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# Phonon-induced decay of the electron spin in quantum dots

## Abstract

We study spin relaxation and decoherence in a GaAs quantum dot due to spin-orbit interaction. We derive an effective Hamiltonian which couples the electron spin to phonons or any other fluctuation of the dot potential. We show that the spin decoherence time $`T_2`$ is as large as the spin relaxation time $`T_1`$, under realistic conditions. For the Dresselhaus and Rashba spin-orbit couplings, we find that, in leading order, the effective magnetic field can have only fluctuations transverse to the applied magnetic field. As a result, $`T_2=2T_1`$ for arbitrarily large Zeeman splittings, in contrast to the naively expected case $`T_2T_1`$. We show that the spin decay is drastically suppressed for certain magnetic field directions and values of the Rashba coupling constant. Finally, for the spin coupling to acoustic phonons, we show that $`T_2=2T_1`$ for all spin-orbit mechanisms in leading order in the electron-phonon interaction.

Phase coherence of spin in quantum dots (QDs) is of central importance for spin-based quantum computation in the solid state Loss97 ; Spintronics . Sufficiently long coherence times are needed for implementing quantum algorithms and error correction schemes. If the qubit is operated as a classical bit, its decay time is given by the spin relaxation time $`T_1`$, which is the time of a spin-flip process. For quantum computation, however, the spin decoherence time $`T_2`$ — the lifetime of a coherent superposition of spin up and spin down states — must be sufficiently long. In semiconductor QDs, the spin coherence is limited by the dot intrinsic degrees of freedom, such as phonons, spins of nuclei, excitations on the Fermi surface (e.g. in metallic gates), fluctuating impurity states nearby the dot, electromagnetic fields, etc. It is well known (and experimentally verified) that the $`T_1`$ time of spin in QDs is extremely long, extending up to $`100\mu \mathrm{s}`$. The decoherence time $`T_2`$, in its turn, is limited by both spin-flip and dephasing processes, and can be much smaller than $`T_1`$, although its upper bound is $`T_22T_1`$. Knowledge of the mechanisms of spin relaxation and decoherence in QDs can allow one to find regimes with the least spin decay.

Recently, the spin relaxation time $`T_1`$ in a single-electron GaAs QD was measured Hanson  by means of a pulsed relaxation measurement technique (PRMT) Fujisawa . This technique was previously applied to measure the triplet-to-singlet spin relaxation in a two-electron quantum dot Fujisawa1 , yielding a spin relaxation time of $`200\mu \mathrm{s}`$. The application of the PRMT to Zeeman sublevels became possible with resolving the Zeeman splitting in dc transport spectroscopy Hanson ; Potok , which required a magnetic field $`B>5\mathrm{T}`$. The results of Ref. Hanson,  show that $`T_1>50\mu \mathrm{s}`$ at $`B=7.5\mathrm{T}`$ and $`14\mathrm{T}`$, with no indication of a $`B`$-field dependence. Experimental values for the spin $`T_2`$ time in a single QD are not available yet, but an ESR scheme for its measurement has been proposed EngelLossPRLPRB . The ensemble spin decoherence time $`T_2^{}`$ was measured in $`n`$-doped GaAs bulk semiconductors Kikkawa , demonstrating coherent spin precession over times exceeding $`T_2^{}100\mathrm{ns}`$. This indicates that the decoherence time of a single spin is even larger, $`T_2T_2^{}`$. However, the mechanisms of spin decoherence for extended and localized electrons are rather different (cf. Ref. Pikus, ) and, therefore, the result of Ref. Kikkawa,  is not conclusive for electrons in QDs.

Different mechanisms of spin relaxation in QDs have been considered, such as spin-phonon coupling via spin-orbit Khaetskii ; Khaetskii2  or hyperfine interaction Erlingsson , and spin-nuclear coupling BLD ; KhaetskiiLossGlazman ; MerculovEfrosRosen . The spin-orbit mechanisms yield no spin decay at $`B=0`$, due to the Kramers degeneracy of the dot states. Interestingly, for GaAs QDs, the orbital effect of $`B`$ leads to no spin decay in lowest order in spin-orbit interaction Khaetskii ; Khaetskii2 ; Halperin ; AleinerFalko . This is due to the special form (linear in momentum) of the spin-orbit coupling in two-dimensions (2D). The leading order contribution is, thus, proportional to the Zeeman splitting and leads to long spin-flip times $`T_1`$ in GaAs QDs varying strongly with the $`B`$-field Khaetskii . However, previous theories do not apply to the high values of $`B`$ used in recent experiments Hanson , and thus, no comparison could be made so far. As for the nuclear mechanism, the electron spin decay can be suppressed by applying a $`B`$-field or by polarizing the nuclear system BLD ; KhaetskiiLossGlazman .

In this Letter, we show that the spin $`T_2`$ time, caused by spin-orbit interaction in GaAs QDs, is as large as the spin $`T_1`$ time. We assume low temperatures, $`T\mathrm{}\omega _0`$, where $`\mathrm{}\omega _0`$ is the size-quantization energy of the dot, and with no external noise in the applied magnetic field $`B`$. We, thus, argue that the lower bound $`T_150\mu \mathrm{s}`$ established in Ref. Hanson,  is, in fact, also a lower bound for $`T_2`$. Furthermore, we show that the spin decay can be reduced by a special choice of direction of $`𝐁`$, if there is Rashba spin-orbit interaction.

The Hamiltonian describing the electron in a QD reads

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`H_d+H_Z+H_{SO}+U_{ph},`$ (1)
$`H_d`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{2m^{}}}+U(𝐫),`$ (2)
$`H_{SO}`$ $`=`$ $`\beta (p_x\sigma _x+p_y\sigma _y)+\alpha (p_x\sigma _yp_y\sigma _x),`$ (3)
$`H_Z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g\mu _B𝐁𝝈,`$ (4)
where $`𝐩=i\mathrm{}\mathbf{}+(e/c)𝐀(𝐫)`$ is the electron 2D kinetic momentum, $`U(𝐫)`$ is the lateral confining potential, with $`𝐫=(x,y)`$, and $`𝝈`$ are the Pauli matrices. The axes $`x`$ and $`y`$ point along the main crystallographic directions in the $`(001)`$ plane of GaAs. The spin-orbit coupling is given by the Hamiltonian (3), where the term proportional to $`\beta `$ originates from the bulk Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling, which is due to the absence of inversion symmetry in the GaAs lattice; the term proportional to $`\alpha `$ represents the Rashba spin-orbit coupling, which can be present in quantum wells if the confining potential (in our case along the z-axis) is asymmetric. The magnetic field $`𝐁=B(\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\phi ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\phi ,\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$ defines the spin quantization axis via the Zeeman term (4). The phonon potential is given by

$$U_{ph}(𝐫)=\underset{𝐪j}{}\frac{F(q_z)e^{i𝐪_{}𝐫}}{\sqrt{2\rho _c\omega _{qj}/\mathrm{}}}(e\beta _{𝐪j}iq\mathrm{\Xi }_{𝐪j})(b_{𝐪j}^{}+b_{𝐪j})$$

where $`b_{𝐪j}^{}`$ creates an acoustic phonon with wave vector $`𝐪=(𝐪_{},q_z)`$, branch index $`j`$, and dispersion $`\omega _{qj}`$; $`\rho _c`$ is the sample density \[volume is set to unity in (Phonon-induced decay of the electron spin in quantum dots)\]. The factor $`F(q_z)`$ equals unity for $`|q_z|d^1`$ and vanishes for $`|q_z|d^1`$, where $`d`$ is the characteristic size of the quantum well along the $`z`$-axis. We take into account both piezo-electric ($`\beta _{𝐪j}`$) and deformation potential ($`\mathrm{\Xi }_{𝐪j}`$) kinds of electron-phonon interaction. For $`\beta _{𝐪j}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{𝐪j}`$, we refer the reader to Ref. GantmakherLevinson, . Next, we derive an effective Hamiltonian, which describes the spin dynamics, decoherence and relaxation at low temperatures $`T\mathrm{}\omega _0`$.

The electron spin couples to phonons due to the spin-orbit interaction (3). For typical GaAs QDs the spin-orbit length $`\lambda _{SO}=\mathrm{}/m^{}\beta `$ is much larger than the electron orbit size $`\lambda `$. In 2D, there is no linear in $`\lambda /\lambda _{SO}`$ contribution to the spin-phonon coupling at zero Zeeman splitting Khaetskii ; Khaetskii2 ; Halperin ; AleinerFalko . Here, we consider a finite magnetic field, $`m^{}\beta ^2g\mu _BB\mathrm{}\omega _0`$, for which the linear in $`\lambda /\lambda _{SO}`$ contribution to the spin–phonon coupling dominates the spin decay. Using perturbation theory (or Schrieffer-Wolff transformation), we obtain the effective Hamiltonian note1

$`H_{\mathrm{eff}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g\mu _B(𝐁+\delta 𝐁(t))𝝈,`$ (5)
$`\delta 𝐁(t)=2𝐁\times 𝛀(t),`$ (6)
where $`𝛀(t)`$ is defined as follows

$$𝛀(t)=\psi |[\left(\widehat{L}_d^1𝝃\right),U_{ph}(t)]|\psi .$$
(7)
Here, $`|\psi `$ is the electron orbital wave function, $`\widehat{L}_d`$ is the dot Liouvillean, $`\widehat{L}_dA=[H_d,A]`$. The vector $`𝝃`$ has a simple form in the coordinate frame: $`x^{}=(x+y)/\sqrt{2}`$, $`y^{}=(xy)/\sqrt{2}`$, $`z^{}=z`$, namely, $`𝝃=(y^{}/\lambda _{},x^{}/\lambda _+,0)`$, where $`1/\lambda _\pm =m^{}(\beta \pm \alpha )/\mathrm{}`$. Eq. (6) contains one of our main results: in 1st order in spin-orbit interaction, there can be only transverse fluctuations of the effective magnetic field, i.e. $`\delta 𝐁(t)𝐁=0`$. This statement holds true for spin coupling to any fluctuations, be it the noise of a gate voltage or coupling to particle-hole excitations in a Fermi sea. Next, we consider the decay of the electron spin, $`𝐒=𝝈/2`$, governed by the Hamiltonian (5).

The phonons which are emitted or absorbed by the electron leave the dot during a time $`\tau _c`$, $`d/s\tau _c\lambda /s`$, where $`s`$ is the sound velocity. The electron spin decays over a much longer time span in typical structures, and, therefore, undergoes many uncorrelated scattering events. In this regime, the dynamics and decay of the spin is governed by the Bloch equation Slichter

$$\dot{𝐒}=𝝎\times 𝐒\mathrm{\Gamma }𝐒+𝚼,$$
(8)
where $`𝝎=\omega 𝒍`$, with $`\omega =g\mu _BB/\mathrm{}`$ and $`𝒍=𝐁/B`$. For a generic $`\delta 𝐁(t)`$, we find that in the Born-Markov approximation Slichter ; LossDiVin2003  the tensor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}`$ can be written as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }^r+\mathrm{\Gamma }^d`$, with

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^r=\delta _{ij}\left(\delta _{pq}l_pl_q\right)J_{pq}^+(\omega )(\delta _{ip}l_il_p)J_{pj}^+(\omega )`$
$`\delta _{ij}\epsilon _{kpq}l_kI_{pq}^{}(\omega )+\epsilon _{ipq}l_pI_{qj}^{}(\omega ),`$ (9)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^d=\delta _{ij}l_pl_qJ_{pq}^+(0)l_il_pJ_{pj}^+(0),`$ (10)
where $`J_{ij}^\pm (w)=\mathrm{Re}\left[J_{ij}(w)\pm J_{ij}(w)\right]`$ and $`I_{ij}^\pm (w)=\mathrm{Im}\left[J_{ij}(w)\pm J_{ij}(w)\right]`$ are given by the spectral function

$$J_{ij}(w)=\frac{g^2\mu _B^2}{2\mathrm{}^2}_0^+\mathrm{}\delta B_i(0)\delta B_j(t)e^{iwt}𝑑t.$$
(11)
The inhomogeneous part in Eq. (8) is given by

