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# The Liverpool Telescope: Rapid follow-up observation of Targets of Opportunity with a 2 m robotic telescope

## 1 Introduction - robotic telescopes

Robotic telescopes are, due to their efficiency and flexibility, opening up numerous possibilities in many important branches of astrophysics . Distinct advantages of robotic telescopes are:

* the rapid response to Targets of Opportunity (ToO) alerts,
* the efficiency in the systematic monitoring of variable objects on all timescales from seconds to years,
* simultaneous and coordinated observations with other facilities, either ground or space based,
* conditions (seeing, photometricity, etc.) dependent observations, and
* effective small scale surveys and routine tasks.

They are invaluable in the study of variable astronomical objects of various types, including short and unpredictable phenomena, such as GRBs, XRFs, supernovae, dwarf novae and gravitational lensing; all types of binary systems and variable stars; and reaching from distant sources such as active galactic nuclei to the study of comets and near-Earth asteroids in our Solar system.

With first light achieved at the end of July 2003, the Liverpool Telescope became the world’s largest operational robotic telescope and joins the international efforts in the study of exciting new fields of research in time domain astrophysics.

## 2 The Liverpool Telescope

### 2.1 Characteristics and instrumentation

The Liverpool Telescope (LT) is the Altitude-Azimuth design telescope with a primary mirror diameter of 2 m and final focal ratio f/10 at the Cassegrain focus. Situated on La Palma it takes advantage of the excellent seeing on the site. Its enclosure is fully openable (Fig. 1), which minimises local thermal effects and the time to slew to new targets (with slewing rate of $`>`$2o/s). It can have five permanently mounted instruments (on 4 folded ports and one straight-through), which are selected by a deployable, rotating mirror. As listed in Table 1, the LT instrumentation includes at present the RATCam optical CCD camera, with additions of the SupIRCam infra-red camera, low resolution Prototype spectrograph and FRODOSpec Integral field double beam spectrograph in the near future. At present, the LT is still in the commissioning phase and for updated information please see http://telescope.livjm.ac.uk/.

### 2.2 Robotic control and operating system

As a fully robotic telescope with no night time supervision, the Liverpool Telescope requires a Robotic Control System (RCS), which is designed to act as a replacement for the duty astronomer. It is also required to be robust, reliable and adaptable to future instrument configurations and varying operational objectives . The RCS must include procedures such as telescope run-up, close down, focusing, scheduling and observing. In addition it must ensure that the telescope and any equipment is not damaged, therefore it must constantly monitor weather conditions and have the ability to respond to any fault and error in appropriate ways. It also needs to monitor the quality of the observations, i.e. the sky and seeing changes and conditions, since they influence the schedule of observing programme . The LT possesses such a RCS.

### 2.3 Automated scheduling

Proposed observations are stored in a database and are selected from it with the scheduler, which (i) must be sensible, so that observations which are impossible in current conditions should not be attempted, (ii) efficient, so that observations are well matched to observing conditions and the number of observations done is as high as possible, and (iii) is fair to all partners according to the agreed percentage of telescope time.

For the LT, a relatively simple dispatch scheduler is chosen , which does not attempt to make an optimum schedule for the whole night in advance but merely looks for the best observation to do at a given time. The scheduler’s decision is based on the current telescope state, Moon phase, observing conditions, object height, available time, scientific priority, urgency and fairness.

## 3 ToO with the LT

In general, a ToO proposal may be included in the database of the observations on a timescale of 1 day, but for extremely time-critical objects such as for example GRBs, there is the possibility to use an Over-Ride mode built-in to the LT’s RCS. Upon receiving the ToO alert, the RCS automatically decides whether it is sensible to interrupt current observations and start the ToO follow-up. In the case of a positive outcome, it selects the appropriate instrument, begins automatic slew and starts observing the ToO region. Time elapsed between the alert and start of observation depends on the distance between the current telescope and ToO position, but should be on average within 30s since the receipt of the ToO alert. The instrumentation used and automated procedures can be suited to different characteristics and scientific points of interest regarding the type of the ToO.

## 4 GRBs, XRFs and the LT

High-priority ToO for the LT are GRBs and XRFs. Following the GRB/XRF alert from the GCN network and HETE-2, INTEGRAL and Swift (after its launch) we employ the Over-Ride mode and commence a search for and observation of GRB or XRF counterparts:

(a) In the case of an alert with object error box larger than the FoV, we mosaic the entire error box (provided it is $`<`$30’) with the Optical RATCam, while in parallel, the automatic data processing and comparison with the catalogue (USNO-B1.0) is running to detect new objects in the field and to identify possible candidates for the GRB or XRF afterglow.

(b) In alerts with error box smaller than the FoV we begin observations with optical multiband imaging of the field and search for the afterglow.

After the successful commissioning of the SupIRCam and the spectrographs, we will include near-infrared imaging in the first phases of observing, and, following the positive identification of the counterpart, continue observations with spectroscopy (provided that the afterglow magnitude is above the limiting magnitude, which is V$``$ 16 in 10 min for prototype and V$``$ 19 for FRODOSpec spectrographs respectively). With this routine as the starting point, automated procedures can be optimised with experience and adapted regarding scientific imperatives.

### 4.1 GRB and XRF science with the LT

The discoveries of X-ray  and optical transient  sources associated with GRBs have revolutionised our understanding of the GRB phenomenon. While X-ray counterparts are now observed for essentially all GRBs, optical afterglows are detected in about half of them. Whether these missing OAs are inherently dark, dust absorbed, highly redshifted or just observationally overlooked is an open question . So far, there are only 3 GRBs (GRB990123, GRB021004 and GRB021211) with optical afterglows detected within the first ten minutes after the GRB initial event. Their peak magnitudes lie between R$``$9 and $``$14 and they show rapid decay rates of 3-5 magnitudes in 10 min. Given this rapid decline, it is easy to imagine that roughly 50% of the bursts currently considered optically ’dark’, may be detected in these early moments by a larger rapid response telescope such as the LT.

A vital clue to solve the dark burst problem probably lies in the infrared waveband, whether the bursts are dark due to high absorption by the dust in the close vicinity of a progenitor or further out in the host galaxy, or whether they are dark due to high redshift (z$`>`$10), which shifts the Ly$`\alpha `$ break to the infrared wavelengths. Currently redshifts of about 40 GRBs are known , with the maximum of z=4.5 detected for GRB 000131 , but the selection is probably biased towards bright and/or slowly decaying objects. In addition to GRBs redshift, spectra of GRB afterglows, especially in the early phases, hold a potential treasure of valuable information about the environment and origin of the burst and will help distinguish among competing afterglow models for rebrightenings and color changes in the afterglows , .

Of all the GRB afterglows so far observed, only one single epoch observation  of a possible optical counterpart to a short GRB was reported. It has been predicted that the afterglows of short GRBs may be much fainter than the afterglows of long GRBs . With an expected magnitude of less than 21 in the optical about 1 hour after the burst a 2-m or even larger telescope is required for their rapid follow-up. Detection of the afterglows would be a break through in the study of short GRBs about which, currently, very little is known. In the case of a non-detection, these observation will place more stringent limits on the afterglow magnitude immediately following the short GRB.

XRFs are recently identified class of phenomena with many characteristics of their prompt emission similar to long GRBs. They seem to be a natural extension to properties of GRBs and physical circumstances in which the explosion occurs . In the optical, several afterglows (XRF020903, XRF030723 , ) and host galaxies ,  were detected. Detection of more optical afterglows and their early spectra will help unravel the origin of these events and their connection to GRBs.

## 5 Conclusions

The unique rôle that the robotic telescopes can play in the study of variable and transient sources has long been recognized. With the start of observations, the LT has great potential for contributing to many interesting areas of time variable astrophysics. The short response time, moderate aperture, excellent site and LT’s instrumentation including optical camera, infrared imager and spectrograph, promise an interesting and valuable scientific harvest from the ToO follow-up observations, especially afterglows of GRBs and XRFs. In collaboration with satelites (Swift, HETE-2, INTEGRAL) and other ground-based facilities, including the Faulkes Telescopes (clones of the LT), we expect to be able to follow-up around 1 in 6 GRB/XRF immediately after the alert and we plan to monitor scientifically interesting afterglows also into their later stages.

Acknowledgments
The Liverpool Telescope is funded via EU, PPARC, JMU grants and the benefaction of Mr. A. E. Robarts. A.G. acknowledges the receipt of the Marie Curie Fellowship from the EU.


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# Similarity of the 3.42 eV and near-band-edge 3.47 eV luminescence bands in GaN

## Abstract

We demonstrate that the 3.42 eV photoluminescence (PL) band in GaN is of the same intrinsic origin as the near-edge $``$3.47 eV band, but arises from regions of inversed polarity characterized by different strain and growth rate. Two absorption edges are thermally detected at 0.35 K in nanocolumn structures, exhibiting both bands. Micro-PL studies have shown similar temperature/power behavior of these bands, with a competition in intensity in closely spaced spots accompanied by alterations of exciton level ordering. Strain-induced one-dimensional carrier confinement in small inversion domains likely explains the discrete narrow lines observed between the bands.

preprint: APS/123-QED

Despite thorough investigations of GaN, a wide-band gap semiconductor known as one of the most promising materials for highly efficient optoelectronics, some of its optical features are still under debate. Among them is the photoluminescence (PL) band detected at 3.41-3.42 eV (see Fig. 1 (a)), which lies significantly below the near-band-edge emission ($``$3.47 eV). The 3.42 eV band is observed in both GaN epilayers and nanocolumns 1 (1)-4 (4). The latter are of particular interest due to their possible application as nanocavities in polariton lasers and other vertical emitters 5 (5). Such applications require a high optical quality of the nanocolumns that is incompatible with the appearance of the additional band. This is especially annoying because other properties of the nanocolumns may be excellent 5 (5),6 (6).

In the previous studies, the origin of the 3.42 eV band has always been assumed to be extrinsic, associated with the excitons localized at deep donors or at dislocations 1 (1),2 (2). However, the band can appear or be absent in the structures grown in the same setup with a similar level of the background impurities, as well as in structures with the radically different dislocation density 4 (4).

In this paper, we claim the similarity of the 3.42 and 3.47 eV emission bands in GaN, assuming that both are intrinsic and originate from near-band-edge exciton states, but in spatially different regions, generally having opposite polarities. In other words, inversion domains (IDs) are responsible for splitting of the photoluminescence band in GaN.

The IDs are prevailing structural defects in GaN, characterized by an opposite sequence of Ga and N atoms compared to the surrounding area. In general opinion, this is the only difference. However, our recent study of GaN quantum wells has shown that the emission in the ID regions is strongly shifted to lower energies, in part due to different strain 7 (7). This fact is consistent with the generally recognized dependence of transition energies on strain in GaN 8 (8). We assume that the strain factor plays essential role in any structures containing IDs.

