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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The most convincing evidence for a phase transition in thermal Yang-Mills theories is provided by direct lattice simulation of the partition function,

$$Z=\text{Tr}e^{\beta H},$$
(1)
where $`\beta =1/T`$ is the inverse temperature. Over the years the lattice data for $`SU(3)`$ theory, the purely gluonic sector of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), has become incresingly accurate, with various systematic errors brought under control . Figure (1) shows the normalized free-energy density, $`F=T\mathrm{ln}Z/V`$, of $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory taken from the first of Ref.. Plots such as this have supported a picture of a low-temperature phase of glueballs melting above some critical temperature to produce a deconfined phase of weakly interacting gluons: As the gluons are liberated the number of degrees of freedom increases causing the free-energy density to rise, while asymptotic freedom guarantees the gluons are weakly interacting at sufficiently high temperature.

Though the numerical data for QCD is less accurate, due to technical difficulties in simulating fermions, the accumulated data continues to support a phase transition. It is generally believed that this is a transition from a low-temperature hadronic phase to a high-temperature phase of quarks and gluons. This ”quark-gluon plasma” is the new phase of matter which experiments at Brookhaven and CERN hope to detect in the near future.

For the most part of this paper the focus will be on pure $`SU(3)`$ theory, since the accurate lattice data allows a direct comparison with theory. Referring to Fig.(1), there is one feature which is ignored by some, commented on by many and which has bothered a few. While there is little doubt that at infinite temperature a description in terms of gluons is tenable, this is less clear at temperatures a few times the critical temperature, $`T_c270MeV`$. For example, at $`3T_c`$, the curve lies $`20\%`$ below that of an ideal gas of gluons.

What is the origin of this large deviation ? Is it due to (i) perturbative corrections to the ideal gas value, (ii) non-perturbative effects in the plasma, (iii) an equally important combination of (i) and (ii) or, (iv) is this an irrelevant question arising from an improper insistence of describing the high-temperature phase in terms of weakly coupled quasi-particles ?

Several viewpoints have been expressed in the literature. Some believe that the deviation is mainly a non-perturbative correction to a gas of weakly coupled gluons and parametrize it in terms of a phenomenological ”bag constant”. Others have attempted a phenomenological description of the high-temperature phase in terms of generalized quasi-particles. For a discussion and detailed references to these phenomenological approaches see, for example, . On the other hand, a few have suggested that the best consistent description of the high-temperature phase might be in terms of novel structures .

In order to help discern among the various possibilities, this paper will focus on estimating the total perturbative contribution to the free-energy. It is important to first agree on some terminology so as to avoid confusion due to an overuse of some phrases in the literature. The partition function depends on the Yang-Mills coupling $`g`$, and has a natural representation as an Euclidean path-integral

$$Z(g)=D\varphi e^{_0^\beta 𝑑\tau {\scriptscriptstyle d^3x(\varphi (x,\tau ))}}$$
(2)
where $`\varphi `$ collectively denotes the gauge and ghost fields, and $``$ the gauge-fixed lagrangian density of $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory. An expansion of this path-integral, and hence the free-energy density, around $`g=0`$ leads to the usual Feynman perturbation theory and contributions of the form $`g^n`$, with infrared effects occasionally generating logarithms multiplying the power terms, $`g^n(ln(g))^m`$. These terms will be called perturbative. What is invisible in a diagramatic expansion about $`g=0`$ are terms like $`e^{1/g^2}`$, associated for example with instantons . Such terms, which are exponentially suppressed as $`g0`$, will be called non-perturbative.

Note that at non-zero temperature, odd powers of the coupling, such as $`g^3`$, appear . These are perfectly natural and represent collective effects in the plasma. Though they sample interesting long-distance physics, mathematically they fall into our definition of perturbative corrections. Similarly, Linde  had shown that at order $`g^6`$ the free energy receives contributions from an infinite number of topologically distinct Feynman diagrams. Though the calculation of that contribution is difficult, it is possible in principle , and anyway does not qualify as a non-perturbative contribution according to the definition above.

Following the heroic work of Arnold and Zhai, a completely analytical calculation of the free-energy of thermal gauge theory to order $`g^5`$ has been obtained . For $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory the result can be summarized as follows,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F}{F_0}}`$ $`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{15}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}\right)+30\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}\right)^{3/2}+\left(67.5\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}\right)+237.220.63\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\mu }}{2\pi T}}\right)\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}\right)^2`$ (3)
$`\left(799.2247.5\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\mu }}{2\pi T}}\right)\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\pi }}\right)^{5/2},`$
where $`F_0=\frac{8\pi ^2T^4}{45}`$ is the contribution of non-interacting gluons, $`\alpha =g^2/4\pi `$, and $`\overline{\mu }`$ is the renormalization scale in the $`\overline{MS}`$ scheme. Unfortunately (3) is an oscillatory, non-convergent, series even for $`\alpha `$ as small as $`0.2`$, which is close to the value of physical interest. A plot of (3) at different orders, at the scale $`\overline{\mu }=2\pi T`$ is shown in Fig.(2). The poor convergence of (3) does not allow a direct comparison of the perturbative results with lattice data. Furthermore, the result (3) is actually strongly dependent on the arbitrary value of $`\overline{\mu }`$. Inspired by the relative success of Pade’ resummation in other areas of physics, Hatsuda  and Kastening  studied the Pade’ improvement of the divergent series (3). Their conclusion was that the convergence could be improved, and the dependence on the scale $`\overline{\mu }`$ reduced. However they did not attempt a direct comparison of their improved results with the lattice data, though Hatsuda did conclude that for the case of four fermion flavours, the deviation of the fifth-order Pade improved perturbative results from the ideal gas value was less than $`10\%`$.

Not all seem to agree that a resummation of perturbative results as in  sheds sufficient light on the lattice data. For example, Andersen, et.al.  and Blaizot, et.al.  have abandoned the expansion of the free-energy in terms of any formal parameter, but use instead gauge-invariance as the main guiding principle to sum select classes of diagrams. Their low order results seem to be close to the lattice data, but unfortunately because of the complexity of the calculations and the absence of an expansion parameter, it is not at all obvious what the magnitude of ’higher order’ corrections is. A completely different approach has been taken by Kajantie, et.al. In  an attempt has been made to numerically estimate the net contribution of long-distance effects, summarized in a dimensionally reduced effective theory, to the free-energy density. As will be discussed later, the calculation of  probably contains some of the non-perturbative effects defined above but might miss out on some others.

This author believes that the declared demise of information content in perturbative results such as (3) is premature. In Ref. a resummation scheme was introduced to obtain an estimate of the total perturbative contribution to the free-energy density of $`SU(3)`$ theory. The methodology of Ref. has been further developed and applied to other problems in . In Secs.(2-5), an explicit and improved discussion of the results in  is given, leading to the conclusion that the total perturbative contribution to the free-energy density lies significantly above the full lattice data. In Sec.(6) I discuss the consequent magnitude of non-perturbative contributions, and speculate on their possible origin. Sec.(7) contains an analysis of the perturbative free-energy of generalized QCD, with $`N_f`$ fermions, and a brief comparison with the available lattice data which is less precise. $`SU(N_c)`$ gauge theory is discussed in Sec.(8), and an apparently universal relation noted. Sec.(9) considers quantum electrodynamics (QED) and some speculations about its high-temperature phase. A summary and the conclusion is in Sec.(9).

## 2 The Resummation Scheme

The truncated perturbative expansion of the normalized free-energy density can be written as

$$\widehat{S}_N(\lambda )=1+\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}f_n\lambda ^n,$$
(4)
where $`\lambda =(\alpha /\pi )^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ is the coupling constant, and where following , possible logarithms of the coupling constant are absorbed into the coefficients $`f_n`$. The poor convergence of (4) is obviously due to the large coefficients at high order. Indeed such divergence of perturbative expansions is generic in quantum field theory and one expects the coefficients $`f_n`$ to grow as $`n!`$ for large $`n`$ . This leads to the introduction of the Borel transform

$$B_N(z)=1+\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{f_nz^n}{n!}$$
(5)
which has better convergence properties than (4). The series (4) may then be recovered using the Borel integral

$$\widehat{S}_N(\lambda )=\frac{1}{\lambda }_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ze^{z/\lambda }B_N(z).$$
(6)
The logic of Borel resummation is to define the total sum $`S(\lambda )`$ of the perturbation expansion as the $`N\mathrm{}`$ limit of (6). This of course requires knowledge of $`B(z)B_{\mathrm{}}(z)`$ and the existence of the Borel integral. Lacking knowledge of the exact $`B(z)`$, one therefore attempts to reconstruct an approximation to $`S`$ by replacing the partial series $`B_N(z)`$ in (6) by a possible analytical continuation thereof. A simple and popular method to achieve this is to use Pade’ approximants, leading therefore to a Borel-Pade’ resummation of the series (4). This method will be briefly discussed in Sec.(5). Here instead I will proceed as suggested by Loeffel  and change variables in (6) through a conformal map. For a positive parameter $`p`$, define

$$w(z)=\frac{\sqrt{1+pz}1}{\sqrt{1+pz}+1}$$
(7)
which maps the complex z-plane (Borel plane) to a unit circle in the $`w`$-plane. The inverse of (7) is given by

$$z=\frac{4w}{p}\frac{1}{(1w)^2}.$$
(8)
The idea  is to rewrite (6) in terms of the variable $`w`$. Therefore, using (8), $`z^n`$ is expanded to order $`N`$ in $`w`$ and substituted into (5,6). The result is

$$S_N(\lambda )=1+\frac{1}{\lambda }\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{f_n}{n!}\left(\frac{4}{p}\right)^n\underset{k=0}{\overset{Nn}{}}\frac{(2n+k1)!}{k!(2n1)!}_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{z/\lambda }w(z)^{(k+n)}𝑑z,$$
(9)
where $`w(z)`$ is given by (7). Equation (9) represents a highly nontrivial resummation of the original series (4) . In the pioneering application of the Borel-conformal-map technique in condensed matter physics by Le-Guillou and Zinn-Justin , the paramter $`p`$ was a fixed constant which determined the precise location of the instanton singularity at $`z=1/p`$. In some more recent QCD applications , the fixed constant $`p`$ determines the ultraviolet renormalon singularity closest to the origin in the Borel plane .

The novelty introduced in Ref. and futher developed in  was to consider $`p`$ as a variational parameter determined according to the condition

$$\frac{S_N(\lambda _o,p)}{p}=0,$$
(10)
where $`\lambda _0`$ is a convenient reference value. For the problem at hand, because $`f_2`$ is negative, the solutions $`p(N)`$ to (10) will be postions of minima . Denote the value of (9) at $`p=p(N)`$ by $`S_N(\lambda )`$. Notice that although $`p(N)`$ is determined at the reference value $`\lambda _0`$, $`S_N(\lambda )`$ is defined for all $`\lambda `$. The reason why this is sufficient has been explained in  and will be discussed further in the next section.

