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# Microcanonical Simulation of Complex Actions: The Wess Zumino Witten Case

## 1 Description and Results

In Minkowski spacetime, the Feynman path integral has a complex integrand given by $`e^{iS_M}`$, where $`S_M`$ is the Minkowski action. On Euclidean continuation of spacetime, the integrand becomes real, namely, $`e^{S_E}`$. The positive definite Euclidean action $`S_E`$ is ideally suited for Monte Carlo simulations based on the canonical ensemble. There is, however, a class of actions that are generically of the form $`S=S_R+iS_I`$ in both Minkowski and Euclidean spacetime. These actions are of fundamental importance in physics, and we refer to them as complex actions. For example, all topological effects appear in the action in the form of complex actions. A chemical potential term renders the action complex. Lattice QCD at finite temperatures and and densities has a complex action, and so do chiral gauge theories. Complex actions appear in study of non-Hermitian hamiltonians, complex Langevin processes, random matrix models and so on.

A complex valued action does not have any probabilistic interpretation, and hence, for example the Metropolis algorithm is unsuitable. All attempts to numerically simulate complex actions for quantum field theories have met with formidable difficulties  due to diverging errors arising from increasingly large volumes needed for obtaining the continuum limit. In particular, the conventional Metropolis algorithm fails for complex actions due to large errors in simulating the expectation values of cosines and sines of extensive quantities. These expectation values are necessary due to the presence of the imaginary component in the action.

There have been some studies that simulate complex actions using the Langevin equation; however, the results of these simulations cannot be shown to converge to the required distribution . Other methods  also suffer from either a restriction to a very small lattice, or are not efficient or well defined.

In our work, we work directly with the Feynman path integral formulation of quantum field theory. We apply a generalized form of the microcanonical method to the case of complex actions. The microcanonical method has been very successful in simulating global quantities of real statistical systems . The microcanonical method yields a direct computation of the partition function (up to a proportionality constant) and hence the determination of its (complex) zeros. The zeros themselves contain useful information, in particular whether the system has critical points. The microcaconical simulation technique therefore offers an attractive alternative to the usual methods, based on the canonical ensemble, for determining the phase diagram of statistical systems.

In this paper we extend the microcanonical algorithm to complex actions, and, compute its partition function. In particular, we study the well known and highly nontrivial Wess Zumino Witten (WZW) complex valued action functional. Since this model exhibits many distinct phase transitions, we are able to provide a solid test of our algorithm. Our simulations predicts the critical parameters, and we confirm the effectiveness and accuracy of our simulation by comparing the simulated results with the known analytical results.

The Wess Zumino Witten action in two-dimensional Euclidean space has the following form

$$S=S_\lambda +ikS_I,$$
(1)
where the chiral term is given by

$$S_\lambda =\frac{1}{4\lambda ^2}d^2xTr(_\mu g_\mu g^1)$$
(2)
and the imaginary piece comes from the Wess Zumino term

$$S_I=\frac{1}{24\pi }\underset{S_3}{}d^3yϵ_{ijk}Tr[\overline{g}^1\frac{\overline{g}}{y^i}\overline{g}^1\frac{\overline{g}}{y^j}\overline{g}^1\frac{\overline{g}}{y^k}].$$
(3)
For the quantum field theory to be well defined, $`k`$ must be integer-valued.

For the case of $`SU(2)`$, the Wess Zumino term can be parametrized in terms of the Euler angles , namely,

$$S_I=\frac{1}{\pi }d^2x\varphi (x)sin^2\psi (x)sin\theta (x)ϵ^{\mu \nu }_\mu \psi (x)_\nu \theta (x).$$
(4)
As is well known, the WZW model has infinitely many critical points, one for each integer value for $`k`$. The WZW model is conformally invariant at the critial coupling constants given by

$$\lambda _c^2=\frac{4\pi }{k};\mathrm{k}:\mathrm{integer}.$$
(5)
By extending the Lee-Yang theorem for zero’s of the partition function to the complex case, we expect that the partition function, in the infinite volume limit, will be zero close to the critical coupling constants. We should be able to locate a zero (close to the continuum model) if the size of the lattice is large enough.

By calculating the simulated partition function as a function of $`k`$, the zeroes can be identified as the points of the $`k`$ axis where the partition function $`Z`$ crosses over from a positive to a negative value. This cross over is a unique feature of complex actions, since the partition function of a real action can never be negative. Given that only integer $`k`$’s are physical, the only physical zeros of $`Z`$ are those that are close to integer values of $`k`$.

The partition function of the Wess Zumino Witten action functional is given by

$$Z(\lambda ,k)=[DU]\mathrm{exp}(S_\lambda )\mathrm{exp}(ikS_I),$$
(6)
which in turn can be cast into the form

$$Z(\lambda ,k)=_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑E\rho (\lambda ,E)\mathrm{exp}(ikE)$$
(7)
with the density of states given by

$$\rho (\lambda ,E)=[DU]\delta (ES_I)\mathrm{exp}(S_\lambda )$$
(8)
The density of states is estimated by a generalization of the microcanonical algorithm. First, the simulation space is broken up into energy bins of size $`\mathrm{}E`$. Bin $`E=0`$ is taken to be the reference bin. The system is thermalized by randomly generating configurations and accepting only those configurations whose values of $`S_I`$ fall within the first two bins. The density of states $`\rho (\lambda ,\mathrm{}E)`$ is estimated by calculating the occupation number ratio between the two bins. The updating of configurations and crediting of counts to the bins are based on a combination of the microcanonical and canonical ensembles. This is done as follows.

1. A new configuration is generated, and its acceptance is weighted by the usual Metropolis factor $`\mathrm{exp}(S_\lambda )`$. Note that since the chiral contribution, being real, plays the role of a weighting action, the value of $`\lambda `$ has to be at the critical value for a particular level; otherwise, if $`\lambda \lambda _c`$, the system would never go critical.
2. The updated configuration is accepted only if it’s $`S_I`$ value falls within the two bins. If this is so, the counter for the bin where $`S_I`$ lands is credited.
3. If the updated configuration does not satisfy the above criterion, a count will still be credited to the bin of the old configuration.

By continuing this process across all the energy bins allows us to get an estimation of the density of states. A crucial point in going from one set of bins to another is to have, in between, at least one overlapping bin for the purpose of normalizing the occupation number of the various bins.

All of the results quoted are for simulations for a $`8\times 8`$ lattice, as this size is sufficient for accurately estimating the value of critical $`k`$. In our work, we tested our simulations for two levels, namely $`k=1`$ and $`k=2`$. For the critical coupling $`\lambda _c^2=4\pi ,\mathrm{}E`$ was set to be 0.2 while a finer value of 0.1 was chosen for $`\lambda _c^2=2\pi `$. A total number of about 1 million configurations were generated for every set of energy bins. The energy bin was terminated when the resulting density of state is less than 3 decimal places (which is the achieved level of accuracy in our simulations). The results for the simulated density of states is shown in Figure 1.

Since $`\rho (\lambda ,E)=\rho (\lambda ,E)`$, it is only necessary to perform the simulation for $`E0`$. This reflection symmetry ensures that the WZW partition function is real, since it simplifies to

$$Z(\lambda ,k)=2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑E\rho (\lambda ,E)cos(kE)$$
(9)
The simulated value for integrand of $`Z(\lambda _c,k)`$ is given in Figures 2 and 3. The plot of $`Z(\lambda _c,k)`$ against $`k`$ is physical relevant only for integer $`k`$’s. We expect that $`Z=0`$ at the value of $`k`$ that corresponds to $`\lambda _c^2={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{k}}`$; for other values of integer $`k`$, $`Z`$ is physical and contains information on how the theory behaves away from criticality.

The behaviour of $`Z`$ near its zero is given in Figures 4 and 5. By scanning for zeros of the simulated partition function Z that are close to integers, we find that:

$$k_{\mathrm{simulated}}=1.06\pm 0.07(\mathrm{for}\lambda ^2=4\pi )$$

and

$$k_{\mathrm{simulated}}=1.95\pm 0.06(\mathrm{for}\lambda ^2=2\pi ).$$

The errors were deduced from the standard deviation computed from two separate sets of results for each coupling.

The exact values are $`k=1`$ and $`k=2`$ respectively, and we see that we have obtained a result of fairly high accuracy with a surprisingly small lattice.

## 2 Discussion

Our simulations of the Wess Zumino Witten action demonstrates that the microcanonical method is in principle capable of simulating complex actions. Unlike the case of real actions, however, there are several subtleties involved. Chief among them are the following.

1. A high degree of accuracy is required in order to achieve stable and consistent results. The reason being that, unlike real actions, terms in the complex action partition function cancel each other (see the graphs of Figures 2 and 3), leaving behind a small value in the region where the phase transitions take place.
2. The fact that the critical point can be made to move from $`k=1`$ to $`k=2`$ by changing the value of $`\lambda _c`$ in the weighting function is strong evidence that our simulation is giving the correct result. There are infinitely many critical points of the WZW model, one for each integer $`k`$, and in principal, all these critical points can be obtained by our simulation.
3. There is an additional necessity of having to provide a good resolution of the $`\mathrm{cos}(kE)`$ term. Typically, this means that there should be at least a few points within each trigonometrical quadrant. Consequently, since $`\mathrm{}E{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k}}`$, a smaller energy spacing is required for larger couplings. Computational time therefore is expected to increase as coupling $`k`$ increases.
4. Since the cosine of an argument cannot be taken as a reliable weight in any Monte Carlo simulation, the contribution to the weight must always come from the real action. This constraint demands that the coupling $`\lambda `$ in the real action has to be fixed at its critical value $`\lambda _c`$. In other words, it is not possible to fix the coupling in the imaginary component, namely $`k`$, and deduce the critical coupling $`\lambda _c`$ of the real action.
5. Our method is ideally suited for studying the critical properties of extended systems. In particular, D-branes in the WZW model are non-local background configurations that respect the conformal invariance of the theory . Our method, for example, can numerically study under what circumstances a D-brane background in the WZW model results in a conformally invariant system.

In conclusion, we believe that the ability of the microcanonical technique to get accurate predictions from the Wess Zumino Witten action is a major step forward in the simulation of complex actions, and opens the way for numerically studying other complex actions, as well as extended objects such as D-branes.

## 3 Acknowledgements

We have benefited from many discussions and communications with Gyan Bhanot.


