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# Quantum information distributors: Quantum network for symmetric and asymmetric cloning in arbitrary dimension and continuous limit

## I Introduction

One of the main tasks in quantum information processing and quantum computing is the distribution of quantum information encoded in the states of quantum systems. Assume a quantum system labelled as $`1`$ is prepared in an unknown pure state described by a state vector $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ in an $`N`$-dimensional Hilbert space. The task is to transfer partially the information encoded in system $`1`$ into a second system in a covariant way. That is, the fidelity of the operation should not depend on the particular choice of the input state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$. In addition, we want to control the amount of information transferred from system $`1`$ to system $`2`$. One of the simplest examples of such a transformation is state-swapping, when the state of system $`1`$ is swapped with the (known) state of system $`2`$. In this case the complete information is transferred. Another option is to leave the system $`1`$ in the original state. These two operations can be performed with unit fidelity irrespective of the input state of system $`1`$. We can also consider a case intermediate between these two limiting cases, i.e., between no transfer and the complete transfer of information. One interesting version of this intermediate transformation involves the copying (cloning) of quantum information from system $`1`$ to system $`2`$, where, after the transformation, each of the systems $`1`$ and $`2`$ has the same reduced state, which is itself as close as possible to the original state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1\mathrm{\Psi }|`$. In this case we often require that the fidelity of the information transfer does not depend on the initial state.

It is now well known that quantum information cannot be exactly copied . This no-cloning theorem has important consequences for the whole field of quantum information processing . Nonetheless, considerable progress has been made in the development of approximate quantum cloners. Most of the effort has focused on two types of these, universal cloners that copy all input states equally well , and probabilistic cloners that copy a known set of states perfectly, but do so with a probability which is less than one . In what follows we shall concentrate on universal devices.

Quantum cloning both illuminates the limits imposed by quantum mechanics on the manipulation of quantum information and can be useful in applications. It has been shown to be useful in improving the performance of imperfect quantum detectors  and in improving the performance of certain quantum computations . In addition, it has been shown in Ref.  that quantum cloners can be used as optimal eavesdropping devices on the 6-state cryptographic protocol. We should also note that recently an interesting cloning experiment has been proposed . Moreover, two experiments have been independently reported  this year in which cloning of optical fields has been realized.

Universal cloners can be either symmetric or asymmetric. In a symmetric cloner the quantum information is divided equally and the output clones are identical. In an asymmetric cloner one of the clones receives more of the input quantum information than the other. Symmetric cloners were first developed to copy qubits , but have been extended to copy states in spaces of arbitrary dimension , and it has been proven that these cloners are optimal . The study of asymmetric cloners also began with the consideration of qubits  and has been recently extended to systems of arbitrary dimension . What we shall do here is to exhibit a quantum circuit for symmetric and asymmetric cloners in arbitrary numbers of dimensions. In order to emphasize that what these devices do is distribute quantum information, we shall refer to them as quantum information distributors (QID’s). The circuit consists of four controlled-NOT gates, or rather their generalization to $`N`$ dimensions, and its form is the same for any number of dimensions. There are two inputs to this circuit. The first is the state which supplies the information to be distributed between the two outputs. The second acts as a program and determines how the information is distributed. The infinite-dimensional version of this circuit allows us to describe quantum information distributors for continuous variables.

Let us formulate our problem more exactly. Assume the original quantum system is in a pure state

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}c_n|x_n.`$ (1)
At the output of the quantum information distributor we would like to have two quantum systems each with a state described in a covariant form

$`\widehat{\rho }_1^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`(1\beta ^2)|\mathrm{\Psi }_1\mathrm{\Psi }|+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2}{N}}\widehat{𝟙}_1`$ (2)
$`\widehat{\rho }_2^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`(1\alpha ^2)|\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }|+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{N}}\widehat{𝟙}_2,`$ (3)
where the real parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ quantify the amount of information which has been transferred from one system to the other. In particular, if $`\beta =0`$, then no information has been transfered from the original system, while if $`\alpha =0`$, then all of the information in system $`1`$ has been transferred to system $`2`$. The parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are related (see below). From the covariant form of the output density operators it follows that the fidelity of the information transfer is input-state independent. The terms proportional to $`\widehat{𝟙}/N`$ in the density operators describe the amount of noise introduced into the systems at the output by the information transfer process.

Our task in this paper is to develop a quantum circuit for the universal quantum information distributor for arbitrary-dimensional quantum systems. In Sec. II we start our discussion with the mathematical formalism needed to investigate our problem. Then in Section III we present a quantum network for the universal quantum information distributor, while in Section IV we generalize the discussion to continuous variables. Finally, in Section V we summarize our results.

## II From discrete to continuous variables

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

$`|x_k`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}kl\right)|p_l`$ (4)
$`|p_l`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}kl\right)|x_k.`$ (5)
Without loss of generality, it can be assumed that these bases are sets of eigenvectors of non-commuting operators $`\widehat{X}`$ and $`\widehat{P}`$:

$`\widehat{X}|x_k=k|x_k,\widehat{P}|p_l=l|p_l,`$ (6)
that is,

$`\widehat{X}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}k|x_kx_k|`$ (7)
$`\widehat{P}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}l|p_lp_l|.`$ (8)
For instance, we can assume that the operators $`\widehat{X}`$ and $`\widehat{P}`$ are related to a discrete position and momentum of a particle on a ring with a finite number of equidistant sites . Specifically, we can introduce a length scale, $`L`$, and two operators, the position $`\widehat{x}`$ and the momentum $`\widehat{p}`$, such that

$`\widehat{x}|x_k=x_k|x_k,\widehat{p}|p_l=p_l|p_l,`$ (9)
where

$`x_k=L\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}}k;p_l={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{L}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}}l.`$ (10)
The length, $`L`$ can, for example, be taken equal to $`\sqrt{\mathrm{}/\omega m}`$, where $`m`$ is the mass and $`\omega `$ the frequency of a quantum “harmonic”oscillator within a finite dimensional Fock space (in what follows we use units such that $`\mathrm{}=1`$).

The squared absolute values of the scalar product of eigenkets (6) do not depend on the indices $`k`$, $`l`$:

$`|x_k|p_l|^2=1/N,`$ (11)
which means that pairs $`(k,l)`$ form a discrete phase space (i.e., pairs $`(k,l)`$ represent “points” of the discrete phase space) on which a Wigner function can be defined . Next we introduce operators which shift (cyclicly permute) the basis vectors :

$`\widehat{R}_x(n)|x_k`$ $`=`$ $`|x_{(k+n)\mathrm{mod}N}`$ (12)
$`\widehat{R}_p(m)|p_l`$ $`=`$ $`|p_{(l+m)\mathrm{mod}N},`$ (13)
where the sums of indices are taken modulo $`N`$ (this summation rule is considered throughout this paper, where it is clear we will not explicitly write the symbol $`\mathrm{mod}N`$). The operators $`\widehat{R}_x(n)`$ and $`\widehat{R}_p(m)`$ can be expressed as powers of the operators $`\widehat{R}_x(1)`$ and $`\widehat{R}_p(1)`$, respectively:

$`\widehat{R}_x(n)=\widehat{R}_x^n(1),\widehat{R}_p(m)=\widehat{R}_p^m(1).`$ (14)
In the $`x`$-basis these operators can be expressed as

$`x_k|\widehat{R}_x(n)|x_l`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{k+n,l}`$ (15)
$`x_k|\widehat{R}_p(m)|x_l`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{k,l}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}ml\right).`$ (16)
Moreover these operators fulfill the Weyl commutation relation

$`\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)=\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}mn\right)\widehat{R}_p(m)\widehat{R}_x(n);`$ (17)
although they do not commute, they form a representation of an Abelian group in a ray space. We can displace a state in arbitrary order using $`\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)`$ or $`\widehat{R}_p(m)\widehat{R}_x(n)`$, the resulting state will be the same — the corresponding kets will differ only by an unimportant multiplicative factor. We see that the operators $`\widehat{R}_x(n)`$ and $`\widehat{R}_p(m)`$ displace states in the directions $`x`$ and $`p`$, respectively. The product $`\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)`$ acts as a displacement operator in the discrete phase space $`(k,l)`$ . These operators can be expressed via the generators of translations (shifts)

$`\widehat{R}_x(n)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}n\widehat{P}\right)=\mathrm{exp}(ix_n\widehat{p})`$ (18)
$`\widehat{R}_p(m)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}m\widehat{X}\right)=\mathrm{exp}(ip_m\widehat{x}).`$ (19)
We note that the structure of the group associated with the operators $`\widehat{R}_x(n)`$ and $`\widehat{R}_p(m)`$ is reminiscent of the group of phase-space translations (i.e., the Heisenberg group) in quantum mechanics .

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

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}c_k|x_k_1;{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|c_k|^2=1.`$ (20)
The basis of maximally entangled two-particle states (the analogue of the Bell basis for spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles) can be written as

$`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}mk\right)|x_k|x_{(kn)\mathrm{mod}N},`$ (21)
where $`m,n=0,\mathrm{},N1`$. We can also rewrite these maximally entangled states in the $`p`$-basis:

$`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{N}}nl\right)|p_{(ml)\mathrm{mod}N}|p_l.`$ (22)
The states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}`$ form an orthonormal basis

$`\mathrm{\Xi }_{kl}|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}=\delta _{k,m}\delta _{l,n},`$ (23)
with

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}|=\widehat{𝟙}\widehat{𝟙}.`$ (24)
In order to prove the above relations we have used the standard relation $`_{n=0}^{N1}\mathrm{exp}[2\pi i(kk^{})n/N]=N\delta _{k,k^{}}`$.

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

$`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}=\widehat{𝟙}_2\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(m)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23},`$ (25)
acting just on system $`3`$ in this particular case.

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

$`(\widehat{X}_2\widehat{X}_3)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`n|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ (26)
$`(\widehat{P}_2+\widehat{P}_3)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`m|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}_{23}.`$ (27)
We easily see that for $`N=2`$ the above formalism reduces to the well-known spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particle (qubit) case.