$`2\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_i`$ $`=`$ $`l_jJ_{ij}^{}(\omega )l_iJ_{jj}^{}(\omega )+\epsilon _{ipq}I_{pq}^+(\omega )`$ (12)
$`+\epsilon _{iqk}l_kl_p\left[I_{pq}^+(\omega )I_{pq}^+(0)\right],`$
where $`\epsilon _{ijk}`$ is the anti-symmetric tensor (with Einstein summation convention) and we have assumed that $`\delta 𝐁(t)=0`$. Eq. (8) describes spin decay in a number of problems, such as electron scattering off impurities in bulk systems, nuclear spin scattering Slichter , etc. In our notation, the spin decay comes from the symmetric part of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, whereas the anti-symmetric part leads to a correction to $`𝝎`$ in Eq. (8). The tensor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^r`$ describes spin decay due to processes of energy relaxation, such as, e.g., emission/absorption of a phonon. Therefore, the $`T_1`$ time is entirely determined by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^r`$, see below. The tensor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^d`$ can be non-zero only due to elastic scattering of spin, i.e. due to dephasing. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^d`$ contributes to the decoherence time $`T_2`$, and so does $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^r`$. In many cases, however, the latter contribution is negligible, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^d`$ entirely dominates the spin decoherence Slichter . This is in strong contrast to what we find here for an electron localized in a QD. To illustrate this, we first consider an example when $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^d`$ dominates the spin decoherence and then return to our case. A textbook example is $`\delta B_i(0)\delta B_j(t)=\overline{b}^2\delta _{ij}\mathrm{exp}(|t|/\tau _c)`$. Choosing $`𝒍=(0,0,1)`$, we obtain from Eqs. (9) - (11) the non-zero elements: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{xx}^r=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{yy}^r=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{zz}^r/2=\gamma _n^2\overline{b}^2\tau _c/(1+\omega ^2\tau _c^2)`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{xx}^d=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{yy}^d=\gamma _n^2\overline{b}^2\tau _c`$, where $`\gamma _n=g\mu _B/\mathrm{}`$. The longitudinal component $`S_z`$ decays over the time $`T_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{zz}^1=1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_{zz}^r`$. The transverse components decay over the time $`T_2=1/(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{xx}^r+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{xx}^d)`$. At $`\omega 1/\tau _c`$, the contribution of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{xx}^r`$ to $`T_2`$ is negligible, and hence, $`T_2T_1`$. The latter relation has widely been quoted in the literature on quantum computation. In stark contrast to this example, we show now below that there are no intrinsic dephasing mechanisms for our case, which would justify this relation for the electron spin in GaAs QDs at $`T\mathrm{}\omega _0`$.

We start with calculating the spin decay due to the mechanism (6). Here, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^d`$ is identically zero, due to the transverse nature of the fluctuating field $`\delta 𝐁`$. This can be inferred from Eqs. (10) and (11), noticing that each term in (10) contains $`𝒍\delta 𝐁=0`$. In order to calculate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^r`$, we first find the main axes of the tensor $`J_{ij}(w)`$, see Eq. (11). $`J_{ij}(w)`$ is diagonal in the frame $`(X,Y,Z)`$, which is obtained from $`(x^{},y^{},z)`$ by a rotation with Euler angles $`\phi ^{}`$, $`\theta `$, and $`\chi `$. Here, the angles $`\phi ^{}=\phi \pi /4`$ and $`\theta `$ give $`𝐁`$ in the frame $`(x^{},y^{},z)`$, and $`\chi `$ depends on the details of the dot confining potential $`U(𝐫)`$. It can be determined from $`\delta B_X\delta B_Y(t)=0`$. Assuming $`U(𝐫)=U(r)`$, we find note3

$$\mathrm{tan}2\chi =\frac{2\left(\lambda _+^2\lambda _{}^2\right)l_x^{}l_y^{}l_z}{\lambda _+^2\left(l_y^{}^2l_z^2l_x^{}^2\right)+\lambda _{}^2\left(l_x^{}^2l_z^2l_y^{}^2\right)}.$$
(13)
We now consider a harmonic confinement, $`U(r)=m^{}\omega _0^2r^2/2`$, and evaluate $`𝛀(t)`$ of Eq. (7) for the ground state $`\psi (𝐫)=\mathrm{exp}\left(r^2/2\lambda ^2\right)/\lambda \sqrt{\pi }`$, where $`\lambda ^2=\mathrm{}^1\sqrt{(m^{}\omega _0)^2+(eB_z/2c)^2}`$. Using the identity note2

$$y=\frac{2}{m^{}\omega _0^2}\widehat{L}_d\left(\frac{}{y}+\frac{ieB_z}{\mathrm{}c}x\right),$$
(14)
we find an expression for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_x^{}`$, which can be obtained from the r.h.s. of Eq. (Phonon-induced decay of the electron spin in quantum dots) by replacing

$$\mathrm{exp}\left(i𝐪_{}𝐫\right)\frac{2iq_y^{}}{m^{}\omega _0^2\lambda _{}}\mathrm{exp}\left(q_{}^2\lambda ^2/4\right).$$
(15)
Furthermore, an expression for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_y^{}`$ is obtained in the same way, using the substitution (15) with a different prefactor, namely with $`(q_y^{}/\lambda _{})(q_x^{}/\lambda _+)`$. Finally, for the real part of the correlator $`J_{ij}(w)`$, we obtain

$`\mathrm{Re}J_{XX}(w)={\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^2w^3(N_w+1)}{(\mathrm{\Lambda }_+m^{}\omega _0^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{}^3}{\rho _0s_j^5}}{\displaystyle _0^{\pi /2}}𝑑\vartheta \mathrm{sin}^3\vartheta `$
$`\times e^{(w\lambda \mathrm{sin}\vartheta )^2/2s_j^2}\left|F\left({\displaystyle \frac{|w|}{s_j}}\mathrm{cos}\vartheta \right)\right|^2\left(e^2\overline{\beta }_{j\vartheta }^2+{\displaystyle \frac{w^2}{s_j^2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}_j^2\right),`$ (16)
where $`N_w=\left(e^{\mathrm{}w/T}1\right)^1`$, and $`s_j`$ is the sound velocity for branch $`j`$. For GaAs, we use $`s_14.7\times 10^5\mathrm{cm}/\mathrm{s}`$ and $`s_2=s_33.37\times 10^5\mathrm{cm}/\mathrm{s}`$. Furthermore, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}_j=\delta _{j,1}\mathrm{\Xi }_0`$ with $`\mathrm{\Xi }_07eV`$, and $`\overline{\beta }_{1,\vartheta }=3\sqrt{2}\pi h_{14}\kappa ^1\mathrm{sin}^2\vartheta \mathrm{cos}\vartheta `$, $`\overline{\beta }_{2,\vartheta }=\sqrt{2}\pi h_{14}\kappa ^1\mathrm{sin}2\vartheta `$, $`\overline{\beta }_{3,\vartheta }=\sqrt{2}\pi h_{14}\kappa ^1(3\mathrm{cos}^2\vartheta 1)\mathrm{sin}\vartheta `$, with $`h_{14}0.16\mathrm{C}/\mathrm{m}^2`$ and $`\kappa 13`$. The effective spin-orbit length $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_+`$ in Eq. (16) is given by

$$\frac{2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pm ^2}=\frac{1l_x^{}^2}{\lambda _{}^2}+\frac{1l_y^{}^2}{\lambda _+^2}\pm \sqrt{\left(\frac{1l_x^{}^2}{\lambda _{}^2}+\frac{1l_y^{}^2}{\lambda _+^2}\right)^2\frac{4l_z^2}{\lambda _+^2\lambda _{}^2}}.$$
(17)
$`\mathrm{Re}J_{YY}(w)`$ is obtained from Eq. (16) by substituting $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_+\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}`$, and $`J_{ZZ}(w)=0`$. $`\mathrm{Im}J_{XX}(w)`$ and $`\mathrm{Im}J_{YY}(w)`$ are irrelevant for our discussion, see further. From Eq. (9), we obtain $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{XX}^r=J_{YY}^+(\omega )`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{YY}^r=J_{XX}^+(\omega )`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ZZ}^r=J_{XX}^+(\omega )+J_{YY}^+(\omega )`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{XY}^r=I_{YY}^{}(\omega )`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{YX}^r=I_{XX}^{}(\omega )`$. Since $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}/\omega \omega \lambda ^2/\omega _0\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pm ^21`$, we can solve the secular equation iteratively and obtain note4

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_1}}:=l_pl_q\mathrm{\Gamma }_{pq}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ZZ},`$ (18)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_2}}:={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\delta _{pq}l_pl_q\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{pq}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{XX}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{YY}\right).`$ (19)
Then, the solution of Eq. (8) reads $`S_X(t)=S_{}e^{t/T_2}\mathrm{sin}(\omega t+\varphi )`$, $`S_Y(t)=S_{}e^{t/T_2}\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi )`$, and $`S_Z(t)=S_T+\left(S_Z^0S_T\right)e^{t/T_1}`$, with the thermodynamic value of spin being $`𝐒_T=𝒍\left(𝒍𝚼\right)T_1=(𝒍/2)\mathrm{tanh}(\mathrm{}\omega /2k_BT)`$, and the initial value $`𝐒(0)=(S_{}\mathrm{sin}\varphi ,S_{}\mathrm{cos}\varphi ,S_Z^0)`$. For our special situation with purely transverse fluctuations ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }^d=0`$), we obtain

$$\frac{1}{T_1}=\frac{2}{T_2}=J_{XX}^+(\omega )+J_{YY}^+(\omega ).$$
(20)
Keeping in mind the setup of Ref. Hanson, , we plot the relaxation rate $`1/T_1`$ as a function of $`B`$ for $`\theta =\pi /2`$ and $`\alpha =0`$ on Fig. 1 (solid curve). We find that $`1/T_1`$ has a plateau in a wide range of magnetic fields (cf. Ref. Hanson, ), due to a crossover from the piezoelectric-transverse (dashed curve) to the deformation potential (dot-dashed curve) mechanism of electron-phonon interaction. For arbitrary $`\phi `$, $`\theta `$, and $`\alpha `$, we have $`1/T_1=f/T_1(\theta =0,\alpha =0)`$ with

$$f=\frac{1}{\beta ^2}\left[(\alpha ^2+\beta ^2)(1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )+2\alpha \beta \mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}2\phi \right]$$
(21)
The angular dependence of $`1/T_1`$ for $`\alpha =0`$ has been obtained before Khaetskii . Note that $`\sqrt{f}`$ describes an ellipsoid in the frame $`(x^{},y^{},z)`$, i.e. $`f=x_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+y_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+z^2`$, with dimensionless $`x^{},y^{},z`$ obeying $`(x^{}/a)^2+(y^{}/b)^2+(z/c)^2=1`$, where $`a=1+\alpha /\beta `$, $`b=1\alpha /\beta `$, and $`c=\sqrt{a^2+b^2}`$. Note that, if $`\alpha =\beta `$, then $`b=0`$, i.e. $`1/T_1`$ vanishes if the $`B`$-field is along $`y^{}`$. The same is true along the $`x^{}`$ axis for $`\alpha =\beta `$. This special case ($`\alpha =\pm \beta `$) has been discussed previously for extended electron states in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) SchlEugLoss . Note that the Hamiltonian (1) conserves the spin component $`\sigma _{y^{}(x^{})}`$ for $`\alpha =\beta `$ ($`\alpha =\beta `$) and $`𝐁y^{}(x^{})`$. This spin conservation results in $`T_1`$ being infinite to all orders in the spin-orbit Hamiltonian (3). At the same time, the decoherence rate $`1/T_2`$ reduces to the next order contribution of (3). However, as we show below, a single-phonon process is inefficient in inducing dephasing and, therefore, $`1/T_2`$ can be non-zero only in the next order in electron-phonon interaction. Next, we note that a long lived spin state also occurs in a different GaAs structure, namely, for a 2DEG grown in the $`(110)`$ crystallographic direction. Then, the normal to the 2DEG plane component of spin is conserved Dyak , provided there is no Rashba coupling.

