\psi `$ is a $`1`$-eigenvector of $`M`$. Thus, looking at a simple property of the stabilizer allows us to evaluate the code’s ability to detect and correct errors .

###### Theorem 1.

If there are $`n`$ qubits and the stabilizer $`S`$ has $`r`$ generators, then the coding space $`C`$ has dimension $`2^{nr}`$. That is, the code encodes $`k=nr`$ qubits. The set of undetectable errors for the code is $`N(S)S`$. The code corrects any set $`𝒫`$ for which $`E^{}FN(S)S`$ for all $`E,F`$. Thus, the code corrects $`t`$ errors if $`N(S)S`$ contains no Pauli operations acting on fewer than $`2t+1`$ qubits.

###### Definition 3.

If a stabilizer code corrects a set of errors $``$, and there exist $`E,F`$ such that $`E^{}FS`$ but $`EF`$, then the code is said to be degenerate or impure. Otherwise the code is non-degenerate or pure.

The error correction procedure is simply to measure the eigenvalue of each of the generators of $`S`$. (For each generator, the $`2^n`$ dimensional space of all states on $`n`$ qubits decomposes into a direct sum of two $`2^{n1}`$ dimensional subspaces, one consisting of all eigenvectors of the operator with eigenvalue 1, the other consisting of all eigenvectors with eigenvalue -1. “Measuring the eigenvalue” means that we measure if the state belongs to the first or the second of these subspaces, in the process projecting the state onto the appropriate subspace.)

The correct state has eigenvalue $`+1`$, but if error $`P`$ has occurred, the actual eigenvalue is $`1`$. This gives us the error syndrome, and from there we can deduce the error and correct it. For a non-degenerate code, all the error syndromes are distinct, so the error syndrome uniquely identifies the error. The errors are not uniquely identified for a degenerate code, but it does not matter, because errors which have the same error syndrome act exactly the same way on encoded states.

This suggests how we can perform an EPP based on any stabilizer QECC. Alice prepares a number of EPR pairs $`|00+|11`$, and sends the second half to Bob. If there are no errors in the channel, Alice, when she measures any Pauli operator $`M`$ on her side, will get a predictable measurement result relative to Bob’s when he measures the same $`M`$ on his side. In particular, Alice and Bob can each measure the generators of a stabilizer $`S`$ on their own side. In the absence of errors, they should get the same measurement result for any generator with an even number of $`Y`$s, and the opposite measurement result for any generator with an odd number of $`Y`$s.333The state $`|00+|11`$ is a $`+1`$ eigenstate of $`X_AX_B`$ and $`Z_AZ_B`$, but a $`1`$ eigenstate of $`Y_AY_B`$. That is, if Alice’s measurement results form the vector $`𝐚`$ and Bob’s measurement results form the vector $`𝐛`$, then $`𝐚𝐛=𝐬`$, where the $`j`$th bit of $`𝐬`$ is the parity of the number of $`Y`$s in the $`j`$th generator of $`S`$. On the other hand, if the channel has performed a Pauli error $`P`$, they will get different results: $`𝐚𝐛=𝐬𝐞`$, where $`𝐞`$ is precisely the error syndrome of $`P`$ with respect to $`S`$. Thus, if Alice sends her measurement results to Bob, Bob can compare Alice’s results to his, deduce the error syndrome of $`P`$, and correct it just as if he were using a quantum error-correcting code. Alice and Bob have measured $`2r`$ qubits, destroying the entanglement of $`r`$ pairs, but $`nr=k`$ pairs are left over.

Note that the remaining entanglement will actually be distributed across many or all of the original $`n`$ pairs, so Alice and Bob must perform a decoding operation to extract it. Alice and Bob have each projected their state onto a codeword of the QECC with stabilizer $`S`$ with some known syndrome $`𝐚`$ (Alice’s measurement results), and must therefore perform the decoding operation for $`S`$ to get back the $`k`$ EPR pairs they desire.

QECCs and EPPs correct more general errors than just Pauli errors because of the linearity of quantum mechanics. In fact, if a code (or EPP) corrects a set of errors $``$, it also corrects any errors in the linear span of $``$. Therefore, a code or EPP which corrects Pauli errors on up to $`t`$ qubits actually corrects any error affecting up to $`t`$ qubits , and thus provides a solution to the minimum distance problem.