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

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}={\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{1}{}}}|k_ak||(m+k)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}_bm|.`$ (28)
We note that in principle one can introduce an operator $`\widehat{D}_{ab}^{}`$ defined as

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}^{}={\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{1}{}}}|k_ak||(mk)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}_bm|.`$ (29)
In the case of qubits these two operators are equal. This is not the case when the dimension of the Hilbert space is larger than 2 . Let us generalize the above definition of the operator $`\widehat{D}`$ for $`N>2`$. Before doing so, we shall simplify our notation. Because we will work mostly in the $`x`$-basis we shall use the notation $`|x_k|k`$ where it may be done so unambiguously. With this in mind we now write

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}={\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak||(m+k)\mathrm{mod}N_bm|.`$ (30)
From the definition (30) it follows that the operator $`\widehat{D}_{ab}`$ acts on the basis vectors as

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}|k|m=|k|(k+m)\mathrm{mod}N,`$ (31)
which means that this operator is equal to the conditional adder  and can be performed with the help of a simple quantum network as discussed in .

If we take into account the definition of the shift operator $`\widehat{R}_x(n)`$ given by Eq. (12) and the definition of the position and momentum operators $`\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{p}`$ given by Eq. (14) we can rewrite the operator $`\widehat{D}_{ab}`$ as:

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak|\widehat{R}_x^{(b)}(k)|m_bm|`$ (32)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak|\widehat{R}_x^{(b)}(k)=e^{i\widehat{x}_a\widehat{p}_b},`$ (33)
and analogously

$`\widehat{D}_{ab}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k,m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak||(mk)\mathrm{mod}N_bm|`$ (34)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k_ak|\widehat{R}_x^{(b)}(k)=e^{i\widehat{x}_a\widehat{p}_b},`$ (35)
where the superscripts $`a`$ and $`b`$ indicate on which Hilbert space the given operator acts. Now we see that for $`N>2`$ the two operators $`\widehat{D}`$ and $`\widehat{D}^{}`$ do differ; they describe conditional shifts in opposite directions. We see that the generalization of the C-NOT operator are the conditional shifts. The amount by which the target (in our case particle $`b`$) is shifted depends on the state of the control particle ($`a`$).

### A Continuous limit

In the $`N\mathrm{}`$ limit we have to take special care in handling the expressions for the eigenstates of the position and momentum operators . To avoid divergences we have to regularize our states by “smearing” them. In other words, the eigenstate of the operator $`\widehat{x}`$ is replaced by a squeezed displaced state (see e.g., Ref. ) with reduced quadrature fluctuations in the $`\widehat{x}`$ direction (see below). To express these states explicitly we utilize the Wigner function representation, which for pure states is defined as

$`W_{_{|\mathrm{\Psi }}}(x,p)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z\phi _{_{|\mathrm{\Psi }}}(x_{})\phi _{_{|\mathrm{\Psi }}}^{}(x_+)e^{ipz},`$ (36)
where $`x_\pm =(x\pm z/2)`$ and $`\phi _{_{|\mathrm{\Psi }}}(x)`$ is the wave function of the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, i.e., $`\phi _{_{|\mathrm{\Psi }}}(x)=x|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, which in the $`|x`$ basis is expressed as

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x\phi _{_{|\mathrm{\Psi }}}(x)|x,`$ (37)
where we have used the relation $`x|y=\sqrt{2\pi }\delta (xy)`$. The Wigner function $`W_{|\mathrm{\Psi }}(x,p)`$ is a quasi-probability distribution in phase space and is normalized so that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x𝑑pW_{_{|\mathrm{\Psi }}}(x,p)=1,`$ (38)
where $`dxdp/2\pi `$ is the invariant measure in phase space (here we have taken $`\mathrm{}=1`$).

With these definitions we can represent a regularized version of an eigenstate of the position operator $`\widehat{x}`$ with mean value equal to zero, $`|x_0`$, as a state described by the Gaussian Wigner function:

$`W_{_{|x_0}}(x,p)=2\mathrm{exp}(e^{2\xi }x^2e^{2\xi }p^2),`$ (39)
for which the variances of the position and momentum operators are $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{x})^2=\frac{1}{2}e^{2\xi }`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{p})^2=\frac{1}{2}e^{2\xi }`$, respectively. The state (39) is a minimum uncertainty state, i.e., $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{x})(\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{p})=\frac{1}{2}`$ irrespective of the value of the squeezing parameter $`\xi `$. For the mean excitation number we find the expression $`\overline{n}=\mathrm{sinh}^2\xi `$. We see that in the limit $`\xi \mathrm{}`$, the state described by Wigner function (39) is indeed a state with no fluctuations in the $`x`$ direction at the expense of infinite fluctuations in the $`p`$ direction. In other words in the limit $`\xi \mathrm{}`$ the state (39) is an eigenstate of $`\widehat{x}`$.

Analogously a regularized eigenstate of the momentum operator is described by the Wigner function

$`W_{_{|p_0}}(x,p)=2\mathrm{exp}(e^{2\xi }x^2e^{2\xi }p^2),`$ (40)
where for the variances of the position and momentum operators we find $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{x})^2=\frac{1}{2}e^{2\xi }`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{p})^2=\frac{1}{2}e^{2\xi }`$, respectively.

The wave functions corresponding to the states (39) and (40) read

$`\phi _{_{|x_0}}(x)=2^{1/4}e^{\xi /2}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }x^2}{2}}\right),`$ (41)
and

$`\phi _{_{|p_0}}(x)=2^{1/4}e^{\xi /2}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }x^2}{2}}\right),`$ (42)
respectively. We denote the corresponding ket vectors as $`|x_0(\xi )`$ and $`|p_0(\xi )`$, where we have explicitly indicated that these states are regularized versions of two specific eigenstates of the position and momentum operators. The $`x`$-distribution of the state $`\phi _{_{|x_0}}(x)`$ is defined as usual, i.e., $`P_{_{|x_0}}(x)=|\phi _{_{|x_0}}(x)|^2`$ and is normalized to unity as $`𝑑xP_{_{|x_0}}(x)/\sqrt{2\pi }=1`$. This distribution can also be obtained from the Wigner function (39) via integration over $`p`$, i.e.,

$`P_{_{|x_0}}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle 𝑑pW_{_{|x_0}}(x,p)}`$ (43)
$`=`$ $`2^{1/2}e^\xi \mathrm{exp}(e^{2\xi }x^2),`$ (44)
which in the large $`\xi `$ limit gives $`lim_\xi \mathrm{}P_{_{|x_0}}(x)=\sqrt{2\pi }\delta (x)`$, as expected.

In an analogous way we define a maximally entangled two-mode state $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}(\xi )`$ in the continuous limit. Specifically, we define this state in a regularized form for which the Wigner function reads

$`W_{_{|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}}}(x_1,p_1;x_2,p_2)=4\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }}{2}}\left[(x_1x_2)^2+(p_1+p_2)^2\right]{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }}{2}}\left[(x_1+x_2)^2+(p_1p_2)^2\right]\right\}.`$ (45)
This is a Wigner function describing a two-mode squeezed vacuum. If we trace over one of the modes, i.e., if we perform an integration over the parameters $`x_2`$ and $`p_2`$ we obtain from (45) a Wigner function of a thermal field

$`W_{_{\mathrm{th}}}(x_1,p_1)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x_2𝑑p_2W_{_{|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}}}(x_1,p_1;x_2,p_2)`$ (46)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{1+2\overline{n}}}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x_1^2+p_1^2}{1+2\overline{n}}}\right),`$ (47)
where $`\overline{n}=\mathrm{sinh}^2\xi `$ is the mean excitation number in the two-mode squeezed vacuum under consideration. We note that the thermal state (47) is a maximally mixed state (i.e., with the state with the highest value of the von Neumann entropy) for a given mean excitation number. This means that the pure state (45) is the most entangled state for a given mean excitation number. From this it follows that to create a truly maximally entangled state, i.e., the state (45) in the limit $`\xi \mathrm{}`$, an infinite number of quanta is needed and so infinite energy.

The two-mode wave function of the state (45) in the $`x`$-representation reads

$`\phi _{_{|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}}}(x_1;x_2)=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }}{4}}\stackrel{~}{x}_{}^2{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }}{4}}\stackrel{~}{x}_+^2\right),`$ (48)
where $`\stackrel{~}{x}_\pm =(x_1\pm x_2)`$. In what follows we shall denote this regularized version of the maximally entangled state in a semi-infinite Hilbert space as $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}(\xi )`$. Now that we have laid out the formalism, we can resume our discussion.

## III Network for quantum information distribution

We have shown earlier  that to perform quantum cloning we need apart from systems $`1`$ and $`2`$, between which the information is shared, an additional quantum system $`3`$ which mediates the distribution of the quantum information. Following this philosophy, we assume a quantum information distributor to be a two-particle system ($`2`$ and $`3`$) each of the same physical type as the original system $`1`$. Let us assume that the quantum distributor is initially prepared in the most general two-particle pure state

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}={\displaystyle \underset{m,k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}d_{mk}|m_2|k_3.`$ (49)
In analogy with the quantum computational network used in the quantum cloner  we assume the QID network to be

$`\widehat{U}_{123}=\widehat{D}_{31}\widehat{D}_{21}^{}\widehat{D}_{13}\widehat{D}_{12},`$ (50)
with the idea being that the flow of information in the quantum distributor, as described by the unitary operator (50), is governed by the preparation of the distributor itself, i.e., by the choice of the state (49). In other words, we imagine the transformation (50) as a universal “processor” or distributor and the state (49) as “software” through which the information flow is controlled. Using relation (32) we can rewrite the QID transformation as (see also Ref. )

$`\widehat{U}_{123}=\mathrm{exp}[i(\widehat{x}_3\widehat{x}_2)\widehat{p}_1]\mathrm{exp}[i\widehat{x}_1(\widehat{p}_2+\widehat{p}_3)].`$ (51)
The distribution of information encoded in the original particle is performed via a sequence of four conditional shifts $`\widehat{D}`$. The output state of the three particle system after the four controlled shifts are applied is

$`|\mathrm{\Omega }_{123}=\widehat{D}_{31}\widehat{D}_{21}^{}\widehat{D}_{13}\widehat{D}_{12}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}.`$ (52)
The four operators $`\widehat{D}`$ act on the basis vectors $`|n_1|m_2|k_3`$ as

$`\widehat{D}_{31}\widehat{D}_{21}^{}\widehat{D}_{13}\widehat{D}_{12}|n_1|m_2|k_3=|(nm+k)\mathrm{mod}N_1|(m+n)\mathrm{mod}N_2|(k+n)\mathrm{mod}N_3.`$ (53)
As we shall see, the choice of the state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}`$ controls the flow of the quantum information contained in the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ through the QID.

