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# Black Hole Accretion Disks On The Edge

## 1 Introduction

Over the past few years, the question of the nature of accretion in the vicinity of black holes has received considerably renewed attention. This interest stems from a combination of new observational data and a deeper theoretical understanding of the accretion problem. On the observational side, significant progress has been made since a new generation of powerful X-ray telescopes (Chandra and XMM-Newton) became available. These instruments have been used to strengthen earlier claims of evidence for general relativistic effects arising deep in the potential well of spinning black holes, in the form of broad iron emission line profiles (Iwasawa et al. 1996; Dabrowsky et al. 1997; Branduardi-Raymont et al. 2001; see also Reynolds & Begelman 1997; Young, Ross & Fabian 1998). In addition, it has been suggested that in some systems one actually witnesses black hole spin energy being tapped to power part of the observed X-ray emission (Wilms et al. 2001, Miller et al. 2002).

On the theoretical side, efforts to reconsider classical results (see, e.g., Novikov & Thorne 1973; Page & Thorne 1974, Shapiro & Teukolsky 1983) on the marginally-stable orbit and the zero-torque boundary condition at $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ have been motivated by the compelling case made for magnetic fields and MHD turbulence being the driving mechanism behind accretion (Balbus & Haley 1991; 1998; Balbus 2003; Blaes 2003). Recent theoretical efforts on near-black-hole accretion have focused on analytical models of steady-state accretion (Krolik 1999; Gammie 1999; Agol & Krolik 2000; Paczynski 2000; Afshordi & Paczynski 2003) or on global numerical simulations of magnetized flows in an approximate pseudo-Newtonian potential for non-rotating black holes (Hawley & Krolik 2001; 2002; Reynolds & Armitage 2001, Armitage, Reynolds & Chiang 2001; Krolik & Hawley 2002).

Gammie & Popham (1998; see their footnote 7) and Araya-Gochez (2002) have studied some important aspects of the linear stability problem for magnetized disks around black holes in full general relativity, but it seems that there has been no attempt to use this approach to address some of the debated points in the literature on the subject of near-black-hole accretion (e.g. validity of zero-torque condition, role of disk thickness, differences between hydrodynamical and magnetized disks). This is undoubtedly because there are issues that a local, linear analysis cannot fully address and which require global numerical simulations. Nonetheless, as I argue below, such an analysis still provides valuable insights on some of the key aspects of the accretion problem in the vicinity of a black hole. In §2, I describe the formalism used for the linear analysis. I present a comparison of results for hydrodynamical and magnetized thin accretion disks in §3. Implications and limitations of this work are discussed in §4.

## 2 Formalism

We work in cylindrical coordinates $`(R,\varphi ,Z)`$. Without loss of generality, we restrict our analysis to a basic state disk with a purely vertical magnetic field, $`𝑩=(0,0,B)`$, and a rotation law, $`𝛀=(0,\mathrm{\Omega }(R),0)`$, that is constant on cylinders. We consider axisymmetric Eulerian perturbations (denoted by a prefix $`\delta `$) with WKB space-time dependence $`e^{i(kZ\omega t)}`$. We work in ideal MHD (i.e. microscopic diffusion processes are ignored) and we neglect weak circulations of the basic state, such as that caused by a finite fluid viscosity.

The formalism used for this analysis is essentially the same as the one developed by Balbus & Hawley (1991; 2002). Standard MHD equations and expressions for the leading-order WKB terms (within the Boussinesq approximation) can be found in the first of these two references. Two of these equations for linear perturbations are useful for the discussion below and they are reproduced here:

$$i\omega \delta v_\varphi +\delta v_R\frac{\kappa ^2}{2\mathrm{\Omega }}ikB\frac{\delta B_\varphi }{4\pi \rho }=0,$$
(1)
$$i\omega \delta B_RikB\delta v_R=0.$$
(2)
Linear perturbations satisfy the dispersion relation

$`\stackrel{~}{\omega }^4\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2(N^2+\kappa ^2)4\mathrm{\Omega }^2(kv_A)^2=0,`$ (3)
where

$`v_A=B/\sqrt{4\pi \rho },\stackrel{~}{\omega }^2=\omega ^2(kv_A)^2,`$ (4)
and $`\rho `$ is the mass density of the fluid. Unstable modes are best characterized by their growth rate, $`\gamma =i\omega `$. The Brunt-Väisälä frequency and the epicyclic frequency appearing in the dispersion relation are defined, respectively, by

$$N^2=\frac{3}{5\rho }\frac{dP}{dR}\frac{d\mathrm{ln}P\rho ^{5/3}}{dR},\kappa ^2=\frac{1}{R^3}\frac{dR^4\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{dR},$$
(5)
where $`P`$ is the gas pressure and $`5/3`$ is the adiabatic index of the gas.

Following Balbus & Hawley (2002), the growth rate, $`\gamma `$, of unstable modes obeys

$$\gamma ^2=(kv_A)^2\frac{1}{2}\left[N^2+\kappa ^2\sqrt{(N^2+\kappa ^2)^2+16\mathrm{\Omega }^2(kv_A)^2}\right].$$
(6)
The wavenumber ($`k`$) and growth rate of the fastest growing mode are given by

$$(kv_A)_{\mathrm{max}}^2=\mathrm{\Omega }^2\left(1\frac{(N^2+\kappa ^2)^2}{16\mathrm{\Omega }^4}\right),\gamma _{\mathrm{max}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{4}\left(\left|\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{d\mathrm{ln}R}\right|\frac{N^2}{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}\right).$$
(7)
The $`R\varphi `$ component of the linear perturbation stress tensor, which measures the angular momentum flux associated with unstable modes (Balbus & Hawley 2002; 1998), is

$$T_{R\varphi }=\rho \left[\delta v_R\delta v_\varphi \delta v_{AR}\delta v_{A\varphi }\right],$$
(8)
where the first term is the Reynolds stress and the second term is the Maxwell stress:

$$\rho \delta v_R\delta v_\varphi =\rho (\delta v_R)^2\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{D\gamma }\left[\frac{(kv_A)^2}{\gamma ^2}\left|\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }}{d\mathrm{ln}R}\right|\frac{\kappa ^2}{2\mathrm{\Omega }^2}\right],$$
(9)
$$\rho \delta v_{AR}\delta v_{A\varphi }=\rho (\delta v_R)^2\frac{2\mathrm{\Omega }}{D\gamma }\frac{(kv_A)^2}{\gamma ^2},$$
(10)
and $`D=1+(kv_A/\gamma )^2`$. In what follows, we will focus on the dimensionless stress

$$T_{R\varphi }^{}=\frac{T_{R\varphi }}{\rho (\delta v_R)^2}.$$
(11)
While Balbus & Hawley (2002; see also Narayan et al. 2002) were interested in the general stability and transport properties of accretion flows with strongly destabilizing radial stratifications ($`N^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$), our specific interest here is in the possible change of stability properties caused by the gravitational potential of a non-rotating black hole in the vicinity of the classical marginally stable orbit ($`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$). We approximate the Schwarzschild metric with the pseudo-Newtonian potential of Paczynski & Wiita (1980), which implies a Keplerian rotation law

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_K^2(R)=\frac{GM_{\mathrm{BH}}}{R(RR_g)^2},$$
(12)
where $`G`$ is the gravitational constant, $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ is the central black hole mass and $`R_g=2GM_{\mathrm{BH}}/c^2`$ is the Schwarzschild radius of the non-rotating hole ($`c`$ is the speed of light). This approximate potential is known to reproduce accurately the location of the classical marginally-stable ($`R_{\mathrm{ms}}=3R_g`$) and marginally-bound ($`R_{\mathrm{mb}}=2R_g`$) orbits. We focus our attention on the stability of nearly-Keplerian gaseous accretion disks, i.e. gaseous disks in near rotational equilibrium. In the absence of any accretion (i.e. infall), the equilibrium (basic state) rotation law of such a disk is governed by the radial component of the Euler equation,

$$R\mathrm{\Omega }^2=R\mathrm{\Omega }_K^2+\frac{1}{\rho }\frac{dP}{dR}.$$
(13)
The assumption of near Keplerianity means that radial pressure gradients are small compared to the two other terms in the above equation: $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }_K`$. This is equivalent to requiring that the disk geometrical thickness be small compared to its radius ($`H/R1`$). A further consequence of this assumption is that, absent any variations of the density or temperature over a lengthscale comparable to the disk pressure scale height, $`H`$, the epicyclic frequency, $`\kappa ^2`$, is close to the Keplerian value as well. In what follows, we will neglect any such deviation of $`\kappa ^2`$ from local Keplerianity.

Since our basic state disk configuration is, by assumption, non-accreting, it would seem natural to assume that any radial stratification (that would in general arise from accretion and associated dissipation) is absent. It is possible, however, to imagine situations in which a non-accreting gaseous disk still possesses a non-zero radial stratification, as could be the case for instance in the presence of external sources of irradiation. For this reason, we generalize our discussion to the cases with: (i) no radial stratification ($`N^2=0`$), (ii) a stabilizing radial stratification ($`N^2=0.1\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$) and (iii) a destabilizing radial stratification ($`N^2=0.1\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$). The values $`\pm 0.1\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ are intentionally chosen to be large (for a thin disk), to better illustrate the effects of finite $`N^2`$ values on stability. Reducing these values to more realistic levels would not affect the results qualitatively, but it would make the identification of the effects on figures more difficult.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Stability of Hydrodynamical Disks

While the formalism described in the previous section has been developed for magnetized disks, the hydrodynamical limit can be recovered by enforcing $`kv_A=0`$. The dispersion relation reduces to second order and the growth rate of unstable modes becomes independent of wavenumber ($`k`$): $`\gamma ^2=(N^2+\kappa ^2)`$. One recognizes one of the classical Solberg-Høiland criteria for axisymmetric stability (e.g. Tassoul 1978) emerging from this expression for $`\gamma ^2`$. Around a black hole, the Keplerian rotation law becomes unstable inside of the classical marginally-stable orbit, $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}=3R_g`$, where $`\kappa ^2<0`$ (for all wavenumbers $`k`$). While this is an exact result for a test particle (or a dust disk), hydrodynamical disks behave somewhat differently. First, the value of the disk epicyclic frequency, $`\kappa ^2`$, is slightly modified by the presence a finite radial pressure gradient (eq. ), a small effect that we have chosen to ignore for simplicity. Second, the presence of radial stratification modifies the radius of marginal stability (i.e. the radius at which $`\gamma ^2=0`$). Marginal stability occurs at a radius somewhat larger (smaller) than the standard $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}=3R_g`$ in the presence of a destabilizing (stabilizing) radial stratification. These modifications remain small for cold/thin disks (with $`N^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$).