It must be stressed that, in general (see ), the variational parameter $`p(N)`$ is not related to possible singularities of $`B(z)`$. Rather, it is determined according to the extremum condition (10). Thus the presentation here is a slight departure from that in  and represents the developments in Ref..

Sufficient information is now available to construct the resummed approximants $`S_N`$ from $`N=3`$ up to $`N=5`$ in the next section. The approximant $`S_1`$ of course does not exist since $`f_1=0`$, while $`S_2`$ cannot be constructed because no solution exists to equations such as (10) at the first nontrivial order. For $`N>2`$, the solutions $`p(N)`$ will be positions of global (local) minima if the sign of $`f_N`$ is positive (negative) .

## 3 SU(3) : Resummation up to Fifth Order

In order to make contact with lattice data which show a temperature dependent curve, one must use in (4) a temperature dependent coupling. Let us begin by using the one-loop running coupling defined by ,

$$\lambda (c,x)=\frac{2}{\sqrt{11L(c,x)}},$$
(11)
where $`L(c,x)=\mathrm{ln}((2.28\pi cx)^2)`$, $`c=\overline{\mu }/2\pi T`$ and $`x=T/T_c`$, with $`T_c270MeV`$ the critical temperature which separates the low and high temperature phases .

Fixing first the reference values $`c_0=1,x_0=1`$, which fixes the reference value of $`\lambda _0`$, the results of (10) are: $`p(3)=3.2,p(4)=7.9,p(5)=13.7`$. The curves for $`S_N(\lambda )`$ are shown in Fig.(3a) at the renormalization scale $`c=1`$. Notice the behaviour $`S_5>S_4>S_3`$ and how these all lie significantly above the lattice curve in Fig.(1). The results do depend on the renormalization scale, denoted here by the dimensionless parameter $`c`$. It has been suggested  that a suitable choice for such a parameter is $`0.5<c<2`$, corresponding to $`\pi T<\overline{\mu }<4\pi T`$. Certainly this is the natural energy range for the high-temperature phase. Figure (3b) shows the mild dependence of $`S_5`$ on the renormalization scale.

The results above were obtained by solving (10) at the point $`c_0=x_0=1`$. Now consider changing the reference values to $`c_0=1,x_0=3`$, that is, a more central value for the temperature. The solutions are: $`p(3)=3.2,p(4)=7.8,p(5)=13.4`$. These values are hardly different from those above. This is firstly due to the fact that (9) is a much slower varying function of the coupling than the original divergent series. Furthermore, for the present problem, the coupling itself varies slower than logarithmically with $`c`$ and $`x`$ (the $`c`$ and $`x`$ dependence of the coefficients $`f_4`$ and $`f_5`$ is also only logarithmic). The curves for the re-optimized $`S_N`$ are essentially identical to those shown in Fig.(3a,b), the difference being only at the fifth decimal point. For example, the value of $`S_5`$ in Fig.(3a) at $`x=3`$ is $`0.938684`$, while that for $`S_5`$ optimized at $`x_0=3`$ (and hence evaluated at p(5)=13.4), is $`0.938672`$ at $`x=3`$. This confirms the assertion in  that the results are quite insensitive to the exact reference values chosen to solve (10).

We now proceed to test the sensitivity of the results to the approximation used for the running coupling (11). The approximate two-loop running coupling is given by

$$\lambda (c,x)=\frac{2}{\sqrt{11L(c,x)}}\left(1\frac{51}{121}\frac{\mathrm{ln}(L(c,x))}{L(c,x)}\right)$$
(12)
with the symbols having the same meaning as before. In Fig.(4), the one-loop running coupling (11) and the approximate two-loop running coupling (12) are plotted at $`c=1`$ to show their difference. At $`x=3`$, the value for the approximate two-loop coupling is about $`20\%`$ lower than the one-loop result. Nevertheless, because of the above-mentioned property of the resummed series, we shall see that the final results to do not shift dramatically. Using (12), the solution of (10) at the reference point $`c_0=1,x_0=3`$ are: $`p(3)=3.2,p(4)=7.6,p(5)=13.1`$. The corresponding curves shown in Fig.(5a) have moved up slightly compared to those in Fig.(3a). The ”two-loop” value of $`S_5(c=1,x=3)=0.9473`$ should be compared to the ”one-loop” value $`0.9387`$ obtained above. The mild renormalization scale dependence of the new $`S_5`$ is shown in Fig.(5b).

In summary, it has been demonstrated that the resummed approximants $`S_3,S_4,S_5`$ all lie significantly above the lattice data and satisfy the monotonicity condition $`S_5>S_4>S_3`$. The result is insensitive to the reference value used to solve (10), for the range of interest $`0.5<c<2,1<x<5`$. The result is also insensitive to the approximation used for the running coupling constant and in fact better approximations for the coupling seem to move the values of $`S_N`$ further away from the lattice data. Finally it should be noted that the values $`S_N`$ also appear to converge as $`N`$ increases.

The only way to force the values of $`S_N`$ down closer to the lattice data is to choose very low values for the renormalization scale, $`c0.05`$. Of course this is not only unnatural but increases the effective value of the coupling contant beyond what one would believe is physically reasonable for a perturbative treatment. That is by making an artificially low choice for the renormalization scale, one cannot escape the conclusion stated in the abstract of large non-perturbative corrections !

## 4 Higher Order Corrections

Due to technical complications the sixth order contribution, $`\lambda ^6`$, to the free-energy density has not been calculated although an algorithm for it exists . There is a misconception that because that contribution is due to an infinite number of topologically distinct diagrams, its value must be very large. A counter-example is provided by the magnetic screening mass , which suffers from the same disease but whose approximate calculations in the literature show it to be of ordinary magnitude .

Having said that, let us see what is the worst that can happen. It has been suggested  that Pade’ approximants can be used to estimate the next term of a truncated perturbation series. That is, after approximating the truncated series by the ratio of two polynomials, the Pade’ approximant is re-expanded as a power series to estimate the next term in the series. Well, why not also use Borel-Pade’ approximants for the same purpose ? Using the fifth order result (3) together with the two-loop running coupling (12), and choosing the central values $`c=1,x=3`$, all fifth order Pade and Borel-Pade approximants were constructed and then re-expanded to give an estimate of the coefficient $`f_6`$. The largest value obtained was $`30,000`$ and the smallest $`30,000`$. Note that the fifth order coefficient at $`c=1`$ is $`800`$, so the estimated magnitude of $`f_6`$ is about $`37`$ times larger. Since the coupling $`\lambda `$ is about $`0.2`$ at $`x=3,c=1`$, the total value of the sixth order contribution to (3) is therefore estimated to be almost $`8`$ times in magnitude compared to the fifth order contribution. These are big numbers and should be expected to cause some damage.

Using (9) with $`f_6=30,000`$, the two-loop coupling (12), and solving (10) at the reference point $`c_0=1,x_0=3`$ gives $`p(6)=19.75`$ and $`S_6(c=1,x=3)=0.9490`$. Repeating for $`f_6=30,000`$ gives $`p(6)=19.5`$ and $`S_6(c=1,x=3)=0.9489`$. Notice the negligible change in the value of $`S_6`$ even when wildly differing values have been used for $`f_6`$. Those values should be compared with the fifth order approximant of Fig.(3a), which gives $`S_5(c=1,x=3)=0.9473`$. The large estimated sixth order corrections to the divergent perturbation expansion (4) cause a change of only $`0.002`$ to the values of the resummed series, and more importantly the shift is upwards, $`S_6>S_5`$, preserving the lower order monotonicity, regardless of the sign of $`f_6`$.

Kajantie, et.al.  have suggested that the sixth order contribution, $`f_6\lambda ^6`$ be of order $`10`$. For a coupling $`\lambda 0.2`$, this translates into the astronomical value $`\pm 156250`$ for $`f_6`$. Solving (10) at $`c_0=1,x_0`$=3 gives $`p(6)=19.8`$ and $`S_6(c=1,x=3)=0.9491`$ for the positive $`f_6`$, and $`p(6)=19.4`$ and $`S_6(c=1,x=3)=0.9489`$ for the negative $`f_6`$. Despite the anomalously large value of the sixth order contribution proposed in , the conclusion here is still $`S_6>S_5`$, and an increment of only $`0.002`$.

To highlight the above result in a more dramatic way, suppose the sixth order coefficient vanishes, $`f_6=0`$. Then because of the non-trivial way the resummation is done in (9), the solution to (10) for $`N=6`$ will still be different from that of $`N=5`$. At $`c_0=1,x_0=3`$ I find $`p(6)=19.5`$ and then $`S_6(c=1,x=3)=0.9489`$ at four decimal places, which is almost identical to the values obtained above for various large values of $`f_6`$. This sounds incredible but is actually not once one remembers that large corrections to the divergent series (4) do not translate into large corrections to the resummed series (9). In fact those large values are suppressed in various ways. Firstly, in the re-organization of the series in (9), less weight is given to higher order corrections. Secondly, the variational procedure chooses values of $`p(N)`$ which in this example increase with $`N`$, and so suppress further the value of $`S_N`$.

More understanding of the above results can be obtained through a large $`N`$ analysis carried out for the general Eqs.(9,10) in . It was shown in  that if $`p(N)`$ increases for the first few values of $`N`$, then that trend will continue. Let $`c(N)p(N+1)/p(N)`$. In the large $`N`$ and large $`p(N)`$ limit one can show that

$$\frac{1}{c(N+1)}=1\frac{1}{c(N)}+\frac{1}{c(N)^2}.$$
(13)
One consequence of this is that $`c(N+1)<c(N)`$ and $`c(N)1^+`$ as $`N\mathrm{}`$. This is indeed observed for the present problem already at low $`N`$. Numerically, (13) too is not a bad approximation at small $`N`$. In fact using the values found for $`p(N)`$ in the last section, one has $`p(4)/p(3)=7.6/3.2=2.375`$. With this as input for $`c(3)`$, (13) gives the estimate $`c(4)1.32234`$, to be compared with the actual value $`p(5)/p(4)=13.1/7.6=1.7`$. Next using $`c(4)=1.7`$ as the exact input, (13) gives $`c(5)1.32201`$ and thus an estimate of $`p(6)1.3\times 13.1=17.03`$. On the other hand, using $`p(6)19.5`$, as determined by various estimates above, gives $`c(5)=19.5/13.1=1.49`$ and then through (13) the estimate $`c(6)1.28`$ and hence $`p(7)1.28\times 19.5=25`$.

The Eq.(13) was derived in  for the case $`f_10`$. For the present case where $`f_1=0`$ one will actually obtain the slightly more accurate equation

$$\frac{1}{c(N+1)^2}=1\frac{1}{c(N)}+\frac{1}{c(N)^3},$$
(14)
but in the large $`N`$ limit where $`c1^+`$ this is clearly equivalent to (13).