In the study we focus on the GaN nanocolumns. These separately standing objects are most suitable for optical investigation with high spatial resolution, e.g. by a micro-PL ($`\mu `$PL) technique. The nanocolumns were grown on c-sapphire at the substrate temperature TS=700-750C by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy 6 (6). The growth procedure included the substrate heating and nitridization at TS=800C and 750C, respectively. The samples were grown either directly on the nitridized substrate or on a special 20-30 nm-thick low-temperature (TS=300C) buffer.

A transmission electron microscopy (TEM) study of the samples has revealed many IDs (Fig. 2). The inversion of the polarity is confirmed by careful examination of an interface region which contains a set of parallel dark and bright lines related to the (0001) stacking faults. The change of the upper line contrast corresponds to the flipping of the polarity. The IDs are usually located between the nanocolumns, in their joints. A preliminary micro-cathodoluminescence study demonstrated that the 3.42 eV band is most intense in these regions, being stronger at a certain depth 4 (4). This is consistent with the finding that the IDs stop growing before the nanocolumns do.

Two absorption edges have been found in this ID-enriched sample. This result has been obtained using an original technique of thermally detected optical absorption (TDOA). The method allows one to study thick or inhomogeneous layers, like the separately standing nanocolumns, where the conventional optical absorption technique fails. These measurements, performed at 0.35 K, are based on the detection of a small increase in the sample temperature. This increase arises from the creation of phonons via nonradiative recombination activated by the initial optical absorption 9 (9).

Our studies of reference GaN epilayers have shown that the absorption edge in a TDOA spectrum corresponds to the kink between flat and slope parts. For instance, the kink in the spectrum of a perfect GaN epilayer is at 3.50 eV (Fig. 1 (d)), which coincides very well with the bandgap of almost unstrained GaN 10 (10). The kink energy is $``$30 meV higher than the maximum of the main PL line, attributed usually to the donor bound exciton. This binding energy is approximately equal to a sum of binding energies of free and donor bound excitons in GaN 11 (11),12 (12). The absorption tail in the GaN epilayer satisfies formally the Urbach-Martienssen rule $`\alpha =\alpha _0exp((h\nu E_0)/\mu )`$, where $`E_0`$, $`\alpha _0`$ are characteristic material parameters, $`\mu =k_BT/\delta `$ depends on a measure of exciton-phonon coupling $`\delta `$ in a material at a certain temperature $`T`$, $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant 13 (13). A good fit of the spectra in Fig. 1 (d) has been obtained at $`\mu 0.018`$ eV.

The TDOA spectra registered on the nanocolumn samples exhibit an additional tail extended to the lower energy. The tail is so pronounced that these spectra can be fitted using two absorption edges (Fig. 1 (b)). The higher-energy edge is near the same 3.50 eV, while the other is markedly lower, near 3.45 eV. It is worth noting that commonly known defects cannot provide such a strong absorption below the principal absorption edge, while differently strained local regions can do that. The parameter $`\mu `$ which determines the steepness of the tail, is significantly higher for the 3.45 eV edge than for the 3.50 eV one (0.1 vs 0.025 eV). Here, the broadening is not only due to the phonon interaction, but results from a superposition of absorption in ID regions which may be under different strain.

We have studied $`\mu `$-PL from both surface and cleaved-edge of the sample. The $`\mu `$-PL technique has spectral and spatial resolutions of about 0.5 meV and 1.5 $`\mu `$m, respectively. The measurements were carried out in a He continuous flow cryostat under cw excitation by a 266 nm laser line. With the cleaved-edge measurements, the vector $`𝕜`$ of the exciting light is normal to the main nanocolumn axis $`𝕔`$, and a signal in two linear polarizations - $`\sigma `$ ($`𝔼𝕔`$) and $`\pi `$ ($`𝔼𝕔`$) can be registered.

It has been found that the two-band emission with characteristic energies of 3.47 and 3.42 eV varies strongly between neighboring spots (Fig. 3). When the 3.42 eV emission is absent, the near-band-gap PL is strong and exhibits well-pronounced free-exciton features, whose relative intensity and energy position satisfy the selection rules of a wurtzite crystal, similar to previously observed in $`\mu `$PL spectra of thick GaN layers 14 (14). The appearance of the 3.42 eV lines is accompanied by a decrease of the 3.47 eV PL intensity and suppression of the free excitons.

The most intricate finding is the change of dominant polarization along the spectra - the 3.42 eV band turns out to be predominantly $`\pi `$-polarized, while the near-edge emission is $`\sigma `$-polarized. The change of the polarization occurs in the vicinity of 3.45 eV. One can suppose that we have observed the strain-induced change of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_9`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7`$ exciton ordering, which takes place at the tensile strain $`ϵ_z`$ of about -0.001 in the vicinity of 3.45 eV 10 (10). Transitions involving carriers localized at the ID boundaries have also been predicted to be $`\pi `$-polarized 15 (15). However, this prediction cannot explain a large shift of the emission relatively to the main band ($``$ 50 meV).

Power and temperature dependences of both bands are similar (Fig. 4). There are sharp ($``$3 meV wide) peaks in both bands at low excitation power densities. With a power rise, broader peaks appear in both bands. Such peaks in the near-band-edge 3.47 eV emission are associated with the donor bound and free excitons, respectively. We believe that similar peaks in the 3.42 eV band have the same origin. With a temperature rise, the higher-energy part of both bands is relatively increased, while the lower-energy narrow peaks decay rapidly. Such a temperature behavior is characteristic for free and bound exciton emission, respectively 11 (11). A partially resolved structure of the 3.42 eV PL had been observed previously as well 3 (3). The true interpretation was likely hampered by the presence of a set of lines from closely spaced regions.

The 3.42 eV band is not homogeneous, but often consists of discrete narrow peaks (Fig. 5). Moreover, the narrow peaks can appear between these two principal bands. The number of these peaks and their energy position are dependent on the existence of a buffer layer, its quality and fabrication technique. We have registered narrow lines with spectral width as narrow as 1.5 meV at energies significantly higher than 3.42 eV in the structures grown without any buffer, which are characterized by many small IDs.

It has been reported long ago that strain-induced confinement can form a one-dimensional density of states in quantum-wires (QWRs). This was achieved, e.g., by modulation of the in-plane lattice constant of QWs by means of a complicated growth procedure 16 (16). In the nanocolumn structure without any buffer, the small IDs are formed predominantly. These small IDs, being under different strains compared with adjacent regions, can be considered as such QWRs formed in a natural way. The transition energies in the QWRs are shifted up by the quantum confinement effect with respect to 3.42 eV. The shift depends on both the ID characteristic diameter and the strain. Variation of the parameters can determine the observed variety of the narrow-line energies.

To study peculiarities of growth with different strains in adjacent regions we have performed the dynamic Monte-Carlo simulations. We have extended the model suggested by Plotz et al 17 (17). To speed up the calculations, only a two-dimensional cross-section along the (100) plane of quasi-cubic structure possessing equilibrium lattice constant $`r_0`$ has been considered. Atomic interaction was described by the directional Lennard-Jones potential:

$$E_{12}(r,\varphi _1,\varphi _2)=E_0\frac{r^{12}(1\beta )\alpha r^6\beta f(\varphi _1)f(\varphi _2)\alpha r^6}{\alpha ^2}$$

$$f(\varphi _{1,2})=cos^2(2\varphi _{1,2}),\alpha =2r_0^{1/6}$$

The parameters of this potential for GaN are taken as follows: binding energy $`E_0`$=2.24 eV, degree of covalence $`\beta =0.8`$ 18 (18). At long distances ($`r>2.5r_0`$) the potential was assumed to be zero. Compressive and tensile strains were modeled by means of decreasing or increasing distance between vertical atomic planes in corresponding part of the system. The difference between $`r_0`$ and the lattice constant of the strained area is taken as 5% for the sake of demonstration. The atoms were successively deployed on a surface consisting of two different regions (strained and strain-free). The position for a new atom was chosen at random, but it had to decrease system energy to guarantee a certain bond between the atom and the surface. Note that this simulation cannot elucidate how the strain difference is created during initial growth stages.

The most essential result of the simulation is presented in Fig. 6. One can see that any strain, tensile or compressive, causes a decrease of the growth rate. The IDs in the nanocolumns are most likely under tensile strain according to our optical study. This tensile strain inhibiting the growth can obviously be one of the factors facilitating the formation of the well-separated columns. These findings are well consistent with previously observed different growth rate in the regions of opposite polarities 19 (19), as well as with recognition of a role of the IDs in the nanocolumn formation 20 (20).

In conclusion, the 3.42 and 3.47 eV bands of emission from GaN are analogous with each other. Both are near-band-edge emission split by different strain in regions of opposite polarities. This 3.42 eV band is not homogeneous; its fine structure depending on growth conditions may be characteristic either for ”bulk” GaN under tensile strain or strain-induced quantum wires.

We thank Prof. A. Kavokin for fruitful discussion. This work was partly supported by RFBR and the cooperative Russia/France Grant N04509PB.


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# Stellar populations in local star-forming galaxies

astronomical databases: surveys, galaxies: fundamental parameters, galaxies: luminosity function, mass function, galaxies: photometry, galaxies: starburst, galaxies: stellar content

Dissertation Summary

Electronic mail: pgperez@as.arizona.edu

Thesis work conducted at: Departamento de Astrofísica, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain)

Ph.D. Thesis directed by: J. Zamorano & J. Gallego ; Ph.D. Degree awarded: June 2003

Received

One of the main issues in today’s Astrophysics is how present day galaxies formed and how they have evolved over time. A considerable observational effort is being made to study galaxies from the earliest possible times to the present. One approach to understand how present-day galaxies came into being is to study in detail the properties of local active star-forming galaxies, and in particular their star-formation histories. In this respect, it is important to quantify the relative importance of the current episode of star formation in comparison to the underlying older stellar populations.

The main goal of this thesis work 111The original text is written in Spanish and is available at http://t-rex.fis.ucm.es/Publications/Repository/tesis\_pag\_1.ps.gz and http://t-rex.fis.ucm.es/Publications/Repository/tesis\_pag\_2.ps.gz is studying the main properties of the stellar populations embedded in a statistically complete sample of local active star-forming galaxies: the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) Survey of emission-line galaxies 222http://t-rex.fis.ucm.es/UCM\_Survey/index.html. This sample contains 191 local star-forming galaxies at an average redshift of 0.026. The survey was carried out using an objective-prism technique centered at the wavelength of the H$`\alpha `$ nebular emission-line (a common tracer of recent star formation).

We have compiled an extensive multi-wavelength (from the optical to the near infrared) photometric (in narrow and broad band filters) and spectroscopic dataset for all the galaxies in the sample. The analysis of this dataset has been centered on the characterization of the morphology of the objects, on the comparison of the global properties of the sample with those of other galaxy samples at several redshifts, and on the study of the stellar content of the UCM galaxies. In the latter research topic, a special attention has been paid to the most recent star-forming bursts, which are the main characteristic of our objects. We have also developed (and tested with the dataset for the UCM sample) a powerful stellar population synthesis tool (which is able to obtain robust estimates of the stellar mass, a very important parameter in the study of the evolution of galaxies), and a technique to calculate luminosity and stellar mass functions. These techniques may be easily used in the characterization of samples of galaxies at any redshift.