## 3 Stabilizers and 2-EPPs

Along the same lines, we can construct a class of 2-EPPs as adaptive stabilizer codes. The model is as follows. Alice and Bob measure $`r`$ commuting Pauli operators, one by one. After measuring each operator, they both send their measurement results to each other. Then they XOR the results, obtaining one bit of the error syndrome. The $`(i+1)^{\mathrm{st}}`$ operator can depend on the results obtained in the first $`i`$ measurements but has to commute with all the previously measured operators. The end result is that Alice and Bob have measured the generators of one stabilizer code out of a larger family. The choice of which code, however, depended on the results of early measurements. To specify a 2-EPP, we therefore need to describe a rule for choosing operators to measure based on the outcomes of previous measurements. Note that the procedure is a 2-EPP and not a 1-EPP because Alice needs to know Bob’s results before she knows which operators to measure. (This type of EPP has been called a stabilizer EPP, and is characterized more precisely in Definition 4 of .)

At the end of protocol, Alice and Bob apply local unitary transformations $`U_A`$ and $`U_B`$ which may depend on the results of the measurements during the protocol. They succeed if, for any error on at most $`t`$ EPR pairs, the protocol produces $`k`$ perfect EPR pairs.

### 3.1 2-EPPs that correct 1 error

As the first example, consider the following 2-EPP which produces 2 good EPR pairs from 6 EPR pairs in the presence of 1 error. (There is no QECC which can do this for qubits .) Alice and Bob measure

$`XXXX`$ (2)
$`ZZZZ`$
on the first four pairs. These two operators generate the stabilizer for a code detecting an arbitrary single error — any single-qubit Pauli operator will be outside $`N(S)`$. There are two possibilities:

* They detect an error (get a non-zero error syndrome). In this case, they know there is an error in the first four pairs, and therefore none in the last two, since there is a maximum of one error. They therefore discard all of the first four pairs, and keep the remaining two.
* They detect no error (zero error syndrome). Since there is again a maximum of one error, and they would have detected any single error on the first four pairs, they know the first four pairs must be correct. They used up two pairs for the measurement, but they still have two left. In this case, the two pairs that are left do not directly correspond to any of the original four pairs. Instead, Alice and Bob must each perform a local circuit equal to the decoding operation for the four-qubit QECC with the appropriate syndrome. If there was no error on the four pairs at the beginning, then the decoding procedure gives Alice and Bob two pairs with no errors.

It may at first appear that this 2-EPP falls slightly outside the adaptive stabilizer code construction, as it involves discarding unwanted pairs. However, it can easily be rewritten as a degenerate adaptive stabilizer code, simply by measuring a complete set of operators for the discarded pairs. For instance, if Alice and Bob detect an error with the first two measurements, they then also measure $`XXII`$ and $`ZZII`$ on the first four pairs.

Next, we present a 2-EPP that produces $`2^mm2`$ good EPR pairs from $`2^m1`$ pairs if there is up to one error. This should be compared with the best family of 1-error-correcting QECCs known, which protect $`k=2^mm2`$ qubits with $`n=2^m`$ qubits if there is up to one error .

Alice and Bob start by measuring $`X^{(2^m1)}`$. If they detect an error, they know that there is a $`Y`$ or $`Z`$ error. Then, they localize it by binary search, in $`m1`$ steps. Before the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ localization step, Alice and Bob have a set $`S_i`$ of $`2^{m+1i}1`$ or $`2^{m+1i}`$ candidate EPR pairs. They have measured the product of $`X`$ on this set and they have detected an error in it. If $`i>1`$, they have also measured $`i1`$ Pauli operators on pairs not in $`S_i`$. In the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ localization step, Alice and Bob divide $`S_i`$ into sets $`S_i^{}`$ and $`S_i^{\prime \prime }`$, one containing $`2^{mi}`$ EPR pairs and the other containing either $`2^{mi}`$ or $`2^{mi}1`$ pairs. Then, they measure the product of $`X`$ operators over all pairs in $`S_i^{}`$. Together with the previous measurement (the product of $`X`$ over $`S_i`$), this is equivalent to measuring the product of $`X`$ in $`S_i^{}`$ and the product of $`X`$ in $`S_i^{\prime \prime }`$. If there is an error in $`S_i^{}`$, then Alice and Bob set $`S_{i+1}=S_i^{}`$. Otherwise, $`S_{i+1}=S_i^{\prime \prime }`$.