Dimensionless Reynolds stresses associated with linearly unstable hydrodynamical modes take the (wavenumber independent) form: $`T_{R\varphi }^{}=(\kappa ^2/2\mathrm{\Omega }^2)\times (\mathrm{\Omega }/\gamma )`$. In the absence of radial stratification, $`\gamma =\sqrt{\kappa ^2}`$, the dimensionless stress is everywhere positive within the radius of marginal stability and it vanishes exactly at that radius. When a finite radial stratification is present, however, the degeneracy between the growth rate, $`\gamma `$, and the epicyclic frequency, $`\kappa ^2`$, is broken, and $`T_{R\varphi }^{}`$ diverges at marginal stability ($`\gamma =0`$ but $`\kappa ^20`$). The divergence is positive for a stabilizing radial stratification and negative for a destabilizing one. Therefore, in a disk with $`N^2<0`$, there is a small region with negative stresses right inside of the radius of marginal stability. These results are graphically illustrated in figure 3 (see below).

The divergence of the dimensionless stress does not apply to the physically-relevant dimensional stress, however. Equation (1) for linear perturbations shows that, in a hydrodynamical disk (with $`B=0`$), when $`\gamma =i\omega 0`$ while $`\kappa ^20`$, $`\delta v_R`$ must $`0`$ as well. \[This requirement disappears if $`\kappa ^2=0`$ at marginal stability (i.e. absent any radial stratification), but there is no divergence of $`T_{R\varphi }^{}`$ in that case because $`\delta v_R`$ can remain finite (see also Fig. 3).\] The fact that $`\delta v_R\gamma 0`$ at marginal stability is precisely what makes the dimensionless stress, $`T_{R\varphi }^{}`$, diverge (if $`N^20`$). On the other hand, the dimensional stress, $`T_{R\varphi }T_{R\varphi }^{}\times (\delta v_R)^2`$, vanishes exactly at marginal stability, where $`\delta v_R\gamma 0`$. All this guarantees that the physically relevant linear stress always vanishes at marginal stability, whether there is radial stratification or not. Note that a similar situation occurs at marginal stability ($`\delta v_R\gamma 0`$) in a magnetized disk, as equation (2) for linear perturbations shows. Despite the possibility of divergence at marginal stability, we found that using $`T_{R\varphi }^{}`$ remained very useful because of its dimensionless nature.111Narayan et al. (2002) use the dimensionless quantity $`t_{r\varphi }=T_{R\varphi }^{}\times (\gamma /\mathrm{\Omega })`$, which remains finite at marginal stability where the dimensional stress, $`T_{R\varphi }`$, vanishes (and $`T_{R\varphi }^{}`$ diverges).

### 3.2 Stability of Magnetized Disks

Figure 1 shows growth rates of unstable modes, as a function of dimensionless wavenumber, $`kv_A/\mathrm{\Omega }`$, at four different locations in the vicinity of the classical marginally stable orbit, $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}=3R_g`$. Only the case without radial stratification ($`N^2=0`$) is shown because it was found that a value of $`N^2<<\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ only slightly reduces or increases growth rates in an approximately wavenumber independent way. For each of the curves in figure 1, the mode with maximal growth is easily identified at $`kv_A\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The growth rate of this most unstable mode increases as one approaches the black hole horizon because the shear and the epicyclic frequency become ever more destabilizing. Values of the growth rate for the most unstable mode shown in figure 1 are found to be in very good agreement with corresponding fully general relativistic calculations for Schwarzschild black holes (Araya-Gochez 2002).

One observes a qualitative change in the behavior of small wavenumber (large scale) modes as a function of radius. At radii $`R3R_g`$ (for $`N^2=0`$ and a strictly Keplerian epicyclic frequency), the growth rate of these modes tends to zero in the limit $`kv_A0`$. Within $`3R_g`$, however, the growth rate tends to a finite value, which is $`\gamma =\sqrt{\kappa ^2}`$. This is exactly the growth rate of unstable modes in a hydrodynamical disk at the same location within the radius of marginal stability. Therefore, large scale modes characterized by weak magnetic tension (small $`kv_A`$) behave asymptotically like their hydrodynamical counterparts. Note that this is the only physical significance attached to the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability in a magnetized disk. Because there always are unstable modes, on scales small enough for magnetic tension to be important, there is no effective radius of marginal stability in a magnetized disk. Finite radial stratification or pressure effects can modify somewhat the exact radius at which small wavenumber modes become unstable (from the canonical $`3R_g`$ value; see discussion of Fig. 3 below), but they do not qualitatively alter the stability or stress properties.

Figure 2 shows the total (Reynolds + Maxwell) dimensionless stresses, $`T_{R\varphi }^{}`$, associated with linearly unstable modes, as a function of the dimensionless wavenumber, $`kv_A/\mathrm{\Omega }`$, at the same four locations in the vicinity of the classical marginally stable orbit (same notation and $`N^2=0`$ assumption as in Fig. 1). To illustrate the vanishing of the dimensional stress at marginal stability, we have multiplied the dimensionless stress by $`\gamma ^2/\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ (in this figure only), since we know that $`\delta v_R\gamma 0`$ at marginal stability (see §3.1). Again, a qualitative change in the stress across the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability occurs only for large scale modes. The stress is asymptotically zero outside of $`3R_g`$ and asymptotically finite inside of $`3R_g`$, in the limit $`kv_A0`$.

Figure 3 summarizes the picture that emerges for linear perturbation stresses in magnetized and hydrodynamical disks in the region around the classical marginally stable orbit. The stress for the fastest growing mode in a magnetized disk is positive and continuous throughout the region of interest. The introduction of a stabilizing or destabilizing radial stratification does not qualitatively change this result. On the contrary, the (wavenumber independent) linear perturbation stress in a hydrodynamical disk is positive only within the radius of marginal stability, whose location is affected by the introduction of radial stratification (see lower short- and long-dashed lines in Fig. 3). At marginal stability, hydrodynamical stresses vanish (the apparent singularities of $`T_{R\varphi }^{}`$ in Fig. 3 do not apply to the dimensional stress, $`T_{R\varphi }`$, as discussed in §3.1). The dotted line in figure 3 shows the linear perturbation stress for a representative ”hydro-like” mode in a magnetized disk, i.e. a mode with $`(kv_A/\mathrm{\Omega })^2=10^2`$ which is subject only to weak magnetic tension. Even for this ”hydro-like” mode, whose properties become very similar to those of purely hydrodynamical modes as $`R2R_g`$, the linear perturbation stress remains strictly positive and continuous throughout the region of interest (as does the growth rate; see Fig. 1).

### 3.3 Waves in Magnetized Disks

While it is not the main focus of this paper, it is worth emphasizing here what can be learned from the stable branch of the dispersion relation (eq. ). Indeed, following early investigations by Kato & Fukue (1980) and Okasaki, Kato & Fukue (1987), it has been suggested that global hydrodynamical modes in unmagnetized accretion disks could be trapped in the vicinity of black holes (Novak & Wagoner 1991; 1992; 1993; Perez et al. 1997; Kato 1990; 1993; 2002; 2003; Li, Goodman & Narayan 2003). Mode trapping in this context relies on a purely relativistic effect: the epicyclic frequency reaches a maximum, before vanishing at the classical marginally-stable orbit, as one goes deeper and deeper into the black hole potential well (or that of a very compact neutron star for that matter; see, e.g., Wagoner 1999 for a review). One of main motivations for elucidating the properties of such diskoseismic modes is that they may be at the origin of a variety of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) observed in compact accreting systems (see, e.g., van der Klis 2000 for a review on QPO observations).

Given the restricted geometry considered, as well as the local and axisymmetric nature of the analysis, our dispersion relation (eq. ) describes only a very small subset of all diskoseismic modes discussed in the literature and global trapped modes cannot be studied explicitly. Nonetheless, the dispersion relation is interesting because it does describe, in the magnetized context, inertio-gravity waves222We adopt the standard nomenclature of geophysical fluid dynamics by referring to (internal) gravity waves in a rotating medium as inertio-gravity waves (see, e.g., Holton 1992). which are often regarded as the most observationally relevant diskoseismic mode (Wagoner 1999).