Before examining this issue, however, it is useful to explore the covariance properties of this distributor for any choice of $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}`$. A device is covariant with respect to the transformation $`\widehat{U}`$, if application of $`\widehat{U}`$ to the input, i.e., $`|\mathrm{\Psi }\widehat{U}|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ implies that the output density matrix representing the pair of outputs, $`\widehat{\rho }^{(\mathrm{out})}`$, transforms as

$$\rho ^{(\mathrm{out})}\widehat{U}\widehat{U}\rho ^{(\mathrm{out})}\widehat{U}^1\widehat{U}^1.$$
(54)
When examining whether the distributor is covariant with respect to transformations of the form $`\widehat{R}_x(n)\widehat{R}_p(n)`$, it is sufficient to confirm this covariant action for ‘displacements’ along the $`x`$\- and $`p`$-axis separately, given by $`\widehat{R}_x(n)`$ and $`\widehat{R}_p(n)`$, respectively. If the state to be distributed is $`\widehat{R}_x(n)|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ we find

$$\widehat{R}_x(n)_1|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}\widehat{R}_x(n)_1\widehat{R}_x(n)_2\widehat{R}_x(n)_3|\mathrm{\Omega }_{123},$$
(55)
where $`|\mathrm{\Omega }_{123}`$ is given by Eq. (52). Similarly, if the input state is $`\widehat{R}_p(n)|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$, we have

$$\widehat{R}_p(n)_1|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}\widehat{R}_p(n)_1\widehat{R}_p(n)_2\widehat{R}_p(n)_3|\mathrm{\Omega }_{123}.$$
(56)
Combinations of these two ‘displacements’ act in the natural way, so that if we ‘translate’ the input state by a certain amount, the reduced density matrixes of the three outputs are translated by the same amount, and if we perform a momentum ‘translation’ on the input state, the reduced density matrixes of outputs $`1`$ and $`2`$ are translated in momentum by the same amount, while that of output $`3`$ has its momentum translated by the opposite amount. This implies that this QID is covariant with respect to translations and momentum translations, and that the fidelities of the output reduced density matrixes are unaffected when these transformations are applied to the input.

Having established the covariant action of our distributor in arbitrary dimensions for any input state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}`$, we now wish to determine how this state affects the flow of quantum information in the QID. (i) Let us first assume that the QID state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is initially prepared in the maximally entangled state $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}`$ given by Eq. (22). Taking the original system to be prepared in the state (1) we find after the QID transformation

$`\widehat{U}_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}=|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23},`$ (57)
that system $`1`$ remains in the original state while the QID remains in its initial maximally entangled state $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}`$. This means that even though the three-particle system has interacted via four controlled shifts the total state is unchanged. (ii) Instead, let us assume the QID is initially prepared in the product state

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}=|x_0_2|p_0_3,`$ (58)
where $`|p_0`$ is an eigenstate of the momentum operator with the mean value equal to zero. At the output we then find

$`\widehat{U}_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|x_0_2|p_0_3=|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{13},`$ (59)
which means that the information from the system $`1`$ is completely transfered to the system $`2`$ while at the output the system $`1`$ and $`3`$ are in the maximally entangled state $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{13}`$. Note that the output here is a state-swapped version of the output in Eq. (57).

Since these two cases realize the two extreme situations (no information transfer and complete information transfer) it is natural to ask what is the action of the QID if it is prepared in a linear superposition of the states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}`$ and $`|x_0_2|p_0_3`$. Let us take the input state of the QID to be

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}=\alpha |\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}+\beta |x_0_2|p_0_3,`$ (60)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are real parameters. Note, that from the normalization condition $`\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Phi }=1`$ it follows that these parameters must fulfill the condition

$`\alpha ^2+\beta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha \beta }{N}}=1.`$ (61)
When the QID transformation is applied with the QID initially prepared in the state (60) the output state becomes

$`\widehat{U}_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}=\alpha |\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{23}+\beta |\mathrm{\Psi }_2|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{13}.`$ (62)
Tracing over the systems $`2`$ ($`1`$) and $`3`$ we find the reduced stated for system $`1`$ ($`2`$) at the output to be described by

$`\widehat{\rho }_1^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`(\alpha ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha \beta }{N}})\widehat{\rho }^{(\mathrm{in})}+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2}{N}}\widehat{𝟙};`$ (63)
$`\widehat{\rho }_2^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`(\beta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha \beta }{N}})\widehat{\rho }^{(\mathrm{in})}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{N}}\widehat{𝟙};`$ (64)
$`\widehat{\rho }_3^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha \beta }{N}}\left(\widehat{\rho }^{(\mathrm{in})}\right)^\mathrm{T}+{\displaystyle \frac{(N2\alpha \beta )}{N^2}}\widehat{𝟙},`$ (65)
where $`\widehat{\rho }^{(\mathrm{in})}=|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|`$ is the density operator of the original state of system $`1`$, and $`\left(\widehat{\rho }\right)^\mathrm{T}`$ is the transposed operator.

Taking into account condition (61) we can directly rewrite the last two density operators in the form (3). This means that QID is the covariant transformation which in a controlled way distributes information between the two systems. There is a price to pay for this covariant information distribution which is reflected by the additional noise.

### A Cloner

Let us assume that $`\alpha =\beta `$, i.e., the two outputs (64) are equal. In this case QID acts as a universal quantum cloner for arbitrary dimensions. From (60) we find the initial state of the cloner to be

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2(N+1)}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\left(|x_0_2+|x_m_2\right)|x_m_3.`$ (66)
With this initial QID state the output of the cloner yields two clones of the form

$`\widehat{\rho }_j^{(\mathrm{out})}=s\widehat{\rho }_j^{(\mathrm{in})}+{\displaystyle \frac{1s}{N}}\widehat{𝟙},j=1,2.`$ (67)
The scaling factor $`s`$ is

$`s={\displaystyle \frac{N+2}{2(N+1)}}.`$ (68)
Finally, system $`3`$ of the cloner has a reduced state given by

$`\widehat{\rho }_3^{(\mathrm{out})}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N+1}}\left(\widehat{\rho }^{(\mathrm{in})}\right)^\mathrm{T}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N+1}}\widehat{𝟙},`$ (69)
i.e., this piece of the cloner is left in a state proportional to the transposed state of the original quantum system plus completely random noise.

## IV Continuous limit

In what follows we make a connection between the discrete and the continuous case. The role of the controlled shifts (NOTs) in the continuous limit is obvious — it is a conditional shift down the $`x`$-axis in phase space. Consequently, the QID operator (51) has a clear meaning in the continuous limit. Our goal now is to find the continuous analogue of the initial state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}`$ (60) of the QID. This is rather straightforward: we simply need to use the regularized versions of the states $`|x_0(\xi )`$, $`|p_0(\xi )`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}(\xi )`$ as introduced in Section II. The input state of the QID in the continuous case can then be written as

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }(\xi )_{23}=\alpha |\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}(\xi )_{23}+\beta |x_0(\xi )_2|p_0(\xi )_3.`$ (70)
which in the $`x`$-basis becomes

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }(\xi )_{23}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑x_2𝑑x_3\mu (x_2,x_3)|x_2|x_3},`$ (71)
where

$`\mu (x_2,x_3)=\alpha \psi _{|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}}(x_2,x_3)+\beta \psi _{|x_0}(x_2)\psi _{|p_0}(x_3),`$ (72)
and the Gaussian functions $`\psi _{|x_0}(x_2)`$, $`\psi _{|p_0}(x_3)`$, and $`\psi _{|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}}(x_2,x_3)`$ are defined by Eqs. (41), (42) and (48), respectively.

For finite values of squeezing the states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}(\xi )_{23}`$ and $`|x_0(\xi )_2|p_0(\xi )_3`$ are not mutually orthogonal, therefore, in order to fulfill the normalization condition for the state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }`$ the parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ have to fulfill a condition analogous to (61)

$`\alpha ^2+\beta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha \beta }{\sqrt{4+2\mathrm{sinh}^22\xi }}}=1.`$ (73)
With this initial preparation of the QID, the universal (covariant) information distribution of continuous variables is realized using the network described in (50). The operator $`\widehat{U}_{123}`$ acts on the basis states $`|x_1_1|x_2_2|x_3_3`$ as

$`\widehat{U}_{123}|x_1_1|x_2_2|x_3_3=|z_1_1|z_2_2|z_3_3,`$ (74)
where $`z_1=x_1x_2+x_3`$, $`z_2=x_1+x_2`$, and $`z_3=x_1+x_3`$. Assuming that the original system is initially prepared in the state

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x_1\psi (x_1)|x_1_1},`$ (75)
the output of the QID becomes

$`\widehat{U}_{123}|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|\mathrm{\Phi }(\xi )_{23}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x_1𝑑x_2𝑑x_3\psi (x_1)\mu (x_2,x_3)|x_1x_2+x_3_1|x_1+x_2_2|x_1+x_3_3}.`$ (76)
Upon tracing out modes $`2`$ and $`3`$ we obtain from (76) the density operator describing the original system at the output of the QID:

$`\widehat{\rho }_1^{(\mathrm{out})}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\eta 𝑑x_1𝑑x_1^{}\psi (x_1)\psi ^{}(x_1^{})𝒦(x_1x_1^{};\eta )|x_1+\eta x_1^{}+\eta |},`$ (77)
where the integral kernel $`𝒦(x_1x_1^{};\eta )`$ is given by the expression

$`𝒦(x_1x_1^{};\eta )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\chi \mu (\frac{\chi \eta }{2}x_1;\frac{\chi +\eta }{2}x_1)\mu (\frac{\chi \eta }{2}x_1^{};\frac{\chi +\eta }{2}x_1^{})}.`$ (78)
From the fact that the trace of the density matrix (77) is equal to unity we find that the integral kernel (78) has to fulfill the condition

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\eta 𝒦(0;\eta )}=1.`$ (79)
The kernel itself can be expressed in the form

$`𝒦(\overline{x}_1;\eta )=\alpha ^2𝒦_1(\overline{x}_1;\eta )+\beta ^2𝒦_2(\overline{x}_1;\eta )+\alpha \beta 𝒦_3(\overline{x}_1;\eta ),`$ (80)
where we have introduced the notation $`\overline{x}_1=x_1x_1^{}`$. Using the explicit expressions for the wave functions describing the input state of the QID we find for the kernel functions

$`𝒦_1(\overline{x}_1;\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`e^\xi \mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }}{2}}\overline{x}_1^2{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }}{2}}\eta ^2\right)`$ (81)
$`𝒦_2(\overline{x}_1;\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{cosh}2\xi }}}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cosh}2\xi }{2}}\overline{x}_1^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\mathrm{cosh}2\xi }}\eta ^2\right)`$ (82)
$`𝒦_3(\overline{x}_1;\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{3e^{2\xi }+e^{2\xi }}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{e^{4\xi }(1+e^{4\xi })\overline{x}_1^2+(2+\mathrm{sinh}^22\xi )\eta ^2}{3e^{2\xi }+e^{2\xi }}}\right]`$ (84)
$`\times \left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{e^{4\xi }(1e^{4\xi })\overline{x}_1}{3e^{2\xi }+e^{2\xi }}}\right]+\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{e^{4\xi }(1+e^{4\xi })\overline{x}_1}{3e^{2\xi }+e^{2\xi }}}\right]\right\}.`$
It is now easy to check that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\eta 𝒦_1(0;\eta )}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\eta 𝒦_2(0;\eta )}=1`$ (85)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\eta 𝒦_3(0;\eta )}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\sqrt{4+2\mathrm{sinh}^22\xi }}},`$ (86)
from which it follows that the kernel $`𝒦(0;\eta )`$ satisfies condition (79).

