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# Background galaxies as reddening probes throughout the Magellanic Clouds

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The galactic reddening distribution was initially modeled as a function of galactic latitude in terms of a Cosecant Law (Sandage 1973 and references therein). A dependence on galactic longitude was derived by de Vaucouleurs et al. (1976). The polar cap zero points have been a matter of debate with estimates ranging from reddening free to E(B-V)=0.05. These models do not take into account local reddening variations, since the dust distribution can be very patchy, including high galactic latitudes where many discrete clouds occur (e.g. Reach et al. 1998). The empirical formulation by Burstein & Heiles (1978, 1982) improved the reddening distribution description by relating H I column density and galaxy counts to reddening. Nevertheless the H I and dust contents do not scale in the same way everywhere, in particular in cold dense clouds where hydrogen becomes mostly molecular.

Recently, Schlegel et al. (1998, hereafter SFD98) provided a new estimator of galactic reddening by means of a full-sky 100 $`\mu `$m IRAS/ISSA map which was converted to dust column density by using a dust colour temperature map (17K to 21K) derived from 100 and 240 $`\mu `$m COBE/DIRBE maps. The dust emission map is calibrated in terms of E(B-V) reddening values using determinations from early type galaxies by means of the (B-V) vs Mg2 relation. SFD98’s dust emission reddening E(B-V)FIR appears to be sensitive to the dust content of the cold dense clouds and their accumulation in different lines of sight. Dutra & Bica (2000) compared E(B-V)FIR values with the reddening E(B-V) measured from the stellar content of globular and old open clusters in the Galaxy. It was concluded that differences between these reddening values most probably arise from dust distribution in the cluster foreground and background.

The stellar content of background galaxies offers an opportunity to analyse the total Milky Way dust column in a given line of sight, as well as those of the Magellanic Clouds. Recently the NED database included a facility tool to determine SFD98’s E(B-V)FIR in any direction. However for the main bodies of the LMC and SMC NED adopted uniform foreground reddening values of E(B-V)FIR = 0.075 and E(B-V)FIR = 0.037, respectively. These values are from the average dust emission in their surroundings (SFD98). We emphasize that in the present study we use SFD98’s original facility tool (dust-getval.f) and the whole sky dust emission reddening maps, which include the internal dust emission structure of the LMC and SMC E(B-V)FIR maps. As pointed out by SFD98 they have not analysed the E(B-V)FIR values in the Clouds.

The Magellanic Clouds cover a significant portion of the sky and their background galaxies have not yet been studied in detail due in part to reddening and crowding effects. Oestreicher et al. (1995) mapped the galactic reddening in the direction of the LMC by means of UBV photometry of foreground galactic stars. They obtained a mean reddening of E(B-V)MW = 0.06$`\pm `$0.02. For the SMC the mean foreground reddening is E(B-V)MW$``$ 0.03 considering colour-magnitude diagrams of clusters in the outer parts of the SMC such as K3, L1 and NGC121 (Westerlund 1990). Oestreicher & Schmidt-Kaler (1996) studied the internal reddening distribution of the LMC with dust clouds in the range 0.04 $`<`$ E(B-V)i $`<`$ 0.40. Reddening estimates using background galaxies by means of count methods have been applied for the SMC (Wesselink 1961, Hodge 1974, MacGillivray 1975) and LMC (Gurwell & Hodge 1990). These studies provide very high reddening values in some regions which seem to arise from count losses owing to star crowded fields and extended objects belonging to the Clouds.

In the present study, we observe and analyse integrated spectra of nuclear regions of galaxies behind the main bodies of the Clouds to probe reddening in those lines of sight. We take into account different stellar populations by using template spectra. For comparison purposes we also observed galaxy spectra in the surroundings of the Clouds and towards the Galactic South Polar Cap. In Sect. 2 we present the samples in the directions of the Clouds and South Polar Cap. In Sect. 3 we describe the observations and reductions. In Sect. 4 we establish the nature of the objects. Most of them turn out to be galaxies, but some are extended objects belonging to the Clouds. In Sect. 5 we compare the present galaxy spectra with those of stellar population templates from Bica (1988, hereafter B88), and provide some new templates as well. In Sect. 6 we derive the reddening value for each galaxy behind the Magellanic Clouds and discuss their distribution and overall tranparency of the Clouds. Concluding remarks are given in Sect. 7.

## 2 The samples

In the main bodies of the Magellanic Clouds it is often difficult to establish the morphological type of a galaxy using ESO/SERC Schmidt plates and Digitized Sky Survey atlases. In some cases is not possible to distinguish a galaxy from an extended object belonging to the Clouds, such as a compact H II region or star cluster.