After $`m1`$ such steps, Alice and Bob have a set $`S_m`$ consisting of 1 or 2 EPR pairs, they have measured the product of $`X`$ for $`S_m`$ and they know that $`S_m`$ contains a damaged EPR pair. Then, Alice and Bob discard pairs in $`S_m`$. The other $`2^m2`$ or $`2^m3`$ pairs are good and only $`m1`$ of them have been measured. (Altogether, Alice and Bob have measured $`1+(m1)`$ pairs but one of those measurements has been on discarded pairs only.) Therefore, they have at least $`2^mm2`$ good EPR pairs.

The second case is if the first measurement (product of $`X`$ on all EPR pairs) detects no error. Then, there is either no error at all or an $`X`$ error on one of $`2^m1`$ EPR pairs. This means that there are $`1+(2^m1)=2^m`$ possibilities for error. With $`m`$ more measurements, Alice and Bob can distinguish which one of those has happened. To do that, they number the EPR pairs by numbers $`0,1,\mathrm{},2^m2`$. Each of those numbers can be written in binary with $`m`$ digits. Alice and Bob measure the product of $`Z`$ operators for all EPR pairs whose numbers have the first digit equal to 0, the product of $`Z`$ operators for all EPR pairs whose numbers have the second digit equal to 0, etc. That is, they measure the parity checks for the Hamming code of length $`n=2^m1`$. If there is an $`X`$ error on the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ EPR pair, each measurement gives us one bit of $`i`$ (the bit is 0 if the corresponding measurement detects an error and 1 if it does not detect an error). All $`m`$ measurements together uniquely determine $`i`$. It remains to see what happens if there is no error. Then no measurement detects error, implying that either there is no error or the error is in the location that has 1 in every bit. If the location has all $`m`$ bits equal to 1, its number must be $`2^m1`$ but Alice and Bob do not have an EPR pair numbered $`2^m1`$. Therefore, they know for certain that there has been no error.

After that, Alice and Bob know the type of error and its location and they correct it. They have destroyed $`m+1`$ EPR pairs. Therefore, Alice and Bob again have $`2^mm2`$ good EPR pairs remaining.

We illustrate the protocol with two examples for $`m=3`$, $`2^m1=7`$ and $`2^mm2=3`$. The first is if there is a $`Y`$ error on the $`3^{\mathrm{rd}}`$ pair. Then, the operators that Alice and Bob measure are:

$$XXXXXXX,$$

$$XXXXIII,$$

$$XXIIIII.$$

The first two reveal an error, the third does not. Alice and Bob conclude that either the $`3^{\mathrm{rd}}`$ or the $`4^{\mathrm{th}}`$ pair has a $`Y`$ or $`Z`$ error. They discard these two pairs. The last two measurements are equivalent to $`XXIIIII`$ and $`IIXXIII`$. Thus, one measurement has been on the discarded pairs. Therefore, out of the remaining 5 pairs, 2 have been measured. They have 3 good EPR pairs.

In the second example, there is an $`X`$ error on the $`5^{\mathrm{th}}`$ pair. In this case, Alice and Bob measure

$$XXXXXXX,$$

$$ZZZZIII,$$

$$ZZIIZZI,$$

$$ZIZIZIZ.$$

The first two measurements detect no error. The third and the fourth detect an error. After that, Alice and Bob know that there is an $`X`$ error on the $`5^{\mathrm{th}}`$ pair and correct it. They have used 4 out of 7 pairs and have 3 good pairs remaining.

### 3.2 2-EPPs that correct 2 errors

A more dramatic example is a 2-EPP which produces at least 1 good EPR pair from 9 EPR pairs when there are up to 2 errors. This is better than the quantum Hamming bound, which says that the number of errors times the number of encoded basis states is at most the dimension of the overall Hilbert space:

$$2^k\underset{j=0}{\overset{t}{}}3^j\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{j}\right)2^n.$$
(3)
For $`t=2`$ errors and $`k=1`$, this equation would suggest $`n10`$. The six-pair and $`2^m1`$ pair 2-EPPs above also exceed the quantum Hamming bound for $`t=1`$. It is not known in general whether the quantum Hamming bound limits all QECCs, since it could potentially be violated by a degenerate code, for which distinct errors $`E`$ and $`F`$ have the same error syndrome but act the same way on codewords (i.e., $`E^{}FS`$ for a degenerate stabilizer code). However, no known QECCs exceed the quantum Hamming bound, and in fact for $`t=2`$, linear programming bounds  show that $`n11`$, so our 2-EPP beats the best QECC by two EPR pairs.