In what follows we utilize the Wigner-function formalism to analyze the performance of the cloning machine. We find a Wigner $`W(x,p)_1^{(out)}`$ of the output state (77) which we express as a convolution of the Wigner function $`W_1^{(\mathrm{in})}(x,p)`$ of the input mode and the Wigner function $`W^𝒦(x,p)`$ of the kernel (80):

$`W(x,p)_1^{(out)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}𝑑p^{}W^𝒦(x^{},p^{})},`$ (87)
$`\times `$ $`W_1^{(\mathrm{in})}(xx^{},p+p^{})`$ (88)
where

$`W^𝒦(x^{},p^{})={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle 𝑑ze^{ip^{}z}𝒦(z,x^{})}.`$ (89)
From our definitions it follows that

$`W^𝒦(x^{},p^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^2W^{𝒦_1}(x^{},p^{})+\beta ^2W^{𝒦_2}(x^{},p^{})`$ (90)
$`+`$ $`\alpha \beta W^{𝒦_3}(x^{},p^{})`$ (91)
where $`W^{𝒦_j}(x^{},p^{})`$ are the Wigner functions of the kernels $`𝒦_j`$ ($`j=1,2,3`$). We can easily check that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}𝑑p^{}W^𝒦(x^{},p^{})}=1`$ (92)
which is equivalent to the condition (79).

From Eq.(81) we find the Wigner function $`W^{𝒦_1}(x^{},p^{})`$

$`W^{𝒦_1}(x^{},p^{})=e^{2\xi }\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }}{2}}(x^2+p^2)\right],`$ (93)
which in the limit of large squeezing reads

$`W^{𝒦_1}(x^{},p^{})2\pi \delta (x^{})\delta (p^{}).`$ (94)
The Wigner function $`W^{𝒦_2}(x^{},p^{})`$ of the kernel (82) reads

$`W^{𝒦_2}(x^{},p^{})={\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+2\overline{n}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(x^2+p^2)}{2(1+2\overline{n})}}\right],`$ (95)
where we have used the notation $`\overline{n}=\mathrm{sinh}^2\xi `$, so that $`\mathrm{cosh}2\xi =1+2\overline{n}`$. We note that this Wigner function for large squeezing (i.e. the large $`\overline{n}`$ limit) is equal to the Wigner function of a thermal state (47) with the mean number of excitations equal to $`2\overline{n}`$ !

Analogously we can evaluate the explicit expression for the Wigner function $`W^{𝒦_3}(x^{},p^{})`$ of the kernel (84). This is rather cumbersome, and, since we are interested only in the large squeezing limit, we present the corresponding Wigner function only in this limit

$`W^{𝒦_3}(x^{},p^{})2\sqrt{2}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\xi }}{4}}(x^2+p^2)\right],`$ (96)
which in the large $`\xi `$ limit can be formally expressed as

$`W^{𝒦_3}(x^{},p^{})8\sqrt{2}\pi e^{2\xi }\delta (x^{})\delta (p^{}).`$ (97)
Now we can give the explicit expression for the Wigner function, $`W_1^{(\mathrm{out})}(x,p)`$, of the output mode 1 for which we find

$`W_1^{(\mathrm{out})}(x,p)=\alpha ^2W_1^{(\mathrm{in})}(x,p)+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}𝑑p^{}W_1^{(\mathrm{in})}(xx^{},pp^{})W^{𝒦_2}(x^{},p^{})}+4\sqrt{2}e^{2\xi }\alpha \beta W_1^{(\mathrm{in})}(x,p)`$ (98)
We note that in the large $`\xi `$ limit the third term in the right-hand side of Eq.(98) will vanish due to the factor $`e^{2\xi }`$. Taking into account that in the large squeezing (i.e. large $`\overline{n}`$) limit the function $`W^{𝒦_2}(x,p)`$ is essentially equal to a Wigner function of a thermal field (47) with a mean excitation number of $`2\overline{n}`$ (we will denote this Wigner function as $`W_{\mathrm{th}}(x,p;2\overline{n})`$), we can rewrite the Wigner function (98) at the output of the QID as

$`W_1^{(\mathrm{out})}(x,p)=\alpha ^2W_1^{(\mathrm{in})}(x,p)`$ (99)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}𝑑p^{}W_1^{(\mathrm{in})}(x^{},p^{})W_{\mathrm{th}}(xx^{},pp^{};2\overline{n})}.`$ (100)
Therefore, the output Wigner function is simply $`\alpha ^2`$ times the input Wigner function plus $`\beta ^2`$ times the convolution of the input Wigner function and that of a thermal state.

Finally we evaluate the fidelity of the QID transformation which is defined as

$`_j`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{\rho }_j^{(\mathrm{out})}|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ (101)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑x𝑑pW_1^{(\mathrm{in})}(x,p)W_j^{(\mathrm{out})}(x,p)}.`$ (102)
In the large squeezing limit the fidelity (102) can be approximated as

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑x𝑑p𝑑x^{}𝑑p^{}W^{(\mathrm{in})}(x,p)W_{\mathrm{th}}(xx^{},pp^{},2\overline{n})W^{(\mathrm{in})}(x^{},p^{})}`$ (103)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{2\overline{n}+1}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x𝑑x^{}|\psi (x)|^2|\psi (x^{})|^2e^{(xx^{})^2/2(2\overline{n}+1)}}.`$ (104)
The integrals on the right-hand side of this equation are less than or equal to $`1`$, so that the entire right-hand side goes to zero as $`1/\overline{n}`$ as $`\overline{n}\mathrm{}`$. Therefore, we find that in the large squeezing limit, the fidelity of the QID is indeed input-state independent, and $`_1=\alpha ^2`$ while $`_2=\beta ^2`$.

### A Universal continuous cloner

If in the limit $`\xi \mathrm{}`$ we take $`\alpha ^2=\beta ^2=\frac{1}{2}`$ then the transformations described above describe the symmetric cloner. In the limit $`\xi \mathrm{}`$, the fidelity of the output density matrices to the original state is $`\frac{1}{2}`$. This is consistent with what we expect from the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ limit of Eq. (67).

The fact that in the continuous case the fidelity of the copies is $`\frac{1}{2}`$ is suggestive; it makes one think of a coin toss. In fact, one can construct a continuous (universal) cloner, which is much simpler than the one given above but achieves the same fidelity, whose most important component is a flipping coin . This cloner has two inputs, one for the state we wish to clone and one for a completely random state (ideally an infinite temperature thermal state). What the cloner does is to flip a coin, and if the result is heads, the original input state is sent to output $`1`$ and the random state to output $`2`$. If instead the result is tails, the input state is sent to output $`2`$ and the random state to output $`1`$. Assuming that, on average, the overlap between the input state and the random state is small, this “cloner” will clone the input with a fidelity of $`\frac{1}{2}`$. From this we can conclude that for continuous quantum systems the universal cloner is effectively a completely classical device. Indeed, one can verify that in this limit there is no entanglement between systems $`1`$ and $`2`$ of the outgoing particles. This is not true in any finite dimensional case. Taking this classical distribution as a hint, we can see that this type of continuous cloner is easily generalized to the case of an arbitrary number of inputs, $`M_{\mathrm{in}}`$, and an arbitrary number of outputs, $`M_{\mathrm{out}}`$, with $`M_{\mathrm{out}}M_{\mathrm{in}}`$. In this case the fidelity of cloning is just $`M_{\mathrm{in}}/M_{\mathrm{out}}`$, which agrees with Werner’s result  for the optimal cloner in the infinite dimensional limit.

## V Conclusions

We have shown that for any dimension, the optimal universal quantum cloner can be constructed from essentially the same quantum circuit, i.e., what we have is a universal design for universal cloners. In the case of infinite dimensions (which includes continuous variable quantum systems) the universal cloner reduces to a classical device. By contrast, Cerf, et al., have shown that if one designs a continuous cloner optimized to copy certain sets of states, then one can achieve higher fidelities than those available to the truly universal cloners studied here . In particular, they showed that it is possible to design a cloner that will copy any coherent state with a fidelity of $`2/3`$. Their cloner also fits within the structure of the QID analyzed here if one chooses the initial cloner state as

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi ^2}}𝑑x_2𝑑x_3\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{x_2^2+x_3^2}{2}\right)|x_2|x_2+x_3.$$
(105)
It is interesting to note that this cloner also produces approximate versions of the transpose of coherent states at its third output. The transpose of the coherent state $`|z`$ is $`|z^{}`$. If the input to the cloner is $`|z`$, then $`\widehat{\rho }_3^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ is a Gaussian state (that is, $`x|\widehat{\rho }_3^{(\mathrm{out})}|x^{}`$ is a Gaussian) that is concentrated about the point $`z^{}`$ in phase space. It is, however, more spread out than a coherent state, and its fidelity with the actual transposed state is $`1/8`$.

For continuous systems, these specialized cloners will be more useful than the universal one. Because of their covariance properties, they will clone any two states that differ by only a translation in phase space with the same fidelity. For example, the fact that the cloner in Ref.  clones the vacuum with fidelity $`2/3`$ implies that it clones all coherent states with the same fidelity. One can easily imagine generalizing this result and designing cloners to optimally clone entire classes of states; if by choosing the correct $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{23}`$, the cloner has been optimized to clone a particular state, $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, by covariance it will automatically be optimal for all states generated from $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ by displacements in phase space. For finite dimensional systems, however, universal cloners do better than classical devices and the simple universal circuit presented here shows how they may be constructed.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Gerard Milburn for helpful discussion. This work was supported by the IST project EQUIP under the contract IST-1999-11053 and by the National Science Foundation under grant PHY-9970507. V.B. acknowledges a support from the University of Queensland Traveling Scholarship. SLB was supported in part under project QUICOV under the IST-FET-QIPC programme.


