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# References

1. Introduction

Classical Game theory is a subject that has been under substantial study ever since its origins in the book of von Neumann and Morgenstern . A crucial step forward in the understanding of the dynamics of games was made by John Nash  upon the introduction of well-defined equilibrium states, the so-called Nash equilibrium. It is however well known that not all games posses a Nash equilibrium rendering them essentially unsolvable.

A number of papers have appeared in which it is attempted to quantize classical games . Essentially a classical game is quantized by assuming that the possible strategies a player can choose are elements if a Hilbert space of strategies that also accomodates superpositions of strategies. The players can apply unitary operations to the strategies, called ”tactics”, yielding a ”final state” that then forms the basis for the determination of the pay-off. A physical model that guides these considerations is that of ”classical” players communicating their strategies to the referee by means of ”quantum objects”. One difficulty with this type of quantization of a classical game is the appearance of an ”initial strategy” which has no classical equivalent and no particular meaning. This is one of the problems the present paper attempts to resolve.

In this paper I will describe an extension of the recently proposed methods for quantizing classical games. First of all, I will reformulate quantum game theory in terms of quantum players playing a classical game. This then not only incorporates, but also gives meaning to the notion of an ”initial strategy”. It opens up he way to acknowledging that the origin and scale of quantum phenomena in games not neccesarilly in causal correspondence with the quantum mechanics that underlies physical nature.

The notion of a player is coupled to the existence of a corresponding pay-off operator, rather than a particular subspace of the quantum game Hilbert space. Conceivably one special class of games is that generated my non-commuting pay-off operators. This gives rise to an esentially new concept in quantum game theory. Non-commutation induces a intrinsic uncertainty in a player’s pay-off. As examples I will discuss a simple 2-player game and a set of $`U(2)`$ generated quantum games.

The material in this paper is ordered as follows. In the second section I will discus the quantization of games, contrasting the recipe of quantizing players against that of quantizing strategies. In a short subsection I will illustrate some of the concepts from section two for the special case of the quantum Battle of the Sexes. In the third section I discuss non-commuting pay-off operators generating a quantum game and illustrate the theory by analysing the game content of the $`U(2)`$ pay-off algebras. In particular I will present arguments in favor of allowing pay-off operators to be generally non-commuting. Finally I will summarize the main conclusions.

2. Classical and Quantum Games

A classical game consists of a number of players $`I_j`$, a discrete set $`𝒮`$ of strategies $`s_iϵ𝒮`$ these players can adhere to, and a pay-off function $`R(I_j,s_k)`$ wich assigns a real number to each player depending on his own strategy and that of the others. Game theory is the study of how these ingredients give rise to a rational development of the game.

A ”solution” of the game would consist of a combination of strategies such that they will surely be played by rational players. A usefull tool in analyzing games is that of a Nash equilibrium. This essentially is a set of strategies which is such, that a change in strategy by a single player would result in a decrease of the players pay-off. Hence, for a player in a Nash equilibrium situation there is no rational incentive to alter his strategy. A problem with Nash equilibria is that they are not neccesarilly unique. Hence, if a given game allows for two distinct Nash equilibria the concept loses some of its utillity as a ”solution” to the game.

It is possible to extend the concept of strategies to include games in which a probabillity is asigned to each strategy. An expected pay-off can be computed and analyzed for the existence of apropriate Nash equilibria. Such a procedure can give rise to new equilibria in a game, though not neccesarilly with a higher pay-off for the players. The pay-off determined in such cases is a strict statistical average of the basic pay-offs defining the game. The drawback of this is that the notion of players playing a game by randomly, but coherently, changing their strategies according to some probabillity distribution seems a situation that can hardly survive in complicated games. The succes of statistical mechanics basically relies on almost unreasonable effectiveness of the Bolzmannweight, which can be traced to energy-conservation. No such unique and unreasonably effective probabillity distribution seems likely to exist for human players of a classical game.

In current formulations of Quantum Game Theory, the discrete set of strategies is replaced by a vectorspace with a norm related to the probabillity of a certain strategy being played. Pay-off is represent through a set of hermitian operators. In a sense, the definition of the game requires the specification of the eigenvalues of these operators. The origin of the quantization is often sought in the neccesity of the players to store the choice for a particular strategy in terms of observables of some quantum system. For example, a player having the choice between two possible strategies could choose express to his choice by manipulating an electron-spin. The referee measuring the spin-state of the electron thus is confronted with all aspects of the quantum measurement problems, such as the possibillity of superposed spin-states. However, it is rarely noted that the player would suffer from the same problem, that is an inabillity to actually produce a spin-state which properly reflects his choice of strategy. As a result the game becomes a game of chance on all hands. Nonetheless there is some virtue in quantizing games. It has been shown by Marinatto and Weber, for a particular set of two-player games, that for ”entangled strategies” a unique Nash equilibrium arises that offers both players an optimal pay-off when contrasted to other equilibria. If we adhere to the belief that this is no coincidence but rather a generic feature of quantum games, they seem to promise unique solutions. A conceptual problem that remains is that the concept of an entangled strategy cannot really be expressed into macroscopic terms. Some of the issues brought up in this section can be resolved by a mere shift in the interpretation of the origin of the quantization.

2.1. Quantum Players

The first new element that I seek to introduce into this discussion is that of a quantum player. The central idea is to accept the classical nature of the strategies to be played, but to adhere the quantum nature of the quantum game to the decision-making process in each individual player. To provide some motivation for this let me give two lines of reasoning now.

Any player in a game will play the same game ”in his imagination” several times before coming up with a choice of strategy. This ”virtual” part of the classical game is never taken into consideration, apart from discussing the extent to which the players are considered rational or not. In the view of this paper, the virtual game runs until the moment in which the arbiter requires the players to make their moves. The arbiter can then apply a measurement to observe the ”strategic state” of each individual player. The moment at which he does so the sequence of virtual games is essentially interrupted. This view, reminiscent of the ”sum over all histories”, or path-integral quantization, argues for a it diffusion-like process, if the weights of the different virtual games are real and a quantum-like process if the weights are taken to be complex. It seems natural to assume that the key notion leading to a complex weight of some kind, is the fact that the virtual games are never really played. If they were, they would simply be part of the game and as such could only account for the statistical fluctuations in an actually played game.

The notion of not playing the virtual game, is similar to the notion of not ”measuring” the paths of the electrons in two-slit experiments. If we measure the electron paths the quantum interference effects dissappear and a statistical noise remains. Further support for such a view should come from an actualy construction of such a sum over all histories in a classical game. Infact, this point of view possibly offers a resolution of a debate concerning the so-called theory of moves  and the objections that have been brought forward against it, for example in . It would however entail that quantizing a classical game in some extent incorporates dynamical information into the states. We will see that this indeed appears to be the case for the non-commutative games.

A second way of regarding these matters is by considering the origin of the state-space in which quantum games live. Strategies are rather unnnatural things to superimpose on one another. However, it seems conceivable that the players preference for a particular strategy may not be a discrete variable. Players could be assumed to be able to experience a ”superposition” of preferences. This should be distinguished from something we might identify with ”doubt”; a situation in which a player will tend to fluctuate between two options being in favor of one a certain amount of the time and in favor of the other at other times. The superposition of preferences conceivably reflects the process of a player ”not having made up his mind”. Again, as the player is not choosing, there is no actual measurement of his choice of strategy and concequently these fluctuations cannot be taken to weighed by a real-valued weight.

Let me summarise the ingredients for the description of an N-player quantum game. I identify the following parts;

* N-Player Game space: The state of the N-player game can be represented by a vector in a suitable Hilbert space.
* Pay-off: There exists a set of N, linear, self-adjoint pay-off operators on the N-player Hilbert space, one for every player present.
* Arbiter: There exists an arbiter who determines when the state of the game is measured, and determines pay-off.