Note that the recursion relations (13, 14) make no explicit reference to the values of the $`f_n`$ which in the derivation in  were assumed to be generic, that is, diverging at most factorially with $`n`$. Indeed that fact that various different assumptions about the value of $`f_6`$ earlier in this section led to essentially the same value for $`p(6)19.5`$ supports the $`f_n`$ independence of (13) already at $`N6`$.

From the general analysis in , one also deduces that for large $`N`$ and large $`p(N)`$, the monotonicity $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_NS_{N+1}S_N>0`$ is guaranteed by the fact $`f_2<0`$, and that $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_N1/N^3`$ as $`N\mathrm{}`$. Since the explicit $`N5`$ calculations and the estimated $`N=6`$ result already support $`c(N)>1`$ and large values of $`p(N)`$ at low $`N`$, this suggests that the continued monotonicity and rapid convergence of the $`S_N`$ is assured by the large $`N`$ analysis.

## 5 Lower Bound and Other Estimates

From the explicit low $`N`$ calculations, and the large $`N`$ analysis, one concludes that for $`N>2`$,

$$S_N<S_{N+1}$$
(15)
for all $`N`$, and furthermore, the difference $`S_{N+1}S_N`$ decreases as $`N`$ increases, showing a rapid convergnce of the approximants. However, in general, it is not quite correct to say that the approximants converge to the total sum of the series . For each $`N`$, let $`p^{}(N)`$ be the value of $`p`$ that is optimal, that is, it is the value which when used in (9) gives the best estimate of $`S`$, the total sum of the series. Define, $`S_N^{}=S_N(\lambda ,p^{}(N))`$. Then for those $`p(N)`$ which are positions of global minima one has by definition,

$$S_NS_N^{}$$
(16)
It is $`S_N^{}`$ which presumably converges to $`S`$ as $`N\mathrm{}`$. (This implicitly assumes that the sub-sequence of global minima is infinite: That is, given any positive integer $`N_0`$, there is some $`n>N_0`$ for which $`f_n`$ is positive.)

Hence if one accepts the two assumptions above, then combining (15) with (16),

$$S_NS$$
(17)
for all $`N>2`$, and one may conclude that the $`S_N`$ are lower bounds to the sum of the full perturbation series.

In particular that conclusion implies that the $`N=5`$ curve in Fig.(5a) is a lower bound on the total perturbative contribution to the free-energy density of hot $`SU(3)`$ theory. The statement has three qualifications. Firstly, it involves the technical assumptions mentioned above. Secondly, as discussed before, better approximations to the running coupling can move the bounds, but it was seen that a $`20\%`$ improvement in the coupling shifted the bound upwards by $`1\%`$. Thirdly, the bounds shift by $`\pm 1\%`$ when the renormalization scale is varied by a factor of two from its central value $`\overline{\mu }=2\pi T`$. Thus it might be more appropriate to call the bounds as ”plausible soft lower bounds” with an uncertainty depicted in Fig.(5b).

Given that the lower bound obtained above involves some unproved technical assumptions, it is useful to compare the above results with those obtained using different resummation schemes for the divergent series (4). I briefly state here the main results obtained using a Borel-Pade’ resummation of (4), with the two-loop approximation for the coupling (12) and the central value $`c=1`$. The approximants will be denoted as $`[P,Q]`$, referring of course to the particular Pade’ approximant used for the partial Borel series (5) constructed from (4). The only approximants which did not develop poles and which gave a resummed value below one in the temperature range $`2<x<5`$ were $`[1,2],[2,1]`$ and $`[2,2]`$. These are displayed in Fig.(6). The $`[3,2]`$ and $`[4,1]`$ approximants did not develop poles but gave a value above one. If the approximants which developed a pole are defined through a principal value prescription, then the lowest value was given by $`[2,3]`$: $`0.910.94`$ as $`x`$ increased from $`25`$. The $`[1,3]`$ and $`[1,4]`$ approximants gave values above $`0.98`$ in the range of interest while $`[3,1]`$ gave a value above one.

Thus in the Borel-Pade’ method, the minimum estimate for the fifth order resummed series is given by the principal value regulated $`[2,3]`$. The highest values were all above one. If one keeps only the fifth order estimates below one (thus giving a very conservative lower value), then the average of the $`[2,3]`$ and $`[1,4]`$ is greater than $`0.94`$ for the entire range $`2<x<5`$. At $`x=3`$ the estimates are $`0.95\pm 0.04`$. Of course including also the values above one would push this average higher. Clearly the Borel-Pade’ estimates are comparable to the bounds obtained using the resummation technique of Sec.(2) and should reassure some readers about the novel resummation used here.

For completeness, I mention an alternative way of thinking about divergent series such as (4). For QCD at zero temperature, a paradox is that one-loop results give remarkable agreement with experimental data even when the energy scale is relatively low. As the running coupling is then large it is not obvious why higher-loop perturbative corrections are suppressed. It has been suggested  that the explanation might lie in the probabale asymptotic nature of the QCD perturbation series. Recall that in an asymptotic series the best estimate of the full sum, at a given value of the coupling, is obtained when only an optimal number of terms is kept and the rest discarded (even if they are large). Thus if one knew the general behaviour, at least at large order, of the series (4) and assumed that it was asymptotic, then one could have obtained a reasonable estimate of the full sum by simply adding the optimal first few terms. What has been done in the previous sections, and this is what various resummation schemes try to do, is to instead sum up the whole series to get an even better estimate of the total perturbation series (and this has the greater advantage of giving a good result for a large range of couplings). Also note that thinking of (4) as an asymptotic series does not say anything about explicit non-perturbative corrections .

## 6 Non-Perturbative Corrections

The total perturbative contribution to the free-energy density of $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory has been argued to be close to, or above, the $`N=5`$ curve in Fig.(5a). A residual uncertainty that could lower the curve of Fig.(5a) is the exact value of the renormalization scale. For a natural range of parameters, the lower curve in Fig.(5b) is the result. On the other hand the full result as given by lattice simulations is shown in Fig.(1). Lattice errors have been stated to be under $`5\%`$ . Taken together, the conclusion appears inescapable : Even at temperatures a few times above the transition temperature, there are large negative non-perturbative contributions to the free-energy density. For example, at $`T=3T_c700MeV`$, the lattice results for the normalised free-energy density are $`0.8\pm 0.04`$ while the lower bound on the perturbative contribution is $`0.947\pm 0.007`$, implying a minimum non-perturbative correction of $`10\%`$ (and as high as $`20\%`$).

Thus an answer has been given to the questions raised in the introduction. The deviation of the lattice data from the ideal gas value is apparently caused mainly by non-perturbative corrections, with perturbative corrections accounting for a much smaller amount. At $`T3T_c`$ the relative contributions are $`15\%`$ and $`5\%`$.

I speculate now on possible sources of the non-perturbative corrections. Firstly there are the familiar instantons, already present in the classical action, and which contribute terms of the order $`e^{1/\lambda ^2}`$. Secondly there are the magnetic monopoles. There is by now overwhelming evidence that confinement at zero temperature is caused by the t’Hooft-Mandelstam mechanism of condensing monopoles (the dual superconducting vacuum). Thus it is possible that the monopole condensate has not completely melted above the critical temperature. Note that since the classical theory does not support finite energy monopoles, these must be of quantum origin, and so their contribution might be larger than those of the instantons.

In fact contributions which are exponentially small but much larger than those of the instantons are suggested by the Borel resummation itself. It is known that Yang-Mills theories are not Borel summable . That is, the function $`B(z)`$ has singularities for positive $`z`$, making the Borel integral ill-defined. One can nevertheless define the sum of the perturbation series using the Borel integral if a prescription is used to handle the singularities. It is generally believed that the prescription dependent ambiguity disappears when explicit non-perturbative contributions are taken into account for the physical quantity in question. Indeed the nature of singularity itself suggests the form for the non-perturbative contribution. If there is a pole at $`z=q`$, then the non-perturbative contribution will be of the form $`e^{q/\lambda }`$, which is larger than the instanton contribution for small $`\lambda `$. An explicit mathematical model which illustrates the interplay between Borel non-summability and non-perturbative contributions has been given in .

Notice that the non-perturbative corrections suggested by the Borel method at non-zero temperature are very different from those at zero temperature. In the latter case the expansion parameter is $`g^2`$ and so the contribution is $`e^{q/g^2}`$, which translates into a power suppressed contribution $`1/(Q)^b`$ when $`g^2`$ is replaced by the running coupling $`1/\mathrm{ln}(Q/\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. In cases where the physical quantity can also be analysed using the operator-product expansion (OPE), these power suppressed contributions to perturbative results correspond in the OPE picture to vacuum condensates .

At nonzero temperature, since the natural expansion parameter is $`\lambda =\sqrt{g^2/4\pi ^2}1/\sqrt{\mathrm{ln}(T/\mathrm{\Lambda })}`$, one does not get a simple power suppression from $`e^{1/\lambda }`$. Nevertheless, the analogy with zero-temperature results suggests that such contributions might be due to some condensates. Thus the conventional condensates discussed for example in  are plausibly part of the non-perturbative contributions. The form however suggests even more novel condensates. These might be, for example, those of DeTar  or Pisarski .

It is worth noting an explicit instance of a theory displaying exponentially small non-perturbative effects which are larger than those due to standard solitons. In fundamental string theory where the coupling is $`g`$, there are the usual solitons but there are also novel ”D-instantons” which give a larger contribution $`e^{1/g}`$ . I also mention in passing the recurrent and intriguing relationship between gauge theories and strings  which leads one to wonder whether that is a possible route to understanding the non-perturbative structure of hot gauge theories.

Using the $`N=5`$ curve of Fig.(5a) as a reasonable estimate of the full perturbative result, and assuming a nonperturbative component of the form

$$S_{np}=\frac{A}{\lambda }e^{q/\lambda },$$
(18)
as suggested by the Borel method, one can determine the constants $`A`$ and $`q`$ by comparing the lattice data of Fig.(1) with the perturbative result. In  it was shown that,

$$S_{latt}=S_{pert}\frac{1}{\lambda (x)}e^{8.72.62/\lambda (x)},$$
(19)
where $`S_{latt}`$ represents the lattice data for the free-energy, and $`S_{pert}`$ the resummed perturbative result, both normalized with respect to the ideal gas value, and $`\lambda (x)`$ is given by (12) at $`c=1`$. Eq.(19) is a phenomenological equation of state for the free-energy which generalises the usual discussions in the literature where the second term on the right-hand-side of (19) is called a ’bag constant’. In this case the ‘constant’ is really temperature dependent and represents a non-perturbative contribution to the free-energy that vanishes at infinite temperature. It is important to note that the non-perturbative contribution is negative, since the perturbative result is above the full lattice data, and thus consistent with the usual interpretation in the literature.

So far the discussion has implicitly assumed an additive picture of perturbative and non-perturbative contributions, with both components clearly distinguished. It might be that in reality the best description of the high-temperature phase is in terms of completely novel structures . In that case a forced expansion of those alternatives about $`\lambda =0`$ must give something like (19) and the subsequent distinction between perturbative and non-perturbative contributions. The mathematical toy model of  illustrates this.

