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# Nuclear structure with accurate chiral perturbation theory nucleon-nucleon potential: Application to 6Li and 10B

## I Introduction

A new development in the theory of nuclear forces occurred when the concept of an effective field theory (EFT) was introduced and applied to the low-energy QCD Weinberg . Starting from a general Lagrangian consistent with the QCD symmetries, in particular the broken chiral symmetry, one can develop a systematic perturbative expansion valid at low energies for effective degrees of freedom, nucleons and pions. Pioneering work in this direction was performed by Ordonez, Ray and van Kolck ORK94 ; Bira  who constructed a nucleon-nucleon (NN) potential in the coordinate space based on the chiral perturbation theory at the third order. Similarly, Epelbaum et al. Epelbaum  developed the first momentum space NN potential at the third order of the chiral perturbation theory. Recently, Entem and Machleidt developed an EFT based momentum space non-local NN potential at the fourth order of the chiral perturbation theory (next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order, N3LO) N3LO  that takes into account the charge dependence and fits the two-nucleon data with similar accuracy as the traditional phenomenological high-quality NN potentials like Argonne V18 av18  or the CD-Bonn 2000 cdb2k .

It is an important question and a test for the EFT approach how well these new potentials will describe the nuclear structure of light nuclei when applied to more than two nucleons. The new accurate N3LO NN potential is a non-local momentum-space potential. There are several methods that could be applied to solve $`A=3,4`$ systems using this potential, most notably the Faddeev and the Faddeev-Yakubovsky techniques FY . However, the best established method for obtaining exact results for the $`A>4`$ $`p`$-shell nuclei, the Green’s Function Monte Carlo (GFMC) approach wiringa00 ; pieper01 ; GFMC\_9\_10 , is not applicable as it is best suited for work with local coordinate space potentials like AV18 or AV8 av8p . The N3LO potential can be used, however, in the ab initio no-core shell model approach (NCSM) C12\_NCSM . In this method, we perform calculations in a finite harmonic-oscillator (HO) basis using effective interactions appropriate to the basis size truncation that are systematically derived from the original inter-nucleon potential. The method is convergent to the exact solution with the basis size enlargement and/or with the degree of clustering of the effective interaction. Due to the properties of the HO basis it is no technical problem to use either local or non-local and either coordinate or momentum space potentials.

In this paper, we apply the NCSM to obtain nuclear structure results using the N3LO NN potential for 3H, 4He, 6Li, 6He and 10B. With the improved shell model code ANTOINE Antoine ; Be8\_NCSM  we are able to reach basis sizes up to the $`16\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for 6Li and up to the $`8\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for 10B. At the same time, we perform variational calculations in the HO basis for 6Li using the bare N3LO potential. These variational calculations allow us to make extrapolations and check our NCSM effective interaction results. In addition, we compare the N3LO results to those obtained by the CD-Bonn 2000 and the AV8.

It should be pointed out that already at the third order of the chiral perturbation theory, N2LO, three-body terms appear EFT\_V3b . These terms should be consistently included in calculations for $`A>2`$ nuclei. It is our goal to perform the NCSM calculations with the three-body terms included using the approach outlined in Ref. NO03 . In fact, work in this direction is under way Andreas . However, in general when only the two-nucleon interactions are employed the NCSM approach can achieve a higher accuracy as larger basis spaces can be reached. Therefore, it is valuable to perform accurate calculations using just the two-nucleon forces to assess the effects of the omitted three-nucleon terms. The eventual less accurate results obtained with both the two- and three-nucleon forces can then be better understood and extrapolated.

We briefly review the basic features of the NCSM and describe our variational calculations in the HO basis in Section II. In Section III, we present our N3LO results for 3H and 4He. In Section IV, we discuss our calculations for $`A=6`$ using the N3LO NN potential and compare them to results obtained by the AV8 and the CD-Bonn 2000. In addition, we check convergence properties of our approach using the semi-realistic Minnesota NN potential. In Section V, we show the NCSM predictions for 10B with the N3LO NN potential. Our conclusions are summarized in Section VI.

## II Ab initio no-core shell model and variational calculations in the HO basis

A detailed description of the NCSM approach was presented, e.g. in Refs. C12\_NCSM ; fourb\_NCSM ; Jacobi\_NCSM . Here we only briefly review the basic features of the NCSM. Also, we describe our variational calculations in the HO basis that we apply in the following Sections.

The starting Hamiltonian for our investigations is

$$H_A=\frac{1}{A}\underset{i<j}{\overset{A}{}}\frac{(\stackrel{}{p}_i\stackrel{}{p}_j)^2}{2m}+\underset{i<j}{\overset{A}{}}V_{\mathrm{NN},ij},$$
(1)
where $`m`$ is the nucleon mass, $`V_{\mathrm{NN},ij}`$, the NN interaction with both strong and electromagnetic components. In the NCSM, we employ a large but finite harmonic-oscillator (HO) basis. Due to properties of the realistic nuclear interaction in Eq. (1), we must derive an effective interaction appropriate for the basis truncation in order to reach convergence or to achieve a reasonable approximation to the exact solution. To facilitate the derivation of the effective interaction, we modify the Hamiltonian (1) by adding to it the center-of-mass (CM) HO Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{CM}}=T_{\mathrm{CM}}+U_{\mathrm{CM}}`$, where $`U_{\mathrm{CM}}=\frac{1}{2}Am\mathrm{\Omega }^2\stackrel{}{R}^2`$, $`\stackrel{}{R}=\frac{1}{A}_{i=1}^A\stackrel{}{r}_i`$. This modification was first introduced by Lipkin Lipkin . The effect of the HO CM Hamiltonian will later be subtracted out in the final many-body calculation. Due to the translational invariance of the Hamiltonian (1) the HO CM Hamiltonian has in fact no effect on the intrinsic properties of the system in the infinite basis space or in a finite basis space truncated by $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ as described below if the interaction in Eq. (1) is not altered.

The modified Hamiltonian can be cast into the form

$`H_A^\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $`=`$ $`H_A+H_{\mathrm{CM}}={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{A}{}}}h_i+{\displaystyle \underset{i<j}{\overset{A}{}}}V_{ij}^{\mathrm{\Omega },A}`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{A}{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_i^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m\mathrm{\Omega }^2\stackrel{}{r}_i^2\right]+{\displaystyle \underset{i<j}{\overset{A}{}}}\left[V_{\mathrm{NN},ij}{\displaystyle \frac{m\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{2A}}(\stackrel{}{r}_i\stackrel{}{r}_j)^2\right].`$
Next we divide the $`A`$-nucleon infinite HO basis space into the finite active space ($`P`$) comprising of all states of up to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ HO excitations above the unperturbed ground state and the excluded space ($`Q=1P`$). The basic idea of the NCSM approach is to apply a unitary transformation on the Hamiltonian (2), $`e^SH_A^\mathrm{\Omega }e^S`$ such that $`Qe^SH_A^\mathrm{\Omega }e^SP=0`$ LS1 ; LS2 . If such a transformation is found, the effective Hamiltonian that exactly reproduces a subset of eigenstates of the full space Hamiltonian is given by $`H_{\mathrm{eff}}=Pe^SH_A^\mathrm{\Omega }e^SP`$. This effective Hamiltonian contains up to $`A`$-body terms and to construct it is essentially as difficult as to solve the full problem. Therefore, we apply this basic idea on a sub-cluster level. In this paper we use the simplest approximation, a two-body effective interaction approximation. This approximation is obtained by constructing the unitary transformation for the Hamiltonian (2) applied to two nucleons only, i.e., $`_2=h_1+h_2+V_{12}^{\mathrm{\Omega },A}`$ with $`A`$ in $`V_{12}^{\mathrm{\Omega },A}`$ fixed at the value corresponding to the final $`A`$-nucleon calculation. The two-body effective interaction is then derived with the help of the exact eigensolutions of $`_2`$ as $`[V_{12}^{\mathrm{\Omega },A}]_{\mathrm{eff}}=P_2\left[e^{S_2}_2e_2^Sh_1h_2\right]P_2`$. Here, the definition of the two-nucleon model space projector $`P_2`$ follows directly from the definition of the $`A`$-nucleon projector $`P`$. The two-nucleon transformation $`S_2`$ is determined by the condition $`Q_2e^{S_2}_2e^{S_2}P_2=0`$.

The $`A`$-nucleon calculation with $`A>4`$ is then performed using the multi-shell (no-core) version of the code ANTOINE, with the Hamiltonian in the form:

$$H_{A,\mathrm{eff}}^{\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{SM}}=P\left\{\underset{i<j}{\overset{A}{}}\left[\frac{(\stackrel{}{p}_i\stackrel{}{p}_j)^2}{2Am}+\frac{m\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{2A}(\stackrel{}{r}_i\stackrel{}{r}_j)^2\right]+\underset{i<j}{\overset{A}{}}\left[V_{\mathrm{NN},ij}\frac{m\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{2A}(\stackrel{}{r}_i\stackrel{}{r}_j)^2\right]_{\mathrm{eff}}+\beta (H_{\mathrm{CM}}\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })\right\}P,$$
(3)
where we subtracted the CM Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{CM}}`$ and added the Lawson projection term $`\beta (H_{\mathrm{CM}}\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })`$ to shift the spurious CM excitations. As our effective interaction is translationally invariant our physical eigenenergies do not depend on the choice of $`\beta `$. Note that in Section III we present $`A=3,4`$ calculations performed in Jacobi coordinate antisymmetrized HO basis. In those calculations the CM degrees of freedom are explicitly omitted and therefore no $`\beta (H_{\mathrm{CM}}\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })`$ term is used.

We note that our effective interaction depends on the nucleon number $`A`$, the HO frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and the $`P`$-space basis size defined by $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$. It is translationally invariant and with $`N_{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{}`$ the NCSM effective Hamiltonian approaches the starting bare Hamiltonian (1). Consequently, with the basis size increase the NCSM results become less and less dependent on the HO frequency and converge to the exact solution. Alternatively, by increasing the clustering of the effective interaction for a fixed $`P`$-space size the NCSM effective Hamiltonian approaches the exact $`A`$-nucleon effective Hamiltonian that reproduces exactly a subset of eigenstates of the starting Hamiltonian (1).

