text:
# Preferred Parameterisations on Homogeneous Curves

## 1. Introduction

This article is motivated by the theory of distinguished curves in parabolic geometries, as developed in . A parabolic geometry is, by definition, modelled on a homogeneous space of the form $`G/P`$ where $`G`$ is a real semisimple Lie group and $`P`$ is a parabolic subgroup. (There is also a complex theory which corresponds to the choices of complex $`G`$’s and $`P`$’s with specific curvature restrictions for the holomorphic cases.) The notion of Cartan connection replaces the Maurer-Cartan form on $`G`$, viewed as a principal fibre bundle over $`G/P`$ with structure group $`P`$, and much of the geometry of $`G/P`$ automatically carries over to parabolic geometries in general (see also ). In particular, the curves on $`G/P`$ obtained by exponentiating elements in the Lie algebra $`𝔤`$ of $`G`$ have counterparts in general obtained by development under the Cartan connection. These matters are thoroughly discussed in  and will not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that results concerning distinguished curves on $`G/P`$ have immediate consequences for the corresponding general parabolic geometry. Here, we shall discuss only the homogeneous setting $`G/P`$.

## 2. Generalities on $`G/P`$

Firstly, let us discuss a general homogeneous space, namely a smooth manifold $`M`$ equipped with the smooth transitive action of a real Lie group $`G`$. Each $`X𝔤`$ gives a 1-parameter Lie subgroup $`t\mathrm{exp}(tX)`$ of $`G`$ and hence to a parameterised curve $`t\mathrm{exp}(tX)m`$ through $`mM`$, which we shall suppose to be non-constant. Conversely, without the parameterisation, such a curve is homogeneous, namely it is the orbit of a Lie subgroup of the symmetry group $`G`$.

To investigate homogeneous curves on $`M`$ we may as well choose a basepoint $`m_{}M`$ and consider only curves passing through $`m_{}`$. All other homogeneous curves are obtained by translation under the action of $`G`$. Let $`P`$ denote the stabiliser subgroup of $`m_{}`$ so that $`M=G/P`$. We shall now suppose that $`G`$ is semisimple and $`P`$ is parabolic. In this case, there is a splitting

$$𝔤=𝔭𝔫$$

into subalgebras with $`𝔫`$ nilpotent (as in ). This splitting is not canonical. It is, however, well-defined up to the Adjoint action of $`P`$ and we obtain, therefore, a preferred subset

(1)
$$\{\text{Ad}_pX\text{ s.t. }pP\text{ and }X𝔫\}𝔤,$$

which we may use to generate homogeneous curves. Such curves are evidently non-constant but not all non-constant homogeneous curves arise in this way. These special curves are said to be distinguished. Equivalently, distinguished curves through the basepoint $`m_{}M`$ are those of the form $`tp\mathrm{exp}(tX)m_{}`$ for some $`pP`$ and $`X𝔫`$.

As an example, consider $`G=\mathrm{SL}(3,)`$ with $`P`$ the upper triangular matrices. We may take

(2)
$$𝔫=\left\{\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ & 0& 0\\ & & 0\end{array}\right)\right\}.$$

Then

$$t\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 1& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(t\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\right)\mathrm{mod}P=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1+t& 1& 0\\ t& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\mathrm{mod}P$$

and

$$t\mathrm{exp}\left(t\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 1& 1& 0\end{array}\right)\right)\mathrm{mod}P=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ t& 1& 0\\ t+\frac{1}{2}t^2& t& 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{mod}P$$

are typical distinguished curves whereas

$$t\mathrm{exp}\left(t\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 1& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\right)\mathrm{mod}P=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{cos}t& \mathrm{sin}t& 0\\ \mathrm{sin}t& \mathrm{cos}t& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{mod}P$$

is homogeneous but (with this parameterisation) not distinguished.

Suppose $`y\gamma (t)M`$ is a distinguished curve with $`\gamma (0)=m_{}`$ and let $`C`$ denote its unparameterised image. In this article, we shall answer the question ‘what are the possible reparameterisations of $`C`$ as a distinguished curve?’ A direct approach to this question is given in \[2, §3\]. Here, we shall reason indirectly by firstly establishing the following on general grounds.

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`C`$ be an unparameterised distinguished curve passing through $`m_{}M=G/P`$. The freedom in reparameterising $`C`$ with origin at $`m_{}`$ is of two possible types:–

| affine | $`tat`$ | for $`a0`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| projective | $`tat/(ct+1)`$ | for $`a0`$ and $`c`$ arbitrary. |

If we drop the requirement that the parameter be zero at $`m_{}`$, then translation is also allowed so the freedom becomes

$$tat+b\text{or}t\frac{at+b}{ct+d},$$

respectively. The proof of Theorem 1 will be given in §4. Once this theorem is established, it is a matter of elementary computation to decide, for a given $`C`$, which type of freedom pertains. Examples will be given in §4. For the proof of Theorem 1 we shall need some general considerations as in the following section.

## 3. Lie algebras of vector fields in one dimension

The following is a classical topic and Theorem 3 is due to Lie  (see also ). We are grateful to Ian Anderson for pointing out to us the translation and commentary on Lie’s article given by Ackerman and Hermann . Nevertheless, we believe that it is useful to given an independent, elementary, and self-contained treatment.

###### Theorem 2.

Suppose $`𝔤`$ is a finite-dimensional subalgebra of the Lie algebra of smooth vector fields on $``$. Let $`x`$ be the standard coördinate on $``$ and suppose $`𝔤/x`$. Then $`𝔤`$ is one of the following:–

$$\begin{array}{c}𝔤=\mathrm{span}\left\{\frac{}{x}\right\}𝔤=\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},e^{\lambda x}\frac{}{x}\}𝔤=\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x}\}\\ 𝔤=\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},\mathrm{sin}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x},\mathrm{cos}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x}\}𝔤=\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x},x^2\frac{}{x}\}\\ 𝔤=\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},\mathrm{sinh}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x},\mathrm{cosh}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x}\}.\end{array}$$

###### Proof.

If $`dim𝔤=1`$, then $`𝔤=\mathrm{span}\{/x\}`$ are we are done. Next, if $`dim𝔤=2`$, then $`𝔤=\mathrm{span}\{/x,g(x)/x\}`$ for some smooth non-constant function $`g(x)`$. Now,

$$[\frac{}{x},g(x)\frac{}{x}]=g^{}(x)\frac{}{x}$$

so closure under Lie bracket implies $`g^{}(x)=\mu +\lambda g(x)`$. This is a differential equation we may solve:–

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill g(x)& =& Ce^{\lambda x}+D\hfill & \text{if }\lambda 0\hfill \\ \hfill \text{or}g(x)& =& \mu x+C\hfill & \text{if }\lambda =0.\hfill \end{array}$$

These are the two-dimensional subalgebras stated in the theorem.

Now suppose $`dim𝔤=k+13`$ and choose a basis

$$\frac{}{x},g_1(x)\frac{}{x},\mathrm{},g_k(x)\frac{}{x}$$

of $`𝔤`$. From closure under Lie bracket of $`/x`$ with the other basis vectors, we immediately encounter a system of ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients

$$g_i^{}(x)=\mu _i+\underset{j=1}{\overset{k}{}}\lambda _{ij}g_j(x),\text{for }i=1,\mathrm{},k.$$

We may conclude that the functions $`g_i(x)`$ and, therefore, all vector fields in $`𝔤`$ are real-analytic.

Since $`dim𝔤3`$, there is a vector field $`g(x)/x𝔤`$ with

$$g(x)=x^N+\mathrm{}\text{for some }N2.$$

Because $`𝔤`$ is finite-dimensional, we may choose $`g(x)`$ with $`N`$ maximal. But then

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 𝔤[[\frac{}{x},g(x)\frac{}{x}],g(x)\frac{}{x}]& =& [g^{}(x)\frac{}{x},g(x)\frac{}{x}]\hfill \\ & =& \left((g^{}(x))^2g(x)g^{\prime \prime }(x)\right)\frac{}{x}\hfill \\ & =& \left(Nx^{2(N1)}+\mathrm{}\right)\frac{}{x},\hfill \end{array}$$

contradicting maximality of $`N`$ unless $`N=2`$. Therefore, $`dim𝔤=3`$ and

(3)
$$𝔤=\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},g(x)\frac{}{x},g^{}(x)\frac{}{x}\},$$

where

(4)
$$g(x)=x^2+ax^3+\mathrm{}.$$

But then $`𝔤`$ contains the vector field

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill [g^{}(x)\frac{}{x},g(x)\frac{}{x}]2g(x)\frac{}{x}& =& \left((g^{}(x))^2g(x)g^{\prime \prime }(x)2g(x)\right)\frac{}{x}\hfill \\ & =& \left(2ax^3+\mathrm{}\right)\frac{}{x},\hfill \end{array}$$

again contradicting maximality of $`N`$ unless $`a=0`$. Now, in order for (3) to be closed under Lie bracket we must have

$$g^{\prime \prime }(x)=[\frac{}{x},g^{}(x)\frac{}{x}]\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},g(x)\frac{}{x},g^{}(x)\frac{}{x}\}$$

and to be, in addition, consistent with $`a=0`$ in (4), we conclude that

$$g^{\prime \prime }(x)=2+\nu g(x),\text{for some constant }\nu .$$

This differential equation, with initial conditions imposed by (4), has solutions

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill g(x)& =& (2/\lambda ^2)(\mathrm{cos}(\lambda x)1)\hfill & \text{if }\nu <0\hfill \\ \hfill \text{or}g(x)& =& x^2\hfill & \text{if }\nu =0\hfill \\ \hfill \text{or}g(x)& =& (2/\lambda ^2)(\mathrm{cosh}(\lambda x)1)\hfill & \text{if }\nu >0.\hfill \end{array}$$

It remains to observe that (3) is, indeed, closed under Lie bracket in these cases. ∎

Notice that this proof is local: the same conclusion holds for vector fields on any open interval $`(a,b)`$. Globally on $``$, the various subalgebras given in the statement of Theorem 2 are distinct. Locally, however, this distinction evaporates leaving only the dimension. There is a coördinate change near the origin:–

$$y=\frac{1e^{\lambda x}}{\lambda }e^{\lambda x}\frac{}{x}=\frac{}{y}\text{and}\frac{}{x}=(1\lambda y)\frac{}{y}$$

whence

$$\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},e^{\lambda x}\frac{}{x}\}\mathrm{span}\{y\frac{}{y},\frac{}{y}\}\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x}\}$$

whilst the coördinate change $`y=\mathrm{tan}((\lambda x)/2)`$ gives

$$\frac{}{x}=\frac{\lambda }{2}(1+y^2)\frac{}{y},\mathrm{sin}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x}=\lambda y\frac{}{y},\mathrm{cos}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x}=\frac{\lambda }{2}(1y^2)\frac{}{y}$$

whence

$$\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},\mathrm{sin}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x},\mathrm{cos}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x}\}\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x},x^2\frac{}{x}\}$$

and $`y=\mathrm{tanh}((\lambda x)/2)`$ gives

$$\frac{}{x}=\frac{\lambda }{2}(1y^2)\frac{}{y},\mathrm{sinh}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x}=\lambda y\frac{}{y},\mathrm{cosh}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x}=\frac{\lambda }{2}(1+y^2)\frac{}{y}$$

whence

$$\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},\mathrm{sinh}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x},\mathrm{cosh}(\lambda x)\frac{}{x}\}\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x},x^2\frac{}{x}\}.$$

We have proved the following.