Some comments are in order here.

Essentially the set op pay-off operators defines the game both in terms of pay-off for strategies, as well as in terms of the number of players. It is important to distinguish between commutative and non-commutative games. In general classical games deal with commutative games. In a commutative game the order in which pay-off is determined is irrelevant. In a non-commutative game changing the order would give rise to changing values for the pay-off, and to uncertainties in the amount of pay-off a certain state will gain a given player. This is an argument that may lead one to contemplate the conjecture that quantum games intrinsically are games with strategic uncertainty.

In contrast to earlier works the notion of players manipulating their quantum strategies from an initial state into a final state has not been included. As the players are not expected to measure the state of the game, it seems rather unnatural for them to know the exact outcome of the manipulations they are supposed to make. Non-commutative games appear to include dynamics from the start, the reason for that will become clear below. It seems reasonable however to suggest that generically the generator of time-evolution will, in some form, be constructable from the player’s pay-off operators. In particular, I choose to view the arbiter as an intrinsic object whose operators are related to the pay-off operators of the players, suggesting a reformulation of the extensive form of the games as endogenous, advocated in .

3. Non-commutative operators in Quantum games

The entangled strategies, that play a central role in the issue of solvabillity of a game according to some authors, actually never generate the predicted pay-off, as every measurement of the referee produces the pay-off eigenvalues that initially defined the game. Thus it remains questionable to me whether a rational player could actually play such a strategy! Again, here we may ponder whether the referee or arbiter may use additional operators to establish the state of the game, such as products of the pay-off operators. For an entangled strategy to be measurable at all, one would require a hermitian operator that has these strategies among its eigen states. Such operators naturally would not commute with the two pay-off operators defining the game. There seems no real reason to introduce such non-commuting operators into the game unless they could be associated with either the pay-off of another player in the game or the arbiter.

So the role of the arbiter deserves further attention. In standard formulation the arbiter is confronted with the quantum measurement-problem and is a hybrid mix of an entity operating inside and outside the game. This is the quantum analogy of the edogenous versus exogenous interpretation of the extensive form of games reffered to earlier . I want to do away with that by implementing two rules;

* the operators representing the players can be constructed from the arbiter’s operators alone.
* a ”minimal arbiter” should be able to do two things: a: ”measure” the sequential number of moves the game has gone through, and b: map the $`(n1)^{th}`$ move states onto the $`n^{th}`$ move states.

What the second item entails is the following. The quantum game space of a game is supposed to contain far more states than proposed in earlier works. Not only are all strategies to be included, but in principle every move or round of the game could come with a new set of strategies. There ought to be an operator that counts the number of moves, as well as an operator that ”lifts” the game by one move. These two operators we will identify with a minimal arbiter.

Although allowing for non-commutative games seems a complication, the algebra of non-commutative pay-off is powerfull and can give direct clues on the structure of the N-player Game space. We will analyze this for a number of examples in the following section.

Let us summarize the main points. Quantized games hold the promise of providing solvabillity while at the same time expanding our pool of playable games. There are indications that entangled states play an important role in providing these solutions. However, measuring the system to be in an entangled state, would require the natural presence of non-commuting operators in the game. But natural in the definition of the game are the pay-off operators.

If pay-off operators were to be non-commuting the correspondence between classical games and the direct-product states of the quantum games would breakdown at the level of simultaneous diagonalisation. Hence non-commutation among the pay-off operators could be interpreted as the source of ”quantumness” of the game. An operator representing the arbiter can either be constructed from the pay-off operators of the players, or by assigning a pay-off-like operator to the arbiter which he uses to decide upon the state of the system. In that case the arbiter enters, effectively, as another player with a slightly different role.

4. Non-Commutative Quantum Games

The above elements in a formulation of quantum game theory focus attention on the game space, and interprete the vectors therein as representing the state of the players. The possible importance of entangled states in quantum games makes it desirable to interprete the appearance of non-commuting operators. But in the next subsection we will show non-commutativity of pay-off operators can be supported with far less esoteric argumentation.

Players are recognisable elements of a game because, and only they receive pay-off from their strategies. Hence, it should be sufficient to specify the pay-off to fix the game. Classically this indeed is the proper situation. The classical arbiter is very much like the classical observer in physics; hardly part of the system. A proper treatment of measurement in quantum mechanics suggests the incorporation of the observers measuring aparatus into the quantum descriptionof the system. As macroscopic measuring devices behave notoriously classically this is computationally hardly a feasably approach. However, for quantum games we can do that for and it provides us with a powerfull extension of quantum game theory.

4.1. A simple non-commutative 2-Player Game

Consider a single minimal arbiter, as defined earlier in this text. This arbiter is represented by two operators. First of all there is the operator $`\widehat{N}`$ that counts the sequential number of the moves played by the players. Obviously it must be a hermitian operator as it corresponds to an observable. Secondly there is the raising operator $`\widehat{\alpha }_+`$ that raises this sequential move-number by one unit. As the operator itself does not correspond to an observable a priory, there is no need for it to be hermitian. In order for this to work, the two operators must satisfy the following commutation relation,

$$[\widehat{N},\widehat{\alpha }_+]=\widehat{\alpha }_+.$$
(4.1)
If we define $`\widehat{\alpha }_{}`$ to be the hermitian conjugate of $`\widehat{\alpha }_+`$,

$$\widehat{\alpha }_{}=\widehat{\alpha }_+^{}$$
(4.2)
we can write $`\widehat{N}`$ in terms of the two as

$$\widehat{N}=\widehat{\alpha }_+\widehat{\alpha }_{},$$
(4.3)
where the operators $`\widehat{\alpha }_+`$ and $`\widehat{\alpha }_{}`$ satisfy

$$[\widehat{\alpha }_{},\widehat{\alpha }_+]=1.$$
(4.4)
From this last result it is obvious that these operators are not hermitian. They are well known as the ladder-operators in the quantum mechanics of the harmonic oscillator. It follows from our premisses that the following elements have been given; a set of two pay-off operators $`\pi _i`$. The two ladder-operators are supposed to be related to the pay-off operators of the players. For simplicity I assume that they are linearly related. Given the fact that the pay-off operators are hermitian, the two sole possible combinations are straightforward,

$$\widehat{\alpha }_\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}[\frac{1}{\kappa _1}\widehat{\pi }_1\pm \frac{ı}{\kappa _2}\widehat{\pi }_2],$$
(4.5)
where $`\kappa _j`$ are suitable units of pay-off for the corresponding player. Now with the ladder operators expressed in terms of the pay-off operators, it is straightforward to show they satisfy

$$[\widehat{\pi }_1,\widehat{\pi }_2]=ı\kappa _1\kappa _2.$$
(4.6)
Let me remark here that due to the commutation relation above, the two pay-offs will satisfy an uncertainty relation of the Heisenberg type. A full analysis of this particular game has been given elsewhere .

Basically such a game could occur when the arbiter has posession of a collection of instable nculei of species $`A`$ that can decay with equal probabillity into species $`B`$ heads and $`C`$ {tales}. Two players place a bet on the occurrence of either heads or tales every time a decay occurs. The arbiter does not know the number of rounds played, i.e. the number of decays that have occured, untill the moment he measures it and counts the number of heads and tails and determines the pay-off for each player. In a Schrödinger Cat like case, superpositions of states representing a different number of played rounds can occur. They turn this game, which classically is a probabillistic gambing game, into a game where correlations between the two players pay-off may occur. An analysis of the correlations between the pay-off $`\pi _1`$ and $`\pi _2`$ reveals that the quantum game can have winners and losers depending on the details of the superposition of states with a different number of rounds played .