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# Superclustering of Faint Galaxies in the Field of a QSO Concentration at 𝑧∼1.1 1footnote 11footnote 1Based on observations obtained with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-meter telescope, which is owned and operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium.

## 1 Introduction

Superclusters are the largest recognizable structures in the universe, and thus retain the imprint of primordial density fluctuations in a fairly direct manner. Due to several observational difficulties in detecting such weak clustering over large scales at higher redshifts, however, only a few superstructures at $`z>0.5`$ are currently identified (e.g. Connolly et al. 1996; Lubin et al. 2000). Oort, Arp, & de Riter (1981) pointed out that concentrations of QSOs/AGNs, which are relatively easy to identity, may be possible sites for such superclusters at higher redshifts.

Crampton et al. (1988, 1989) discovered an unusual concentration of 23 QSOs at $`z1.1`$ in $`2.2\times 2.2`$ deg2 field denoted as 1338+27. Subsequent observations by Hutchings et al. (1993, 1995) and by Yamada et al. (1997) revealed an excess of faint galaxies near several QSOs in the concentration. These findings suggest either that the QSOs are located in isolated rich associations of galaxies or that those QSOs and the galaxies trace the underlying large-scale structure in a similar manner. While either interpretation has an interesting implication for the origin and evolution of spatial biasing of QSOs and galaxies at high redshifts, previous observations are not able to discriminate between the above two possibilities due to the limited size of the observed fields. We carried out a new deep optical imaging observation of galaxies in the $`48^{}\times 9^{}`$ region including the highest density peak of the QSO concentration at $`z=1.1`$, and found that there are several concentrations of galaxies whose color and magnitude are consistent with old galaxies at $`z1.1`$. While they do not seem to be directly associated with any particular QSO, they show clustering over the entire QSO group in our observed area. This indicates that both those galaxies and QSOs are the tracers of much larger-scale structure (possibly even as large as the whole cluster scale of 23 QSOs), perhaps similar to the “Great Wall” in the local universe (de Lapparent, Geller, & Huchra, 1986).

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. After briefly describing our observations and data reduction in §2, we present the results of an object finding analysis and the resulting density map (§3.2). The color-magnitude diagram and the luminosity function for the detected high-density regions are considered in §3.3. A further analysis by angular correlation functions for the whole survey region is described in §3.4. Finally we summarize our findings and discuss their interpretation and implications in §4. We assume the Hubble constant $`H_0=50`$km/s/Mpc, the density parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1`$, and the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ throughout the paper.

## 2 Deep imaging of galaxies near the 1338+27 field

We observed the $`48^{}\times 9^{}`$ region around the highest density peak of five QSOs in the 1338+27 field (Fig. 2 of Crampton et al. 1989) in Kron-Cousins–like R and I bands on Feb 23 to 25, 1998 using the SPIcam instrument on the 3.5-meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory (APO). We obtained the images of the two adjacent scan regions (Fig. 1) where the group of the five QSOs at $`z1.1`$ (Crampton et al., 1989) exists; four of them are located in the A-scan (QSO #1 at $`z=1.113`$, #3 at $`z=1.116`$, #4 at $`z=1.086`$ and #5 at $`z=1.124`$), and the other one in the B-scan (QSO #2 at $`z=1.124`$). The observations were performed in TDI (time-delay–and–integrate) mode with a scanning speed of 0.2 times sidereal, i.e., $`3^{\prime \prime }`$/second. We operated the SPIcam in the $`2\times 2`$ binning mode, and the resulting pixel size and the field of view of each frame are 0.282′′ and $`4^{}.78\times 4^{}.78`$, respectively. The net integration time for each object in a scan is thus 96 seconds, and we repeated the scans of both A and B regions five times in each band. The sky was almost clear and photometric during the exposures and the seeing was $`1.2^{\prime \prime }1.5^{\prime \prime }`$. Details of the reduction procedures are described in Tanaka (2000).

After flat-fielding orthogonal to the scanning direction, we obtained $`R`$ and $`I`$ images with superior homogeneity across the whole area. Object detection and photometry used the SExtractor package ver 2.0 (Bertin & Arnouts, 1996). We executed detection on the $`R`$ and $`I`$ combined frame with a detection threshold of $`2.1\sigma `$ and with a $`3\times 3`$ top-hat convolution kernel. We adopted the SExtractor “MAG\_BEST” output as the “total” magnitude of objects, while we measured the color of objects on the seeing-matched registered frames using a fixed circular aperture with $`2.8^{\prime \prime }`$ diameter. We performed the photometric calibration using our calibrated deep images taken with the Issac Newton Telescope (Yamada et al., 1997; Tanaka et al., 2000) whose observed field significantly overlaps that of the current survey. Unsaturated and compact objects (mostly stars) detected in both images were used for the photometric calibration.

In Figure 2, we show the galaxy number counts as well as the star counts in each scan region. We classify objects as “stars” when SExtractor the “stellarity” index is over 0.90. Figure 2 shows that the star-galaxy classification is mostly complete up to $`I22`$. In total, we have detected 10370 objects among which 584 objects are classified as stars and removed from the analysis below.

Although the star counts in the A-Scan region are systematically higher than those in the B-Scan below $`I22`$ mag., which may be due to the slightly different seeing size, the effect of the mis-classification on our analysis below is estimated to be negligible since the source counts at such faint magnitude are dominated by galaxies.

The “turn-around” magnitude in the galaxy number counts is around $`I23.5`$ for both the scans. The good agreement of the counts in the two scan regions indicates that the quality of the images is globally the same. There is a slight excess of the number of faint galaxies in the A-Scan below $`I=22`$ mag. It is partially due to the effect of a rich clusters of galaxies near the eastern edge in the A-Scan 222The estimated redshift of the cluster is $`z0.5`$, with the overlap of another poorer cluster at $`z0.30.4`$. Both clusters are not reported previously. We find that the latter cluster is the counterpart of a radio source 7C 1337+2818 (Waldram et al. 1996). The FIRST radio image (at the URL http://sundog.stsci.edu/) shows that three faint sources are closely located at coordinates and the two western sources may be associated with the cluster at $`z0.5`$. and partially due to the population of galaxies studied in this paper.

Since we focus on the difference between the A-Scan (QSO clustered area) and the B-Scan (comparison field) regions in the analysis below, we carefully compared the detection efficiency of the two scans using simulations of artificial objects (Tanaka 2000) and confirmed that the object detection in both scans is quite homogeneous up to the nominal completeness limit of $`I23.5`$. The photometric accuracy is evaluated as $`0.2`$ mag at $`I22.5`$ mag and $`0.5`$ mag at $`I23.5`$ mag (see errorbars in Fig. 5), and is almost the same in each scan. Magnitudes of objects in the overlapped region of the A-Scan and the B-Scan were also examined. They agree with an r.m.s. of $`<0.05`$ magnitude.

## 3 Detection of clustering of faint galaxies in the field

### 3.1 Expected galaxy colors and magnitudes at $`z=1.1`$

Since we do not have the redshift of each identified object, the projection along the line of sight significantly weakens the signature of the possible clustering of objects at $`z1.1`$. Thus we select candidates in the corresponding redshift range according to their color and magnitude. Figure 3 plots the color tracks of model galaxies as a function of redshift calculated on the basis of a spectral synthesis model by Kodama & Arimoto (1997). In the figure, solid lines labeled as “Coma C-M model” indicate the models of passively-evolving old galaxies. They are calibrated by the color-magnitude (C-M) relation of the Coma cluster and are known to reproduce the evolutionary trend of the cluster early-type galaxies up to $`z1.2`$ (Bower, Kodama, & Terlevich, 1998; Stanford, Eisenhardt, & Dickinson, 1998; Kajisawa et al., 2000b). The dashed line labeled “Tau Model” corresponds to a model with star formation rate $`\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau )`$ and $`\tau =4`$ Gyr, which may be appropriate for late-type disk galaxies (Lilly et al., 1998).

Figure 3 indicates that the color criterion $`1.4<RI<1.5`$ is suitable to photometrically select passively-evolving old galaxies at $`z>0.7`$. We also calculate the apparent magnitude for the “gE” model galaxy ($`M_V=22`$ mag. at 12-Gyrs old or $`z=0`$). It monotonically decreases and becomes $`I=21.5`$ mag at $`z=1.1`$. Considering these models as well as the photometric uncertainties, we finally set two photometric criteria, $`1.2<RI<1.6`$ & $`I>21`$, to extract cluster galaxies at $`z1.1`$ from the whole sample.

We note that there are several observational supports for the criterion that we adopt here. Tanaka et al. (2000) show that the brightest galaxy seen in the color-magnitude sequence of the cluster around B2 1335+28 at $`z1.1`$ (Q#4 in Fig. 1) has $`I=21.4`$ and $`RI=1.44`$. The color and magnitude of the spectroscopically-confirmed brightest galaxies in the two clusters at $`z1.26`$ and $`1.27`$ studied by Rosati et al. (1999) would have $`RI1.5`$ and $`I20.5`$ if they were at $`z=1.1`$. Star-forming galaxies at $`z1`$ studied by Le Fèbre et al. (1994) have magnitudes $`I>21`$ and converted colors of $`RI>1`$.

### 3.2 Surface density map of the observed area

The Top panel of Figure 4 shows the map of identified objects satisfying the criteria $`1.2<RI<1.6`$ and $`21<I<23.5`$. The faintest end, $`I=23.5`$ is the nominal completeness limit of the data. While this map already suggests that the clustering of those galaxies is weakly correlated with the locations of the QSOs as a whole, this feature is visually more significant from the density map (the Bottom panel). The latter map is constructed from galaxy number counts on regular meshes whose size is $`100\times 100`$ pixels2 $`=28^{\prime \prime }\times 28^{\prime \prime }`$ with additional Gaussian smoothing with a rms of 100 pixels to “clean” the small-scale clustering in the map (see Tanaka 2000 for further details).