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# On the robust thermodynamical structures against arbitrary entropy form and energy mean value

## 1 Introduction

There exists the subtleness in understanding the relation between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Nowadays, on the other hand, some alternative entropic functionals to the conventional Boltzmann-Gibbs-Shannon(BGS) entropy have been investigated intensively to apply to a variety of physical situations. Among them, as one example, Tsallis’ information measure $`S_q=(1𝑑xf^q)/(q1)`$88Tsallis ; 98Tsallis  where $`q`$ is a real parameter characterizing $`S_q`$ is attracting much attention. Thermostatistics based on this nonextesive measure has been shown to be useful for describing anomalous systems involving long-range interactions, long-term memory effect and (multi)fractal-like structure(see html  for concrete applications). Another example is Fisher’s information measure $`I=𝑑x(f^2/f)`$ where $`f`$ is a normalized probability distributionFisher . The connection between derivation of the variety of statistical laws of physics and the principle of minimum $`I`$ has been shownFri . In view of these examples, interests are increasing for exploring the possibility of the associated thermodynamics with non-BGS entropies. In this sense, therefore, a certain mathematical relation among thermodynamical variables is considered to be in a crucial position in discussing the applicability of the alternative context.

The Legendre transform structure(LTS)Callen ; Beck ; Schlogl  is considered to be a most fundamental relation which associates the phenomenologically based thermodynamics with the microscopically based statistical mechanics. Recently Plastino and PlastinoAPlast1 ; ARPlast  showed that the LTS is a universal property independent of the selection of the entropic functional if only we adopt the linear definition of an expectation value of observables. That is, weighting the each quantity with the probability corresponding to the configurational states preserves the LTS for an arbitrary form of the entropy functional. At the present stage, it should be of interest to investigate the structure against a nonlinear definition of the mean value in plurality of constraints.

In this paper, our discussion requires only the Jaynes Maximum entropy principleJaynes1 ; Jaynes2 ; APlast2 . Jaynes’ information theoretical approach to statistical mechanics based on the Shannon’s extensive measure with a linear weighting of quantities as a mean value have successfully extended to Fisher’s information measure(Frieden  and references therein). Moreover it is well known that Tsallis nonextensive measure with a nonlinear weighting has the LTS98Tsallis ; Curado ; 95Tsallis1 . Therefore overall discussion based on the generic form of the entropy and a mean value with general weighting would illuminate the thermodynamical structures. It is the purpose of our present attempt to develop arguments along the line of the previous approach as mentioned above.

## 2 The thermodynamical relation in general context

We start with a consideration that what relation we have between an entropy and energies when we adopt the arbitrary form of entropy functional and the energy constraints with respect to a probability set. This problem was considered for the case of the canonical ensemble, that is, with one energy constraint to the entropy to be extremized APlast1 . We deal with the generalized entropy $`S(\{p_i\})`$ and the generalized expectation value of observables(generalized energy) $`E^\sigma (\{p_i\},\{M_i^\sigma \})`$, where $`p_i`$ denotes a probability of the microstate $`i`$ of a quantity $`M_i^\sigma `$, $`(i=1,\mathrm{},W)`$. The superscript $`\sigma `$ labels a constraint number $`(\sigma =1,\mathrm{},N)`$. We usually suppose $`N<W`$ since we treat a huge number of microstates $`W`$. The important thing is that the information we have at first is the $`N`$ mean values $`E^\sigma `$ and each $`p_i`$ is not a priori known. The probability $`p_i`$ should be given in terms of the Jaynes Maximum entropy principle instead. Extremization $`S`$ with respect to $`p_i`$ subject to $`N`$ generalized energy and the normalization condition of the probability leads to

$$\frac{\delta }{\delta p_i}\left(S\underset{\sigma =0}{\overset{N}{}}\beta _\sigma E^\sigma \right)=0$$
(1)
where we have introduced the $`N+1`$ Lagrange multipliers $`\beta _\sigma `$ ,$`(\sigma =0,\mathrm{},N)`$ and set $`E^0=_i^Wp_i=1`$, i.e.,

$$\frac{S}{p_i}\underset{\sigma =0}{\overset{N}{}}\beta _\sigma \frac{E^\sigma }{p_i}=0.$$
(2)
Since the solution in equilibrium $`p_i^{}`$ should be of the form $`p_i^{}=p_i^{}(\beta _0(\beta _1,\mathrm{},\beta _N),\beta _1,\mathrm{},\beta _N)`$ with the normalization of $`p_i^{}`$, we have the partial derivatives of $`S`$ and $`E^\sigma `$ with respect to the $`\mu `$-th Lagrange parameter,

$$\frac{S}{\beta _\mu }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}\frac{S}{p_i^{}}\left(\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\mu }+\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _0}\frac{\beta _0}{\beta _\mu }\right),$$
(3)
and

$$\frac{E^\sigma }{\beta _\mu }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}\frac{E^\sigma }{p_i^{}}\left(\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\mu }+\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _0}\frac{\beta _0}{\beta _\mu }\right),$$
(4)
respectively. After multiplying Eq(4) by $`\beta _\sigma `$ and summing over $`\sigma `$, one finds

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma =0}{\overset{N}{}}}\beta _\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{E^\sigma }{\beta _\mu }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma =0}{\overset{N}{}}}\beta _\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{E^\sigma }{p_i^{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\mu }}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0}{\beta _\mu }}\right)`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{S}{p_i^{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\mu }}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0}{\beta _\mu }}\right)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{S}{\beta _\mu }},`$
which gives the generalized thermodynamical relation that connects the arbitrary form of the entropy and the mean values, i.e.,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{S}{E^\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =0}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{S}{\beta _\nu }}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _\nu }{E^\sigma }}={\displaystyle \underset{\nu =0}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =0}{\overset{N}{}}}\beta _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{E^\mu }{\beta _\nu }}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _\nu }{E^\sigma }}`$ (6)
$`=`$ $`\beta _\sigma (\sigma 0).`$
$`N=1`$ corresponds to the canonical ensemble theory and gives the fundamental thermodynamical relation APlast1 ,

$$\frac{S}{E}=\beta $$
(7)
The above relation constitutes the basis of the justification that the Lagrange multiplier $`\beta `$ appearing in the equilibrium statistical mechanics based on the BGS entropy is identified with the inverse temperature in thermodynamics, however, we can stress that this thermodynamical relation is very robust in general context if only there is one energy constraint. Although we give no explicit form of the entropy $`S(\{p_i^{}\})`$ in the present consideration, the condition of extremization with respect to the each Lagrange multiplies with fixing general energies is to be required, namely,

$$\frac{S\{p_i^{}\}}{\beta _\mu }|_{E^1,\mathrm{},E^N}=0.$$
(8)
## 3 Legendre transform structure

Consider now the following general entropic form

$$S=\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}f(p_i),$$
(9)
where a measure $`f(p_i)`$ is an arbitrary function of the probability $`\{p_i\}`$ and we do not have to require the concavity property which is needed in physical stability in the following discussion. It should be noted that one form $`f(p_i)=p_i\mathrm{ln}p_i`$ is the BGS measure when we choose Boltzmann’s constant as the information unit and another form $`f(p_i)=(p_ip_i^q)/(q1)`$, $`(q)`$ is Tsallis one. Moreover let us define the mean value of quantities (eigenvalues)$`\{M_i^\sigma \}`$ in the following way,

$$M^\sigma =\underset{j=1}{\overset{W}{}}g_j(p_1,\mathrm{},p_W)M_j^\sigma (\sigma =1,\mathrm{}N),$$
(10)
where $`g_j(p_1,\mathrm{},p_W)`$ determined by all probabilities is a weighting function for eigenvalues $`M_j^\sigma `$. In ordinary case, we should constrain $`g_j`$ as being $`_{j=1}^Wg_j=1`$ from physically acceptable definition of the mean value (the mean value of unity should be unity). As a specific form of $`g_j`$, an escort type of probabilityBeck  satisfies this condition (hereafter we refer to as a weighting condition) as a weighting function,

$$g_j(p_1,\mathrm{},p_W)=\frac{\varphi (p_j)}{_{i=1}^W\varphi (p_i)}$$
(11)
where $`\varphi (p_j)`$ is a positive test function defined for all $`p_j[0,1]`$. It is worth noting that the special test function of the form $`\varphi (p_j)=p_j^q`$ constitute the generalized expectation value in Tsallis statistical mechanics98Tsallis . In the present consideration, however, we weigh the eigenvalues with an general $`g_j`$ to proceed to a discussion. We will resultingly see that our conclusion can be derived even without the weighting condition.

The variational approach applied to extremizing Eq(9) in this context is quite similar to the one developed in Sec.2

$$\frac{\delta }{\delta p_i}\left[S\alpha \underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}p_i\underset{\sigma =1}{\overset{N}{}}\beta _\sigma \underset{j=1}{\overset{W}{}}M_j^\sigma g_j(p_1,\mathrm{},p_W)\right]=0$$
(12)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta _\sigma `$ ($`\sigma =1,\mathrm{},N`$) are Lagrange multipliers again yielding to

$$f^{}(p_i)\alpha \underset{\sigma =1}{\overset{N}{}}\beta _\sigma \underset{j=1}{\overset{W}{}}\frac{g_j(p_1,\mathrm{},p_W)}{p_i}M_j^\sigma =0.$$
(13)
The prime denotes the derivative with respect to $`p_i`$. For a given set of eigenvalues $`\{M_j^\sigma \}`$, we define $`Q`$ as a function of the probability set $`\{p_i\}`$ and the Lagrange multipliers set $`\{\beta _\sigma \}`$ as follows,

$$Q(\{p_i\},\{\beta _\sigma \})=\underset{j=1}{\overset{W}{}}\underset{\sigma =1}{\overset{N}{}}\beta _\sigma M_j^\sigma g_j(p_1,\mathrm{},p_W).$$
(14)
Then the equation which determine the equilibrium probabilities $`\{p_i^{}\}`$ becomes

$$P(p_i)=\alpha +\frac{}{p_i}Q(\{p_i\},\{\beta _\sigma \}),$$
(15)
where we put $`f^{}(p_i)=P(p_i)`$. Although the explicit form of the solution $`\{p_i^{}\}`$ is not obtained from the above, we can proceed further discussion along the line of APlast1  by regarding the solution as $`\{p_i^{}(\{\beta _\sigma \}_{\sigma =1,\mathrm{},N})\}`$. Therefore, the $`S`$ and the $`M^\sigma `$ read

$$S=\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}f(p_i^{})$$
(16)
and

$$M^\sigma =\underset{j=1}{\overset{W}{}}g_j(p_1^{},\mathrm{},p_W^{})M_j^\sigma $$
(17)
respectively. From this we immediately have

$$\frac{S}{\beta _\sigma }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}f^{}(p_i^{})\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\sigma }$$
(18)
and

$$\frac{M^\mu }{\beta _\sigma }=\underset{j=1}{\overset{W}{}}\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}\frac{g_j(p_1^{},\mathrm{},p_W^{})}{p_i^{}}\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\sigma }M_j^\mu .$$
(19)
We are considering the Legendre transform of the entropy $`S`$

$$[S]=S\underset{\sigma =1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{S}{M^\sigma }M^\sigma .$$
(20)
To evaluate the above, let us calculate the derivatives of the general entropy $`S`$ in equilibrium with respect to both $`\beta _\sigma `$ and $`M^\sigma `$. With Eq(15) and Eq(19), $`S/\beta _\sigma `$ becomes

$$\frac{S}{\beta _\sigma }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}(\alpha +\frac{Q}{p_i^{}})\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\sigma }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}\frac{Q}{p_i^{}}\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\sigma }$$
(21)
where we have used the relation arising from the normalization condition

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}\frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\sigma }=\frac{}{\beta _\sigma }\underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}p_i^{}=0.$$
(22)
Then from Eq(14), Eq(21) immediately leads to

$`{\displaystyle \frac{S}{\beta _\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}\beta _\mu \left[{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{W}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{W}{}}}M_j^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{g_j(p_1,\mathrm{},p_W)}{p_i^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_i^{}}{\beta _\sigma }}\right]`$ (23)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}\beta _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{M^\mu }{\beta _\sigma }}.`$
Therefore we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{S}{M^\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{S}{\beta _\nu }}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _\nu }{M^\sigma }}={\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}\beta _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{M^\mu }{\beta _\nu }}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _\nu }{M^\sigma }}`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`\beta _\sigma .`$
Thus, we again see that Eq(23) and Eq(24) maintain the same relations as Eq(5) and Eq(6) respectively as expected. Eq(23)(Eq(5)) expresses the Euler’s Theorem in the general contextAPlast1 ; Aliaga . Eq(24) (Eq(6)) represents a general thermodynamical relation where the Lagrange multipliers and the mean values constitute conjugate variables each other with respect to $`S`$. It should be noted that this thermodynamical relation (namely, reciprocity relationAPlast1 , which corresponds to the one relating the intensive parameters with the extensive parameters in ordinary thermodynamics) is seen to be independent of both the entropy functional and the mean energy form.