### 2.1 Objects towards the Magellanic Clouds

We selected galaxies behind the Magellanic Clouds and also included objects with uncertain classification and/or excluded from the revised and extended catalogues of extended objects in the SMC (Bica & Schmitt 1995, Bica & Dutra 2000) and LMC (Bica et al. 1999) to establish their nature. These LMC or SMC main body objects are: (i) SMC-DEM92(AM0054-744ne), LMC-DEM225 and LMC-DEM329 from the SMC and LMC catalogues of emission nebulae by Davies et al. (1976); (ii) HS75-8, HS75-10, HS75-13, HS75-18, HS75-20, HS75-22, HS75-23 and HS75-25 from the catalogue of galaxies behind the SMC by Hodge & Snow (1975); (iii) HS17, HS45, HS257, HS356, HS394, HS449 and HS451 from the LMC star cluster catalogue by Hodge & Sexton (1966); (iv) SL887 from the LMC star cluster catalogue by Shapley & Lindsay (1963); (v) OHSC3 from the LMC star cluster catalogue by Olszewski et al. (1988); and (vi) HW60 from the SMC star cluster catalogue by Hodge & Wright (1974).

Figures 1 and 2 show the angular distribution of the observed objects towards the SMC and LMC respectively. We distinguish the literature galaxies that we observed (LEDA and/or NED extragalactic databases) from the objects whose nature will be established in the present study. The latter objects are excellent reddening probes for the central regions of the Clouds. A preliminary discussion of part of the Magellanic Clouds sample was given in Dutra et al. (1998).

The 43 selected objects are presented in Table 1, by columns: (1) designation, (2) and (3) J2000 equatorial coordinates, (4) and (5) galactic coordinates, (6) total magnitude BT (LEDA/NED), (7) exposure time, (8) radial velocity measurement, (9) LEDA and/or NED radial velocity, and (10) LEDA/NED morphological type or estimated by ourselves on ESO/SERC plates when possible. Additional objects included in Table 1 are discussed subsequently.

### 2.2 South Polar Cap

The South Polar Cap sample (b $`<`$ -70) consists of 13 early type galaxies to minimize stellar population variations. SFD98 pointed out the existence of low reddening regions between cirrus filaments near the Galactic Poles, and in some regions outside the Polar Caps as well at intermediate latitudes. Some of the latter regions have E(B-V)FIR values four times less than those estimated for the Polar Caps averaged over regions of diameter 10, which are E(B-V)FIR = 0.015 and 0.018, respectively for the Northern and Southern Polar Caps. We observed these galaxies to create reddening-free galaxy templates under the same observational conditions as the Magellanic Clouds sample. We also observed 9 intermediate galactic latitude galaxies (-64$`{}_{}{}^{}<b<29^{}`$) which are in common with those in B88’s red stellar population templates in early type galaxies. The latter galaxies were observed for comparison purposes. The samples are given in Table 1.

## 3 Observations and reductions

The spectra were collected with the 2.15-meter telescope at the Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito (CASLEO, San Juan, Argentina) in December 1995 and October 1998. We employed a CCD camera attached to the REOSC spectrograph. The detector was a Tektronics chip of 1024$`\times `$1024 pixels of size 24$`\mu \times 24\mu `$. We used a grating of 300 grooves mm-1 producing an average dispersion of $``$143Å/mm or 3.43Å/pixel. The spectral coverage was 3600 Å - 6800 Å. At least two exposures of each object were taken in order to correct for cosmic rays. The exposure times are given in Table 1. The standard stars EG21 and LTT3864 (Baldwin & Stone 1984) were observed for flux calibrations. He-Ar lamp exposures were taken following that of the object or standard star for wavelength calibrations. The slit width was 4′′ providing a resolution (FWHM) of $``$ 14 Å from comparison lines. The slit was set in the E-W direction, and its length projected on the chip (4.7) provided a wide range of pixel rows for background subtractions.

The reductions were carried out at the Instituto de Física, UFRGS (Porto Alegre - Brazil) and Observatorio Astronómico, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Córdoba - Argentina), with the IRAF package following standard procedures. The galaxy spectra were extracted along the slit according to the dimensions of each galaxy nuclear region. Typical extractions were $``$ 8-10′′.

Since the spectral resolution was chosen for stellar population purposes, it is not ideal for velocity measurements. At any rate, we measured velocities and the agreement with values in common with the literature is good (Table 1). In one case, ESO28G12, the current LEDA and NED velocities are significantly different, and the present observation confirms the latter value (Table 1). The measured velocities were used to bring the galaxy spectra to the rest frame, which is necessary for the subsequent stellar population analysis.