Figure 4a shows the frequency, $`\omega `$, of wave solutions to our dispersion relation, as a function of the dimensionless wavenumber, $`kv_A/\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Hydrodynamical analogues to these waves can be identified by taking the limit $`kv_A0`$. Outside of the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability, we find that the asymptotic value of the wave frequency is $`\omega \sqrt{\kappa ^2+N^2}`$ when $`kv_A0`$. Clearly, these waves correspond to the (incompressible) inertio-gravity waves of hydrodynamical theory.333Note that because of the restricted geometry adopted (with only $`k_Z`$ finite), the analogues of hydrodynamical diskoseismic waves with $`\omega <\kappa `$ (absent any radial stratification) are not described by our dispersion relation. As expected, the effect of introducing a finite radial stratification (not shown here) is to increase or decrease the wave frequency relative to the epicyclic frequency, $`\kappa ^2`$ (in addition to changing the location of marginal stability). However, it is obvious from figure 4 that the behavior of these waves is very different in the large-$`kv_A`$ limit, i.e. when magnetic tension becomes important. Since we are working in the Boussinesq approximation, fast magnetosonic waves are effectively filtered out from the dispersion relation. We also know that unstable modes in differentially-rotating disks are related to the slow MHD mode, so the waves described by figure 4 must correspond to the last of the three classes of MHD waves, namely Alfvèn waves (as expected from the larger frequencies of these waves relative to the frequencies of slow MHD waves – described by the other branch of our dispersion relation – in the limit $`kv_A/\mathrm{\Omega }1`$; see Balbus & Hawley 1998 for a discussion of MHD waves in the accretion disk context).

Figure 4b illustrates two interesting properties of inertio-gravity-Alfvèn waves444Note the following interesting property of inertio-gravity modes in a magnetized medium. When they are stable, these modes are related to Alfvèn waves, as we have just discussed. However, when they are unstable, these modes switch branch in our dispersion relation and become then related to slow MHD modes. This can be seen by comparing figures 1 and 4 or, equivalently, by comparing the two (stable and unstable) branches of the dispersion relation in the limit $`kv_A0`$, both inside and outside of the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability. in the vicinity of the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability. While inertio-gravity waves become purely evanescent within $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ in unmagnetized disks, the corresponding waves in a magnetized disk continue to exist within $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$, albeit with very low frequencies (they become evanescent only asymptotically, i.e. in the limit $`kv_A0`$). Even if these waves do not become strictly evanescent ($`\omega 0`$) inside of $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$, the long-wavelength behavior they exhibit is broadly consistent with the hydrodynamical limit in the sense that there is a maximum and a decrease of the wave frequency as one approaches $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$. Note that, contrary to the purely hydrodynamical case, the location of the frequency maximum is not fixed at $`R=4R_g`$ in magnetized disks but it becomes a function of wavenumber. Waves with different wavenumbers would then be trapped in different regions of the disk.

All this suggests that some of the results on trapped inertio-gravity waves in hydrodynamical disks (due to the presence of a maximum of the epicyclic frequency, $`\kappa ^2`$) may remain valid in magnetized disks, provided one is allowed to consider long enough wavelengths for $`kv_A/\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to be $`1`$ (a condition which depends on the magnetic field strength explicitly). On the other hand, when magnetic tension becomes important (i.e. if $`kv_A/\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is not small), inertio-gravity-Alfvèn waves behave much more like Alfvèn waves. Figure 4b shows that, in that regime, there is no significant change in the wave properties as one crosses the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability. The frequency maximum disappears and, as a result, mode trapping is no longer expected.

Our short digression on inertio-gravity-Alfvèn waves indicates that a more general treatment of waves in magnetized disks is much needed to address the issue of global mode trapping (including compressibility effects allowing the existence of fast magnetosonic waves). Our simple analysis suggests that results established in the hydrodynamical limit do not carry over automatically to magnetized disks, especially when magnetic tension becomes important. Another difficulty that becomes apparent when studying magnetized disks is that all the waves coexist with the unstable slow MHD (magneto-rotational) mode, so that ignoring the resulting turbulence in the treatment of the background disk may be a serious oversimplification.

## 4 Discussion and Conclusion

The classical description of thin accretion disks around black holes involves the action of an ”anomalous viscosity” far from the hole, which (slowly) brings gas down to the marginally stable orbit, $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$. At that point, particle orbits become unstable and the gas is expected to flow into the hole on essentially free-fall orbits. This rapid infall, whose origin is the dynamical instability at $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$, must then cause the (steady-state) gas density within $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ to be very small, so that fluid stresses should essentially vanish. Another reason why one expects stresses to disappear somewhere outside of the black hole event horizon is that the infall speed must reach the speed of light at the horizon according to general relativity and therefore the flow must lose dynamical contact with external regions once it crosses the sonic (or fast-magnetosonic) surface.

Several elements of the classical picture should be revised now that we have a deeper understanding of the process responsible for accretion in the disk (i.e. the ”anomalous viscosity” of the classical theory). Indeed, the magneto-rotational instability is a dynamical instability itself. It relies on a rotational imbalance that is also what fundamentally leads to free-fall within the marginally stable orbit according to classical theory. Clearly, the fact that magnetized Keplerian accretion disks are subject to the same dynamical, magneto-rotational instability far away from the black hole and within the classical marginally stable orbit, and the realization that this instability is responsible for accretion far from the hole in the first place, suggest that the classical marginal stability theory may be inadequate to describe magnetized accretion disks.

The linear calculations presented in this paper are an attempt to formulate these objections in a more rigorous way. There is no doubt that the classical stability theory is exact for test particles (or dust disks). Hydrodynamical calculations show, however, that positive linear perturbation stresses resulting from rotational imbalance (Rayleigh instability) in a nearly-Keplerian gaseous accretion disk are possible within (and only within) the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability. This result is at odds with the classical description which postulates that the “anomalous viscosity” operates in the disk outside of $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ but not inside of $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$. Even the hydrodynamical analysis may have little to do with astrophysical systems, however, since those are expected to contain magnetized disks. Once a magnetic field is introduced, black hole accretion disks become dynamically unstable to the same magneto-rotational modes everywhere. Disks are more unstable within the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability because of the increasing shear and ever more destabilizing epicyclic frequency, but there appears to be no reason (at least in linear theory) why one should invoke a sharp transition at or about the classical marginally stable orbit, as illustrated in figure 3.

It is interesting that this conclusion is independent of the disk geometrical thickness. Indeed, the only requirement for our analysis to be valid (within ideal MHD) is that the magnetic field be weak enough for the wavelength of at least one unstable mode to fit within the disk scaleheigth. This is roughly equivalent to the requirement of a subthermal magnetic field ($`v_A<c_S`$; see, e.g., Balbus & Hawley 1998). In our analysis, one is therefore free to chose the disk sound speed (or equivalently disk thickness) as small as desired, as long as it remains finite. The results remain unchanged, provided the basic state magnetic field in the disk is made weak enough to allow for the presence of unstable modes.

There have been arguments presented in the literature for and against the classical picture, and in particular related to the issue of vanishing stresses within $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ (zero-torque boundary condition). Krolik (1999; see also Agol & Krolik 2000) and Gammie (1999) have argued that stresses could remain large across $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ in a magnetized disk, while Paczynski (2000) and Afshordi & Paczynski (2003) have argued in favor of the (near-)vanishing of stresses at radii $`R<R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$, provided the disk is geometrically thin (i.e. $`H/R1`$). Qualitatively, our linear analysis indicates that stresses should not vanish exactly anywhere around $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ in a thin, magnetized disk, and in that sense it supports the claims of Krolik (1999) and Gammie (1999). As a corollary, it suggests that the classical $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ location loses much of its significance in magnetized disks. However, to the extent that the zero-torque issue is a quantitative one (i.e. large vs. small stresses inside of $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$), it is unclear whether linear stability theory can provide a useful answer. One should also be aware of important differences between our approach and the methods of previous authors. While these authors focused on steady-state models (and some of their conclusions rely on that property), our stability analysis is intrinsically time-dependent (a characteristic which may be viewed as a plus). On the other hand, we do not solve the global near-black-hole accretion problem, and in doing so, we neglect the important role of large infall velocities near the black hole event horizon ($`v_Rc`$) which determine the location where dynamical contact is lost (at the “sonic” surface) and where stresses should vanish.

Another interesting property of our linear analysis is that it is local. The role of a large-scale magnetic field has at times been invoked to couple regions of the flow within $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ to regions more distant from the black hole and thus justify the idea that stresses may not disappear inside of $`R_{\mathrm{ms}}`$ in magnetized disks (see, e.g., Krolik 1999; Agol & Krolik 2000). Our analysis, because it is local in nature, shows that such a large-scale ”radially-connecting” magnetic field is not required for stresses to remain finite across the hydrodynamical radius of marginal stability.

Clearly, there are a number of elements of the near-black-hole accretion problem that the linear analysis cannot capture. Most importantly, it is the global MHD turbulence resulting from the non-linear development of the magneto-rotational instability that is ultimately relevant for the observational properties of accreting black holes (see Krolik & Hawley 2002 for a discussion of the issues in that regime). It is also significant that, while magnetized turbulent accretion disks have been shown to remain relatively close to rotational equilibrium (i.e. Keplerian) at large distances from the black hole (see, e.g., Hawley, Balbus & Stone 2001), numerical simulations show (and the infall constraint $`v_Rc`$ guarantees) that accretion must be far from rotational equilibrium in the vicinity of the black hole event horizon (see, e.g., Hawley & Krolik 2001; 2002). This is an indication that linear perturbation results based on a nearly-Keplerian basic state must be interpreted with caution in that region. One should also keep in mind that our analysis was carried out for strictly axisymmetric perturbations and that non-axisymmetric perturbations may, in general, have different stability and transport properties. Nevertheless, our results suggest that there is no reason for stresses to vanish in the vicinity of the classical marginally-stable orbit, irrespective of the geometrical thickness of thin accretion disks and whether large-scale ”radially-connecting” magnetic fields are present or not.

## Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to thank Steve Balbus and John Hawley for useful discussions during the completion of this work and Jeremy Goodman for helpful comments on the manuscript. The author acknowledges support from the Celerity Foundation.