The main results obtained in this work point out that the UCM Survey galaxies span a broad range in properties (among others, the total stellar mass and the star formation rate per stellar mass unit) between those of galaxies completely dominated by current/recent star formation (e.g., extreme dwarf HII galaxies or starburst galaxies) and those of ‘normal’ quiescent spirals. The UCM objects present intermediate-late Hubble type spiral morphologies and a recent instantaneous burst of star formation (occurred about 5 Myr ago) with sub-solar metallicity. These bursts involved 5% of the total stellar mass of the UCM galaxies. An ‘average’ UCM galaxy has a total stellar mass of $`10^{10}`$ solar masses, i.e., about a factor of 7-10 lower than a typical local spiral galaxy. Finally, we estimate that $`13\pm 3`$% of the total baryon mass density in the form of stars in the local Universe is associated with star-forming galaxies.


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# References

UCL-IPT-03-17

Relating Final State Interactions in $`BD\pi `$ and $`BDK`$

G. Calderón1, J.-M. Gérard2, J. Pestieau2 and J. Weyers2
1 Departamento de Física, Cinvestav del IPN
Apartado Postal 14-740, 07000, México D.F., México
2 Institut de Physique Théorique, Université catholique de Louvain
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belguim

## Abstract

A Regge model calculation relates the strong phase in $`BDK`$ to that in $`BD\pi `$. This provides a significant test of a hadronic picture of final state interactions in $`B`$ decays.

1. Introduction

Recently the CLEO Collaboration  performed a detailed amplitude analysis of the decays $`BD\pi `$: they determined the absolute values of the isospin 1/2 and isospin 3/2 amplitudes as well as their relative phase $`e^{i\delta _{D\pi }}`$ with the result

$$\mathrm{cos}\delta _{D\pi }=0.86\pm 0.05$$
(1)
indicating significant final state interaction effects.

On the other hand, the BELLE Collaboration  has reported the first measurement of the decay $`\overline{B}^0D^0\overline{K}^0`$. With this new experimental information, a central value analysis  of the decays $`BDK`$ suggests, once again, important final state interaction effects although the data remain compatible with a small relative phase $`e^{i\delta _{DK}}`$ between the isospin zero and isospin one amplitudes .

In our view these strong phases are genuine hadronic effects which, we believe, cannot meaningfully be parametrized by pure short-distance considerations. In Refs. , a simple Regge model was proposed to calculate these strong phases. The predictions of the model are in good agreement with the experimental data for the decays $`D\pi \pi `$, $`\pi K`$ and $`K\overline{K}`$. At present it is not yet possible to significantly test the model in the corresponding $`B`$ decays.

In this note we extend this Regge model to the decays $`BD\pi `$ and $`BDK`$. From the short distance point of view these decays differ radically from e.g. $`BK\pi `$ since there are no penguin topology contributions. In a hadronic model for strong phases, isospin symmetry is important while the underlying quark diagram topology is basically irrelevant . It is this idea which we propose to test in the new class of $`B`$ decays.

We will first of all argue that a sensible phenomenological model is to identify $`\delta _{D\pi }`$ with $`\delta _3\delta _1`$ namely the difference in $`s`$-wave phase shifts of the $`D\pi `$ scattering amplitudes in the isospin 3/2 and isospin 1/2 channels respectively. A Regge model would then lead to a prediction of $`\delta _{D\pi }`$ if the couplings of the Pomeron and $`\rho `$ trajectory to the $`D\overline{D}`$ channel were known. This would be the case in an unrealistic SU(4) symmetry limit but it appears more sensible to plot $`\delta _{D\pi }`$ in terms of a single variable $`x_{D\pi }`$ which only depends on Regge parameters.

We then proceed to an analogous parametrization and calculation of $`\delta _{DK}=\delta _1\delta _0`$, i.e. the difference in phase shifts in the isospin one and isospin zero amplitudes in $`BDK`$. Once again $`\delta _{DK}`$ depends on a single parameter $`x_{DK}`$.

The main point of this note is to point out that $`x_{DK}`$ is uniquely determined from $`x_{D\pi }`$. In other words a better determination of $`\delta _{D\pi }`$ would lead to a precise prediction of $`\delta _{DK}`$. The present data are certainly compatible with this prediction which lies at the heart of a hadronic approach to final state interactions.

2. Hadronic final state interactions

The asymptotic states of QCD are hadrons, not quarks and gluons. Isospin invariance is an excellent symmetry of the hadronic world, hence the S-matrix for strong interactions commutes with the isospin generators.

The standard decomposition of $`BD\pi `$ decays in terms of isospin amplitudes reads

$`A(B^{}D^0\pi ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{3}A_{\frac{3}{2}}`$
$`A(\overline{B}^0D^+\pi ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}}A_{\frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}A_{\frac{3}{2}}`$
$`A(\overline{B}^0D^0\pi ^0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}A_{\frac{1}{2}}+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}}A_{\frac{3}{2}}.`$ (2)
Phenomenologically it makes good sense to view the isospin amplitudes as being built up from a direct (weak) transition followed by rescattering. This is embodied in the standard formula

$$A_I(Bi)=i,out|H_W^{(2)}|B_I=\underset{j}{}S_{ij}^{\frac{1}{2}}\overline{A}_I(Bj)$$
(3)
where $`i`$ denotes the $`D\pi `$ channel and $`j`$ any hadronic channel, with the same quantum numbers as $`D\pi `$, the $`B`$ mesons can decay into. $`H_W^{(2)}`$ is the second order weak hamiltonian and $`\overline{A}_I`$ are the bare transition amplitudes.

$`H_W^{(2)}`$ contains an isospin zero and an isospin one part. The $`\overline{A}_I`$’s are directly related to the reduced matrix elements of these specific isospin components of $`H_W^{(2)}`$. In the absence of CP violation, the $`\overline{A}_I`$ are thus relatively real in any theory with hadronic asymptotic states.

From Eq.(3) we can now give a precise meaning to what some of us have called the quasi-elastic approximation. It is defined by the following equations:

$$S_{ii}^{\frac{1}{2}}=\sigma _ie^{i\delta _I}$$
(4)
and

$$\underset{ji}{}S_{ij}^{\frac{1}{2}}\overline{A}(Bj)=0.$$
(5)
In Eq.(4), $`\sigma _i`$ is a complex number. Its modulus is smaller than one and may depend on the isospin channel $`I`$, but we specifically assume that its phase is isospin independent. On the other hand, $`e^{i\delta _I}`$ is the usual elastic $`s`$-wave phase shift.

Substituting Eqs.(4) and (5) in Eq.(3) obviously implies that the relative phase between $`A_{\frac{1}{2}}`$ and $`A_{\frac{3}{2}}`$ is simply $`e^{i(\delta _1\delta _3)}`$.

We strongly emphasize the fact that the quasi-elastic approximation does by no means imply the absence of inelasticity: it is not assumed that $`\sigma _i`$ is of modulus one nor that each $`S_{ij}^{\frac{1}{2}}(ij)`$ vanishes. The latter assumptions i.e. $`|\sigma _i|=1`$ and $`S_{ij}^{\frac{1}{2}}(ij)=0`$, correspond to the genuine elastic limit which is of course physically absurd at the $`B`$ mass .

The quasi-elastic approximation as defined by Eqs.(4) and (5) does not violate any basic principle. At ultra-high energies, for example, all elastic amplitudes become purely imaginary and the $`\delta _I`$’s tend to zero. In that limit Eqs.(4) and (5) implement the physically sensible argument of Bjorken  that if the $`B`$ meson were infinitely heavy there would simply be no time for the final hadrons to rescatter. But no rescattering does not mean no inelasticity!

The quasi-elastic approximation defines a phenomenological model for final state interaction phases. The main virtues of this model are that it puts so called ”strong phases” where they belong, namely in the hadronic world with its excellent isospin symmetry and, more importantly, it allows for a simple calculation of these phases in a Regge model of hadronic scattering. Other models have of course been proposed for such strong phases in $`B`$-decays, e.g. the random phase model  or the coherent phase model .

As mentioned in the introduction, the quasi-elastic model was used to analyze the decays $`D\pi \pi ,\pi K,K\overline{K}`$ and the results are in good agreement with the data. To our knowledge no other model has met with similar successes.

We do assume that final state interactions are hadronic effects. The implementation of this idea in the phenomenologically well-defined quasi-elastic approximation works well for $`D`$ decays. We expect this phenomenology to be successful in $`B`$ decays as well.

3. A Regge model for $`D\pi `$ scattering

From Eqs.(3) and (5) it follows that $`\delta _{D\pi }=\delta _3\delta _1`$. To calculate this phase we now use a simple Regge model for elastic $`D\pi `$ scattering. Our notation and parametrization will be the same as for the elastic $`K\pi `$ scattering treated in Ref.  where a more detailed discussion can be found.

In the $`t`$channel, $`D\overline{D}\pi \pi `$, the leading Regge trajectories are the Pomeron (P) and the exchange degenerate $`\rho f_0`$ trajectory $`(\rho )`$. In the $`u`$channel, the relevant Regge trajectory would be that of the $`D^{}`$ but since it lies so much lower than the $`\rho `$ trajectory, it can safely be neglected.

Following step by step the procedure outlined in Ref. , one obtains for the $`l=0`$ partial wave amplitudes

$`a_{\frac{1}{2}}(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{6}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _P(0)}{b_P}}s+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\beta }_\rho (0)}{\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{ln}s}}s^{\frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3i}{2\sqrt{\pi }}}\overline{\beta }_\rho (0){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}s+i\pi }{(\mathrm{ln}s)^2+\pi ^2}}s^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`a_{\frac{3}{2}}(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{6}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _P(0)}{b_P}}s{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\beta }_\rho (0)}{\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{ln}s}}s^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ (6)
from which the $`\delta _I`$ are easily computed. They depend on one single parameter

$$x_{D\pi }=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }\beta _P(0)}{b_P\overline{\beta }_\rho (0)}$$
(7)
where $`b_P`$ is the slope of the Pomeron residue function, while the couplings are $`\beta _P(0)=g_{PD\overline{D}}g_{P\pi \pi }`$ and $`\overline{\beta }_\rho (0)=g_{\rho D\overline{D}}g_{\rho \pi \pi }`$.

In Fig. 1 we plot $`\delta _{D\pi }`$ as a function of $`x_{D\pi }`$. In the unrealistic SU(4) limit  for $`b_P`$, $`\beta _P`$ and $`\overline{\beta }_\rho `$ we would have $`x_{D\pi }=x_{K\pi }`$ close to one  but, of course, we expect SU(4) to be badly broken. In Eq.(1), the central value of the CLEO data clearly suggests $`x_{D\pi }<1`$.