The particular 2-EPP we present is based on the four-qubit error-detecting code (2) and the five-qubit error-correcting code with stabilizer generators

$`XZZXI`$
$`IXZZX`$ (4)
$`XIXZZ`$
$`ZXIXZ.`$
The five-qubit code can correct one error or detect two errors. For the 9-pair EPP, Alice and Bob measure the generators of the five-qubit code on the first five pairs, and the generators of the four-qubit code on the last four pairs. They first use the results of both measurements to detect errors. We then have the following cases:

* They detect an error on the last four pairs. In that case, there can be at most one error on the first five pairs, so they can use the five-qubit code to correct the error, producing one good pair. They discard the last four pairs, leaving them with one good pair overall.
* They detect an error on the first five pairs but none on the last four pairs. In that case, there is at least one error on the first five pairs, so there could be at most one on the last four. If there had been one error on the last four, they would have detected it, so Alice and Bob know the last four pairs are safe. They discard the first five pairs (which could contain two errors), and extract the two remaining pairs from the last four. In this case, they are left with two good pairs.
* They detect no errors on either set of pairs. If there had been any errors (one or two) on the first five pairs, they would have detected them. Therefore, any errors must be on the last four pairs. It is possible, however, that two errors on the last four pairs would go undetected. They discard the last four pairs, and extract the one remaining pair from the first five pairs; there is no need for error correction. They are left with one good pair.

### 3.3 2-EPPs in higher dimensions

We can also create EPPs that violate the quantum Singleton bound

$$n4t+k.$$
(5)
This bound applies to degenerate quantum codes as well as nondegenerate ones, and shows, for instance, that the smallest QECC to correct one error has 5 qubits. The construction we present requires using registers with dimension greater than two; qutrits will suffice. The quantum Singleton bound also applies to higher-dimensional codes, so there is no QECC encoding 1 qutrit in 4 and correcting one error. In contrast, we present a 2-EPP that corrects one error out of only 4 pairs.

We can generalize the stabilizer formalism to a higher dimension $`d`$ by replacing the qubit Pauli group with the group generated by tensor products of $`X:|j|j+1`$ and $`Z:|j\omega ^j|j`$, where addition is modulo $`d`$, and $`\omega =\mathrm{exp}(2\pi i/d)`$ . The eigenvalues of elements of this higher-dimensional Pauli group are powers of $`\omega `$, and $`PQ=\omega ^{r(P,Q)}QP`$, where $`P`$ and $`Q`$ are arbitrary elements of the Pauli group and $`r(P,Q)`$ is an integer function of $`P`$ and $`Q`$. The same basic principle allows us to create stabilizer codes in higher dimensions: if $`M|\psi =|\psi `$ and $`MP=\omega ^rPM`$, then $`M(P|\psi )=\omega ^rP|\psi `$. We can therefore again create codes as the joint $`+1`$-eigenspace of elements of an Abelian subgroup of the Pauli group, and the Pauli errors it detects will again be all operators outside $`N(S)S`$.

In particular, we can define a 3-qutrit QECC to detect one error using the stabilizer

$`XXX`$ (6)
$`ZZZ.`$
Similar codes exist for many larger-dimensional registers as well.444In particular, Reed-Solomon codes can be used to construct a code with these parameters over any finite field GF(q) with $`q=p^s>2`$. Then, treating prime power factors of a register’s dimensionality separately allows us to construct an appropriate QECC for any dimension which is odd or a multiple of 4, leaving open the cases where the dimension is 2(2k+1). We can then create a 2-EPP correcting 1 error out of 4 qutrit EPR pairs. Alice and Bob measure the generators of this error-detecting code on the first three pairs. If they detect an error, they keep the fourth pair and discard the first three. Otherwise, they discard the last pair and extract the one remaining pair from the first three. Either way, they end up with one reliable EPR pair out of the original four.

## 4 Asymptotic Lower Bound

To construct the above examples of 2-EPPs, we split up the EPR pairs and used error detection techniques to discard noisy pairs. This does not work well for protocols with many pairs and proportionally many errors, but EPPs can still do substantially better than QECCs in the asymptotic regime.

###### Theorem 2.

For all $`n`$, for any set of errors $`𝒫`$, there exist 2-EPPs producing $`k`$ EPR pairs from $`n`$ pairs correcting $``$ satisfying

$$kn\mathrm{log}_2||2.$$
(7)
###### Corollary 3.