It turns out that the N3LO NN potential is softer than the phenomenological high-quality NN potentials like the AV18 or the CD-Bonn. As we are able to reach basis spaces of up to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=18`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=16`$ for $`A=4`$ and $`A=6`$, respectively, it make sense to perform variational calculations in the HO basis for 4He and 6Li using the bare N3LO NN potential with the HO frequency or the oscillator length as the only variational parameter. In this case, the Hamiltonian that we use is $`PH_AP`$, with $`H_A`$ given in Eq. (1) (plus the $`\beta P(H_{\mathrm{CM}}\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })P`$ term when Slater determinant basis is utilized, i.e., for $`A>4`$). We perform variational calculations for different basis sizes defined by $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$. We then extrapolate to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{}`$ and compare to our effective interaction results.

## III 3H and 4He results

As a test of convergence of our method and also as a test of correct interfacing of our codes with the N3LO NN potential code Machl\_priv  we performed calculations for 3H and 4He. We used the translationally invariant HO basis antisymmetrized as described in Ref. Jacobi\_NCSM  and employed the many-body effective interaction code MANYEFF Jacobi\_NCSM . Our results are summarized in Table 1. Our 3H binding energy, 7.85(1) MeV, that was obtained using basis spaces up to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=40`$ agrees well with the result obtained by the Faddeev method Machl\_priv .

Our 4He binding energy calculations were performed using both bare and the two-body effective interactions in basis spaces up to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=18`$. Our obtained binding energy, 25.36(4) MeV, is very close to that obtained by the Faddeev-Yakubovsky method Andreas . In Fig. 1, we present the HO frequency dependence of our 4He binding energy for different basis sizes. Calculations with two-body effective interactions are compared to the variational calculations using the bare N3LO NN potential. The NCSM calculations with the two-body effective interaction are not variational as some terms of the transformed Hamiltonian (i.e., the higher than two-body terms) are omitted. Therefore, in the NCSM approach the convergence could be, depending on the HO frequency, either from above or below or even oscillatory with the basis size enlargement. It should be noted how the frequency dependence of our 4He binding energy decreases with the basis size enlargement. Also, the two-body effective interaction always improves on the bare interaction results in particular for the smaller spaces and lower HO frequencies. For example, the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$ ($`14\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$) binding energy obtained using the effective interaction varies within 25.11 MeV and 25.5 MeV in the range of HO frequencies shown in Fig. 1, $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=2440`$ MeV. The bare interaction binding energy in the same basis space and the same frequency range varies within 23.09 MeV and 25.12 MeV. For the highest frequency that we used here, $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=40`$ MeV, we observe that the improvements due to the two-body effective interaction become very small. We note that the the minimum of the variational calculation in the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=18`$ basis space is at about $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=36`$ MeV. The minima for the smaller space calculations are at still higher frequencies, e.g., the minimum of the of the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=12`$ calculation is at $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }>40`$ MeV outside of the range shown in Fig. 1. At $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=18`$ our effective interaction calculations agree with the variational bare interaction result.

It is instructive to investigate in addition to the binding energy also the convergence of the point-nucleon 4He radius. A similar plot as in Fig. 1 is presented for the point-nucleon root mean square radius in Fig. 2. Even though no operator renormalization was used for the radius operator very similar conclusions can be drawn as for the binding energy. The calculation with the effective interaction (i.e., with wave functions obtained using the effective interactions) improves convergence and reduces the frequency dependence compared to a calculation with the bare interaction wave functions using the same basis size. With the basis enlargement the frequency dependence decreases. At the same time, it should be noticed that the optimal frequency for the radius convergence is not necessarily the same as that for the binding energy. It is important to investigate the frequency dependence of energies and other observables to determine the extrapolated values and errors. We extrapolate the 4He radius with the N3LO potential to be 1.515(10) fm. In Fig. 3 we show the complete basis size dependence of the point-nucleon radius calculation using the effective interaction for several HO frequencies. The convergence with $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and the decrease of frequency dependence can be clearly seen.

The 3H and 4He N3LO binding energies (7.85 MeV, 25.36 MeV) are in between the Argonne V8 (7.77 MeV, 25.2 MeV) and the CD-Bonn binding energies (8.00 MeV, 26.3 MeV) but considerably closer to the AV8 results. Note that the Coulomb interaction is included for all three potentials.

## IV Application to 6Li and 6He

As mentioned earlier, our $`A=6`$ calculations reported here were obtained using the improved multi-shell (no-core) version of the code ANTOINE capable to reach basis spaces up to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=16`$ ($`16\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$) for 6Li with the M-scheme basis dimension equal to $`8\times 10^8`$. A specific challenge of the no-core calculations compared to the traditional $`0\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ valence nucleon calculations is the enormous number of single particle states (e.g., there are 171 $`nlj`$ levels and 2280 $`nljm`$ states for each protons and neutrons in the $`16\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ 6Li calculations). This implies a huge number of operators that need to be stored in memory. The other challenge is the huge dimension of the matrix to be diagonalized. Both these challenges have been addressed in the improved ANTOINE code. In particular, an efficient way of operator storage was found and a partitioning of Lanczos vectors was introduced that eliminates the need to store the full Lanczos vectors in memory.

Before presenting our N3LO results, let us first discuss test calculations for 6Li using the semi-realistic Minnesota (MN) NN potential Minnesota  frequently used for few-body calculation benchmarks SVM ; EIHH\_3eff . Our NCSM results, in particular the HO frequency dependence of the ground-state energy for different basis spaces ranging from $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=0`$ to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$, are presented in Fig. 4. Clearly, for the Minnesota NN potential we observe the best case scenario of the NCSM convergence. Starting from $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=2`$ the convergence is uniform in the whole frequency range. The HO frequency dependence is getting weaker with the basis size enlargement. The differences between the successive curves decrease as the basis size increases. At $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$ the NCSM energy at the minimum is within 30 keV of the Stochastic Variational Method (SVM) SVM  result 36.51 MeV Varga . An $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=16`$ calculation improves the NCSM and SVM agreement to 10 keV. Similarly, the Effective Interaction in the Hyperspherical Harmonics basis (EIHH) method EIHH\_3eff ; EIHH  obtains a very close binding energy of 36.64(7) MeV Winfried . Let us mention that a variational calculation in the HO basis using the bare Minnesota NN potential still misses about 1.5 MeV from the converged value in the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$ basis space. The improvement due to the two-body effective interaction is quite dramatic even for such a large basis space. The Minnesota NN potential was employed as a test potential for the NCSM 6Li investigation already in Ref. NCSM\_6 . There, however, basis spaces up to only $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=10`$ were utilized. Also, the Minnesota NN potential results presented in Ref. NCSM\_6  include the Coulomb interaction which was omitted in the present calculations.

We now turn to our 6Li N3LO results. In Fig. 5, we present the HO frequency dependence of the ground-state energy obtained by the variational calculations (dashed lines) in $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=8`$ to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=16`$ basis spaces and by the two-body effective interaction NCSM calculations in basis spaces ranging from $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=2`$ to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$. The variational calculations exhibit large changes with $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and clearly they are not converged at $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=16`$. The minimum in the largest spaces that we used develops at about $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=33`$ MeV and the value at minimum for the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=16`$ space is -24.7 MeV. The NCSM two-body effective interaction results (full lines in Fig. 5) show stronger HO frequency dependence than those obtained using the Minnesota NN potential and in fact also than those obtained using the CD-Bonn NN potential NCSM\_6 . We can see that the minimum appears around $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=12`$ MeV and shifts with increasing $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ to lower frequency. Due to this shift the successive curves intersect and we do not have a nice uniform picture as in the case of the Minnesota interaction. At the same time, the value at minimum does not change much starting at $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=6`$ as can be seen in Fig. 6 where we plot the ground-state energy obtained at the minimum for each $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$. It is interesting to note that for the largest spaces, e.g. $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$, a second minimum develops at around the frequency where the bare interaction results are at the minimum. Similarly as in the case of 4He, we can see that starting at certain frequency, the two-body effective interaction does not change the bare interaction results any more and the effective interaction curves start to follow the bare interaction curves.

In Fig. 6, we also present the bare interaction variational calculation results at fixed HO frequencies at or close to the minimum of the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=16`$ spaces. It turns out that these ground-state energy $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ dependencies can be fitted by an exponential function of the type $`E(N_{\mathrm{max}})=E_{\mathrm{}}+ae^{bN_{\mathrm{max}}}`$ (see an analogous fit done for the hyperspherical harmonics basis calculation in Ref. EIHH\_3eff ). When we fit this formula to the last four points, $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=816`$, we obtain $`E_{\mathrm{}}28.2`$ MeV. This is rather close to the energy at the minima of our two-body effective interaction calculations that are at about 28.5 MeV. Based on the variational bare interaction calculations and extrapolation and on the two-body effective interaction NCSM calculations in different spaces and using different frequencies we arrive at our final 6Li N3LO binding energy result of 28.5(5) MeV. The experimental 6Li binding energy is 31.995 MeV. Our calculations suggest that the N3LO NN potential under-binds 6Li by about 3.5 MeV.

It is interesting to compare the N3LO results to those obtained by other NN potentials. Concerning the binding energy, in Fig. 7 we repeat the basis size dependence from Fig. 6 of the NCSM ground-state energy at the frequency minima for the N3LO and show the same for the AV8, CD-Bonn 2000 and the Minnesota NN potentials. In addition, the AV8 GFMC result pieper01  and the Minnesota SVM Varga  and EIHH Winfried  results are shown for comparison. As discussed earlier, our Minnesota results show a nice convergence and agree quite well in particular with the SVM result. Our AV8 binding energy is close to that obtained using the N3LO NN potential and within about 300 keV of the GFMC result. Our CD-Bonn 2000 binding energy is, on the other hand, larger by almost 1 MeV compared to the N3LO and the AV8. Our present result is almost the same as that presented in Ref. NCSM\_6  using the older version of the CD-Bonn NN potential and the NCSM calculations in basis spaces up to only $`10\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Our binding energy results are tabulated in Tables 2 and 3 with our conservative error estimates based on the frequency and basis size sensitivity.