Within the framework of this paper, one can distinguish three versions of the popular concept of ”quasi-particle”. Firstly there are the ”perturbative quasi-particles” which are deformations of the gluon formed by a particular reorganisation of the perturbative Feynman diagram expansion. The results above suggest that if all the contributions of such quasi-particles to the free-energy are added up, the net result will lie above the lattice data, and only truly non-perturbative contributions, as defined in Sec.(1), may give the final agreement. Secondly there are the ”nonperturbative quasi-particles”, which are excitations about the nontrivial thermal vacuum that includes condensates, and so forth. Currently there is not sufficient control over the theory to construct these objects. Finally there are the ”phenomenological quasiparticles” which simply aim to give numerical agreement with the lattice data within a simple ansatz. The ultimate justification for these phenomological constructs must surely come from the ”nonperturbative quasiparticles”.

## 7 QCD

In this section lower bounds (within assumptions similar to those made previously) are obtained for the perturbative free-energy density of hot $`SU(3)`$ coupled to $`N_f`$ flavours of fundamental fermions. As the essential features are very similar to the pure gauge case, the discussion here will be brief. The fifth order perturbative results in the $`\overline{MS}`$ scheme can be read off from the landmark papers . The approximate two-loop coupling that is used here is given by

$$\lambda (c,x)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{4\pi ^2\beta _0L(c,x)}}\left(1\frac{\beta _1}{2\beta _0^2}\frac{\mathrm{ln}(L(c,x))}{L(c,x)}\right)$$
(20)
with

$`\beta _0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{11N_c2N_f}{48\pi ^2}},`$ (21)
$`\beta _1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3(4\pi )^4}}(34N_c^213N_cN_f+3N_f/N_c).`$ (22)
Following  I also assume a relative $`N_f`$ independence of $`L(c,x)`$, and thus use for it the same expression as used in (11). The extremization condition (10) is solved at the reference point $`c_0=1,x_0=3`$ for $`N_c=3`$ and $`1N_f6`$. The results obtained are all extremely similar: In each case the convergence of the $`S_N`$ is monotonic and rapid as in the pure glue case in Fig(5a). For this reason only the $`N=5`$ curves are displayed in Fig.(7) for the various number of flavours. For comparison the pure glue result ($`N_f=0`$) is also included. (Each curve has been normalized with respect to the ideal gas value for that number of flavours.)

The $`N=5`$ curves in Fig.(7) can be taken as plausible lower bounds, or estimates, to the total perturbative free energy density of QCD with $`N_f`$ fundamental fermions. Lattice results for QCD contain large systematic errors compared to those for $`SU(3)`$ and so a precise comaprison is not possible. After making some assumptions about the size of the systematic errors, the authors in Ref. determine that for $`N_f=2`$ the free-energy density lies about $`1520\%`$ below the ideal gas limit. This is similar to the case of pure $`SU(3)`$. Comparing this lattice estimate with the estimate on the perturbative result in Fig.(7) one is again led to suggest that there are large non-perturbative corrections to the naive picture of a weakly interacting quark-gluon plasma.

Of course, given the physical relevance of QCD, it would be preferable to have more precise numbers from the lattice, and especially for other values of $`N_f`$. However it seems that a non-perturbative component of $`1015\%`$ at temperatures a few times $`T_c`$ is likely to be generic.

When the draft of this paper was complete, I came across  which gives for $`N_f=2`$ a $`T_c/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{MS}}0.5`$, a factor of two lower than that for the pure gauge theory. This has the consequence that $`c`$ in $`L(c,x)`$ should be replaced by about $`c/2`$. However as the reader can surmise by now, this has hardly any impact on the results above, for this is equivalent to shifting the renormalization scale $`c`$ by a factor of two, which as we have seen causes only a $`1\%`$ shift of the curves. In any case this serves to remind that the lattice results for $`N_f`$ are in a state of flux.

## 8 SU(N)<sub>c</sub>

Define

$$\lambda (N_c)=\left(\frac{N_c}{3}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{\alpha }{\pi }\right)^{1/2}.$$
(23)
Then the free-energy density of pure $`SU(N_c)`$ theory up to fifth order  is given by the expression (3), with $`(\alpha /\pi )^{1/2}`$ replaced everywhere (including inside the logs) by $`\lambda (N_c)`$. Thus there is no explicit $`N_c`$ dependence of the free-energy density when written in terms of $`\lambda (N_c)`$.

To examine the $`N_c`$ dependence of the new coupling (23), consider the approximate two-loop running coupling given by

$$\left(\frac{\alpha (T)}{\pi }\right)^{1/2}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{4\pi ^2\beta _0L(T,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }})}}\left(1\frac{\beta _1}{2\beta _0^2}\frac{\mathrm{ln}(L(T,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}))}{L(T,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }})}\right)$$
(24)
with

$`L(T,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }})`$ $``$ $`2\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2c^{}\pi T}{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}}\right),`$ (25)
$`\beta _0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{11N_c}{48\pi ^2}},`$ (26)
$`\beta _1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3(4\pi )^4}}(34N_c^2),`$ (27)
and with $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}=\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(N_c)`$ the $`SU(N_c)`$ gauge theory scale parameter in the $`\overline{MS}`$ scheme. In $`L`$, the constant $`c^{}`$ is $`\overline{\mu }/2\pi T`$. Comparing the various equations, one comes to the remarkable conclusion that the new running coupling $`\lambda (N_c,T)`$ will be independent of $`N_c`$ if the $`\overline{MS}`$ scale parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(N_c)`$ is itself independent of $`N_c`$ when expressed in terms of some physical length scale. By comparing some data for $`N_c=2,3,4`$, Teper  has concluded that this is indeed the case.

Therefore, accepting the result of , one deduces that the $`N=5`$ curve in Fig.(5a) is a plausible lower bound, or estimate, to the total perturbative free energy density of hot $`SU(N_c)`$ theory when the x-axis is interpreted as $`T/\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ instead of $`T/T_c`$. This is then a universal relation (at least for low $`N_c`$), and one suspects that the corresponding full lattice results might also obey a universal curve, thus leading to the guess that the non-perturbative component of an $`SU(N_c)`$ plasma is about $`1015\%`$ for temperatures a few times above the critical temperature.

## 9 QED

Though the fine structure constant $`\alpha `$ of QED is small at everyday energies, it is interesting to consider super-high temperatures where it will be large. The free-energy density of massless QED at temperature ($`T`$), has been computed up to order $`\alpha ^{5/2}`$ in Refs.. Denoting as usual $`\lambda =(\alpha /\pi )^{1/2}`$, the normalised free-energy density at the $`\overline{MS}`$ renormalisation scale $`\overline{\mu }=2\pi T`$, is given by

$$F/F_0=11.13636\lambda ^2+2.09946\lambda ^3+0.488875\lambda ^46.34112\lambda ^5.$$
(28)
where $`F_0=11\pi ^2T^4/180`$ is the free-energy density of a non-interacting plasma of electrons, positrons and photons. Figure (8a) shows the plot of (28) at different orders. The series diverges at large coupling (super-high temperatures), exhibiting a behaviour similar to that of Yang-Mills theory at low-temperatures. The convergence at large coupling can be improved by using the resummation technique (9-10). Using the coefficients from (28), the solutions of (10) at the reference value $`\lambda _0=0.5`$ are (minima): $`p(3)=0.7,p(4)=1.75,p(5)=3`$.

The resummed series, with its much improved convergence, is shown in Fig.(8b). The $`N=5`$ curve can be taken as a lower bound to the full perturbative result. If one assumes that the potential non-perturbative contributions lower the perturbative result, as happens in QCD, or are very small in magnitude, then one may conclude from Fig.(8b) that super-hot QED undergoes a phase transition. This speculated high-temperaure phase of QED might then be analogous to the low-temperature phase of QCD with various bound states. Or, it might resemble the alternative picture of low-energy QCD: that of flux-tubes . It is unfortunate that no lattice or other non-perturbative information is currently available about the high-temperature phase of QED.

## 10 Conclusion

The phrase ’non-perturbative’ is used often and loosely with regard to field theories at non-zero temperature. This has caused a great deal of semantic confusion and misunderstanding. For the purpose of uncovering the cause of the deviation of the result in Fig.(1) from the ideal gas value, it has been proposed to term ’perturbative’ all power like (modulo logarithms) contributions to the free-energy density. Such perturbative contributions follow from the usual Feynman diagram expansion of the parition function around zero coupling.

For $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory a plausible lower bound was obtained on the totality of such perturbative contributions to the free-energy density. The derivation of that lower bound using the variational conformal map involved some technical assumptions, and so one may instead wish to consider it only as an estimate of the total perturbative contribution. The estimate is comparable to that obtained using Pade’ or Borel-Pade’ resummation methods and lies significantly higher than the full lattice result, thus suggesting that large and truly non-perturbative corrections exist. As discussed in Sec.(6), these non-perturbative corrections might include the usual instantons, magnetic monopoles, the usual condensates, and perhaps also more novel condensates and extended structures as suggested by the Borel form $`e^{1/\lambda }`$ of the non-perturbative contributions. As to which of these possibilities dominates is an interesting question left for future work.

The equation of state for hot $`SU(3)`$ can be summarized by the phenomenological relation

$$S_{latt}=S_{pert}\frac{1}{\lambda (x)}e^{8.72.62/\lambda (x)},$$
(29)
where $`S_{latt}`$ represents the lattice data for the free-energy, and $`S_{pert}`$ the resummed perturbative result, both normalized with respect to the ideal gas value, and where $`\lambda `$ is the temperature dependent coupling (12) at $`c=1`$. There is a slight ambiguity in the estimate of the magnitude of non-perturbative corrections coming from the residual renormalization scale ambiguity of the resummed perturbative results. For the natural range $`\pi T<\overline{\mu }<4\pi T`$, the ambiguity is less than one percent. Such an ambiguity between the perturbative and non-perturbative components is understandable, as only the full physical quantity can be demanded to be scale independent, and not separately its perturbative and non-perturbative components, though the latter simplifying assumption is often made.

By choosing an anomalously low value for the scale $`\overline{\mu }`$ one can fit the purely perturbative results to the lattice data but at the price of a very large effective coupling constant, and thus an unsuppresed contribution from common place objects like instantons. Therefore this route does not offer an escape from the conclusion of large non-perturbative corrections.

The results of this paper do not imply that the description of the free-energy density must be as in (29). Rather, completely novel descriptions in terms of various extended structures are possible , but in a forced expansion of those alternative descriptions about $`g=0`$, one must recover something like (19). On the other hand, the results here do imply that an accounting of the lattice free-energy density in terms of a subset of Feynman diagrams of the perturbative thermal vacuum might miss some essential physics.

Being restricted to an analysis of the free-energy density, the results here of course do not imply that every observable must have large non-perturbative contributions, but it is likely that this is true for most of the bulk thermodynamic quantities.