For all $`n`$ and $`t`$, there exist 2-EPPs producing $`k`$ EPR pairs from $`n`$ pairs with up to $`t`$ errors satisfying

$$kn\mathrm{log}_2\left[\underset{j=0}{\overset{t}{}}3^j\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{j}\right)\right]2.$$
(8)
That is, 2-EPPs can come within two qubits of the quantum Hamming bound for all values of $`n`$ and $`t`$. This is in contrast to the case for QECCs, for which the best general lower bound is the quantum Gilbert-Varshamov bound , which shows that there exist stabilizer codes satisfying

$$kn\mathrm{log}_2\left[\underset{j=0}{\overset{2t}{}}3^j\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{j}\right)\right].$$
(9)
(The sum is taken to $`2t`$ rather than $`t`$.) In fact, the lower bound from the corollary is actually better in many cases than the general upper bounds proved on QECCs via linear programming .

###### Proof.

To prove Theorem 2, we have Alice and Bob build up their stabilizer $`S`$ element by element. At each stage, there is a set $``$ of possible errors compatible with all available information. Initially, for instance, $``$ may be the set of all Pauli errors of weight up to $`t`$ (as in the corollary), and later $``$ would be the set of Pauli errors of weight up to $`t`$ which have a particular error syndrome relative to the current stabilizer $`S`$. As Alice and Bob add more generators to their stabilizer, the set $``$ shrinks. Once they have narrowed $``$ down to a single error, they can correct the state. If they have measured $`r`$ generators at this point, they have $`nr`$ EPR pairs remaining after decoding. Thus, the goal is to show that Alice and Bob can reduce the size of $``$ to $`1`$ by measuring at most $`nk`$ stabilizer generators. It is sufficient to consider the case where $``$ does not include two Pauli operators differing only by a factor of $`1`$ or $`\pm i`$.

Suppose we are somewhere in the middle of this procedure, with the set $``$ of currently possible errors. Alice and Bob now must choose a new generator $`M`$ to measure and add to $`S`$. $`M`$ must commute with everything in $`S`$, of course, and should be independent of the previous elements of $`S`$ (i.e., $`MN(S)S`$). There are many possible $`M`$s, but Alice and Bob wish to choose one that comes as close as possible to dividing the set of possible errors in half. That is, $`M`$ commutes with close to half of $``$ and anticommutes with close to half of $``$.

Let $`C(M)`$ be the set of possible errors that commute with $`M`$ and $`A(M)`$ be the set of possible errors that anticommute with $`M`$. Then, when Alice and Bob measure $`M`$, the new set of possible errors will be either $`C(M)`$ or $`A(M)`$, depending on the measurement result. In the worst case, it will be the larger of these two sets, so our goal is to show that $`\mathrm{max}(|C(M)|,|A(M)|)`$ is not much larger than $`||/2`$. Alice and Bob repeat this process until the set of possible errors has shrunk to a single operator, at which point they know the error and can correct it. The number of generators they must add to the stabilizer to do this is $`nk`$, and we wish to show that in the worst case, $`nk`$ is not much larger than

$$\mathrm{log}_2||=\mathrm{log}_2\left[\underset{j=0}{\overset{t}{}}3^j\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{j}\right)\right].$$
(10)
For any $`E,F`$, we say $`PN(S)`$ separates the pair $`(E,F)`$ iff $`E^{}FA(P)`$, so $`EA(P)`$ and $`FC(P)`$ or vice-versa. In fact, precisely half of the elements $`PN(S)`$ separate any pair $`(E,F)`$, but no element of $`S`$ does (since $`E`$ and $`F`$ have the same error syndrome relative to $`S`$). If $`|S|=2^r`$, then $`|N(S)|=2^{nr}`$, so each pair $`(E,F)`$ is separated by $`2^{nr1}`$ elements of $`N(S)S`$. There are $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{||}{2}\right)`$ pairs total, so collectively, the elements of $`N(S)S`$ separate $`2^{nr1}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{||}{2}\right)`$ pairs. On average, then, the elements of $`N(S)S`$ separate

$$\frac{2^{nr1}}{2^{nr}2^r}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{||}{2}\right)>\frac{1}{2}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{||}{2}\right)$$
(11)
pairs each. In particular, there exists $`MN(S)S`$ that separates at least this many pairs.

Now, $`M`$ has the sets $`C(M)`$, $`A(M)`$ and separates $`|C(M)||A(M)|`$ pairs. Also note $`|C(M)|+|A(M)|=||`$. Thus,

$$m(||m)>\frac{1}{2}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{||}{2}\right),$$
(12)
where $`m=\mathrm{max}(|C(M)|,|A(M)|)`$. For instance, when $`||=4`$, we find $`m(4m)>3`$, and since $`m`$ is an integer, $`m=2`$.