###### Theorem 3.

Suppose $`𝔰`$ is a finite-dimensional subalgebra of the Lie algebra of vector fields in a neighbourhood of the origin in $``$. Suppose $`𝔰`$ contains a vector field that does not vanish at the origin. Then there is a neighbourhood $`U`$ of the origin and a change of coördinates such that one of the following three possibilities holds.

(5)
$$\begin{array}{c}𝔰|_U\mathrm{span}\left\{\frac{}{x}\right\}𝔰|_U\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x}\}\\ 𝔰|_U\mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x},x^2\frac{}{x}\}.\end{array}$$

## 4. Reparameterisations

Let $`C`$ be an arbitrary smooth connected curve in a smooth manifold $`M`$ homogeneous under the action $`\rho :G\times MM`$ of a connected Lie group $`G`$. There is a homomorphism of Lie algebras $`\dot{\rho }:𝔤\text{Vect}(M)`$ given by

$$\dot{\rho }(X)(m)=\frac{}{t}\left(\mathrm{exp}(tX)m\right)|_{t=0}$$

and the symmetry algebra of $`C`$ is defined by

$$𝔰=\{X𝔤\text{ s.t. }\dot{\rho }(X)(m)\text{ is tangent to }C\text{ for all }mC\}.$$

Clearly, $`𝔰`$ is a subalgebra of $`𝔤`$ and $`C`$ is homogeneous if and only if $`\dot{\rho }(𝔰)|_C`$ contains non-trivial vector fields at each point of $`C`$. In this case, we may invoke Theorem 3 to conclude that $`\dot{\rho }(𝔰)|_C`$ is at most three-dimensional and locally has one of the three forms listed in (5).

Now suppose that $`C`$ is homogeneous and pick a basepoint $`m_{}C`$. Suppose that $`X𝔰𝔤`$ is nilpotent in $`𝔤`$ and $`\dot{\rho }(X)(m_{})0`$. Then we shall say that

$$t\mathrm{exp}(tX)m_{}C$$

is a preferred parameterisation of $`C`$.

###### Theorem 4.

The freedom in reparameterising a homogeneous curve with a preferred parameter is one of two possible types:–

| affine | $`tat`$ | for $`a0`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| projective | $`tat/(ct+1)`$ | for $`a0`$ and $`c`$ arbitrary. |

###### Proof.

Since $`X`$ is nilpotent in $`𝔤`$, certainly $`\dot{\rho }(X)`$ is nilpotent in $`\dot{\rho }(𝔰)|_C`$. By inspection, we may find the nilpotent elements in each of the local forms (3):–

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{span}\left\{\frac{}{x}\right\}& & a\frac{}{x}\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x}\}& & a\frac{}{x}\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{span}\{\frac{}{x},x\frac{}{x},x^2\frac{}{x}\}& & (pqx)^2\frac{}{x}.\hfill \end{array}$$

In the first two cases,

$$a\frac{}{x}=\frac{}{t}x=at,$$

which gives affine freedom, whilst in the third case

$$(pqx)^2\frac{}{x}=\frac{}{t}x=\frac{p^2t}{1+pqt},$$

which gives projective freedom. ∎

Proof of Theorem 1. The parameterisations on a distinguished curve have the form $`t\mathrm{exp}(tY)m_{}`$ where $`Y`$ is $`P`$-conjugate to an element of $`𝔫`$ in accordance with (1). Certainly, there is affine freedom in such a parameterisation because $`Y`$ can be replaced by $`aY`$. But the allowed $`Y`$ are, in particular, nilpotent. Therefore, the parameterisations on $`C`$ as a distinguished curve are ipso facto preferred parameterisations on $`C`$ as a homogeneous curve. Theorem 4 now implies that, if there is any additional freedom, it must be projective. But just one projective transformation, together with affine freedom, generates all projective freedom and the proof is complete.

Theorem 1 is useful in practice. Consider the general distinguished curve $`tp\mathrm{exp}(tX)m_{}`$ for fixed $`pP`$ and $`X𝔫`$. The dichotomy offered by Theorem 1 implies that if there are reparameterisations other than affine, then the specific projective freedom $`tt/(t+1)`$ occurs. In this case, we may find $`qP`$ and $`Y𝔫`$ such that

$$p\mathrm{exp}(tX)=q\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{t}{t+1}Y\right)\mathrm{mod}P,t$$

or, equivalently,

(6)
$$\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{t}{t+1}Y\right)r\mathrm{exp}(tX)P,t$$

where $`r=q^1pP`$. The existence of suitable $`rP`$ and $`Y𝔫`$ is a restriction on $`X`$. Furthermore, if we adopt the Levi decomposition $`P=LU`$ corresponding to our choice of $`𝔫`$, then the $`L`$-component of $`r`$ may be absorbed into $`Y`$. Hence, Theorem 1 has the following corollary.

###### Corollary 5.

Suppose $`P=LU`$ is a Levi decomposition of a parabolic subgroup $`P`$ of a semisimple Lie group $`G`$. Let $`𝔤=𝔭𝔫`$ be the associated decomposition of the Lie algebra of $`G`$. Then the distinguished curve $`tp\mathrm{exp}(tX)\mathrm{mod}P`$ admits a projective reparameterisation if and only if there are $`rU`$ and $`Y𝔫`$ such that (6) holds.

We close this article with a complete analysis of the distinguished curves in the real flag manifold $`\mathrm{SL}(3,)/P`$ where $`P`$ is the subgroup of upper triangular matrices. As already remarked in §2, we may take $`𝔫`$ to be the strictly lower triangular matrices (2). We shall use Corollary 5 with $`U`$ taken to be the upper triangular matrices with $`1`$’s along the diagonal. Consider, for example, the distinguished curve

(7)
$$t\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 1& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(t\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\right)\mathrm{mod}P.$$

According to Corollary 5, it admits a projective reparameterisation if and only if we can find $`a,b,c,u,v,w`$ such that

$$\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{t}{t+1}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ u& 0& 0\\ v& w& 0\end{array}\right)\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& a& b\\ 0& 1& c\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ t& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}& & \\ 0& & \\ 0& 0& \end{array}\right).$$

Multiplying through by $`(t+1)^2`$ yields

$`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\left(t+1\right)^2& 0& 0\\ t\left(t+1\right)u& \left(t+1\right)^2& 0\\ t\left(t+1\right)v+\frac{1}{2}t^2uw& t\left(t+1\right)w& \left(t+1\right)^2\end{array}\right)`$$`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& a& b\\ 0& 1& c\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$$`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ t& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$
for the left hand side. Expanding and equating coefficients of $`t`$ to zero in the subdiagonal entries gives algebraic equations for $`a,b,c,u,v,w`$ whose general solutions are

$$\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ u& 0& 0\\ v& w& 0\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& a& b\\ 0& 1& c\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 1& b\\ 0& 1& c\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right).$$

The existence of solutions shows that the distinguished curve (7) admits projective reparameterisations. On the other hand, this same exercise for the curve

$$t\mathrm{exp}\left(t\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 1& 1& 0\end{array}\right)\right)\mathrm{mod}P$$

gives an inconsistent set of equations for $`a,b,c,u,v,w`$. According to Theorem 1 and Corollary 5, it admits only affine reparameterisations.

Notice that the criterion (6) of Corollary 5 depends only on the $`L`$-conjugacy class of $`X𝔫`$. Therefore, to say which distinguished curves admit projective reparameterisations it suffices to say whether (6) is satisfied for $`X𝔫`$ normalised under the Adjoint action of $`L`$. We obtain the following table of normal forms.

| Normal form | Reparameterisation |
| --- | --- |
| $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)`$ | projective |
| $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$ | projective |
| $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$ | projective |
| $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\end{array}\right)`$ | projective |
| $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\\ 1& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$ | projective |
| $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\end{array}\right)`$ | projective |
| $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ x& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$ | affine if $`x0`$ |

We have to be careful, however, with the decision which of the above normal forms give rise to different distinguished curves. In our case, the lines four through six in the table are in the same orbit of the Adjoint action of the entire $`P`$ and so the distinguished curves indicated by these lines coincide. Indeed, a simple check reveals

$$(\mathrm{exp}Z)^1\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\mathrm{exp}Z=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\end{array}\right),Z=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)$$

while the other case is symmetric. We should also like to remark, that the latter observation yields a sufficient condition for coincidences of classes of distinguished curves. There are also examples of such a coincidence where the corresponding $`L`$–orbits are not in the same orbit of $`P`$. In our case, however, the first three lines and the last two lines in the table obviously produce different curves.

This completes our analysis of distinguished curves in this real flag manifold. It is more efficient than the direct approach of  because Theorem 1 tells us, in advance, what sort of reparameterisation we may expect on a distinguished curve.


format: text

text:
# Distinguishing maximally entangled states locally

## Abstract

We demonstrate that one maximally entangled state is sufficient and necessary to distinguish a complete basis of maximally entangled states by local operation and classical communication.