We discuss now other spin-orbit mechanisms. In Eq. (3), we did not include the so-called $`k^3`$-terms of the Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling Dyak , i.e. $`H_{SO}\beta d^2\left(\sigma _x\{k_x,k_y^2\}\sigma _y\{k_y,k_x^2\}\right)`$. They are parametrically small ($`d^2/\lambda ^21`$) in the 2D limit, compared to the retained ones. However, their contribution to the spin decay can be important, if $`gd^2/\lambda ^2`$ and $`\lambda ^2d\lambda _{S0}`$, since the orbital effect of the magnetic field contributes here in the first place. Still, for typical GaAs QDs, these mechanisms are negligible.

Additional spin decay mechanisms arise from the direct spin-phonon interaction Khaetskii . The strain field produced by phonons couples to the electron spin via the spin-orbit interaction, resulting in the term $`\mathrm{\Delta }H^{}=(V_0/4)\epsilon _{ijk}\sigma _i\{u_{ij},p_k\}`$, where $`p_i`$ is the bulk kinetic momentum, $`u_{ij}`$ is the phonon strain tensor, and $`V_0=8\times 10^7\mathrm{cm}/\mathrm{s}`$ for GaAs. A similar mechanism occurs in a $`B`$-field, due to $`g`$-factor fluctuations caused by lattice distortion. This yields $`\mathrm{\Delta }H^{\prime \prime }=\stackrel{~}{g}\mu _B_{ij}u_{ij}\sigma _iB_j`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{g}10`$ for GaAs. The contribution of these mechanisms to the spin-flip rates in QDs has been estimated in Ref. Khaetskii, . Except for the $`\alpha =\pm \beta `$ cases discussed above, the direct mechanisms are usually negligible in QDs. Here, we find that such spin-phonon couplings do not violate the equality $`T_2=2T_1`$ note6 . For this, we note that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^d=0`$ for a generic $`\delta B_i=_𝐪M_i(𝐪)(b_𝐪^{}+b_𝐪)`$ in Eq. (5), if $`q\left|M(𝐪)\right|^20`$ at $`q0`$. Obviously, this condition is satisfied for the direct spin-phonon mechanisms, since the strain tensor $`u_{ij}`$ vanishes at $`q=0`$. The same follows for the Hamiltonian (1) with the phonon potential (Phonon-induced decay of the electron spin in quantum dots) and an arbitrary $`H_{SO}`$; the physical explanation being that the potential of long-wave phonons is constant over the dot size and, thus, commutes with $`H_{SO}`$. Finally, we note that, at temperatures $`T\mathrm{}\omega _0`$, there can be dephasing mechanisms Semenov , which can result in $`T_2T_1`$.

In conclusion, we have shown that the decoherence time $`T_2`$ of an electron spin in a GaAs QD is as large as the relaxation time $`T_1`$ for the spin decay based on spin-orbit mechanisms. We acknowledge support from the Swiss NSF, NCCR Basel, EU RTN ’Spintronics’, US DARPA, ARO, and ONR.


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# Two-dimensional trapping of dipolar molecules in time-varying electric fields

(, PREPRINT)

## Abstract

Simultaneous two-dimensional trapping of neutral dipolar molecules in low- and high-field seeking states is analyzed. A trapping potential of the order of 20 mK can be produced for molecules like ND3 with time-dependent electric fields. The analysis is in agreement with an experiment where slow molecules with longitudinal velocities of the order of 20 m/s are guided between four 50 cm long rods driven by an alternating electric potential at a frequency of a few kHz.

Cold molecules offer new perspectives, e.g. for high precision measurements Hinds  and collisional physics studies Balakrishnan . Pioneering work on cold molecules has been done using cryogenic buffer gas cooling Weinstein . Another promising technique for the production of cold molecules is based on the interaction of dipolar molecules with inhomogeneous electric fields. For example, low-field seeking molecules (LFS) have been slowed down in suitably tailored time-varying electric fields MeyerDecel  and have been trapped in inhomogeneous electrostatic fields MeyerRing ; MeyerTrap . Furthermore, efficient filtering Bookcont  of slow LFS from an effusive thermal source using a bent electrostatic quadrupole guide has been demonstrated Rangwala .

Compared to LFS, the manipulation of high-field seeking molecules (HFS) is much more difficult. This is mainly due to the fact that electrostatic maxima are not allowed in free space, and hence, HFS are quickly lost on the electrodes. Nevertheless, guiding of HFS in Keppler orbits Loesch  and deceleration as well as acceleration of HFS MeyerAG  is possible. Despite this progress in manipulating dipolar molecules, all techniques realized so far are suited only for either LFS or HFS, not both simultaneously. However, in future experiments with trapped samples of cold molecules, collisions or the interaction with light fields are likely to change HFS into LFS and vice versa. Therefore, a technique to trap both species simultaneously is vital. In this Letter, we investigate both theoretically and experimentally a new technique, which can trap both HFS and LFS. In particular, we report on the first experimental demonstration of two-dimensional trapping of slow ND3 molecules from an effusive source in a bent four-wire guide driven by an alternating electric field.

Trapping neutral particles in oscillating electric fields works as follows Shimizu92 . The force on a molecule in an electric field, $`E`$, is given by $`\stackrel{}{F}=\stackrel{}{}W(E)`$, with $`W(E)`$ the Stark energy of the molecule. Polar molecules like ND3 and H2CO predominantly experience a linear Stark shift, $`W=sE`$, where $`s`$ is the slope of the Stark shift. Other molecules, however, and atoms usually experience a quadratic Stark effect, $`W=\frac{1}{2}\alpha E^2`$, with the polarizability $`\alpha `$.

The inhomogeneous electric fields required for trapping can be realized in many different ways. Our trapping configuration is sketched in Fig. 1. It consists of 4 parallel rods with voltages as indicated. The field is rapidly switched between two dipole-like configurations with angular frequency $`\omega `$. Close to the center, the field can be expanded harmonically,

$$E=E_0+H(t)\beta (x^2y^2),$$
(1)
where $`E_0`$ is the field in the center and $`\beta `$ is (half) the curvature of the field. The step function $`H(t)=1`$ if $`nT<t<(n+\frac{1}{2})T`$ and $`H(t)=1`$ otherwise, with $`T=2\pi /\omega `$ the period of the driving field and $`n`$ an integer.

Independent of the slope and the sign of the Stark shift, the saddle-like dipole potential derived from Eq.(1) confines the particle in one direction and repels it in the perpendicular direction, depending on time. Therefore, the time average of the force is small at every position, and identical to zero for a linear Stark shift. However, the particle performs a micromotion which is locked to the external driving field so that the time-averaged force does not cancel and the particle experiences a net attractive force towards the center. This conclusion is independent from the exact form of H(t). Therefore, a sinusoidal change between two configurations would also work. However, instantaneous switching is more convenient to realize in the laboratory.

It is not difficult to solve the equation of motion for molecules in this dynamic field. As the x and y degrees of freedom separate, the equation of motion is reduced to one dimension. It reads $`\ddot{x}=H(t)\mathrm{\Omega }^2x`$, where we have introduced $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2=2s\beta /m`$ for a linear Stark shift and $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2=2\alpha E_0\beta /m`$ for a quadratic Stark shift of a particle with mass $`m`$. Following Morinaga94 , we search for orbits of the form $`(x(t),\dot{x}(t))=U(t)(x(0),\dot{x}(0))`$ with $`U(nT+t)=U(t)[U(T)]^n`$. Periodic solutions have the form $`U(T)=U_2(T/2)U_1(T/2)`$, with $`(U_1(t),U_2(t))=((\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cosh}(t\mathrm{\Omega })& \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\mathrm{sinh}(t\mathrm{\Omega })\\ \mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{sinh}(t\mathrm{\Omega })& \mathrm{cosh}(t\mathrm{\Omega })\end{array}),(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}(t\mathrm{\Omega })& \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\mathrm{sin}(t\mathrm{\Omega })\\ \mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{sin}(t\mathrm{\Omega })& \mathrm{cos}(t\mathrm{\Omega })\end{array}))`$the evolution operators for the first and the second half cycle. From this, the main stable region can be found for $`|\mathrm{\Omega }T|3.75`$. Narrow higher-order stable regions also exist but will further be neglected. Hence there exists a sharp drive-frequency threshold for every Stark shift, above which trapping is possible, irrespective of the sign of the Stark shift and independent of the initial conditions.

Note that the finite extension of our trap, $`|x|x_{max}`$, limits the trap depth. This can be estimated by averaging over the micromotion, which is assumed to be smaller and faster than the macromotion. This results in a trap depth $`m\pi ^2x_{\mathrm{max}}^2\mathrm{\Omega }^4/(24\omega ^2)`$, typically of the order of 10 mK Ghosh . For a more realistic estimate, a detailed analysis is made below.

It is interesting to compare molecule trapping with ion trapping in a Paul trap Ghosh . An ion experiences the Coulomb force $`\stackrel{}{F}_\mathrm{C}`$, which has zero divergence, $`\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{F}_\mathrm{C}=0`$. As a consequence, the the magnitude of the force is the same for positive and negative ions. For molecules with a linear Stark shift and in the harmonic approximation, $`\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{F}=0`$, and there is an accidental correspondence with the equations of motion of an ion in a Paul trap. It should nevertheless be emphasized that trapping neutral molecules differs from ion trapping in many ways. First, whereas ions are monopolar particles which can be trapped in an oscillating quadrupole field, neutrals have permanent or induced dipoles which can be trapped in an oscillating dipole field. Second, in contrast to ions, the force on a molecule in an electric field depends dramatically on the internal state of the molecule. Third, as is obvious from Fig. 1, the harmonic approximation is only valid in a small region around the center. In contrast to ions, which have vanishingly little kinetic energy compared to the $`10^5`$K trap depth, the temperature of the molecules is likely to be comparable to the trap depth. Hence, molecules explore the full volume of the shallow trap, including the outer regions. These outer regions are of paramount importance in our experiment. It is here that the harmonic approximation breaks down. The molecule-field interaction even allows $`\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{F}0`$. This leads to different behavior for HFS and LFS away from the center, where the time-average of the force in configurations 1) and 2) is not zero. In particular, the regions near the electrodes are net repulsive for LFS and net attractive for HFS.

To take all these effects into account, we have performed a two-dimensional Monte Carlo simulation. In the simulation, point-like particles are injected on-axis in a random phase of the driving field. The input velocities $`v_x`$ and $`v_y`$ are varied. The particles are propagated under the influence of the periodically poled Stark force for 10 ms, a typical time in the experiment. They are considered lost if they leave a radius $`r_{max}=1.25`$mm. The amount of trapped trajectories can be expressed as an area $`A`$ in the two-dimensional $`v_xv_y`$-velocity space quadrant. $`A`$ is a good measure for the flux, if the guidable velocities are equally present in the source. Results for four different molecular states of ND3 exhibiting linear Stark shifts with a slope, $`s`$, of $`\pm `$ 0.6 cm-1/(100 $`\frac{kV}{cm}`$) and $`\pm `$ 1.2 cm-1/(100 $`\frac{kV}{cm}`$) are plotted in Fig. 2. For a molecular state with a Stark shift of 1.2 cm-1/(100 $`\frac{kV}{cm}`$) and at 9 kHz for our experimental parameters, the occupied $`v_xv_y`$-space has almost a quarter-disc shape, with which a trap depth of approximately 20 mK can be associated.

As expected from the analytic analysis, there is a sharp turn-on frequency above which guiding is possible both for LFS and HFS. For increasing frequencies, the area $`A`$ reaches a maximum before decreasing again for higher frequencies. Note that the maximum of $`A`$ is approximately four times larger for LFS than for HFS, indicating that LFS can be guided more efficiently. This is due to the anharmonicity of the trapping potential away from the center, where stable trajectories exist for LFS with comparatively high initial velocities. This effect also causes the substructure in the LFS curves in Fig. 2. For even higher frequencies, the amplitude of the micromotion becomes very small and the force on the molecules approaches the time-average of the force in configurations 1) and 2). This time-averaged force is small near the center but substantial and repulsive near the electrodes. Stable orbits therefore exist in the high-frequency limit for LFS. The stable orbits occupy disjunct areas in velocity space, of which the area, $`A`$, saturates. The notion of a trap depth becomes difficult in this limit. The behavior of HFS, however, is completely different: With the disappearing micromotion, there are no stable trajectories and $`A`$ vanishes in the limit of high drive frequency.