We investigated the excitation energies of the five lowest excited states of 6Li using the N3LO NN potential. As the binding energy minimum shifts with the change of the basis size and also as we expect that the energy of different excited states might have different dependence on the HO frequency than the ground state, we calculated the excitation energies for several HO frequencies. Due to the complexity of the calculations, the lowest four state were obtained in basis spaces up to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$ while we stopped at $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=12`$ for the $`2^+1`$ and the $`1_2^+0`$ state. The NCSM excitation energy dependence on the basis size is presented in Figs. 8, 9 and 10 for the HO frequencies of $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=8,10`$ and 13 MeV, respectively. In Fig. 11, we then show the excitation energies for the $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=8,10,12`$ and 13 MeV HO frequencies in the largest basis space used. It is apparent that the convergence rate with $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is different for different states. In particular, the $`3^+0`$ state and the $`0^+1`$ state converge faster in the higher frequency calculations, while the higher lying states converge faster in the lower frequency calculations. As can be seen from Fig. 11 in the largest space used the dependence on the HO frequency is very weak. We summarize our excitation energies with the estimated errors in Table 2. We have, in particular, confidence in our $`3^+0`$ excitation energy that is reflected in a very small associated uncertainty. In the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$ space, the $`3^+0`$ excitation energy is almost frequency independent in the range of $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=1013`$ MeV. At $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=8`$ MeV, this state has a slightly higher excitation energy. However, it is seen from Fig. 8 that its energy is still decreasing with the basis size enlargement. On the other hand, this state is fairly stable and converged with $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ in the $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=1013`$ MeV calculations.

In general, our calculated levels are in the correct order when compared to experiment for the lowest four states. Concerning the $`2^+1`$ and the $`1_2^+0`$ state, those are obtained at almost the same energy and the uncertainty of our results is too large to make a definitive prediction as to their ordering. When comparing our results to experiment we notice a striking discrepancy for the $`3^+0`$ state that calculated excitation energy is about 0.7 MeV higher than the experimental one. Taking into account our confidence in convergence of this state, this is a serious discrepancy in the prediction of the N3LO NN potential. The remaining states, when considering our estimated errors, are in fairly good agreement with experiment. We note, however, a significant underestimation of the splitting between the $`3^+0`$ and the $`2^+0`$ states. This splitting is influenced by the spin-orbit interaction strength.

In Table 3, we compare our N3LO excitation energy results with our NCSM results obtained by the CD-Bonn 2000 and the AV8 NN potentials. In addition, we also present the GFMC 6Li results obtained using the AV8. We note that we have not performed as detailed excitation energy calculations using the CD-Bonn 2000 and the AV8 as we did for the N3LO. The presented NCSM CD-Bonn 2000 and the AV8 excitation energies were obtained in the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$ basis space using the HO frequency of $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=12`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=11`$ MeV, respectively. We expect, however, that the error estimates that we found for our N3LO excitation energy results are also applicable to our tabulated CD-Bonn 2000 and AV8 excitation energy calculations. It is apparent that when considering the estimated uncertainties our NCSM calculations cannot discriminate between the three realistic NN potentials as to their predictions of the excitation energies. The CD-Bonn gives a slightly lower excitation energy of the $`3^+0`$ state and a slightly larger splitting between the $`3^+0`$ and the $`2^+0`$ states. However, the differences are smaller than the difference between our NCSM AV8 and the GFMC AV8 results. In general, the NCSM and the GFMC results using the AV8 are in a reasonable agreement. Although we have an about 200 keV difference in the $`3^+0`$ excitation energy, the difference with respect to experiment is about 800 keV for the NCSM and about 1 MeV for the GFMC. This further supports our statement about the failure of the accurate NN potentials to predict the position of this lowest excited state of 6Li.

The 6Li with the CD-Bonn and the AV8 was investigated within the NCSM in Refs. NCSM\_6 ; v3eff  using the basis spaces up to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=10`$ with the two-body effective interaction and $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=6`$ with the three-body effective interaction. The results that we present here are consistent with the previously published results. Only the $`2^+0`$ excitation energy reported in this work is better converged and smaller. This is due to the larger basis space, i.e. $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$, employed here. We note that there is approximately a 500 keV difference in the excitation energy of the $`0^+1`$ state obtained in the NCSM and the GFMC using the AV8. It is interesting to point out that the NCSM calculations using the three-body effective interaction in the $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=6`$ space predict this $`0^+1`$ state at a higher excitation energy closer to the GFMC result than the NCSM calculations that employ just the two-body effective interaction in similar basis spaces v3eff . This is contrary to the $`T=0`$ states excitation energy results that are very similar using both the two-body or the three-body effective interaction v3eff . The difference for the $`0^+1`$ state in the two NCSM approximations needs further investigation. Ultimately, with the basis size enlargement the results in both approximations must by construction converge to the same value.

In Table 2, we also present electromagnetic properties of 6Li, binding energy of 6He and the Gamow-Teller 6He$`^6`$Li B(GT) value obtained in our NCSM calculations using the N3LO NN potential. The 6He binding energy is consistent with our 6Li results and under-binds experiment by about 3 MeV. The NCSM calculated electromagnetic properties, obtained using bare charges, are in a reasonable agreement with experiment. We note that while the B(M1) result is fairly stable with the basis size change the B(E2) values increase in general as the basis size is increased. Consequently, our B(M1) values reported here are almost the same as those published in Ref. NCSM\_6  but our present B(E2) values are substantially larger. The present results were obtained using $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=14`$ while those of Ref. NCSM\_6  using $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=10`$. We note that our B(GT) value for the 6He$`^6`$Li ground-state to ground-state transition over-predicts experiment. Recently, Schiavilla and Wiringa found that the AV18/Urbana-IX interaction also over-predicts the 6He$`^6`$Li B(GT) value Schia . In fact, their obtained Gamow-Teller matrix elements ($`\sqrt{\mathrm{B}(\mathrm{GT})}`$), 2.254(5) and 2.246(10) using two types of wave functions, compare well with our result 2.28 obtained using the N3LO NN potential.

In order to judge the convergence of other observables than just energies, in Fig. 12 we present the HO frequency dependence of the 6Li ground-state quadrupole moment for different basis sizes. Similar conclusions as for the 4He radius calculations can be drawn here. With the basis size increase the frequency dependence decreases. At the same time, the fastest convergence is not necessarily obtained for the same frequency as for the binding energy. A speed up of convergence for the electromagnetic quadrupole observables should be achieved by using effective operators. This has not been done here, but work on this problem is currently under way Ionel . We conclude that the quadrupole moment of 6Li with the N3LO interaction is -0.08(2) $`e`$ fm2.

To summarize this section, apart from more binding obtained using the CD-Bonn 2000 NN potential, we can see little differences in predictions of the $`A=6`$ nuclei properties by the three accurate NN potentials, the N3LO, the CD-Bonn 2000 and the AV8. Let us just note that we also investigated the $`2\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$-dominated (intruder) states in 6He (not observed in experiment) using the three NN potentials. Such states observed in heavier $`p`$-shell nuclei are in general predicted by the NCSM at too high energies and converge much more slowly than the $`p`$-shell dominated states Be8\_NCSM ; A10\_NCSM . Using the same basis size and the same HO frequency, these states appear at lower excitation energy when the N3LO NN potential is used compared to the CD-Bonn 2000 and the AV8. This does not necessarily imply that the N3LO NN potential will predict the $`2\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$-dominated states at lower energies but perhaps that the NCSM convergence of such states is faster when the N3LO NN potential is used.

## V Application to 10B

In the previous section we pointed out that the N3LO NN potential fails to predict correct excitation energy of the $`3^+0`$ state in 6Li by about 700 keV. It has been realized that this problem which is common to other accurate NN potentials is magnified in 10B. The ground state of 10B is $`3^+0`$ and the $`1^+0`$ state is the 10B first excited state at 0.72 MeV. Both the NCSM 10B calculations using the CD-Bonn and the Argonne NN potentials and the GFMC 10B calculations using the Argonne NN potentials show that these accurate NN potentials predict incorrectly the $`1^+0`$ state as the ground state and the $`3^+0`$ state as an excited state at higher than 1 MeV of excitation energy GFMC\_9\_10 ; v3eff ; A10\_NCSM . This is a clear indication for the need of a three-nucleon force not only to fix the under-binding problem but also to correct, at least in some nuclei like 10B, the level ordering. In fact, it has already been shown that, e.g., for the AV8 NN potential the 10B ground-state spin problem is resolved by including certain types of the three-nucleon forces like Illinois GFMC\_9\_10  or the Tucson-Melbourne TM(99) NO03 , but it is not resolved by including the Urbana IX GFMC\_9\_10 . This type of sensitivity suggests that nuclear structure calculations for light nuclei could be used to help determine the form and the parametrization of realistic three-nucleon forces that are unlike the two-nucleon interactions not well established.

It is quite interesting to perform the 10B calculations using the N3LO NN potential. Our NCSM results performed in basis spaces up to $`N_{\mathrm{max}}=8`$ are presented in Figs. 13 and 14 and Table 4. Unlike in the case of 6Li, we were not able to reach as large basis spaces that are needed for the excitation energy or the binding energy convergence. Still, our calculations are sufficient to resolve the ground-state spin issue in 10B with the N3LO NN potential. In Fig. 13, we present the dependence of the 10B $`1^+0`$ and $`3^+0`$ state energy on the HO frequency for different model spaces. In the NCSM, one typically determines the optimal HO frequency for the ground state and uses the same frequency to describe the excited states. In general, however, one should also investigate the the frequency dependence for the excited states in order to determine their energy v3eff . This is in particular important in the 10B investigation when we actually want to find out which state is the ground state for a given NN potential. In the inset of Fig. 13, the $`1^+0`$ and $`3^+0`$ state energies at their respective HO frequency minima are plotted as a function of $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$. We can see that in the whole frequency range that we show the $`1^+0`$ state is always the ground state. For the highest frequency shown in the Figure, $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=16`$ MeV, the excitation energy of the $`3^+0`$ state becomes quite small. However, we observe that with the basis size increase the $`3^+0`$ excitation energy is actually increasing. In Fig. 14, we then show the excitation energies of the lowest 5 10B states calculated in the $`0\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }8\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ basis spaces using a fixed HO frequency of $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }=12`$ MeV. At this frequency, the ground-state energy is at the minimum in the $`8\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ space. Clearly, the excitation spectrum is not converged as it was the case in our 6Li calculations. However, there is definitely a trend to convergence. The differences between the successive calculations become smaller and smaller with increasing $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$. We can conclude with confidence that the $`3^+0`$ state will remain the excited state with further increase of $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and most likely will appear at an excitation energy of more than 1 MeV. Based on our NCSM calculations, we conclude that the N3LO NN potential fails to produce a correct ground-state spin for 10B.