4.2. Multi-game players

The construction of the previous subsection can be easilly extended in the following fashion. In the above example there was one unique way to go from one round of moves to the next. However it is conceivable many realistic games are ”multi-games” in the sense that between two rounds of one game there is a round of another game. Infact, negotiations and bargaining  will often involve sequentially playing a move in one game whose resulting pay-off affects the next move in another game. Such multi-game players would have pay-off operators for each corresponding game sub-space of the total game space. We cannot be sure however that the total pay-off operator for a given player is always reducible to a direct product of pay-off operators in sub-spaces of the total game space. What we can safely assume though, is that the arbiter is able to count the number of moves in every sub-game as well as is able to increase the move-count by one.

Therefor defining a game played by multi-game players would start out by collecting an appropriate set of $`K`$ counting operators $`\widehat{N}_i`$ and of step-up operators $`\widehat{\alpha _{+i}}`$, where $`i=1\mathrm{}K`$. They should satisfy the usual commutation relations given above,

$$[\widehat{N}_i,\widehat{\alpha }_{+i}]=\widehat{\alpha }_{+i},$$
(4.7)
and

$$[\widehat{\alpha }_i,\widehat{\alpha }_{+i}]=1.$$
(4.8)
The question is whether we can say anything about the commutation relations of the step-up operators among one another. The answer is affirmative for a particular class of games, namely those in which the numbercount of the number of rounds played in the sub-games is unambiguous. In that case we should have

$$[\widehat{N}_i,\widehat{N}_j]=0.$$
(4.9)
The remainder of this paper will be devoted making a start with analyzing the game content of these relations.

If we require a linear relationship between the step operators and the corresponding pay-off operators of the players we will find the game already analyzed above, but now generalized to $`K`$ pairs of 2 players. Only pairwise do they have non-commuting pay-off. Although we really have $`K`$ identical copies of the 2 player game, correlations may exist between all four pay-off operators for special choices of superpositions. Such games allowing for a variable number of players can be constructed by using methods of second quantisation. This yields interesting results that will be published elsewhere .

5. $`K=2`$ is a non-commutative game

If we allow for bilinear combinations in relating the step-operators with pay-off operators we will get

$$P^A=P_{ab}^A\alpha _a\alpha _{+b},$$
(5.1)
where a sum over lower-case $`a,b`$ is understood. The commutation relations between the pay-off operators will then be detemined by those of the matrices $`P_{ab}^A`$. Such a construction yields pay-off operators that, if we require that they leave the total number of rounds played invariant, i.e.

$$[\underset{j}{}\widehat{N}_i,\widehat{P}_A]=0,$$
(5.2)
will form a representation of a sub-algebras of some $`su(n)`$ Lie-algebra. However, it is similarly conceivable that the rules of the game require the that the number of rounds of some subset of $`m`$ types of moves contribute negatively, and $`k`$ types contribute positively. In this case we find a representation of the $`su(k,m)`$ algebra.

Because we have introduced $`2K`$ operators to define the game, we would like to see at least $`2K`$ players, or $`2K1`$ players and the arbiter, so as to guarantee that the definition requires no additional operators to be introduced beyond those used for constructing pay-off. Thus the upper-case index $`A`$ should run atleast from $`1`$ to $`2K`$. We know however from our previous construction that apart from a single groundstate, we will have a total number of $`K`$ states at the level of the first round. In this subspace, the group of unitary transformations is generated by $`K^21`$ traceless hermitian operators. We call into memory that linear combinations of hermitian operators with real coefficients are again hermitian and that commutators of hermitian operators are anti-hermitian. The set of pay-off operators has to be a subset of these generators, hence the $`SU(K)`$ commutation relations will in part yield commutation relations among the pay-off operators. If the number of players $`2K`$ exceeds or is equal to the number of available hermitian operators, $`K^21`$, then the pay-off algebra will be determined by the $`SU(K)`$ lie algebra.

Consequently we would generally for

$$K^21<2K,$$
(5.3)
we are definitly dealing with non-commutative games.The values of $`K`$ for which this occurs is $`K=1`$ and $`K=2`$. The $`K=1`$ game has been previously discussed. Our argument however indicates that for $`K=2`$ we have another family of non-commutative quantum games.

5.1. The $`SU(2)`$ and $`SU(1,1)`$ Quantum Games

I will study two algebras for the pay-off operators in this subsection. I will start out discussing the compact $`su(2)`$ algebra that will lead to finite dimensional game spaces, followed by a brief overview of the $`su(1,1)`$ algebra that will generate infinite dimensional game spaces in every round.

The relevant commutation relations for $`su(2)`$ are

$$[\widehat{\pi }_1,\widehat{\pi }_2]=ı\widehat{\pi }_3,[\widehat{\pi }_2,\widehat{\pi }_3]=ı\widehat{\pi }_1,[\widehat{\pi }_3,\widehat{\pi }_1]=ı\widehat{\pi }_2.$$
(5.4)
The game space generated by these commutation relations is a representation of the $`SU(2)`$ Lie algebra,familiar from the quantum mechanics of angular momentum. Note that no matter what the dimensionality of the actual representation is, the game by construction is played by four players, one of which is the arbiter represented by the only Casimir operator

$$\widehat{P}=\widehat{\pi }_1^2+\widehat{\pi }_2^2+\widehat{\pi }_3^2.$$
(5.5)
This indeed follows from the relation of its eigenvalues to those of the counting operators.

We know from the $`su(2)`$ representation theory that the eigenvalues of $`\widehat{P}`$, together with those of one of the other pay-off operators will generate a complete set of states. We write

$$\widehat{P}|\kappa ,\mu =\kappa (\kappa +1)|\kappa ,\mu ,\widehat{\pi }_3|\kappa ,\mu =\mu |\kappa ,\mu .$$
(5.6)
The commutator algebra then prescribes for unitary representations that the eigenvalues are restricted to

$$\kappa =0,\frac{1}{2},1,\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{},\mu =\kappa ,\kappa +1,\mathrm{},\kappa 1,\kappa .$$
(5.7)
The remaining pay-off operators cannot be diagonalised. As in the $`su(2)`$ algebra no single pay-off operator can be distinguished from any of the others our choice is arbitrary convention and every other choice describes the same gamespace.

The quantum number $`\kappa `$ can be related to the eigenvalues of the two counting operators $`\widehat{N}_i`$, one finds

$$k=\frac{N_1+N_2}{2}.$$
(5.8)
The application of the step-up operators hence allows us to step through the subsequent irreducible representations of $`su(2)`$. The $`\kappa =0`$ singlet is the initial state of the game. The $`\kappa =\frac{1}{2}`$ doublet is the two-dimensional spin-representation of $`SU(2)`$. The quantum numbers labelling this representation are

$$\kappa =\frac{1}{2},\mu =\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}.$$
(5.9)
As we see one of the players wins or loses, the other two players will have a vanishing expectation value for their pay-off. One can view this sub-space of the total gamespace as allowing for the formation of a coalition of two players against the remaining player. This is also suggested by the subspace having just two strategies and thus not supporting a free-player basis. For higher values of $`\kappa `$ the subspace of the game will have $`2\kappa +1`$ different states, i.e. strategies that can be played in that round. Assume for a moment that the game is in an eigenstate of player 3 pay-off.

If we consider the relative uncertainty of the pay-off of the players 1 and 2, by scaling these by $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{\kappa (\kappa +1)}}`$ we find that the role of non-commutation also scales by the same factor. Hence, for moderate values of $`\mu `$, and large values of $`\kappa `$ the pay-off of the players will tend towards classical commutativity. The classical limit will appear as a game in which the sum of the squared pay-off of the players is fixed to a continuous sphere whose radius is set by the referee, i.e. increases with game-time. The analysis of such a game falls outside the scope of this paper. Note however that the amount of pay-off a player has obtained after a given number of rounds is allways bounded and increasing one player’s pay-off will allways go at the expense of the pay-off of others.