Obviously, the motion in the full anharmonic potential can be very complicated. In fact, we have found numerical evidence for chaotic motion for some initial conditions. But despite of the complicated dynamics, LFS and HFS are simultaneously trapped and there is a broad overlap between the trapping regions for different Stark shifts at the same frequencies, as evident from Fig. 2.

Our experimental demonstration of AC guiding uses an effusive source of thermal polar ND3 molecules, see the setup shown in Fig. 3 Rangwala . The double-bent guide consists of four wires which pass through two vacuum chambers with two differential pumping sections before ending in a UHV detection chamber. The guide has a length of 500 mm and is made of 2 mm diameter stainless steel rods, with a 1 mm gap between neighboring rods. The radii of curvature of the two bends are 25 mm and the rods are built around the 0.8 mm inner diameter ceramic nozzle, constituting the effusive source. Typical operation pressures in the nozzle are around 0.05 mbar in order to maintain molecular-flow conditions. Most of the molecules are not guided and escape into the first vacuum chamber, where an operational pressure of a few times $`10^7`$ mbar is maintained. In the detection chamber, where a pressure below $`10^{10}`$ mbar is achieved, the guided molecules are detected with an efficiency of about $`10^4`$ counts/molecule by a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS)\[Hiden Analytical, HAL 301/3F\] with a pulse-counting channeltron. The pulses from the channeltron are processed in a multi-channel scaler. The ionization volume of the QMS begins 22 mm behind the guide. To protect the QMS from the high electric fields, a metal shield with a 5 mm diameter hole is placed 1 cm behind the exit of the guide. The time-varying electric fields are generated by switching high voltages with fast push-pull switches. Switching frequencies are typically in the range of a few kHz. In each phase of the alternating field, opposite rods carry voltages of up to $`\pm \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}7}`$kV. Due to the inversion splitting of the vibrational ground state, ND3 shows in good approximation a linear Stark shift in the relevant electric field range (0-100) kV/cm Schawlow .

For detecting ND3 molecules the QMS is set to mass 20. The influence of other gases at this mass is negligible. The QMS does not provide state-selective detection, which is very difficult to achieve if one considers the variety of molecular states involved in a thermal (room-temperature) ensemble. Our simulation, however, shows that the detection of HFS is suppressed, because under the influence of the high electric fields most of the HFS turn around at the exit of the guide, moving backwards on its outside, or they are reflected back into the guide.

To discriminate the guided molecules from background gas and dark counts, the alternating electric field is periodically applied for 200 ms followed by a 200 ms where no field is applied. This on-off sequence is repeated about 40000 times to obtain a good signal-to-noise ratio. From the instant when the alternating field is switched on, the molecules can propagate along the guide and the signal rises. After about 25 ms, the signal has reached 50% of the maximum increase, corresponding to velocities around 20 m/s or about 0.5 K. When the alternating field is switched off the flux instantaneously falls off. The flux of guided molecules is determined by subtracting the background count rate from that during the last 50 ms of the 200 ms-long interval where the field is applied. The same measurement without injecting gas yields no signal.

We now investigate the frequency dependence of the system. For electrode voltages of $`\pm `$5 kV, the switching frequency is varied between (4-15) kHz, and the flux of guided molecules is recorded in frequency steps of 500 Hz. The experimental data in Fig. 4a show that the signal amplitude reaches a pronounced maximum at a frequency of $``$8 kHz. No discernible signal is observed for frequencies below 4 kHz. This behavior can be understood from the simple analytic theory above, acknowledging the thermal ensemble of molecular states. For every molecular state there exists a cut-off frequency corresponding to the associated Stark shift below which no guiding is possible. This frequency increases with the Stark shift. For example, the cut-off frequencies for molecules with Stark shifts of 0.6 cm-1 and 1.2 cm-1 at an electric field strength of 100 kV/cm in our guide are 3.3 kHz and 4.7 kHz, respectively. For small frequencies stable trajectories exist only for molecules with small Stark shifts. These molecules are unlikely to be guided as the potential depth is too small compared to their kinetic energy. Higher frequencies allow stable trajectories for molecules with higher Stark shifts and so the number of guidable states increases. Furthermore the guiding efficiency for molecules with higher Stark shifts is much higher. Both effects cause the rise in the count rate for frequencies below 8 kHz. For higher frequencies the count rate decreases because the guided flux for every molecular state depends on the depth of the potential which drops off with $`\omega ^2`$.

Our conclusions are supported by two additional measurements. First, the dependence between the applied voltage and the frequency $`\omega _0`$ for which optimum guiding exists is analyzed. In the harmonic approximation, the stable region is given by $`|\mathrm{\Omega }T|3.75`$ with $`\mathrm{\Omega }\sqrt{\beta }`$. As the curvature $`\beta `$ scales linearly with the applied voltage $`V`$, we obtain $`\omega _0\sqrt{V}`$. Experimental data are shown together with the expected square root dependence in the inset of Fig. 4a. Unfortunately, the measurements cover only a small voltage interval, because for small voltages no guiding signal could be obtained, whereas sparks occurred for higher voltages. Nevertheless, the measured data agree with the calculated scaling. This allows one to choose the optimum switching frequency for a given voltage. In a second measurement, the flux is measured as a function of the applied voltage, using the optimum frequency for each voltage. The experimental data in Fig. 4b show a quadratic rise in flux with increasing voltage. This is expected for ND3, where most states have a linear Stark shift Rangwala .

To summarize, two-dimensional trapping of neutral molecules with alternating electric fields is demonstrated experimentally. Our result proves that molecules with transverse and longitudinal temperatures of 20 mK and 0.5 K, respectively, can be filtered out of a room temperature effusive source efficiently. Our simulation shows that both HFS and LFS are guided, whereas the low-field seekers are guided and detected with a higher efficiency. The guiding efficiency for both classes will further increase if the injected molecules are precooled with cryogenic methods. An important aspect of our guide is that it is suited to trap laser-cooled atoms as well Shimizu92 . Two-dimensional trapping of both atoms and molecules should therefore be possible. Finally, an extension of our technique to trap sufficiently slow molecules in three dimensions Shimizu92  should be feasible.


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# Quantification of quantum correlation of ensemble of states

## Abstract

We present first measure of quantum correlation of an ensemble of multiparty states. It is based on the idea of minimal entropy production in a locally distinguishable basis measurement. It is shown to be a relative entropy distance from a set of ensembles. For bipartite ensembles, which span the whole bipartite Hilbert space, the measure is bounded below by average relative entropy of entanglement. We naturally obtain a monotonicity axiom for any measure of quantum correlation of ensembles. We evaluate this measure for certain cases. Subsequently we use this measure to propose a complementarity relation between our measure and the accessible information obtainable about the ensemble under local operations. The measure along with the monotonicity axiom are well-defined even for the case of a single system, where the complementarity relation is seen to be yet another face of the “Heisenberg uncertainty relation”.

Quantifying quantum correlation of states is a deeply studied problem IBMhuge ; VPRK ; Vidal-mon2000 ; Horodecki\_limits ; qic  in quantum information. Several measures has been proposed. Prominent among them are distillable entanglement IBM\_purification95 ; IBMhuge , entanglement of formation IBMhuge , relative entropy of entanglement VPRK , etc.

However to our knowledge, the problem of quantification of quantum correlation of an *ensemble* of states has never been studied. In this paper we propose first measure of quantum correlation ($`𝒬`$) of an ensemble of states. A trivial way to quantify quantum correlation of an ensemble of states is to take an average of an individual property of the constituent states in the ensemble. E.g., one could take the average entanglement of formation IBMhuge  of the ensemble states. However such an averaging over a property of the individual states cannot capture the complexity of the ensemble as a whole. To take into account the structure of the ensemble as a whole, the measure must depend on the ensemble as a whole. A simple measure of quantum correlation of multiparty ensembles could be the difference $`𝔻`$ between the globally accessible information and the locally accessible information. However accessible information is an operationally useful quantity, and one aim of defining $`𝒬`$ is to estimate accessible information under different sets of operations. Moreover $`𝔻`$ vanishes for single-party ensembles, whereas $`𝒬`$ will be seen to be nontrivial also in such cases.

After defining the measure, we show that it can be seen as a relative entropy distance from a set of “classical” ensembles. For a bipartite ensemble, which spans the whole bipartite Hilbert space, we show that measure is bounded below by the average relative entropy of entanglement VPRK . In discussing some of its properties, we naturally obtain a monotonicity axiom for any measure of quantum correlation of ensembles. In a natural way, this gives us the first axiom for any measure of quantumness of an ensemble of a single system. We then evaluate the measure for the case of four Bell states (given with equal prior probabilites). We also evaluate the measure for other more general ensembles. We subsequently propose a complementarity relation comp1 ; comp  between this measure of quantum correlation of an ensemble and the accessible information obtainable about the ensemble, under the relevant class of allowable operations. In the case of a single system, this complementarity is partially proven, and is seen to be yet another face of the “Heisenberg uncertainty relation”. Importantly, both the information gathering and disturbance terms in this relation are information-theoretic, in contrast to e.g. FuchsPeresEnglert .

Consider an ensemble of bipartite states $`=\{p_x,|\psi _x^{AB}\}_{x=1}^N`$, that are not necessarily orthogonal. One can for example think of a source that produces the state $`|\psi _x^{AB}`$ (belonging to the Hilbert space $`_A_B`$) with probability $`p_x`$ ($`x=1,2,\mathrm{},N`$), and sends it to two far apart parties Alice(A) and Bob(B). Here of course the probabilities $`p_x`$ are nonnegative and sum up to unity. Let $`𝒜`$ be the span of the states $`|\psi _x^{AB}`$. Let $`\{|a_i^{AB}\}_{i=1}^n`$ be an *orthonormal* basis of $`_A_B`$. Consider the part of $`\{|a_i^{AB}\}_{i=1}^n`$ which has a nonzero overlap with $`𝒜`$ overlap . This part (with nonzero overlap with $`𝒜`$) can be distinguishable or indistinguishable under local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Let $`𝒟_𝒜`$ be the set of all such bases $`\{|a_i^{AB}\}_{i=1}^n`$ whose overlap with $`𝒜`$ is LOCC-distinguishable. Of course, $`n=dim\{_A_B\}N`$.

The measure of quantum correlation $`𝒬`$ for the ensemble $``$ is defined as the minimum entropy produced when dephased (measured) in a basis from $`𝒟_𝒜`$. More precisely,

$$𝒬()=\underset{𝒟_𝒜}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{x=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_xS(\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}p_{i|x}|a_ia_i|).$$

Here $`p_{i|x}`$ is the probability that $`|a_i`$ clicks if the signal state was $`|\psi _x`$, i.e. $`p_{i|x}=|\psi _x|a_i|^2`$. $`S`$ denotes the von Neumann entropy, defined as $`S(\eta )=\text{tr}\eta \mathrm{log}_2\eta `$. Since $`|a_i`$ are orthonormal, $`S(_{i=1}^np_{i|x}|a_ia_i|)=H(\{p_{i|x}\}_{i=1}^n)`$. Here $`H`$ denotes the Shannon entropy, defined as $`H(\{q_j\}_{j=1}^m)=_{j=1}^mq_j\mathrm{log}_2q_j`$, where $`\{q_j\}_{j=1}^m`$ forms a set of probabilities. Therefore

$$𝒬()=\underset{𝒟_𝒜}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{x=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_xH(\{p_{i|x}\}_{i=1}^n).$$

The minimum is taken over all bases in $`𝒟_𝒜`$.

It is interesting to note that one may define $`𝒬`$, for the ensemble $``$, as the minimum entropy produced when dephased in an *arbitrary* basis in $`_A_B`$ so that the resulting ensemble after the measurement is an LOCC-distinguishable set of states.