Generally orthogonal states may be distinguished perfectly only by means of global measurements since quantum information of orthogonality may be encoded in entanglement that cannot be extracted by local operation and classical communication (LOCC). Whether or not a set of orthogonal states can be discriminated by LOCC is related closely to the number of the states. Any two orthogonal multipartite states could be discriminated with certainty by only LOCC operations Walgate1  while there exist a complete basis of product orthogonal states that could not Bennett . An arbitrary complete set of orthogonal states of any bipartite system is locally indistinguishable if at least one of the vectors is entangled Horodecki . To locally discriminate the complete basis of maximally entangled states, entanglement is required. In this note, We prove that a maximally entangled state is sufficient and necessary.

We consider the problem of distinguishing the canonical set of mutually orthogonal maximally entangled states (MES) in $`d\times d`$ defined as,

$$|\varphi _{m,n}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{d}}\underset{j=0}{\overset{d1}{}}e^{2\pi ijn/d}|j|jm,n,m=0,1,\mathrm{},d1,$$
(1)
where $``$ means addition modulo $`d`$. These orthogonal states cannot be distinguished exactly by LOCC operations. To distinguish them, entanglement is required.

Main Result: The canonical set of mutually orthogonal maximally entangled states (MES) in $`d\times d`$ is distinguished locally iff one pure MES is shared by the two parties.

Proof: The sufficient condition is easy to prove. Employing the standard teleportation protocol Bennett2 , the state is teleported to one party by the shared pure MES and then general Bell measurement is performed to distinguish the state perfectly. The necessary condition is proved using the entanglement theory that entanglement cannot increased by LOCC operations. Similar method is used to investigate the problem of local cloning of Bell states in Ghosh . Suppose a entangled state $`\psi `$ is required to distinguish the MES. Then a mixed state is construct as follows

$$\rho =\frac{1}{d^2}\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{d1}{}}|\varphi _{m,n}\varphi _{m,n}||\psi \psi ||\varphi _{m,n}\varphi _{m,n}|.$$
(2)
The distillable entanglement of $`\rho `$ is at least $`\mathrm{log}d`$ since we can distinguished $`|\varphi _{m,n}|\psi `$ by LOCC. Note that the state $`\rho _s`$

$$\rho _s=\frac{1}{d^2}\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{d1}{}}|\varphi _{m,n}\varphi _{m,n}||\varphi _{m,n}\varphi _{m,n}|,$$
(3)
is separable Smolin ; Fan . So the distillable entanglement of $`\rho `$ is equal to the entanglement of $`\psi `$ that is at least $`\mathrm{log}d`$. From the sufficient condition, $`\psi `$ is a MES in $`d\times d`$. The proof is completed.

D. Yang thanks S. J. Gu for helpful discussion.


text:
# Nano-displacement measurements using spatially multimode squeezed light

## 1 Introduction

Optical images are one of the most important means used to convey information. Quantum fluctuations are inevitably present in the measurement performed on each of the pixels used to record the image. This results in a deterioration in the quality of the information that can be extracted from it. Quantum fluctuations depend on the characteristics of the light used in the measurement, and specifically designed non-classical states of light must be used to reduce the quantum noise, extending the limits of information read-out from these images. The study of such quantum fluctuations and correlation in images, and of their applications, is now a topic of growing attention from the quantum optics community .

The implementation of a general scheme to reduce quantum noise depends largely on the specifics of the information to be extracted from the beam. For instance, in order to improve the optical resolution (i.e. reduce the size of the minimum detail distinguishable in the image), one requires the use of squeezed states of light in a large number of specific transverse modes  or N-photon correlated states . These states of light are typically difficult to produce. However, the problem is greatly simplified when one possesses a priori knowledge about the image to be extracted. For example, a postiori information processing performed on the intensity values measured by each pixel of the detector can be implemented. This technique is widely used when measuring the motion of a microscopic transparent particle , macro-molecule  and atomic scale surface structures . Such measurements can yield sensitivity in the nanometer regime, beyond the wavelength of the light used.

In this paper, we will focus on the specific problem of light beam positioning. The average transverse intensity of the beam is assumed to be constant, but its position and orientation in the transverse plane are unknown. Such measurements are widely used in many practical applications, especially in nanotechnology, where accuracy and reproducibility of positioning at atomic scales are required. If coherent light is used, the spatial randomness of photons introduces quantum fluctuations in the position measurement. The sensitivity of positioning is then at the quantum noise limit . It was proposed theoretically  and later demonstrated experimentally (in one  and two  dimensions) that this limit could be circumvented by using light that has spatial ordering of the photons. The motivation of this paper is to present an overview of optical beam positioning, clearly identify the sources of noise, and then propose ways to improve on these measurements. This will enable us to demonstrate the optimisation of the measurement strategy. We finally present a detailed account of the experiment outlined in Ref. , and demonstrate that simultaneous below quantum noise measurements of the beam centre for two different spatial axes are possible.

## 2 Theory

### 2.1 Signal and Noise in Displacement Measurements

In many applications, such as atomic force microscopes or photonic force microscopes , beam positioning is measured using quadrant detectors. The sum and difference photocurrents between the quadrants give information on the relative position of the beam. This measurement delivers photocurrents whose mean value is the positioning signal, and fluctuations around the mean is noise which limit the accuracy of positioning.

The theoretical treatment of quantum noise arising from 1D position measurements using split detector was first examined by Fabre et al. . They showed that the quantum noise could be reduced using a squeezed vacuum field in a mode with a $`\pi `$ phase shift between the halves impinging on each side of the split detector. Fields with such characteristic phase shifts have henceforth been termed flipped modes. In this article, we provide another perspective on that result, demonstrating that the quantum noise can be reduced simultaneously for several orthogonal spatial measurements performed on the beam.

We use the standard description of the positive frequency part of the electric field operator , whose transverse dependence is decomposed over a complete basis of orthogonal modes $`\{u_i\}`$, within the paraxial approximation

$$\widehat{E}^+(\stackrel{}{\rho },z,t)=i\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{2\epsilon _0}}\left[\underset{i}{}\widehat{a}_i(z,t)u_i(z,\stackrel{}{\rho })\right]e^{i\omega (tz/c)}$$
(1)
where $`z`$ is along the propagation direction, $`\stackrel{}{\rho }`$ is the two-dimensional transverse co-ordinate, $`\widehat{a}_i`$ is the annihilation operator of a photon in mode $`u_i`$ and the operators satisfy the commutation relation

$$[\widehat{a}_i,\widehat{a}_j^{}]=\delta _{ij}$$
(2)
We then consider the slowly varying envelope $`(\stackrel{}{\rho })`$ of the field incident on a plane of longitudinal position $`z`$ (omitted in the equations), which can be expressed as

$$\widehat{}^+(\stackrel{}{\rho })=i\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{2\epsilon _0}}\underset{i}{}\widehat{a}_iu_i(\stackrel{}{\rho })$$
(3)
The photon number operator at a position $`\stackrel{}{\rho }`$ of the transverse plane (proportional to $`(\widehat{}^+)^{}\widehat{}^+`$) is given by

$$\widehat{𝒩}(\stackrel{}{\rho })=\underset{i,j}{}\widehat{a}_i^{}\widehat{a}_ju_i^{}(\stackrel{}{\rho })u_j(\stackrel{}{\rho }).$$
(4)
The general study of measurements performed with several detectors on the transverse plane will be the subject of a future publication. Here, we present a specific approach applicable when the difference is taken between the intensities on two spatial areas of the beam. To be more specific we will assume that the measurement consists of the difference between the left and right sides of the beam. This restriction does not affect the generality of our results, one may simply change the integration domain to adapt them to any detector shape. For a split detector, the photon number difference is given by

$$\widehat{N}_{}=_{x<0}\widehat{𝒩}(\stackrel{}{\rho })d^2\rho _{x>0}\widehat{𝒩}(\stackrel{}{\rho })d^2\rho =\underset{i,j}{}I(u_i,u_j)\widehat{a}_i^{}\widehat{a}_j$$
(5)
where $`x`$ is the horizontal co-ordinate and $`I(u_i,u_j)`$ is defined by

$$I(u_i,u_j)=_{x<0}u_i^{}(\stackrel{}{\rho })u_j(\stackrel{}{\rho })d^2\rho _{x>0}u_i^{}(\stackrel{}{\rho })u_j(\stackrel{}{\rho })d^2\rho $$
(6)
This equation shows that the pertinent quantities in the calculation of noise are the overlap integrals between the different transverse modes. In order to conveniently evaluate these integrals, we will choose an adapted transverse basis as proposed in Ref. . The first mode in our basis is chosen to match the transverse electric field profile of the beam under interrogation, which we denote by $`u_0(\stackrel{}{\rho })=(\stackrel{}{\rho })/`$ (This may not necessarily be a TEM00 mode). Since the mean value of the electric field is completely contained in $`u_0`$, the subsequent modes in our basis therefore have no coherent amplitude and only contain fluctuation terms. We now choose the mode $`u_1`$ to be

$`u_1(\stackrel{}{\rho })=u_0(\stackrel{}{\rho })`$ $`\text{if}x<0`$
$`u_1(\stackrel{}{\rho })=u_0(\stackrel{}{\rho })`$ $`\text{if}x>0`$ (7)
where $`u_1`$ is referred to as the flipped mode of $`u_0`$. As the origin of the transverse co-ordinate $`x=0`$ is chosen to be the centre of the detector, the flipped mode is orthogonal to $`u_0`$ only in the case when the beam is centred on the detector, i.e. when the intensities on the two areas considered are equal. As we would like to measure very small displacements to this configuration, we will consider here that the beam is perfectly centred. For any given spatial basis, Eq. (2.1) can be used to generate a corresponding flipped mode basis. In this basis, we have seen that the mean values of the annihilation and creation operators are zero for all the modes except $`u_0`$. Hence only overlap integrals that contain the first mode, $`I(u_i,u_0)`$, contribute to Eq. (5). Using Eq. (2.1), overlap integrals are given by

$$I(u_i,u_0)=u_i^{}(\stackrel{}{\rho })u_1(\stackrel{}{\rho })d^2\rho =\delta _{i,1}$$
(8)
which means that only $`I(u_1,u_0)`$ is non-zero. The noise contribution from all other modes are zero. Using the linearised approximation, the noise in the differential measurement can then be written as

$`\delta \widehat{N}_{}^2`$ $`=`$ $`N_{\mathrm{tot}}(\delta \widehat{a}_1^{}+\delta \widehat{a}_1)^2`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`N_{\mathrm{tot}}(\delta \widehat{X}_1^+)^2`$
Hence, noise in this measurement arises only from a given quadrature (namely $`\widehat{X}_1^+=\widehat{a}_1+\widehat{a}_1^{}`$) of the flipped mode. It is important to note that this calculation was performed for a beam centred at the detector. However it is still valid for displacements small compared with the beam waist.