4. The rescattering phase in $`BDK`$ decays

We now consider the decays $`BDK`$. There are two isospin amplitudes $`A_0`$ and $`A_1`$ and

$`A(B^{}D^0K^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}A_1`$
$`A(\overline{B}^0D^+K^{})`$ $`=`$ $`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}A_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}A_1`$
$`A(\overline{B}^0D^0\overline{K}^0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}A_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}A_1.`$ (8)
Following the procedure given in Ref.  for $`K\overline{K}`$ scattering, the $`l=0`$ partial wave amplitudes are given by

$`\stackrel{~}{a}_0(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\beta }_P(0)}{\stackrel{~}{b}_P}}s+{\displaystyle \frac{4i\stackrel{~}{\overline{\beta }_\rho }(0)}{\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{ln}s)+i\pi }{(\mathrm{ln}s)^2+\pi ^2}}s^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`\stackrel{~}{a}_1(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\beta }_P(0)}{\stackrel{~}{b}_P}}s`$ (9)
and the relevant parameter to determine the rescattering phase $`\delta _{DK}\delta _1\delta _0`$ is now

$$x_{DK}=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{\stackrel{~}{b}_P}\frac{\stackrel{~}{\beta }_P(0)}{\stackrel{~}{\overline{\beta }}_\rho (0)}$$
(10)
where the couplings are $`\stackrel{~}{\beta }_P(0)`$ = $`g_{PD\overline{D}}`$ $`g_{PK\overline{K}}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\overline{\beta }}_\rho (0)`$ = $`g_{\rho D\overline{D}}`$ $`g_{\rho K\overline{K}}`$.

From Eqs.(7) and (10) and using the data given in Ref. , we obtain

$$\frac{x_{DK}}{x_{D\pi }}=\frac{g_{PK\overline{K}}g_{\rho \pi \pi }}{g_{P\pi \pi }g_{\rho K\overline{K}}}=1.6\pm 0.3$$
(11)
in the SU(3) limit $`b_P=\stackrel{~}{b}_P`$. In fact, Eq.(11) is compatible with a pure SU(3) estimate

$$\left(\frac{x_{DK}}{x_{D\pi }}\right)^{SU(3)}=4/3.$$
(12)
In Fig. 1 we also plot $`\delta _{DK}`$ as a function of $`x_{D\pi }`$. If, for the sake of argument we take $`0.2<x_{D\pi }<0.5`$, then $`\delta _{DK}`$ is predicted to be in the range

$$14^{}<\delta _{DK}<24^{}$$
(13)
in the SU(3) limit defined by Eq.(12).

Clearly the model is compatible with the present data.

5. Conclusion

In this note we have derived a simple relation between the final state interaction phases for $`BD\pi `$ and $`BDK`$ decays in the quasi-elastic approximation. Better data will allow for a significant test of the point of view that final state interaction phases are due to coherent hadronic effects.

In the Cabibbo-favored $`BD\pi `$ and Cabibbo-suppressed $`BDK`$ decays, the dominant underlying quark diagram seems to be  particularly simple (tree-level approximation) and, in fact, the final state interaction phases are not particularly interesting per se . The situation is of course quite different in $`BK\pi ,\pi \pi `$ or $`K\overline{K}`$ decays where the quark diagrams are more complicated (in particular with one-loop penguin diagrams involved) and the physics much more interesting. Final state interaction phases are then relevant not only in an amplitude analysis but also in various CP violating asymmetries. The quasi-elastic model predictions for the pattern of $`BK\pi `$ direct CP-asymmetries were already discussed elsewhere .

Acknowledgments

The author (G.C.) acknowledges the financial support from CONACyT (México) under contracts 32429-E and 35792-E. This work was supported by the Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs through the Interuniversity Attraction Pole P5/27.


text:
# Spin-dependent correlation in two-dimensional electron liquids at arbitrary degeneracy and spin-polarization: CHNC approach

## I Introduction

Two-dimensional electron systems have been investigated by a number of investigators. Their importance seems to have recently increased due to possible applications to spintronics for electronic devices. The properties of two-dimensional electron systems are determined by the Coulomb interaction between electrons and depend crucially on the density, temperature and spin-polarization. In principle, exact results can be obtained by the numerical experiments and are available to some extent at zero temperature. At finite temperatures, however, reliable numerical experiments are still awaited and the importance of theoretical approach is not reduced.

Recently, Dharma-wardana and Perrot have developed a method called classical-map hypernetted-chain method (CHNC)DP00 ; PD01 ; PD00b ; DP03 . They determine the quantum temperature $`T_q`$ so that the classical system at the temperature $`T_q`$ has the same correlation energy as the quantum system at $`T=0`$ and assume that the properties of the system at the finite temperature $`T`$ is given by those of classical system at the temperature

$$T_{cf}=(T_q^2+T^2)^{1/2}.$$
(1)
One can include the higher-order cluster interactions in classical fluids applying the modified HNC methodRA79  and taking the bridge function into account.

Various properties of two-dimensional electronic systems at zero-temperature have been examined by Bulutay and TanatarBT02  based on the CHNC method without bridge corrections. We here extend the analysis to finite temperature two-dimensional electronic systems with arbitrary spin-polarization. Confirming that our results reduce to those of Ref. 6 at low temperatures such that $`T/T_F0.1`$, we analyze the finite temperature effects for $`T/T_F0.5`$, $`T_F`$ being the Fermi temperature. We observe that the effects are substantial at high densities irrespective of spin-polarization. It is shown that, within our analyses without bridge functions, the two-dimensional electron system remains paramagnetic until the Wigner lattice formation. In Ref. 4, the existence of a ferromagnetic phase before the formation of Wigner lattice is predicted and, in such a domain, one needs careful treatment including the bridge function. The purpose of this paper is to analyze fundamental quantities in a wide domain of density, temperature, and spin-polarization where one may neglect the bridge function as in Ref. 6. In what follows, we adopt the atomic units and take $`k_B=1`$.

## II CHNC method applied to two-dimensional electron system

We consider a two-dimensional fluid of electrons at the temperature $`T`$ containing two spin species of surface densities $`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$ $`(n_1n_2)`$ with the total density $`n=n_1+n_2`$ and spin-polarization $`\zeta =(n_1n_2)/n`$. We determine the Pauli potential for parallel-spin electrons $`P_{ii}(r)`$ by the relation

$$g_{ii}^0(r)=\mathrm{exp}[\beta P_{ii}(r)+h_{ii}^0(r)c_{ii}^0(r)].$$
(2)
Here $`\beta `$ is determined by the temperature $`T_{cf}`$ by $`\beta =1/T_{cf}`$, $`g_{ii}^0(r)=h_{ii}^0(r)+1`$ is the ideal gas pair distribution function for the component $`i`$,

$$h_{ii}^0(r)=\frac{1}{n_i^2}\underset{𝐤_1,𝐤_2}{}n(k_1)n(k_2)\mathrm{exp}[i(𝐤_1𝐤_2)𝐫]=[f_i(r)]^2,$$
(3)
and $`c_{ii}^0(r)`$ is the direct correlation function corresponding to $`h_{ii}^0(r)`$. In (3), $`n(k)`$ is the Fermi occupation number at temperature $`T`$. At $`T=0`$, $`f_i(r)=2J_1(k_F^ir)/k_F^ir`$, where $`J_1(x)`$ is the Bessel function and $`k_F^i`$ is the Fermi wave number of species $`i`$.

The pair distribution functions (PDF’s) and the direct correlation functions are related via

$$g_{ij}(r)=\mathrm{exp}[\beta \varphi _{ij}(r)+h_{ij}(r)c_{ij}(r)+B_{ij}(r)].$$
(4)
Here $`\varphi _{ij}(r)`$ is the pair potential between the species $`i`$ and $`j`$ defined by

$$\varphi _{ij}(r)=P_{ii}(r)\delta _{ij}+V_{\mathrm{Cou}}(r),$$
(5)
and $`h_{ij}(r)=g_{ij}(r)1`$, $`c_{ij}(r)`$, and $`B_{ij}(r)`$ are the pair correlation, direct correlation and the bridge function, respectively. In the pair potential, $`V_{\mathrm{Cou}}(r)`$ includes the diffraction effect as

$$V_{\mathrm{Cou}}(r)=\frac{1}{r}[1e^{rk_{\mathrm{th}}}],$$
(6)
where $`k_{th}=(2\pi m^{}T_{cf})^{1/2}`$, $`m^{}=1/2`$ is the reduced mass of the scattering electron pair HM81 . We also have the Ornstein-Zernike relations between the pair correlation functions and the direct correlation functions:

$$h_{ij}(r)=c_{ij}(r)+\underset{s}{}n_s𝑑𝐫^{}h_{is}(|𝐫𝐫^{}|)c_{sj}(r^{}).$$
(7)
The equations (4) and (7) are exact but are not closed because of the existence of the unknown bridge functions $`B_{ij}(r)`$. In this paper, however, we neglect the bridge functions as in Ref. 6 and solve the set of equations (4) and (7). We have analyzedKT03SSC  the case of $`r_s=5`$ with the bridge function employing the solution of the Percus-Yevick equation for hard disks with somewhat different formula for $`T_q`$. The result indicates that the effect of the neglect of bridge function increases with the temperature and the free energy due to exchange-correlation is overestimated by at most 5% at $`T/T_F=5`$. The results for fundamental quantities obtained without bridge functions will therefore be still useful in a wide range of density, temperature, and spin-polarization where the effect of the neglect of the bridge function is not so subtle.

In the CHNC method, the temperature of the classical fluid $`T_{cf}`$ is determined by (1). For the quantum temperature $`T_q`$, we adopt the one given by Ref. 6,

$$T_q=\frac{1+ar_s}{b+cr_s}\frac{n_1T_{F1}+n_2T_{F2}}{n}$$
(8)
where $`r_s=(\pi n)^{1/2}`$ with $`a=1.470342`$, $`b=6.099404`$, and $`c=0.476465`$.