Since the entropy $`S`$ can be described either with entire set of $`M^\sigma `$’s as $`S(\{M^\sigma \})`$, or with $`\beta _\sigma `$’s as $`S(\{\beta _\sigma \})`$ due to the reciprocity relation, if we regard $`S`$ as $`S(\{M^\sigma \})`$, the derivative of $`[S]`$ with respect to $`\beta _\sigma `$ becomes

$`{\displaystyle \frac{[S]}{\beta _\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{S}{M^\nu }}{\displaystyle \frac{M^\nu }{\beta _\sigma }}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}\beta _\nu {\displaystyle \frac{M^\nu }{\beta _\sigma }}M^\sigma `$ (25)
$`=`$ $`M^\sigma `$
where we have used $`S/M^\nu =\beta _\nu `$. In a similar way, if we regard the $`S`$ as $`S(\{\beta _\sigma \})`$, that is,

$$[S]=S(\{\beta _\sigma \})\underset{\sigma =1}{\overset{N}{}}\beta _\sigma M^\sigma (\{\beta _\sigma \})$$
(26)
then the derivative of $`[S]`$ with respect to $`M^\sigma `$ gives

$`{\displaystyle \frac{[S]}{M^\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{S}{\beta _\nu }}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _\nu }{M^\sigma }}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _\nu }{M^\sigma }}M^\nu \beta _\sigma `$ (27)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _\nu }{M^\sigma }}M^\nu `$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2S}{M^\sigma M^\nu }}M^\nu `$
where we have used

$$\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{N}{}}\beta _\mu \frac{M^\mu }{\beta _\nu }\frac{\beta _\nu }{M^\sigma }=\beta _\sigma $$
(28)
in the first term of the first line.
Further, from Eq(24),Eq(25) we have

$$\frac{M^\sigma }{\beta _\sigma }=\frac{^2[S]}{\beta _\sigma ^2}=\frac{1}{\frac{^2S}{M^\sigma ^2}}.$$
(29)
To guarantee the uniqueness of the LTS, that is, from a requisition that $`[S]/\beta _\sigma `$ and $`S/M^\sigma `$ are to be monotonic functions, we assume

$$\frac{^2[S]}{\beta _\sigma ^2}0,\frac{^2S}{M^\sigma ^2}0.$$
(30)
As indicated by Eq(29), we see that when the $`S`$ is convex, then the $`[S]`$ is concave, and vice versa in general context. From the Eqs(24),(25) and (29), we can stress that the LTS is preserved both for an arbitrary form of the entropy and for the general definition of the mean value.

## 4 Gibbs’ fundamental equation

We have found that the given mean values $`M^\sigma `$ and the associated Lagrange multipliers $`\beta _\sigma `$ are ’thermally conjugatedBeck ’ each other in general context. This relation (Eq(24)) for all $`\sigma `$ can be written in the following form

$$dS=\underset{\sigma =1}{\overset{N}{}}\beta _\sigma dM^\sigma ,$$
(31)
which is called Gibbs’ fundamental equationBeck ; Schlogl . The concrete expression for Eq(31) in the thermodynamics is well known as

$$dS=\frac{1}{T}dU+\frac{p}{T}dV\frac{\mu }{T}dN.$$
(32)
We should notice that, in the conventional phenomenological thermodynamic picture, the entropy $`S`$, the internal energy $`U`$, the volume $`V`$ and the particle number $`N`$ are regarded as extensive parameters and the coefficients ($`T`$:temperature, $`p`$:pressure, $`\mu `$:chemical potential) are intensive parameters, however, Gibbs’ fundamental equation holds independently of the entropic form (extensive or nonextensive) and of the definition (linear or nonlinear) of the expectation value.

## 5 Summary and Conclusion

We have derived the thermodynamical relation between the entropy and the energy in most general circumstance (Eq(24)) along the line of APlast1 . Furthermore, we have shown that the Legendre transform structure is a robust structure against the choice of the statistical entropic measure and the way of weighting for energy eigenstates of the system under consideration. As a necessary consequence of this structure, the Gibbs’ fundamental equation is also independent of the present extension into the arbitrariness. These results are supported by the ubiquitous property of the Jaynes maximum entropy principle. The construction of a statistical mechanics whose basis should be consistent with the conventional thermodynamics, therefore, is considered to be not adequate with the preservation of the LTS and Gibbs’ fundamental equation alone, which of course are essential ingredient for realization. The present conclusion is considered to be consistent with results of RefMendes  which took another route for discussing arbitrary thermostatistics.

The author acknowledges referees for useful remarks and comments and adjudicator for suggesting him how to revise this paper from its original.


text:
# Energy transduction in periodically driven non-Hermitian systems

\[

## Abstract

We show a new mechanism to extract energy from non-equilibrium fluctuations typical of periodically driven non-Hermitian systems. The transduction of energy between the driving force and the system is revealed by an *anomalous* behavior of the susceptibility, leading to a diminution of the dissipated power and consequently to an improvement of the transport properties. The general framework is illustrated by the analysis of some relevant cases.

\] In the last years a growing interest in mechanisms for energy transduction by rectification of unbiased thermal fluctuations has arose, partly motivated by problems from cell biology. Several phenomenological models, categorized as thermal ratchets or Brownian motors, have been proposed. These engines operate at molecular level , although their potential implementation in a larger scale would be of evident interest. In this context, a number of methods for particle separation have been recently proposed based on several variants of the ratchet concept . Motivated by this interest, we investigate how to take advantage of non-equilibrium fluctuations to optimize the energy consumption. We propose a new mechanism for energy transduction in a class of non-equilibrium systems when they are acted upon by a weak periodic force. The coupling between the external driving and the out-of-equilibrium fluctuations leads to a minimization of the dissipated power. The minimum occurs when the frequency of the external force matches a characteristic frequency of the system, thus manifesting a resonant behavior.

Let us consider the class of differential equations

$$_t\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x},t)=(_0+\lambda (t)_1)\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x},t),$$
(1)
describing the dynamics of a probability density or of a hydrodynamic field $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$, where $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ represents a coordinate. The dynamics is governed by the non-Hermitian operator $`_0`$ and is influenced by the action of a periodic force which introduces the perturbation $`\lambda (t)_1`$, with $`\lambda (t)=\lambda _0e^{i\omega t}`$.

We will analyze the response of the system to the external perturbation by using the standard procedure of the linear response theory. Accordingly, Eq. (1) can be solved formally yielding

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{(tt_0)_0}\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\stackrel{}{x})`$ (2)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _{t_0}^t}𝑑\tau \lambda (\tau )e^{(t\tau )_0}(_1e^{(\tau t_0)_0}\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\stackrel{}{x}))`$ (3)
$``$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(0)}(\stackrel{}{x},t)+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x},t),`$ (4)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is the initial condition, which corresponds to the stationary state of Eq. (1) in the absence of the external force . Expansion of the term $`_1e^{t_0}\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\stackrel{}{x})`$ in series of the eigenfunctions of the operator $`_0`$, $`\varphi _n`$ with eigenvalue $`a_n`$; $`n=0,1,\mathrm{}`$

$`_1e^{t_0}\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\stackrel{}{x})={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\{c_n\varphi _n(\stackrel{}{x})+c_n^{}\varphi _n^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\},`$ (5)
where $`c_n`$ are the corresponding coefficients in this expansion, then leads to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{x}(t)=\stackrel{}{x}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x},t)𝑑\stackrel{}{x}=_{t_0}^t𝑑\tau \stackrel{}{\chi }(t\tau )\lambda (\tau ),$$
(6)
which defines the susceptibility $`\stackrel{}{\chi }(t)`$.

We will assume the existence of a dominant time scale governing the relaxation process, which corresponds to the $`n=1`$ mode in the expansion (5). Since the remaining modes decay faster we can truncate the series retaining only the first term. Thus, considering only contributions of the first mode,

$$\stackrel{}{\chi }(t)=\stackrel{}{A}e^{a_1t}+\stackrel{}{A}^{}e^{a_1^{}t},$$
(7)
with $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ defined as

$$\stackrel{}{A}=c_1\stackrel{}{x}\varphi _1(\stackrel{}{x})𝑑\stackrel{}{x},$$
(8)
the explicit expression of the susceptibility as a function of the frequency follows from the Fourier transform of Eq. (7)

$$\stackrel{}{\chi }(\omega )=\frac{\stackrel{}{A}}{I_1}\frac{1}{\beta i(\alpha +1)}+\frac{\stackrel{}{A}^{}}{I_1}\frac{1}{\beta i(\alpha 1)}$$
(9)
where $`a_1R_1+iI_1`$, $`\beta R_1/I_1`$ and $`\alpha \omega /I_1`$, with $`R_1`$ and $`I_1`$ being the real and imaginary parts of $`a_1`$, respectively

In Fig. 1, we have plotted the modulus of the susceptibility as a function of $`\alpha `$ for different values of $`\beta `$. During the relaxation process of non-equilibrium fluctuations, the susceptibility undergoes a resonant behavior when the frequency of the force matches the imaginary part of the first eigenvalue of the non-perturbed operator $`_0`$. This behavior reveals the resonant coupling between the periodic force and the non-equilibrium source, responsible for the non-Hermitian nature of $`_0`$.