Now we will see a different set of commutation rules that lead to an unbounded game and hence will require a different intepretation. The $`su(1,1)`$ commutation relations are

$$[\widehat{\pi }_1,\widehat{\pi }_2]=ı\widehat{\pi }_3,[\widehat{\pi }_2,\widehat{\pi }_3]=ı\widehat{\pi }_1,[\widehat{\pi }_3,\widehat{\pi }_1]=ı\widehat{\pi }_2.$$
(5.10)
They are almost identical to those of $`su(2)`$ apart from the different sign in the result of the commutator $`[\widehat{\pi }_1,\widehat{\pi }_2]`$. This has three significant consequences, two of which I will address here. First of all, it singles out one particular player, here player 3. Furthermore it leads to the existence of inequivalent representations of this algebra depending on which of the three pay-off operators is diagonalised. Finally, it leads to representations that are essentially unbounded. We will restrict our attention here to the representations that arise from diagonalizing $`\widehat{\pi }_3`$ and the Casimir operator

$$\widehat{P_{1,1}}=\widehat{\pi }_1^2\widehat{\pi }_2^2+\widehat{\pi }_3^2.$$
(5.11)
As you see we are dealing with an indefinite metric. Infact this algebra is directly related to the $`2+1`$-dimensional Lorentzgroup $`SO(2,1)`$. Lorentztransformations will preserve the metric, so the sectors with positive and negative values for the Casimir-operator will be disjoint. If we go through the standard procedure for finding unitary representations  we find spaces in which the the eigenvalues of $`\widehat{\pi }_3`$ differ by unit-steps and are either bounded from above or bounded from below by a number $`\kappa `$ which determines the eigenvalue of the Casimir operator through the relationship $`\kappa (\kappa +1)`$. Hence the player 3 seems to act as a second arbiter that is counting a number of rounds played in a game played by the players 1 and 2.

Finally let me remark here that even the $`K=1`$ game will support a $`su(2)`$ or $`su(1,1)`$ algebra if we consider pay-off operators which are bi-linear in both the step-up as well as the step-down operators.

6. Discussion and Conclusion

In this paper I have sought to make two distinct points. Firstly, a more philosophical point, it to consider quantum games as classical games played by quantum players, rather than quantum games played by classical players. This limits the capacity of players to manipulate the quantum state of the game, just as a single electron cannot manipulate its own spin state. It gives proper meaning to the initial state and requires the inclusion of dynamics as a natural ingredient of the game space. The dynamics being generated by counting the number of rounds played results in the introduction of the apropriate operators to do so.

Secondly I presented arguments to support the view that non-commuting pay-off is worth investigating. I have shown how a minimalistic approach to constructing quantum games and their dynamics in terms of rounds naturally leads to non-commutative pay-off operators. I have given a brief analysis of the simplest games that can be seen to arise in this way. Obviously, in view of the above it becomes interesting to study the game content of unitary representations of compact lie groups, which is a well known area of mathematics. As we have seen, a non-compact lie-group leads to an unbounded gamespace which is a generic feature. It remains to be investigated in which sense this introduces a certain ”trivialisation” in the sense that unbounded directions would generally have to be identified with arbiters counting numbers of rounds.


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# A scheme for electrical detection of spin resonance signal from a single-electron trap

## Abstract

We study a scheme for electrical detection of the spin resonance (ESR) of a single electron trapped near a Field Effect Transistor (FET) conduction channel. In this scheme, the resonant Rabi oscillations of the trapped electron spin cause a modification of the average occupancy of a shallow trap, which can be detected through the change in the FET channel resistivity. We show that the dependence of the channel resistivity on the frequency of the rf field can have either peak or dip at the Larmor frequency of the electron spin in the trap.

There has been a lot of interest recently in a few and single electron spin detection and measurement. The motivation comes primarily from quantum computing, where ability to manipulate and to measure single spin is the basis for several architecture proposals. There is also significant interest in the study of local electronic environment, e.g. by means of local electron spin resonance. Such information would be valuable both for the conventional semiconductor industry, which has to deal with continuously decreasing feature sizes, as well as such novel research directions as spintronics where the utilization of electronic spin degrees of freedom may lead to conceptually new devices.

The main difficulty of a few spin detection and measurement lies in the inherent weakness of magnetic interaction, making direct measurement of a small number of spins challenging. Current state-of-the-art direct detection techniques, e.g. Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy, have only recently achieved the sensitivity of about 100 fully polarized electron spins. An alternative approach is to convert spin dynamics into charge dynamics. Unlike single spin effects, single electron charge signals are much easier to measure. For instance, it is well established that the events of capture and release of electron by a single trap near conducting channel in a field effect transistor can be measured, either as a Random Telegraph Noise (RTS), or in charge pumping experiments. Here we analyze a setup in which electron spin dynamics under electron spin resonance conditions is transformed into charge dynamics of the trap occupancy. This setup is motivated by the recent experiments of M. Xiao and H.W. Jiang, who analyze changes in the statistics of RTS jumps as a manifestation of the electron spin resonance.

There is a variety of traps that can occur in real systems. Here we consider two representative cases schematically shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. They correspond to the $`spinless`$ and $`spinful`$ “empty” states of the electron trap near the FET channel. The conduction channel chemical potential $`\mu `$ can be varied with a gate. The single electron levels in the trap are split by the external magnetic field $`B_0`$, $`ϵ_{1/2}ϵ_{1/2}=g\beta B_0`$, where $`g`$ is the electron g-factor in the trap and $`\beta `$ is the Bohr magneton. There is an oscillating magnetic field $`B_{\mathrm{rf}}(t)`$, applied perpendicular to the field $`B_0`$ that couples the spin-split single-electron levels. The trap can accommodate up to two electrons. The main difference between the two cases, Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, is that in the presence of near-resonant rf field, the average electron occupancy of the spinless trap decreases, while for the spinful trap it increases. The change in the occupancy of the trap modifies the FET channel resistivity. The filling of the trap can cause both increase and decrease of the channel resistivity, depending on the initial charge state of the trap. Hence, there are four distinct combinations of the spin and charge states of the trap that lead to either enhancement or reduction of the FET channel resistivity at the resonance (Table I).

Both spinless and spinful trap cases (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2) can be modelled with the Anderson Hamiltonian

$`H={\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\left(ϵ_sn_s+{\displaystyle \frac{U}{2}}n_sn_s\right)+{\displaystyle \underset{q,s}{}}ϵ_{qs}c_{qs}^{}c_{qs}`$ (1)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{q,s}{}}T_q\left(c_{qs}^{}c_s+c_s^{}c_{qs}\right)+H_{\mathrm{rf}}(t).`$ (2)
In Eq. (2) $`n_s=c_s^{}c_s`$, where $`c_s^{}(c_s)`$ creates (annihilates) an electron with spin $`s=\pm 1/2`$ in the trap at the level $`ϵ_s`$. The second term in Eq. (2) represents Coulomb charging energy. $`c_{qs}^{}(c_{qs})`$ are creation (annihilation) operators for the electrons in the channel. The fourth term describes tunneling transitions between the trap and the conduction channel. The tunneling amplitude can be evaluated from the parameters of the barrier using Bardeen’s formula , or directly from the experiment. The last term in Eq. (2), $`H_{\mathrm{rf}}(t)`$, is the coupling between the spin states in the trap produced by the rf field. If the rf frequency is close to that of Zeeman splitting in the trap, the $`H_{\mathrm{rf}}(t)`$ can be written in the rotating wave approximation as

$$H_{\mathrm{rf}}(t)=\gamma _{rf}\left(c_{1/2}^{}c_{1/2}e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}+c_{1/2}^{}c_{1/2}e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\right),$$
(3)
where $`\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}=g\beta B_{\mathrm{rf}}/2`$, $`B_{\mathrm{rf}}`$ is the amplitude of the rf field. It is assumed that electrons in the conducting channel have g-factor different from the electronic g-factor in the trap (due to Rashba or lattice induced spin-orbit coupling). As a result, the influence of the rf field on the electronic states in the channel is “off-resonance” and therefore is neglected in Eq (3).