The exchange-correlation part of the Helmholtz free energy is calculated by the integration over the coupling $`\lambda `$ as

$$\frac{F_{xc}}{n}=\pi n_0^1𝑑\lambda 𝑑r[g(\lambda ;r)1]$$
(9)
from the spin-averaged PDF given by

$$g(r)=\frac{1}{4}[(1+\zeta )^2g_{11}(r)+2(1\zeta ^2)g_{12}(r)+(1\zeta )^2g_{22}(r)].$$
(10)
The total Helmholtz free energy $`F_{tot}`$ is obtained as DP03

$$F_{tot}=F_0+F_{xc},$$
(11)
where $`F_0=F_0^1+F_0^2`$ is the free energy of the ideal electron gas given by

$$F_0^i=n_i\mu _0^iE_0^i,$$
(12)
$$\mu _0^i=T\mathrm{ln}[e^{E_F^i/T}1],$$
(13)
$$E_F^i=(1\pm \zeta )\pi n,$$
(14)
and

$$E_0^i=\frac{T^2}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dxx}{\mathrm{exp}[x\mu _0^i/T]+1}.$$
(15)
We calculate the exchange part of the Helmholtz free enegy $`F_x=F_x^1+F_x^2`$ by the ideal gas values as

$$\frac{F_x^1}{n}=\frac{1}{4}\pi n(1+\zeta )^2𝑑r[g_{11}^0(r)1],$$
(16)
$$\frac{F_x^2}{n}=\frac{1}{4}\pi n(1\zeta )^2𝑑r[g_{22}^0(r)1],$$
(17)
and define the correlation part by $`F_c=F_{xc}F_x`$. At $`T=0`$ we have

$$\frac{F_x}{n}=\frac{E_x}{n}=\frac{2\sqrt{2}}{3\pi r_s}[(1+\zeta )^{3/2}+(1\zeta )^{3/2}],$$
(18)
$$\frac{E_0}{n}=\frac{E_0^1+E_0^2}{n}=\frac{1+\zeta ^2}{2r_s^2}.$$
(19)
## III Results and discussions

We have solved the coupled equations (4) and (7) using the Hankel transform as in Refs. 6 and 9 and neglecting the bridge functions for a wide range of density, spin-polarization and temperature, $`0r_s30`$, $`0\zeta 1`$, and $`0tT/T_F5`$. Here we summarize the results.

### III.1 Pair distribution function and structure factor

The spin-averaged PDF $`g(r)`$ for $`r_s=1`$ and $`T/T_F=0,1`$ in two cases $`\zeta =0,1`$ is shown in Fig.1. Our results for $`T/T_F=0`$ are in good agreement with those given in Ref. 6. We observe that the finite temperature effect considerably reduces the exchange-correlation hole around electrons in both cases of $`\zeta =0`$ and $`\zeta =1`$ and we may estimate the behavior of the pair distribution function in the case of arbitrary spin polarization from these results.

In Fig. 2, we show the spin-averaged structure factor defined by

$$S(q)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+n𝑑𝐫[g(r)1]e^{i𝐪𝐫}$$
(20)
for $`r_s=1`$, $`T/T_F=0,1`$, and $`\zeta =0,1`$. At $`T/T_F=0`$, the structure factor is consistent with the one given in Ref. 6. We observe the finite temperature effect for the cases of spin-polarization $`\zeta =0,1`$.

### III.2 Total free energy

We have calculated the total Helmholtz free energy for finite temperatures $`0T/T_F5`$ and spin-polarizations $`0\zeta 1`$. The results are shown as a function of the density parameter $`r_s`$ and spin-polarization $`\zeta `$ in Figs. 3 and 4, respectively.

At low temperatures $`T/T_F0.1`$, our results reduce to those of Ref. 6. When $`T/T_F1`$, the finite temperature effects become considerable at high densities for all cases of spin-polarization. Our results indicate that the two-dimensional electron system remains to be in the paramagnetic fluid phase until the Wigner crystallization densities even at high temperatures.

The dashed-dotted line in Fig. 4 represents the total free energy for $`T/T_F=1`$ and $`r_s=1`$. It is seen from the figure that the spin-polarization effect is more pronounced at higher temperatures and densities.

### III.3 Exchange-correlation free energy

To compare the electron correlation effects in two and three dimensions, we plot the exchange-correlation and correlation free energies as a function of temperature in Figs. 5 and 6. We find that our results of the temperature dependence of the free energy in two dimensions are similar to those in three dimensionsPD00b .

To check the validity of the CHNC scheme used in this paper, we compare our exchange-correlation energy with Monte Carlo (MC) and Singwi-Tosi-Land-Sjölander scheme (STLS) results given in Refs. 10, 11, and 12. The exchange-correlation energies computed by different schemes are listed in Table I. We observe that the difference between our results and STLS results is considerable (about 10%) only at high temperatures $`(T>T_F)`$. This may be because we have used the expression for quantum temperature $`T_q`$ fitted to MC data at $`T=0`$. To obtain better agreements with STLS results for $`T>T_F`$ we may need to include the bridge term and use the results of finite temperature STLS scheme given in Ref. 12 for fitting procedure.

As for the exchange-correlation free energy at high densities, the agreement with MC and other values can be improved by interpolating $`T_q`$ more accurately. For example, the set $`a=24.936526`$, $`b=87.221405`$, and $`c=8.455547`$ gives better fitting for $`T_q`$ as shown in Fig. 7 and better agreement as listed on the last line in Table I.

### III.4 Compressibility

The compressibility is obtained by density derivatives of the free energy. In order to check the accuracy of our finite temperature scheme, we have calculated the compressibility as a function of density parameter $`r_s`$ or spin-polarizations $`\zeta `$ for different temperatures. We note that at low temperatures our results reduce to those of Ref. 6. Our results shown in Fig. 8 indicate that the temperature effect on the compressibility is remarkable only at low densities and high temperatures such that $`T/T_F>0.3`$.

The spin-polarization dependence of the compressibility is displayed in Fig. 9. We observe that the effect of spin-polarization increases with the temperature and electron density.

## IV Conclusions

Applying the recently proposed classical-map hypernetted-chain (CHNC) method to the two-dimensional electron system, we have calculated the pair distribution function, structure factor, Helmhotz free energy, and compressibility at finite temperatures for a wide range of spin-polarization and density. It is shown that at low temperatures $`T/T_F0.1`$, our results are almost identical to those of Ref. 6 at $`T=0`$. Our results indicate that correlation characteristics in 2D electron liquids depend remarkably on the temperature, spin-polarization, and density, similarly to the three-dimensional case.

When $`T>T_F`$, the finite temperature effects become considerable at high densities irrespective of spin-polarization as concretely shown in various quantities in this paper. We find that the finite temperature 2D electron system remains to be in the paramagnetic fluid phase until the Wigner crystallization density is attained. Though the validity of the conclusion on the phase around $`r_s30`$ might depend on that of CHNC applied to two-dimensional electron system and the neglect of bridge functions, results obtained here for $`1<r_s<30`$ will be useful in investigation of the system whose finite temperature properties are important in applications but not exactly known.

###### Acknowledgements.

One of us, Nguyen Quoc Khanh, gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (JSPS). He would also like to thank members of H. Totsuji’s research group at Okayama University, especially Drs. C. Totsuji and K. Tsuruta, for warm hospitality and helpful discussions.


text:
# How old are the HII Galaxies?

## 1 Introduction

HII galaxies are dwarf emission line galaxies undergoing a burst of star formation. They are characterized by strong and narrow emission lines originated in a giant star forming region which dominate their observable properties at optical wavelengths. Most HII galaxies are in fact Blue Compact Galaxies (BCG’s), but due to the different selection criteria only a small percentage of BCG’s, i.e. those with the largest emission line equivalent widths, are HII galaxies. We will stick to the name “HII galaxies ” to refer to the star forming systems selected from objective prism surveys and having strong narrow emission lines.

Various studies of the spectroscopic properties of HII galaxies in optical wavelengths revealed systems of very low heavy element abundances and high rates of star formation. Earlier morphological studies have suggested that a large proportion of the sample of HII galaxies observed are compact and isolated (Melnick 1987). This, together with the spectroscopic properties indicating low to very low metallicity plus a very young stellar content, led workers in the field ever since their discovery, to question whether these systems are truly young galaxies or made up by a few bursts separated by long quiescent periods in the lifetime of the galaxy. Reviews of the general properties of HII galaxies can be found in Melnick (1987), Terlevich (1988), the  “Spectrophotometric Catalogue of HII Galaxies ” (hereafter SCHG, Terlevich et al. 1991), Stasińska & Leitherer (1996), Telles & Terlevich (1993; 1995; 1997), Telles, Melnick & Terlevich (1997), and more recently in the excellent review by Kunth & Östlin (2000).

More than 20 years ago Dottori (1981) suggested the use of the EW(H$`\beta `$) to detect differences in age among HII regions. Dottori & Bica (1981) applied the EW(H$`\beta `$) method to 31 LMC and SMC HII regions and found an uneven distribution of ages with most HII regions clustering at an EW(H$`\beta `$) of about 70Å and only 5 HII regions with EW(H$`\beta `$) $`>`$120 Å. This result led them to suggest that a galaxy-wide burst of star formation did occur 6 to 7 Myr ago in the Magellanic clouds.

The SCHG compiles, among other parameters, line ratios and equivalent widths for several hundred HII galaxies, and gives the opportunity of investigating the ages of actively star forming galaxies to find whether there is among them a truly young system. The SCHG is particularly appropiate for this task because, due to the selection criterion used to find them, the HII galaxies in the SCHG are probably the youngest systems that can be studied in any detail. This is due to the fact that the SCHG samples the narrow emission line galaxies with the highest equivalent width in their emission lines, and is particularly biased in the local universe (at z$`<`$0.04) towards strong and compact emission in \[OIII\] 5007Å. This bias is introduced by the technique used in all the 3 sources of data, the Cambridge, Tololo and University of Michigan surveys, that searched for strong emission using a Schmidt camera (either the UK or the Tololo Schmidt at the AAT and CTIO respectively) equipped with low dispersion objective prisms and IIIaJ emulsion, a combination that produces a sensitivity range from 3500Å to 5300Å.

One of the early surprising results of the SCHG was that even in this strong emission line biased sample, there are less than 10$`\%`$ of the systems with EW(H$`\beta `$) $`>`$150 Å (Fig. 1, left). In contrast, as shown in Fig. 1, right, a quick analysis of the predictions for a single burst indicates that if star formation proceeeds uniformly with time, about half of the regions of star formation should have an EW(H$`\beta `$) larger than about 150 - 200 Å depending on model assumptions (all our synthesis computations use the SB99 code of Leitherer and collaborators (1999)).

Many explanations have been put forward for the lack of systems with high EW(H$`\beta `$). Chiefly among them, time dependent escape of ionizing photons, dust affecting either the ionizing radiation or the visibility occurring preferentially during the first 3 Myrs, the presence of an underlying old population, uncertainties with the models, etc. The wide variety of possibilities has had the negative effect of almost halting the research in this important area.

We decided to take a fresh and different approach based as much as possible on unsupervised analysis of samples. We describe here a new method that, under the assumption that the catalogue samples a population of bursting galaxies at different ages, allows the reconstruction of the time evolution of the burst Balmer emission lines equivalent width, from their observed distribution.

## 2 The method

### 2.1 Brief description

In this section we present our probability density distribution inversion method. In contrast with other methods, we need only to assume that the birth rate of starburts in the sample is random, i.e. there is no relation in the ocurrence of starbursts in different galaxies, and that the time evolution of the observed parameter is monotonic.