The appearance of this resonance leads to a diminution of the dissipation in the relaxation process of the fluctuations of $`\stackrel{}{x}`$. To illustrate our assertion, let us suppose that Eq. (1) represents the non-Hermitian Fokker-Planck equation

$`_t\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x},t)=_\stackrel{}{x}(\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{x})\mathrm{\Psi }D_\stackrel{}{x}\mathrm{\Psi }b\lambda (t)\mathrm{\Psi }_\stackrel{}{x}U(\stackrel{}{x})),`$ (10)
where $`\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is a non-potential drift, $`b`$ a mobility, $`D=K_BTb`$ the corresponding diffusion coefficient and $`U(\stackrel{}{x})`$ the potential related to the external force. In this case the operators $`_0`$ and $`_1`$ act on the field as

$`_0\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`_\stackrel{}{x}(\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{x})\mathrm{\Psi }D_\stackrel{}{x}\mathrm{\Psi }),`$ (11)
$`_1\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`_\stackrel{}{x}(b\mathrm{\Psi }_\stackrel{}{x}U(\stackrel{}{x})).`$ (12)
Among the physical realizations of the model described by Eq. (10) we can quote the case of a Brownian particle advected by a constant drift $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ acted upon by a force $`\stackrel{}{F}(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$, or a field-responsive particle in a vortex flow under the influence of an oscillating magnetic field .

We are interested in analyzing the energy dissipated by the system in the dynamic process governed by Eq. (10). The dissipated power is

$$P=𝑑\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{J}_\stackrel{}{x}\mu ,$$
(13)
where $`\stackrel{}{J}=D_\stackrel{}{x}\mathrm{\Psi }b\lambda (t)\mathrm{\Psi }_\stackrel{}{x}U(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is the diffusion current and $`\mu =K_BT\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x},t)+\lambda (t)U(\stackrel{}{x})`$ the corresponding chemical potential. It splits up into two contributions, one coming from the underlying diffusion process and another accounting for the power supplied by the external force. Since we are interested in the effects of the external field, we focus on the externally supplied power,

$`P_F`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda (t){\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{J}_\stackrel{}{x}U}={\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{J}\stackrel{}{F}(\stackrel{}{x},t)}.`$ (14)
By expanding $`\stackrel{}{F}(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ in series of the eigenfunctions of $`_0`$

$`\stackrel{}{F}(\stackrel{}{x},t)=\stackrel{}{F}_0(t)+{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}(\stackrel{}{F}_n(t)\varphi _n(\stackrel{}{x})+\stackrel{}{F}_n^{}(t)\varphi _n^{}(\stackrel{}{x})),`$ (15)
and substituting this equation into Eq. (14) we achieve

$`P_F=\stackrel{}{F}_0(t)\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{}{x}}{dt}}\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{x})\right\}+{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}2\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{𝖱𝖾}\{\stackrel{}{F}_n(t)\stackrel{}{J}_n^{}\},`$ (16)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the volume of the system. To obtain Eq. (16) we have used the result

$$𝑑\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{J}=\frac{d\stackrel{}{x}}{dt}\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(17)
This expression follows from the Fokker-Planck Eq. (10) through the definition of $`\stackrel{}{J}`$.

The quantity of interest is the dissipated power averaged over the period of the external force,

$$\overline{P}(\omega )=\frac{\omega }{2\pi }_0^{2\pi /\omega }𝑑tP_F.$$
(18)
For the particular case of the Brownian particle, $`P_F`$ reads

$`P_F=\stackrel{}{F}_0(t){\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{}{x}}{dt}}+{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}2\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{𝖱𝖾}\{\stackrel{}{F}_n(t)\stackrel{}{J}_n^{}\}.`$ (19)
In Fig. 2a we have plotted the corresponding $`\overline{P}(\omega )`$. To this end we have assumed that the motion of the particle takes place in two dimensions, with periodic boundary conditions, thus, the set of eigenfunctions $`\varphi _\stackrel{}{k}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ are the Fourier modes with eigenvalues $`a_\stackrel{}{k}=Dk^2i\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{k}`$. We have considered a force of the form $`\stackrel{}{F}(\stackrel{}{x},t)=\lambda (t)(1+\mathrm{cos}(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}))\widehat{v}`$, where $`\widehat{v}`$ is the unit vector pointing along the direction of the drift. The figure shows that $`\overline{P}(\omega )`$ achieves its minimum value at the resonant frequency. The negative character of this quantity indicates that the system is acting as a generator.

In Fig. 2b we have represented that quantity for the more complex case of the mesoscopic dynamics of a field-responsive Brownian particle in a vortex flow with vorticity $`\stackrel{}{\omega }_0`$, under an oscillating magnetic field, $`\stackrel{}{H}(t)`$, . In this case, the power supplied by the external force is

$$P_F=\stackrel{}{H}(t)\left\{\frac{d\stackrel{}{M}}{dt}\stackrel{}{\omega }_0\times \stackrel{}{M}\right\},$$
(20)
where $`\stackrel{}{M}`$ is the magnetization. This figure shows that in this case the transduction of energy occurs in two different regimes. In the low frequency regime $`\overline{P}_0`$, the power dissipated in the Debye relaxation , achieves negative values while $`\overline{P}_c`$, the energy dissipated due to the coupling between the drift and the external force, takes negative values for high frequencies. In both cases the averaged dissipated power $`\overline{P}(\omega )`$ exhibits a minimum value at the resonant frequency, showing the resonant character of the mechanism for energy transduction.

The analysis of the energy dissipation allows us to study the transport properties. The presence of an external driving, forces the system to move with a mean velocity, $`\stackrel{}{v}_m`$, different from the drift $`\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{x})`$, thus leading to the appearance of a drag force, $`\stackrel{}{F}_d=\stackrel{}{\stackrel{}{\kappa }}\stackrel{}{v}_m`$ , with $`\stackrel{}{\stackrel{}{\kappa }}`$ a friction tensor accounting for dissipation in the system. The resulting dissipated power is

$$\overline{P}=\stackrel{}{v}_m\stackrel{}{\stackrel{}{\kappa }}\stackrel{}{v}_m.$$
(21)
In the case of the Brownian particle advected by a constant drift, the friction tensor is a scalar. Its expression follows form Eq. (21)

$`\kappa _B={\displaystyle \frac{1}{v_m^2}}\overline{P},`$ (22)
whose behavior is essentially shown in Fig. 2a.

For the field-responsive particle the dissipated power given through Eq. (20) consists of two independent contributions corresponding to longitudinal ($`\overline{P}_0`$) and transversal ($`\overline{P}_c`$) effects, with respect to the direction of the magnetic field. Consequently, associated to the last one, which corresponds to the viscous dissipation occurring when the magnetic field acts on the fluid, we can define a friction coefficient as

$$\kappa _F=\frac{1}{(v_m^T)^2}\overline{\stackrel{}{\omega }_0(\stackrel{}{M}\times \stackrel{}{H})}.$$
(23)
where $`v_m^T=\omega _0a`$ is the transversal component of $`\stackrel{}{v}_m`$, with $`a`$ the radius of the particle and $`\omega _0`$ the modulus of the vorticity.

It is interesting to analyze the behavior of this quantity in terms of the parameter $`\beta `$, which is given in this case by $`D_r/\omega _0`$, with $`D_r`$, the rotational diffusion coefficient. As can be seen in Fig. 3, as $`\beta `$ grows the friction coefficient $`\kappa _F`$ becomes positive in the entire frequency range. In fact the frequency for which $`\kappa _F=0`$ goes to infinity in the limit of a Hermitian dynamics. Fig. 1 shows something analogous, that is, the resonance disappears when $`\beta `$ grows. Thus, we conclude that the phenomenon described is genuine of non-Hermitian systems.

The anomalous behavior exhibited by the friction coefficient is a direct consequence of the form of the susceptibility. In equilibrium, the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, implying that $`\omega \mathrm{𝖨𝗆}\chi _x(\omega )0`$, manifests that during the relaxation of the fluctuations around an equilibrium state the system always dissipates energy. Nonetheless, in the non-equilibrium case shown in Fig. 4 the imaginary part of the susceptibility achieves negative values for positive frequencies thus violating the aforementioned inequality. In this figure, obtained for the particular case of the Brownian particle in a constant drift, the analytical results are compared with numerical results from the corresponding Langevin equation by means of a second order Runge-Kutta method . For the field-responsive particle, we obtain the same behavior, which essentially corresponds to $`\overline{P}_0`$, plotted in Fig. 2b. This fact indicates that the system is generating energy instead of dissipating power, which manifests at a macroscopic level through the diminution of the friction coefficient. An anomalous behavior of the response was first discussed in the context of current generation by noise induced symmetry-breaking in coupled Brownian motors . In addition, several similar phenomena have been reported in . These papers were focused on specific models, raising the question under which circumstances this behavior arises. In this letter, we have found the conditions for these phenomena to occur in a quite general class of systems.

Notice that our results differ from the ones obtained when LRT is applied to non-equilibrium Hermitian systems. For example, in Ref.  fluctuation-dissipation-type relationships are derived, by assuming that the relaxation occurs as in the case of an equilibrium state. In the present context, this assumption does not hold, since we are dealing with non-Hermitian systems whose eigenvalue spectrum is complex. Consequently, perturbations do not relax exponentially as they do in equilibrium.

The theoretical framework discussed in this paper can be applied to a number of problems formulated in terms of non-Hermitian dynamics. Among them, one could mention the transport of classical particles advected by a quenched velocity field. This process, governed by a Fokker-Planck equation with random drift, models the diffusion in porous media. It has been recently shown  that, when the velocity field displays correlations in both longitudinal and transversal directions, the eigenvalues occupy a finite area in the complex plane. Consequently, this system evolves according to a non-Hermitian dynamics. If the particles can respond to an external field the same phenomenology described in this paper holds, i.e., as a consequence of the diminution of the dissipation transport through the porous medium becomes enhanced. The phenomenon we study may also arise in population biology problems, in particular in the generalization of the Malthus-Verhulst growth model proposed by Nelson and Schnerb . The linearization of this model around its steady state yields a non-Hermitian evolution equation. When a periodic driving is introduced as a time dependence of the resources of the medium, the minimum achieved by the dissipated energy is now related to a resonant optimization of these resources.

Additionally, our approach might unify the explanation of other resonant transport phenomena previously reported. The Senftleben-Beenakker effect observed in gases of polyatomic molecules shares the phenomenology inherent to our model. This effect occurs when the gas is under the action of both a constant magnetic field and an oscillating field parallel to the first one . Larmor precession causes the non-Hermiticity of the Boltzmann equation describing the dynamics of this system. The resonant frequency is related to Larmor’s frequency. Under these conditions, the viscosity of the gas manifests a non-monotonous behavior as a function of the frequency similar to the one depicted in Fig. 3. Another example exhibiting analogous characteristics is the negative viscosity effect observed in field-responsive fluids , under a non-potential flow and submitted to an AC field. This effect consists of a diminution of the viscosity due to the presence of the periodic field. The field-responsive phase acts as a transmitter of energy between the external force and the system, leading to an improvement of the transport.