If we set $`m=||/2+ϵ`$, then we find

$$\frac{1}{4}||^2ϵ^2>\frac{1}{4}(||^2||),$$
(13)
or

$$ϵ^2<||/4.$$
(14)
Using (14) repeatedly, and bearing in mind that $`m`$ must always be an integer, we can find the number of steps necessary to bring any particular initial value of $`||`$ down to $`1`$. At any stage, given $``$, choosing another stabilizer generator by the above rule gives us a new set $`^{}`$ of possible errors, with

$$|^{}|<(||+\sqrt{||})/2.$$
(15)
We can define an integer sequence $`m_i`$ such that $`m_0=1`$ and $`m_i`$ is the largest integer such that

$$(m_i+\sqrt{m_i})/2m_{i1}+1.$$
(16)
Thus, whenever $`||m_i`$, it follows that $`|^{}|m_{i1}`$. We can therefore reduce the set of possible errors to $`1`$ in at most $`i`$ steps. Below we give $`m_i`$ for small values of $`i`$:

$$124712213767124234.$$
(17)
For larger values of $`i`$, we note that

$`2m_im_{i+1}`$ $``$ $`2(m_i+1)\sqrt{2(m_i+1)}`$ (18)
$``$ $`2m_i\sqrt{2m_i}1.`$ (19)
If

$$2^{i1}m_i2^{i2}+\delta _i,$$
(20)
then

$$2^im_{i+1}2^{i1}+2\delta _i\sqrt{2^i}1.$$
(21)
Let $`\delta _{i+1}=2\delta _i2^{i/2}1`$, and let $`\delta _8=60`$ (since $`2^7m_8=1242^6+60`$). Then for $`i8`$, $`\delta _i(1.5)^{i8}60`$ by induction:

$$\delta _{i+1}(1.5)^{i7}60+\left[(1.5)^{i8}30(\sqrt{2})^{i8}161\right].$$
(22)
In particular, $`\delta _i0`$ for $`i8`$, so for $`i8`$, $`2^{i1}m_i2^{i2}`$. Therefore, when $`||2^j`$, we can reduce the set of possible errors to $`1`$ in at most $`j+2`$ steps, proving the theorem.

Note that this technique of narrowing down the set of possible errors fails if we try to apply it to QECCs. While we can indeed choose a single stabilizer generator $`M_1`$ which separates $``$ into approximately equal sets $`A(M_1)`$, $`C(M_1)`$, choosing the second generator $`M_2`$ is more difficult. For 2-EPPs, we need only consider one of the two sets $`A(M_1)`$, $`C(M_1)`$, whichever is indicated by the first measurement. For a QECC, we do not know which set will be selected, so the second generator $`M_2`$ must divide both of these sets approximately in half. The problem compounds at later steps, as the third generator chosen must simultaneously divide up four sets of possible errors, and the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ generator must be chosen to evenly divide up $`2^{i1}`$ different sets of possible errors all at once. Clearly this is substantially more difficult than splitting just a single set in half, and results in a significantly reduced efficiency for the QECC compared to a 2-EPP.

## 5 Conclusion

We have considered the minimum distance scenario for 2-EPPs and given a number of examples of 2-EPPs that are more efficient than any QECC. The small block EPPs we present might be useful for quantum communication in near-future scenarios. The asymptotic construction we give of 2-EPPs is not very practical, since finding the optimal set of measurements appears to be a computationally difficult task. For practical applications of 2-EPPs, we want the equivalent of an efficient decoding algorithm — namely, an efficient algorithm to tell us what to measure next, and, once all measurements are complete, to tell us how to correct the state.

One way to find such EPPs might be to consider QECCs with good list-decoding algorithms. Since classical error-correcting codes can be substantially more efficient when we only demand list decoding rather than minimum distance decoding , it seems very likely that QECCs would have the same property. Then we might be able to convert the list-decoded QECC to a minimum-distance 2-EPP by choosing just a few additional generators to narrow down the short list of possible errors to a single error.

## Acknowledgements

A. A. is supported by CIAR, NSERC and IQC University Professorship. D. G. is supported by CIAR and NSERC. Part of this work was done while A. A. was at the Institute for Advanced Study (supported by NSF Grant CCR-9987845 and the State of New Jersey) and D. G. was a Long-Term Prize Fellow for the Clay Mathematics Institute. A. A. thanks Ke Yang for discussions that brought this problem to his attention.