An analysis was also carried out for generalized QCD with $`N_f`$ quarks. Currently the lattice data is only approximate and so the conclusions are less definitive. However accepting the estimates in , the conclusion is the same as before: There appear to be large non-perturbative corrections to the free-energy density of hot $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory coupled to $`N_f`$ quarks. Thus in particular, ”quark-gluon plasma” seems to be an incomplete description even at temperatures several times above the transition temperature.

A simple relation was noted for the perturbative free-energy density of $`SU(N_c)`$ gauge theory in Sec.(8). That result, combined with the results for generalised QCD in Sec.(7), and the available lattice data, leads one to a universality conjecture: For the high-temperature ($`T2T_c`$) phase of $`SU(N_c)`$ gauge theory coupled to $`N_f`$ fundamental quarks, and for all moderate values of $`N_c`$ and $`N_f`$, at most $`5\%`$ of the deviation of the free-energy density from the ideal gas value is due to perturbative effects while non-perturbative effects contribute a larger $`1015\%`$.

It has been speculated in Sec.(9) that QED might have an interesting high-temperature phase.

Finally, the methods of this paper might be of some use for the study of supersymmetric theories at non-zero temperature, a topic of interest in recent developments .

Acknowledgements: I thank B. Choudhary, C. Coriano, A. Goldhaber, U. Parwani, I. Parwani, S. Pola, J.S. Prakash, D. Saldhana, S. Saldhana, and P. Van Nieuwenhuizen for their hospitality during the course of this work.

Figure Captions

Figure 1: Mean lattice results for the free-energy density of hot $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory from Ref.. Here $`S_{latt}`$ refers to the free-energy divided by the free-energy of an ideal gas of gluons.

Figure 2: The divergent perturbative free-energy density of $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory given in Eq.(3). Starting from the lowest curve at $`(\alpha /2\pi )^{0.5}=0.24`$, one has $`N=2,5,3,4`$.

Figure (3a): The resummed perturbative free-energy density of hot $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory for $`N=3,4`$ and $`5`$, using a one-loop running coupling, the reference values $`c_0=1,x_0=1`$, and the renormalization scale $`c=1`$. The curves move upwards as $`N`$ increases.

Figure (3b): The fifth order resummed perturbative free-energy density of Fig.(3a) at three different renormalization scales, $`c=0.5,1`$ and $`2`$. The free-energy density increases with increasing $`c`$.

Figure 4: The one-loop (upper curve) and approximate two-loop running couplings for $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory at the renormalization scale $`c=1`$.

Figure (5a): The resummed perturbative free-energy density of hot $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory for $`N=3,4`$ and $`5`$, using a two-loop running coupling, the reference values $`c_0=1,x_0=3`$, and the renormalization scale $`c=1`$. The curves move upwards as $`N`$ increases from $`3`$ to $`5`$.

Figure (5b): The fifth order resummed perturbative free-energy density of Fig.(5a) at three different renormalization scales, $`c=0.5,1`$ and $`2`$. The free-energy density increases with increasing $`c`$.

Figure 6: The $`[1,2],[2,1]`$ and $`[2,2]`$ Borel-Pade’ approximants to the perturbative free-energy density, with a two-loop running coupling, and the renormalization scale $`c=1`$. Starting with the lowest curve at $`x=5`$, one has $`[2,1],[1,2],[2,2]`$.

Figure 7: The fifth order resummed perturbative free-energy denisty of $`SU(3)`$ gauge theory coupled to $`N_f`$ fermions as discussed in Sec.(7). Starting from below at $`x=5`$, the curves label $`N_f=6,5,4,3,0,2,1`$.

Figure (8a): The divergent perturbative free-energy density of QED, given in Sec.(9). Starting from the lowest curve and moving upwards, one has $`N=2,5,3,4`$.

Figure (8b): The resummed perturbative free-energy density of QED. The curves move upwards as $`N`$ increases from $`3`$ to $`5`$.


text:
# A thought experiment with clocks in static gravity

## 1 Introduction

The redshift of the frequentcy of photons as they travel upwards in a static gravitational field and corresponding increase of the frequency of clocks (e.g. of the spacings between atomic levels) were theoretically discovered by Einstein long before he constructed general relativity. These phenomena are discussed in a vast literature going from monographs on general relativity to popular books. In the recent articles  it has been argued that in a static field for a static observer the frequency of the photon does not change and that it is redshifted only with respect to the blueshifted atomic (nuclear) levels. Strangely enough, this statement met with objections from some of the experts in general relativity. These requested from the authors a thought experiment involving only clocks but no photons, which could prove that standard clocks are running faster when they are raised above the ground. The present note proposes such a thought experiment. In order to make the pro and contra arguments clearer the following text is written as a dialogue between a professional relativist (R) and the author (A).

## 2 Dialogue on the thought experiment

A: In refs.  \-  two kinds of arguments were presented: theoretical and experimental. According to the theoretical argument, the wave solution of Maxwell’s equations in a static gravitational field must have a fixed frequency equal to that of the e.m. source since the coefficients of Maxwell’s equations do in that case not depend on time.

R: The conservation of energy (or frequency) of the photon depends on the definition, depends on what you choose to call the energy or frequency, on the definition of time and the system of reference. To be operationally meaningful you have to specify the way of measuring these entities.

A: As we consider a static gravitational field we should choose observers which are at rest in that field, say in laboratories situated at ground floor and the upper floor of the same building. That was how the first measurements of gravitational redshift were performed in the famous experiments of Pound and Rebka forty years ago. We should not consider observers in moving elevators. To them the gravitational field is not static. Moreover in a falling elevator the gravitational field vanishes locally.

R: OK. Let choose the static observers and consider the experiments by Pound et al. In these experiments photons were emitted by excited iron nuclei at the ground floor and their absorption by iron nuclei in their ground state was measured at the top of Harvard tower. It was observed that the energy of photons was not sufficient to excite in the iron nuclei upstairs the same level from which they were emitted downstairs. The relative shift of the frequency of photons and nuclei was $`gh/c^2`$, where $`h`$ is the height of the tower, $`g=10`$m/s2 and $`c`$ – the velocity of light. One can interpret the experiment by saying (as the authors of  \-  did) that the energy of the photon has not changed, but that the energy of excitation of iron nuclei (the rate of the clock) has fractionally increased by $`+gh/c^2`$.

Alternatively, there is an equally valid viewpoint according to which the clock rates are the same while the photon frequency is different. For that it is enough to consider local inertial frames momentarily at rest at the world-points of the emission and absorption of the photon.

A: But neither Pound, no his coworkers (thank God!) used in their experiments falling elevators.

R:One can introduce local time by simply assuming that standard clocks do not change their rate with their height. Anyway, you are attempting improperly to subdivide the gravitational redshift phenomenon into two separate processes, that separately have no operational meaning. The only operationally meaningful statement is that when a photon is emitted at the bottom of the tower its frequency as measured by the identical clock at the top of the tower is lower. You cannot determine whether it was the photon or the clocks that were responsible for the shift.

My view would be different if you could carry out the following thought experiment. Two identical clocks are placed one at the top of a tower, the other at the bottom. Demonstrate without connecting the clocks by photons and otherwise disturbing the clocks that the top clock runs faster than the bottom clock by the standard gravitational shift. This would be a demonstration of your assertion that the photon frequency does not change. I believe such a demonstration to be impossible.

A: There were special experiments described in refs. ,  in which one of two clocks travelled on an aircraft and then was brought back to another one which was all this time at rest in the laboratory. These experiments showed that in agreement with general relativity the clock which travelled (after taking account of special relativity twin effect) was ahead of that which was at rest.

R: These results do not change my point of view, because the two clocks, in the course of the experiment, were treated differently: one made a loop in space, while the other was not moved at all. Thus, those experiments demonstrate actually only that the total elapsed times differ and say nothing (except by inference) about the instantaneous difference in their rates.

A: Inference is an inalienable part of physics. But I shall not dwell on this here. I shall just propose that thought experiment about which you asserted “I believe such a demonstration to be impossible”.

Consider two rooms: one at the ground floor, the other at the top floor of a building. One starts with two identical standard clocks at the bottom room. At a certain moment one raises the first clock to the room upstairs. After some time $`T`$ one raises the second clock in the same way and compares the time it shows with that of the first clock. If general relativity is correct, their time difference should be $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=(gh/c^2)T`$. In this thought experiment both clocks are treated absolutely identically. Nevertheless the first clock will be ahead of the second. As time is uniform and both clocks are not moved during the time $`T`$, this thought experiment yields the instantoneous difference in the rates of the clocks, which is of course equal to $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T=gh/c^2`$.

## 3 Conclusion

By a thought experiment (which with improvements in the precision of atomic clocks could one day become a real one) it is shown that when measuring the “gravitational redshift of photons” one actually measures the gravitational blueshift of clocks.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Prof. R.H.Romer for stimulating me to invent the thought experiment described in this note. I am grateful to Val Telegdi for helpful remarks. This work was supported by RFBR (grant \# 00-15-96562), by A. Von Humboldt Foundation, and by CERN Theory Division.


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# Microlensing results from APO monitoring of the double quasar Q0957+561A,B between 1995 and 1998

## 1 Introduction

The nature of the dark matter is still one of the most pressing questions in current astrophysics. Many experiments are running or being built/planned in order to test the existence of various particle physics candidates, like wimps, axions, or neutralinos (for a review on the particle physics aspects of dark matter, see Raffelt 1997). There are also intense searches underway for astrophysical dark matter candidates, like black holes (from stellar to galactic mass scales), brown dwarfs, or other compact objects.

Gott (1981) and Paczyński (1986) put forward the idea to use gravitational lensing for the search of compact dark matter objects in galactic halos. Gott (1981) suggested to look for fluctuations in the lightcurves of multiply imaged quasars in order to detect compact objects along the line of sight in the halo of the lensing galaxy, which had been shown earlier by Chang and Refsdal (1979) to have observable consequences. Paczyński (1986) proposed to probe the content of compact dark objects in the Milky Way halo by monitoring the brightnesses of about 107 individual stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The latter paper led to a whole industry of observing projects, like MACHO (Alcock et al. 2000) and EROS (Lasserre et al. 2000). Gott (1981)’s suggestion to study the halos of lensing galaxies by way of monitoring background quasars – though in principle as powerful a method – was pursued, however, with much less fervor in terms of people involved, total observing nights or CPU-time used.

We followed the latter method and present here results on the possible matter contents of the halo of the lensing galaxy in the lens system 0957+561. They are based on comparing lightcurves of the gravitationally lensed double quasar Q0957+561A,B, obtained by four years of monitoring (1995 - 1998) at the 3.5m-Apache Point Observatory (Colley, Kundić & Turner 2000, hereafter CKT) with extensive numerical simulations.