The most distinctive excess in the bottom panel is at around QSO #4. In fact this clump corresponds to the cluster at $`z1.1`$ identified previously by Yamada et al. (1997) and Tanaka et al. (2000), and its richness is at least between those of the Virgo and the Coma clusters. For reference, the expected number of $`R0`$ clusters at $`0.7<z<1.3`$ in the area is less than unity at this depth (Postman et al., 1996).

To check whether these red galaxy clumps are consistent with clusters at $`z=1.1`$, we identify the most significant ones ($`>2.5\sigma `$) and then closely examine the color and magnitude distribution of galaxies in these regions. There are five clumps above this threshold as labeled in Figure 4.

We found that the clump labeled as “cl\_4” has galaxies systematically bluer and brighter than the others and therefore concluded that cl\_4 clump is likely to be a foreground cluster (probably at $`z0.7`$) which is not well distinguished from the $`z=1.1`$ system by our selection criteria. Indeed, the brightest red galaxy in the clump has $`I=20.3`$. We thus neglect this clump in all further analysis.

Assuming that the remaining four clumps of red galaxies are located at the same redshift of $`z=1.1`$ (see next subsections for the further discussion), we estimated their richness. Here we used the $`N_{0.5}`$ parameter of Hill & Lilly (1991), the number of galaxies in the magnitude range between $`m_1`$ and $`m_1+3`$ within a 0.5 Mpc radius around the cluster.

The results are summarized in Table 1. Column 2 shows the results for the whole sample of galaxies after the field correction using the counts in the whole B-Scan region where no conspicuous density excess exists. Poisson errors are assumed. Column 3 shows the results for the red-galaxy subsample with $`0.8<RI<2.0`$. The color selection helps reducing the uncertainly of the field correction since the majority of the cluster galaxies at $`z=1.1`$ are expected to lie within this color range (note however that this choice may exclude some star-forming very blue galaxies: see Fig. 3). Column 4 is the estimated Abell richness class based on the calibration by Hill & Lilly (1991). Note that the magnitude range is very close to our completeness limit, so the actual $`N_{0.5}`$ value could be slightly larger than those derived from our data.

Table 1 shows that those red clumps generally have Abell richness class $`01`$ and may be relatively poor clusters except for cl\_2. Since cl\_2, near QSO#4, shows fairly lumpy and extended structure, we also estimate $`N_{0.5}`$ in the area centered on the QSO (the third row). The area does not overlap with cl\_2 region, but the count is still large. These results agree with those in Tanaka et al. (2000) based on deeper images of this small region.

### 3.3 Color-magnitude relation and luminosity function of the detected galaxy clumps

In order to make sure that the visual clustering pattern in Figure 4 is indeed associated with galaxies located at $`z1.1`$, we have to show that their colors and magnitudes are consistent with those expected for the galaxies at that redshift.

The combined C-M diagram is plotted in Figure 5. All the galaxies located on the $`500\times 500`$ pixel2 area ($`=1.2\times 1.2h_{50}^2`$ Mpc2) around the four clumps defined in the previous section are shown in the upper panel. Galaxies in the richest clump cl\_2 are shown in open squares, while the others are indicated by filled circles. A distinctive sequence around $`RI=1.41.6`$ is clearly seen in the diagram, which shows excellent agreement with the expected color of passively-evolving old galaxies at $`z1.1`$ (the horizontal line). Even if we exclude the contribution of the richest clump (the lower panel) the red sequence can be recognized clearly. We also see that there is no systematic difference in the colors of the red sequence among these three clumps.

Next we examine the luminosity function (LF) of the galaxies in the clumps. The LFs of $`I`$-band selected “red” galaxies in the CFRS (Lilly et al., 1995) are fitted by the Schechter form (Schechter 1976) with $`M_B^{}=22.89`$ for a $`0.75<z<1.00`$ sample. The extrapolation of the Virgo cluster LF ($`M_B^{}=21.4`$: Sandage et al.1985; Colles 1989; Lumsden et al.1997) assuming passive evolution predicts $`M_B^{}=22.9`$ at $`z=1.1`$. Note that De Propris et al.(1999) and Kajisawa et al.(2000a) showed that the $`m^{}`$ value in near-infrared $`K`$-band LFs for clusters at $`z<1`$ is fully consistent with passive evolution.

We now wish to compare these $`M_B^{}`$ values with those of the galaxies in the four red clumps detected in our survey. Assuming that they are all located at the same redshift, we combine the data of all the clumps and fit them to the Schechter function. In order to reduce the uncertainty in the field correction, we again use the “red galaxy” sample ($`RI>0.8`$) for the analysis (Note that our applied color criteria is similar to the criteria used for “red” galaxies in the CFRS). The field correction is made using the counts of the B-Scan region. Since our data are not sufficiently deep to allow a fit of the faint-end slope $`\alpha `$ and $`M^{}`$ simultaneously, we fix the slope at $`\alpha =0.9`$ following De Propris et al.(1999) and Kajisawa et al.(2000a) and then calculate the best-fit value of $`M^{}`$.

Figure 6 shows the results. For comparison, the luminosity function of galaxies excluding those in the richest clump cl\_2 is also plotted in open triangles. The counts for each clump are also summarized in Table 2. The standard $`\chi ^2`$-fit to the Schechter function yields $`m^{}(I)=22.18_{0.3}^{+0.7}`$ for the combined sample. Using the SED template of the passive evolution model with 3.25 Gyr old galaxies at $`z=1.1`$, this translates to an absolute $`B`$-band magnitude of $`M_B^{}=22.99`$. Our $`M_B^{}`$ value agrees with the result of CFRS as well as that expected from the local cluster LF, which clearly supports the idea that these clumps of red galaxies are located at $`z1.1`$, the same redshift as the QSO group.

### 3.4 Angular correlation function

Lastly we investigate the clustering of the faint galaxy population more quantitatively using the angular two-point correlation function $`\omega (\theta )`$. For this purpose, we construct several color-selected subsamples, and compute the auto-correlation functions of each subsample, $`\omega _{ii}`$, and the cross-correlation functions between two different subsamples of galaxies, $`\omega _{ij}`$. We use the Landy & Szalay (1993) estimator for the former, $`\omega _{ii}(\theta )=(DD_{ii}2DR_{ii}+RR_{ii})/RR_{ii}`$, and $`\omega _{ij}(\theta )=DD_{ij}/RR_{ij}1`$ for the latter, where $`DD`$, $`RR`$, and $`DR`$ are the data-data, random-random, and data-random pairs of separation between $`\theta d\theta /2`$ and $`\theta +d\theta /2`$, and the subscripts $`i`$ and $`j`$ refer to different subsamples. Error-bars are calculated by the standard boot-strap resampling method with 100–500 random resamplings (e.g. Barrow, Bhavsar, & Sonoda 1984). We did not apply the integral constraint correction or the correction for star-galaxy misclassification (e.g. Postman et al. 1998), since our analysis is based on the inter-comparison of signals between the A-Scan and the B-Scan regions. We note that both corrections tend to enhance the amplitude of the measured correlation signal, albeit only slightly.

The resulting angular correlation functions are plotted in Figure 7. Solid and dashed lines correspond to the results for the A-Scan and the B-Scan, respectively. While the clustering amplitudes for such faint galaxies are generally very weak, we see a strong signal for red ($`1.3<RI<2.0`$) galaxies in the A-Scan region (the middle-left panel in Figure 7). This is in marked contrast with blue galaxies ($`0.9<RI<1.3`$) which do not show appreciable auto-correlation anywhere. A similar color-selected correlation study by Woods & Fahlman (1997), whose sample has a similar depth and width to our data, showed that $`\omega (\theta )`$ for the red ($`RI>1`$ or $`>1.5`$) galaxy subsample is $`0.005`$ at $`\theta =35`$ arcsec. Our result for the red ($`1.3<RI<2.0`$) galaxy subsample in the B-Scan region and the blue ($`0.9<RI<1.3`$) galaxy subsample agrees with their result within the errors. In contrast, our detected signal for the A-Scan region is an order of magnitude stronger than that in such typical fields.

Since the clustering signal for red galaxies becomes significantly weaker when we exclude the contribution of the four clumps (by removing the galaxies within a 1.2-Mpc radius for the richest cl\_2 and a 0.6-Mpc radius for the others), it is indeed caused by the existence of these high-density clumps. The thin dot-dashed lines in the middle right panel show the systematic trend of the decreasing clustering signal as the clumps are removed one-by-one. A large decrease occurs when we exclude the cl\_2 area, but a still significant clustering amplitude remains from the contribution of the other three clumps.

We also detect a slightly weaker but robust cross-correlation between blue and red galaxies, which is insensitive to the presence of the four clumps. Although we examined cross-correlations for the various color ranges, we did not find a similar signal between the other subsamples. Since the cross-correlation persists between the $`0.9<RI<1.1`$ and $`1.4<RI<2.0`$ subsamples, this cannot be ascribed to scatter of the observed color (due to photometric errors) of the red objects. This indicates that the A-Scan region contains a clustering of very red galaxies and somewhat bluer galaxies. The color range showing the signal corresponds to early-type ellipticals ($`1.3<RI<2.0`$) and the mildly star-forming normal spiral galaxies ($`0.9<RI<1.3`$) at $`z=1.1`$. One would normally expect that the majority of galaxies with bluer colors would be in the foreground of these red galaxies (see Fig. 3) and would not yield a significant cross-correlation signal. Further analysis indicates that this surprising signal may not be localized in any one area of the A-Scan region but rather is due to a diffuse structure extended over the whole region (Tanaka 2000).

## 4 Conclusions and discussion

We have detected a strong clustering signal for the faint red galaxies in the $`48^{}\times 9^{}`$ region around a tight group of five QSOs in the 1338+27 field. This structure does not seem to be confined to regions adjacent to each QSO (see Fig. 4), but rather preferentially exists only in the A-Scan region where four of the five QSOs lie; it might even extend over the entire 23 QSO concentration at $`z1.1`$. The color-magnitude relation, the luminosity function and the angular correlation functions of those faint galaxies consistently indicate that the clustered galaxies are located at a similar redshift to the QSO concentration. This suggests that those galaxies together with the five QSOs may both trace underlying large-scale cosmic structure at $`z1.1`$.