For several simultaneous position measurements performed, for instance with a quadrant detector, one can apply the same method to show that noise arises from the corresponding flipped mode associated with the differential measurement. It is then possible to write an equation similar to Eq. (9) for each differential measurement with its corresponding flipped mode. The orthogonality ensures that the reduction of measurement noise associated with each mode can be independently performed.

### 2.2 Engineering Spatially Multimode Squeezed Light

For a given measurement, the precedent analysis gives the requirement for improving the sensitivity. Indeed, one has to determine the flipped modes involved in the measurement. These modes have then to be produced in a squeezed vacuum in order to reduce the noise in the displacement measurement. As they are orthogonal it is possible, at least theoretically, to spatially overlap them without any losses, and then to spatially overlap the resulting beam with the beam we would like to measure. Furthermore, the fact that the flipped modes are orthogonal implies that it is necessary to use as many squeezed vacuum sources as the number of measurements we would like to improve simultaneously.

Several strategies can be adopted to produce low intensity squeezed beams whose transverse profile is a flipped mode. Shaping the phase of an optical beam can be easily done with a phase mask. However, these devices can be lossy. As we need only to perform $`\pi `$ phase shifts several schemes have been proposed - one involving a half wave plate, the other a Sagnac interferometer . However, other devices such as the ones used in adaptive optics can be implemented . Assuming that the flipped mode can be easily produced without losses (as was the case in our experiment), a sensible strategy would be to produce a squeezed beam with an optical parametric amplifier, and then reshape its phase profile. However, for more complicated schemes, another possibility could be the initial production of a coherent state in the desired transverse mode followed by squeezing using for instance a multimode optical parametric amplifier .

Techniques to effectively spatially overlap the modes are, in general, dependent on the specific properties of the modes involved, and can be quite complicated. However, so long as the modes involved can be easily produced with wave-plates, any two modes can be overlapped with high efficiency using the mode dependence of an optical cavity. One example of this would be to design a ring optical cavity close to transverse degeneracy, but far enough away to have a good separation of the modes. The cavity can then be tuned to be resonant for the $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ mode and far off resonance for all the other modes.

With reference to Fig. 1, the mixing of two transverse modes can be performed in the following way. We begin with one field already in its desired mode-shape, and the other in a TEM00 mode transformable to its desired mode shape using the wave-plate $`W1`$. Given that we only perform phase shifts, there exists a wave-plate $`\overline{W1}`$ that performs the reverse operation to that performed by $`W1`$. Our $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ mode is transmitted through an impedance matched cavity, and the wave-plate $`W1`$ is placed after the cavity to produce the desired mode. The second mode is then reflected off the empty port of the cavity output mirror. However, as the mode will also go through wave-plate $`W1`$, it is thus necessary to transmit the mode through wave-plate $`\overline{W1}`$ prior to the cavity. The resulting effect of the wave-plate combination $`\overline{W1}W1=I`$ ($`I`$ is the identity operation) on the second mode, is a preservation of its initial mode-shape. In this way, the transmitted and reflected modes are, in principle, perfectly spatially overlapped, with losses avoided by an appropriate design for the optical cavity.

Other schemes to spatially overlap the beams can be proposed for specific cases. For instance, it often appears that one needs to mix an odd mode with an even mode. In this case, a Mach-Zehnder like interferometer can be utilised, as used in the single photon community . In that article, the Mach-Zender was used as a transverse-mode beam splitter. It is possible to use it the other way around, as a lossless transverse-mode beam mixer, demonstrated in our scheme.

## 3 Optimised Displacement Measurement

### 3.1 Beam Imaging

One of the main applications of precise laser beam positioning is the measurement of physical effects coupled to the beam displacement. For instance, in atomic force microscopy, a laser beam is reflected off a cantilever and its position is recorded by a quadrant detector. One can then examine the optimal methods to extract information from the physical system using that technique. The previous calculation demonstrated that, using a coherent beam, the quantum noise in the measurement depends only on the intensity of the beam. For a given intensity, and a given detector shape, a pertinent question is: how can we obtain the largest signal, and hence the largest signal to noise ratio?

If we consider only $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ Gaussian beams, we have shown in a previous publication  that, in the case of a coherent state impinging on an infinitely broad split detector, the displacement corresponding to a signal to noise ratio of one is given by

$$d=\sqrt{\frac{\pi }{8}}\frac{w_0}{\sqrt{N}}$$
(10)
where $`N`$ is the total number of photons and $`w_0`$ the beam waist. Given this formula, for a fixed laser intensity, it appears that the relevant quantity is the displacement divided by the beam waist. Using lenses to increase the beam size, proportionally increases the relative displacement, and therefore does not change their ratio. The consequence of this is that the precision of the measurement will remain the same. The best configuration to measure a displacement induced by a physical system is to apply the displacement to the smallest beam possible to maximise this ratio . The maximum focussing is the wavelength divided by the numerical aperture of the optical system . The smallest measurable displacement induced by a physical system coupled to a coherent laser beam is therefore given by

$$d_{SQL}=\sqrt{\frac{\pi }{8}}\frac{\lambda }{2NA\sqrt{N}}$$
(11)
where $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength and $`NA`$ the numerical aperture of the focussing lens.

Let us now consider a detector whose two halves have a finite size $`D`$ with a gap $`\delta `$ in between, used to measure a beam displacement. Changing the beam size with lenses does not affect the precision of the measurement only in the case of an infinite detector, however here the losses induced both by the gap and the detector size are important. The best signal to noise ratio occurs when minimum loss is experienced by the beam. In this case it it therefore important to optimise the beam waist size to minimise the total losses induced by the gap and the detector edges.

### 3.2 Data Acquisition

In practice, at low frequencies the quantum noise limit for displacement measurements is overwhelmed by classical noise arising from acoustic or seismic vibration sources coupling to the system. Therefore measurements of the amplitude of periodic displacements (i.e. displacement modulation) were chosen to be made at high frequencies $`\nu _{\mathrm{mod}}>1\mathrm{M}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}`$ where such noise sources were negligible. An electronic spectrum analyser (ESA) can be chosen to extract the spectral power density of the displacement signal. This corresponds to a measurement of the oscillation amplitude rather than an absolute displacement.

The refined task is then to measure the square of the amplitude of the periodic displacement within a small frequency range of oscillations as a function of time. An ESA has two parameters that require specification (RBW and VBW). The resolution bandwidth (RBW in units of kHz) determines the small range of frequencies included in the measurement around the central frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{mod}}`$. The band-passed signal is then demodulated at $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{mod}}`$ and its amplitude detected. The measurement time $`T`$ is given by the inverse of the RBW setting. $`N`$ photons are collected in this time, setting the level of noise power measured on the ESA. In the absence of displacement modulations, this level corresponds to the quantum noise, and as such is used as a reference and calibration for further displacement modulation measurements.

The response of an ESA is non-trivial for the combination of Gaussian noise and a signal . For a displacement modulation signal $`d_{\mathrm{mod}}`$ and noise $`d_{\mathrm{noise}}`$ of the same order $`(d_{\mathrm{mod}}d_{\mathrm{noise}})`$, the response of the ESA in units of displacement squared may be approximated as $`(d_{\mathrm{total}}^2=d_{\mathrm{mod}}^2+d_{\mathrm{noise}}^2)`$. The calibration from spectral noise power to displacement is determined as follows - for a laser beam of power $`P`$, frequency $`\nu `$, waist size $`\omega _0`$, and an ESA setting of $`\mathrm{RBW}`$, the number of photons collected per measurement is given by $`N=P/h\nu \mathrm{RBW}`$, which determines $`d_{\mathrm{SQL}}`$ from Eq. (11).

In order to set the calibration constant, a trace from the ESA was obtained where $`d_{\mathrm{mod}}`$ was kept to zero, hence giving the noise power level corresponding only to the quantum noise limit contribution. Another ESA trace of $`d_{\mathrm{total}}`$ where $`d_{\mathrm{mod}}`$ was non-zero was then obtained. The smallest identifiable displacement ($`d_{\mathrm{min}}`$) can be defined in terms of the statistical confidence that a displacement modulation has been observed. One complication of using an ESA to identify displacement modulations is that the video bandwidth (VBW in units of Hz) operation of an ESA sets the averaging length over several $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{mod}`$ oscillation cycles of $`d_{total}`$, and thus changes the time response of our displacement measurement. However, for practical applications where we require a time resolution equal to the one set by the resolution bandwidth, we simply choose the video bandwidth equal to the resolution bandwidth.

In summary, an efficient quantum noise limited displacement modulation measurement can be achieved by carefully focusing the beam on the sample and detector, and choosing appropriate spectrum analyser settings. After optimisation of these parameters, there remain only two ways to improve the quality of the measurement - increasing the mean power or using spatial squeezing. It is the latter solution that we implement and describe in the following section.