In summary, we have proposed a mechanism for energy transduction in non-equilibrium systems, based on the possibility of extracting energy from the relaxation process of out-of-equilibrium fluctuations. Under the action of an oscillating force, systems which evolve according to non-Hermitian dynamics act as transducers. Consequently, the energy dissipated in the system diminishes achieving its minimum value when the frequency of the external driving matches the resonant frequency. This diminution of the amount of energy dissipated has a strong influence on the macroscopic properties of the system, leading to an enhancement of the transport or more generally to an optimization of the consumption of energy. Due to the intrinsic non-equilibrium nature of the fluctuations, energy transduction does not require any further ingredient, as occurs in ratchet-like engines, in which the presence of a parity-symmetry-breaking potential is an unavoidable condition for transferring energy.

The authors thank David Reguera for helpful discussions. This work has been supported by DGICYT of the Spanish Government under grant PB98-1258. One of us (T. Alarcón) wishes to thank to DGICYT of the Spanish Government for financial support.


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# Thermalization temperature in Pb+Pb collisions at SpS energy from hadron yields and midrapidity 𝑝_𝑡 distributions of hadrons and direct photons

## Abstract

In the frame of 2+1 Bjorken hydrodynamics we describe simultaneously hadron yields and midrapidity $`p_t`$ distributions of direct photons, unflavored, and strange hadrons measured in Pb+Pb collisions at SpS. We find, that a reasonably quantitative description of these data is possible only if we introduce some radial velocity at the beginning of the one-fluid hydrodynamic stage. We fix uniquely all parameters of this model, and estimate an initial temperature of the just thermalized state $`T_{in}=200\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+40}{20}MeV`$ in the case of EoS with phase transition to Quark-Gluon Plasma, and $`T_{in}=230\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+60}{30}MeV`$ in the pure hadronic scenario. We conclude that SpS data considered in our study can not distinguish between a production of QGP, and its absence.

A finite volume of rapidly expanding Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) can be possibly created for a very short time in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions as an almost locally equilibrated thermodynamic state of deconfined quarks and gluons with strong residual interaction. Taking into account a very short time available for QGP formation in this process a necessary condition of its creations is that an initial (thermalization) temperature $`T_{in}`$ have to be visibly higher than the quark-hadron phase transition temperature, which is estimated from lattice calculations to be $`T_c=150170MeV`$ . Therefore an estimation of a temperature at which the local thermal equilibrium is just established – thermalization temperature – is of great importance.

There are a lot of attempts to extract this temperature from direct photon momentum distributions measured in S+Au  and Pb+Pb  collisions. However, to extract the thermalization temperature from experimental data reasonably well, it is necessary to separate accurately the collective and chaotic motions. To do this one needs to know the evolution of the collision starting from the first interactions till the final particle stage. Unfortunately, the most part of the estimations of the thermalization temperature  are based on hydrodynamic description with too simplified initial conditions (zero initial radial collective velocity), and other model parameters fixed partially by some experimental data, and partially – ad hoc from more or less reasonable considerations. Only in the recent paper  a first attempt to estimate the influence of nonzero initial radial velocity was undertaken.

In contrast to this, in the present letter we use initial conditions for hydrodynamic model in the most general form, describe simultaneously a large amount of available experimental data, measured in Pb+Pb collisions at SpS (hadron yields, midrapidity $`p_t`$ distributions of direct photons, unflavored and strange hadrons), fix uniquely all model parameters from these data and obtain reliable estimate of the thermalization temperature with its uncertainty concerned with experimental data bars.

In this way we find, that if we use a realistic equation of state (EoS) of hadronic gas incorporating contributions of all known hadrons and resonances, then to describe midrapidity $`p_t`$ distributions of final hadrons it is necessary to assume an essentially nonzero initial radial collective velocity at the beginning of the one-fluid hydrodynamic stage. This velocity is created during the pre-equilibrium (two-fluid) stage of the collision due to significant radial energy density gradient coming from the shapes of the colliding nuclei. Nevertheless, in all previous estimations of the thermalization temperature this initial radial velocity was absolutely neglected, and only the simplest case (zero initial velocity) was considered.

Evaluating the direct photon yield we assume the following scenario of the collision. Initially, on the pre-equilibrium stage, colliding nuclei penetrate through each other like two fluids with a friction. On this stage the ‘prompt’ photons are emitted and radial collective velocity is created. If the thermalization time is not negligibly small then the both these effects should be taken into account. The next stage is a one-fluid-like expansion of the locally thermalized matter with an emission of the ‘thermal’ photons and its decay onto final hadrons.

To begin with we calculate contribution of the prompt photons. We take into account Compton, annihilation and bremsstrahlung processes. We use GRV-94 structure functions , two-loop expression for $`\alpha _s`$ and K-factor, K=2, accounting higher order corrections. Comparing calculated yield of prompt photons in pp and pA collisions with experimental data at $`\sqrt{s}=19`$ GeV – the closest available c.m. energy to Pb+Pb at SpS ($`\sqrt{s}=17.3`$ GeV) we find, that both experimental data and theoretical predictions have approximately the same slope, but difference in normalization reaches factor $`7`$. Nowadays this difference is attributed to the intrinsic transverse momentum of colliding partons . In this letter we account these corrections by introducing a proper factor, assuming that it is independent on $`\sqrt{s}`$ while moving from pA to Pb+Pb energy. To go from pA to AA collisions we need the number of nucleon-nucleon collisions occurred during the interpenetration of the colliding nuclei. In our calculations we use Glauber approximation, what gives in the case of Pb+Pb collision $`N_{Gl}3A`$. Comparison with WA98 data  shows, that prompt photons contribute approximately 30% of total direct photon yield.

To evaluate yield of thermal photons we integrate average emission rate of direct photons from unit volume per unit time over a space-time evolution of hot matter calculated in a one-fluid hydrodynamics. In the present analysis we use recently calculated emission rates accounting next to leading effects in QGP  and dominating contribution in hadronic gas – reaction $`\pi \rho a_1\pi \gamma `$ . For description of the evolution we use 2+1 Bjorken hydrodynamics, which works sufficiently well at midrapidity. It has several parameters which should be fixed to define the evolution: a) initial conditions: initial temperature $`T_{in}`$, initial time $`\tau _{in}`$, initial energy density and velocity distributions; b) EoS of hot matter: transition temperature $`T_c`$ (if EoS includes phase transition), chemical freeze-out temperature $`T_{ch}`$ and thermal freeze-out temperature $`T_f`$.

For the shape of energy density distribution we use Woods-Saxon distribution, integrated along beam axis. As for initial distribution of radial velocity, it deserve separate discussion. As we find, to describe momentum distributions of final hadrons using realistic EoS it is necessary to introduce some radial velocity already at the beginning of the one-fluid hydrodynamics. This velocity is created during interpenetration of colliding nuclei due to significant radial energy density gradient, originated from spherical shapes of colliding nuclei. Two-fluid hydrodynamics or kinetic models might predict value and radial dependence of this collective velocity but, in this letter we use ‘phemenologic’ approach and use a simple linear distribution $`v(r)=(r/R)\mathrm{\Theta }(Rr)V^{max}`$ characterized by one new parameter – $`V^{max}`$ – the velocity on the surface of the just thermalized system. We find, that our results are not sensitive to reasonable variations of the shape of this distribution.

Concerning equation of state we consider two different cases: EoS with phase transition to QGP, and pure hadronic EoS. In the case of phase transition for QGP phase we use EoS of ideal gas of massless quarks and gluons with degeneracy $`g=41.5`$, what corresponds to QGP consisting of 2.5 massless quark flavors and gluons. To calculate EoS of hadronic phase both in the case of phase transition and pure hadronic scenario we take into account contributions of all hadrons listed in the Particle Data Book . Inclusion of heavy hadrons leads to significant reduction of speed of sound in the hadronic phase: $`v_s^20.15`$ in our case should be compared with $`v_s^20.33`$ for massless hadronic gas or $`v_s^20.25`$ for pure pion gas. The decreasing of speed of sound results in decreasing of acceleration in hadronic gas and stepper slopes of $`p_t`$ distributions of final hadrons .

To model freeze-out of hadronic gas we use two different parameters: chemical ($`T_{ch}`$) and thermal ($`T_f`$) freeze-out temperatures. It is known, that due to large difference in cross-sections of elastic and inelastic reactions in hadronic gas, the chemical freeze-out takes place before the thermal one. Following paper  we use the following values of the temperature of chemical freeze-out, and baryon, strange and $`I_3`$ chemical potentials – $`T_{ch}=168MeV`$, $`\mu _b=266MeV`$, $`\mu _s=71MeV`$ and $`\mu _3=5MeV`$. As a result we well describe yields of $`\pi `$, $`K`$, $`\eta `$, $`p`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ hadrons measured by NA44 , NA49 , WA97  and WA98  collaborations in Pb+Pb collisions at SpS energy.

A description of our results we start from pure hadronic scenario. Despite the belief that hadronic gas can not exist at temperatures higher than $`200`$ MeV (because of the essential overlapping of hadrons in it) we adopt its existence and consider the consequences of this assumption from the point of view of description of direct photon production. To begin with, we assume zero initial radial velocity and try to describe momentum distributions of final hadrons. We choose some initial temperature and calculate initial time to describe multiplicity of final $`\pi ^0`$. After that we perform the hydrodynamic calculations with various values of chemical and thermal freeze-out temperatures and obtain $`\chi _\pi ^2`$ of the fit of the calculated to the experimental $`\pi ^0`$ distributions as a function of $`T_{ch}`$ and $`T_f`$. We find, that it is impossible to describe midrapidity $`p_t`$ distributions of $`\pi ^0`$ within any reasonable set of model parameters: because of the much steeper slope of the calculated $`p_t`$ distribution of $`\pi ^0`$ with respect to the experimental one, we obtain $`\chi _\pi ^210^2/point`$. We find the same situation for all initial temperatures in the range $`160MeV<T_{in}<300MeV`$. A reasonable way to improve this situation is to introduce some initial radial velocity to the one-fluid hydrodynamic stage.

On the next step, we repeat calculations with nonzero initial radial velocity. Again we choose initial temperature, fix initial time from the multiplicity considerations, fix temperature of chemical freeze-out $`T_{ch}=168MeV`$ to describe hadron yields and plot levels of constant $`\chi _\pi ^2`$ in the $`T_fV^{max}`$ coordinates – see fig. 1. The function $`\chi _\pi ^2(T_f,V^{max})`$ has a shape of a valley with steep walls, while any point on its bottom (thick line), corresponds to a good description of midrapidity $`p_t`$ distributions of $`\pi ^0`$ with $`\chi _\pi ^21/point`$. To fix a point on this line we use spectra of heavier hadrons ($`K`$, $`p`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$). It was shown  that spectra of the heavier hadrons can be described well if we assume freeze-out temperature $`T_f=120MeV`$.