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# References

Comment on “Anomalous Conductance Distribution in Q1D Gold Wires: Possible Violation of the One-Parameter Scaling Hypothesis”.

Mohanty and Webb MW  claim that their data on conductance fluctuations in gold wires contradict the one-parameter scaling. We show that flaws in extracting values of the cumulants $`g^n`$ of the conductance distribution (for $`n=3,4`$) invalidate all the conclusions made there. The actual values of $`g^n`$ determined by us from the published raw data contained in Ref. MW  are orders of magnitude smaller than those claimed. We show that a visible (but small) deviation of the distribution in MW  from the normal shape results from a systematic error due to the limited applicability of the ergodicity hypothesis. Thus, the data of MW  do not warrant any statement on the violation or validity of the one-parameter scaling.

1. Comparing data with theory. Table I below copies part of the Table in MW  as cumulants extracted from magnetofingerprints $`\delta g(B)`$ (in units of $`e^2/h`$) measured in 3 samples. Comparing MW  these cumulants with the scaling result $`g^ng^{2n}`$ obtained AKL:86  for phase coherent samples with $`LL_\phi `$ (like 1dA) leads to an apparent contradiction: not only do $`g^n`$ not decrease with $`n`$ but $`g^3g^2`$ in long samples 1dC, 1dD. A contradiction with the central limiting theorem is even stronger: for such long wires (with $`L=NL_\phi `$, $`N5`$ as quoted in MW ) magnetofingerprint $`\delta g(B)`$ arises from independent fluctuations $`\delta G_i(B)`$ in $`N`$ phase-coherent conductors connected in series, so that the main contribution to $`g^n`$ is of order $`G^n/N^{2n1}`$. For sample 1dC, this would need $`G^3>10^2`$ and $`G^4>10^4`$, inconceivable after comparing to the data for a short wire, 1dA.

2. Status of the reported statistical data. We have digitized the distribution functions for three samples from the postscript files for Figs. 1 and 2 of Ref. MW  and evaluated $`g^n`$ for $`n4`$. Following MW , we have excluded the tail affected by the weak anti-localization indicated by arrows in Fig. 2 of MW . Our results are displayed in Table II. While $`g`$ and $`g^2`$ agree with Ref. MW , the values of $`g^3`$ and $`g^4`$ are smaller by 4 to 7 orders of magnitude Remark . We have also evaluated the skewness $`g^3/g^2^{3/2}`$ and the kurtosis, $`g^4/g^2^2`$ StatMethods  and found them to be of the order of $`g^3`$ and $`g^4`$ in Table I. Thus, we speculate that the data in Table I are an artefact of a mere confusion in Ref. MW : $`g^4`$ is referred to on page 146601-2 as “the fourth cumulant $`gggg`$ or kurtosis”.

3. Limited applicability of the ergodicity hypothesis (EH). Some of the values of $`g^{3,4}`$ of Table II remain large in comparison with the theory. We argue that the source of this discrepancy is not the violation of scaling but the limited applicability of EH (the assumption that one magnetofingerprint is sufficient to represent statistics of sample-to-sample conductance fluctuations).

The cumulants discussed in Ref. MW  are sample-specific quantities $`g^nB`$, averaged over the magnetic field, $`B`$. For instance, $`g^3B=g^3B3g^2BgB+2gB^3`$ and $`g^4B=g^4B4g^3BgB+12g^2BgB^23g^2B^26gB^4`$, where $`X_B=_{B_1}^{B_1+B_0}X(B)𝑑B/B_0`$. We have estimated the r.m.s. value of these sample-to-sample fluctuations from the average $`g^nB^2`$ evaluated using the standard combinatorial rules TAFL : $`g^nB^2=g^n^2+\left(B_c/B_0\right)g^2^nn!_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\left[K(x)\right]^n𝑑x+𝒪\left(B_c^2/B_0^2\right)`$. Here $`B_c`$ and $`K(x)`$ are defined via the conductance covariance as $`g(B)g(B^{})=g^2K([BB^{}]/B_c)`$. For a quasi-1D diffusive wire of width $`w`$ and length $`LL_\phi \sqrt{hD/T}>w`$, $`K(x)=\left[1+x^2\right]^{1/2}`$ and $`B_c\mathrm{\Phi }_0/wL_\phi `$ K-ref , so that

$$g^nB^2=\left(\alpha _nB_c/B_0\right)g^2^n+g^n^2,$$
(1)
where $`\alpha _3=12,\alpha _4=12\pi `$. Although the limit $`B_0\mathrm{}`$ indeed yields the ergodicity $`g^nB=g^n`$, even for $`B_0=15`$T and $`B_c0.04`$T as in MW , the measured $`g^{n>2}B`$ is dominated by the $`n/2`$ power of the variance: $`g^3B\pm 0.17g^2^{3/2}`$ and $`g^4B\pm 0.3g^2^2`$. Numerically, this is comparable to the values in Table II. Therefore, when extracted from a small number of measured magnetofingerprints, only those values of the cumulants of conductance distributions exceeding the first term in the r.h.s. of Eq. (1) would signal a deviation from the one-parameter scaling. This is not the case in Ref. MW .

V.I. Fal’ko1, I.V. Lerner2, O. Tsyplyatyev1, I.L. Aleiner3

1 Physics Department, Lancaster University, LA1 4YB, UK

2 School of Physics, Birmingham University, B15 2TT, UK

3 Physics Department, Columbia University, NY 10027


text:
# Production of a Fermi gas of atoms in an optical lattice.

Permanent address: \]5. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57, 70550 Stuttgart, Germany

## Abstract

We prepare a degenerate Fermi gas of potassium atoms by sympathetic cooling with rubidium atoms in a one-dimensional optical lattice. In a tight lattice we observe a change of the density of states of the system, which is a signature of quasi two dimensional confinement. We also find that the dipolar oscillations of the Fermi gas along the tight lattice are almost completely suppressed.

The combination of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and periodic potentials created by light has recently allowed the study of a variety of fundamental phenomena related to phase-coherence and superfluidity kase ; cata , transport morsch ; philips , and strongly correlated systems bloch . The corresponding interest in Fermi gases in optical lattices is arising cirac ; torma ; albus , especially in view of possible application of lattices to the achievement and detection of fermionic superfluidity.

In this work we study the production, and the basic static and transport properties of a Fermi gas of atoms in a one-dimensional (1D) optical lattice in the regime of tight confinement. We prepare a sample of degenerate fermionic potassium atoms (40K) in the lattice combined with a magnetic potential by means of sympathetic cooling with bosonic rubidium (87Rb). We observe that the cooling maintains its efficiency also when the atoms are confined in quasi 2D in the lattice sites. We detect the reduced dimensionality of the Fermi gas under these conditions by studying its momentum distribution. The comparison of the behavior of the Fermi gas and the BEC in the lattice helps to confirm the different transport properties expected for the two kinds of quantum gases. In particular, we observe that the dipole oscillations of the Fermi gas are strongly reduced in the tight lattice.

The degenerate mixture is initially prepared in a magnetic potential as described in Ref.fermibose . The axial and radial frequencies of the potential are $`\omega _a=2\pi \times 24(16.3)`$ s-1 and $`\omega _r=2\pi \times 317(215)`$ s-1 for K (Rb). Typically 5$`\times `$104 fermions are sympathetically cooled to about 0.3$`T_F`$ ($`T_F`$=430 nK) in coexistence with a BEC with a similar atom number.

The lattice is created with a laser beam in a standing-wave configuration, focused to a beam waist of 500 $`\mu `$m and aligned along the weak axis of the magnetic potential. At a wavelength $`\lambda `$=754 nm the lattice potential is repulsive and its depth is about twice as large for K than for Rb. More precisely, the depth for the two species is almost the same in units of the recoil energy $`U`$=$`sE_R`$, with $`E_R`$=$`\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m`$ and $`k`$=$`2\pi /\lambda `$ noterecoil .

We have investigated the loading and cooling of the Fermi gas in the tightest lattice we could achieve, with $`s`$=8. We find that the optimal loading is obtained by raising the lattice beam from zero to full power in about 500 ms during the final stage of the evaporation, in order to reach the full depth when the phase transition for bosons occurs. By continuing the evaporation of rubidium for approximately 1 s, we observe that the mixture cools efficiently in the lattice to quantum degeneracy. The presence of the lattice shows up in the characteristic interference peaks in the momentum distribution of the BEC pedri , as shown in Fig. 1. Because of the broad momentum distribution, this is not observed in fermions, which just show a faster axial expansion because of the additional confinement provided by the lattice.

Previous experiments on bosons have shown that a tight lattice can lead to a collection of BECs with a quasi-2D character, where the reduced dimensionality affects the phase transition to quantum degeneracy bec2d . To understand the dimensionality of the Fermi gas, we first need to study the energy spectrum of the fermions in the combined potential. We initially use a simplified model, in which we replace the axial harmonic confinement with a boxlike potential. Within this approximation the atoms experience a uniform lattice with $`N_l`$ sites (typically $`N_l`$=400 for the Fermi gas and $`N_l`$=200 for the BEC). The system can be described in terms of Bloch states of quasimomentum, whose energy spectrum $`E(q)`$ is shown in Fig. 2 for the first two bands for a lattice with $`s`$=8. The width of the first band $`\delta E`$=0.12$`E_R`$, is much smaller than the gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$=3.8$`E_R`$. The ground state energy is half the oscillator quantum in each lattice site $`E_0`$=$`\mathrm{}\omega _l/2`$$``$2.49$`E_R`$, and corresponds to rather large oscillating frequencies: $`\omega _l=2\pi \times 43000`$ s-1 and $`\omega _l=2\pi \times 20000`$ s-1for K and Rb, respectively. Due to the presence of the radial degrees of freedom, the system has actually bundles of bands with identical dispersion, spaced by the radial energy quantum $`\mathrm{}\omega _r`$0.038$`E_R`$ (dotted lines in Fig. 2). We note that the degeneracy of the $`n`$-th band is $`n`$+1, since two radial dimensions are involved.