## 4 2-D Spatial Squeezing - Experimental Scheme and Results

### 4.1 Quadrant Detection

Our quadrant detector, composed of a $`2\times 2`$ array of separate square detectors of side 0.5 mm and adjacent separation of 25 $`\mu `$m (Epitaxx ETX 505Q), allows us to perform 4 independent measurements (see Fig. 2)

$`I_a`$ $`=`$ $`I_1+I_2+I_3+I_4`$
$`I_b`$ $`=`$ $`(I_1+I_4)(I_2+I_3)`$
$`I_c`$ $`=`$ $`(I_1+I_2)(I_3+I_4)`$
$`I_d`$ $`=`$ $`(I_1+I_3)(I_2+I_4)`$ (12)
The first measurement, $`I_a`$ corresponds to the sum of the four quadrants and gives the total intensity. $`I_b`$ and $`I_c`$ correspond respectively to horizontal and vertical positioning. Finally, $`I_d`$, which is the difference between the two diagonal, can be interpreted, to the first order, as an orientation measurement. Indeed, if the beam is for instance elliptical, $`I_d`$ is zero only if the axis of the ellipse is parallel to the quadrants. To each of these measurements corresponds a flipped mode defined by Eq. (2.1). In the case of a $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ input beam, the three flipped modes are orthogonal, and it is then possible to improve all 3 differential measurements simultaneously. We will show here how we could improve any two of them simultaneously, in a configuration easily scalable to the three measurements.

Experimentally, the challenges in this process are to efficiently produce the correct spatial modes, to generate a pair of squeezed fields, and to combine these fields with the coherent horizontally flipped mode with maximum efficiency. Our experimental setup, which overcomes these challenges, is shown in Fig. 2.

### 4.2 Generation of Squeezed Light

In our experiment a 1.5 W field at 1064 nm was generated by a non-planar ring-oscillator Nd:YAG laser. This field was split into two roughly equal parts. One part was used to pump a second harmonic generator (SHG), and the other was ultimately used to seed a pair of optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) each generating a squeezed field, and to provide the coherent horizontally flipped field. The SHG was constructed from a hemi-lithic MgO:$`\mathrm{LiNbO}_3`$ crystal with curved surface AR coated at 1064 nm and 532 nm, and an input/output coupling mirror with 92 % reflectivity for 1064 nm light and $`5`$ % reflectivity for 532 nm light. An electro-optical modulation was applied to the MgO:$`\mathrm{LiNbO}_3`$ crystal, resulting in a phase modulation on the intra-cavity field. An error signal for the length of the cavity was extracted by detecting the light transmitted through the cavity and mixing down at the modulation frequency. The SHG was non-critically phase matched by holding the temperature of the MgO:$`\mathrm{LiNbO}_3`$ crystal constant at $`107^{}C`$. At this temperature, a conversion efficiency of $`55`$ % was achieved. This resulted in 350 mW of optical power at 532 nm, which was used to pump our OPAs.

The second 1064 nm beam was passed through a mode cleaning cavity. This cavity had a line-width of 2 MHz and so acted to filter out noise on the laser above that frequency. Consequently, the output field was quantum noise limited at frequencies above $``$ 6 MHz. It was then used to seed both of our OPAs and to provide the horizontally flipped coherent field. The OPAs were of identical design to the SHG, but with higher output coupler reflectivity at 1064 nm (96 %). As with the SHG, the length of each OPA cavity was controlled using an error signal generated through an intra-cavity phase modulation. Each OPA either amplified or de-amplified its seed field, depending on the relative phase between the pump and seed. The SHG phase modulation resulted in a phase modulation on the OPA pump fields, and consequently a modulation of the OPA amplification. For each OPA, an error signal could be extracted from this modulation, locking the OPA to de-amplification. In this regime the OPAs each produced a $`150\mu `$W amplitude squeezed field. These squeezed fields were observed to be 4 dB and 3 dB below the quantum noise limit, respectively.

### 4.3 Manipulation of Transverse Mode-Shapes

At this stage, we had available all of the resources required to generate a 2D spatially squeezed beam, all that remained was to appropriately modify each beam’s transverse mode-shape, to generate a spatial modulation, and to spatially overlap the beams. In our experiment, for practical reasons, instead of using a TEM00 laser we chose to have the mean field in a horizontally flipped mode TEMf00. Hence, the flipped mode for horizontal positioning is simply a TEMf00 mode and the one for vertical positioning is a doubly flipped mode TEMf0f0. To summarise, we required the bright coherent field to have a horizontally phase flipped mode-shape $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f00}}`$, and the dim squeezed fields to have $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$, and both horizontally and vertically flipped $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f0f0}}`$ mode-shapes, respectively. The required mode-shape modification could be achieved by phase flipping some quadrants of each field. This phase flipping was achieved using birefringent optical half wave-plates which were cut and assembled at appropriate $`\pi /2`$ angles (CSIRO Lindfield Australia). A 2-quadrant wave-plate was used on the local oscillator beam so that its mode-shape was horizontally phase flipped, while a 4-quadrant wave-plate was used on one squeezed beam so that its mode-shape was both horizontally and vertically flipped. The other squeezed beam required no modification and was maintained as a $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ Gaussian mode.

In order to gauge the quality of the phase flipped wave-plates fabricated, we interfered the flipped modes with either another flipped mode or the $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ mode (see Fig. 3). This was performed using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer setup where one arm of the interferometer had a $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f00}}`$ wave-plate and the other arm had either a $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f0f0}}`$ wave-plate or no wave-plate. The input modes at the interferometer were of equal optical power and by scanning the relative phase between the beams in the two arms, interference fringes on each quadrant of the 4-quadrant detector (labelled $`1`$, $`2`$, $`3`$ and $`4`$ here as defined in Fig. 3) were observed. We quantified the quality of the mode-matching via the interference fringe visibility

$$V=\frac{I_{\mathrm{max}}I_{\mathrm{min}}}{I_{\mathrm{max}}+I_{\mathrm{min}}}$$
(13)
where $`V=1`$ indicates perfect mode-matching and $`V=0`$ indicates no mode-matching.

When a $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ mode was interfered with a horizontally flipped mode (as shown in Fig. 3 A) the interference observed on the half-detector defined by quadrants 2 and 3 was $`\pi `$ out of phase with that on the half-detector defined by quadrants 1 and 4, as expected since the phase of the $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f00}}`$ field was flipped by $`\pi `$ between the halves. The measured visibility of the interference was $`V=0.90`$ and the phase mismatch between the constructive and destructive interference was $`7^{}`$. As expected, when a $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f0f0}}`$ mode was interfered with the $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f00}}`$ mode (as shown in Fig. 3 B) the interference observed on the half-detector defined by quadrants 1 and 2 was $`\pi `$ out of phase with that on the half-detector defined by quadrants 3 and 4. In this case, the visibility of the interference was $`V=0.88`$ and phase mismatch was $`5^{}`$. The effective efficiency of our mode-shape modification procedure is given by $`V^2`$, so that the efficiency for both wave-plate designs was approximately 80%.

### 4.4 Overlapping the Spatial Modes

To obtain a single 2D spatially squeezed beam, the three modes produced above were spatially overlapped. Since squeezing is highly sensitive to inefficiencies, it was critical that the efficiency of the process overlapping the squeezed modes was high. An element that accurately distinguished between different spatial modes was required to achieve this high efficiency. In our case we chose a specially designed optical cavity in a ring configuration as this element. Cavities constructed using spherical mirrors decompose incident light fields into the TEMmn modes. The Gouy phase shift between the TEMmn modes typically ensures that for a given cavity length some TEMmn modes will be resonant, and others entirely non-resonant. In our case, we designed the cavity to be impedance matched, and have relatively low finesse ($`31`$). The input and output couplers had 95 % reflectivity and the third mirror was HR coated. In this regime losses in the cavity were small compared to the input and output coupling, and resonant incident modes were transmitted with high efficiency. With a cavity length of 200 mm controlled such that the TEM00 mode was resonant, our TEM00 squeezed beam was transmitted with $`>95`$ % efficiency and a line-width of 25 MHz. We were interested in squeezing at sideband frequencies of $`5`$ MHz. This is well below the line-width of the cavity, ensuring efficient transmission of our squeezing.

Let us now consider the TEMf0f0 squeezed mode interacting with the cavity. Since the cavity was in a ring configuration, reflection of this mode from the cavity output coupling mirror with appropriate imaging lenses achieved the desired spatial overlap with the transmitted TEM00 mode (see Fig. 1). Of course, for this reflection to be efficient the TEMf0f0 had to be far way from the cavity resonance. The resonance condition of the TEMf0f0 mode for the ring-cavity can be examined by first expanding it in the $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{mn}}`$ basis

$`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f0f0}}={\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}c_{mn}\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{mn}}`$ (14)
$`c_{mn}={\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{i+j}(2i)!(2j)!}{\pi (i!)(j!)2^{i+j1}\sqrt{(2i+1)!(2j+1)!}}}`$ (15)
where $`m=2i+1`$ and $`n=2j+1`$. Notice that there is no contribution to the TEMf0f0 mode from the TEM00 mode. Thus, these two modes are orthogonal, and there is no fundamental limitation on the efficiency with which they can be spatially overlapped. A number of cavity designs exist for which this overlap, in principle, approaches 100 % efficiency. The crucial factor is that when the TEM00 mode is on resonance, all higher order TEMmn mode with significantly large occupation $`|c_{mn}|^2`$ are far off resonance. In the limit of high cavity finesse this condition is naturally satisfied.

In our case, however, a relatively low cavity finesse was chosen to ensure the efficient transmission of squeezing at 5 MHz on the TEM00 squeezed mode. In this case, a careful analysis of the resonance condition of each of the significant higher order TEMmn modes is required. For each mode, this resonance condition is dictated by the Gouy phase shift experienced by the modes, which can be optimised for a given cavity length through an appropriate choice of the radii of curvature of the cavity mirrors. For our cavity the input/output coupling mirrors were chosen to be flat and the third mirror to have a radius of curvature of 250 mm. With the cavity length controlled so that the TEM00 mode was resonant, all higher order modes with $`n+m<18`$ were efficiently reflected. The contribution to our TEMf0f0 mode from TEM modes with $`n+m>18`$ was insignificant with $`|c_{mn}|^2<0.0003`$ in all cases. For our cavity configuration, therefore, the TEMf0f0 mode was efficiently reflected. We directly observed an efficiency $`>94`$% for this process.