We mentioned earlier that already at the N2LO order of the chiral perturbation theory the three-body terms appear. Those terms were not used in this work. However, work on their inclusion in the NCSM is under way Andreas . It is reasonable to expect that these three-body terms will resolve the 10B ground state problem. Structure of some of the EFT three-body terms in fact coincides with, e.g., the Tucson-Melbourne TM(99) three-nucleon interaction TMprime99  that was already shown to resolve the 10B problem when combined with the AV8 NN potential.

## VI Conclusions

We calculated the properties of 3H, 4He, 6Li, 6He and 10B using the accurate charge-dependent NN potential at fourth order of chiral perturbation theory. We applied the ab initio no-core shell model and a variational calculation in the harmonic oscillator basis. For 6Li, we were able to reach the basis size of up to $`16\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ using an improved multi-shell (no-core) version of the shell model code ANTOINE. We obtained the 6Li binding energy of 28.5(5) MeV and a converged excitation spectrum. Properties of 10B were obtained using the same NN potential in basis spaces of up to $`8\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Our results are consistent with results obtained by standard accurate NN potentials and demonstrate a deficiency of Hamiltonians consisting of only two-body terms. In addition to under binding compared to experiment for all investigated nuclei, we found the 6Li $`3^+0`$ excitation energy over-predicted by about 700 keV compared to experiment. For 10B we found an incorrect ground state, $`1^+0`$, contrary to experimental $`3^+0`$.

We anticipate that most of these problems will be resolved by including three-body terms that appear already at the third order of the chiral perturbation theory. A work on including these terms in the NCSM is under way Andreas .

Finally, let us note that recently a new accurate non-local NN potential has been constructed that fits not only the two-nucleon data but also the binding energies of 3H and 3He without any need to introduce a three-body interaction Doleschall . As our calculations show, the deficiencies of two-nucleon interactions are not limited only to the under binding but also to the nuclear structure issues most likely linked to an insufficient spin-orbit interaction strength. It will be very interesting to perform nuclear structure calculations using the new non-local NN potential of Ref. Doleschall  to test its predictions for the binding energies and also for the spin-orbit interaction strength sensitive observables.

## VII Acknowledgments

We thank R. Machleidt for providing the N3LO NN potential code. We also thank A. Nogga for providing the 4He N3LO binding energy result obtained by the Faddeev-Yakubovsky method, K. Varga and W. Leidemann for the permission to present their 6Li binding energy results for the Minnesota NN potential prior to publication. This work was partly performed under the auspices of the U. S. Department of Energy by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48.


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# Spin-orbit correlation energy in neutron matter

## I Introduction

The properties of nuclear matter at high density play a crucial role in the modeling of neutron stars (NS’s) interior shapiro . The observed NS masses are in the range of $`(12)M_{}`$ (where $`M_{}`$ is the mass of the sun, $`M_{}=1.99\times 10^{33}`$g), and the radii are of the order of 10 km. The matter inside NS’s, below the outer crust, possesses densities ranging from a fraction to a few times the normal nuclear matter density $`\rho _0`$ $`(0.17\mathrm{fm}^3)`$. The equation of state (EoS) at such densities is one of the main ingredients to determine the structure parameters of NS’s. Due to beta-stability conditions, NS matter is much closer to neutron matter than to symmetric nuclear matter shapiro . Since no phenomenological data can be used to constrain the neutron matter EoS, one has to rely on microscopic many-body calculations based on realistic nucleon-nucleon (NN) interactions. Predictions of the neutron matter EoS based on purely phenomenological Skyrme forces can dramatically differ among each other, even at relatively low density (for a recent compilation see e.g. ABrown ). For these reasons, an accurate determination of the neutron matter EoS in the density range typical of NS’s, based on many-body theory and realistic NN forces, appears of great relevance. Unfortunately, despite the enormous progress in the many-body theory of nuclear matter in general and neutron matter in particular, discrepancies among different calculations are still persisting. Among the variety of methods that have been developed in the many-body theory of nucleon systems, one can mention the variational method Akmal , in his various degrees of sophistication (including Monte-Carlo procedures), the Green’ s function Monte-Carlo method (GFMC) Pieper , which represents a numerical algorithm converging in principle to the “exact” solution, and the Bethe-Brueckner-Goldstone (BBG) expansion book . It has been pointed out Fantoni  that the spin-orbit interaction and correlations are particularly relevant in neutron and nuclear matter and require accurate many-body and numerical treatments. Indeed, a large fraction of the observed discrepancies seems to reside in the proper treatment of the spin-orbit interaction terms.

In this paper we focus on the many-body effects due to the spin-orbit terms of the NN interaction within the BBG expansion. To this purpose, and for the sake of comparison with the results obtained with other methods, we perform calculations for neutron matter with the $`v_8^{}`$ and $`v_6^{}`$ NN realistic two-body interactions, including and, respectively, not including the spin-orbit terms. These interactions are simplified versions of the $`Av_{18}`$ potential, but they can be still considered realistic enough to provide meaningful results. In particular, they both contain tensor interaction operators. This paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II we briefly introduce the BBG expansion method and discuss the corresponding neutron matter EoS in the relevant density range. In Sec. III we make a detailed comparison with the results of other many-body methods, in particular the GFMC and the Auxiliary Field diffusion Monte-Carlo method (AFDMC). Sec. IV is devoted to the conclusions.

## II Neutron matter EoS and the BBG expansion

The main difficulty in the many-body theory of nuclear matter is the treatment of the strong repulsive core, which dominates the short range behavior of the NN interaction. Simple perturbation theory cannot of course be applied, and one way of overcoming this difficulty is to introduce the two-body scattering G-matrix, which has a much smoother behavior even for a large repulsive core. It is possible to rearrange the perturbation expansion in terms of the reaction G-matrix, in place of the original bare NN interaction, and this procedure is systematically exploited in the BBG expansion book .

The expansion of the ground state energy at a given density, i.e. the EoS at zero temperature, can be ordered according to the number of independent hole-lines appearing in the diagrams representing the different terms of the expansion. This grouping of diagrams generates the so-called hole-line expansion Day . The diagrams with a given number $`n`$ of hole-lines are expected to describe the main contribution to the $`n`$-particle correlations in the system. At the two hole-line level one gets the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (BHF) approximation. The BHF approximation includes the self-consistent procedure of determining the single particle auxiliary potential, which is an essential ingredient of the method. Once the auxiliary self-consistent potential is introduced, the expansion is implemented by introducing the set of diagrams which include “potential insertions” book . To be specific, the introduction of the auxiliary potential can be formally performed by splitting the hamiltonian in a modified way from the usual one

$$H=T+V=T+U+(VU)H_0^{}+V^{},$$
(1)
where $`T`$ is the kinetic energy and $`V`$ the nucleon-nucleon interaction. Then one considers $`V^{}=VU`$ as the new interaction potential and $`H_0^{}`$ as the new single particle hamiltonian. The modified single particle energy $`e(k)`$ is given by

$$e(k)=\frac{\mathrm{}^2k^2}{2m}+U(k)$$
(2)
while $`U`$ must be chosen in such a way that the new interaction $`V^{}`$ is, in some sense, “reduced” with respect to the original one $`V`$, so that the expansion in $`V^{}`$ should be faster converging. The introduction of the auxiliary potential turns out to be essential, otherwise the hole-expansion would be badly diverging. The total energy $`E`$ can then be written as

$$E=\underset{k}{}e(k)+B$$
(3)
where $`B`$ is the interaction energy due to $`V^{}`$. The first potential insertion diagram cancels out the potential part of the single particle energy of Eq. (2), in the expression for the total energy $`E`$. This is actually true for any definition of the auxiliary potential $`U`$. At the two hole-line level of approximation, one therefore gets

$$E=\underset{k<k_F}{}\frac{\mathrm{}^2k^2}{2m}+\stackrel{~}{B}$$
(4)
The result that only the unperturbed kinetic energy appears in the expression for $`E`$ and that all correlations are included in the potential energy part $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ holds true to all orders and it is a peculiarity of the BBG expansion. Of course, the modification of the momentum distribution, and therefore of the kinetic energy, is included in the interaction energy part, but it is treated on the same footing as the other correlation effects. This presents a noticeable advantage: in fact, the modification of the kinetic energy itself is quite large and, of course, positive and it should be therefore compensated by an extremely accurate calculation of the (negative) correlation energy, if the two quantities are calculated independently.

Up to three-hole lines, the diagrams for $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ can be schematically represented as in Fig. 1. Diagrams (a) and (b) in the first line represent the usual BHF approximation, while the remaining lines include the three hole-line diagrams.

The box in the third line represents the three-body scattering matrix $`T^{(3)}`$, which can be introduced following a procedure similar to what is done for the Brueckner G-matrix and satisfies the Bethe-Fadeev integral equations raja ; book . Diagram (f) generates, to lowest order in the G-matrix, diagrams (c) and (e), which are usually calculated separately, since they require an accurate numerical procedure (and they cancel each other to a large extent). Diagram (d) is a potential insertion diagram, the only one at the three hole-line level, and it is non-zero only if the single particle potential is non-zero at momenta larger then the Fermi momentum $`k_F`$ (e.g. in the so-called “continuous choice” Mahaux ; book ).