## 2 Data and Method

### 2.1 The double quasar Q0957+561 and the data

The double quasar Q0957+561A,B was the first multiply imaged quasar discovered (Walsh, Carswell & Weymann 1979). It consists of two quasar images of $`R16`$ mag and identical redshift $`z=1.41`$, separated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta =6.1^{\prime \prime }`$. Image A is about 5 arcseconds away from the center of the lensing galaxy, image B is about 1 arcsecond off. Very briefly after its discovery, Chang & Refsdal (1979) suggested that stellar mass objects in the light path of one of the images can produce uncorrelated changes in its apparent brightness. The lensing galaxy at $`z_\mathrm{G}=0.36`$ is the central galaxy of a rich cluster, whose weak lensing effects on background galaxies have been seen (Barkana et al. 1999). Q0957+561A,B is the best investigated gravitational lens with far more than 100 papers written about it. The time delay between the two images has been established to be around 417 days (e.g., Schild & Thomson 1997; Kundić et al. 1998). Earlier results on microlensing had shown that for a period of about 5 years, there was a monotonic change between the time-delay-corrected apparent brightnesses of images A and B (Schild 1996, Pelt et al. 1998, Refsdal et al. 2000, Gil-Merino et al. 1998). The time and amplitude of that fluctuation is consistent with microlensing due to low mass stars, which is expected to happen again for image B before too long.

In Fig. 1 we show the lightcurves of images A and B covering the epochs 1995-1997 for the leading image A (and epochs 1996-1998 for the trailing image B), based on data by CKT. The 1995/1996 data set has already been analysed with respect to microlensing by Schmidt & Wambsganss (1998, hereafter SW98). Analysing the complete data set which covers three full years instead of 160 days allows us here to extend the mass limits by one order of magnitude. The difference light curve in the lower panel of Fig. 1 has been calculated by interpolating the data points of image B and subtracting them from the corresponding data point of image A. We have only included data points in the difference lightcurve where an interpolation was possible. It is obvious from the lower part of Fig. 1 that there are no major effects in the difference lightcurve. There are some trends visible, but it is not clear whether they can be attributed to microlensing or whether they are due to some other systematic effects. The dip around day 1125, for example, is likely to be the effect of a lack of data points for quasar B to interpolate in between. In any case, including the 1-$`\sigma `$ error bars, all the data points are consistent with the conservative assumption that no microlensing with an amplitude $`|\mathrm{\Delta }m|>0.05`$ mag has been detected.

### 2.2 Numerics

The method we use is described in detail in SW98 and in Schmidt (2000). The first step is to produce a “difference lightcurve” from the data of images A and B, by shifting one set by the appropriate time delay (we chose $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=417`$ days, see Kundić et al. 1998) and by the difference in apparent brightness ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{AB}}=0.125/0.158`$ mag111$`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{AB}}`$ changed due to a change in the mirror’s reflectivity after realuminization, see CKT). The second step is to either identify significant fluctuations in the difference lightcurve which could be attributed to microlensing, or to find an upper limit on the possible action of microlenses.

In the third step we produce magnification patterns via numerical simulations for both images A and B with the appropriate values of surface mass density $`\kappa `$ and external shear $`\gamma `$ (cf. Schneider, Falco & Ehlers 1992). We investigated three different scenarios, assuming 100%, 50% or 25% of the matter density consists of Machos, respectively. We explore mass ranges from $`10^7m_{\mathrm{macho}}/M_{}1.0`$. In the fourth step, the resulting magnification patterns are convolved with a brightness profil of the quasar. We chose Gaussian profiles with sizes of $`\sigma _\mathrm{Q}/cm=10^{14},3\times 10^{14},10^{15},3\times 10^{15}`$ (the smallest size we consider corresponds to a few Schwarzschild radii of a presumed central supermassive black hole with a mass of about $`10^8`$ M). Step 5 is the simulation of randomly oriented (straight) tracks through these magnification patterns that cover the same sampling intervals as the actual observations. In the final step 6 we determine the fraction of all lightcurves for a particular parameter pair $`m_{\mathrm{macho}},\sigma _\mathrm{Q}`$ that produced fluctuations larger than the ones observed.

For the ray shooting simulations (cf. Wambsganss 1999), we used values of $`\kappa _\mathrm{A}=0.32,\gamma _\mathrm{A}=0.18`$ and $`\kappa _\mathrm{B}=1.17,\gamma _\mathrm{B}=0.83`$ for convergence and shear of images A and B, as in SW98. For each of the masses $`m_{\mathrm{macho}}/M_{}=10^7`$, $`10^6`$, …, $`10^1`$, $`1`$, we used three independent magnification patterns with 20482 pixels each, and sidelengths of L = 16, 160, 1600 $`r_\mathrm{E}`$ (where the Einstein radius in the source plane for a 1 $`M_{}`$-object is $`r_\mathrm{E}=\sqrt{\frac{4Gm}{c^2}\frac{D_\mathrm{s}D_{\mathrm{ds}}}{D_\mathrm{d}}}4.8\times 10^{16}\sqrt{m/M_{}}h_{60}^{0.5}`$ cm; $`D_\mathrm{d}`$, $`D_\mathrm{s}`$, $`D_{\mathrm{ds}}`$ are the angular diameter distances observer-lens, observer-source, lens-source, respectively, $`c`$ is the velocity of light, and $`G`$ is the gravitational constant). We assumed an effective transverse velocity of $`v_{}=600`$ km/sec (cf. Paczyński 1986; Kayser, Refsdal, Stabell 1986). For each parameter pair $`m_{\mathrm{macho}}`$, $`\sigma _\mathrm{Q}`$, we produced 100,000 simulated microlensing lightcurves each for image A and image B, sampled like the observed data set. We looked for the differences between the lowest and highest part in each lightcurve and binned those $`10^5`$ maximum differences. The fractions of those lightcurves that showed fluctuations larger than the observed difference of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{obs}}=0.05`$ mag were labelled $`p_\mathrm{A}`$ and $`p_\mathrm{B}`$, respectively. We assumed the fluctuations to be independent between images A and B, i.e. the combined exclusion probability is defined as222This is not exactly identical to detecting a certain $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ in the difference lightcurve (e.g., two large but opposite changes could just cancel); but for our purposes it is close enough.  $`p_>=1(1p_\mathrm{A})(1p_\mathrm{B})`$. The method is illustrated in Fig. 2, where two panels with small parts of the magnification patterns are reproduced for objects of masses $`m_{\mathrm{macho}}=10^3`$ (left), and $`10^5`$ (right). The three white line segments show how the tracks were modelled after the time coverage of the real data in Figure 1. The corresponding microlensed lightcurves are shown in the lower part of Figure 2.

## 3 Results, Discussion and Summary

The lightcurves of Q0957+561A, B as monitored between 1995 and 1998 do not show any significant differences beyond $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=0.05`$ mag, when corrected for time delay and magnitude difference. In Fig. 3 we present the resulting “exclusion probabilities” for the two parameters “Macho mass” $`m_{\mathrm{macho}}`$ and quasar size $`\sigma _\mathrm{Q}`$ (assuming 100% of the halo mass is in MACHOs), derived from four years of monitoring and comparison with numerical simulations. The numbers indicate the percentage of the 100,000 simulated lightcurves that showed fluctuations larger than the observed ones. In the diagram, we encircled and shaded the parts of parameter space that produced exclusion probabilities of 67% (1-$`\sigma `$, thin shading), 95% (2-$`\sigma `$, medium shading), and 99.7% (3-$`\sigma `$, cross shading). It is obvious that a mass range from $`10^6m_{\mathrm{macho}}/M_{}10^2`$ can be excluded at the 3-$`\sigma `$ level for all quasar sizes except for the largest one, for which $`10^2M_{}`$ is barely allowed. For objects of mass 0.1 $`M_{}`$, the exclusion probability is at the 70% to 85% level. We need a longer time coverage, in order to improve significantly on these limits. In Figs. 4 and 5 we present the resulting numbers and respective exclusion regions for the assumption of only 50% or 25% of the halo mass in MACHOs. The exclusion probabilities get slightly smaller in these cases, and the exclusion regions shrink a bit as well, but the general picture does not change much.

Pelt et al. (1998) and Refsdal et al. (2000) investigated the double quasar lightcurve as well. Their main focus was microlensing on medium and long time scales (baseline 15 years), including a continuous change in the difference lightcurve of about 0.25 mag in the first five years. Whereas their data set covers a longer baseline than ours, we have many more and more accurate data on short time scales ($``$ 100 days). Furthermore, we also take into account the gaps in the difference lightcurve, which means we treat the short term behaviour more realistically. Pelt el al. (1998)’s finding that the quasar size is about $`3\times 10^{15}`$cm is consistent with our results (though we cannot put an upper limit on the size).

We extend the “exclusion” area by roughly one order of magnitude in mass, compared to the first results in SW98 and Wambsganss & Schmidt (1998). This is due to the fact that the coverage of the difference light curve increased by more than a factor of 4 (without showing any more variability), and the mass limits increase with the square of the length scale. But it also means that in order to increase the limits from short/medium term microlensing by another order of magnitude in mass – reaching the very interesting regime of solar mass objects – the frequent monitoring has to continue for another six or eight years.

The method and results described here, in particular the exclusion diagram (Fig. 3; see also Fig. 2 of Refsdal et al. 2000), are very similar to those of the groups investigating microlensing of the Milky Way halo (e.g., Alcock et al. 2000, Lasserre et al. 2000). Hence it is obvious that monitoring multiple quasars (Gott 1981) is as powerful a tool in constraining the abundance of MACHOs in galactic halos as is monitoring LMC stars (Paczyński 1986).

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), project number WA 1047/2-1, by the National Science Foundation (NSF), grant AST98-02802, and by the Australian Research Council (ARC, grant X00001713). It is a pleasure to thank the APO observers who helped obtaining this data, in particular K. Gloria, N. C. Hastings, D. Long, E. Bergeron, C. Corson, and R. McMillan. We also like to thank Rolf Stabell for his careful reading and his comments which helped to improve the paper.


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# Phonons and Phonon Confinement in Transport through Double Quantum Dots

## 1 Introduction

The fabrication of free–standing or suspended nanoscale structures Rou99  has opened new perspectives for the investigation of mesoscopic phonon effects such as phonon confinement, thermal conductance quantization, or single phonon transport. Recent experiments are designed to show and emphasize mesoscopic phonon effects of few or even a single phonon SchEtal00 . At the same time, sensitive detectors for phonons become important AguKou00 . Electron transport measurements have already been used successfully for this task.

In double quantum dots, the emission of phonons has been observed to dominate the non–linear electron transport at mK–temperatures FujetalTaretal . This effect could be explained by an X–ray singularity–like boson shake–up effect for tunneling of single electrons due to coupling to phonons Brandesddot . Different phonon modes (surface, bulk, or confined) and features in phonon densities of states can therefore (at least in principle) be identified in electronic transport measurements. The energy difference between the two dot ground states should be used to scan the relevant phonon energy window.