Fig. 4 shows a comparison of the predicted and experimentally observed cavity reflection for a TEMf0f0 mode as a function of the cavity resonance condition. The cavity resonance condition was scanned by ramping the cavity length using a piezo-electric actuator (PZT) attached to the curved cavity mirror. When a TEMmn mode was resonant, it was almost entirely transmitted, and the reflected power from the cavity dropped in consequence. The magnitude of the intensity drop was directly proportional to $`|c_{mn}|^2`$. Fig. 4, therefore, illustrates the significance of each of the lower-order TEMmn modes constituting the TEMf0f0 mode. The highest contribution came from the TEM11 mode, and the significance of the modes dropped rapidly as $`m+n`$ increased. A comparison of Fig. 4 A and B shows a good agreement between the theory and experiment. The experimental peaks were slightly broader than the prediction which can be attributed to the intra-cavity loss.

Transmitting the TEM00 squeezed beam through our cavity, and simultaneously reflecting the TEMf0f0 squeezed beam from the cavity mirror spatially overlapped the two fields. All that remained to generate a 2D spatially squeezed beam was to spatially overlap this combined beam with our bright coherent TEMf00 mode. Since the second order statistical moments of coherent fields are insensitive to attenuation, this overlap could be achieved by utilising a 95/5 beam splitter. The combined squeezed field, and the coherent flipped field were imaged onto the two input ports of the beam splitter. The combined squeezed field was reflected with 95 % efficiency, and the flipped coherent field was transmitted with 5 % efficiency. the resulting output field was 2D spatially squeezed.

### 4.5 2D Spatial Squeezing Measurements

The level of squeezing exhibited by our spatially squeezed beam was examined by imaging the mode onto a quadrant detector. The horizontal beam displacement fluctuation was obtained by taking the difference between the photocurrents originating from the left and right halves of the quadrant detector, and the vertical beam displacement fluctuation was obtained from the difference of the photocurrents from the top and bottom halves of the detector. These photocurrents were then analysed in a spectrum analyser which performed power spectral density measurements. Without squeezing, these measurements were limited to the quantum noise level as shown by the black trace in Fig. 5. Introducing the squeezed fields, we observed simultaneous squeezing of both the horizontal and vertical displacement fluctuations as shown by the colour (grey) traces in Fig. 5. The optimum simultaneous squeezing for the vertical and horizontal displacement fluctuations were 2.0$`\pm `$0.1 dB and 3.05$`\pm `$0.1 dB, respectively. This corresponded to a reduction in the displacement fluctuations of the vertical and horizontal axes by 37 % and 50 %, respectively, with respect to the quantum noise level.

### 4.6 Implementation and Measurement of a Displacement Modulation

With a reduction in the noise levels of both the horizontal and vertical axes to below the quantum noise limit, we now examine the effects of an externally applied displacement modulation on the spatially squeezed beam. Spatial squeezing should improve the resolution with which this modulation can be analysed.

The external displacement modulation was applied to the $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f00}}`$ local oscillator beam by reflecting the beam from a $`45^{}`$ angled mirror mounted on a PZT modulated at 4.976 MHz. The PZT consisted of a stack of piezo-electric crystals. When a voltage was applied across the PZT, the PZT not only contracted/expanded in the principal axis but also tilted at an angle away from the principal axis. The resulting transverse modulation from the PZT was a diagonal displacement modulation, with horizontal and vertical components.

In order to demonstrate an improvement in the resolution measurement of our 2-dimensional spatially squeezed beam, we compared the results of a displacement modulation measurement between a coherent beam and our spatially squeezed beam. The results are shown in Fig. 6. The squeezing levels obtained for the horizontal and vertical axes were 2.84 dB and 1.80 dB, respectively. The broad peak corresponded to the measured displacement modulation signal and we measured our signal to noise ratio (SNR) from the maximum of the signal peak to the noise floor. For the quantum noise limited coherent beam (curve (i)), the measured SNR for the horizontal and vertical axes were 2.8 and 1.4. For the 2-dimensional spatially squeezed beam (curve (ii)), the measured SNR for the horizontal and vertical axes were 5.2 and 1.9. The improvement in the measurement of the displacement modulation signal obtained from the spatially squeezed beam over the coherent beam is given by the ratio of $`\mathrm{SNR}_{\mathrm{sqz}}^{\mathrm{H}(\mathrm{V})}/\mathrm{SNR}_{\mathrm{coherent}}^{\mathrm{H}(\mathrm{V})}`$. The respective ratios obtained for the horizontal and vertical axes were 1.9 and 1.4.

We also examined the effects of ramping the displacement modulation amplitude over time. To determine the displacement modulation amplitude at an analysis frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the photocurrents from the quadrant detector were analysed using a spectrum analyser. The spectrum analyser demodulated the modulation signal and then performed a measurement of the power spectral density. The displayed information was the sum of the squares of the quantum noise without modulation $`d_{\mathrm{noise}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ and the small transverse beam position modulation $`d_{\mathrm{mod}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ \- i.e. $`d_{\mathrm{noise}}(\mathrm{\Omega })^2+d_{\mathrm{mod}}(\mathrm{\Omega })^2`$ (see Fig. 7A). Curve (i) is the result of the measurement performed using a coherent state and thus is the best classical measurement. Curve (ii) was obtained by performing the same measurement, but with a spatially squeezed beam instead.

The data obtained in Fig. 7A was then normalised to the respective noise levels for the coherent and the spatially squeezed beams, shown in Fig. 7B. The vertical axis is the difference between the measured signal, and noise without displacement. For the spatially squeezed beam the average of the signal trace crosses the threshold of confidence for a smaller modulation amplitude than for the coherent beam. The corresponding oscillation amplitude for the spatially squeezed and coherent beams were found to be 1.6 Å and 2.3 Å at the 99 % confidence level. Thus the improvement for the spatially squeezed beam was a factor of 1.5 over the quantum noise limited coherent beam. Since both traces increased linearly with the modulation amplitude, this improvement factor was independent of the choice of confidence levels.

For the sake of brevity, we have only included the results for the horizontal axis. It should be realised that an equivalent improvement for two simultaneous measurements performed in two orthogonal quadratures on the spatially squeezed beam has been achieved.

### 4.7 Simultaneous 2D Displacement Measurement

An intuitive visualisation of our 2D spatial squeezed beam was obtained by analysing the vertical and horizontal normalised amplitude quadratures on a correlation diagram. To do this, simultaneous measurements of the horizontal and vertical beam displacements were required. We achieved these measurements using a pair of simultaneously triggered spectrum analysers with identical settings. The results for the two axes could then be plotted against each other in conventional correlation diagrams. Fig. 8 shows the resulting correlation diagrams for a quantum noise limited beam (Fig. 8 A) and our spatially squeezed beam (Fig. 8 B). Each point in these diagrams can be interpreted as an instantaneous 2D measurement of the fluctuations of the displacement modulation. The standard deviation as a function of modulation angle could be calculated for each correlation diagram, and is displayed by the ellipses in the figure. We can directly see that the average displacement modulation fluctuation for all angles is smaller with our spatially squeezed beam than with a coherent beam. Specifically, for the horizontal and vertical axes, the average fluctuation is reduced by a factor of 0.78 and 0.75, respectively. The square of these values give the fluctuation variances of 2.2 dB and 2.5 dB for the horizontal and vertical axes, respectively. The ellipses in Fig. 8 also allow an analysis of any correlation present between the horizontal and vertical displacement fluctuations. Since in both cases the major and minor ellipse axes correspond well to the horizontal and vertical displacement axes, it is clear that no cross-axis correlation exists.

### 4.8 Extension to Diagonal Axis Measurement

As discussed in the theory section, simultaneous enhancement of any two orthogonal spatial properties of a beam is possible given access to sufficient squeezing resources, and the ability to choose and combine appropriate spatial modes. In this section, we demonstrate that principle by simultaneously generating horizontal and diagonal spatial squeezing, contrasting the horizontal/vertical spatial squeezing discussed throughout the majority of this paper. Our bright coherent beam and TEM00 squeezed beam were maintained in their original modes, and the 4-quadrant wave-plate in the TEMf0f0 squeezed beam was replaced by a 2-quadrant wave-plate, rotated by $`90^{}`$ relative to the wave-plate for the coherent beam. This transformed the TEMf0f0 squeezed beam to a vertically flipped $`\mathrm{TEM}_{0\mathrm{f}0}`$ mode. So that, in this case, the beams involved were a bright coherent horizontally flipped $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f00}}`$ beam, a vertically flipped $`\mathrm{TEM}_{0\mathrm{f}0}`$ squeezed beam and a $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ squeezed beam. To measure the diagonal axis modulation displacement, the photocurrents from diagonal detector quadrants were summed, and the difference of the two resulting photon currents were analysed in a spectrum analyser. The resulting horizontal and diagonal displacement modulation spectra are shown in Fig. 9. As can be seen from the figure, the horizontal and diagonal axes were simultaneously squeezed by 2.2 dB and 1.8 dB, respectively. This corresponded to displacement fluctuation reductions with respect to quantum noise of 40 % and 34 %, for the horizontal and diagonal axes respectively.

### 4.9 Efficient One Dimensional Spatial Squeezing

In our original one dimensional (1D) spatial squeezing work reported in Ref. , the spatially squeezed beam was produced by overlapping a squeezed $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ beam and a bright coherent $`\mathrm{TEM}_{\mathrm{f00}}`$ beam using a 95/5 beamsplitter. The choice of 95 % reflectivity was motivated by the requirement to minimise loss in the $`\mathrm{TEM}_{00}`$ squeezed beam, while ensuring a significant fraction of the coherent beam was transmitted. However, this resulted in an attenuation of the displacement signal encoded on the coherent beam, so that the achievable signal-to-noise ratio was lower than would be possible if the spatial overlap was achieved efficiently. We repeated that original experiment, using our cavity to efficiently spatially overlap the two beams. This resulted in a 1D spatially squeezed beam with minimal losses for both the squeezed and coherent beams. The measured squeezing was 2.5 dB, which was also an improvement on the value of 2.34 dB reported in Ref. .