As mentioned earlier, even for the simple Anderson model of the trap, there are four distinct possibilities that correspond to different spin and charge “empty” states of the trap. For concreteness, we consider here two cases: (1) spinless positive trap, and (2) a neutral trap with spin. As we will see both produce a peak in channel resistivity under the ESR resonance conditions. The other two cases yield a dip.

Positive spinless trap— The positively charged trap, which essentially can be a donor impurity, can significantly influence the resistivity of the conducting channel. Indeed, when the trap is empty it is charged and therefore acts as a point Coulomb scatterer for the electrons in the channel. On the other hand, when the trap is filled, it is neutral, thus having relatively little effect on the channel resistivity . The average (dc) resistivity of the channel can be written as

$$\rho =\rho _e\sigma _0+\rho _f(1\sigma _0),$$
(4)
where $`\rho _e`$ and $`\rho _f`$ are channel resistivities with the single electron trap empty and filled, respectively, and $`\sigma _0`$ is the probability for the trap to be empty (throughout the paper, $`\sigma `$ denotes density matrix, not to be mistaken for conductivity). We will now demonstrate that due to the coherent effects in tunneling in and out of the trap induced by the rf magnetic field, the resistivity of the channel $`\rho `$ as a function of magnetic field $`B_0`$ develops a peak conditioned by $`g\beta B_0=\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}`$, where $`\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}`$ is the frequency of the oscillating ESR magnetic field.

The inset in Fig. 1 shows three possible positions of the chemical potential with respect to the spin levels in the trap. In cases (a) and (c), where chemical potential lies below and above the two spin levels in the trap, tunneling into and out of the trap is prohibited. As a result, the electron occupation number for the trap is independent of the magnetic field at sufficiently low temperatures (for $`k_BT`$ smaller than the separation between the chemical potential and the nearest spin level in the trap), i.e., the trap is never occupied in case (a) and always occupied in case (c). On the other hand, if the chemical potential is in between the two spin levels of the trap, case (b) in the inset, the resonant tunneling into and out of the trap is possible. That is, an electron with spin “up” in the channel can tunnel into the lowest Zeeman level in the trap, get transmitted into the upper Zeeman level by the rf field and consequently tunnel out of the trap into the unoccupied levels in the channel. This mechanism is shown schematically in Fig. 1. As a result, electronic occupation number in the trap becomes strongly modulated by the spin dynamics of the trap and therefore is strongly dependent on the magnetic field in the vicinity of the spin resonance condition.

From the Hamiltonian (2,3) one can derive quantum rate equations for the electronic occupation numbers in the trap. Similar calculations have been carried out for a system of two coupled quantum dots in contact with the Fermi liquid reservoirs . Omitting technical details we quote the results of the calculations. We define density matrix for the electronic states in the trap by introducing density matrix elements $`\sigma _{}`$ and $`\sigma _{}`$, which describe probabilities for the electron in the trap to occupy states with spin “up” and “down” respectively. We also define the off-diagonal element $`\sigma _{}`$ describing coherent superposition of the “up” and “down” spin states in the trap. Together with $`\sigma _0`$, the probability for the trap to be unoccupied, these form a set of coupled equations:

$`\dot{\sigma }_0=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}\sigma _0+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}\sigma _{},`$ (6)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}\sigma _0+i(\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}/\mathrm{})\left(e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\sigma _{}e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\sigma _{}\right),`$ (7)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}\sigma _{}i(\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}/\mathrm{})\left(e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\sigma _{}e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\sigma _{}\right),`$ (8)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{}=i(E/\mathrm{})\sigma _{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}/2\sigma _{}`$ (9)
$`+i(\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}/\mathrm{})e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\left(\sigma _{}\sigma _{}\right).`$ (10)
In the above equations $`E=g\beta B_0`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_,=(2\pi \eta /\mathrm{})T_q^2(ϵ=ϵ_,)`$, where $`\eta `$ is the electronic density of states in the conducting channel (constant for 2DEG) and the tunnel amplitudes $`T_q`$ are evaluated at energies of “up” and “down” spin states in the trap. We assume that the tunnel amplitudes vary on energy scale much larger than Zeeman splitting in the trap. Therefore in what follows we put $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$ is the life-time of the resonant level in the trap. In derivation of Eqs. (1) we have set $`U=\mathrm{}`$.

Eqs. (1), though derived from the microscopic Hamiltonian (2), have transparent physical meaning. For example, in Eq. (6), the rate of change of $`\sigma _0`$ is determined by the loss term – an electron from the conduction channel can tunnel into the trap with tunnel rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}`$, while an electron in the trap can tunnel back into the channel with rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}`$ and generate a hole in the trap – the gain term in the RHS of Eq. (6). The diagonal density matrix elements are coupled with the off-diagonal elements in Eqs. (7)-(10) (the last terms in these equations) due to the rf component of the magnetic field that induces transitions between different spin states in the trap. These terms always appear in standard Bloch equations for a spin under magnetic resonance conditions .

The rate equations (1) can be solved for a stationary state, i.e., for $`t\mathrm{}`$. One finds that $`\sigma _0=\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}^2/[(E\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{rf}})^2+(\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{})^2/4+3\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}^2]`$ and, using Eq. (4), we obtain

$$\rho (B)=\rho _f+\frac{\left(\rho _e\rho _f\right)\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}^2}{(g\beta B_0\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{rf}})^2+(\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Gamma })^2/4+3\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}^2},$$
(11)
Thus, the resistivity of the channel has a resonance when frequency of the rf field matches the Zeeman frequency of the electron in the trap, corresponding to the condition of single electron spin magnetic resonance. The width of the peak is equal to $`((\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{})^2/4+3\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}^2)^{1/2}`$, i.e., it is determined by both the amplitude of the rf field and by the life-time of the electron in the trap. When $`\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{}`$, the height of the peak reaches its maximum $`\left(\rho _e\rho _f\right)/3`$ (relative to $`\rho _f`$, the value of resistivity away from the resonance).

Neutral trap with spin— A peak in the FET channel resistivity can be generated by a neutral trap as well. Consider a situation shown in Fig. 2. Here, the “empty” trap contains an electron that can occupy up or down spin states (with energies $`ϵ_{1/2}=ϵ_{1/2}`$). In addition, the trap can be occupied by two electrons with the total energy $`U`$. The chemical potential now lies in the vicinity the two-electron state of the trap. This corresponds to the case (b) in the inset of Fig. 2. Similar to the previous section, the conversion of the ESR spin dynamics into changes of the trap occupancy is possible only if the absolute difference of the chemical potential $`\mu `$ in the channel and the energy level $`U`$ in the trap is smaller than half of the Zeeman splitting, i.e., $`ϵ_{1/2}<\mu U<ϵ_{1/2}`$. Then, if electron in the trap occupies $`ϵ_{1/2}`$ level, another electron in the channel with opposite (up) spin can tunnel into the trap, so that two electrons in the trap occupy state with total energy $`U`$. Such process is energetically allowed, provided $`ϵ_{q,1/2}=U+ϵ_{1/2}`$. Next, an electron in the trap with spin “down” can tunnel out of the trap, thus leaving the remaining electron in the trap in spin “up” state. This process is also possible, as long as $`ϵ_{q,1/2}=U+ϵ_{1/2}`$. Thus, the trap effectively relaxes its spin, creating a particle and a hole in the channel; see Fig. 2. The spin of the electron in the trap is subsequently flipped by the rf field, and so the process repeats.