In a previous paper Baldo2000  we have shown that the BBG expansion for neutron matter displays a relatively rapid rate of convergence, and that calculating the total energy up to the three hole-line diagrams is enough to get an accurate EoS, even for densities a few times larger than the saturation density. These calculations were done for the Argonne $`v_{14}`$ and $`v_{18}`$ potentials, which contain a large set of interaction operators, including the spin-orbit ones. In order to simplify the analysis and the comparison with other methods, we have performed the same type of calculations for the $`v_8^{}`$ NN potential v8prime , which is a simplified version of the $`v_{18}`$ interaction, but still realistic enough to keep the calculations meaningful. To better focus on the effects of the spin-orbit interaction, we have also considered the $`v_6^{}`$ potential, which is obtained from $`v_8^{}`$ by dropping the spin-orbit terms. The difference of the EoS obtained with these two interactions can, therefore, be taken as an estimate of the contribution and relevance of the spin-orbit NN interaction in neutron matter.

The EoS of neutron matter obtained within the BBG expansion for the two considered NN interactions is shown in Fig. 2. All calculations have been performed in the continuous choice for the single particle potential $`U(k)`$. As shown in Ref. Baldo2000 , the results are independent, to a high degree of accuracy, of the choice of $`U(k)`$. At the BHF level the difference between the EoS for the $`v_8^{}`$ NN interaction (dash-dotted line) and the EoS for the $`v_6^{}`$ NN interaction (dotted line) looks sizable, even at relatively low density. This discrepancy increases with density, reaching about 14 MeV at $`\rho =0.4`$ fm-3. When three-body correlations are included (dashed and full lines), the gap between the two EoS is reduced, the strength of this reduction being about 40% at the highest considered density.

Notice that the contribution of three hole-lines diagrams is positive for $`v_8^{}`$ and negative for $`v_6^{}`$, therefore this difference turns out to be quite sensitive to three-body correlations (as defined within the BBG expansion).

It is important to stress that the contribution of three-body correlations is only a few percent with respect to the two-body one (BHF), even at the highest density. Indeed, in the considered density region the interaction energy $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ of Eq. (4) is negative and large and compensates a large fraction of the positive kinetic energy contribution. This substantial cancellation between kinetic energy and interaction energy has the effect of amplifying the (small) differences of the correlation energy obtained in the different EoS calculations for a given NN interaction, as discussed in the next Section.

## III Results and Discussion

BBG results for the EoS of neutron matter using the $`v_8^{}`$ and $`v_6^{}`$ interactions are compared in Fig. 2 and, respectively, in Tables 1 and 2 with other calculations based on different many-body methods.

Green’ s function Monte-Carlo results were obtained in Ref. Carlson  within an unconstrained path (UC) approach, by considering 14 neutrons inside a periodic box and setting the interaction potential discontinuously to zero at distances larger than one-half the box size. The GFMC should give, in principle, the exact ground state energy of the system. For comparison to infinite neutron matter a “box correction” must then be applied. For the $`v_8^{}`$ interaction the latter was estimated in Ref. Carlson  using variational chain summation (VCS) techniques and turned out to be mostly due to the truncation of the potential. The resulting box corrected UC-GFMC EoS is listed in the fourth column of Table 1 and indicated in Fig.2 by full circles. Up to the highest density considered in Carlson , the agreement with the BBG results looks remarkable, given the uncertainty contained in the box correction procedure.

The authors of Ref. Carlson  also calculated the neutron matter EoS within the variational chain summation approach, both for 14 neutrons in a periodic box and directly for an uniform gas of neutrons. Their results for the infinite system with the $`v_8^{}`$ NN interaction are listed in the last column of Table 1 and plotted as stars in Fig. 2. They show fairly good agreement with the other methods, except, maybe, for the last two points at higher density, which seem to display a slightly different slope with respect to UC-GFMC and BBG 111The different density dependence of the UC-GFMC and VCS results when the spin-orbit interaction is included in the NN potential was observed, already in the periodic box results, in Ref.Carlson , where the possible origin of this behavior was supposed to be due either to an overestimation of spin-orbit contributions in the VCS method or to the employment of a too short imaginary time in the UC-GFMC calculation. The slightly better agreement between UC-GFMC and the trend of the BBG curves shown in Fig. 2 seems to favor the first hypothesis..

Switching the spin-orbit interaction terms off and considering the $`v_6^{}`$ NN potential, we can again compare the BBG results with UC-GFMC and variational calculations, which are also available Carlson . Unfortunately in this case the box correction to the GMFC has not been provided; however it looks reasonable to use the same corrections as in the $`v_8^{}`$ case. Once these corrections are applied to the UC-GMFC of Ref. Carlson  for the $`v_6^{}`$ NN interaction, we obtain the neutron matter EoS listed in Table 2 and indicated by the open circles in Fig. 2. Again, fairly good agreement with the BBG calculations is observed up to the highest density, $`\rho =0.24`$ fm-3, considered in Carlson . The overall trend seems to indicate that this agreement continues also at higher $`\rho `$ values.

It is interesting to notice that the inclusion of three-body correlations in the BBG expansion plays a relevant role in improving the agreement with the UC-GMFC results, which is, in any case, already satisfactory at the BHF level. This happens both for the $`v_8^{}`$ potential, for which, as already mentioned, the contribution of three hole-line diagrams is positive, and for the $`v_6^{}`$ case, where, instead, the correction is negative.

The variational VCS results, plotted as crosses in Fig. 2, have been obtained also from Ref. Carlson , again correcting periodic box $`v_6^{}`$ results with the box correction values given for the $`v_8^{}`$ interaction. Also in this case the agreement can be considered satisfactory, and again the trend with density seems to be slightly different with respect to UC-GFMC and BBG.

Another Monte-Carlo scheme has been recently developed Fantoni  for neutron matter, the Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte-Carlo (AFDMC) method.

The recent results of Ref. Fantoni  for $`v_6^{}`$ are reported in Fig. 2 as open squares. These calculations were performed for 14 neutrons in a cubic box, but using a continuous potential instead of the truncation of Ref. Carlson  and they therefore should automatically incorporate the largest part of finite size effects. As shown in Table 2, these results are close to the calculated UC-GFMC EoS, as well as to the BBG EoS in the whole considered density range.

Unfortunately, the same method applied to neutron matter with the $`v_8^{}`$ NN interaction gives an EoS (full squares in Fig. 2 and third column in Table 1) which differs from all other calculations. These findings indicate the difficulty of an accurate calculation of the spin-orbit contribution to neutron matter binding. The AFDMC method has been improved in Ref. Fantoni2  to properly deal with the spin-orbit interaction and correlation, by a suitable modification (backflow) of the trial wave function. With this modification the splitting between the two EoS, for the $`v_6^{}`$ and $`v_8^{}`$ NN potentials, increases, but it is still too small with respect to the UC-GFMC and BBG results.

## IV Conclusions

We have presented calculations of neutron matter EoS for two different NN interactions, the Argonne $`v_6^{}`$ and $`v_8^{}`$. The comparison of the results obtained with the two interactions is expected to give an estimate of the correlation coming from spin-orbit interaction terms. We have found close agreement between the EoS calculated within the BBG expansion, extended up to three hole-line contributions, and the UC-GFMC calculations of Ref. Carlson , for density up to 0.24 fm-3. The discrepancy between the correlation energy in the two schemes does not exceed 2%. Such an agreement suggests that the many-body problem for neutron matter with two-body NN interactions is well under control, at least for the considered density range. The splitting between the EoS calculated with the $`v_6^{}`$ and $`v_8^{}`$ potentials indicates that the spin-orbit correlation energy in neutron matter can be as large as 4-5 Mev/A and increases with density. The AFDMC methods seems to have some problems when dealing with the spin-orbit correlation.

In all considered calculations only two-body NN forces have been considered. It is well known that three-body forces are needed in nuclear matter. It appears then relevant to perform a similar study including three-body forces. The latter are not so well known, and the extrapolation from finite nuclei, where three-body forces are fitted, to nuclear matter seems not so obvious Fantoni . In any case, the comparison of the results obtained with different schemes, when three-body forces are included, could be a stringent test for the accuracy of the calculations, in particular for the spin-orbit contribution to correlation energy. This is left to future work, but the agreement obtained up to now between BBG and GFMC appears satisfactory and promising.


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# Generalized measurements via programmable quantum processor

## I INTRODUCTION

Recently in several experiments  optimal quantum cloning of qubits  has been achieved. In these experiments the information that was originally encoded in an (unknown) state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of an input qubit has been distributed between two qubits in a covariant way (i.e., the fidelity of this information distribution does not depend on the state of the input qubit). Quantum cloning, viewed as a process of information distribution, can be considered as one of the basic tasks of quantum-information processing (QIP). Another important task of QIP is the application of specific operations (maps) to the input data. In order to perform either of these tasks, we have to control the dynamics of the data register. This control can be achieved by having external forces, which are specified by classical parameters (e.g. phases and amplitudes of lasers), act on the quantum system . Alternatively, the control of the dynamics of the data register can be performed on the quantum level, that is the maps induced on the data register can be completely specified by the quantum state of a program register in a quantum processor. The action of the processor is specified by a unitary operator acting on the Hilbert space of the data and the program register and results in a map induced on the data .

In this paper we will consider a specific model of the quantum processor - the so-called quantum-information distributor (QID), which was introduced recently in Ref.. This covariant quantum processor allows us to distribute quantum information into several quantum channels as well as to perform specific quantum operations in each of the channels. This set up is interesting per se since it allows us to achieve quantum control over quantum systems. In addition, if the quantum-information distributor is combined with a projective measurement performed on some of the output channels one can achieve interesting generalized quantum (positive operator value measure) measurements on the input register. In particular, in this paper we will show how quantum filtering of the original (input) data register can be realized and how propensities (e.g., a Husimi function) of the input register can be easily measured.