## 5 Conclusion

In this paper we have investigated, both theoretically and experimentally, the optimum displacement measurements that can be performed using a detector array. We demonstrated that, splitting the array into two arbitrary areas with equal optical power on each, enhancement of the difference measurement between the halves could be achieved using a $`\pi `$ phase-flipped squeezed mode. The location of the $`\pi `$ phase-flip was dictated by the detector areas under investigation. We then showed that an arbitrary number of such measurements could be enhanced simultaneously using multiple squeezed beams, so long as the squeezed beams had orthogonal spatial modes.

In our experiment, we were interested in enhancing measurements performed using an array detector with only four pixels, or in other words, a quadrant detector. Such measurements can be interpreted as displacement measurements, and have many applications. Our aim was to use squeezing to achieve simultaneous squeezing of multiple displacement measurements. One of the primary experimental challenges was to develop methods to spatially overlap two beams with orthogonal spatial modes efficiently. We achieved this overlap with approximately 95 % efficiency using a specially designed optical resonator. We used this resonator to spatially overlap a pair of quadrature squeezed beams with specifically configured mode-shapes. Combining the resulting beam with a bright coherent beam, also with a specific mode-shape, produced a 2D spatially squeezed beam. This was demonstrated by simultaneous below shot noise fluctuations in both horizontal and vertical displacement measurements when the beam was imaged onto our quadrant detector. We introduced a spatial modulation to the beam and demonstrated that, using spatial squeezing, a modulation amplitude of 1.6 Å could be detected with 99 % confidence, a coherent beam, on the other hand, could only detect modulations with amplitude greater than 2.3 Å. To illustrate the generality of out results, we also demonstrated that horizontal and diagonal displacement measurements could be simultaneously enhanced.

## 6 Acknowledgment

We acknowledge financial support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence Program and the European network QUANTIM, contract IST-2000-26019. We thank Roman Schnabel, Ben Buchler and Ulrik Andersen for assistance and fruitful discussions. The Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel of the Ecole Normale Superieure and University Pierré et Marie Curie are associated via CNRS.


text:
# The Average Magnetic Field Strength in Molecular Clouds: New Evidence of Super–Alfvénic Turbulence

## 1 Introduction

The volume–averaged magnetic field strength in molecular clouds has never been measured directly. Zeeman splitting has been detected only from a few dense molecular cloud cores, where emission lines from molecules such as OH and CN are observed (Crutcher, 1999; Bourke et al., 2001). Dense cores fill only a small fraction of the volume of molecular clouds. Therefore, the magnetic field strength averaged over the molecular cloud volume cannot be directly inferred from its value in the cores. This is true especially if the magnetic field strength has a very intermittent distribution and is correlated with the gas density, as suggested by Padoan & Nordlund (1999).

Estimates of magnetic field strength in molecular clouds have been inferred from the dispersion in the polarization angle (e.g. Myers & Goodman, 1991; Chrysostomou et al., 1994; Lai et al., 2001; Matthews & Wilson, 2002; Lai et al., 2002) as originally suggested by Davis (1951) and Chandrasekhar & Fermi (1953). This method was tested in numerical simulations of MHD turbulence by Ostriker et al. (2001), Padoan et al. (2001) and Heitsch et al. (2001). The relative motion of ions and neutral molecules, as manifested by a comparison of their spectral lines, has also been used to estimate the magnetic field strength in molecular clouds (Houde et al., 2000, 2002).

In this work we present a new way to constrain the average magnetic field strength in molecular clouds, based on the density power spectrum. In § 2 we show numerical simulations of supersonic MHD turbulence with different magnetic field strength yield different power spectra of gas density. The power spectrum is then computed from maps of molecular clouds in § 3. We find that only a rather low value for the average magnetic field strength, leading to super–Alfvénic turbulence, is consistent with the observations. Conclusions are summarized in § 4.

The density power spectrum depends on the rms sonic Mach number of the turbulence, $`M_\mathrm{S}`$ (the ratio of the rms flow velocity and the sound speed). In this work we use only simulations with $`M_\mathrm{S}10`$ because that is the approximate value in the molecular cloud complexes we have studied. We do not study the dependence of the power spectrum on the value of $`M_\mathrm{S}`$. In general, smaller values of $`M_\mathrm{S}`$ yield steeper density power spectra than the $`M_\mathrm{S}10`$ models (this was verified with a set of simulations that will be presented elsewhere). Turbulent flows with $`M_\mathrm{S}1`$, for example, are expected to generate a Kolmogorov density power spectrum, proportional to $`k^{11/3}`$. This slope is comparable with the electron density power spectrum on very small scale estimated from scintillation studies (Armstrong et al., 1995). HI surveys of our galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds (Crovisier & Dickey, 1983; Elmegreen et al., 2001; Stanimirović & Lazarian, 2001; Dickey et al., 2001) produced power spectra with slope intermediate between the present results in molecular clouds and the scintillation studies.

## 2 Power Spectrum of Gas Density in Supersonic MHD Turbulence

In order to study the power spectrum of gas density, we have run two simulations of driven supersonic MHD turbulence with rms sonic Mach number $`M_\mathrm{S}10`$ and isothermal equation of state. We have solved the three dimensional compressible MHD equations in a staggered mesh with 3503 computational cells and periodic boundary conditions. The initial magnetic and density fields are uniform. The flow is driven by an external large scale random and solenoidal force, correlated at the largest scale turn–over time. The time derivative of the random force is generated in Fourier space, with power only in the range of wavenumbers $`1kL_{\mathrm{mesh}}/2\pi 2`$ . The initial velocity field is proportional to the initial force, with an rms amplitude of approximately 50% of its relaxed value. Details about the numerical method are given in Padoan & Nordlund (1999).

We have run the simulations for five dynamical times. The dynamical time is here defined as $`t_\mathrm{d}=L_{\mathrm{mesh}}/(2u)`$, where $`u`$ is the rms flow velocity. We choose this definition of dynamical time because the flow is forced up to wavenumber $`k=4\pi /L_{\mathrm{mesh}}`$ and therefore the largest turbulent scale is approximately $`L_{\mathrm{mesh}}/2`$.

We characterize the simulations based on the relative importance of magnetic and dynamic (turbulent) pressure. The pressure ratio is defined as $`P_\mathrm{m}/P_\mathrm{d}=B^2/[8\pi \rho u^2]`$, averaging over the computational volume and over the last four dynamical times. In the first simulation (model A) the statistically relaxed pressure ratio is $`P_\mathrm{m}/P_\mathrm{d}0.65\pm 0.05`$ (approximate equipartition of magnetic and kinetic energies). In the second simulation (model B), the ratio is $`P_\mathrm{m}/P_\mathrm{d}0.09\pm 0.01`$ (kinetic energy of the turbulence approximately five times larger than magnetic energy). The standard deviation of approximately 10% in the pressure ratio of models A and B is due primarily to time fluctuations of the random force.

Power spectra have been computed for 18 times over the last four dynamical times (the small scale portions of these power spectra are statistically independent because the dynamical time decreases with spatial scale). The slopes are computed from a least square fit of the time–averaged power spectra plotted in Figure 1. We find that the power spectrum of the density field is sensitive to the pressure ratio (or the average magnetic field strength). The power spectrum of the three dimensional (3D) density field is $`P(k)k^{2.25\pm 0.01}`$ in the equipartition run (model A) and $`P(k)k^{2.70\pm 0.01}`$ in the super–Alfvénic case (model B).

In isotropic turbulence the power spectrum of the projected density is the same as the power spectrum of the 3D density field (not necessarily in the presence of a mean magnetic field or in real molecular clouds). We have verified this in our numerical data. We have also verified that the power spectrum of the projected density does not depend on the direction of projection relative to the direction of the mean magnetic field. However, our results are based on the power spectra of the 3D density field and not of the projected density, because the statistical sample size is reduced by the projection (larger noise in 2D power spectra than in 3D ones).

## 3 Power Spectrum of Column Density in Molecular Clouds

The distribution of column density in molecular clouds can be estimated from maps of the J=1-0 13CO emission line. In this work we use J=1-0 13CO maps of the Perseus (Padoan et al., 1999), Taurus (Mizuno et al., 1995) and Rosetta (Heyer & et al., 2003) molecular cloud complexes and find the power spectrum of projected density in these regions is well approximated by a power law, $`P_\mathrm{o}(k)k^{a_\mathrm{o}}`$.

The value of the gas column density inferred from the J=1-0 13CO maps depends on the distribution of 13CO abundance and J=1-0 13CO excitation temperature, $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$. The column density can be estimated using the LTE method (Dickman, 1978; Harjunpää & Mattila, 1996; Padoan et al., 1998a). In the LTE method the value of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ along each line of sight is assumed to be constant and is estimated using the observed peak temperature, $`T_\mathrm{r}=T_\mathrm{p}`$, of an optically thick line ($`\tau 1`$) in the equation:

$$T_\mathrm{r}=[J(T_{\mathrm{ex}})J(T_{\mathrm{bg}})](1e^\tau )$$
(1)
where $`T_{\mathrm{bg}}=2.7`$ K is the background temperature, and the function $`J(T)`$ is defined as:

$$J(T)=\frac{T_0}{\mathrm{exp}(T_0/T)1}$$
(2)
with $`T_0=h\nu _{10}/k`$ and $`\nu _{10}`$ is the frequency of the J=1-0 13CO transition. The J=1-0 12CO transition, when available, is generally used as the optically thick line to estimate the value of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$. For the present analysis we apply the LTE method using only the J=1-0 13CO line because 12CO maps are not available to us. This line is optically thick only in the brightest regions of the maps used in the present work. The value of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ can be estimated from the J=1-0 13CO line only in those regions. Therefore, we use the peak temperature of this line over the whole map to estimate the value of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ as outlined above. This single value of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ is used for all map positions (the effect of this assumption is addressed below with radiative transfer calculations). Finally, the 13CO column density is given by:

$$N_{\mathrm{LTE}}=6.39\times 10^{14}Q\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_v\tau (v)\mathrm{\Delta }v}{1e^{T_0/T_{\mathrm{ex}}}}$$
(3)
where $`\tau (v)`$ is the optical depth in the velocity channel corresponding to the velocity $`v`$ and is estimated from equation (1) using the estimated value of $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ and the radiation temperature $`T_\mathrm{r}(v)`$ given by the observed line profile. $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ is the width of the velocity channels in the observations, expressed in km/s, and the partition function $`Q`$ is assumed to be a constant over the map so its value is not required as it does not affect the slope of the density power spectrum.