The description of the hadron $`p_t`$ distributions at midrapidity obtained in this way is shown on the fig. 2. One can see, that shapes of all available experimental spectra: $`\pi ^0`$ , $`K`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ , protons , and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$  are described very well, although we overestimate total yields of $`p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in this rough model.

To fix finally all model parameters we estimate $`T_{in}`$ using $`p_t`$ distribution of direct photons. We depict on the fig. 3 the sum of the $`p_t`$ distribution of prompt and thermal photons, calculated at three initial temperatures. For each initial temperature we repeat calculations, described above and obtain the following sets of parameters:

| $`T_{in}`$, MeV | $`\tau _{in}`$, fm/c | $`V^{max}`$, c | Curve on fig. 3 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 200 | 1.4 | 0.36 | solid |
| 230 | 0.6 | 0.29 | dashed |
| 300 | 0.12 | 0.23 | dotted |

We find, an agreement with experimental data at initial temperature $`T_{in}=230\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+60}{30}MeV`$: $`T_{in}=230MeV`$ corresponds to $`\chi _\pi ^2=3.7/point`$$`\chi _\gamma ^2=0.67/point`$, while curves, calculated for $`T_{in}=200MeV`$ ($`\chi _\pi ^2=4.9/point`$$`\chi _\gamma ^2=0.67/point`$), and $`T_{in}=300MeV`$ ($`\chi _\pi ^2=3.5/point`$, $`\chi _\gamma ^2=2.3/point`$) are still within experimental errors. The reason of this weak sensitivity to the initial temperature is following. As far as we introduce the initial radial velocity, all time stages contribute with more or less the same effective slopes. But, the difference between initial time for $`T_{in}=300`$ MeV – $`\tau _{in}=0.12`$ fm/c, and for $`T_{in}=230`$ MeV – $`\tau _{in}=0.6`$ fm/c is not large, and therefore contribution of this stage is not very important with respect to the subsequent evolution.

We confirm the result found in  – ‘reach’ hadron gas EoS allows to describe the experimental $`p_t`$ distribution of direct photons  within pure hadronic scenario. Our best fit value of $`T_{in}=230\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+60}{30}MeV`$ is smaller, than the initial temperature estimated in  $`T_{in}260MeV`$. There are two reasons of this discrepancy: first is, the initial radial velocity which we included to describe final hadron spectra. In contrast to our approach, authors of  made not attempt to describe hadron spectra, and did not consider a nonzero initial radial velocity. The second reason is different normalization to final hadron multiplicity. The authors of  used the well known Bjorken formula, relating initial time and temperature with final multiplicity (formula (5) in ). But, this formula is valid only for massless final particles and being applied to real hadronic gas leads to an underestimation of the initial time and, as a consequence, of the thermal photon yield.

Now let us consider EoS incorporating first order phase transition. In this case there is an additional parameter $`T_c`$ which value is estimated from lattice QCD simulations to be $`150170MeV`$ . On the other hand $`T_cT_{ch}`$. Therefore we use $`T_c=T_{ch}=168MeV`$ to consider an extreme case with the most intensive QGP production.

As in the case of pure hadronic gas, first we try to describe experimental $`p_t`$ distribution of $`\pi ^0`$ with zero initial radial velocity, and find almost the same situation: for any reasonable set of model parameters the calculated $`p_t`$ distribution of $`\pi ^0`$ goes much steeper, and result in unreasonably large $`\chi _\pi ^210^2/point`$. So, we find again, that it is necessary to introduce initial radial velocity to describe momentum distributions of final hadrons. Repeating the same procedure as for pure hadronic gas EoS we obtain the following sets of model parameters:

| $`T_{in}`$, MeV | $`\tau _{in},`$ fm/c | $`V^{max},`$ c | Curve on fig. 4 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 180 | 2.0 | 0.40 | solid |
| 200 | 1.5 | 0.38 | dashed |
| 230 | 1.0 | 0.29 | dotted |
| 250 | 0.7 | 0.26 | dash-dotted |

We find the best agreement with experimental data at $`T_{in}=200\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+40}{20}`$ MeV ($`\chi _\pi ^2=3.3/point`$$`\chi _\gamma ^2=0.8/point`$), what means very short QGP phase and much more prolonged mixed phase.

To conclude, we use 2+1 Bjorken hydrodynamics to analyze hadron yields, and midrapidity $`p_t`$ distributions of hadrons and direct photons, measured in Pb+Pb collision at SpS energy. We find, that calculations with zero initial velocity, and EoS of hadronic gas accounting contribution of all known hadrons result in too soft $`p_t`$ distributions of final hadrons, and a reasonable way to describe experimental slopes is to introduce nonzero radial velocity at the beginning of the one-fluid hydrodynamic stage. This initial radial velocity, which might be produced during the pre-equilibrium stage because of the strong radial energy density gradient originated from spherical shapes of colliding nuclei, is not small ($`0.3c`$ near the surface). Therefore the pre-equilibrium stage is expected to be long enough, and, in particular the ‘prompt photons’ have to be taken into account.

An introduction of the initial radial velocity to this model allows to describe simultaneously direct photon and hadron $`p_t`$ distributions for the both EoS including phase transition and without it. We estimate an initial temperature of the just thermalized state $`T_{in}=200\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+40}{20}MeV`$ in the case of EoS with phase transition to QGP, and $`T_{in}=230\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{+60}{30}MeV`$ in the pure hadronic scenario. Because the lower bounds of the estimated thermalization temperature are very close to the expected transition temperature we conclude that the SpS data considered in this letter can not distinguish between a production of QGP, and its absence: The initial temperature in central Pb+Pb collisions at SpS is too small, and experimental errors for the direct photon $`p_t`$ distributions are too large.

This work was supported by the INTAS under Contract INTAS-97-0158, and by grant RFBR 00-15-96590.


text:
# Implementation of a quantum phase gate by the optical Kerr effect

## I The Quantum Phase Gate

Theoretically quantum computers can perform some types of calculations much faster than classical computers , but the technological difficulties of manipulating quantum information have so far prevented researchers from constructing a quantum computer which is able to perform useful tasks. The difficulty of building a quantum computer was greatly diminished when it was realized that a network of quantum phase gates (QPG) operating in the product space of two qubits, single bit rotations, and single bit phase shift gates can constitute a universal quantum computer . The QPG simply gives the product state of two qubits a phase shift depending on the values of each qubit. In other words, the QPG performs the operation

$$\left[\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& e^{i\alpha }& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& e^{i\beta }& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& e^{i\gamma }\end{array}\right]\begin{array}{c}|00\hfill \\ |01\hfill \\ |10\hfill \\ |11\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
in the computational basis of the two qubits. Provided that $`\alpha +\beta \gamma `$ (mod $`2\pi `$) a network of QPGs supplemented with single bit gates can mimic the operation of any other unitary operator acting on the qubits.

Recently an implementation of a QPG has been demonstrated  utilizing Rydberg states and a photon in a microwave cavity. In this letter we explain how a QPG that operates in the product space of the polarizations of two photons can be constructed by using the optical Kerr effect. The photons are made to interact as they pass through a material with a third-order nonlinear susceptibility. These Kerr materials are used for a wide variety of optical applications. In the presence of a superposition of electromagnetic waves at different frequencies and/or in different directions, these materials are used in four-wave mixing applications such as frequency conversion, phase conjugation, real time holography, and image correlation. In the presence of a wave at a single frequency, the refractive index of such materials is intensity dependent and gives rise to the phenomenon of self focusing . When a superposition of waves is present, the optical Kerr effect also produces an interaction in which the intensity of one frequency component influences the index of refraction of another frequency component. As described by Mandel and Wolf in , this effect can be used to perform quantum non-demolition and back-action evading measurements, during which the intensity of one frequency component can be used to control the phase of another without altering the photon number of either component. Thus without loss of photon number, the frequency components can become entangled in a way that lends itself well to quantum computations.

## II Elliptical Polarization as a Qubit

Because a photon’s polarization state can be easily manipulated with devices like Faraday rotators and quarter-wave plates, we take our qubit to be a single state

$$|Q=a|H+b|V,$$
(2)
where $`a`$ and $`b`$ are complex numbers , with

$$|a|^2+|b|^2=1.$$
(3)
We implement this as the elliptical polarization of a beam of light, so that the $`|H`$ and $`|V`$ eigenstates correspond to horizontal and vertical polarized modes of the photon field of a particular frequency. Other all optical qubit implementations have represented qubits with the paths that a laser travels through an interferometer, and the computation is performed using interference. Although it is easy to construct a small quantum computer using this method, the number of optical components (beam splitters and mirrors) increases exponentially with the number of qubits in the computer . Because our proposal encodes the qubits with polarization rather than interferometer paths, it does not suffer from this exponential growth.

The photon characterizing the first qubit $`|Q_1`$ has frequency $`\omega _1`$, and the second qubit $`|Q_2`$ has frequency $`\omega _2`$. In order to increase the effectiveness of the nonlinear medium that will carry out the QPG operation, the two photons should travel through it colinearly. The computer’s information is encoded in the photons’ polarizations, so the photon frequency is the only means by which we can distinguish the two qubits.

The electric field operator that acts on the photons traveling through the QPG is given by

$$𝐄(t,z)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{v}}\underset{j=1}{\overset{2}{}}\underset{p=H,V}{}\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}\omega _j}{2ϵ_0}}\left[i\widehat{a}_{jp}\widehat{\epsilon }_pe^{i(\omega _jtk_jz)}+\text{h.c.}\right]$$
(4)
where $`t`$ is time $`z`$ is the coordinate describing the direction of propagation, $`v`$ is the normalization volume, $`j`$ represents each qubit, $`p`$ represents the polarization, $`ϵ_0`$ is the permittivity of free space, $`\widehat{a}_{jp}`$ is the annihilation operator and $`\widehat{a}_{jp}^{}`$ is the creation operator of a photon with frequency $`\omega _j`$ and polarization $`p`$, the $`\widehat{\epsilon }_p`$ are unit polarization vectors, and $`k_j`$ is the wave number of qubit $`j`$.

## III Optical Kerr Effect

An optical medium exhibiting the frequency independent Kerr effect is governed by a nonlinear polarization vector with components

$$P_l=\chi E_l+\underset{m,q,r=1,2,3}{}\chi _{l,m,q,r}^{(3)}E_mE_qE_r,$$
(5)
where $`\chi `$ is the linear component of the susceptibility, and $`\chi _{l,m,q,r}^{(3)}`$ is third order nonlinear response to the electric field, and $`l`$, $`m`$, $`q`$, and $`r`$, represent the three spatial directions . A frequency dependent $`\chi ^3`$ cannot be factored so simply but can be expressed through the Fourier transforms of $`𝐏`$ and $`𝐄`$ . The behavior of the electric fields representing the two qubits as they travel through the Kerr medium is given by the Hamiltonian

$`H=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mu _0}𝐁^2𝑑v}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle ϵ_0𝐄^2𝑑v}`$ (7)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \chi 𝐄^2𝑑v}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}{\displaystyle 𝐄𝐏_{NL}^{(3)}𝑑v}`$
where $`\mu _0`$ is the permeability of the non-magnetic material, $`𝐁`$ is the total magnetic field, and $`𝐏_{NL}^{(3)}`$ is the nonlinear part of the polarization vector including frequency dependent terms.