Our paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II we will introduce a formal description of a qudit and some basic operations that can be performed on a single qudit and controlled rotations that can be performed on two qudits. In Sec. III we will describe the quantum-information distributor and the role of the programs encoded in states of program qudits. Sec. IV we will be devoted to a description of generalized measurements and the reconstruction (measurement) of the Husimi function in a discrete phase space. In Sec. V we will analyze how positive-operator value measure (POVM) measurement can be realized with the help of quantum information distributor. We conclude our paper with some remarks on the noise induced on the input data qudit due to the projective measurements performed on the program qudits at the output of quantum-information distributor.

## II OPERATIONS ON QUDITS

In order to make our discussion self-contained we first present a brief review of the formalism describing quantum states in a finite-dimensional Hilbert space. Here we follow the notation introduced in Ref. . Let the $`N`$-dimensional Hilbert space be spanned by $`N`$ orthogonal normalized vectors $`|x_k`$ or, equivalently, by $`N`$ vectors $`|p_l`$, $`k,l=0,\mathrm{},N1`$, where these bases are related by the discrete Fourier transform

$`|x_k`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}kl\right)|p_l;`$ (1)
$`|p_l`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}kl\right)|x_k.`$ (2)
Without loss of generality, it can be assumed that these bases consist of sets of eigenvectors of non-commuting operators $`\widehat{X}`$ and $`\widehat{P}`$:

$`\widehat{X}|x_k=k|x_k,\widehat{P}|p_l=l|p_l,`$ (3)
that is,

$`\widehat{X}={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}k|x_kx_k|;\widehat{P}={\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}l|p_lp_l|.`$ (4)
For instance, we can assume that the operators $`\widehat{X}`$ and $`\widehat{P}`$ are related to a discrete “position” and “momentum” of a particle on a ring with a finite number of equidistant sites . Specifically, we can introduce a length scale, $`L`$, and two operators, the position $`\widehat{x}`$ and the momentum $`\widehat{p}`$, such that

$`\widehat{x}|x_k=x_k|x_k,\widehat{p}|p_l=p_l|p_l,`$ (5)
where

$`x_k=L\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}}k;p_l={\displaystyle \frac{1}{L}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}}l,`$ (6)
where we have used units such that $`\mathrm{}=1`$. The length, $`L`$ can, for example, be taken equal to $`\sqrt{1/\omega m}`$, where $`m`$ is the mass and $`\omega `$ is the frequency of a quantum “harmonic”oscillator within a finite dimensional Fock space.

The squared absolute values of the scalar product of eigenkets (3) do not depend on the indices $`k`$, $`l`$:

$`|x_k|p_l|^2=1/N,`$ (7)
which means that pairs $`(k,l)`$ form a discrete phase space (i.e., pairs $`(k,l)`$ represent “points” of the discrete phase space) on which (quasi) probability density distributions associated with a given quantum state can be defined . Next we introduce operators which shift (cyclicly permute) the basis vectors :

$`\widehat{R}_x(n)|x_k`$ $`=`$ $`|x_{(k+n)\mathrm{mod}N};`$ (8)
$`\widehat{R}_p(m)|p_l`$ $`=`$ $`|p_{(l+m)\mathrm{mod}N},`$ (9)
where the sums of indices are taken modulo $`N`$ (this summation rule is considered throughout this paper, where it is clear we will not explicitly write the symbol $`\mathrm{mod}N`$). For more about the properties of these operators and the role they play in the discrete phase space $`(k,l)`$ see Ref. .

A general single-particle state in the $`x`$ basis can be expressed as

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}c_k|x_k_1;{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|c_k|^2=1.`$ (10)
The basis of maximally entangled two-particle states (the analog of the Bell basis for spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles) can be written as

$`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}mk\right)|x_k|x_{(kn)\mathrm{mod}N},`$ (11)
where $`m,n=0,\mathrm{},N1`$. We can also rewrite these maximally entangled states in the $`p`$ basis:

$`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}nl\right)|p_{(ml)\mathrm{mod}N}|p_l.`$ (12)
The states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}`$ form an orthonormal basis

$`\mathrm{\Xi }_{kl}|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}=\delta _{k,m}\delta _{l,n},`$ (13)
with

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}|=\widehat{𝟙}\widehat{𝟙}.`$ (14)
In order to prove the above relations we have used the standard relation $`_{n=0}^{N1}\mathrm{exp}[2\pi i(kk^{})n/N]=N\delta _{k,k^{}}`$.

It is interesting to note that the whole set of $`N^2`$ maximally entangled states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}`$ can be generated from the state $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}`$ by the action of local unitary operations (shifts), e.g.,

$`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}=\widehat{𝟙}_2\widehat{R}_x^{}(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23},`$ (15)
acting just on system $`3`$ in this particular case.

From the definition of the states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ it follows that they are simultaneously eigenstates of the operators $`\widehat{X}_2\widehat{X}_3`$ and $`\widehat{P}_2+\widehat{P}_3`$:

$`(\widehat{X}_2\widehat{X}_3)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`n|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23};`$ (16)
$`(\widehat{P}_2+\widehat{P}_3)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`m|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}.`$ (17)
We easily see that for $`N=2`$ the above formalism reduces to the well-known spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particle (qubit) case.

Now we introduce generalizations of the two-qubit controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate (see also Ref. ). In the case of qubits the CNOT gate is represented by a two-particle operator such that if the first (control) particle labeled $`a`$ is in the state $`|0`$ nothing “happens” to the state of the second (target) particle labeled $`b`$. If, however, the control particle is in the state $`|1`$ then the state of the target is “flipped”, i.e., the state $`|0`$ is changed into the state $`|1`$ and vice versa. Formally we can express the action of this CNOT gate as a two-qubit operator of the form

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}={\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{1}{}}}|k_ak||(m+k)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}_bm|.`$ (18)
We note that in principle one can introduce an operator $`\widehat{D}_{ab}^{}`$ defined as

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}^{}={\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{1}{}}}|k_ak||(mk)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}_bm|.`$ (19)
In the case of qubits these two operators are equal. This is not the case when the dimension of the Hilbert space is larger than two . Let us generalize the above definition of the operator $`\widehat{D}`$ for $`N>2`$. Before doing so, we shall simplify our notation. Because we will work mostly in the $`x`$ basis we shall use the notation $`|x_k|k`$, where it may be done so unambiguously. With this in mind we now write

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}={\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak||(m+k)\mathrm{mod}N_bm|.`$ (20)
From definition (20) it follows that the operator $`\widehat{D}_{ab}`$ acts on the basis vectors as

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}|k|m=|k|(k+m)\mathrm{mod}N,`$ (21)
which means that this operator is equal to the conditional adder  and can be performed with the help of a simple quantum network as discussed in Ref. .

If we take into account the definition of the shift operator $`\widehat{R}_x(n)`$ given by Eq. (8) and the definition of the position and momentum operators $`\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{p}`$ given by Eq. (5) we can rewrite the operator $`\widehat{D}_{ab}`$ as:

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak|\widehat{R}_x^{(b)}(k)|m_bm|`$ (22)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak|\widehat{R}_x^{(b)}(k),`$ (23)
and analogously

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak||(mk)\mathrm{mod}N_bm|`$ (24)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak|\widehat{R}_x^{(b)}(k),`$ (25)
where the subscripts $`a`$ and $`b`$ indicate on which Hilbert space the given operator acts. Now we see that for $`N>2`$ the two operators $`\widehat{D}`$ and $`\widehat{D}^{}`$ do differ; they describe conditional shifts in opposite directions. We see that the generalization of the CNOT operator are the conditional shifts. The amount by which the target (in our case particle $`b`$) is shifted depends on the state of the control particle ($`a`$) \[for a pictorial representation of this gate see Fig. 1\]

## III Quantum Information Distributor

As shown in Ref.  quantum control over the quantum information can be achieved with the help of a quantum “machine”, the so-called quantum information distributor (QID). The machine takes as an input a system qudit prepared in an unknown state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ and two ancilla qudits prepared in the state $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}`$ that play the role of quantum program (i.e., the CP map that has to be performed on the system qubit is encoded in this state). The action of the QID itself is described by a unitary operator $`U_{123}`$ acting on the Hilbert space that is a tensor product of the three qudits under consideration. This unitary operator can be expressed as a sequence of four controlled shifts $`D_{kl}`$, i.e.,

$`\widehat{U}_{123}=\widehat{D}_{31}\widehat{D}_{21}^{}\widehat{D}_{13}\widehat{D}_{12}.`$ (26)
The flow of information in the quantum distributor, as described by the unitary operator (26), is governed by the preparation of the distributor itself, i.e., by the choice of the program state $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}`$. In other words, we imagine the transformation (26) as a universal “processor” or distributor and the state $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}`$ as “program” through which the information flow is controlled.

We present the logical network for the QID in Fig. 2 The output state of the three-particle system after the four controlled shifts are applied is

$`|\mathrm{\Omega }^{(out)}_{123}=\widehat{D}_{31}\widehat{D}_{21}^{}\widehat{D}_{13}\widehat{D}_{12}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}.`$ (27)
Note that the QID is covariant with respect to any choice of the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ of data register (for more details see Ref. ).

### A Factorized program states

Let us first assume that the two program qudits are in a pure state

$`|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}=|x_m_2|p_n_3.`$ (28)
After the action of the QID the state $`|\mathrm{\Omega }_{123}=|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}`$ transforms as

$`|\mathrm{\Omega }^{(out)}_{123}`$ $`=`$ $`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|x_m_2|p_n_3`$ (29)
$`=`$ $`\left[\widehat{R}_x(m)\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)|\mathrm{\Psi }_2\right]|\mathrm{\Xi }_{nm}_{31}.`$ (30)
So we can observe two actions of the QID on the input state: First, the state of the original qudit has been totally copied on the state of the second qudit. Simultaneously, the second qudit undergoes two rotations described by the operator $`\widehat{R}_x(m)\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)`$, where the values of the rotations are uniquely determined by the program state. Finally, the two remaining qudits (labeled as $`1`$ and $`3`$) became maximally entangled as the result of the action of the QID.