It is quite straightforward to carry over the above definition to the case of mixed ensembles. For the case of mixed states, one must include in the definition, a subtraction of the initial von Neumann entropy of the signal states. More precisely, consider an ensemble $`^{^{}}=\{p_x,\varrho _x^{AB}\}_{x=1}^N`$ of bipartite signal states, which are not necessarily pure. In this case, $`𝒜`$ will denote the union of the supports of $`\varrho _x^{AB}`$ for $`x=1,2,\mathrm{},N`$. The definition of $`𝒟_𝒜`$ is then exactly the same as for pure signals. Then

$$𝒬(^{^{}})=\underset{𝒟_𝒜}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{x=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_x\left(H(\{p_{i|x}\}_{i=1}^n)S(\varrho _x)\right),$$
(1)
where $`p_{i|x}=a_i\left|\varrho _x^{AB}\right|a_i`$.

Actually, the above notion of $`𝒬`$ as a measure of quantumness can be used in much more general situations than just in the case of a system consisting of two spatially localized subsystems. Suppose that a source produces an ensemble $`\{p_x,\varrho _x\}_{x=1}^N`$, with the $`\varrho _x`$’s defined on some Hilbert space $``$. And as before, let $`𝒜`$ denote the union of the supports of $`\varrho _x`$, and let $`\{|a_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ be an arbitrary complete basis in $``$. Depending on a set of allowed operations, say $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, the nonzero overlap overlap  of $`\{|a_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ with $`𝒜`$ may or may not be distinguishable. Let $`𝒟_𝒜^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ be the set of all bases $`\{|a_i\}_{i=1}^n`$ for which the nonzero overlap with $`𝒜`$ is distinguishable under $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Then the measure of quantumness of the ensemble $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\{p_x,\varrho _x\}_{x=1}^N`$, with respect to the set of allowed operations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, is defined as

$$𝒬(\mathrm{\Gamma })=\underset{𝒟_𝒜^\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{x=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_x\left(H(\{p_{i|x}\}_{i=1}^n)S(\varrho _x)\right),$$
(2)
where $`p_{i|x}`$ is, as before, the probability that $`|a_i`$ clicks given that the signal was $`\varrho _x`$.

When the states $`\varrho _x`$ are bipartite states between A and B, with the Hilbert space $``$ split as $`_A_B`$, and with the allowed operations being LOCC between A and B, we recover the definition given in eq. (1).

For a multiparty ensemble $`\{p_x,\varrho _x^{ABC\mathrm{}}\}`$, defined on the Hilbert space $`_A_B_C\mathrm{}`$, one chooses the bases $`\{|a_i^{ABC\mathrm{}}\}_{i=1}^n`$ spanning this Hilbert space. Then considering the set of allowed operations as LOCC between A, B, C, $`\mathrm{}`$, $`𝒟_𝒜`$ is the set of bases whose nonzero overlap with $`𝒜`$ is distinguishable by such LOCC operations, where $`𝒜`$ is the union of the supports of $`\varrho _x^{ABC\mathrm{}}`$. In this way, we have a measure of quantum correlation of an ensemble of multiparty states.

Importantly, $`𝒬`$ can be defined also for ensembles of single systems. Then $`𝒬`$ is the quantity in eq. (2), with the allowed operations being all quantum mechanical operations. Consequently the dephasing is in any orthonormal basis in $``$. This quantity can be interpreted as a measure of quantumness of the ensemble $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

We now show that $`𝒬(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ is average relative entropy distance from some ensembles of states. We have (see eq. (2)) $`𝒬(\mathrm{\Gamma })=\mathrm{min}_{\{\varsigma _x^{^{}}\}}_xp_x[\text{tr}(\varrho _x\mathrm{log}_2\varsigma _x^{^{}})+\text{tr}(\varrho _x\mathrm{log}_2\varrho _x)]=\underset{\{\varsigma _x^{^{}}\}}{\mathrm{min}}_xp_xS(\varrho _x|\varsigma _x^{^{}})`$, so that

$$𝒬(\mathrm{\Gamma })=\underset{\{\varsigma _x\}}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{x}{}p_xS(\varrho _x|\varsigma _x),$$
(3)
where $`\varsigma _x^{^{}}=_ip_{i|x}|a_ia_i|`$, $`\varsigma _x=_ia_i^x|a_ia_i|`$, $`\{|a_i\}_i`$ being any set of states which are distinguishable under the set of allowable operations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\{a_i^x\}_i`$’s being arbitrary sets of probabilities, mixing the $`|a_i`$’s. $`S(\varrho |\varsigma )=\text{tr}(\varrho \mathrm{log}_2\varrho \varrho \mathrm{log}_2\varsigma )`$ is the relative entropy distance of $`\varrho `$ from $`\varsigma `$. So $`𝒬`$ is the average relative entropy distance of the signal states from the “classical” ensembles, namely the ones whose members are mixtures of distinguishable states (under $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$). Note that for a single “classical” ensemble, the constituent signals are mutually commuting. Although $`𝒬`$ turns out to be a relative entropy distance, it has (in contrast to relative entropy of entanglement) an operational meaning in terms of entropy production (by which it is defined in eq. (1)) even for a single copy of the ensemble. Therefore $`𝒬`$ is more intimately related to quantum correlation measure of states of Gdansk  than to relative entropy of entanglement. Note that the averaging in eq. (3) is done before the minimization, and hence the measure $`𝒬`$ can still “feel” the ensemble as a whole.

Consider now the case of an ensemble of bipartite states with the allowed operations being LOCC between the sharing partners. Suppose also that the union of the supports of the ensemble covers the whole bipartite Hilbert space. Then a set of orthogonal states in the support (i.e. a complete orthogonal basis) is distinguishable under LOCC only if they are all product states moren . (Note that the opposite is not necessarily true nlwe .) Ensembles $`\{\varsigma _x\}`$ that are mixtures of states from the sets $`\{|a_i\}`$ which are distinguishable under LOCC, but do not span the complete bipartite Hilbert space, will (in this case) produce infinite relative entropy distance, and can therefore be ignored (cf. eq. (3)). So the relavant ensembles that appear in formula (3) are all separable states. (Again the opposite is not true.) Thus we have

$$𝒬(^{^{}})\overline{E_R}=\underset{x}{}p_xE_R(\varrho _x^{AB}),$$
(4)
for the ensemble $`^{^{}}=\{p_x,\varrho _x^{AB}\}`$, where we have assumed that the union of the supports of the $`\varrho _x^{AB}`$’s cover the whole bipartite Hilbert space. $`E_R`$ is the relative entropy of entanglement defined as $`E_R(\varrho ^{AB})=\mathrm{min}_\varsigma S(\varrho |\varsigma )`$, where the minimization is over all separable states $`\varsigma `$ VPRK . Among other things, the inequality (4) will be important for evaluation of $`𝒬`$ for certain bipartite ensembles.

As $`𝒬`$ is defined in terms of von Neumann entropy, it will inherit some continuity properties due to the Fannes’ inequality Fannes . By definition, $`𝒬`$ is vanishing for ensembles which are distinguishable under the allowed set of operations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. And it is nonzero otherwise.

It should be noted that $`𝒬`$, for the case of multipartite ensembles (with the allowed operations being the LOCC class) can actually increase under LOCC. This is because one can create nonorthogonal product states after starting with a multi-orthogonal product basis eta\_holo\_multi-orth . Note however that $`𝒬`$ can increase even if the output states are orthogonal, as there exist ensembles of orthogonal *product* states which are locally indistinguishable nlwe . Such ensembles, which by definition has nonzero $`𝒬`$, can be created by LOCC from a multi-orthogonal product basis eta\_holo\_multi-orth , which being LOCC distinguishable has by definition vanishing $`𝒬`$. However, from our experience with entanglement-like quantum correlation measures IBMhuge ; VPRK ; Vidal-mon2000 ; Horodecki\_limits ; qic , we know that a quantum correlation measure should show some kind of monotonicity. We believe that $`𝒬`$, for the case of multipartite ensembles, will be monotonically decreasing under LOCC operations, if we do not allow *tracing out* as a valid operation. Note that tracing out can never be useful in a distinguishing protocol. The accessible information under LOCC, for an ensemble of multipartite states, is the same as the accessible information under LOCC without tracing out as a valid operation. The operations that can be useful in attaining the accessible information are (a) adding local ancillas, (b) local unitarities, (c) local dephasing (von Neumann measurement and then forgetting the outcome), (d) communication of pre-dephased quantum states (classical communication). Adding the item (e) tracing out, will give us the whole set of LOCC. $`𝒬`$ is obviously monotonically decreasing for operations (a), (b), and (d). We conjecture that $`𝒬`$ is nonincreasing also for local dephasing of multipartite ensembles. Therefore we have a natural axiom for any measure of quantum correlation of ensembles of multipartite states, viz. it must be nonincreasing under (a), (b), (c), and (d). Let us emphasize that the axiom holds for measures of *multipartite* ensembles, not only for bipartite ones. Moreover, nonincreasingness under addition of ancillas, unitary operations, and dephasing is in this way seen to be a natural axiom for any measure of quantumness of a *single* system.

We will now calculate the value of our measure for the ensemble $``$ consisting of the four Bell states, $`|\varphi ^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|00\pm |11)`$, $`|\psi ^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|01\pm |10)`$, given with equal prior probabilities. The four Bell states span the whole $`22`$ Hilbert space. To find $`𝒬`$, we have to minimize entropy production after dephasing over all LOCC-distinguishable bases in $`22`$. Let us first dephase in the computational basis $`\{|00,|11,|01,|10\}`$. Suppose for example, that the signal is $`|\varphi ^+`$. Then either $`|00`$ or $`|11`$ clicks with equal probabilities. So the entropy produced is $`H(\frac{1}{2})`$, where $`H()`$ is the binary entropy function, defined as $`H(p)=p\mathrm{log}_2p(1p)\mathrm{log}_2(1p)`$, $`0p1`$. The signal $`|\varphi ^+`$ is created by the source with probability $`\frac{1}{4}`$. The case is similar for the other signals. Therefore we obtain $`𝒬4\times \frac{1}{4}H(\frac{1}{2})=1`$. However from ineq. (4) we know that this bound is saturated, as the Bell states have $`E_R=1`$. Therefore, we have that $`𝒬=1`$ for the ensemble of the four Bell states given with equal prior probabilities. Consider now the more general ensemble $`^{^{}}`$ consisting of $`a|00+b|11`$, $`\overline{b}|00\overline{a}|11`$, $`c|01+d|10`$, $`\overline{d}|01\overline{c}|10`$, given with equal prior probabilities. Again a dephasing in the computational basis $`\{|00,|11,|01,|10\}`$, implies that $`𝒬\frac{1}{2}(H(|a|^2)+H(|c|^2))`$. And again saturation follows from ineq. (4), so that $`𝒬=\frac{1}{2}(H(|a|^2)+H(|c|^2))`$. Similar calculations will deliver us also the value of $`𝒬`$ for the canonical set of maximally entangled states in $`dd`$, given with equal prior probabilities, viz. $`|\psi _{nm}^{max}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{d}}_{j=0}^{d1}e^{2\pi ijn/d}|j|(j+m)\text{mod}d`$ ($`n,m=0,\mathrm{},d1`$). Considering a dephasing of this basis in the computational basis, and using ineq. (4), one obtains $`𝒬=\mathrm{log}_2d`$.

Quantification of quantum correlation of an ensemble of states has several important potential applications. E.g., it can be used to obtain a complementarity relation with locally accessible information (accessible information under LOCC-based measurements). For an ensemble $`\{p_x,\varrho _x^{AB}\}`$ of bipartite states, a complementarity has been obtained between the locally accessible information and *average* shared entanglement of the ensemble states comp . Precisely, if $`I_{acc}^{LOCC}`$ denotes the locally accessible information for the ensemble $`\{p_x,\varrho _x^{AB}\}`$, then one has comp

$$I_{acc}^{LOCC}+\overline{E}\mathrm{log}_2n,$$
(5)
where ensemble states $`\varrho _x^{AB}`$ are defined on $`_A_B`$, $`n=dim\{_A_B\}`$, and $`\overline{E}=_xp_xE(\varrho _x^{AB})`$, $`E`$ being any asymptotic entanglement measure of bipartite states qic .

However the complexity of locally accessible information in comparison to globally accessible information depends on the geometry of the ensemble, which cannot be captured by taking an *average* of an individual property (for example, entanglement) of the ensemble states. Consequently, the complementarity obtained in comp  can potentially be made stronger if the locally accessible information is taken along with a measure of quantum correlation of an ensemble of states.