While the condensate occupies macroscopically the state at $`q`$=0 in the fundamental radial band, identical fermions can have only single occupancy of the $`N_l`$ momentum states in each band. At the low temperatures of our system ($`k_BT<\mathrm{\Delta }E`$) we can restrict our attention to the bundle of bands relative to the fundamental band of the lattice. If we also neglect the band structure, i.e. the motion along the lattice, since $`\delta Ek_BT`$, the system has clearly a quasi-2D character, with the axial motion within each lattice site frozen to the zero point motion. To confirm this expectation, we have looked for a change of the momentum distribution of the Fermi gas, since this is one of the properties that can be more easily measured in the experiment. In an harmonic potential of dimensionality $`d`$, with density of states $`g(E)E^{d1}`$, the Fermi momentum at $`T`$=0 is linked to the number of atoms by the relation $`k_FN^{1/2d}`$. In each quasi-2D lattice site we should therefore expect a dependence $`k_FN^{1/4}`$ of the radial Fermi momentum in each lattice site, which is notably different from the $`k_FN^{1/6}`$ expected in 3D.

In the experiment we have measured the radial momentum distribution of the Fermi gas in the lattice as a function of the total number of atoms. This can be easily varied by adjusting the initial loading of potassium in the magnetic trap. At an expansion time $`\tau `$=8 ms$`\omega _r^1`$, the radial profile reflects the initial momentum distribution. The experimental observation is summarized in Fig. 3, where we compare the radius of the Fermi gas released from the combined potential with that released from the pure magnetic potential. Each radius is measured with a gaussian fit to the central section (about 20 $`\mu `$m) of the cloud. The best fit of the two sets of data with $`\sigma _z(N)`$=$`aN^{1/n}`$ curves gives $`n`$=4.3$`\pm `$0.3 and $`n`$=6.1$`\pm `$0.6, respectively, confirming our expectation of reduced dimensionality in the lattice noteenergy .

The appropriateness of using this low-temperature model of the system is confirmed by a one-dimensional Thomas-Fermi fit to the radial profile of the clouds to determine the 2D temperature. For the measurements of Fig. 3 we find $`T^{2D}/T_F^{2D}`$0.4, where $`k_BT_F^{2D}`$=$`\mathrm{}\omega _r(2N/N_l)^{1/2}`$. We observe that the reduced temperature does not change appreciably with $`N`$, consistent with what we usually observe in the 3D trap. Note that the minimum temperature is however higher than the one we usually reach in 3D fermibose .

We have repeated the same measurement with non-degenerate fermions in the lattice at $`T`$700 nK$`>T_F`$, where we have observed no variation of the radius with $`N`$. This is consistent with the expectation of a number-independent momentum distribution for a classical gas, even in reduced dimensionality.

We can now take into account the contribution of the band structure to the density of states. In the approximation of a boxlike axial magnetic trapping, i.e. assuming that the fermions are evenly distributed along the lattice, we have calculated the dependence of the radial Fermi momentum on the atom number at $`T`$=0. For high enough $`N`$ we can neglect the discreteness of the radial energy levels, and we obtain a behavior $`k_FN^{1/n}`$, with $`n`$=4.2. This is very close to the result for 2D, as expected because of the smallness of the axial energy $`\delta EE_F`$. Note that the atoms are loaded in the lattice at $`T`$0.5$`T_F`$, where also the 3D radius of the cloud begins to be dependent on $`N`$. In the limiting case of loading at $`TT_F`$, the 3D Fermi radius scales as $`N^{1/6}`$, and computing the number of atoms per site we would obtain an exponent $`n`$=4.8 for the radial momentum.

An interesting question is how the sympathetic cooling varies along the lattice. To check our ability to address small axial sections of the Fermi gas, we have to consider the axial expansion from the combined trap. The axial profile of the expanding cloud is in general a convolution of the profile of each lattice site and of the distribution along the sites. At expansion times $`\tau \omega _l^1`$, i.e. when the individual site have merged, the axial width of the cloud has the form $`\sigma (\tau )R_F/2\sqrt{1+2(\sigma _l/R_F)^2\omega _l^2\tau ^2}`$, where $`R_FN^{1/6}`$ is the axial Fermi radius in the 3D trap and $`\sigma _l`$ is the width of each site $`\sigma _l`$=$`\sqrt{\mathrm{}/m\omega _l}`$76 nm. At the time $`\tau `$8 ms that we normally use in the experiment, the width of each cloud initially confined in an individual site is comparable to the overall width. Although the axial selectivity would obviously be better at shorter times, here we estimate that the lateral lattice sites give still only a small contribution to the radial profile at the center of the cloud. For example, in the case of a constant reduced temperature $`T/T_F`$ along the lattice, the central section of the expanded cloud would be just 10% narrower than the individual central site. In the experiment we typically measure a constant radius along the lattice, which instead indicates a decreasing degeneracy for lattice sites far from the center. A reduction of the efficiency of sympathetic cooling in a tight lattice is actually not unexpected, since the bosons in the lateral lattice sites are rapidly removed by the evaporation, because of their larger Zeeman energy, and they are not very efficiently replaced through tunnelling. As soon as their number drops below that of the fermions, the cooling slows down, and eventually stops when all the bosons are removed from the site.

One of the issues of the experiment was to understand whether a tight lattice would affect the stability of the degenerate mixture, since in principle collapse or 3-body decay collapse  can be favored by an increased confinement roth . However, we were not able to observe a collapse of the mixture in the combined potential for $`s`$=8, even for total atom numbers approaching the critical values in 3D. Moreover, in the lattice we measured a lifetime of the Fermi gas $`\tau `$0.5 s, limited by 3-body collisions with Rb atoms, which is comparable to the one in the magnetic potential collapse . Both these observations seem to indicate that the effective density overlap of the BEC and Fermi gas in the lattice is not increased with respect to that in the magnetic potential alone. We have compared these observations with the prediction of our simple model which neglects both the axial confinement and the axial motion of the atoms along the lattice, i.e. assumes both bosons and fermions confined to quasi-2D pancakes. The density distribution of both species has therefore a 2D Thomas-Fermi radial shape appropriate to the statistics noteradii , and a gaussian axial shape, with rms width $`\sigma _l`$. For the typical atom numbers, we find that the peak density of the Fermi gas increases by approximately 5 with respect to the pure magnetic trap, while the increase of the condensate peak density is limited to approximately 1.5 by the boson-boson mean-field repulsion. The overlap of the two species in the lattice is however worse, mainly because the radius of the Fermi gas decreases by almost 50% passing from 3D to 2D, thus increasing the effect of the differential gravitational sag fermibose . As an example, the radii of a BEC and a Fermi gas containing 5$`\times `$104 atoms each are 2.8 $`\mu `$m and 4 $`\mu `$m, respectively, hence comparable to the gravitational sag $`\delta z`$=3.6 $`\mu `$m. These predictions confirm qualitatively both observations on the stability of the mixture and on the slightly reduced efficiency of the sympathetic cooling.

The different statistical nature of bosons and fermions determines also their dynamics in the lattice. We have studied the dipolar oscillations of either the Fermi gas or the BEC in the combined potential evap , which are induced by a sudden axial displacement of the magnetic trap. As shown in Fig. 4, the oscillation of the Fermi gas is strongly damped in presence of the tight lattice, and the center of mass of the cloud is hardly displaced from the original equilibrium position. Differently, the BEC oscillation in the lattice proceeds without damping, as originally studied in Ref. cata .

To understand these different dynamical behaviors we can no longer neglect the axial magnetic potential. In a semiclassical picture, the atoms move under the force exerted by the harmonic magnetic potential, with the Bloch velocity dispersion $`v(q)`$=$`1/\mathrm{}E/q`$ set by the lattice. The narrow quasimomentum distribution of the BEC allows an undamped dipolar oscillation, provided that $`q`$ is confined to the parabolic part of the fundamental energy band in Fig. 2, which has an overall cosine shape in this tight-binding regime. This picture changes completely for the Fermi gas, because of its broad quasimomentum distribution. Already at equilibrium, i.e. before exciting the dipolar motion, most of the individual fermions oscillate along a wide section of the fundamental bands during their motion in the trap, and therefore in general they perform strongly non-harmonic oscillations. This single-particle behavior will clearly affect also the collective dipolar oscillation, which is likely to be damped, as it would happen in an anharmonic potential. If the atoms are no more able to perform full oscillations in the magnetic potential, one could also expect that the Fermi gas is eventually blocked to an equilibrium position far from the magnetic trap minimum, as we observe in the experiment.

To access a regime where the Fermi gas can perform dipolar oscillations with larger amplitude, one should reduce either the number of atoms, in order to have a much narrower momentum distribution, or the lattice depth, in order to have almost parabolic bands. In the experiment we have actually observed that the oscillation amplitude of the Fermi gas grows as the lattice height is lowered. We plan to further investigate the oscillations of the Fermi gas in shallow lattices, and to make a comparison to those of a thermal cloud of bosons, to study possible effects of the statistics.

We have also studied the oscillation of the mixture of BEC and Fermi gas in the tight lattice, seeking possible interaction effects. On the BEC side, we have observed just a moderate damping due to collisions with fermions, as we already measured in the magnetic trap sloshing , and no noticeable frequency shift. In contrast, in presence of the BEC, the oscillation of the Fermi gas in the lattice appears to be further reduced, and becomes no longer detectable. Future work on shallower lattices will also help to elucidate the effects of the interactions with bosons on the oscillations of the Fermi gas.