We may simplify this complicated Hamiltonian by choosing the two frequencies of the electric fields to be nearly resonant with excitations of the medium as pictured in Fig. 1 . Exactly resonant photons will suffer from loss, so it is best that they are slightly detuned. A similar technique, with a different energy transition scheme, has been demonstrated by Sinatra et. al. in . In their experiment the two lasers are coupled through a gas of $`{}_{}{}^{87}\text{Rb}`$ where the photons interact with a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-type three-level system. If the photon frequencies are chosen correctly many of the terms in the above Hamiltonian can be ignored. Upon substituting the operator forms of the fields we obtain

$`H=`$ $`\mathrm{}\omega _1{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}}\left(\widehat{n}_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)+\mathrm{}\omega _2{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}}\left(\widehat{n}_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)`$ (9)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{}^2}{16vϵ_0^2}}\omega _1\omega _2\chi ^{(3)}(\omega _2;\omega _1,\omega _2,\omega _1)\widehat{n}_1\widehat{n}_2,`$
where $`ϵ=ϵ_0+\chi `$ is the linear permittivity of the medium, $`\chi ^{(3)}(\omega _2;\omega _1,\omega _2,\omega _1)`$ is the only surviving frequency dependent term in the nonlinear susceptibility, and $`\widehat{n}_1`$ and $`\widehat{n}_2`$ are the photon number operators.

As the photons pass through the Kerr medium, they will experience some phase shift, which can be calculated from the time evolution of the annihilation operators $`\widehat{a}_1`$ and $`\widehat{a}_2`$. Using Heisenberg’s equation of motion, we find that

$$\widehat{a}_1(t)=e^{i\omega _1t\left(\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{int}}^{(3)}\omega _2\widehat{n}_2\right)}\widehat{a}_1(0)$$
(10)
and

$$\widehat{a}_2(t)=e^{i\omega _2t\left(\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{int}}^{(3)}\omega _1\widehat{n}_1\right)}\widehat{a}_2(0),$$
(11)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{int}}^{(3)}=\frac{3\mathrm{}^2}{16vϵ_0}\chi ^{(3)}(\omega _2;\omega _1,\omega _2,\omega _1)$$
(12)
. Therefore each photon field traveling through the Kerr medium will receive a phase shift that depends on the number of photons in the other field. More specifically, if one field is in a superposition of photon number states, the other field will emerge in an entangled state so that it has been given a superposition of different phase shifts.

## IV Construction of the QPG

It is relatively easy to manipulate the polarization states of a photon, so we imagine that the quantum computer contains two photons with the states

$$|Q_1=a_1|H_1+b_1|V_1$$
(13)
and

$$|Q_2=a_2|H_2+b_2|V_2.$$
(14)
However the phase shifts provided by the isotropic Kerr effect depend not on polarization, but instead on photon number, so we must translate the above polarization states into Fock states. As depicted in Fig. 2, this can be done by passing each photon through a polarizing beam splitter effectively cutting each qubit into two beams, one with horizontal and one with vertical polarization. The amplitudes for finding zero or one photon in each beam are given by

$$|Q_{1H}=b_1|0_{1H}+a_1|1_{1V},$$
(15)
$$|Q_{1V}=a_1|0_{1V}+b_1|1_{1V},$$
(16)
$$|Q_{2H}=b_2|0_{2H}+a_2|1_{2H},$$
(17)
and

$$|Q_{2V}=a_2|0_{2V}+b_2|1_{2V}.$$
(18)
The two horizontal beams may now be deflected around the Kerr medium while the vertical beams are directed through it. To achieve the largest nonlinear effects, we combine the two vertical beams with prisms so that they are collinear when entering the medium. Prisms may also be used to separate the beams after they emerge. We assume that the horizontal beams travel for an integer number of wavelengths and receive zero phase shift, while the two vertical beams are phase shifted according to the operators

$$\widehat{K}_1(t)=e^{i\omega _1t\left(\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{int}}^{(3)}\omega _2\widehat{n}_{2V}\right)}$$
(19)
and

$$\widehat{K}_2(t)=e^{i\omega _2t\left(\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{int}}^{(3)}\omega _1\widehat{n}_{1V}\right)},$$
(20)
where $`\widehat{n}_{1V}`$ and $`\widehat{n}_{2V}`$ count the number of photons in $`|Q_{1V}`$ and $`|Q_{2V}`$. After emerging from the Kerr medium the vertical parts of the two qubits are

$$|Q_{1V}^{}=a_1|0_{1V}+b_1\widehat{K}_1|1_{1V}$$
(21)
and

$$|Q_{2V}^{}=a_2|0_{2V}+b_2\widehat{K}_2|1_{2V}.$$
(22)
The horizontal and vertical parts of the qubits are then recombined at a second pair of polarizing beam splitters, completing the action of the quantum phase gate. If the Kerr medium is anisotropic, it may not be necessary to split the beams into horizontal and vertical parts. Instead the beams would be “split” by the medium so that their horizontal and vertical components receive different phase shifts. The output qubits are

$$|Q_1^{}=a_1|H_1+b_1\widehat{K}_1|V_1$$
(23)
and

$$|Q_2^{}=a_2|H_2+b_2\widehat{K}_2|V_2.$$
(24)
This is equivalent to the operation of

$$\widehat{K}_1\widehat{K}_2=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& e^{i\omega _1t\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}}& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& e^{i\omega _2t\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}}& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& e^{it\left(\omega _1\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}+\omega _2\frac{ϵ}{ϵ_0}+2\omega _1\omega _2\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{int}}^{(3)}\right)}\end{array}\right]\begin{array}{c}|H_1H_2\hfill \\ |H_1V_2\hfill \\ |V_1H_2\hfill \\ |V_1V_2\hfill \end{array}$$
(25)
in the product space of $`|Q_1|Q_2`$. For correct choices of the parameters $`\omega _1`$, $`\omega _2`$, $`t`$ (or the length of the Kerr medium), and $`\chi ^{(3)}(\omega _2;\omega _1,\omega _2,\omega _1)`$, this is a quantum phase gate satisfying the conditions for universality.

## V Decoherence and Losses

Decoherence afflicts all physical implementations of quantum computers, and in this implementation of the QPG, decoherence will mainly come about through the loss of photons. In general the outcome of an interaction with a quantum state is not unique. In most cases the alternate outcomes remove probability from the signal of interest and lead to erratic outcomes when it is measured. Our concept calls for polarization sensitive phase shifts. But the nonlinear process responsible for the phase shift can have other outcomes too. One needs to have a reasonably large portion of the total interaction rate produce the gated phase shift and to have an ability to reject all the alternate outcomes. In some experiments, this has been accomplished through the use of single mode fiber  that only permits the propagation of the, possibly phase shifted, initial wave. One might also consider the use of filters to remove higher and lower frequencies produced by the nonlinear interaction. As long as the information present in the photons survives the interactions with the gate the device will function properly.

We can imagine that in most calculations, a quantum computer would compute from one polarization eigenstate to another eigenstate. This fact suggests a method for guarding against mistakes due to photon loss. At the output stage of the computer we should have photo-detectors prepared to measure the presence of each photon in both of its $`|H`$ and $`|V`$ states. Exactly one of the two photo-detectors should register a photon, so if zero or two photons are measured, the calculation should be repeated. Unfortunately the probability of finding an error increases exponentially with the number of qubits that the computer contains. Suppose that $`\mathrm{}`$ is the probability that a single qubit survives all of the computational operations and is correctly detected by its detectors. $`\mathrm{}`$ is likely to be very small for a computer with many qubits and quantum logic gates. If we assume that all $`N`$ photons must pass through the same number of logic gates and that $`\mathrm{}`$ is not a function of the polarization of the qubits, he probability that all $`N`$ photons survive the computation and are all detected correctly is then $`\mathrm{}^N`$.

The optical Kerr effect depends on the number of photons in the two waves. The induced phase shift is proportional to the intensity of the controlling beam. Optical losses can reduce the intensity of the beams and change the phase shift associated with the interaction. One needs a simple way to generate a standard amplitude beam as part of the gate so that the induced phase shift will be a constant. Here we assume that the quantum computer operates at the single photon level, so losses are detected by the absence of an output for the particular qubit.

An intrinsic problem with our approach may be the presence of polarization dependent loses that would make the induced phase shifts depend on the “state” of the qubit. While these may be small, they introduce a form of error into the gate that could accumulate for complex calculations. It may be possible to compensate for these effects.

In general it may be hard to maintain ridged control on the mechanical structure of the gate to ensure reproduceability. Without control the gate will populate a small region in the vicinity of the correct operation. We suspect that some sort of feedback mechanism may be needed to insure consistent quality for extended calculations.

Lastly, for most materials the $`\chi _{l,m,q,r}^{(3)}`$ are known to be very small, and nonlinear effects are observable only for beams with large numbers of photons. One can combat this by allowing the photons to travel together through long fibers . However, large nonlinear effects exist for photons slightly detuned from resonance transitions in atomic gasses .

## VI Conclusions

The photon-photon interaction predicted from the Kerr effect Hamiltonian is the sort of interaction required for the construction of a universal quantum computer. At the single-photon level, this implementation of a QPG is sensitive to loss mechanisms and the requirement of large nonlinear optical effects. Our future work will investigate the extension of this treatment to qubits that are described by large numbers of photons rather than single photons.

## VII Acknowledgments

We thank James Cushing, Ed Farhi, and Uri Sarid for their helpful discussions. S. G. thanks the Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation for fellowship support. J. M. L. is supported by the Division of High Energy Physics, Office of Science, U. S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-FG02-00ER41145. C. E. T. acknowledges support by the Division of Chemical Sciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science at the U. S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-FG02-95ER14579.


text:
# Apparent Superluminal Behavior in Wave Propagation

## The Model:

We consider a scalar wave, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, moving in a two-dimensional wave guide according to the Klein-Gordon equation

$$^2\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{^2\mathrm{\Psi }}{t^2}.$$
(1)
The wave guide is infinite in the $`x`$-direction and extends from $`0zh(x)`$ in the $`z`$-direction. We assume that $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ vanishes at the transverse bounding surfaces. If $`h`$ is a slowly varying function of $`x`$, we can approximate $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ as the product $`\psi (x,t)\mathrm{sin}(\pi z/h)`$. Neglecting derivatives of $`h`$, eqn. (1) reduces to a one-dimensional equation:

$$\frac{^2\psi }{x^2}+V(x)\psi =\frac{^2\psi }{t^2}.$$
(2)
The effective potential is determined by the width of the wave guide so that $`V(x)=\pi ^2/h(x)^2`$ for the lowest transverse mode. For simplicity, we assume that $`h(x)`$ is large except in the vicinity of the constriction, so that $`V(x)`$ can be modeled as non-zero only in the region $`0xb`$.