We conjecture that the following complementarity relation holds between the accessible information, $`I_{acc}^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, for the set of allowed operations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and $`𝒬`$, for an ensemble $`\{p_x,\varrho _x\}_{x=1}^N`$:

$$I_{acc}^\mathrm{\Lambda }+𝒬\mathrm{log}_2N.$$
(6)
Among other things, note also the change in the right-hand-side of ineq. (6) with respect to that of ineq. (5). In ineq. (5), the right-hand-side is the logarithm of the dimension of the Hilbert space on which the signals are defined. However in ineq. (6), the right-hand-side is the logarithm of the number of states in the ensemble, which can be less than, equal to, or greater than the dimension of the said Hilbert space.

For an ensemble of bipartite states, $`\{p_x,\varrho _x^{AB}\}_{x=1}^N`$, the proposed complementarity is

$$I_{acc}^{LOCC}+𝒬\mathrm{log}_2N.$$
(7)
Note that due to ineq. (4), the relation (7) will in general be stronger than the one in ineq. (5), if the ensemble consists of $`n=dim\{_A_B\}`$ states that spans $`_A_B`$, and if we replace $`E`$ by $`E_R`$. We conjecture that the relation (7) is in general stronger than the one in (5), at least when we replace $`E`$ by $`E_R`$. In particular, we believe that $`𝒬\overline{E_R}+\mathrm{log}_2N\mathrm{log}_2n`$.

For the case of the four Bell states, given with equal prior probabilities, $`I_{acc}^{LOCC}=1`$. This follows from ineq. (5) and the fact that measuring in the computational basis gives $`I_{acc}^{LOCC}1`$. And for this case, we have proven that $`𝒬=1`$. Therefore we have proven inequality (7) for the case of four Bell states given with equal probabilities. Ineq. (7) is true also for the more general ensemble $`^{^{}}`$. From ineq. (5), we have that for the ensemble $`^{^{}}`$, $`I_{acc}^{LOCC}2\frac{1}{2}(H(|a|^2)+H(|c|^2))`$. But a measurement in the computational basis shows that this bound can be achieved. Using the value of $`𝒬`$ obtained for $`^{^{}}`$, we have the inequality (7) proven for this ensemble. One may similarly prove the inequality (7) for the canonical set of maximally entangled states in $`dd`$.

For the case of the ensemble of the three Bell states $`|\varphi ^\pm `$, $`|\psi ^+`$, given with equal prior probabilities, a measurement in the computational basis gives $`I_{acc}^{LOCC}\mathrm{log}_23\frac{2}{3}`$. And the fact that set $`\{|00,|11,|\psi ^+\}`$ is an LOCC-distinguishable ensemble in the span of $`|\varphi ^\pm `$, $`|\psi ^+`$, gives $`𝒬\frac{2}{3}`$. Note here that these two inequalities do not have a contradiction with the proposed ineq. (7).

One may consider ineq. (6) for the case of an ensemble of a single system, with all quantum mechanically allowed operations in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Then ineq. (6) can be seen as a “Heisenberg uncertainty relation”. The accessible information is the maximal “information gain” that is possible about the system. On the other hand, $`𝒬`$ denotes the quantumness of the ensemble, quantifying the resistance to such information gain. In this case of a single system, it is actually possible to prove the ineq. (6) in a restricted case. For an ensemble $`\{p_x,\varrho _x\}_{x=1}^N`$, defined on the Hilbert space $``$, the accessible information, $`I_{acc}=\mathrm{max}_M\left(H(\{p_x\}_{x=1}^N)_yr_yH(\{p_{x|y}\}_{x=1}^N)\right)`$, where a measurement $`M=\{y\}`$ has been performed, the measurement result $`y`$ having occured with probability $`r_y`$. $`p_{x|y}`$ is the probability that the signal was $`\varrho _x`$, given that the outcome was $`y`$. The maximization is carried over all measurements. The quantity within the maximization is the mutual information between the source producing the ensemble $`\{p_x,\varrho _x\}_{x=1}^N`$ and the maesurement outcomes. But we know that $`H(X)H(X|Y)=H(Y)H(Y|X)`$, for random variables $`X`$ and $`Y`$. Therefore $`H(\{p_x\}_{x=1}^N)_yr_yH(\{p_{x|y}\}_{x=1}^N)=H(\{p_y\}_y)_{x=1}^Np_xH(\{p_{y|x}\}_y)`$. At this point, we restrict ourselves to only projection valued measurements on $``$. Then we have $`I_{acc}\mathrm{max}_MH(\{p_y\}_y)𝒬\mathrm{log}_2dim𝒬\mathrm{log}_2N𝒬`$, which is just the inequality in (6).

It is conceivable that the complementarity in ineq. (6) is true only when we consider a certain form of regularisation of the quantity $`𝒬`$. Given an ensemble $`\{p_x,\varrho _x\}`$ and a set of allowed operations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, consider $`𝒬_0`$ for an extension $`\{p_x,\varrho _x|00|\}`$ of the given ensemble, where $`|0`$ is any state that is free under $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The regularization is then the minimum of $`𝒬_0`$’s for all possible such extensions. This brings in the possibility of vanishing regularized $`𝒬`$ even for some ensembles that are indistinguishable under $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

This work is supported by EU grants RESQ and QUPRODIS, and by the University of Gdańsk, Grant No. BW/5400-5-0256-3.


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# Clumpy Flows in Protoplanetary and Planetary Nebulae

## 1. Introduction

Recently it has been more and more widely acknowledged that it is important to consider the inhomogeneous structure of stellar outflows since ”clumps”, or ”clouds”, arising on a variety of scales can introduce not only quantitative but also qualitative changes to the overall dynamics of the flow. Planetary nebulae are an important astrophysical example of flows where the presence of inhomogeneities may play a conspicuous role in defining nebular dynamics and morphology.

Embedded inhomogeneities may come in two flavors. One includes large stationary or quasi-stationary ensembles of condensations, oftentimes forming extended shells. These may interact with the ambient flow, e.g. cometary knot shells in NGC 7293 (Helix) or NGC 2392 (Eskimo). The other includes more localized systems that consist of one or several compact knots or ejecta moving at significant velocities relative to the ambient medium. One of the most spectacular examples of such nebular systems is CRL 618, which exhibits long thin shocked lobes. The most prominent features of the lobes are their high length-to-width ratio and the presence of the periodic rings in their structure. There is also some evidence for a velocity increase in the lobes from the base to the tip (Sánchez Contreras, Sahai, & Gil de Paz 2002). Other examples include strings in NGC 6543 (Weis, Duschl, & Chu 1999) and knots in the outflow of Hen 3-1475 (Riera et al.2003).

## 2. Adiabatic vs. Radiative Systems

When the interaction of an inhomogeneity with a global flow proceeds in the adiabatic regime the dominant process is the *lateral clump re-expansion* (Klein, McKee, & Colella 1994; Poludnenko, Frank, & Blackman 2002). The internal shock compresses the clump which then re-expands in the lateral direction. Such re-expansion, in combination with instabilities at the upstream clump surface, is responsible for the destruction of the clump.

When more than one clump is present, lateral re-expansion also drives interclump interactions via merging and formation of larger structures that subsequently alter the global flow (Poludnenko et al.2002). We refer the reader to Poludnenko et al.(2002) for further details on the dynamics of the adiabatic inhomogeneous systems. We note that two key regimes can be defined: *“interacting”* and *“noninteracting”* systems. Clumps in the interacting systems will merge via lateral re-expansion before the clumps are destroyed.

Radiatively cooled inhomogeneous systems show a minimal role of lateral re-expansion and, therefore, of interclump interaction. The dominant process is the formation of instabilities with small wavelength at the bullet upstream surface. Hydrodynamic instabilities (Richtmeyer-Meshkov, Rayleigh-Taylor) produce the initial instability seed. The resulting density variations quickly trigger the onset of thermal instabilities which thereafter drive clump fragmentation.

The fragments produced by the instability are of different mass with the most massive ones being closest to the symmetry axis and the outermost ones being the lightest. As a result fragments are “peeled off” from the clump starting with those outermost in radius. When considering a single axisymmetric clump or bullet, each fragmentation event results in the formation of a distinct *“ring-like” feature* in the clump wake. The formation of rings is a consequence of the axisymmetry. In 3-D it is likely that the rings would themselves fragment (Klein et al.2003).

## 3. Radiative Bullet Simulations

Here we present a simulation of the propagation of a hypersonic radiative bullet as an example of a simple strongly cooled inhomogeneous system. Since, as it was mentioned above, the evolution of radiative inhomogeneous systems proceeds mostly in the noninteracting regime, the case of a single bullet can be considered a “building block” of more complicated inhomogeneity configurations. The simulation was performed with the AstroBEAR code based on the BEARCLAW adaptive mesh refinement package. Radiative cooling was tracked via a standard cooling curve. We refer the reader to (Poludnenko, Frank, & Mitran 2003) for further details on the model and the simulation.

The initial bullet radius is $`r_b=3.010^{15}`$ cm, the initial bullet density is $`\rho _b=10^5cm^3`$. This translates into the initial bullet mass $`m_b0.510^5\mathrm{M}_{}`$. The initial bullet Mach number is $`M_b=20`$, or $`v_b235`$ km $`\mathrm{s}^1`$. The computational domain is of size $`1.810^{17}`$ cm $`\times 2.410^{16}`$ cm or expressed in terms of bullet radii $`60r_b\times 8r_b`$. The ambient density is $`\rho _a=1000cm^3`$ and the ambient temperature $`T_a=10^4K`$. The run was carried out in cylindrical symmetry with the x-axis being the symmetry axis. We use an adaptive grid with 4 levels of refinement with equivalent resolution of $`1024\times 7680`$ cells.

In the simulation the hydrodynamic timescale, i.e. the bullet crushing time, was $`t_{hydro}=2.5410^9`$ s $`80.5`$ yrs., the cooling timescale was $`t_{cool}=70.910^3`$ s $`19.7`$ hours. The simulation total run time was $`9.4910^9`$ s $`251.1`$ yrs. Thus the evolution of the system was in a regime strongly dominated by cooling.

Figure 1 shows the computational domain at time $`t=251.1`$ yrs. In Figure 1a the synthetic Schlieren image (gradient of the density logarithm) is shown illustrating the shock and vortex sheet structure in the flow. Figure 1b shows the synthetic observation image of the computational domain. It represents the 2D projected distribution of the logarithm of the emissivity $`I=n^2\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ integrated in the z-direction, where $`n`$ is the number density and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the cooling function. Note the presence of several characteristic ring-like structures in Figure 1b in the bullet wake, resulting from the fragmentation events.

Another key property of such systems is the presence of Hubble-type flows in the bullet wake. The left panel of Figure 2 shows the distribution of the total velocity $`v_{tot}(x)`$ along the symmetry axis as a function of distance from the bullet head. The linear velocity decrease from the maximum value of $`210`$ km $`\mathrm{s}^1`$from head to base is clear aside from some minor fluctuations arising due to the unsteadiness of the downstream flow. However, a better-founded comparison with observational data needs quantities more closely resembling observations. As an example, we consider the emissivity-weighed total velocity $`v_{emis}(x)`$, which is shown in the right panel of Figure 2. While it is significantly more noisy than the total velocity, the local maxima roughly fall on the same line as in the left panel giving some indication of a Hubble-type flow. It should be emphasized that we found evidence of Hubble flows only in systems dominated by radiative cooling, i.e. where the ratio of the cooling time scale over the hydrodynamic time scale is $`<1`$.

For radiative systems our principal conclusions are: (1) due to the lack of lateral re-expansion such systems evolve mostly in the noninteracting regime; (2) hypersonic radiative bullets are capable of producing structures with high length-to-width ratios (between 6 and 10 for our study); (2) the dominant process responsible for bullet destruction is instability formation at the bullet upstream interface leading to separate fragmentation episodes which create periodic “ring-like” structures in the wake; (3) simulations of strongly cooled systems show the presence of Hubble-type flows. How these flows appear observationally remains an open question. These properties suggest that hypersonic radiative bullets can be a likely candidate for a model of such systems as shocked lobes of CRL 618, strings of NGC 6543, etc.