In fact, starbursts have a variety of ages, and hence a range of equivalent widths of the emission lines. Two limiting cases are commonly used to describe their time evolution. They are the coeval starburst (SB) case, which assumes that all stars are formed simultaneously in an instantanous SB episode, where the characteristic time $`\tau _{SB}`$ is short compared to the age of the galaxy ($`\tau _{SB}t`$), and the continuous star formation case, which assumes the star formation rate to be constant in time. The first case is widely applied for individual, moderate mass star clusters, whereas the second one is assumed to be an average characteristic of the massive star forming systems. In both cases the evolution of the EW(H$`\beta `$) is a monotonically declining function of time. The continuous star formation could also be approximated as a sequence of small “mini-bursts” localized within a rather small region in space and separated by short time intervals (see, e.g. Silich et al. 2002).

If the starbursts birth rate, R(t), and the evolution of an individual starburst emission lines equivalent width are known, then the probability distribution of starbursts with equivalent width is given by (e.g. Scalo & Wheeler, 2001)

$$\rho _w(EW)=\frac{1}{N_0}\frac{R[t(EW)]}{\mathrm{d}EW/\mathrm{d}t},$$
(1)
where N0 is the total number of objects in the sample, and the function t(EW) describes the time evolution of the EW and is defined by the star formation mode.

Assuming a constant rate of star formation across the volume of the catalogue,

$$R(t)=N_0/t_{SF}=Const$$

one can obtain the normalized probability density as,

$$\rho _w(EW)=\frac{1}{t_{SF}}\frac{\mathrm{d}t(EW)}{\mathrm{d}EW},$$
(2)
where $`t_{SF}`$ is the total evolutionary time to be considered.

For the case of a monotonic time dependence the inverse transformation of the EW distribution into a function EW(t) is, from the relation (2):

$$t(EW)=\underset{i_{max}}{\overset{i}{}}t_{SF}\rho _i(EW)\mathrm{\Delta }EW=\frac{t_{SF}}{N_0}\underset{i}{\overset{i_{max}}{}}\mathrm{\Delta }N_i,$$
(3)
where the limits i and imax correspond to the bins with equivalent width EW and EWmax respectively.

Therefore, the shape of the time dependence of the equivalent width can be recovered from the observed distribution. On the other hand, the presence of an integration constant shows that the characteristic star formation time scale $`t_{SF}`$ cannot be obtained from the observed EW distribution alone.

### 2.2 Numerical simulations

We have run a number of tests on the analytical description above. Here we show the case for the evolution of the EW(H$`\beta `$) based on the expected evolution of an instantaneous burst.

We first generated a sample of random numbers homogeneously distributed in time, which we associate with the starburst birthrate. For each value the corresponding equivalent width was calculated using the predicted evolution from SB99 models. Panels a and b of figure 2 show the run of the burst rate and the adopted evolution of the EW(H$`\beta `$) respectively. Panel c shows the resulting probability density distribution function of equivalent widths. This represents the distribution of EW(H$`\beta `$) in the homogeneously distributed instantaneous burst model catalogue. Using equation 3 we inverted the catalogue EW probability density distribution function shown in panel c and the reconstructed function is shown in panel d. As expected from the analysis above, the inverted distribution function reproduces remarkably well the shape of the input time evolution of the equivalent widths.

## 3 Application to HII galaxies

We have applied the inversion method to several samples of HII galaxies and giant HII regions. We show here only the results for the SCHG that represents the more extreme case of bias towards strong line HII galaxies. The results for other samples will be published elsewhere but the main conclusions of the present paper are unchanged by the extended sample analysis.

The results of the inversion are shown with the thick line in figure 3 while the thin lines show the model predictions for the instantaneous burst (left panel) and for the continuous star formation (right panel) cases. It can be seen from figure 3 that the shape of the single burst model prediction is very different from that of the reconstructed evolution function of the EW(H$`\beta `$). The expected evolution of the EW(H$`\beta `$) will be different for different initial conditions in the models like the upper limit or slope of the IMF. We found that invariably all the predicted evolution curves have a convex shape (see figure 6 for different IMF values) while the inversion shows a concave shape. In what follows we will use as reference for the model corresponding to the instantaneous burst the prediction for $`M_{up}=`$120 M and Salpeter slope. The reason being that the sample is strongly biased towards high excitation systems suggesting the need for a combination of relatively low metal content and a hot ionizing cluster to obtain it. This implies that stars more massive than 40-50 M should be present at zero age.

On the right panel we can see that models with continuous star formation are in closer agreement with the shape of the time evolution of the EW(H$`\beta `$). This rather surprising result perhaps indicates that the presence of older stars is affecting the continuum luminosity, consistent with earlier suggestions from, e.g. Dufour et al. (1996), Garnett et al. (1997), Legrand et al. (2000).

### 3.1 Continuum colour and age.

To test on the somehow unexpected result of the previous section, we have analyzed other time dependent parameters that could provide independent information about the global age or evolutionary stage of HII galaxies.

The continuum colour is one of such age indicators. Particularly sensitive to early age are those colours that like Johnson’s U-B, bridge the $`\lambda \lambda `$3800Å to 4000Å region. For this analysis, we selected those HII galaxies with the lowest dust reddenning correction (about 220 HII galaxies) and compared them with SB99 estimates of the colours of an evolving stellar population.

In figure 4 we have plotted the EW(H$`\beta `$) and the $`\lambda \lambda `$ 3730/5010Å colour defined as the ratio of the intensities of the adjacent continua to the \[OII\]$`\lambda `$3727Å and \[OIII\[$`\lambda `$5007Å emission lines.

Figure 4 also shows in thick lines the evolution of the instantaneous and the continuous star formation models. The digits along the curves represent the age of the models in units of Myr.

If HII galaxies were truly evolving as continuous star forming systems, they will not depart much from the continuous star formation line. Furthermore we will expect a symmetric distribution with respect to the continuous star formation curve. This, however, is not the case for the sample of HII galaxies. Most of the observed values are above and/or to the left of the continuous star formation model predictions.

In Figure 4 we have also plotted the lines corresponding to multiple burst models. The thin solid lines represent the evolutionary sequence path for individual bursts from a sequence of identical instantaneous starbursts, separated by 50 Myr quiescent intervals. The lines correspond to the bursts starting at 50, 150, 350, and 750 Myr, respectively. The thin dashed lines show the evolution of a second burst which occurs 900 Myr after the initial one for a range of bursts mass ratios. The mass ratio of the second to the first starburst changes from the right top to the left bottom lines as 10-2, $`5\times 10^3`$ and $`10^3`$, respectively.

It is possible to see that both the position and the scatter of the points in the EW(H$`\beta `$) vs. colour diagram, are consistent with a population of galaxies undergoing multiple bursts of star formation during their cosmological evolution. It is interesting to note the almost complete absence of points to the right of the instantaneous case suggesting a good agreement between models and observation. Reasuringly, the highest observed EW(H$`\beta `$) is also consistent with the model predictions.

### 3.2 Metallicity and age

Another parameter that is expected to change in galaxies with age is their metal content. In particular, Oxygen that represents more than 40 percent in mass of the metals, seems to be a good metallicity indicator given that is mostly produced in massive stars with little time delay (see, e.g. Pagel 1998).

To investigate the behaviour of the metallicity of HII galaxies versus their EW(H$`\beta `$) we have used the compilation of the best determinations of O/H in HII galaxies (Denicoló, Terlevich & Terlevich 2002). In figure 5 we have plotted metallicity and EW(H$`\beta `$) for the 183 star forming galaxies of the Denicoló et al. compilation. Figure 5 shows a clear relation with EW(H$`\beta `$) albeit with a lot of scatter. The tendency is in the sense that high metallicity HII galaxies show lower EW(H$`\beta `$) while low metallicity HII galaxies have invariably high EW(H$`\beta `$).

While a detailed analysis of the relation between metallicity and EW(H$`\beta `$) and its time evolution, requires galactic chemical evolution studies, outside the scope of this work and will be dealt with in a separate paper, the inspection of simple multiple burst models (Pilyugin & Edmunds 1996, Pilyugin 1999), nevertheless, allows as to predict that by selecting a sample within a narrow range of metallicities, and under the assumption that in short time scales, i.e. less than 10 Myrs, very little (if any) contamination due to the present burst occurs (e.g. Roy and Kunth, 1995), we may be able to construct a sample with a narrow range in its chemical evolutionary age. If this is the case, the inversion of the EW(H$`\beta `$) distribution of a sample with a narrow metallicity range may recover a star formation history more closely related to a single event.

For this test, we have selected from Denicoló et al. (2002), the sub-sample of 70 galaxies covering the range 7.50 $`<`$ 12 $`+`$log (O/H) $`<`$ 8.25 The result of the inversion of the distribution for this sample restricted in O/H is shown in figure 6 together with the predictions from three SB99 models. Two of the models represented in the figure, correspond to a Salpeter slope IMF having upper mass limits of 100M and 30M respectively, the other corresponds to an upper mass of 120M and an IMF slope of 3.0, i.e. steeper than the Salpeter case.

Clearly, the inversion has yielded an evolution whose shape is very close to that of the instantaneous models; furthermore the inversion seems more in agreement with an IMF with Salpeter slope and an upper mass limit intermediate between 30Mand 100M, or with a steeper slope IMF.

The simplest interpretation consistent with our findings is that there are two different time scales for the evolution of HII galaxies on the metallicity - EW(H$`\beta `$) plane.

On a time scale of about $`10^7`$yr after any starburst, the evolution on the metallicity - EW(H$`\beta `$) plane proceeds vertically downwards as it is associated with a rapid decrease of the EW(H$`\beta `$) as shown, e.g. in figure (1, right) and with basically no change in the metal content of the ionized gas.

On time scales of order of $`10^9`$yr there is the secular or cosmological evolution of the ISM metal content which reflects on the stellar population build-up.

The superposition of these two time scales results in the dispersion observed in figures 4 and 5.

Our findings are also consistent with the idea that the observed value of the EW(H$`\beta `$) results from the emission produced in the present burst superposed on the continuum generated by the present burst PLUS all the previous star formation.

## 4 Conclusions

We have developed a simple inversion tool that allows to reconstruct from observed probability density distributions of some monotonical parameter, its time evolution.

We applied the inversion method to the EW(H$`\beta `$) distribution of a sample of 217 extreme star forming galaxies from the SCHG. We have shown that, considering the sample as a whole, its EW(H$`\beta `$) evolution is not well described by a coeval burst model, and that HII Galaxies seem to have a star formation history that is closer to that predicted by a continuous star formation model.

The simplest interpretation is that while the observed emission lines track the present burst, the underlying continuum contains the whole history of star formation of the HII galaxy.

Even though HII Galaxies are selected by their strong emission lines, they are not truly young galaxies. Most of them have undergone substantial star formation probably during the previous 100 - 1000 My to the present burst.

The situation changes when the analysis is restricted to a sub-sample covering a narrow range in metallicities ($`7.50<12+logO/H<8.25`$). In this case the EW(H$`\beta `$) evolution seems well described by a coeval burst model with an IMF having an upper mass limit around 80 M.