### B Maximally entangled program states

Let us assume that the QID state $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}`$ is initially prepared in the maximally entangled state $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ given by Eq. (11) Taking the original system to be prepared in the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$, i.e. the three qudits at the input are in the state

$`|\mathrm{\Omega }_{123}=|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ (31)
we find after the QID transformation the expression for the state vector of the three qudits

$`|\mathrm{\Omega }^{(out)}_{123}=\left[\widehat{R}_x^{}(n)\widehat{R}_p^{}(m)|\mathrm{\Psi }_1\right]|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}.`$ (32)
We see that if the program register is initially prepared in the maximally entangled state then the information encoded in the input state of the first (system) qudit will remain in this qudit, but the QID will induce a specific rotation on this qudit that is uniquely determined by the maximally entangled state of the program qudits. Interestingly enough, the program state is not changed at all in this case.

### C Superposition of program states

The complete set of maximally entangled states Eq. (11) is a basis for the two-qudit Hilbert space. Therefore, an arbitrary program state can be written in the form

$`|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}={\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}d_{mn}|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}.`$ (33)
and the corresponding evolution of the QID results in the state

$`\widehat{U}|\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}d_{mn}\widehat{R}_x^{}(n)\widehat{R}_p^{}(m)|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ (34)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\stackrel{~}{d}_{mn}\left[\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)\widehat{R}_x(m)|\mathrm{\Psi }_2\right]|\mathrm{\Xi }_{nm}_{13},`$ (35)
where $`\stackrel{~}{d}_{mn}`$ is the Fourier transformation of the coefficients $`d_{mn}`$:

$`\stackrel{~}{d}_{mn}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}d_{kl}\mathrm{exp}\left[i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}(km+ln)\right]=\text{F}(d_{mn}).`$ (36)
This last result is not surprising, since the complete set of factorized states $`|x_m|p_n`$ forms another orthonormal basis for the program space. If the program space is expanded in this basis Eq. (35) immediately results. What is interesting is that the program state that induces a specific operation on the first qudit performs an analogous (though not identical) operation on the second qudit. To see this we present the reduced density operators of these two qudits at the output of the QID \[see Eqs. (34) and (35)\]:

$`\widehat{\rho }_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|d_{mn}|^2\widehat{R}_x^{}(n)\widehat{R}_p^{}(m)|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{R}_p(m)\widehat{R}_x(n);`$ (37)
$`\widehat{\rho }_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|\stackrel{~}{d}_{mn}|^2\widehat{R}_x(m)\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{R}_p(n)\widehat{R}_x^{}(m).`$ (38)
We will use this property of the QID and it application as a measurement device that realizes a generalized measurement in our further analysis of the QID.

### D The case of qubits

We have seen that for qudits, there are two special bases that cause a set of operations to be performed on the input data state so that at the output, the transformed data state is disentangled from the output program state. In the case of qubits there is a third.

In this section let us change our notation to connect it to that usually employed for two-state systems. We shall denote the states $`|x_0`$ and $`|x_1`$ by $`|0`$ and $`|1`$, respectively. The states $`|p_0`$ and $`|p_1`$ can then be expressed as

$`|p_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|0+|1);`$ (39)
$`|p_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|0|1).`$ (40)
The maximally entangled states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}`$ are just the Bell states. The actions of the product and maximally entangled program states can be expressed as

$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23};`$ (41)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{10}_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma _z|\mathrm{\Psi }_1)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{10}_{23};`$ (42)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{01}_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma _x|\mathrm{\Psi }_1)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{01}_{23};`$ (43)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{11}_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`i(\sigma _y|\mathrm{\Psi }_1)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{11}_{23},`$ (44)
and

$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|0_2|p_0_3`$ $`=`$ $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{13};`$ (45)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|0_2|p_1_3`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma _z|\mathrm{\Psi }_2)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{10}_{13};`$ (46)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|1_2|p_0_3`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma _x|\mathrm{\Psi }_2)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{01}_{13};`$ (47)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|1_2|p_1_3`$ $`=`$ $`i(\sigma _y|\mathrm{\Psi }_2)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{11}_{13}.`$ (48)
There is now a second product basis that causes the transformed data state to emerge from output $`3`$. We have that

$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|p_0_2|0_3`$ $`=`$ $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_3|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{12};`$ (49)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|p_1_2|0_3`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma _z|\mathrm{\Psi }_3)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{10}_{12};`$ (50)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|p_0_2|1_3`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma _x|\mathrm{\Psi }_3)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{01}_{12};`$ (51)
$`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|p_1_2|1_3`$ $`=`$ $`i(\sigma _y|\mathrm{\Psi }_3)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{11}_{12}.`$ (52)
The additional basis suggests that it would be useful to examine program states that are superpositions of three states, one from each basis. Perhaps the simplest of these is the one that is a superposition of the states corresponding to the identity operator

$$|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}=\alpha |\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}+\beta |0_2|p_0_3+\gamma |p_0_2|0_3,$$
(53)
where $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{ab}=(|00+|11)/\sqrt{2}`$. The normalization condition for this state is

$$|\alpha +\beta |^2+|\alpha +\gamma |^2+|\beta +\gamma |^2=2.$$
(54)
We hope that this state will lead to an output that consists of three approximate copies of the input data state, $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$, however, we find that this is not what happens. The reduced density matrix of the first output is

$`\widehat{\rho }_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\left|\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{(\beta +\gamma )}{2}}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{|\beta +\gamma |^2}{4}}\right]\widehat{\rho }+{\displaystyle \frac{|\beta +\gamma |^2}{2}}\widehat{𝟙}`$ (55)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(\beta \gamma ^{}+\beta ^{}\gamma )}{2}}\sigma _y\widehat{\rho }\sigma _y,`$ (56)
where we used the notation $`\widehat{\rho }=|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|`$. Similar results are obtained for the reduced density matrices of outputs $`2`$ and $`3`$. As can be seen, while the first two terms are, in fact, an approximate copy of the input state, this is disturbed by the last term. Note that if either $`\beta `$ or $`\gamma `$ is zero, this term disappears and the device behaves as an approximate cloner.

A somewhat more successful example is given by a program state consisting of states each of which corresponds to a different operation, e.g.

$$|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}=\alpha |\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}+\beta |0_2|p_1_3+\gamma |p_0_2|1_3,$$
(57)
with the normalization condition

$$|\alpha +\beta |^2+|\alpha +\gamma |^2+|\beta \gamma |^2=2.$$
(58)
The first state in the superposition produces $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in output $`1`$, the second $`\sigma _z|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in output $`2`$, and the third $`\sigma _x|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in output $`3`$. The single-qubit reduced density matrices resulting from this program state are

$`\widehat{\rho }_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\left|\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{(\beta +\gamma )}{2}}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{|\beta \gamma |^2}{4}}\right]\widehat{\rho }+{\displaystyle \frac{|\beta \gamma |^2}{2}}\widehat{𝟙};`$ (59)
$`\widehat{\rho }_2`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\left|\beta +{\displaystyle \frac{(\alpha \gamma )}{2}}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{|\alpha +\gamma |^2}{4}}\right]\sigma _z\widehat{\rho }\sigma _z+{\displaystyle \frac{|\alpha +\gamma |^2}{2}}\widehat{𝟙};`$ (60)
$`\widehat{\rho }_3`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\left|\gamma +{\displaystyle \frac{(\alpha \beta )}{2}}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{|\alpha +\beta |^2}{4}}\right]\sigma _x\widehat{\rho }\sigma _x+{\displaystyle \frac{|\alpha +\beta |^2}{2}}\widehat{𝟙}.`$ (61)
In this case we do obtain an approximate version of $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in output $`1`$, an approximate version of $`\sigma _z|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in output $`2`$, and an approximate version of $`\sigma _x|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in output $`3`$. A simple way to see how the accuracy of the approximations in the different outputs is constrained, is to define the fidelities

$`F_1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{\rho }_1|\mathrm{\Psi };`$ (62)
$`F_2`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _z\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{\rho }_2|\sigma _z\mathrm{\Psi };`$ (63)
$`F_3`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _x\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{\rho }_3|\sigma _x\mathrm{\Psi },`$ (64)
and to note that $`F_1+F_2+F_3=2`$. Each of the fidelities lies between $`1/2`$ and $`1`$. Noting that a completely noisy output of $`\widehat{𝟙}/2`$, containing no information about the input, corresponds to a fidelity of $`1/2`$, we see that if one of the fidelities is $`1`$, containing perfect information about the input, the others are $`1/2`$, and contain no information. Thus, we have a kind of conservation of information, the more accurate one output becomes, the less accurate the others become in order to compensate. If the fidelities are equal, then each is equal to $`2/3`$. This is the fidelity of state estimation, and hence cloning, that would be achieved by simply measuring the input qubit.