This research was supported in part by the NSF grant AST-9702484, NASA grant NAG5-8428, HST Grants, DOE and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics under DOE sponsorship.

Animations can be found at http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~wma.

## References

Klein, R. I., McKee, C. F., Colella, P. 1994, ApJ, 420, 213

Klein, R. I., Budil, K. S., Perry, T. S., Bach, D. R. 2003, ApJS, 583, 245

Poludnenko, A. Y., Frank, A., Blackman, E. G. 2002, ApJ, 576, 832

Poludnenko, A. Y., Frank, A., Mitran, S. 2003, ApJ, submitted (astro-ph/0310007)

Riera, A., García-Lario, P., Manchado, A., Bobrowsky, M., Estalella, R. 2003, A&A, 401, 1039

Sánchez Contreras, C., Sahai, R., Gil de Paz, A. 2002, ApJ, 578, 269

Weis, K., Duschl, W. J., Chu, Y.-H. 1999, A&A, 349, 467


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# Electromagnetic (versus fireball) model of GRBs

## 1 Electromagnetic model

Electromagnetic model interprets Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) as relativistic, electromagnetic explosions Lyutikov & Blandford (2002), (also Lyutikov & Blandford, in preparation), see Fig. 1. It is assumed that rotating, relativistic, stellar-mass progenitor loses much of its rotational energy in the form of a Poynting flux during the active period lasting $`100`$ sec. The energy to power the GRBs comes eventually from the rotational energy of the progenitor, converted into magnetic energy by the dynamo action of the unipolar inductor, so that the central source acts as a power-supply generating a current flow (along the axis, the surface of the bubble and the equator). Initially non-spherically symmetric, electromagnetically dominated bubble expands non-relativistically inside the star, most rapidly along the rotational axis of the progenitor. The velocity of expansion of the bubble is determined by the pressure balance on the contact between magnetic pressure in the bubble and the ram pressure of the stellar material. After the bubble break out from the stellar surface and most of the electron-positron pairs necessarily present in the initial outflow quickly annihilate the bubble expansion becomes highly relativistic. After the end of the source activity most of the magnetic energy is concentrated in a thin shell inside the contact discontinuity between the ejecta and the shocked circumstellar material. The electromagnetic shell pushes ahead of it a relativistic blast wave into the circumstellar medium. Current-driven instabilities develop in this shell at a radius $`3\times 10^{16}`$ cm and lead to acceleration of pairs which are responsible for the $`\gamma `$-ray burst. At larger radii the energy contained in the electromagnetic shell is mostly transferred to the preceding blast wave. Particles accelerated at the fluid shock may combine with electromagnetic field from the electromagnetic shell to produce the afterglow emission.

Electromagnetic model produces “structured jet” with energy $`E_\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$ in a natural way (in fact, there is no proper “jet”, but non-spherical outflow and non-spherical shock wave); there is no problem with “orphan afterglow” since GRBs are produced over large solid angle; X-ray flashes are interpreted as GRBs seen “from the side”, but their total energetics should be comparable to proper GRBs; the model can qualitatively reproduce hard-to-soft spectral evolution as a synchrotron emission in ever decreasing magnetic field $`B\sqrt{L}/r`$ ($`L`$ is luminosity, $`r`$ is emission radius), akin to ”radius-to-frequency mapping” in radio pulsars; similarly, the correlation $`E_{peak}\sqrt{L}`$ is also a natural consequence. Finally, high polarization of prompt emission may also be produced Lyutikov et al.  (2003) (it should correlate with the spectral index; if there is a mixing between circumstellar material and ejecta, e.g. due to Richtmyer-Meshkov instability, and if optical polarization is seen, then the position angles of the prompt emission and afterglow should coincide and be constant over time; fractional polarization should be independent of the “jet break” time, but may show variations due to turbulent mixing).

## 2 Polarization of prompt emission

A very high linear polarization (nominally 80%) has been reported in RHESSI observations of GRB021206 (Coburn & Boggs, 2003). Although the uncertainty in the measured polarization is large and a degree of reservation about the very result is necessary, the observation, if correct, puts strong constraints on the GRB models. In particular, it is inconsistent with the internal shock model, as we argue below.

High polarization fraction cannot be naturally produced in a fireball model, since magnetic fields expected in this model are produced on small microscopic scales. In order to account for high polarization fraction of the prompt emission the fireball model needs to make four limiting assumptions three of which are made specifically in order to explain polarization (some, but not all are listed in Nakar et al.  (2003)).

First, the turbulent magnetic fields, generated presumably by the Weibel instability, are assumed to be exactly two-dimensional in the whole shocked region. Weibel instability Medvedev & Loeb (1999) indeed produces one-dimensional current filaments oriented normally to the surface of the shock front but the typical coherence size of magnetic field is ion skin depth $`\delta _i=c/\omega _{p,i}=(m_ic^2/e)\mathrm{\Gamma }r\sqrt{c/L}5\mathrm{cm}L_{50}^{1/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_2r_{12}`$ (when the shock scale is $`r/\mathrm{\Gamma }10^{10}`$ cm, nine orders larger). Two dimensional inverse cascade that sets in after the field generation does increase field coherence to tens or hundreds of ion skin depths, but it still remains microscopically small. Numerical simulations of the Weibel turbulence cannot run for long enough times to describe the late evolution of currents, still we consider it unreasonable to expect that current will support alignment on such large scales. One of the reasons is that the postshock material is expected to be strongly MHD turbulent. In fact, in the fireball model MHD turbulence is needed in order to accelerate particle by the Fermi mechanism. This turbulence will easily randomize subtle current structures. Thus, the finely-aligned, one-dimensional currents and the presence of turbulence necessary to accelerate particles are in contradiction in the fireball model. In addition, one may expect that oppositely directed currents created by the Weibel instability will eventually close-up creating three-dimensional magnetic structures.

Secondly, in order to produce high polarization in the fireball model the two-dimensional turbulent magnetic field should be viewed ”from the side”, so that the line of sight lies in the plane of the field. This imposes a constraint on the position of the observer: the viewing angle with respect to the jet axis should be $`\theta _{ob}1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Thirdly, in order to see the emitting layer quasiplanar, the jet opening angle should be very small $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta 1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Both these assumptions are not generic to the fireball model and are made exclusively in order to maximize polarization. (Generally, if one needs to assume $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta ,\theta _{ob}1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ then the emission mechanism better be inverse Compton.)

Fourthly, since the observed burst was multi-peaked, many emitting shells are required. In order to reproduce high polarization is assumed that all shells move with the same Lorentz factor Nakar et al.  (2003). This assumption runs contrary to the very basic postulate of the fireball model that the emitting shells are due to collision of material moving with different Lorentz factor, so that the velocity of the resulting shocks must be different.

Thus, the fireball model needs to fine-tune several parameters to explain polarization. An argument of exclusivity has been invoked: the burst was not like any other burst, so it tells nothing about the other bursts. This is virtually equivalent to neglecting the results altogether.

Though one can possibly argue in favor of chance coincidence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ and $`\theta _{ob}`$ (but the GRB rate also goes up by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^210^4`$) one cannot bypass the problem with the spread in Lorentz factors and turbulent randomization of fields. In order to maximize polarization the spread in the Lorentz factors of the emitting shells must be small. This, in principle, can be achieved by a carefully arrangement of shells so that collisions occur only between the two blobs that are moving with the same Lorentz factors (if the source emits shells with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1,\mathrm{\Gamma }_2,\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ etc). This is an extremely contrived situation. A more generic case is that the blobs’ Lorentz factors are randomly distributed. In this case the fireball model needs to thread a thin line: larger polarization would require smaller spread in Lorentz factors, but then the energy available for dissipation is small, so that the total energy of the burst will be very large (and the burst GRB 021206 was unusually luminous to start with), aggravating even further the efficiency problem of internal shocks.

In addition to the problems specific to the fireball model, there is a kinematic depolarization of synchrotron radiation due to inhomogeneous expansion velocity Lyutikov et al.  (2003) (it was taken into account by Nakar et al.  (2003)). Electrical vectors of waves emitted by different parts of the flow are rotated by different amount during a boost into observer’s frame, so that the observed electric fields are generally not orthogonal to the observed magnetic field. Averaging over emitting volume reduces total polarization.

Thus, even if turbulence downstream and current closure are completely neglected, the effects of relativistic kinematics, randomness of magnetic field, spread in Lorentz factors and (presumably) not a perfect fine-tuning of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta `$ and $`\theta _{ob}`$ will all contribute to reduction in polarization. Generically, each of these effects will contribute a factor of two, so that the resulting polarization will not exceed $`10\%`$. (Mathematically, when all depolarization effects are minimized at once, polarization may be somewhat higher, but still $`20\%`$).

In the case of electromagnetic model the magnetic field has a large coherence scale, $`r`$, so that within a visible patch of linear size $`r/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the field is quasihomogeneous. There are also depolarization effect. First, there is kinematic depolarization discussed above Lyutikov et al.  (2003). Secondly, possible presence of random component of magnetic field would lead to further decrease of polarization. But generically random component is not needed in the electromagnetic models. What is needed is presence of currents, so that the magnetic field is inhomogeneous, but it still can be ordered. The field structure of the Sweet-Parker reconnection layer gives an excellent example (see Fig 2.a). Random component of the magnetic field is naturally expected and one should account for it. In fact, the very amount of the dissipated magnetic energy may be related to the random component of the field (e.g. MacFadyen, these proceedings). For efficient accelerations of electrons one then would need $`\delta B/B1`$. In this case the total polarization decreases (Fig. 2.b), remaining reasonably high for $`\delta B/B1`$.

The three competing models of GRBs are compared in Fig 3. Electromagnetic model is the best contender. It does not require fine tuning of parameters, all observers should see large polarization regardless of the viewing angle, Lorentz factor etc. The only constraint is that the random component of the field is not dominant.

The cannonball model Dar & De Rujula (2003) (and other models invoking inverse Compton scattering Eichler & Levinson (2003); Lazzati et al.  (2003)) can in principle produce very high polarization. It does make an unphysical (in our opinion) assumptions $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta ,\theta _{ob}1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, but this was inherent to the model before polarization results came out. There is a large degree of fine-tuning: it is assumed that all ”cannonballs” are flying within an extremely narrow cone. If their directions were to have a scatter $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta >1/\mathrm{\Gamma }10^3`$ polarization would drop to zero. Still, it has an advantage that in the best case it can produce up to 100% polarization.

Internal shocks model is the weakest player in the field. It needs to make very contrived and contradictory assumptions to reproduce observations.

### 2.1 Is RHESSI polarization real?

High polarization of prompt emission, if confirmed, would put strong constraint on the emission mechanisms and GRB models. Only inverse Compton may produce polarization as high as 80%. Electromagnetic models can get to $`50\%`$, but with a random component a comfortable range is $`3040\%`$. For internal shock anything above $`10\%`$ is unreasonable. Obviously, the RHESSI polarization result is highly doubtful, so that an independent confirmation or refutal is a must. If the results are not confirmed, i.e. polarization is $`\mathrm{\Pi }20\%`$, that won’t exclude any model since a multitude of depolarization effects may intervene.

I’d like to thank R. Blandford, M. Medvedev, V. Pariev and D. Lazzati.


text:
# The thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effects revisited

## 1 Introduction

Ever since R. Sunyaev and Ya. B. Zel’dovich predicted the distortion of the spectral density of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) in 1969   by the ionized plasma in globular clusters, whose main constituent is a relatively dense electron gas, dozens of papers have been published addressing various aspects of this phenomenon. This avalanche of works is mainly due to the undeniable importance of such effect, not only because it yields information on deviations from the isotropy and homogeneity of the Universe, but also provides an aid in determining other important cosmological parameters such as the baryonic density of matter, Hubble’s constant, age and velocity of massive clusters, and others. These features have been thoroughly reviewed in recent literature so we shall not dwell with them here -.