We seek solutions to eqn. (2) which describe the motion of an initial pulse, $`\psi (x,0)=f(x)`$, which has arbitrary shape but satisfies the following two conditions. First, the pulse has a well-defined wave front, $`x_0`$, initially to the left of the barrier, $`V(x)`$, i.e., $`\psi (x,0)0`$ only when $`xx_0<0`$. Second, at $`t=0`$ the pulse moves uniformly to the right with a velocity of $`1`$, so that $`\psi /t=\psi /x`$ at $`t=0`$. For any given potential, this problem can be solved with the aid of the corresponding Green’s function.

This model has been considered in detail in ref. , where it was shown in generality that the transmitted wave is given by

$$\psi (x,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{x_0}\stackrel{~}{T}(xtx^{})f(x^{})𝑑x^{},$$
(3)
where $`T(x)`$ is the retarded transmission kernel, which may be expressed in terms of its Fourier transform $`T(\omega )`$

$$\stackrel{~}{T}(u)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}T(\omega )e^{i\omega u}\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }.$$
(4)
The physical interpretation of $`T(\omega )`$ as a transmission amplitude is elementary: An incoming plane wave $`\mathrm{exp}(i\omega x)`$, incident on the potential barrier from the left, leads to a transmitted wave $`T(\omega )\mathrm{exp}(i\omega x)`$. Since $`|T(\omega )|1`$ for $`|\omega |\mathrm{}`$, the integration contour in eqn. (4) can be closed in the upper half $`\omega `$-plane for $`x>0`$. If $`T(\omega )`$ is free of singularities in the upper half plane, it follows that $`\stackrel{~}{T}(xtx^{})=0`$ for $`x>x^{}+t`$ and thus that $`\psi (x,t)`$ is strictly zero for $`x>x_0+t`$. Nothing precedes the light front.

## A Special Case:

The authors of ref.  considered the special case where $`V(x)=m^2`$ is a positive constant and found

$$T(\omega )=\frac{4\omega \kappa }{D}\mathrm{e}^{i(\kappa \omega )b}$$
(5)
with $`\kappa =i\sqrt{m^2(\omega +iϵ)^2}`$ and

$$D=(\omega +\kappa )^2(\omega \kappa )^2\mathrm{e}^{2i\kappa b}.$$
(6)
The singularities of $`T(\omega )`$ are due to the zeros of $`D`$ in the $`\omega `$-plane. Given the form of $`\kappa `$, the zeros of $`D`$ are confined to the lower half plane, and $`T(\omega )`$ is indeed analytic in the upper half plane. As expected, this model precludes genuine superluminal propagation. The analytic properties of $`T(\omega )`$ are, of course, dictated by those of $`V(\omega )`$. The general proof that any given potential will lead to such analyticity is more challenging.111A general proof can be constructed along the following lines. Write the transmission amplitude as a linear integral equation of the form $`\psi =\phi +G_0V\psi `$, where $`G_0`$ is a suitable free propagator. Singularities in $`\psi `$ arise when singularities of the integrand pinch the integration contour. Analyticity of $`V(\omega )`$ in the upper half plane then ensures the desired analyticity properties of $`T(\omega )`$. All real, local, and bounded potentials which vanish sufficiently rapidly as $`x\mathrm{}`$ are expected to respect these analyticity conditions, and the absence of true superluminality is thus to be expected for all physically sensible choices of $`V`$.

## Apparent Superluminal Behaviour:

Confident that our Klein-Gordon model is free of genuine acausal propagation, we turn to apparent superluminal phenomena. Consider a strong barrier (with $`mb>>1`$) and imagine that the initial wave form, $`\psi (x,0)`$, is dominated by low frequency components for which $`|\omega |<<m`$. In this case, the form of $`\psi (x,t)`$ is both simple and intuitive. Specifically, we need only consider $`\omega 0`$ for which $`\kappa im`$. In this domain, the transmission amplitude can be approximated as

$$T(\omega )\omega \frac{4i}{m}\mathrm{e}^{i\omega b}\mathrm{e}^{mb}.$$
(7)
We shall see shortly that this form of the transmission amplitude is quite general. Using eqn. (7), we see that eqn. (4) reduces to

$$\stackrel{~}{T}(xtx^{})=\frac{4}{m}e^{mb}\frac{}{u}\delta (ub)|_{u=xtx^{}}$$
(8)
Thus, we find that

$$\psi (x,t)\frac{4}{m}\mathrm{e}^{bm}f^{}(xtb).$$
(9)
When a pulse dominated by low frequencies components impinges on a strongly repulsive barrier, the transmitted wave is a strongly attenuated replica of the derivative of the original pulse. The transmitted pulse appears to traverse the region of the potential barrier in zero time. This is the apparent superluminal phenomenon observed empirically. It occurs well behind the light front of the original signal and is not an indication of true superluminal propagation. Rather, it is an interference phenomenon which is in no sense acausal.

There is an evident inconsistency between the present assumption that $`\psi (x,0)`$ is dominated by low frequency components and our initial assumption that the signal has a well-defined light front (which necessarily implies the presence of high frequency components). The consideration of signals which are the product of, e.g., a gaussian pulse (with clear low-frequency dominance) and a step function to impose the light front makes it clear that the effects of this inconsistency can be made arbitrarily small .

## Carrier Waves:

Experiments frequently involve a modulated carrier wave,

$$f(x)=\mathrm{e}^{i\omega _0x}F(x),$$
(10)
where $`F(x)`$ provides a slowly-varying modulation of the carrier. Inserting this into eqn. (9), the transmitted signal becomes

$$\psi (x,t)=\frac{4}{m}e^{bm}\left(i\omega _0F(u)+F^{}(u)\right)e^{i\omega _0u}|_{u=xtb}$$
(11)
Since the Fourier transform of $`F(x)`$ is presumed to have support only for frequencies $`|\omega |\omega _0`$, the second term may be ignored. We conclude that the envelope of the pulse, $`|\psi (x,t)|`$, is unaltered by the transmission. Again, the argument of the right side of eqn. (11) suggests that transmission of the envelope through the barrier is instantaneous.

## Generality of the Results:

The various factors contributing to the approximate form, eqn. (7), for $`T(\omega )`$ are all of general origin. The factor $`\mathrm{exp}(i\omega b)`$ represents the phase difference between the free plane wave, $`\mathrm{exp}(i\omega x)`$, at the boundaries of the region of non-zero potential. It will always appear. Similarly, the linear vanishing of the transmission amplitude as $`\omega 0`$ is a feature common to all potentials which do not have a zero-energy bound state.222Consider scattering from an arbitrary potential which is zero except in the interval $`0xb`$ with an interior solution $`\phi (x)`$. Join this interior solution to the right-moving plane wave, $`\mathrm{exp}i\omega (xb)`$, at $`x=b`$ with the usual requirement of continuity of the wave function and its first derivative. In the limit $`\omega 0`$, $`\phi (b)=1`$ and $`\phi ^{}(b)=0`$. Similarly, join the interior solution to the linear combination $`A\mathrm{exp}(i\omega x)+B\mathrm{exp}(i\omega x)`$ at $`x=0`$. If $`\phi ^{}(0)0`$, the coefficients $`A`$ and $`B`$ will diverge like $`1/\omega `$. The transmission amplitude, $`T(\omega )=e^{i\omega b}/A`$, will vanish linearly with $`\omega `$ unless $`\phi ^{}(0)`$ is zero. The condition that $`\phi ^{}(0)=\phi ^{}(b)=0`$ is precisely the condition that the potential should support a zero-energy bound state.

The final barrier penetration factor is also familiar and is expected whenever there is strong attenuation. Consider the transmission amplitude for a strongly repulsive but otherwise arbitrary potential using the WKB approximation.333We consider a potential which is strongly repulsive for all $`0xb`$ and zero elsewhere. Hence, it is appropriate to match the plane wave solutions directly to the WKB wave function. The resulting transmission amplitude is readily calculated, and shows that the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(mb)`$ is replaced by

$$\mathrm{exp}\left[_0^b\sqrt{V(x)}𝑑x\right].$$
(12)
A localized repulsive barrier of sufficient strength will transmit an instantaneous image of the derivative of the incoming signal according to eqn. (9) independent of the details of both the potential barrier and the pulse. Apparent superluminal behavior is a robust phenomenon.

## The Time Delay:

The above results can also be expressed as a time delay of the pulse, $`\tau `$, defined as the difference between the time actually required for transmission across the barrier less the time required for a free wave to travel the same distance. In the case of the square barrier and a low frequency pulse, $`\tau =b`$. Negative values of $`\tau `$ correspond to apparent superluminal propagation. For a modulated carrier wave, eqn. (10), one may expand $`T(\omega )`$ about the carrier frequency, $`\omega _0`$, and obtain

$$T(\omega )|T(\omega _0)|\mathrm{e}^{i\mathrm{\Phi }(\omega _0)}\mathrm{e}^{i(\omega \omega _0)\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(\omega _0)},$$
(13)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\omega )`$ is the phase of $`T(\omega )`$. The second exponential factor gives rise to the time delay, $`\tau (\omega _0)=\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(\omega _0)`$, through the Fourier exponential in eqn. (4). Familiar results from quantum mechanics for purely repulsive potentials remind us that $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\omega )`$ is less than $`0`$ for all $`\omega `$ and that $`\mathrm{\Phi }(0)=\mathrm{\Phi }(\mathrm{})=0`$.444This second result is a consequence of Levinson’s theorem which relates the asymptotic behavior of the phase shift to the number of bound states supported by the potential, $`n`$, through $`\mathrm{\Phi }(0)\mathrm{\Phi }(\mathrm{})=n\pi `$. There are no bound states for purely repulsive potentials. The time delay is necessarily negative for sufficiently small $`\omega _0`$ and apparent superluminal effects can be observed for all repulsive potentials. The time delay changes sign for some value of $`\omega _0`$ comparable to the height of the potential barrier, and it approaches zero from above as $`\omega _0`$ tends to infinity. Apparent superluminality is a very general phenomenon.

## Conclusions:

Using the model of a Klein-Gordon equation with a potential, we have presented a simple description of the apparent superluminal phenomena seen in wave guides: Low frequency waves seem to traverse such barriers in zero time. Strongly repulsive barriers always transmit an attenuated image of the spatial derivative of the incident signal. When the signal consists of a modulated carrier wave, the envelope of this wave is transmitted unaltered. We have attempted to demonstrate that the phenomena described here are both extremely general and non-controversial. Their experimental observation does not challenge received wisdom and in no sense compromises our confidence in general notions of causality. It will be interesting to see whether this interesting and general consequence of wave theory will have practical applications.