In conclusion, we have produced a Fermi gas of atoms in a 1D lattice by sympathetic cooling with bosonic atoms. The realization of quasi-2D Fermi gases in the lattice is interesting in view of achieving fermionic superfluidity, as discussed in Ref. petrov . Our results are promising also for loading the Fermi gas or the Bose-Fermi mixture in 2D or 3D lattices. These are of great interest for studies on high-$`T_c`$ superfluidity cirac , novel quantum phases albus , and the formation of ultracold heteronuclear molecules damski .

We acknowledge contributions by E. de Mirandes and useful discussions with the BEC theory group in Trento. This work was supported by MIUR, by EC under contract HPRICT1999-00111, and by INFM, PRA “Photonmatter” R.H. was supported by EC with the program Marie Curie Training Sites, under contract HPMT2000-00123.


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# Spin transmission through quantum dots with strong spin-orbit interaction

## Abstract

Quantum oscillations of the spin conductance through regular and chaotic 2D quantum dots under the varying Rashba spin orbit interaction and at zero magnetic field have been numerically calculated by summing up the spin evolution matrices for classical transmitting trajectories. Fourier analysis of these oscillations showed power spectra strongly dependent on the dot geometry. For narrow rings the spectra are dominated by a single peak in accordance with previous analytic results. In other geometries the spectra are represented by multiple peaks for regular QD and quasicontinuum for chaotic QD.

Recently spin polarized transport has attracted a considerable interest because of its potential in semiconductor device applications and quantum computing Spin . In semiconductor quantum wells, such transport can be strongly influenced by the spin-orbit interaction (SOI). There are two contributions to the SOI, the Dresselhaus term Dresselhaus  and the Rashba term Bychkov . The latter can be quite strong in some heterostructures Nitta . There have been a number of experimental and theoretical studies of the spin-orbit effects on the electron transport in semiconductors. Here, we will focus on the quasiclassic electron transport through 2D regular and chaotic quantum dots (QD). Special attention will be payed to the doubly connected QD geometries. While considering such a problem, an important parameter of the characteristic SOI length has to be introduced and compared with the QD size $`L`$. This length can be defined as $`L_{so}=2\mathrm{}v_F/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the spin splitting of the electron energy due to the SOI and $`v_F`$ is the Fermi velocity. In Grundler’s samples Nitta , it has been found as short as 10<sup>-5</sup>cm. The regime of weak SOI can be realized when $`LL_{so}`$. In this regime, the random matrix approach has been applied Aleiner  to study the SOI effects on the electric transport through a chaotic QD Folk . In the opposite case of the strong SOI, $`LL_{so}`$, the spin dynamics in the dot becomes fast and the random matrix approach is not helpful. This regime is of much importance from the fundamental point of view and also for semiconductor device applications, because at zero magnetic field it allows to observe periodic oscillations of transport parameters due to the interference of spinor amplitudes. Their phases are accumulated under the SOI effect during the particle motion along a quasiclassic trajectory and depend only on the trajectory geometry. In QD having the ring shape constructive and destructive interference of the spin phases gives rise to periodic variations of the electric conductance as a function of the SOI strength Mathur ; Aronov . In practice, it is possible to change the strength of the Rashba SOI up to $`50\%`$ of its value by tuning the gate voltage Nitta . Hence, one can observe periodic oscillations in the electron transport by a simple gate manipulation.

For a 2D disordered ring, the spin phase effect on the weak localization electric conductance Mathur  and its pair conductance correlation function Malshukov2  have been calculated under the assumption of a diffusive electron propagation inside the ring. Besides the electric transport, the spin phase interference also affects the spin transport. Oscillations of the mean spin conductance through a classically chaotic QD with the shape of a thin 2D loop have been analytically calculated Malshukov1 . The width of the loop arms was assumed to be much less than $`L_{so}`$. In this case the particle oscillations between the loop boundaries produce only a small effect on the spin phase. The phase accumulates mostly when the particle advances along the loop arms making several windings during its escape time. In the present work we will calculate the mean spin conductance beyond the narrow loop geometry. We will employ the path integral approach and perform a numerical simulation of the spin evolution along the classic transmission trajectories. Weak localization corrections will be ignored under the assumption of a large number of transmitting channels. The spin conductance will be calculated for regular and chaotic systems like the annular billiard, the square billiard, and Sinai billiard.

An appropriate approach to the spin transport through a QD sample like that in Fig. 1 is the generalized Landauer-Büttiker formula

$$g_{abcd}=\frac{1}{h}\underset{nm}{}t_{nm}^{ab}t_{nm}^{cd},$$
(1)
where $`t_{nm}^{ab}`$ denotes the transmission amplitude of an electron at the Fermi energy propagating from the incoming channel $`n`$ to the outgoing channel $`m`$ and indices a and b stand for the spin variables. The spin conductance given by Eq. (1) relates the spin current $`j_L^{bd}`$, flowing towards the right lead, to the spin polarization matrix $`𝝈^{ac}𝑵\mathrm{\Delta }\mu /2`$ in the left lead, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu `$ is the difference of the chemical potentials between two spin projections in the left lead. This difference gives rise to the spin polarization along the unit vector $`𝑵`$. Components of $`𝝈`$ are the Pauli matrices $`(\sigma _x,\sigma _y,\sigma _z)`$. The transmission amplitude can be represented as Jalabert

$$t_{nm}^{ab}=i\mathrm{}\sqrt{v_nv_m}𝑑y^{}𝑑y\varphi _n^{}(y^{})\varphi _m(y)G_{ab}(y^{},y),$$

with the transverse wave function $`\varphi _m`$ ($`\varphi _n`$) of the incoming (outcoming) mode and the retarded Green function $`G_{ab}(y^{},y)`$, where $`y`$ ($`y^{}`$) denotes a point on the entrance (exist) cross section. Under the semiclassical approximation, the Green function is represented by a sum over classical trajectories propagating from one lead to the other Jalabert . Then, according to Malshukov1 , the contribution of such a trajectory $`\gamma `$ to the transmission coefficient can be written as

$$t_\gamma ^{ab}=t_\gamma S_\gamma ^{ab},$$
(2)
where $`t_\gamma `$ denotes the spin independent amplitude and $`S_\gamma ^{ab}`$ represents the $`(a,b)`$ matrix element of the unitary spin evolution matrix $`S_\gamma `$. In the absence of the external magnetic field, this matrix is determined by the Rashba spin-orbit interaction and can be written as Malshukov1

$$S_\gamma =S_{\gamma _{n(\gamma )}}\mathrm{}S_{\gamma _2}S_{\gamma _1},$$
(3)
with the evolution operator $`S_{\gamma _i}`$ for the $`i`$-th straight segment of the ballistic trajectory, where $`S_{\gamma _1}`$ starts from the entrance lead. For a segment of length $`l_i`$ with the angle $`\omega _i`$ with respect to the $`x`$-axis, this operator can be represented by the matrix Malshukov1

$$S_{\gamma _i}=\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{l_i}{L_{so}}\right)i\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{l_i}{L_{so}}\right)\left(\sigma _y\mathrm{cos}\omega _i\sigma _x\mathrm{sin}\omega _i\right),$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{𝟏}`$ is the $`2\times 2`$ identity matrix. The operator (4) acts on spinors and describes the spin precession around the axis determined by the unit vector with coordinates $`(\mathrm{sin}\omega _i,\mathrm{cos}\omega _i)`$ through the angle $`2l_i/L_{so}`$. The spin rotation length $`L_{so}=\mathrm{}/\alpha m^{}`$ is inversely proportional to the Rashba coupling constant $`\alpha `$ and the effective mass $`m^{}`$. Instead of the 4-th rank spinor, which is the spin conductance in the spinor representation in Eq. (1), it is convenient to write it as a 3D matrix

$$g_{ij}=\underset{abcd}{}\sigma _i^{ca}\sigma _j^{bd}g_{abcd},$$

which determines the spin transport between spin orientations $`i`$ and $`j`$. In the configurational averaging, the spin conductance is averaged over a small range of energy around $`E_F`$ or over small variations of the dot shape Jalabert , which smooths out the rapid transmission oscillations caused by interference of de Broigle waves. The so averaged $`g_{ij}`$ is then given by Malshukov1

$$g_{ij}=\frac{1}{h}\underset{\gamma }{}|t(\gamma )|^2\text{trace}\{\sigma _iS_\gamma \sigma _jS_\gamma ^{}\}.$$
(5)
One should note a fundamental distinction of the spin phase effect, as it shows up in the spin transport, from its effect on the charge transport. Indeed, the mean electric conductance is given by (5) with the trace equal to $`2\delta _{ij}`$. Hence, it does not depend on the spin-orbit effects. On the contrary, the components of the mean spin conductance oscillate, as we will see below, due to the spin phases contained in $`S_\gamma `$. It is also important to note a difference between the AB and spin phase effects. Unlike the latter, the AB effect vanishes in both the electric and spin mean conductances, as far as the weak localization correction is not taken into account. This difference is a consequence of non-Abelian nature of the spin phase.

In the semiclassical approximation, the spin independent transmission probability $`|t(\gamma )|^2`$ in (5) is given by the transmission ratio of an ensemble of classical trajectories, in which $`|t(\gamma )|^2`$ is replaced by $`f_\gamma \mathrm{cos}(\theta _\gamma )`$, where $`f_\gamma =1`$ or $`f_\gamma =0`$ for transmitted respectively reflected trajectories. The value $`\mathrm{cos}(\theta _\gamma )`$ is the weight of the trajectory $`\gamma `$, according to its injection angle $`\theta _\gamma `$ with $`x`$ axis Jalabert . The initial conditions for the trajectories are chosen such that $`n_w`$ positions are uniformly distributed on the entrance cross section with $`n_\theta `$ uniformly distributed injection angles between $`\pi /2`$ and $`\pi /2`$ on each position. The spin conductance is calculated as a function of SOI strength by setting $`h=1`$ and taking $`n_{L_{so}}`$ points of $`L_{so}`$ between $`L_{so1}`$ and $`L_{so2}`$, uniformly distributed on the $`1/L_{so}`$ axis.