Column density maps of the Perseus, Taurus and Rosetta regions have been computed from the observed J=1-0 13CO spectral maps with this simplified LTE method. Their power spectra are plotted in Figure 2. They are shown to be well approximated by power laws over one decade or more in wavenumber, $`P_\mathrm{o}(k)k^{a_\mathrm{o}}`$, with $`a_\mathrm{o}2.87\pm 0.04`$ for Perseus, $`a_\mathrm{o}2.87\pm 0.06`$ for Taurus and $`a_\mathrm{o}2.89\pm 0.06`$ for Rosetta.

In order to estimate the effect of assuming constant $`Q`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, the simplified LTE method for estimating the gas column density has been applied to synthetic spectra. Assuming a uniform 13CO abundance, synthetic spectral maps of the J=1-0 13CO line have been computed with a 3D non–LTE Monte Carlo radiative transfer code (Juvela, 1997) as described in Padoan et al. (1998b). The radiative transfer is computed through the density and velocity field of two snapshots of model B (at 3 and 4 dynamical times), regridded to a resolution of $`175^3`$, assuming average density $`n=500`$ cm-3 and mesh size $`L_{\mathrm{mesh}}=10`$ pc. The 3D distribution of kinetic temperature is computed self–consistently as part of the radiative transfer solution, from the balance of cosmic ray heating and molecular and atomic cooling. We have assumed a cosmic ray hydrogen ionization rate of $`2\times 10^{17}`$ s-1 and heating of 8 eV per ionization.

Six maps of $`175\times 175`$ synthetic J=1-0 13CO lines are obtained in this way, corresponding to three orthogonal directions of projection of the two 3D snapshots. The simplified LTE method is then applied to these six synthetic spectral maps and the estimated column density is compared with the actual column density in the original snapshots of model B. The result for one of the maps is plotted in Figure 3. Figure 3 shows the estimated column density, $`N_{\mathrm{LTE}}`$, is roughly proportional to the true column density, but tends to saturate at large column density values. This is due both to the low gas temperature and to the J=1-0 13CO line saturation in the densest regions. The power spectra of the column density field estimated from the synthetic spectral map, $`P_{\mathrm{LTE}}(k)k^{a_{\mathrm{LTE}}}`$, are then compared with the power spectra computed directly from the projections of the original MHD data cube, $`P_{\mathrm{MHD}}(k)k^{a_{\mathrm{MHD}}}`$.

We find that $`P_{\mathrm{LTE}}(k)`$ is generally steeper than $`P_{\mathrm{MHD}}(k)`$. This is primarily due to the decreased emission from the densest regions due to their low gas temperature and to the saturation of the J=1-0 13CO line. The difference is $`a_{\mathrm{LTE}}a_{\mathrm{MHD}}=0.13\pm 0.06`$. If this correction is applied to the observed molecular cloud complexes, the corrected power spectrum has a slope $`a=2.74\pm 0.07`$ for Perseus, $`a=2.74\pm 0.08`$ for Taurus and $`a=2.76\pm 0.08`$ for . At the 1 $`\sigma `$ level, model B is consistent with these molecular cloud complex power spectra, while the power spectrum of model A is inconsistent with the observations with virtually 100% confidence (7 $`\sigma `$).

Variations in 13CO abundance may affect the estimated column density. However, significant CO depletion is expected only above 10 magnitudes of visual extinction and the CO abundance should drop only below 1-2 magnitudes. Most of the gas mass in molecular cloud complexes emits at values of visual extinction between 1 and 10 mag. Therefore, the effect of gas temperature variations estimated above should be more important than the neglected effect of variations in 13CO abundance.

## 4 Conclusions

The average magnetic field strength in molecular clouds cannot be measured directly. However, it can be inferred from observational data due to its effect on the gas dynamics. In this work we have found the power spectrum of the density field is a sensitive diagnostic of the magnetic field strength. Numerical simulations of supersonic MHD turbulence with rms sonic Mach number $`M_\mathrm{S}10`$ develop a power law power spectrum of gas density, $`P_{\mathrm{MHD}}(k)k^{a_{\mathrm{MHD}}}`$. The value of the power law exponent is $`a_{\mathrm{MHD}}=2.25\pm 0.01`$ when the flow rms velocity is comparable to the Alfvén velocity and $`a_{\mathrm{MHD}}=2.71\pm 0.01`$ in the super–Alfvénic simulation.

The density power spectrum can be measured also in molecular cloud complexes, for example using J=1-0 13CO maps. However, the column density (and its power spectrum) estimated using only the J=1-0 13CO line and the LTE method are biased by a number of uncertainties. The most significant uncertainties are the 3D distribution of the gas kinetic temperature in the molecular cloud complexes and the saturation of the J=1-0 13CO line in very dense regions. We have investigated the effect of these uncertainties in the density power spectrum using synthetic J=1-0 13CO spectral maps computed with a non–LTE Monte Carlo radiative transfer code. The 3D equilibrium temperature distribution is computed self–consistently as part of the radiative transfer solution by balancing cosmic ray heating with molecular and atomic cooling. The correct power spectrum slope, $`a_{\mathrm{MHD}}`$, is found to be smaller than the slope estimated with the LTE method, $`a_{\mathrm{LTE}}`$, with $`a_{\mathrm{MHD}}=a_{\mathrm{LTE}}0.13\pm 0.06`$.

With this correction, the power spectrum slope is $`a=2.74\pm 0.07`$ for Perseus,$`a=2.74\pm 0.08`$ for Taurus and $`a=2.76\pm 0.08`$ for Rosetta. The super–Alfvénic model is consistent with this result, while the model with rms flow velocity comparable to the Alfvén velocity is ruled out by the observations. This is yet another indication that super–Alfvénic turbulence provides a good description of molecular cloud dynamics. As first proposed by Padoan & Nordlund (1997, 1999), the average magnetic field strength in molecular clouds may be much smaller than required to support them against the gravitational collapse. Evidence of super–Alfvénic turbulence was also found recently by Troland and Heiles (2001) in HI clouds.

MJ acknowledges the support from the Academy of Finland Grants no. 174854 and 175068. Computing time was provided by the Danish Center for Scientific Computing. The research of RJ is partially supported by NSF grant AST-0206031.


text:
# When Do Planets Form? A Search for Extra-solar Planets Around Metal-Poor Stars

## 1. Introduction

The two proposed models for the formation of gas giant planets make different, and testable, predictions. For example, core accretion requires several Myr to grow a solid core massive enough to accrete a gaseous envelope (Lissauer 1993). In contrast, disk instability leads to Jupiter-mass clumps (e.g., Boss 1997), which can survive and give rise to actual protoplanets (Mayer et al. 2002), within $`10^3`$ yr. The time-scale for core accretion to proceed depends strongly on the initial surface density of solids (Pollack et al. 1996), so that formation by this mechanism may be enhanced in metal-rich stars. Instead, disk instability is remarkably insensitive to the primordial metallicity of the protoplanetary disk (Boss 2002). Several observational tests can be performed to probe giant planet formation models (Boss 2003). In order to unambiguously establish whether high primordial metallicity is a requirement, and thus determine which is the dominant formation mechanism for gas giant planets, we are conducting a spectroscopic search for planets orbiting a sample of metal-poor stars in the field, thus eliminating possible sources of interference with planet formation, or with migration to close-in orbits, or with planet survival, such as dynamical interactions in dense stellar environments.

## 2. Stellar Sample Selection

In this project we are searching for planetary companions within 1 AU orbiting a sample of 200 metal-poor dwarfs, chosen from the Carney-Latham (e.g., Carney et al. 1994) and Ryan (Ryan 1989) surveys of metal-poor, chromospherically quiet, non rotating ($`V\mathrm{sin}i10`$ km/s), high-velocity field stars that happen to be passing by the solar neighborhood. These stars are selected not to have close stellar companions based on long-term radial-velocity (RV) monitoring that has been carried out with the CfA Digital Speedometers. Our survey is orthogonal to other spectroscopic planet searches in that it spans a range of metallicities never investigated before ($`2.0`$ \[Fe/H\] $`0.6`$). We have further refined our sample of metal-poor dwarfs by imposing magnitude ($`V11.5`$) and temperature ($`T_{eff}6250`$ K) cut-offs, and utilized the metallicity, temperature, and magnitude constraints to compute the relative exposure times needed to achieve 20 m/s RV precision for planet detection. This precision is sufficient to achieve sensitivity to RV variations due to planetary companions with minimum masses in the average range $`0.59M_p2.75`$ MJ, or higher, for orbital periods in the range $`0.01P1`$ yr. Our sample of 200 metal-poor stars should eventually provide a robust 3-$`\sigma `$ null result in the case of no detections.

## 3. Results

During the first two Keck 1/HIRES observing nights we have obtained spectra (1 template + 2 iodine exposures) for 40 stars covering a large range of metallicities and effective temperatures, with the primary aim of evaluating the RV precision as a function of effective temperature and metallicity, and thus test the validity of our predictions for the dependence of the RV precision on these two parameters. The resulting RV difference distribution between the two nights exhibits an rms residual velocity $`\sigma 25`$ m/s, corresponding to an expected single-measurement uncertainty of $`\epsilon =\sigma /\sqrt{2}18`$ m/s. No clear trends in the RV differences as a function of \[Fe/H\] and Teff are present, a further confirmation that the model we developed for the dependence of the RV precision on the above parameters is robust. Our next goal will be to demonstrate the long-term stability of the velocity zero-point and expected single-measurement precision for planet detection.

## References

Boss, A. P. 1997, Science, 276, 1836

Boss, A. P. 2002, ApJ, 567, L149

Boss, A. P. 2003, Space Sci.Rev., in press

Carney, B. W., et al. 1994, AJ, 107, 2240

Lissauer, J. J. 1993, ARA&A, 31, 129

Mayer, L., et al. 2002, Science, 298, 1756

Pollack, J. B., et al. 1996, Icarus, 124, 62

Ryan, S. G. 1989, AJ, 98, 1693