The resistivity of the channel can now be expressed as

$$\rho =\rho _f\sigma _2+\rho _e(1\sigma _2),$$
(12)
where $`\rho _e`$ and $`\rho _f`$ are resistivities of the trap containing one and two electrons respectively ($`\rho _f>\rho _e`$), and $`\sigma _2`$ is the probability for the trap to be occupied by two electrons. Again, from the Hamiltonian (2) we derive the rate equations for the trap

$`\dot{\sigma }_2=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}\sigma _2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}\sigma _{},`$ (14)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}\sigma _2+i(\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}/\mathrm{})\left(e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\sigma _{}e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\sigma _{}\right),`$ (15)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}\sigma _{}i(\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}/\mathrm{})\left(e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\sigma _{}e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\sigma _{}\right),`$ (16)
$`\dot{\sigma }_{}=i(E/\mathrm{})\sigma _{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}/2\sigma _{}`$ (17)
$`+i(\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}/\mathrm{})e^{i\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}t}\left(\sigma _{}\sigma _{}\right).`$ (18)
In Eqs. (12) $`\sigma `$’s are defined above, while the tunnel rates $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_,^{}=(2\pi \eta /\mathrm{})T_q^2(ϵ=ϵ_,+U)`$. Assuming $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$, Eqs. (12) can be solved for a stationary state. Then, substituting thus obtained $`\sigma _2`$ into the Eq. (12), we find an expression for the resistivity similar to Eq. (11), but with $`\rho _e`$ and $`\rho _f`$ interchanged and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ replaced by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$. Thus, the resistivity of the channel as a function of magnetic field $`B`$ again has a peak centered at $`\omega _{\mathrm{rf}}`$.

Effects of spin relaxation— Effects of environment, such as phonons, nuclear spins, etc., can be taken into account by introducing additional relaxation rate, $`1/T_2^{}`$ in the equations for the off-diagonal elements of the spin (here we neglect the longitudinal spin relaxation, i.e., $`T_1T_2^{},\mathrm{\Gamma }`$). Note, that the noise spectra that induce $`1/T_2^{}`$ must be taken at the Rabi ($`\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}`$), and not zero, frequency. Thus, replacing rates $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}/2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}/2`$ in Eqs. (1018) by $`D=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}/2+1/T_2^{}`$ and $`D^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{}/2+1/T_2^{}`$, and repeating the above algebra, we obtain the resistivity of the channel in the presence of externally induced spin dephasing

$$\rho (B)=\rho _f+\frac{2\left(\rho _e\rho _f\right)\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}^2}{(g\beta B_0\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{rf}})^2(\mathrm{\Gamma }/D)+\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{\Gamma }D+6\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}^2},$$
(19)
for the positively charged trap, while $`\rho (B)`$ for the neutral trap is obtained by replacing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`D`$ in the above equation by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$ and $`D^{}`$. Eq. (19) shows that the height of the peak in the resistivity decreases due to the suppression of the spin coherence by the externally induced dephasing rate $`1/T_2^{}`$, and the peak width becomes $`\sqrt{D^2+6(\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}/\mathrm{})^2D/\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$.

Rabi oscillations of a single electron trap — The electrical detection of Rabi oscillations from a single trap can also be performed under the conditions described above. Rabi oscillations correspond to the coherent weight transfer between the states of a two level system. Therefore, in the case of the spinless trap at the ESR resonance, the probability to tunnel out of the trap between times $`t`$ and $`t+dt`$ after the trapping, $`dP(t)=\mathrm{\Gamma }e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }t}dt(1\mathrm{cos}(2\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}}t))`$, is periodically modulated at the Rabi frequency (here we assumed that there is no extrinsic dephasing, $`1/T_2^{}=0`$). Since the current between the trapping and escape events remains constant, the current power spectrum can be easily calculated as

$$|I_\omega |^2\frac{1}{\omega ^2}\left(2+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2+(\omega 2\gamma _{\mathrm{rf}})^2}\right),$$
(20)
for $`\omega \mathrm{\Gamma }`$. In case the externally induced dephasing dominates, in the above expression $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ should be replaced by $`1/T_2^{}`$.

In summary, we proposed a mechanism for electrical detection of electron spin resonance from a single electron trapped near the conducting channel of a field effect transistor. The dc effect is based on the modification of the average trap occupancy caused by the resonant excitation of the trap. Depending on the charge and spin propertied of the empty trap, at the resonance, the channel resistivity can both increase and decrease, an effect that can be used for trap diagnostics. We also propose a scheme for the Rabi oscillation detection in the same system.

Acknowledgements— This work was supported by the U.S. DOE and DARPA SPINs program. D.M. was supported in part by the NSF grants DMR-0121146 and ECS-0102500.


text:
# Stochastic cellular automaton for the coagulation-fission-process 2𝐴→3𝐴, 2𝐴→𝐴

## 1. Introduction

Non-equilibrium phase transitions from fluctuating phases into one or several absorbing states continue to fascinate many researchers because of their universal properties . The ultimate goal is to categorize such phase transitions into a finite number of universality classes. So far several universality classes have been identified, the most important ones being directed percolation (DP) , the parity conserving (PC) class , voter-type transitions , and the generalized epidemic process . Searching for other universality classes, the pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD) $`2A3A`$, $`2A\mathrm{}`$, also called annihilation-fission process, is one of the most promising candidates. In one spatial dimension the PCPD displays a novel type of critical behavior which does not seem to belong to any of the known universality classes. In contrast to DP and PC transitions, where individual particles can generate offspring, the PCPD is a binary spreading process, i.e., two particles have to meet in order to create a new one.

The possibility of a non-trivial critical behavior in binary spreading processes was already pointed out by Grassberger in 1982 . Nethertheless it took another 15 years before the PCPD was investigated systematically for the first time by Howard and Täuber . Their work was motivated by the observation that the annihilation process $`2A\mathrm{}`$ produces anticorrelations among the particles (emerging as ‘imaginary’ noise in the Langevin equation), while the fission process $`2A3A`$ generates positive correlations (‘real’ noise). Combining the two reactions they were able to show that the interpolation between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ noise leads to a non-equilibrium phase transition. However, the corresponding bosonic field theory turned out to be non-renormalizable. This is partly due to the fact that in the bosonic formulation the density of particles diverges in the active phase so that perturbative methods cannot be applied.

Carlon et al.  were the first to consider a fermionic lattice model of the PCPD, in which the local density of particles is bound by an exclusion principle. Their paper triggered a series of numerical studies  and released a still ongoing debate concerning the critical behavior at the transition. Even today, two years later, it is not yet clear to what extent the PCPD represents an independent genuine universality class. On the one hand, a fermionic field theory for the PCPD does not yet exist. On the other hand, density matrix renormalization techniques and Monte Carlo simulations turned out to be unreliable because of strong deviations from power law scaling. Moreover, in some studies the estimated critical exponents seem to depend on the choice of the diffusion rate, leading Ódor to the conjecture that the transition may be characterized by two independent universality classes for weak and strong diffusion . Reported estimates for the critical exponents are scattered over a wide range, depending on the numerical effort and the value of the diffusion rate. Nevertheless there is a consensus that the PCPD does exhibit a novel type of non-equilibrium phase transition with a very characteristic critical behavior. The transition is universal in the sense that the same characteristic critical properties can be observed in various other binary spreading processes such as in multi-component models , parity-conserving variants , and especially the coagulation-fission process

(1)
$$2A3A,2AA,$$

on which we will focus in the present work (see Fig. 1). By analyzing this process we will implicitely assume that the conclusions can also be applied to the PCPD and other binary spreading processes, at least on a qualitative level.