Figure 2 (a) shows the conductance $`g_{yy}`$ through the narrow ring in the inset of Fig. 2 (b). The conductance oscillation is regular for small $`1/L_{so}`$ around $`1/L_{so}<10(r_2r_1)^1`$. In this regime, the spin rotation length $`L_{so}`$ is larger than the ring width and the electron spin phase does not change much between two collisions with the sample boundary. For $`1/L_{so}>10`$, the regular oscillation disappears, because the trajectories with the same winding number arrive to the exit lead with different phases, which generate a disordered interference pattern. The power spectrum in Fig. 2 (b) on the interval $`0<1/L_{so}<100`$ shows a dominating frequency centered around $`0.82`$ with a low frequency tail. For an extremely narrow ring like that in Fig. 2 (d), the regular oscillation regime is extended to around $`1/L_{so}=20`$. The dominating frequency in the power spectrum is shifted to $`0.92`$.

For narrow rings the quantum oscillations of the spin transmittance can be compared with the analytical result Malshukov1

$$g_{yy}=\frac{g_0\kappa ^2\mathrm{cos}[\pi \sqrt{1+4(d/L_{so})^2}]}{\kappa ^2+4\mathrm{sin}^2\{\mathrm{cos}[\pi \sqrt{1+4(d/L_{so})^2}]\}},$$
(6)
with the spin independent conductance $`g_0`$, the averaged radius $`d=\sqrt{(r_1^2+r_2^2)/2}`$, and the parameter $`\kappa =\sqrt{2T_w/\tau }`$, where $`\tau `$ denotes the mean escape time and $`T_w`$ represents the average duration for one winding. The equation (6) is valid for $`\kappa `$ and $`|r_2r_1|/L_{so}1`$. The dashed curve in Fig. 3 is rescaled from Fig. 2 (c) and is bounded by $`g_{yy}=0.56`$, which is the spin independent conductance given by Eq. (5) with $`\text{trace}\{\sigma _iS_\gamma \sigma _jS_\gamma ^{}\}`$ substituted for 2. The solid curve in Fig. 3 is obtained from Eq. (6) with $`g_0=0.56`$. The positions and magnitudes of the maxima and minima on both curves almost coincide for first several oscillations, but the deviation, as expected, increases for smaller $`L_{so}`$. Furthermore, the dashed curve is much smoother than the solid one, because the leads in the ring in Fig. 2 (d) are relatively wide and the mean escape time of the particle is not long enough to produce the sharp interference pattern from many windings. Simulations (not shown in Fig. 3) with narrower leads result in curves with the sharp peaks resembling the analytical solid curve.

An apparent trend seen in Fig. 2 from (d) to (b) is a faster damping of the dominating periodic oscillations with increasing ring width. However, our calculations of the spin conductance in annular and circle billiards gave an unexpected result, in which new periodic oscillations emerge, as shown in the power spectra in Fig. 4 (a) and (b). They are not so prominent as those in the thin rings, nevertheless, are rather distinguishable. The power spectrum for the annular billiard in Fig. 4 (a) consists of a dominating frequency around $`0.32`$ and several secondary peaks. The power spectrum for the circle billiard in Figure 4 (b) shows that the main peak is still presents near $`0.65`$. A simple analysis indicates that the trajectories contributing to the main peak in Fig. 4 (a) and (b) are those with injection angles close to $`0`$. Notably, the oscillations in the thin rings and those in the annular and the circle billiards are fundamentally different. In the former case, the oscillations with one dominating frequency are of universal nature, because they can be observed in arbitrary geometry, both in chaotic and regular systems, as far as the billiards have the shape of a thin loop Malshukov1 . However, oscillations of the spin conductance in the circle and annular billiards, like in Fig. 5 (a), are entirely determined by the specific geometry of these systems.

Figure 4 (c) shows the power spectrum for the square billiard. Unlike the spectra of the ring and annular billiards, this spectrum consists of a broad range of peaks with comparable intensities. Figure 4 (d) shows the power spectrum of a Sinai billiard, which is a strongly chaotic system. This spectrum is more uniformly distributed and less intense in comparison to all other regular billiards studied above. It is interesting to note that two apparent oscillations of the spin conductance can be still observed in this chaotic billiard \[Fig. 5 (b)\], although its shape does not look like a thin loop.

As seen from above examples, the frequency spectra of different billiards reflect their geometry. For the annular and circle billiards in Fig. 4 (a) and (b), all segments $`l_i`$’s along a trajectory are of equal length \[Fig. 1 (b)\], which gives the unique characteristic frequency of all individual $`S_{\gamma _i}`$’s in Eq. (4). When these operators are multiplied in Eq. (3) and (5), a descrete set of the power spectrum harmonics is generated. For the square billiard in Fig. 4 (c), the segments $`l_i`$’s along a trajectory have different lengths. As a result, the broad range of frequencies contribute to the power spectrum. In the case of the Sinai billiard, the frequency distribution is more uniform compared to the spectra of the regular systems in Fig. 4 (a), (b), and (c). Intuitively, this difference can be understood in the following way. Each trajectory contributes to a finite set of frequencies in the power spectrum. In regular systems, the trajectories with close initial conditions stay close to each other during their liftime within a billiard and form a trajectory bundle, which contributes to strong peaks in the power spectra. However, these bundles are absent in chaotic systems, because close trajectories exponentially fast move away from each other .

This work is supported by the National Science Council of the R.O.C., Taiwan, under Contract No. NSC 90-2112-M-007-067, the Royal Swedish and the Russian Academies of Sciences. A.G. Mal’shukov acknowledges the hospitality of the National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Taiwan.


text:
# What is actually teleported?

## 1 Birthdays

It is a great pleasure to participate in the IBM Symposium honoring the 60th birthday of Charles Bennett. I knew some of Bennett’s works as soon as I became interested in quantum information when I visited John Wheeler in Austin in 1979. However I actually met Charlie only in the summer of 1986, when I spent two months at MIT. We both lived in the house of Tom Toffoli, who also was our host at MIT. Tom had bought a dilapidated house in Howard Street and was busy making it livable. His family had the third floor, I was in the second floor in a tiny apartment that was perfect for me, and Charlie, Theo, and her children were in a larger apartment, also in the second floor. The ground floor had not yet been rebuilt and looked like a construction site.

This time is also the 10th anniversary of quantum teleportation, an article that I had the honor of co-authoring with Charles Bennett, Gilles Brassard, Claude Crépeau, Richard Jozsa, and William Wootters . I shall discuss only the title of that paper, “Teleporting an Unknown Quantum State via Dual Classical and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Channels” (there is no time for more than the title), and I’ll relate what I remember of how this work was conceived. I apologize if my memory failed in some cases, or I unwittingly distorted the truth.

In October 1992, Bill Wootters (whom I knew from Austin, where he had been a student), sent me an e-mail saying that he and others in Montreal had found an interesting problem, and he asked for my advice. When things became clearer and we thought of writing a paper with six co-authors, we started arguing on every nuance of the text. All this had to be done by e-mail, because we were then scattered in five different places in four countries and eight time zones. Some of us worked while others were sleeping. Charlie quipped “the Sun never sets on our collaboration” and thereby started an argument who was the king who had said that. First we thought of Charles Quint, but after some research work it turned out that it had been Phillip II.

There were some memorable moments while the text was finalized. One Friday afternoon, Claude sent me an e-mail from Paris: what happens if Alice’s particle, whose state has to be teleported, is itself entangled with another one, far away? Will Bob’s particle become entangled with this other particle, without having ever interacted with it? I was puzzled, but it was time to start the traditional Shabbat diner with my family. As we were eating, I suddenly jumped from my seat, ran to the computer and wrote to Claude “mais oui.” He had invented entanglement swapping!

Charlie did most of the editing. When everything looked fine, I sent him an e-mail with subject: imprimatur (the seal of approval of the Great Inquisitor). Charlie submitted the paper to PRL, and wrote to us alea jacta est, as if we had crossed the Rubicon. Contrary to expectations, our opus was not rejected by the referees. Later we learnt that one of them was David Mermin who gave a very strong recommendation that it had to be published. It’s only more recently that David deconstructed teleportation, and also dense coding .

Not only the contents of the teleportation paper are interesting, but also what is not in it. There are no acknowledgments for support by NSF, NASA, DARPA, NRL, and other philanthropic agencies. We never submitted a research proposal, that would have been rejected anyway. There was no time for that.111My last research proposal, about 25 years ago, was rejected by BSF as being a “high risk project.” I asked “Which risk? I am risking to waste my time, what are you risking?” The BSF representative explained that this research might not have the expected results. They wanted to be sure that I’ll write a report with all the answers to the questions I had raised. Now, let’s start and analyze the title of the paper.

## 2 Teleporting

I don’t watch TV and I was suspicious of the term teleportation. In my dictionary , I found “theoretical transportation of matter through space by converting it into energy and then reconverting it at the terminal point.” I protested that this was not at all what we had in mind, but Charlie reassured me, saying that we shall cite Penrose’s book. I threatened that if we cite Penrose, I won’t be a co-author. A few days later, Charlie wrote to me that he wanted to use weak measurements and cite Aharonov and Vaidman. This time, I didn’t fall in the trap.