## IV Quantum propensities

According to Wódkiewicz , propensity means the tendency (or probability) of a measured object to take up certain states prescribed by a measuring device. Let the measuring device - the so called quantum ruler - be in a pure state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$. The quantum-ruler state can be “shifted” by an action of some generalized displacement operator $`\widehat{D}(g)`$, where $`g`$ is an element of a group $`G`$. If the measured system is in a pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, then its probability to be in the ruler state shifted by $`g`$ (i.e., the propensity) is

$`P_{\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Psi }}(g)`$ $`=`$ $`|\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{D}(g)|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2,`$ (65)
whereas if the system is in a mixed state described by the density operator $`\widehat{\rho }`$, the propensity is

$`P_{\mathrm{\Phi },\rho }(g)`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}\left(\widehat{\rho }\widehat{D}(g)|\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }|\widehat{D}^+(g)\right).`$ (66)
In our case, that of a finite dimensional Hilbert space, the group $`G`$ will be formed by discrete translations on a torus: if $`g_1(n_1,m_1)`$ and $`g_2(n_2,m_2)`$ are elements of $`G`$, then their group product is $`g_1g_2((n_1+n_2)\text{mod}N,(m_1+m_2)\text{mod}N)`$. The corresponding displacement operator is then given by the expression $`\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)`$. We see that while the displacement is not a representation of the group $`G`$ in the Hilbert space under consideration, nevertheless it is representation of this group in a ray space, which enables us to define the propensity uniquely. For a pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ we can write the propensity in the form (see Ref. ):

$`P_{\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Psi }}(n,m)`$ $`=`$ $`|\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2.`$ (67)
In the case of a statistical mixture described by the density operator $`\widehat{\rho }`$ the corresponding propensity reads

$`P_{\mathrm{\Phi },\rho }(n,m)`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}\left(\widehat{\rho }\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)|\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }|\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)\widehat{R}_x^{}(m)\right).`$ (68)
### A Propensities and POVM measurements

The propensities as defined above are in fact results of so-called generalized (positive operator value measure - POVM) measurements (e.g., see Ref. ). To see this let us recall that

$`\widehat{F}_{mn}=\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)|\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }|\widehat{R}_p^{}(m)\widehat{R}_x^{}(n)`$ (69)
where $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a ruler state are positive operators and they fulfill the condition

$`{\displaystyle \underset{mn}{}}\widehat{F}_{mn}=N\widehat{𝟙}`$ (70)
So the operators $`\widehat{F}_{mn}`$ (or more specifically the operators $`\widehat{f}_{mn}=\widehat{F}_{mn}/N`$) form a complete set that can be used for a complete measurement of the state of a qudit. We note that other operators of the form (69), e.g.,

$`\widehat{F}_{mn}=\widehat{R}_x(m)\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)\widehat{\rho }\widehat{R}_p(n)\widehat{R}_x^{}(m)`$ (71)
also realize a POVM measurement.

### B $`Q`$ function in discrete phase space

In an analogy with a continuous $`(q,p)`$ phase space, where the $`Q`$ function (Husimi function) is defined as the propensity of a state to be in the vacuum state, we define the discrete $`Q`$ function as propensity (65)

$`Q(n,m)`$ $``$ $`P_{\mathrm{\Phi },\rho }(n,m),`$ (72)
with the quantum ruler being in a “vacuum” state. The problem is how to define a vacuum state corresponding to a finite-dimensional Hilbert space.

Before specifying the ruler state, we will mention several properties of discrete $`Q`$ functions. If we assume that the ruler state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is chosen (i.e., the vacuum state is specified) then the $`Q`$ function has the following properties:
(i) it is uniquely defined;
(ii) it is non-negative;
(iii) it is normalized to $`N`$

$`{\displaystyle \underset{n,m}{}}Q(n,m)`$ $`=`$ $`N;`$ (73)
(iv) for properly chosen ruler states $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ the information about a system state can be completely reconstructed from the corresponding $`Q`$ function.

### C Ruler state

In analogy with the continuous limit, where the ruler state associated with a Husimi function is the ground (vacuum) state of the harmonic oscillator, let us consider following requirements on the ruler state: (i) it should be in some sense centered at origin of phase space \[i.e., the point $`(0,0)`$\], (ii) it should be “symmetric” with regards to the quantities $`X`$ and $`P`$, i.e., its wave function should have similar form in both representations (perhaps up to scalings), and (iii) it should be in some sense a minimum uncertainty state, which means that in the phase space it should be represented by a peak which is as narrow as possible. As shown in Ref.  all the above properties are fulfilled by the ground state of the Hamiltonian

$`\widehat{H}_0=\mathrm{cos}({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}\widehat{X})\mathrm{cos}({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}\widehat{P}).`$ (74)
We will use this ground state as the ruler state in our forthcoming considerations.

## V POVM MEASUREMENT VIA QID

Let us now study the action of the quantum information distributor when the two ancillary qudits are prepared in a superposition state

$`|\mathrm{\Theta }_{23}=\left(\alpha |\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}+\beta |x_m_2|p_n_3\right),`$ (75)
with the two real amplitudes $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ satisfying the normalization condition

$`\alpha ^2+\beta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha \beta }{N}}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}nm\right)=1.`$ (76)
With this program state the QID acts on the input data qudit $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1=_kc_k|x_k`$ so that at the output the three qudits are in the following states:

$`\widehat{\rho }_1`$ $`=`$ $`(1\beta ^2)\widehat{\rho }+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2}{N}}\widehat{𝟙};`$ (77)
$`\widehat{\rho }_2`$ $`=`$ $`(1\alpha ^2)\widehat{R}_x(m)\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)\widehat{\rho }\widehat{R}_p(n)\widehat{R}_x^{}(m)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{N}}\widehat{𝟙};`$ (78)
$`\widehat{\rho }_3`$ $`=`$ $`(1\alpha ^2\beta ^2)\widehat{R}_x(m)\widehat{R}_p(n)\widehat{\rho }^\mathrm{T}\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)\widehat{R}_x^{}(m)`$ (80)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2+\beta ^2}{N}}\widehat{𝟙},`$
where $`\widehat{\rho }=|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|`$ and $`\widehat{\rho }^\mathrm{T}`$ is the transpose of the density operator $`\widehat{\rho }=_{k,k^{}}c_kc_k^{}^{}|x_kx_k^{}|`$. That is, in the basis $`|x_k`$ the transposed density operator reads $`\widehat{\rho }^\mathrm{T}=_{k,k^{}}c_k^{}c_k^{}|x_kx_k^{}|`$.

The action of the QID discussed earlier, allows us to reconstruct partially the state of the measured system without a total “destruction” of the state of the data register. Specifically, from Eq. (5.3) it follows that the entangled component of the program register (represented by the state $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}`$) dictates how “much” of the original information encoded in the qudit 1 is transferred from the data register to the program register at the output of the QID. For instance, if the amplitude $`\alpha `$ is equal to unity (i.e., $`\beta =0`$) then the data register is not perturbed at all, and no information is transferred. On the other hand, for $`\alpha <1`$ some of the information from the data is transferred to the program at the expense of noise introduced into the data register. The trade-off between the information transfer and the noise introduced into the data register is nicely seen from Eq. (5.3). The amount of noise that is transferred into the first (data) qudit is dictated by the amplitude $`\beta `$ that weights the factorizable contribution to the program state, i.e. $`|x_n_2|p_m_3`$. Moreover this specific state also determines operations (rotations) that are performed on program qudits.

In order to illustrate the action of the QID we plot in Fig. 3 $`Q`$ functions of an input qudit, that is, initially prepared in the ground state of Hamiltonian (74), as well as the three output qudits. The ruler state is chosen to be again the ground state of Hamiltonian (74). The Husimi functions do correspond to the situation when a POVM measurement is performed on the density operator $`\widehat{\rho }_j`$ ($`j=1,2,3`$) given by Eqs. (77) – (80), respectively.

## VI EFFECT OF MEASUREMENT

It is obvious from expression (78) that if the von Neumann measurement using the projector $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_2\mathrm{\Phi }|`$ (i.e., projecting on the ruler state) on qudit 2 is performed then this measurement results in a reconstruction of the Husimi function of the original data state affected by the amount of noise determined by the particular value of $`\alpha `$. In other words, this projective measurement will result in the reconstruction of the Husimi function of the operator $`\widehat{\rho }_2^{(\mathrm{out})}=(1\alpha ^2)\widehat{\rho }+\frac{\alpha ^2}{N}\widehat{𝟙}`$. Certainly, the state of the data register is then affected not only by the action of the QID but also by the effect of the projective measurement performed on the second qudit.

To understand the role of the projective measurement performed on the program register on the state of the data register at the output of the QID, let us consider the following. We will study the action of the quantum-information distributor when the two ancillary qudits are prepared in a superposition state given by Eq. (75) With this program state the QID acts on the input data qudit $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1=_kc_k|x_k`$ so that at the output the three qudits are in the state:

$`|\mathrm{\Omega }^{(out)}_{123}`$ $`=`$ $`U_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1\left[\alpha |\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}+\beta |x_m_2|p_n_3\right]`$ (81)
$`=`$ $`\alpha |\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}+\beta \left[\widehat{R}_x(m)\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)|\mathrm{\Psi }\right]_2|\mathrm{\Xi }_{nm}_{31}.`$ (82)
Then we will assume that both program qudits are measured projectively. Qudit 2 is projected in the ruler state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_2=_kf_k|x_k_2`$ while the qudit 3 is projected on the transposed ruler state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }^\mathrm{T}_3:=_kf_k^{}|x_k_3`$. Schematically this situation is depicted in Fig. 4

The data qudit after the action of the QID and this projective measurement reads

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }^{(out)}_1_2\mathrm{\Phi }|_3\mathrm{\Phi }^\mathrm{T}|\mathrm{\Omega }^{(out)}_{123}`$ (83)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\sqrt{N}}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta \mathrm{\Phi }|\widehat{R}_x(m)\widehat{R}_p^{}(n)|\mathrm{\Psi }}{\sqrt{N}}}\widehat{R}_x^{}(m)\widehat{R}_p(n)|\mathrm{\Phi }_1.`$ (84)
This means that by acquiring knowledge of a particular value of the Husimi functions of the second and the third qudits, the data qudit “collapses” into the state (83). The disturbance of the original data state depends on the value of $`\alpha `$, the particular point $`(m,n)`$ at which the Husimi functions of the program qudits are measured and the specific choice of the ruler state.

## VII CONCLUSION

Here we have shown how a simple quantum device, the quantum-information distributor, can both distribute and process quantum-information. This device was discussed in Ref. , and it was shown there that the flow of information was controlled by a program state. In this paper, we have considered a much wider class of program states. Besides moving the quantum information between outputs, they allow us to, in addition, apply shift operators to the input data. This, in turn, makes it possible to use the QID to measure the discrete $`Q`$ function of the input data, which is equivalent to realizing a class of POVM operators. Another possibility, is to split the input into two parts, find the $`Q`$ function of one part and retain the other part. There is a trade-off involved: the more information that is retained, the more smeared is the $`Q`$ function, and the better the $`Q`$ function, the more distorted is the information in the retained qudit. Thus, the QID provides us with a very flexible programmable quantum-information processing device, which has a number of useful applications.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the European Union project QGATES and by the grant agency VEGA of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and by NSF grant No. PHY-0139692. V.B. would like to thank the Science Foundation Ireland for support.