What is the reason for the unusually strong deviations from power-law scaling in the 1+1-dimensional PCPD? Initially it was argued that the deviations may be due to logarithmic corrections at the upper critical dimension. However, Ódor showed that the upper critical dimension of the process is $`d_c=2`$ . For this reason ordinary logarithmic corrections at the upper critical dimension can be ruled out unless the system has several critical dimensions.

In order to explain the observed phenomena phenomenologically, it was suggested that the PCPD can be interpreted as a DP process coupled with an annihilation process in a feedback loop . Numerical simulations confirmed that such a cyclically coupled model displays indeed a similar characteristic critical behavior at the transition. Based on these ideas Noh and Park  proposed that the transition in the PCPD might be characterized by continuously varying exponents depending on the value of the diffusion rate. As an explanation they suggested that the PCPD may be viewed as a DP process subjected to a marginal perturbation caused by long-term memory effects of the dynamics.

Even more recently Park and Kim presented numerical evidence that the PCPD is characterized by a well-defined set of critical exponents provided that the rates for diffusion and annihilation (or coagulation) are tuned in such a way that the process without branching becomes exactly solvable . Very recent studies even suggest that all PCPD variants eventually cross over to the same asymptotic critical behavior with a unique set of critical exponents , meaning that the PCPD would indeed represent an independent universality class.

So far all explanations anticipate that the critical PCPD displays asymptotic power laws. However, in the present study we find that there is no power-law scaling at all, at least within the numerically accessible range. To this end we introduce a very simple and efficient stochastic cellular automaton model for the coagulation-fission process (1). Since the model evolves by synchronous updates, it can be implemented easily on a parallel computer. This allows us to perform high-precision simulations exceeding the number of time steps used in previous studies . Our numerical results suggest that even after one million time steps the scaling regime is not yet reached. Inspired by this observation we discuss the possibility that the process may display an extremely slow crossover to directed percolation.

## 2. Definition of the cellular automaton

The cellular automaton for the 1+1-dimensional coagulation-fission process investigated in the present work is defined as follows. As the well-known Domany-Kinzel model , it uses a tilted square lattice, where the sites are enumerated horizontally by a position index $`i`$ and vertically by a temporal index $`t`$. Since the lattice is tilted the position indices $`i`$ at even (odd) times $`t`$ are also even (odd). The sites of the lattice can be either active ($`s_i(t)=1`$) or inactive ($`s_i(t)=0`$). Each $`t`$ labels a horizontal row, specifiying the state of the model at time $`t`$.

The model evolves by parallel updates as follows. Assume that the state at time $`t`$ is given. In order to construct the new state at time $`t+1`$, we first clear all sites of the next horizontal row. Then a loop is executed which runs over all active sites $`j`$ of the previous configuration at time $`t`$. For each of them we first check whether its nearest neighbors $`s_{j2}(t)`$ and $`s_{j+2}(t)`$ are occupied. Depending on their state the following local updates are carried out:

* If both neighbors are inactive, the particle performs a coagulating random walk by activating either site $`s_{j1}(t+1)`$ or $`s_{j+1}(t+1)`$ in the new configuration with equal probability.
* Otherwise, if at least one of the neighbors is active, another random number $`z[0,1]`$ is generated. If $`z<p`$ the two connected sites are activated by setting $`s_{j1}(t+1)=s_{j+1}(t+1)=1`$, whereas for $`zp`$ either site $`s_{j1}(t+1)`$ or $`s_{j+1}(t+1)`$ is activated with equal probability in the same way as in (a).

It is easy to see that these dynamic rules resemble the process $`2A3A`$, $`2AA`$ combined with diffusion. Unlike in random-sequential models, it is not necessary to select particles randomly so that less random numbers have to be generated. A minimal pseudo code for the update algorithm is given in the appendix. In order to simulate the cellular automaton efficiently, further optimizations are necessary. Instead of using a static array describing a finite lattice with periodic boundary conditions, it is useful to store the positions of active sites at time $`t`$ individually in a dynamically generated list. Using such a list it is no longer necessary to perform a loop over all sites and to check whether they are active, instead the loop runs exclusively over the active sites, speeding up the simulation especially when the particle density is low. List-based algorithms are also advantageous in so-called dynamical simulations starting with a localized active seed . Here the system size is practically infinite (limited only by the range of integer numbers $`\pm 2^{31}`$) so that finite-size effects can be excluded.

Moreover, the update procedure can be implemented easily on a parallel computer. To this end we note that the new state at time $`t+1`$ is initially set to zero and then constructed by an unconditional activation, i.e., we assign the value $`1`$ to certain sites irrespective of their state. For this reason the total update can be understood as a Boolean ‘OR’ operation of all local updates within the loop. This means the local updates commute and thus can be processed in parallel blocks. Therefore, it is straight forward to implement the cellular automaton on a parallel computer with a ring geometry. Finally we note that the model can easily be generalized to higher dimensions in the same way as the Domany-Kinzel model, although the present work will be restricted to the 1+1-dimensional case.

## 3. Numerical results

### 3.1. Homogeneous initial conditions

Fig. 3 shows the numerical results for the decay of the particle density close to the transition starting with a fully occupied lattice. In systems with power-law scaling the density is expected to decrease as $`\rho (t)t^\delta `$, where $`\delta =\beta /\nu _{}`$. The parallelized implementation allows us to simulate very large systems with $`2^{21}2\times 10^6`$ sites so that finite-size effects can be excluded. The simulation time of $`2.5\times 10^6`$ updates exceeds the range of previous numerical works. Because of the unusually large system size it is sufficient to average the density of particles over $`32`$ independent runs.

In order to estimate the critical threshold, we measured the decay for different values of $`p`$. Plotting the raw data in a double logarithmic plot (left panel of Fig. 6), there seems to be a reasonable straight line with a slope $`\delta 0.246(10)`$ over almost four decades. However, if the measured values are multiplied by $`t^{0.246}`$ (right panel), it can be seen that the lines are actually curved. Note that the data sets for different $`p`$ are statistically independent so that the observed trend of the curvature cannot be attributed to correlated fluctuation effects.

The figure illustrates how difficult it is to determine the critical point. If the curves eventually veer down, we assume that the process is subcritical. Using this criterion we find that $`p_c0.29998`$. The exact critical point, which is presumably somewhere between $`0.3000`$ and $`0.3002`$, cannot be determined precisely since all data sets for $`p0.29998`$ show a non-vanishing positive curvature over at least three decades. Thus we have strong reasons to believe there no power-law scaling, at least in over the first six decades in time. In less extensive simulations one would have been tempted to interpret the broad plateau between $`10^2`$ and $`10^4`$ time steps as the onset of a power-law and to lower the percolation probability in order to get a straight line. The present numerical results show that this is not possible.

### 3.2. Seed simulations

Studying phase transitions into absorbing states it is customary to perform simulations starting with a localized seed . The quantities of interest are the survival probability $`P(t)`$, the number of particles $`N(t)`$ averaged over all runs, and the mean square spreading from the origin $`R^2(t)`$ averaged over the surviving runs. In the standard scaling theory of phase transitions into absorbing states these quantities are expected to obey asymptotic power laws of the form

(2)
$$P(t)t^\delta ^{},N(t)t^\eta ,R^2(t)t^{2/z}.$$

In the coagulation-fission process seed simulations are conceptually difficult. Since the absorbing state corresponds to a single diffusing particle, one has to start with a localized pair of particles. The survival probability is then most naturally defined as the probability that the system has not yet reached the absorbing state, i.e., the process is called ‘surviving’ as long as there are at least two particles in the system. However, this definition is problematic in so far as it is no longer possible to divide the system into active sites and absorbing domains . Irrespective of these difficulties, the survival probability $`P(t)`$ displays a similar behavior as the decay of the density in the case of homogeneous initial conditions. Plotting the raw data in a log-log plot one might expect a straight line with an approximate slope of $`\delta ^{}=0.12(1)`$ (see left panel of 4). However, multiplying the data points by $`t^{0.12}`$ (right panel of Fig. 4) there is again a clear curvature over more than four decades. Thus, we can exclude power-law scaling, at least in the numerically accessible range.