The elongated morphology and size of $`2`$ by $`20h_{50}^1`$ Mpc of the structure is indeed typical of the known superclusters at low and intermediate redshifts. Jaaniste et al. (1998) studied a sample of 42 low-redshift ($`z<0.12`$) superclusters and concluded that elongated filamentary morphology with a size of few Mpc by several tens of Mpc is typical for the poor ($`N_{cl}<8`$) superclusters. There are also examples of superclusers at intermediate redshift: The cl0016 supercluster at $`z0.54`$ identified in Koo et al.(1985) has a thin sheet-like structure with a size of 62 by 24 by $`8h_{50}^1`$ Mpc (Connolly et al. 1996). The supercluster at $`z0.9`$ studied by Lubin et al.(2000) also has an extent of $`10h_{50}^1`$ Mpc. However, the $`z=1.26`$ system investigated by Rosati et al.(1999) has a projected scale of only $`2h_{50}^1`$ Mpc.

In addition to the strong auto-correlation signal of the red galaxies in the four highest density clumps, we have also found a weak but persistent cross-correlation between blue and red galaxies. It is not caused by the galaxies in the regions of the four clumps alone but is likely to come from the whole A-Scan region. We speculate that if the structure in our surveyed region is really a supercluster at $`z=1.1`$, the significant cross-correlation between blue and red galaxies may originate from the association of early-type galaxies and relatively blue disk galaxies in groups distributed between the four richest clumps of red galaxies. In nearby cosmic structures such an association is typically seen(Postman & Geller, 1984; Zabludoff & Mulchaey, 1998). Indeed, Davis & Geller (1976) also detected a significant angular cross-correlation between ellipticals and spiral galaxies using a large-area catalog that contains the Local Supercluster.

Finally, we also briefly discuss the immediate environment of the five individual QSOs. QSO#4 (B2 1335+28) is the only radio-loud quasar (RLQ) in our field. Although RLQs often reside in the central regions of clusters (e.g. Ellingson & Yee 1994), Sánchez & González-Serrano (1999) found that several RLQs at $`z>1`$ are also located in the outskirts of cluster regions. In our case, Tanaka et al.(2000) showed that QSO#4 also resides on the northern edge of the distribution of the cluster galaxies.

A possible association of a low-significance (2 $`\sigma `$) clump of red galaxies with a radio-quiet QSO (RQQ) Q#1 is seen in the density map of Figure 4. Indeed, Hutchings et al. (1995) argued that there is a 3-$`\sigma `$ excess of faint (but $`I<22`$) blue ($`RI<1.0`$) galaxies in this location. They also detected some emission-line galaxy candidates around QSOs #1 and #2. We examined the C-M diagram of the galaxies around the density peak near Q#1. Sequences of galaxies can be recognized around $`RI=1.11.3`$ and $`RI0.7`$ but they are too blue to be old passively-evolving galaxies at $`z=1.1`$. Furthermore, the brightest galaxy in the redder C-M sequence, which lies at the center of the clustering, has $`I=19.5`$ and therefore is too bright for a quiescent brightest cluster galaxy at $`z=1.1`$. Thus, the weak density excess in the red galaxy distribution near QSO#1 may be a chance projection of a foreground cluster, while our data do not rule out the existence of a group of blue galaxies associated with QSO #1. There is no significant density peak coincident with QSO#2, QSO#3, or QSO#5

Thus, all four RQQs seem not to be associated directly with rich clusters/groups. It is generally believed that RQQs avoid cluster environments and are fairly isolated (Yee & Green, 1984; Boyle & Couch, 1993; Teplitz, McLean, & Malkan, 1999). Our result agrees with the general trend, even though our RQQs are strongly clustered. When we consider the distribution of the QSOs and the clumps of red galaxies globally, however, we note that RQQs may preferentially reside farther into the outskirts of galaxy clusters. Yee (1990) also reported such a trend based on a study of low-redshift RQQ environments.

To date there have been only a few other observational attempts to directly relate the clustering of AGNs and superclusters (Ford et al. 1983; Longo 1991; Ellingson & Yee 1994). On the other hand, several extensive studies searching for large-scale clustering of QSOs/AGNs have already been performed (e.g. Oort et al. 1981; West 1991; Graham, Clowes, & Campusano 1995; Komberg, Kravtsov, & Lukash 1996). More homogeneous samples of such AGN groups/clusters are likely to be constructed from the 2dF QSO survey and the Sloan Digitized Sky Survey. Clearly, more extensive studies that determine the relationship of such AGN groups and superclusters to underlying large scale structure are of great importance.

The detected signature of the putative supercluster at $`z=1.1`$ may be the first direct indication of the association of QSOs and a high-$`z`$ supercluster. Certain confirmation of this picture, however, must await spectroscopic follow-up observations of the field with 8–10-m-class telescopes. We are currently planning to carry out multi-slit spectroscopic follow-up observations of galaxies in the A-Scan region using the Subaru 8.2-m Telescope. We will also extend the survey area to the whole concentration of 23 QSOs at $`z1.1`$ using deep multicolor imaging with the Subaru Prime-focus Camera. These data should unambiguously reveal the actual distribution of clusters and galaxies in this postulated $`z1.1`$ counterpart of the local “Great Wall” structure.

We thank M. Hattori for useful discussions, A. Aragón-Salamanca, K. Ohta, N. Arimoto, T. Miyaji, and T. Kodama for their kind permission to use the INT data for our photometric calibration. We also thank T. Kodama for allowing us to use his model galaxy SEDs. We are very grateful to the staff at APO for kind assistance during the observing runs. This research was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan (07CE2002, 08740181, 09740168) to RESCEU and to T.Y., and by NSF grant AST98-02802 to E.L.T. I.T. gratefully acknowledges travel support to APO from the Hayakawa Foundation.


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# Experimental evidence for a spin gap in the s=1/2 quantum antiferromagnet Cu2(OH)2CO3

## I  Experimental

Two different natural samples of Cu2(OH)2CO3, originating one from the Urals, Russia and one from Zaire, were used in this study. Their purity was checked by X-rays diffraction and Electron Probe Microscope Analysis. The samples were found to be single phased and no impurities were detected. DC and AC magnetic measurements were performed in a commercial Quantum Design MPMS-5S SQUID magnetometer. The fields were set to 1 kOe for the DC measurement and to 2 Oe for the AC one, with a driving frequency of 997 Hz.

The rather complex fitting formula for the magnetic susceptibility of an alternating chain proposed by Johnston and co-workers  was inserted in a program including a Simplex fitting algorithm. We checked the absence of any error among the eighty four constants required in the formula by fitting successfully numerical data obtained for alternating chains by the transfer-matrix density-matrix renormalization group (TMRG) method  for $`\alpha `$ =0 (dimer), 0.5, 0.95 and 1 (uniform spin 1/2 chain).

## II  Results

Figure 2 shows the magnetic susceptibility data measured at 1 kOe. The most striking feature is the presence of a broad maximum in the $`\chi (T)`$ curve at 120 K. This behavior is typical either of low dimensional antiferromagnets or of systems with a gap in the spin excitation spectrum. The drop of the susceptibility below the broad maximum is balanced below 25 K by a Curie-like tail. In order to detect a possible spin gap, we performed a low temperature fit which describes the susceptibility as the sum of a T-independent $`\chi _o`$ term plus a Curie-Weiss $`C/(T\theta )`$ law and a thermally activated susceptibility $`AT^{1/2}e^{\mathrm{\Delta }/T}`$ suitable for most of the quasi-1D spin gap systems . The good quality of the fit, depicted in the inset of Fig. 2, strongly supports the existence of a spin gap in the malachite. The low temperature tail corresponds to 2.4 percent of free spin per Cu. The value of the spin gap loosely depends on the fitted temperature range (typically 2-60 K) and stay within the 110-130 K range. Interestingly, it roughly corresponds to the position of the maximum of the susceptibility $`T(\chi _{max})`$, implying a ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }/T(\chi _{max})`$ close to unity. As a consequence, the malachite is probably not a trivial collection of isolated dimers of spin 1/2, for which the ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }/T(\chi _{max})`$ is around 1.6. We also attempted to fit our data using the expression for isolated dimers, with the number of dimers as a free parameter. For any reasonable value of the g factor (2 $`<`$ g $`<`$ 2.25), it leads to an unrealistic value of number of dimers, between 60 and 70 percent of the expected value.

As we will see below, magnetic frustration could possibly exist in the malachite. We therefore measured the AC susceptibility $`\chi _{AC}`$=$`\chi ^{}`$+i$`\chi ^{\prime \prime }`$ of the malachite to detect a possible spin glass-like behavior at low temperature. It results (i) in a perfect matching between the component $`\chi ^{}`$ and the DC susceptibility and (ii) in the absence of any peak in the $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }`$ part down to 2 K, consistent with the absence of any ordered state down to low temperature.

## III  Discussion

In order to get more insight into the real magnetic interaction network of the malachite, it is important to establish at least a hierarchy of the different magnetic couplings existing in this system. The leading magnetic coupling here originates in Cu-O-Cu superexchange. The main parameters affecting the strength and the sign of superexchange are the Cu-O distance, the Cu-O-Cu angle and the crystal structure via the Madelung potential . The Anderson-Kanamori-Goodenough rules  state that the super-exchange Cu-O-Cu is the sum of a weak angle-independent ferromagnetic coupling and of a strong antiferromagnetic coupling maximum for $`\varphi `$= 180o and tending to zero at 90o. The total magnetic interaction is therefore expected to cross zero and to change its sign close to 90o. A theoretical approach based on a three bands Hubbard model and dedicated to the study of several cuprates with edge-sharing CuO4 units showed that this crossing occurs close to $`\varphi `$ = 95o .

The above description of the structure in terms of corrugated planes of octahedra is somewhat misleading since most of these octahedra have a broad distribution of copper-oxygen distances ranging from 1.89 Åto 2.67 Å. By restricting the pertinent Cu-O distances to the 1.89-2.11 Årange, all the polyhedra change from CuO6 octahedron to distorted CuO4 squares planar and the 2D connectivity is lost within the ac plane, as shown in Fig. 3(a). The effective magnetic network only consists in parallel chains running in the ac plane and by only two types of magnetic interactions J1 and J2 alternating along the chains (see Fig. 3(b)). A detailed description of J1 and J2 is given in Table I. By comparison with the phase BaCu2Si2O7 , where almost similar Cu-O-Cu bonds lead to J=280 K, a rough estimate gives 200 $``$ J1 $``$ 400 K. As the coupling J2 is mainly mediated through a Cu-O-Cu bond with an angle of 106o (122o for J1), J2 must be significantly smaller than J1.