Clearly it would be very interesting to extend the method to the analysis of larger samples of galaxies like, e.g., that one provided by the Sloane Digital Sky survey.

## 5 Acknowledgments

Sergiy Silich, Daniel Rosa González and Elena Terlevich gratefully acknowledge financial support from CONACYT, the Mexican Research Council, through research grants \# 36132-E and \# 32186-E. ET, RJT and DRG are grateful for the hospitality of the IoA, Cambridge, where part of this work was accomplished.


text:
# Holonomic quantum computation in the presence of decoherence

## Abstract

We present a scheme to study non-abelian adiabatic holonomies for open Markovian systems. As an application of our framework, we analyze the robustness of holonomic quantum computation against decoherence. We pinpoint the sources of error that must be corrected to achieve a geometric implementation of quantum computation completely resilient to Markovian decoherence.

Adiabatic holonomies in quantum mechanics are unitary transformations generated by slowly changing the Hamiltonian of a quantum system through a set of parameters in a cyclic fashion. The parameters define a manifold and the holonomies depend only on the path followed by the system in this space. In case the Hamiltonian is non-degenerate, the holonomy is an abelian phase better known as Berry’s phase berry84a . If the Hamiltonian is degenerate, the holonomy is a non-abelian generalization of the phase which induces transitions among states belonging to the degenerate subspace wilczek84 . Geometric phases, i.e., Berry’s phase and its various generalizations, were extensively studied in the 1980’s shapere89a  and recently became, once more, a fashionable subject since it was proposed that quantum computation (QC) could be implemented in a fault-tolerant way using geometric transformations jones99a ; zanardi99 . The most general scheme of this kind is called holonomic quantum computation (HQC) and it involves constructing a universal set of quantum gates by making the system acquire a succession of abelian and non-abelian geometric phases. Since holonomies depend only on geometric properties of the parameter space, HQC is robust, by construction, to any kind of error that leaves these properties invariant. This is considered to be the strongest advantage of the scheme.

In any realistic implementation of quantum computation one must consider that, in practice, quantum systems are never isolated. The interaction with the environment effects that initially pure quantum states decay into statistical mixtures (called mixed states) through a process known as decoherence deco . It is known that this process is a severe limiting factor for quantum computation. Therefore, in a pragmatic realization of HQC schemes, it is crucial to define holonomies for mixed states, and understand how they are generated under the presence of decoherence. So far, non-abelian holonomies have been only investigated for pure quantum states evolving under unitary transformations. It is now necessary to investigate to what extent the geometric properties on which holonomies depend, are left invariant under quantum noise.

Although claims that quantum gates of geometric origin offer increased fault-tolerance can be found throughout the literature, a comprehensive analysis on the robustness to errors of these schemes has not yet been presented. Partial results, however, have been obtained: For both, abelian and non-abelian phases, some errors of classical origin have been investigated class  and the effect of quantum noise has been analyzed only for the abelian case in ericsson02 ; carollo03a ; carollo03b . In particular, Ref. carollo03a  uses the quantum jump approach to study the effects of decoherence in the adiabatic and non-adiabatic case. There the spin-1/2 Berry phase was found to be robust to the depolarizing channel in the no-jump trajectory. Moreover, resilience to the phase flip error is guaranteed for any number of jumps. In case the particle is driven by a quantized field, Berry’s phase is found to be robust to field decoherence to second order carollo03b .

The robustness of the abelian phase to a number of decoherence effects suggests that non-abelian phases might behave similarly. Motivated by this, in this Letter, we investigate the effects of decoherence on non-abelian holonomies under the Markovian assumption, where environmental memory effects are negligible. We demonstrate the application of our general framework to the study of decoherence in HQC. Independently of the physical implementation considered, we estimate the errors, produced by generating a universal set of holonomic gates in the presence of an environment. We pinpoint to which specific types of errors the scheme is fallible. These results constitute the basis of a framework to perform universal HQC resilient to Markovian decoherence. Decoherence can produce two kinds of errors: those which take the system out of the degenerate subspace and those which take place within the subspace. The first kind of error can be eliminated by working in the ground state and considering a system where the energy gap with the first excited state is very large. Our analysis concerns the second kind of errors. We consider only adiabatic holonomies because the non-adiabatic case is not well understood. It is not clear how to separate, in general, dynamic from geometric evolution in non-adiabatic holonomies.

Our work focuses on the applications of holonomies in quantum computation, but geometric phases are a fundamental aspect of quantum mechanics with applications in many fields. They have manifestations shapere89a  that range from low to high energy physics, appearing in optical and solid state systems, in molecular and atomic physics, and are at the heart of phenomena such as anomalies in gauge field theories, fractional statistics, Aharonov-Bohm and quantum Hall effect. The discussion presented here is relevant to any physical situation involving holonomies where decoherence plays a role.

To introduce the concept of holonomy we consider a Hamiltonian $`H(\lambda _0)=H_0`$ describing an energy degenerate N-dimensional quantum system. The Hilbert space has $`k`$ subspaces with corresponding energy $`E_k`$. Our analysis will be restricted to one of the degenerate subspaces with $`n`$-fold degeneracy and energy $`E`$. The system is initially prepared in a state belonging to this subspace $`|\psi _i^0=|\psi _i(0)`$ and the Hamiltonian of the system varied through a set of parameters $`\lambda `$ on a control manifold $``$ in an adiabatic way. The adiabatic theorem states that if the Hamiltonian is varied sufficiently slowly with respect to any time-scale associated with the dynamics, the system will remain in a state belonging to the subspace corresponding to energy $`E`$. In other words, there is no level-crossing. The degeneracy structure of the Hamiltonian is preserved throughout the evolution which we can write as $`H(\lambda )=V(\lambda )H_0V^{}(\lambda )`$, where $`V(\lambda )`$ is unitary. If the Hamiltonian returns to its initial value after a time $`T`$, $`H(T)=H_0`$, describing a closed curve $`C`$ in $``$, the state $`|\psi _i^0`$ is mapped to $`e^{iET}U_C(\lambda )|\psi _i^0`$. The transformation $`U_C(\lambda )`$ is called the holonomy and in the following, we will derive it.

By changing the Hamiltonian through the set of parameters $`\lambda `$, the state of the system is parallel transported in parameter space. A rule for parallel transport in the manifold, i.e. a connection, must be specified since there is no unique way of parallel transporting a vector. A connection is provided by requiring that the state $`|\psi _\alpha (\lambda )`$ remains normalized through parallel transport, $`\psi _\beta |\frac{}{\lambda _\mu }|\psi _\alpha =0`$.

In terms of the local reference basis of the degenerate subspace $`\{|\varphi _\alpha (\lambda )\}`$, the state at any point of the adiabatic path in parameter space is expressed as, $`|\psi _\alpha (\lambda )=U_{\alpha \beta }(\lambda )|\varphi _\beta (\lambda )`$, where $`U`$ is unitary and $`|\psi _\alpha (\lambda )`$ corresponds to the solution of the Schrödinger equation for the initial condition $`|\psi _\alpha ^o=|\varphi _\alpha (0)`$. The parallel transport condition then reads,

$$U_{\gamma \delta }^{}\frac{U_{\alpha \beta }}{\lambda _\mu }P_{\beta \gamma }+U_{\gamma \delta }^{}U_{\alpha \beta }A_{\beta \gamma }=0,$$
(1)
with $`P_{\beta \gamma }=\varphi _\gamma |\varphi _\beta `$ and $`A_{\beta \gamma }=\varphi _\gamma |\frac{}{\lambda _\mu }|\varphi _\beta `$, in the Wilczek-Zee wilczek84  notations. The matrix $`P`$ is hermitian and in the case when the states of the local basis are orthogonal it is equal to the identity. In the presence of decoherence, the latter is not true in general. We ignored the constant term $`EP_{\beta \gamma }`$ which produces the global dynamical phase $`e^{iET}`$. Solving for $`U`$ when $`P`$ is invertible, $`U^1\dot{U}=AP^1`$, and integrating over the closed path $`C`$ we obtain the holonomy,

$$U_C(\lambda )=𝐏e^{_CAP^1}.$$
(2)
where $`𝐏`$ is the path ordering operator. In terms of the eigenstates of the initial Hamiltonian $`H_0`$, we have $`A_{\beta \gamma }=\psi _\gamma ^0|V^{}\dot{V}|\psi _\beta ^0`$. The dimensionality $`n`$ of the holonomy equals the degree of degeneracy of the eigenspace. Berry phase is the special case when the eigenspace is non-degenerate, and the unitary transformation is then one dimensional, i.e. a complex number. The holonomy (2) depends only on the path followed in parameter space, and transforms, under gauge transformation $`g`$, as $`U_C(A)gU_C(A)g^1`$ wilczek84 . We point out that all previous considerations can be extended to the case of an open curve without any modifications since gauge invariance is not relevant in our context.

To investigate the effects of decoherence in the non-abelian geometric evolution of states described above, we employ the quantum jump approach. The master equation ($`\mathrm{}=1`$)

$$\dot{\rho }=\frac{1}{i}[H(\lambda ),\rho ]\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\{L_k^{}L_k\rho +\rho L_k^{}L_k2L_k\rho L_k^{}\}$$
(3)
dictates, in the Markovian approximation, the evolution of the system described by the density operator $`\rho `$. The commutator generates, through the Hamiltonian $`H(\lambda )`$, the coherent part of the evolution and the second part represents the effect of the environment on the dynamics of system. The operators $`L_k`$ are called Lindbladian, and by prescribing them, one models different decohering processes. Equation (3) is in general very difficult to solve but the quantum jump approach provides an ingenious solution to this problem. Consider that the time evolution of the density matrix, for small time intervals $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, can be written as

$$\rho (t+\mathrm{\Delta }t)\underset{k=0}{\overset{n}{}}W_k\rho (t)W_k^{},$$
(4)
where the operators $`W_k`$ are complete positive maps fulfilling the completeness relation $`_{k=0}^nW_k^{}W_k=1𝐥`$. By setting $`W_0=1𝐥i\stackrel{~}{H}\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ and $`W_k=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }t}L_k`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ a non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian,

$$\stackrel{~}{H}=H\frac{i}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}L_k^{}L_k,$$
(5)
the dynamics of the system is approximated by dividing the total evolution time $`T`$ into a sequence of discrete intervals $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=\frac{T}{N}`$. $`W_0`$ and $`W_k`$ are called the ”no-jump” and jump operators respectively. According to Eq. (4), the state of the system, after any time step $`t_m=m\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, evolves into $`\rho (t_{m+1})=W_k\rho (t_m)W_k^{}`$ (up to first order in $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$), with probability $`p_k=TrW_k\rho (t_m)W_k^{}`$. The time evolution of the system is then calculated for a set of possible trajectories containing, each one of them, different numbers of jumps occurring at different times. Each trajectory is defined as a chain of states obtained by the action of a sequence of operators $`W_k`$ on the initial state. For example, for an initial pure state $`|\psi _0`$, the (non-normalized) state of the system, after the $`m`$-th step along the $`i`$-th trajectory, is given by:

$$|\psi _m^{(i)}=\underset{l=1}{\overset{m}{}}W_{i(l)}|\psi _0,$$
(6)
where $`i(l)`$ stands for the $`l`$-th element of a sequence of indexes with values from $`0\mathrm{}n`$. Each trajectory is represented by a discrete sequence of pure states $`\{\psi _0,\psi _0^{(i)},\mathrm{},\psi _N^{(i)}\}`$. The dynamics given by the master equation is recovered by summing incoherently all the states associated to each trajectory, and taking the continuous limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }t0`$.