## 2 Surface Acoustic Phonons

The knowledge of the electron phonon interaction coefficient is necessary in order to quantitatively understand the influence of different kinds of phonons in electron transport measurements. Here, we consider surface acoustic waves (SAW) and their interaction with electrons. In most experiments, the relevant electrons are part of a 2DEG which is located a small distance $`d`$ beneath the surface of the sample (typically $`d100`$nm). If the SAW wavelength becomes comparably small, it is important to take into account the non–monotonic decrease of its amplitude into the sample. For an anisotropic crystal like GaAs, we calculate the piezoelectric electron–phonon interaction coefficient as a function of the depth and compare it with results for an isotropic crystal. Finally, we apply the result to estimate the inelastic tunnel current through a double quantum dot, caused by emission of SAW.

We consider a SAW propagating in  direction on the  surface of an anisotropic cubic crystal. This wave causes an electric potential $`\phi `$ by the piezo effect. Hence, electrons in a 2DEG or a quantum dot close to the surface interact with the SAW as they are exposed to the potential $`V=e\phi `$. The interaction potential can be written in the common form

$$V_{\mathrm{int}}(x,z)=\frac{1}{L}\underset{q}{}\gamma _q(z)e^{iqx}(b_q+b_q^{})$$
(1)
with wave number $`q`$, normalization length $`L`$ and boson annihilation and creation operators $`b_q`$, $`b_q^{}`$. $`\gamma _q`$ is the interaction coefficient, that is $`z`$–dependent for the case of surface waves. Calculating the piezoelectric potential simon , we find for $`\gamma _q`$ the expression

$$\gamma _q(z)=\stackrel{~}{C}\{A_1e^{ib_1qz}+A_2e^{ib_2qz}+A_3e^{qz}\}$$
(2)
where all prefactors are combined in $`\stackrel{~}{C}`$ which does not depend on $`q`$. $`A_1,A_2,A_3,b_1,b_2`$ are complex functions of the material constants. For GaAs we find for $`\gamma _q`$ on the surface a value of $`8.610^{13}`$ eVm. This is slightly smaller as the value found in the isotropic model of the crystal knaebchen . The dependence on the depth is shown in the inset of Fig. 1. It can be seen that the isotropic model slightly exaggerates the penetration depth of the interaction coefficient.

We use the interaction coefficient (2) to estimate the inelastic tunnel current through a double quantum dot caused by spontaneous emission of surface acoustic phonons. Such a current was measured in recent experiments FujetalTaretal . Following the theoretical approach in Brandesddot , we calculate an effective density of states $`\rho (\epsilon )`$ which serves as an approximation for the inelastic tunnel current. The result is shown in Fig. 1 as well as the result for interaction with bulk phonons from Brandesddot . Both results possess the oscillations in the inelastic current that were found in the experiment, although the inelastic current in the case of emission of bulk phonons is stronger.

## 3 Confinement in Phonon Cavities

In (partly) freestanding structures Blickneuespaper , electron transport through lateral double dots is expected to show signatures of phonon confinement. We investigate a free standing quantum well of finite thickness as a phonon cavity model. Due to the confinement, a quantization of the phonon modes similar to the electronic case occurs. Families of shear, flexural and dilatational modes can be classified as in classical acoustics.

We calculate the dispersion relation of the cavity phonons using a numerical approach and find a staircase-like phonon density of states $`\nu (\omega )`$ superimposed by van Hove singularities as shown in Fig. 2. The characteristic energy scale is given by $`\omega _b=c_l/b`$ with the longitudinal velocity of sound and the cavity width $`2b`$.

For small enough cavity confinement widths one can show that the deformation potential is the dominant interaction mechanism between electrons and confined phonons. For a cavity confined in $`x`$ direction the deformation potential is BanEtal

$$V_{\mathrm{def}}=\underset{𝐪_{},n}{}\gamma _n(𝐪_{})e^{i𝐪_{}𝐫_{}}\left\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{cos}q_{l,n}x\\ \mathrm{sin}q_{l,n}x\end{array}\right\}\left[b_n(𝐪_{})+b_n^{}(𝐪_{})\right],$$

where $`𝐪_{}`$ and $`q_l`$ are the in–plane and transversal components of the wavevector, resp. The upper row is for dilatational and the lower is for flexural modes. Dilatational phonons induce a symmetrical potential with respect to the cavity midplane, flexural phonons an antisymmetrical potential. Shear waves do not induce a deformation potential. For a double quantum dot placed in the middle of the cavity we calculate the inelastic current in the same model as in Sec. 2 using the deformation potential interaction between electrons and confined phonons. We find that due to the symmetry of the different phonon families, one can suppress the emission of such phonons. This can be done by changing the double dot axis relative to the confinement direction of the phonon cavity. Therefore, one can modify the emission characteristics of the double dot. Furthermore, we calculate the inelastic current through the double dot caused by flexural phonons corresponding to the emission characteristic of the dots oriented in direction of the confinement. We find that the traces of phonon confinement seen in the thermodynamical density of states remain in the inelastic current as shown in Fig. 2. For a phonon cavity made of GaAs and a width of $`2b=1\mu `$m, the characteristic energy is $`\mathrm{}\omega _b=7.5\mu e`$V. Therefore, it should be possible to detect the phonon confinement in electron transport experiments through coupled quantum dots.


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# Determining gravitational lensing effects on supernovae observations

## 1 Introduction

Gravitational lensing has become an increasingly important tool in astrophysics and cosmology. In particular, the effects of lensing has to be taken into account when studying sources at high redshifts. In an inhomogeneous universe, sources may be magnified or demagnified with respect to the case of a homogeneous universe with the same average energy density.

Holz and Wald (HW; ) have presented a method for determining gravitational lensing effects in inhomogeneous universes. Their use of realistic galaxy models has been limited to the singular, truncated isothermal sphere (SIS) with a fixed mass. We have generalized their method to allow for matter distributions more accurately describing the actual properties of galaxies. The list of matter distributions have been extended to include the density profile proposed by Navarro, Frenk and White (NFW; ) and we use a distribution of galaxy masses. Also, other matter distribution parameters such as the scale radius of the NFW halo and the cut-off radius of the SIS halo are determined from distributions reflecting real galaxy properties. For further details we refer to Bergström et al.  where also the method of HW has been generalized to allow for general perfect fluids with non-vanishing pressure.

As an application of the method, we investigate gravitational lensing effects on observations of distant supernovae. Specifically, we consider the effects on supernova luminosity distributions.

## 2 Method

The method of HW can be summarized as follows: First, a Friedmann-Lemaître (FL) background geometry is selected. Inhomogeneities are accounted for by specifying matter distributions in cells with energy density equal to that of the underlying FL model. A light ray is traced backwards to the desired redshift by being sent through a series of cells, each time with a randomly selected impact parameter. After each cell, the FL background is used to update the scale factor and expansion (see Fig 1). By using Monte Carlo techniques to trace a large number of light rays, and by appropriate weighting , statistics for the apparent luminosity of the source is obtained.

## 3 Gravitational lensing of supernovae

One of the major goals of cosmology is to determine the cosmological parameters of our Universe. It has been realised that observations of supernovae at high redshift can be used for this purpose, in particular for determining the value of the cosmological constant. In fact, several collaborations with this in mind are in progress, and the first sets of data show an intriguing hint of a non-vanishing cosmological constant .

Although the two groups which have published results mutually agree on the best-fit parameters, it is important to note that the effects of geometry are small (on the order of half a magnitude), and the need to go to even higher redshift to get larger effects is obvious. When observing such distant sources, at redshift greater than unity, it is necessary to estimate the effects of lensing due to inhomogeneities in the matter distribution. In Fig. 2, we compare the effects from gravitational lensing with the intrinsic dispersion of Type Ia supernovae. It is evident that gravitational effects become comparable to the intrinsic dispersion at redshifts larger than one.

Of course, the additional dispersion caused by graviational lensing will be a source of systematic error in the cosmological parameter determination with Type Ia supernovae. However, a possible virtue of lensing is that the distribution of luminosities might be used to obtain some information on the matter distribution in the Universe, see Goliath and Mörtsell .

## 4 Results

In Fig. 3, we compare the luminosity distributions obtained with point masses, SIS lenses and NFW matter distributions in an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ universe, currently favoured by Type Ia supernova measurements  and anisotropy measurements of the cosmological background radiation . Sources are assumed to be perfect standard candles.

The magnification, given in magnitudes, has its zero point at the filled beam value, i.e., the value one would get in a homogeneous universe. Note that negative values corresponds to demagnifications and positive values to magnifications. Results for SIS halos and NFW halos are very similar, even when we have no intrinsic luminosity dispersion of the sources.

In Fig. 4 we have added an intrinsic luminosity dispersion represented by a Gaussian distribution with $`\sigma _m=0.16`$ mag., due to the fact that Type Ia supernovae are not perfect standard candles.

The effect is to make the characteristics of the luminosity distributions even less pronounced, since the form of the resulting luminosity distributions predominantly is determined by the form of the intrinsic luminosity distribution. It is still possible to observationally distinguish whether lenses consist of compact objects or smooth galaxy halos (see also ). Generating several samples containing 100 supernova events at $`z=1`$ in an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ cosmology filled with smooth galaxy halos, we find that for 98 % of the samples one can rule out a point-mass distribution with 99 % confidence level111However, in 1 % of the samples, we will erroneously rule out the halo distribution with the same confidence level.. Furthermore, for a similar sample containing 200 supernovae, the confidence level is increased to 99.99 %.

A more extensive discussion of the luminosity distributions of perfect standard candles obtained with the different halo models at different source redshifts can be found in , where also some analytical fitting formulas for the probability distributions are given.

## 5 Summary

We have generalized the method of Holz and Wald  to allow for matter distributions reflecting the actual properties of galaxies. One of the virtues of this method is that it can be continuously refined as one gains more information about the matter distribution in the universe from observations. The motivation for these generalizations is to use this method as part of a model for simulation of high-redshift supernova observations, the SuperNova Observation Calculator (SNOC) .

In this paper, we have considered lensing effects on supernova luminosity distributions. Results for different mass distributions in smooth dark matter halos were found to be very similar, making lensing effects predictable for a broad range of density profiles. Furthermore, given a sample of 100 supernovae at $`z1`$, one should be able to discriminate between the case with smooth dark matter halos and the (unlikely) case of having a dominant component of dark matter in point-like objects.


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# Entangled Quantum States as Direction Indicators

## Abstract

We consider the use of $`N`$ spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles for indicating a direction in space. If $`N>2`$, their optimal state is entangled. For large $`N`$, the mean square error decreases as $`N^2`$ (rather than $`N^1`$ for parallel spins).