By decreasing order of intensity, the next magnetic couplings should be located within the ac planes and link the chains together. Three new magnetic inter-chain couplings J3, J4 and J5 (see Fig. 3(c) and Table I) can be distinguished and are all mediated via Cu-O distances close to 2.37 Å. J5 should be negligible compared to J3 and J4, since the involved Cu-O-Cu angles, 97.5o and 97.7o, are very close to the critical value (95o in the cuprates) for which the magnetic superexchange vanishes . The network including the four main interactions J1, J2, J3 and J4, shown in Fig. 3(c), has strong similarities with the non-frustrated dimerized square lattice treated theoretically by Singh and co-workers  and depicted in Fig. 3(e). Estimating the J3 and J4 values is not a simple task; the Cu-O-Cu angles in J3 and J4 are however close to the one appearing in J1 and J2, respectively (see Table I). Therefore the main difference originates in the Cu-O distances (2.37 Åagainst 1.91 Å). Assuming a power-law dependence $`r^n`$ of the superexchange strength with distance, a value n=10-11 can be inferred from the work of Mizuno et al.  on Cu-O networks. As $`(2.37/1.91)^{11}`$ $``$ 0.1, J3 and J4 can be estimated to be roughly one order of magnitude smaller that J1 and J2, respectively. Note that, contrary to J3 and J4, the interaction J5 could lead to a magnetic frustration since it couples spins over the diagonal of the dimerized square.

The last kind of magnetic coupling that can be considered are those mediated by the CO3 groups. It results in (i) a next nearest neighbor (NNN) interaction within the J1-J2 chain and (ii) in a set of inter-plane couplings JIP, inducing a strong frustration as shown in Fig. 3(d). Finally, Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interactions could possibly exist in the malachite because of the absence of inversion center between the different neighboring Cu . They are however most probably negligible since the magnitude of the low temperature susceptibility is hardly reconcilable with the existence of a weak ferromagnetism.

From the above magneto-structural analysis, it appears that a simple model of alternating chains is a good starting point to understand the magnetism of the malachite. As previously discussed, the ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }/T(\chi _{max})`$ is close to one in the malachite. In an alternating chain where strong bonds $`J`$ alternate with weaker bonds $`\alpha J`$ ($`\alpha `$¡1), such a feature is expected for $`\alpha `$ close to 0.5 . Also, as $`T(\chi _{max})/J`$ loosely depends on the dimerization $`\alpha `$ in an alternating chain ($`T(\chi _{max})/J`$ $``$ 0.6 ), the deduced value of the strongest magnetic coupling within the chain in the malachite is J1 $``$ 200 K. This corresponds to the lower limit of J1 estimated from magneto-structural arguments. To be more quantitative, we tried to fit the susceptibility curve of our two samples using a fitting procedure for alternating chains recently proposed in ref.  and suitable for any dimerization parameter 0 $``$ $`\alpha `$ $``$ 1. We used the formula:

$`\chi (T)`$ $`=`$ $`\chi _o+C/(T\theta )`$ (2)
$`+Ng^2\mu _B^2/(k_BJ)\chi _{alt.chain}(T,J,\alpha )`$
where $`\chi _o`$ is a T-independent term, C the Curie constant, $`\theta `$ the Weiss temperature and $`J`$ the strongest coupling within the alternating chain. The free parameter were $`\chi _o`$, $`C`$, $`\theta `$, $`g`$, $`J`$ and $`\alpha `$. The best result of the fit, depicted in Fig. 2, was obtained for $`g`$ = 2.08 (2.20), $`J`$ = 196K (203 K) and $`\alpha `$ = 0.49 (0.53). The values in brackets correspond to the results obtained on the second sample (not shown in Fig. 2). The most important parameters of the fit, $`J`$ and $`\alpha `$, appear to be very similar from one sample to another. The resulting spin gap can be computed using the formula $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$/$`J`$ $``$ (1+$`\alpha `$)1/4 (1-$`\alpha `$)3/4  and is equal to 131 (128) K. This value compares remarkably well with the one obtained from the low-temperature approach ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$=126 K).

The good agreement between data and the global fit proposed by Johnston and co-workers supports the model of simple alternating chains. However, a fit of the magnetic susceptibility is not sufficient to prove that the magnetic network considered is correct. It is therefore important to check if a quantum spin-gap state is expected taking into account the presence of (i) the possible NNN coupling within the chain, (ii) the inter-chain coupling J3 and J4.

The coupling induced by the CO3 groups can safely assumed to be small. It would otherwise result in a 3D highly frustrated magnetic lattice, which is hardly reconcilable with the existence of a large spin gap in the malachite. As far as the inter-chain couplings J3 and J4 are concerned, it is possible to be more quantitative. Singh and co-workers  considered the topology depicted in Fig. 3(e), similar as the dimerized square planar description of the malachite but with J2=J3=J4=J’. They found a quantum critical point for $`\alpha _c`$=(J’/J)c=0.39 $`\pm `$ 0.01, separating the LRO ground state ($`\alpha `$ $`>`$ $`\alpha _c`$) from the spin liquid disordered one ($`\alpha `$ $`<`$ $`\alpha _c`$). Qualitatively, it is expected that $`\alpha _c`$ will tend to the critical value of a pure alternating chain ($`\alpha _c`$=1) in the limit of small inter-chain (J3,J4) coupling, which is the case in the malachite. This intuition is confirmed by the work of Katoh and Imada . They considered a slightly different dimerized square planar topology shown in Fig. 3(f), where strong bonds J alternate with weak bonds $`\alpha J`$. As the inter-chain coupling J3=J4=J decreases from J/J=0.70 to 0.26, the critical dimerization $`\alpha _c`$ increases from 0.40 to 0.74.

In the malachite, our previous estimate of the ratio inter-chain over intra-chain couplings, J/J $``$ J3/J1, and of the dimerization parameter $`\alpha `$ were J/J $``$ 0.1 and $`\alpha `$ $``$ 0.50, respectively. From the above discussion, it can be inferred that the critical dimerization $`\alpha _c`$ for the malachite is larger than $`\alpha `$ $``$ 0.50 for an inter-chain coupling J/J $``$ 0.1. A disordered spin liquid ground state is therefore expected in the malachite, in agreement with the low temperature fit of the susceptibility.

## IV Conclusion

In summary, the natural mineral Cu2(OH)2CO3 exhibits a quantum spin liquid ground state, consistent with its structure including s=1/2 alternating chain with rather low inter-chain couplings. Also, the malachite provides a good example of interesting magnetic properties in a natural mineral. In the field of quantum magnetism, other copper-oxide based minerals could possibly be a rich source of new materials that has only been poorly investigated so far.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank C. Payen for stimulating discussions and for the critical reading of the manuscript. We also thank the Fersman Mineralogical Museum of the Russian Academy of Science for providing us one of the natural malachite sample.


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# The Diverse Population of ULIRGs

## 1 Collisions, Mergers, Starbursts, and ULIRGs

It has been known since the pioneering work of Larson & Tinsley  that collisionally disturbed galaxies (e.g.,) have abnormally high star formation rates compared to isolated galaxies of similar type. It was not until IRAS discovered the population of luminous IR galaxies (LIRGs) and ultraluminous IR galaxies (ULIRGs), having extremely high star formation rates (100–1000$`\times `$ the Galactic star formation rate), that the links between strong star formation, high IR luminosity, and galaxy-galaxy encounters were made inseparable . The observation that some galaxies have higher rates of star formation than can be sustained by their current gas content over a full Hubble time led to the idea of ”starbursting” galaxies . It has thus been unequivocally established that the LIRG, ULIRG, starburst, and collision+merger processes are physically related phenomena that are intimately connected to the star formation history of galaxies, galaxy formation, and galaxy evolution (for a review, see ). In fact, most recently, it has been estimated that a significant portion of the cosmic IR background is produced by cosmologically distant LIRGs and ULIRGs (i.e., dusty starbursts; , , ).

## 2 The Rich Diversity within the ULIRG Population

We have been studying a large sample of ULIRGs with both HST imaging and ground-based spectroscopy (, , , , , , , , ). Among the plethora of results being derived from this rich survey database, we have found strong evidence for a multiple-merger origin for many of the ULIRGs in our sample . We have established a morphological classification scheme for ULIRGs that indicates that the sample is nearly equally divided between single objects (e.g., merged; disturbed; or IR-luminous QSOs) and multiple objects (e.g., pairs; compact groupings; or strongly interacting multiples). We find very little luminosity variation across these morphological classes . We have also verified the long-known belief that the ULIRG population has a high interaction rate. From a sample of nearly 130 ULIRGs, we find $``$98% show evidence for close neighbors, tidal disturbances, or on-going merging. In several cases, the galaxies were previously classified as isolated and/or undisturbed from low-resolution ground-based imaging. Our sample is the largest that has been used to derive this interaction rate estimate. Most recently, we have been obtaining multi-fiber integral spectroscopy for several ULIRGs, which indicate that luminous gas-rich knots are ubiquitous among these galaxies. In every case, we find multiple line emission sources, frequently in regions detached from the cores of the galaxies or from any other region that is luminous in continuum light. These line-emitting regions have spectral characteristics of H II regions, LINERS, or AGN. In some cases, these line-emitting clouds may be simply reflecting the emission from a dust-obscured nuclear source. In the case of Mrk 273, we find a LINER nucleus and an extended off-nucleus Seyfert 2 nebula . In the case of IRAS 12112$`+`$0305, we find that the observed ionized gas distribution is decoupled from the stellar main body of the galaxy, with the dominant continuum and emission-line regions separated by projected distances of up to 7.5 kpc. The two optical nuclei are detected as faint emission-line regions, and their optical properties are consistent with being dust-enshrouded weak \[O I\] LINERs . In the case of IRAS 08572$`+`$3915, we find no evidence for a LINER or Seyfert-like nucleus in either of the galaxies, contrary to previous claims. This is unusual for a warm ULIRG such as 08572$`+`$3915. Tidal-induced star-forming knots, $``$7 kpc from the nuclei and along the tidal tails, are traced by the presence of bright \[O III\] emission .

In summary, we find that the ULIRG population of galaxies has a rich dynamical diversity, demonstrated both morphologically and spectroscopically. This points to a rich evolutionary history for these objects, with strong connections between their hierarchical mass assembly history, dust and gas evolution, star formation episodes, metal enrichment, and nuclear activity. The consequences of these connections are found in the spectral energy distributions both of these galaxies and of their high-redshift counterparts, and thus our interpretations of these connections for nearby galaxies may thus also be applicable to the interpretation of distant submm/FIR sources now being discovered and soon to be discovered in the new long-wavelength ultra-sensitive galaxy surveys.