We had other semantic problems. I proposed to write that the quantum state was disembodied and reincarnated. This was found unacceptable. Later, when a newsman asked me whether it was possible to teleport not only the body but also the soul, I answered “only the soul.” Even that is a gross oversimplification.

## 3 Unknown quantum state

The notion “quantum state” encapsulates what is known of the preparation of a system . An unknown quantum state is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron, just as a “research proposal.” Enrico Fermi said that when there is no surprise, it’s not research.

Anyway, Alice and Bob are not real people. They are inanimate objects. I have seen an optical bench with a label alice near a piece of hardware, and bob near another one. The hardware knows nothing. What is teleported instantaneously from one system (Alice) to another system (Bob) is the applicability of the preparer’s knowledge to the state of a particular qubit in these systems . The preparer whose knowlegde is teleported is a real person with a PhD in physics. His name is Chris.

The next item in the title are the dual classical and EPR channels. The text we submitted said “EPR” and the APS editorial office automatically expanded this acronym into “electron paramagnetic resonance.” Somebody caught the error and restored the dignity of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen.222This does not always happen. See Phys. Rev. A 64, 042310 (2001), line 12 of text. Dual classical and quantum channels still are an open problem, and I’ll keep them for the end.

## 4 Quantum archaelogy

“The discovery of quantum teleportation grew out of an attempt to identify what other resource, besides actually being in the same place, would enable Alice and Bob to make an optimal measurement of the Peres-Wootters states.”  In 1980, during my second visit to John Wheeler at Austin, I shared an office with Bill Wootters who had just submitted his Ph.D. thesis “The acquisition of information from quantum measurements.” In that thesis, there were two observers, the ancestors of Alice and Bob, who used polarized photons to communicate quantum information. Soon after that, I read a fascinating article “Unforgeable Subway Tokens”  that I had found during a bibliographic search of Charlie’s works, because I was interested in the thermodynamics of information.

In 1989, the Santa Fe Institute organized a workshop on complexity, entropy, and the physics of information. Bill was there on sabbatical leave, and I stayed an extra couple of weeks in order to work with him. We discussed the following problem: given two quantum systems in the same state, can we acquire more information by a joint measurement on both, than by separate measurements on each one, assisted by classical communication (the acronym LOCC didn’t exist yet). My intuition was that a joint measurement would in some cases be more efficient, and Bill’s intuition was the opposite. I proposed a few simple examples, for which Bill showed that his opinion was correct. As I had to leave SFI, we decided to continue by using bitnet.

## 5 BITNET

Before e-mail, there was BITNET (“because it’s time net”) a service that was provided gratis by IBM for a few years. IBM is not a philanthropic institution. The strategy was similar to that of drug pushers who offer free cocaine to children. After the kids are hooked, they need the drug and pay dearly for it. The difference is that when IBM discontinued bitnet, it was replaced by another free service, Internet (I don’t know who actually pays for that).

I learnt of bitnet in 1985, when Murray Peshkin at ANL wanted to communicate with me and asked Harry Lipkin at Weizmann what was my address. Harry explained to me the theory, and soon after that Murray sent me a first message: “Welcome to the brave new world of bitnet!” Likewise I taught the magic to Bill and welcomed him in the brave new world. All this was quite primitive by today’s standards, with a 1200 baud modem. After a few other unsuccessful attempts to prove to Bill that joint measurements could be more efficient, I proposed trine states,333A trine is an astrological configuration where three planets make angles of $`120^{}`$. The word trine was introduced by Charlie, because I disliked Mercedes and no one would take Mitsubishi. with the property that

$$\psi _1,\psi _2\psi _2,\psi _3\psi _3,\psi _1=\frac{1}{8}.$$

This is the most negative number that can be obtained with any three states. For example, photons linearly polarized $`2\pi /3`$ apart, or spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles polarized $`4\pi /3`$ apart, form a trine (note that fermions have to be rotated by $`4\pi `$ to return to the original state). This was a lucky guess. It was recently proved  that a trine measurement has the largest entanglement cost of all POVMs.

With a pair of identical trine states, it was impossible to match the mutual information obtainable from a joint measurement by means of a small number of LOCC steps, and Bill devised a “ping-pong” method with a sequence of POVMs, converging to some optimum. These were long and difficult calculations. Bill used a MacIntosh with pascal. I had an IBM PS/2 with fortran. When our results agreed, we were pretty sure that there was no numerical error. The optimal mutual information that we could obtain in this way was less than that of a joint measurement. On 15 February 1990, we submitted our paper  and naturally ran into trouble with the referees. The typical reaction was: it may be correct, but why is this interesting? As I tried to explain the paper to one of my colleagues at Technion, he quipped with a grimace “it’s only engineering.” Our paper was thus rejected by PRL and I had to convince a reluctant Bill to appeal to the Editorial Board. Our appeal was adjudicated by Tony Leggett and our opus finally appeared on 4 March 1991.

## 6 Meeting all the teleporters

In October 1992, there was in Dallas a meeting on physics and computation. I introduced Bill Wootters to Charlie, and told him of our work. Charlie already knew it. He pulled a copy from his briefcase, and told us that he was showing it to everybody. Later he introduced me to Gilles Brassard and we immediately were friends, as we could speak French. I also met for the first time Richard Jozsa, who was at that time in Montreal, and Claude Crépeau who was then based in Paris. Gilles invited Bill to give a seminar at Université de Montréal. Everybody but me was there. After the seminar, there was a discussion in Gilles’s office and the question was raised what other resource would enable Alice and Bob, far away from each other, to make an optimal measurement of the trine states. After everyone returned home, Bill sent me a bitnet. I already told the rest of the story.

In June 1993, there was the first Torino workshop on quantum information. Today, there are hundreds of participants in quantum information conferences, but at that time we were only a small number of addicts (Fig. 2). The two gentlemen with bizarre dresses are the most important people: one of them collects money for ISI (Institute for Information Interchange, in Torino) and the other one spends that money and organizes meetings. Everyone in that picture is still active in the field, except Mai-Mai Lam who chose a different career, a real loss for the quantum information community.

## 7 Group picture

The weather in Villa Gualino was wonderful. Claude lent his camera to André Berthiaume who took a group picture of the six teleporters. When Claude returned to Paris, he arranged to have an article on quantum teleportation appear in the popular scientific magazine Science et Vie . The following month, I was a few days in Tournai and bought the journal in a newstand, but not before I checked that my picture was indeed in it. The newstand owner was flabbergasted.

Our next group picture, with exactly the same configuration, was taken twice in Cambridge (UK) in July 1999. Not far from us, there was a big cat, and Charlie later manipulated the photos so that the cat (whom he called teleportus) appeared distorted in the first picture, but properly Pauli rotated in the second one. The true name of the cat was Sam .

## 8 Dual classical and quantum channels

Dual classical and quantum channels have a long history in quantum information theory. In the classic BB84 protocol , each successful attempt of Alice and Bob to produce a random secret bit shared by both of them costs one qubit and two public bits of classical information. In the teleportation protocol , the remote preparation of one qubit requires one EPR pair, one local qubit, and two bits of public information.

Dual channels are also needed for “unspeakable” quantum information, namely information that cannot be represented by a sequence of discrete symbols. For example, Alice wants to indicate to Bob a direction in space. If they have a common coordinate system to which they can refer, or if they can create one by observing distant fixed stars, Alice simply communicates to Bob the components of a unit vector n along that direction, or its spherical coordinates $`\theta `$ and $`\varphi `$. But if no common coordinate system has been established, all she can do is to send a real physical object, such as a gyroscope, whose orientation is deemed stable.

In the quantum world, the role of the gyroscope is played by a system with large angular momentum. The fidelity of the transmission is usually defined as

$$F=\mathrm{cos}^2(\chi /2)=(1+\mathrm{cos}\chi )/2,$$

where $`\chi `$ is the angle between the true n and the direction indicated by Bob’s measurement. The physical meaning of $`F`$ is that the infidelity $`1F=\mathrm{sin}^2(\chi /2)`$ is the mean square error of the measurement . The experimenter’s aim, minimizing the mean square error, is the same as maximizing fidelity.

Massar and Popescu  took $`N`$ parallel spins, polarized along n, and showed that $`1F=1/(N+2)`$. It then came as a surprise that for $`N=2`$, parallel spins were not the optimal signal, and a slightly higher fidelity resulted from the use of opposite spins . This better result also required, of course, the transmission of a classical bit, to tell which spin was parallel and which one opposite to n. This raised the question what was the most efficient signal state for $`N`$ spins. How quickly will $`F`$ tend to 1? Peres and Scudo  and a Barcelona group  showed that the optimal result was a quadratic approach, as illustrated in Fig. 5. This, however necessitates that the $`N`$ spins be distinguishable (for example, a proton, an electron, and so on). Then there are $`N!`$ possible ways of labelling these $`N`$ spins, requiring the transmission of about $`N\mathrm{log}_2N`$ classical bits.

## 9 EPR vs quantum teleportation

In the EPR-Bohm scenario , Alice and Bob share a pair of spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$particles in a singlet state. Alice measures a component of her spin, and then she knows instantaneously the corresponding component of Bob’s spin , namely Bob’s result if he measures (has measured, will measure) the same component of his spin. However, Alice cannot choose the result she obtains.

In the teleportation scenario, Chris chooses the state of the qubit he prepares near the apparatus called alice. He also prepares an EPR pair and places the two entangled spins with alice and bob, far away from each other. Then alice is used to measure the two spins in her location so that Chris knows which one of the four possible results was obtained; and then Chris immediately knows the state of the spin located at bob.

The scenario could stop here. There is no compelling reason to transmit the two classical bits to bob, if we are satisfied with a rotated teleportus as in Fig. 4a. But then the process would not have been called teleportation and attracted so much attention …