Although practically every cosmologist or astrophysicist believes that this effect is now “clearly” understood, there are reasons that we believe will help clarifying some of the still subtle details that remain unclear in the available treatments. Firstly, the early attempts to study this effect by visualizing the motion of the photons through the hot electron gas in the cluster as a diffusion process which, in the non-relativistic limit is described by the famous Kompaneets equation  . The analysis of the results obtained through the hot electron gas in the cluster through the use of this equation are well-known -. Nevertheless, it was soon realized by many authors, including Sunyaev himself, that due to the very small probability that an incoming photon is scattered even once in its passage through the gas, a Compton-like scattering of a photon off an electron was a much more suitable mechanism to explain the effect. This trend of ideas has been recently reviewed by Dolgov et al  where the reader may find more literature about the subject. The somewhat intriguing result is that both approaches lead to identical results, a fact that needs further clarification. We address this question in this paper.

Secondly, the role of the optical depth $`\tau `$, related to the distance a photon can travel in the plasma before it is scattered off an electron, plays in the way the broadening of the spectral lines of the scattered photon is modified by the Doppler effect, has not yet been justified in a convincing manner. Here we address this question form an entirely different point of view. And thirdly, we also show that this different interpretation of $`\tau `$ also leads to the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect in a rather trivial way.

## 2 The method

We begin our discussion by establishing a general expression for the full distorted spectrum, $`I(\nu )`$ of the scattered radiation off the plasma. Let $`\tau `$ be the optical depth as discussed above. This quantity is a direct measure of the probability that a photon is scattered off an electron in the gas. Thus, since the effect is small, $`(1\tau )`$ is the probability that the photon traverses the plasma unscattered. Therefore,

$$\begin{array}{c}I\left(\nu \right)=(1\tau )_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}I_o\left(\overline{\nu }\right)\delta (\overline{\nu }\nu )𝑑\overline{\nu }+\\ \frac{\tau }{\sqrt{2\pi }\sigma \left(\nu \right)}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}I_o\left(\overline{\nu }\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{\overline{\nu }(12z)\nu }{2\sigma \left(\nu \right)}\right)^2\right]𝑑\overline{\nu }\end{array}$$
(1)
The first term in Eq. ( 1) is self-explanatory, the lower limit justified since $`I_o(\overline{\nu })`$, the incoming flux is zero for negative frequencies. The second term, the important one, defines a Gaussian probability function describing scattering of a photon with incoming frequency $`\overline{\nu }`$ off an electron whose average kinetic energy in the gas, in the non-relativistic approximation is $`\frac{1}{2}kT_e`$. This function has been thoroughly discussed in earlier work  so we shall not discuss it here further. In Eq.( 1) the incoming flux is given, for $`\overline{\nu }>0`$ by:

$$I_o(\overline{\nu })=\frac{2h\overline{\nu }^3}{c^2}\frac{1}{e^{\frac{h\overline{\nu }}{kT}}1}$$
(2)
where $`T2.726K`$, the temperature of the cosmic background radiation, $`k`$ is Boltzmann’s constant, $`h`$ is Planck’s constant, and $`c`$ the speed of light. Further, $`\sigma \left(\nu \right)`$ is the width of the spectral line at frequency $`\nu `$ and its squared value reads :

$$\sigma ^2\left(\nu \right)=2\frac{kT_e}{mc^2}\nu ^2=2z\nu ^2$$
(3)
In Eq.(2) $`T_e`$ is the temperature of the electron scatterers, $`m`$ is the electron mass and $`I_o\left(\overline{\nu }\right)0`$ for $`\overline{\nu }<0`$.

Notice should be made of the fact that the mathematical expression for $`\sigma ^2(\nu )`$ corresponds to what in the literature is called the inverse Compton scattering . In particular, this is the reason of the factor $`2z`$ in such equation. To show this fact we take into account the frequency distribution function for photons with incoming frequency $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ isotropically scattered by electrons with velocities $`u=\beta c`$,

$$P_{iso}(\nu ,\stackrel{~}{\nu },\beta )=\frac{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{(2\beta \gamma )^2\nu }\{\begin{array}{c}\left(1+\beta \right)\frac{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{\nu }1+\beta ,\frac{1\beta }{1+\beta }\frac{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{\nu }1\\ 1+\beta \left(1\beta \right)\frac{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{\nu },\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}<\frac{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{\nu }\frac{1+\beta }{1\beta }\end{array}$$
(4)
where $`\gamma =\left(1\beta ^2\right)^{1/2}`$. The expected value for the photon frequency at fixed $`\beta `$ is then given by:

$$\nu =\frac{_{\frac{1+\beta }{1\beta }}^{\frac{1\beta }{1+\beta }}\nu P_{iso}(\nu ,\stackrel{~}{\nu },\beta )𝑑\stackrel{~}{\nu }}{_{\frac{1+\beta }{1\beta }}^{\frac{1\beta }{1+\beta }}P_{iso}(\nu ,\stackrel{~}{\nu },\beta )𝑑\stackrel{~}{\nu }}=\frac{1+\beta ^2}{1+\beta ^2}\nu \left(1+2\beta ^2\right)\nu $$
(5)
Direct application of the equipartition energy theorem allows us to identify
$`<`$ $`\beta ^2>=<\frac{mu^2}{2}>\frac{2}{mc^2}=\frac{kT_e}{2}\frac{2}{mc^2}=z`$. Physically, this implies that a typical photon scattered off an electron will have a temperature dependent blue shift simply given by $`2z\nu ^2`$. It is interesting to notice that a similar “frequency shift approach” leads to the analytical well known expression of the kinematic SZ effect. This is shown in the appendix.

Eq. (1) can be evaluated analytically leading to an expression which is identical to the one reported in the literature. Setting in Eq. ( 1)

$$\alpha =\frac{\overline{\nu }(12z)\nu }{\sigma \left(\nu \right)}$$
(6)
we get that

$$I\left(\nu \right)I_o\left(\nu \right)=\tau I_o\left(\nu \right)+\frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi }}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}I_o\left(\nu +\mathrm{\Delta }\nu \left(\alpha \right)\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[\alpha ^2\right]𝑑\alpha $$
(7)
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\nu \left(\alpha \right)=2z\nu +2z^{1/2}\nu \alpha $$
(8)
Since $`z`$ is a small number  and $`I_o`$ is an analytical function of $`\nu `$ we may expand the integrand in Eq. (7) in a Taylor series:

$$I_o\left(\nu +\mathrm{\Delta }\nu \left(\alpha \right)\right)=I_o\left(\nu \right)+\mathrm{\Delta }\nu \left(\alpha \right)\frac{I_o}{\nu }+\mathrm{}$$
(9)
All odd powers of $`\alpha `$ yield zero upon integration so, after a straightforward calculation, we get that

$$I\left(\nu \right)I_o\left(\nu \right)=2y\nu \frac{I_o}{\nu }+y\nu ^2\frac{^2I_o}{\nu ^2}+2\tau z^2\nu ^2\frac{^2I_o}{\nu ^2}2\tau z^2\nu ^3\frac{^3I_o}{\nu ^3}+\frac{\tau z^2\nu ^4}{2}\frac{^4I_o}{\nu ^4}$$
(10)
To first order in $`y=\tau `$ $`z`$ we reproduce *exactly* the analytic expression for the distortion curve -. It is also interesting to notice that, taking into account the second order terms in $`z`$ included in Eq. (10), the crossover frequency $`\nu _c`$ corresponding to the solution of equation

$$I\left(\nu \right)I_o\left(\nu \right)=0$$
(11)
is now clearly dependent on the value of $`z`$ namely, on the electron temperature, a feature not ordinarily recognized for a non-relativistic intra-cluster gas. For typical values of $`\tau =10^2`$, and $`kT_e=3KeV`$ a numerical calculation yields $`\nu _c=221.34GHz`$, while the value obtained by considering only linear terms in $`z`$ yields $`\nu _c=217.16`$ GHz, a difference of nearly $`1.74\%`$. Fig. 1 shows the plot of the analytical non-relativistic expression up to second order in $`z^2`$, compared with its first order counterpart for a temperature of $`kT=3KeV`$. It is interesting to notice that, although a *non-relativistic* Maxwellian was used in the convolution integral, the Wien side of the distortion curve is practically identical to its relativistic counterpart, as presented in Ref. . This remark is confirmed in Fig. 2 with $`kT=15KeV`$.

The result expressed in Eq. (10) is of significant importance. Eq. ( 10) contains the famous Kompaneets equation - describing the thermal SZ effect using a diffusive mechanism to account for the motion of photons in an optically thin electron gas where the electron temperature $`T_e>>T`$, the photon temperature (see specifically Ref. ). One must notice that, since most photons *are not scattered even once*, a diffusion approximation would then hardly seem adequate . Nevertheless, the diffusion mechanism is mathematically identical to the absortion-emission process of photons by electrons to first order in $`z`$. The problem posed in Ref.  requiring an explanation of why two different mechanisms lead to the same result is now mathematically solved. Finally, we want to stress that it is now clear why the curves describing the thermal SZ effect obtained by numerical integration of different mathematical expressions turn out to be identical. We therefore expect that the relativistic SZ effect and other photon scattering problems in hot plasmas can be handled by a similar procedure.

This work has been supported by CONACyT (México), project 41081-F.

Appendix

The central idea of the convolution integral approach to CMBR distortions is that, in a dilute gas, a scattering law $`G(\overline{\nu },\nu )`$ is given by what in statistical physics is known as the  *dynamic structure factor*, where $`\overline{\nu }`$ and $`\nu `$ are the corresponding incoming/outcoming photon frequencies. Then, one computes the distorted occupation number through the convolution integral

$$n\left(\nu \right)=_0^{\mathrm{}}n_o\left(\overline{\nu }\right)G(\overline{\nu },\nu )𝑑\overline{\nu }$$

with

$$n_o\left(\overline{\nu }\right)=\frac{1}{e^{\frac{h\overline{\nu }}{kT}}1}$$

In the non-relativistic kinetic SZ effect, one can easily show that a suitable structure factor is given by:

$$G_k(\overline{\nu },\nu )=(1\tau )\delta (\overline{\nu }\nu )+\tau \delta (\overline{\nu }(1\frac{U}{c})\nu )$$

$`U`$ being the cluster velocity (*approaching the observer*). The optical depth $`\tau `$ measures essentially the proportion of photons being captured (scattered) by electrons. The intergalactic gas cloud in clusters of galaxies has an optical depth $`\tau 10^2`$ .

The formalism basically states that a fraction $`(1\tau )`$ of photons passes through the cluster without being scattered, while a $`\tau `$ fraction of them shifts its frequency through the ordinary Doppler effect. The integrals can be evaluated leading to an expression which is identical to the one reported in the literature. Indeed, since

$$n\left(\nu \right)=(1\tau )_0^{\mathrm{}}n_o\left(\overline{\nu }\right)\delta (\overline{\nu }\nu )𝑑\overline{\nu }+\tau _0^{\mathrm{}}n_o\left(\overline{\nu }\right)\delta (\overline{\nu }(1\frac{U}{c})\nu )𝑑\overline{\nu }$$

then

$$n\left(\nu \right)=n_o\left(\nu \right)(1\tau )+\tau _0^{\mathrm{}}n_o\left(\overline{\nu }\right)\delta (\overline{\nu }(1\frac{U}{c})\nu )𝑑\overline{\nu }$$

If we now perform the substitution

$$\widehat{\alpha }=\overline{\nu }(1\frac{U}{c})\nu $$

we may expand the integrand in a Taylor series. Straightforward calculation leads to the ordinary expression for the kinetic SZ effect:

$$n\left(\nu \right)n_o\left(\nu \right)=\frac{U\tau }{c}\frac{n_o}{\nu }$$

If we now define $`I_k\left(\nu \right)`$ as the distorted kinetimatic SZ spectrum and consider the expressions $`x=\frac{h\nu }{kT}`$ and $`\frac{n\left(\nu \right)n_o\left(\nu \right)}{n_o\left(\nu \right)}=\frac{I_k\left(\nu \right)I_o\left(\nu \right)}{I_o\left(\nu \right)}`$, we finally get the desired expression:

$$I_k\left(\nu \right)I_o\left(\nu \right)=\frac{2(kT)^3}{\left(hc\right)^2}\frac{x^4e^x}{\left(e^x1\right)^2}\frac{U\tau }{c}$$