The no-jump trajectory corresponds to the case in which no decay occurs. The evolution of a quantum state along this trajectory is obtained by the repeated action of the operator $`W_0`$ and taking the continuous limit $`N\mathrm{}`$. This yields a dynamics governed by the complex effective Hamiltonian $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$:

$$i\frac{d}{dt}|\psi (t)=\stackrel{~}{H}|\psi (t),|\psi (0)=|\psi _0.$$
(7)
Since the Hamiltonian is non-hermitian, the corresponding eigenstates are non-orthogonal.

We are now ready to consider the case in which a non-abelian holonomy is generated by the transformation $`H(\lambda )=V(\lambda )H_0V^{}(\lambda )`$ when the system’s dynamics governed by (3). Note that it is only possible to generate the holonomy when the interaction of the system with the environment is such that the degeneracy structure of the Hamiltonian is preserved. This is the case when $`\kappa =_{k=1}^nL_k^{}L_k=\alpha 1𝐥`$ or $`\kappa =\alpha H`$. The holonomy in the no-jump trajectory is then the same as the one acquired by an isolated system evolving under the same Hamiltonian $`H`$. This is because the eigenstates of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ coincide with the eigenstates of $`H`$, so that $`P`$ is proportional to the identity and the connection in the no-jump trajectory $`(AP^1)^{(0)}`$ is equal to $`A=V^{}\dot{V}`$. The interaction with the environment only produces an overall visibility factor $`e^{\alpha t/2}`$ for $`\kappa =\alpha 1𝐥`$ and $`e^{\alpha Et/2}`$ for $`\kappa =\alpha H`$. The factor is small for low decoherence rates and in the second case, it is eliminated by working in the ground state. In other words, for sources of decoherence that satisfy these conditions, the holonomy is robust in the no-jump trajectory.

Let us consider a more interesting case, the trajectory in which there is one jump $`W_i`$ at $`\lambda _1`$. During the adiabatic evolution, the system evolves under a no-jump trajectory from $`\lambda _0`$ to $`\lambda _1`$, then the jump occurs instantaneously and the system continues to evolve by the transformation $`V(\lambda )`$ until time T, corresponding to $`\lambda _f`$. Using the composition rule for holonomies, $`U_1=(𝐏e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1})(𝐏e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0})`$ where

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\lambda _1}}(AP^1)^{(0)}={\displaystyle _0^{\lambda _1}}A,`$ (8)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _f}}(AP^1)^{(1)}.`$ (9)
Since the one-jump connection for $`W_i^{}W_i=\alpha _i1𝐥`$ is given by,

$`(AP^1)_{\beta \gamma }^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _\delta ^{}|V^{}(\lambda )\dot{V}(\lambda )|\varphi _\beta ^{}P_{\delta \gamma }^1,`$ (10)
$`|\varphi _\gamma ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`W_ie^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_o}|\varphi _\gamma ^0,`$ (11)
$`P_{\beta \gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _\gamma ^{}|\varphi _\beta ^{}=\alpha _i\delta _{\beta \gamma },`$ (12)
the holonomy after the jump is

$$𝐏e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}=𝐏e^{\frac{1}{\alpha _i}_{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _f}W_i^{}AW_i}.$$
(13)
So in the one-jump trajectory $`U_1=𝐏e^{\frac{1}{\alpha _i}W_i\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^{}W_i}𝐏e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}`$. This result can then be generalized to a trajectory for which n jumps occur

$`U_n^i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{n}{}}}𝐏e^{\frac{1}{\alpha _i}W_{i(l)}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^{i(l)}W_{i(l)}}𝐏e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}`$ (14)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^{i(l)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\lambda _l}^{\lambda _{l+1}}}A.`$ (15)
Note that we can write,

$$𝐏e^{\frac{1}{\alpha _i}W_{i(l)}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^{i(l)}W_{i(l)}}=\frac{1}{\alpha _i}W_{i(l)}^{}\left(𝐏e^{_{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _f}A}\right)W_{i(l)}.$$
(16)
We now consider the application of our results in QC, where the idea of using quantum systems to perform computations more efficiently than classical computers is investigated nielsen00 . Geometric phases play an important role in this field since quantum gates can be implemented in a geometric way. Jones et. al. jones99a  proposed a scheme for generating quantum single and two-qubit phase gates using Berry’s phase.

The generalized scheme to implement QC by geometric means is HQC zanardi99 . In this scheme the input information is encoded in the $`n`$ base states of a given degenerate subspace at $`H(\lambda _0)`$. By renormalizing one can choose the energy of the subspace $`E=0`$. The gates are generated by the holonomic evolutions described above (this includes abelian and non-abelian phases) which are produced by slowly changing the initial Hamiltonian through the set of parameters $`\lambda `$. After $`\lambda `$ completes a loop $`C`$ in $``$ rooted at $`\lambda _0`$, the initially prepared state $`|\psi _{in}`$ in which the information was encoded is mapped to an output state $`|\psi _{out}=U_C(\lambda )|\psi _{in}`$ where $`U_C(\lambda )`$ is the quantum gate. To perform a given gate it is necessary to find the path or succession of paths in parameter space which yields such a gate. A quantum algorithm is built from a sequence of gates such that the final state corresponds to the solution of the computational problem. Any unitary transformation, thus any algorithm, can be approximated by a strategical succession of closed paths in the control manifold $``$. As long as the adiabatic condition holds, the computation does not depend on the rate at which the control loops are driven. The gates performed in such a way depend only on geometric properties of the parameter space. Thus, any computational error which is path-preserving does not change the transformation. Hence, errors such as fluctuations in the driving parameters and systematic errors are automatically avoided. However, the environment might induce some fluctuations which are not path-preserving; it is then important to quantify them.

Investigating the effects of decoherence in HQC becomes crucial for the scheme to be realizable. Our quantum jump formalism can be used to investigate decoherence in a universal set of gates generated by holonomies. By universal we mean that any unitary evolution can be constructed from this set of elementary gates uni . The set consists of two 1-qubit gates of the form $`U_i=e^{i\theta _i\sigma _i}`$ where $`\sigma _i`$ are Pauli matrices, and one 2-qubit gate $`U_3=e^{i\varphi \sigma _i\sigma _j}`$. For example, $`U_1=e^{i\theta _1\sigma _1}`$, $`U_2=e^{i\theta _2\sigma _2}`$ and $`U_3=e^{i\varphi \sigma _1\sigma _1}`$ are universal since any transformation in $`SU(4)`$ can be generated from them. Consider that these gates are performed by holonomic evolution as described in holgat  but the system interacts with the environment. Errors within the subspace for one qubit gates are proportional to $`\sigma _{}`$, $`\sigma _+`$ and $`\sigma _i`$, with $`i=1,2,3`$. For $`L_i=\sqrt{\alpha }\sigma _i`$ and $`\alpha `$ the decoherence rate of the error, we obtain $`L_i^{}L_i=\alpha 1𝐥`$. Thus the universal set of gates is robust to these errors in the no-jump trajectory. When there is a jump in the trajectory, it is easy to see from eq. (16) that the gate $`U_i`$ is robust to errors $`L_j`$ when $`i=j`$ and for errors with $`ji`$ one obtains a change in sign (since $`\sigma _j^{}\sigma _i\sigma _j=\sigma _i`$). For example, if one jump at occurs at $`\lambda _1`$, the gate $`U_i`$ becomes $`U_i=\mathrm{exp}i(\theta _1\theta _2)\sigma _i`$ where

$`\theta _1={\displaystyle _{\lambda _0}^{\lambda _1}}\mathrm{\Omega },\theta _2={\displaystyle _{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _f}}\mathrm{\Omega }.`$ (17)
Here $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ corresponds to the solid angle subtended by the evolution of the system in parameter space. The angle $`\theta =\theta _1+\theta _2`$ corresponds to the gate without errors. Generalizing to n errors of the type $`L_j`$ we find that $`U_i(n)=e^{i\theta _e\sigma _i}`$ with $`\theta _e=_m(1)^m\theta _m`$ and $`\theta _m=_{\lambda _m}^{\lambda ^{m+1}}\mathrm{\Omega }`$. When errors $`\sigma _\pm `$ occur, the degeneracy structure of the Hamiltonian is preserved only for initial Hamiltonians which are proportional to $`\sigma _3`$ since $`\sigma _\pm \sigma _{}=\frac{1}{2}(1𝐥\pm \sigma _3)`$. In this case the holonomy is robust in the no-jump trajectory. For a single jump $`\sigma _\pm `$, $`P`$ is not invertible but we can calculate the gates from eq. 1. Unfortunately, the gates are completely lost, $`e^{i\theta \sigma _i}`$ becomes a $`U(1)`$ phase after one jump. This is the main source of error that must be corrected.

The analysis of the two-qubit gates follows directly from our previous conclusions. As an example we consider errors of the form $`\sigma _i\sigma _j`$. For simplicity let us consider the gate $`U_3=e^{i\varphi \sigma _1\sigma _1}`$, any other gate can be analyzed in the same way. The gate is robust to any number of jumps of the type $`\sigma _1\sigma _1`$, $`\sigma _11𝐥`$, $`1𝐥\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _2\sigma _2`$ but changes in signs occur for $`1𝐥\sigma _2`$, $`\sigma _21𝐥`$, $`\sigma _1\sigma _2`$ and $`\sigma _2\sigma _1`$. Nevertheless in general the most common non local error is $`\sigma _i\sigma _i`$, to which the 2-qubits gate is robust.

We have presented a general scheme to study the effects of Markovian decoherence in the generation of non-abelian adiabatic holonomies. We applied it to analyze the effects of the environment on a universal set of holonomic quantum gates. A scheme for quantum computation completely robust to Markovian decoherence can be constructed by using HQC and finding a way to correct for the errors pointed out in this Letter by other means. This could possibly be achieved using error correction techniques. An example of the use of geometric phases to produce an error correcting code is explored in ecorrect . We are currently working on the details of such a scheme. Since holonomies are a main ingredient in loop quantum gravity it is likely our scheme can be applied to study decoherence in this field.

We would like to thank Frederic P Schuller for his valuable comments.