Information theory usually deals with the transmission of a sequence of discrete symbols, such as 0 and 1. Even if the information to be transmitted is of continuous nature, such as the position of a particle, it can be represented with arbitrary accuracy by a string of bits. However, there are situations where information cannot be encoded in such a way. For example, the emitter (conventionally called Alice) wants to indicate to the receiver (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 spin. For example, Alice can send angular momentum eigenstates satisfying $`𝒏\mathbf{}𝑱|\psi =j|\psi `$. This is essentially the solution proposed by Massar and Popescu  who took $`N`$ parallel spins, polarized along $`𝒏`$. The fidelity of the transmission is usually defined as

$$F=\mathrm{cos}^2(\chi /2)=(1+\mathrm{cos}\chi )/2,$$
(1)
where $`\chi `$ is the angle between the true $`𝒏`$ and the direction indicated by Bob’s measurement. The physical meaning of $`F`$ is that $`1F=\mathrm{sin}^2(\chi /2)`$ is the mean square error of the measurement, if the error is defined as $`\mathrm{sin}(\chi /2)`$. The experimenter’s aim, minimizing the mean square error, is the same as maximizing fidelity. We can of course define “error” in a different way, and then fidelity becomes a different function of $`\chi `$ and optimization leads to different results . Here, we shall take Eq. (1) as the definition of fidelity.

Massar and Popescu showed that for parallel spins, $`1F=1/(N+2)`$. 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 . The intuitive reason given for this result was the use of a larger Hilbert space (four dimensions instead of three). This raises the question what is the most efficient signal state for $`N`$ spins, whose Hilbert space has $`2^N`$ dimensions. Will $`F`$ approach 1 exponentially? In this Letter, we show that the optimal result is a quadratic approach, as illustrated in Fig. 1.

Our first task is to devise Bob’s measuring method, whose mathematical representation is a positive operator-valued measure (POVM) . For any unit vector $`𝒏`$, not necessarily Alice’s direction, let $`|j,m(𝒏)|j,m(\theta ,\varphi )`$ denote the coherent angular momentum state  that satisfies

$$𝑱^2|j,m(𝒏)=j(j+1)|j,m(𝒏),$$
(2)
and

$$𝒏\mathbf{}𝑱|j,m(𝒏)=m|j,m(𝒏).$$
(3)
We then have

$$(2j+1)d_{\theta \varphi }|j,m(\theta ,\varphi )j,m(\theta ,\varphi )|=\mathrm{𝟏}_j,$$
(4)
where

$$d_{\theta \varphi }:=\mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta d\varphi /4\pi ,$$
(5)
and $`\mathrm{𝟏}_j`$ is the projection operator over the $`(2j+1)`$-dimensional subspace spanned by the vectors $`|j,m(\theta ,\varphi )`$. If $`N=2`$, so that $`j`$ is 0 or 1, the two resulting subspaces span the whole 4-dimensional Hilbert space. For higher $`N`$, all the rotation group representations with $`j<N/2`$ occur more than once. We then have, if we take each $`j`$ only once, from 0 or $`\frac{1}{2}`$ to $`N/2`$,

$$(2j+1)=\frac{(N+2)^2}{4}\text{or}\frac{(N+1)(N+3)}{4},$$
(6)
for even or odd $`N`$, respectively. For large $`N`$, the dimensionality of the accessible Hilbert space tends to $`N^2/4`$, and this appears to be the reason that the optimal result for $`1F`$ is quadratic in $`N`$, not exponential. An intuitive argument for this quadratic behavior was given by Aharonov and Popescu . No improvement results if we endow the particles with internal quantum numbers such as charge or strangeness, so that the entire Hilbert space can be spanned by states with distinguishable properties, because any additional information that Alice could send to Bob would refer to these new quantum numbers, not to the direction of $`𝒏`$.

We now turn to the construction of Bob’s POVM . Let $`\rho `$ denote the initial state of the physical system that is measured. All these input states span a subspace of Hilbert space. Let 1 denote the projection operator on that subspace. A POVM is a set of positive operators $`E_\mu `$ which sum up to 1. The index $`\mu `$ is just a label for the outcome of the measuring process. The probability of outcome $`\mu `$ is $`\text{tr}(\rho E_\mu )`$. In the present case, $`\mu `$ stands for the pair of angles $`\theta \varphi `$ that are indicated by Bob’s measurement. If we want a high accuracy, these output angles should have many different values, spread over the unit sphere . For example, the components of a continuous POVM, as in Eq. (4), are given by

$$E_{\theta \varphi }=(2j+1)d_{\theta \varphi }|j,m(\theta ,\varphi )j,m(\theta ,\varphi )|.$$
(7)
Such a POVM with $`m=j`$ corresponds to the method of Ref. . The choice $`m=j`$ is not optimal. As shown in  for the case $`N=2`$, signal states with opposite spins give a higher fidelity. With our present notations, these states are $`(|0,0+|1,0(𝒏))/\sqrt{2}`$. They involve two values of $`j`$, but a single value of $`m`$, namely 0.

One possibility to include several values of $`j`$ in a POVM is to take a sum of expressions like (4). This brings no advantage, because a convex combination of POVMs cannot yield more information than the best one of them . Optimal POVM components can always be assumed to have rank one. Therefore each one of them should include all relevant $`j`$:

$$E_{\theta \varphi }:=d_{\theta \varphi }|\theta ,\varphi \theta ,\varphi |,$$
(8)
where

$$|\theta ,\varphi :=\underset{j=m}{\overset{N/2}{}}\sqrt{2j+1}|j,m(\theta ,\varphi ).$$
(9)
To verify that this is indeed a POVM, we note that in $`E_{\theta \varphi }`$ there are diagonal terms $`(2j+1)|j,m(\theta ,\varphi )j,m(\theta ,\varphi )|`$, which give $`\mathrm{𝟏}_j`$, owing to Eq. (4). The off-diagonal terms with $`j_1j_2`$ vanish, as can be seen by taking their matrix elements between $`j_1,m_1|`$ and $`|j_2,m_2`$ in the standard basis where $`J_z`$ is diagonal. We have

$$j_2,m(\theta ,\varphi )|j_2,m_2=𝒟_{mm_2}^{(j_2)}(\psi \theta \varphi ),$$
(10)
with a similar (complex conjugate) expression for $`j_1,m_1|j_1,m(\theta ,\varphi )`$. The rotation matrices $`𝒟`$ are explicitly given by

$$𝒟_{mm_2}^{(j_2)}(\psi \theta \varphi )=e^{im\psi }d_{mm_2}^{(j_2)}(\theta )e^{im_2\varphi },$$
(11)
where the Euler angle $`\psi `$ is related to an arbitrary phase which is implicit in the definition of $`|j,m(\theta ,\varphi )`$. It is crucial that a single value of $`m`$ occurs in all the components of the vectors $`|\theta ,\varphi `$ in Eq. (9), so that the undefined phases $`e^{\pm im\psi }`$ mutually cancel. It then follows from Eq. (4.6.1) of Ref.  that all the off-diagonal matrix elements of $`E_{\theta \varphi }`$ vanish, so that we indeed have a POVM.

While Bob’s optimal POVM is essentially unique in the Hilbert space that we have chosen, Alice’s signal state, which is

$$|A=\underset{j=m}{\overset{N/2}{}}c_j|j,m(𝒏),$$
(12)
contains unknown coefficients $`c_j`$. The latter are normalized,

$$\underset{j=m}{\overset{N/2}{}}|c_j|^2=1,$$
(13)
but still have to be optimized.

The probability of detection of the pair of angles $`\theta \varphi `$, indicated by the POVM component $`E_{\theta \varphi }`$, is

$$A|E_{\theta \varphi }|A=d_{\theta \varphi }\left|\underset{j=m}{\overset{N/2}{}}c_j\sqrt{2j+1}j,m(\theta ,\varphi )|j,m(𝒏)\right|^2.$$
(14)
We have

$$j,m(\theta ,\varphi )|j,m(𝒏)=e^{i\eta }d_{mm}^{(j)}(\chi ),$$
(15)
where $`\chi `$ is the angle between the directions $`𝒏`$ and $`\theta \varphi `$, and the phase $`e^{i\eta }`$ is related to the arbitrary phases which are implicit in the definitions of the state vectors in (15). The important point is that $`e^{i\eta }`$ does not depend on $`j`$ and therefore is eliminated when we take the absolute value of the sum in Eq. (14). Explicitly, we have

$$d_{mm}^{(j)}(\chi )=\mathrm{cos}^{2m}(\chi /2)P_{jm}^{(0,2m)}(\mathrm{cos}\chi ),$$
(16)
where $`P_n^{(a,b)}(x)`$ is a Jacobi polynomial . We shall write $`x=\mathrm{cos}\chi `$ for brevity, so that the fidelity is

$$F=(1+x)/2.$$
(17)
Our problem is to find the coefficients $`c_j`$ that maximize $`x`$. Owing to rotational symmetry, we can assume that Alice’s direction $`𝒏`$ points toward the $`z`$-axis, so that $`d_{\theta \varphi }`$ can be replaced by $`dx/2`$ after having performed the integration over $`\varphi `$. We thus obtain

$$x=\frac{1}{2}_1^1x𝑑x\left|\underset{j=m}{\overset{N/2}{}}c_j\sqrt{2j+1}\left(\frac{1+x}{2}\right)^mP_{jm}^{(0,2m)}(x)\right|^2.$$
(18)
This integral can be evaluated explicitly by using the orthogonality and recurrence relations for Jacobi polynomials . The result is

$$x=\underset{j,k}{}c_j^{}c_kA_{jk},$$
(19)
where $`A_{jk}`$ is a real symmetric matrix, whose only nonvanishing elements are

$$A_{jj}=m^2/[j(j+1)],$$
(20)
and

$$A_{j,j1}=A_{j1,j}=(j^2m^2)/j\sqrt{4j^21}.$$
(21)
The optimal coefficients $`c_j`$ are the components of the eigenvector of $`A_{jk}`$ that corresponds to the largest eigenvalue, and the latter is $`x`$ itself. The result of the calculation is displayed in Fig. 1 for $`m=0`$ (which is best) and $`m=j`$ (which is the method investigated in Ref. ). For $`m=0`$ and large $`N`$, we find that

$$1F5.78317/(N+3)^2.$$
(22)
This ought to be compared to the result of , which was $`1/(N+2)`$. For $`N=2`$ and $`m=0`$, our result coincides with Ref. . For $`N=3`$, we obtain $`F=0.84495`$ with $`c_{3/2}=0.60362`$ and $`c_{1/2}=0.79755`$. The results for larger $`N`$ and intermediate values of $`m`$ gradually fall between those displayed in Fig. 1. Had we chosen a definition of fidelity other than Eq. (1), these results would of course be different, but the method for solving the problem is in principle the same.

It thus appears that it is advantageous to take the lowest possible $`m`$ (namely $`m=0`$ for even $`N`$ and $`m=\frac{1}{2}`$ for odd $`N`$). This is intuitively quite plausible . It would be interesting and instructive to find a direct proof of Eq. (22) that does not rely on a numerical analysis as in the present work.

Work by AP was supported by the Gerard Swope Fund and the Fund for Encouragement of Research. PFS was supported by a grant from the Technion Graduate School.

FIG. 1. $`(1F)`$ as a function of $`N`$. Open circles are for $`m=j`$ (Ref. ), closed circles are for $`m=0`$ (this work).