Similar results are obtained for the other quantities. The left panel of Fig. 5 shows the number of particles $`N(t)`$ averaged over all runs. In addition, the figure shows the average number of particles with at least one active nearest neighbor $`N_2(t)`$, i.e., the number of particles which can generate offspring. As previously observed in other studies of binary spreading processes in 1+1 dimensions, both quantities behave similarly and their quotient seems to tend to a constant. However, also in this case it is obvious that they do not follow a power-law. Likewise, the mean square spreading from the origin $`R^2(t)`$ does not display power-law scaling. As shown in the right panel of Fig. 5, after an initial transient there is horizontal plateau, where $`R^2(t)`$ increases linearly, indicating an intermediate diffusive behavior. After $`10^3`$ time steps, however, the curves veer up. This means that the effective exponent $`z(t)`$ decreases with time so that the process spreads superdiffusively.

## 4. Does the PCPD belong to the DP class?

What is the origin for the unusual critical behavior observed in the coagulation-fission process. Why is it impossible to obtain clean power laws? One possibility, which has not been discussed so far, would be that the critical behavior of the PCPD and related models crosses over to DP after very long time. Several arguments support this speculative point of view:

1. Unlike unary spreading processes, which generate offspring everywhere along the particle trajectories, the PCPD and related models are binary spreading processes, where solitary particles can move diffusively over long distances. As pointed out in Ref. , the dynamics switches between two modes, namely, dense regions in space-time, where branching occurs frequently, and sparse regions, where solitary particles diffuse over long distances. The apparent contradiction that single particles diffuse (with a dynamic exponent $`z=2`$) while the whole process is superdiffusive ($`z<2`$) can only be resolved if the effective diffusion rate itself scales to zero under rescaling in the renormalization group sense. Therefore, the critical PCPD regarded on extremely large scales should look like a pair contact process without diffusion, which is known to belong to the DP universality class .
2. As shown in Table 1, all effective exponents move in the direction of the DP values as time proceeds. The same applies to the density exponent $`\beta `$ (not reported here). However, the accuracy of the numerical results does not permit a reliable extrapolation.
3. As shown in Fig. 5, the effective dynamic exponent $`z`$ deviates only slightly from $`2`$. Between $`10`$ and $`100`$ time steps there is virtually no deviation. At $`10^4`$ time steps the deviation is less then $`8\%`$ and after $`10^6`$ time steps it is still less than $`12\%`$. The small deviation makes it plausible why the diffusion constant changes only gradually under renormalization, leading to an extremely slow crossover.
4. In the inactive phase a binary spreading process in 1+1 dimensions displays an algebraic decay $`\rho (t)t^{1/2}`$, whereas in DP the density is known to decay exponentially. This apparent contradiction can be resolved by observing that the decay of the particle density in a slightly subcritical PCPD can be divided into three different temporal regimes. In the first regime (region I in Fig. 6) spreading and diffusion are still strong enough to sustain each other so that the particle density decays very slowly. After a characteristic time, however, the density decays quickly (region II) until it crosses over to an algebraic decay $`t^{1/2}`$ (region III). Remarkably, the amplitude of this asymptotic power law does not depend on $`p`$. Consequently, the sudden jump in region II becomes more and more pronounced as the critical threshold is approached and may tend to a quasi-exponential decay in the limit $`pp_c`$.

In spite of these arguments the hypothesis of an eventual crossover to DP faces several problems. If it were valid in higher dimensions, it would be in conflict with Ódors observation  that the upper critical dimension of the PCPD is smaller than $`4`$. Moreover, it is not clear how the time reversal symmetry of DP is recovered in the asymptotic limit. In addition, the implicit assumption that all variants of binary spreading processes behave essentially in the same way has to be questioned. Finally, other high-precision simulations are reported that seem to confirm power-law behavior .

## 5. Summary

In the present work we have introduced an efficient cellular automaton model for the coagulation-fission process with diffusion. Performing extensive simulations on a parallel computer, we find that the model does not exhibit power-law scaling in the numerically accessible range, instead the effective exponents (local slopes) show a continuous drift. As in various other studies, we may have been tempted to produce almost straight lines over the last few decades by adjusting the critical parameter, but the overall curvature of the data sets suggests that in this case the system would be slightly subcritical. For this reason we conjecture that the drift of the effective exponents will continue far beyond the numerically accessible range. We expect the same to be true for other binary spreading processes such as the PCPD.

Observing that all effective exponents move towards the corresponding DP exponents (although they are still quite far away), one has to consider the possiblity that the system may cross over to DP after very long time. As a possible explanation we suggest that the diffusion rate may scale to zero in the renormalization group sense, driving the system eventually to a binary spreading process without diffusion, which is expected to display the critical behavior of DP. To this end it would be helpful to perform a real-space renormalization group study in order to see how the parameters, especially the diffusion rate, change under rescaling .

To summarize, there is a confusing variety of opinions concerning the critical behavior of binary spreading processes. Presently, the main viewpoints are:

* Binary spreading processes belong to a single universality class with a well-defined set of critical exponents .
* Numerical results indicate that there are two independent universality classes for low and high values of the diffusion rate .
* The PCPD may be interpreted as a cyclically coupled DP and annihilation process .
* The PCPD can be regarded as a marginally perturbed DP process with continuously varying exponents .
* Binary spreading processes may cross over to DP after very long time (present work).
* Finally, one cannot exclude the possibility that the PCPD and related models exhibit a weakly discontinuous transition .

Further investigations are needed to find out which of these explanations is the correct one. Finally we note that the same questions arise in the context of a recently introduced triplet process with diffusion $`3A4A`$, $`3A\mathrm{}`$ . As in the case of the 1+1-dimensional PCPD, it may be possible that this process crosses over to DP as well after very long time.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank P. Grassberger, G. Ódor, and K. Park for valuable discussions. The simulations were partly performed on the ALICE parallel computer at the IAI in Wuppertal. I would also like to thank B. Orth and G. Arnold for technical support.

## Appendix A Minimal pseudo code

A minimal pseudo code (disregarding the boundary conditions) for the update procedure of the cellular automaton can be written as:

> | integer L,T; | // system size and simulation time |
> | --- | --- |
> | integer s\[L,T\]; | // the lattice |
> | float p; | // the branching probability |
> | integer j; | // site index |
> | integer start = t mod 2; | // select even/odd sublattice |
> | for j from 1 to L-1 do s\[j,t+1\]=0; | // clear new state at time t+1 |
> | for j from start to L-1 in steps of 2 do | // loop over all active sites |
> | if s\[j,t\]==1 then |
> | if random\<0.5 then s\[j-1,t+1\]=1; else s\[j+1,t+1\]=1; |
> | if s\[j-2,t\]+s\[j+2,t\]\>0 and random\<p then s\[j-1,t+1\]=s\[j+1,t+1\]=1; |
> | end (if) |
> | end (for) |


text:
# Anisotropic elastic theory of preloaded granular media

## Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to thank J.-P. Bouchaud, E. Clément, D.S. Fisher, P.-G. de Gennes, B.I. Halperin, J. Rajchenbach, J.R. Rice, and J.-N. Roux for uselful discussions, and P.G. de Gennes and T.A. Witten for inspiring lectures. We thank the referees for valuable comments. R.A.S. acknowledges the support of the Harvard Society of Fellows, the Milton Fund, and the Fonds national suisse through a Young Researcher Fellowship.