Table 1 shows that the galaxies behind the SMC main body are mostly in the range 10000 $`<V(\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s})<`$ 20000, while those behind the LMC main body are mostly in the range 4000 $`<V(\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s})<`$ 6000. Since we have not a priori selected galaxies differently between the two Clouds the result suggests a real effect, in the sense that towards the LMC a closer galaxy ensemble occurs, which has no counterpart in the SMC background.

Figures 3 and 4 show the resulting rest-frame flux calibrated spectra for the Clouds background galaxies, for which the present study established or confirmed their nature (Sect. 4). Most of these galaxies have red stellar population nuclei, but some are bluer and present features denoting recent star formation such as Balmer absorption lines (e.g. HS75-20 in the SMC, Fig. 3) or emission lines typical of nuclear H II Regions (e.g. IRAS05538-6645 in the LMC, Fig. 4).

## 4 Nature of the objects towards the Clouds

We established the nature of the objects towards the Clouds from the radial velocity measurements (Table 1). In the present study velocities resulted either V $`>`$ 1000 km/s or V $`<`$ 200 km/s, undoubtedly characterizing background galaxies and Magellanic Clouds’ internal objects, respectively. Most of the objects observed from Hodge & Snow’s (1975) list are confirmed as galaxies, except HS75-13 and HS75-18 (upper panel of Fig. 5) which turned out to be a SMC star cluster (H86-159) and a SMC H II region (SMC-N63), respectively (see Sect. 4.1). OHSC3 is confirmed as a LMC star cluster (upper panel of Fig. 5). The objects SMC-DEM92 and HW60 in the SMC, and LMC-DEM225, LMC-DEM329, HS17, HS45, HS257, HS356, HS394, HS449, HS451 and SL887 in the LMC (originally classified as star clusters or H II regions) are shown to be galaxies. In the following we comment on the properties of some objects:

One observed galaxy was not catalogued previously (New Galaxy 1, in Table 1).

HW60 appears to have a companion galaxy (New Galaxy 2, located at J2000 01h09m23s -722215′′) at $``$ 0.4 to the northwest with dimensions 0.2$`\times `$0.15. They possibly form an interacting system, which is supported by the fact that the HW60’s spectrum is blue and presents strong emission lines, suggesting recent star formation (Fig. 3). Owing to the high radial velocity we do not have the Hα, \[NII\] and \[SII\] region. Therefore, some nuclear activity cannot be ruled out.

SMC-DEM92 is the brighter member of the interacting pair AM0054-744 (Arp & Madore 1987). We also observed the companion AM0054-744sw (Table 1, Fig. 3). Their radial velocities (Table 1) are comparable, supporting an interaction. A similar case is the interacting pair NGC2187A and NGC2187B (Table 1), which is also an entry in Arp & Madore’s catalogue.

In the SMC background the galaxy HS75-25 is an X-ray emitter (Haberl et al. 2000), see present Table 1 for coordinates and other designation. Behind the LMC are X-ray emitters corresponding to HS17, HS257 (Haberl & Pietsch 1999) and HS356 (Crampton et al. 1997). In particular, HS356 in a rich LMC field has been catalogued not only as star cluster (Hodge & Sexton 1966, Kontizas et al. 1990) but as a galaxy as well (Lauberts 1982).

ESO52IG1 (Lauberts 1982) refers to a compact group of galaxies, studied by Sérsic (1974) – Se10/2, and Arp & Madore (1987) – AM0123-685. The present galaxy is the brightest member of the group (accurate coordinates in Table 1). We point out that the literature coordinates often refer to the group centre. The NED database currently lists the 3 brighter members, but all coordinates are systematically shifted $``$ 0.7 to the northeast.

Some galaxies behind the Clouds are IRAS sources (Table 1).

### 4.1 Discussion of the LMC and SMC extended objects

Bica & Schmitt (1995) and Bica & Dutra (2000) indicated that the object SMC-N63 (Henize 1956) is also present in several other emission object catalogues as L61-331 (Lindsay 1961), SMC-DEM94 (Davies et al. 1976) and MA1065 (Meyssonnier & Azzopardi 1993). The present cross-identification of this object with HS75-18 together with its CCD spectrum (upper panel of Fig. 5) conclusively establishes its nature as an H II region. The stellar content of the H II region was catalogued as the star cluster SMC-OGLE113 (Pietrzyński et al. 1998). The gas reddening including the foreground reddening can be derived from the emission line spectrum (upper panel of Fig. 5) using the Balmer decrement F$`_{H_\alpha }`$/F$`_{H_\beta }`$ = 3.31. Assuming case B of the recombination-line theory the intrinsic ratio is (F$`_{H_\alpha }`$/F$`_{H_\beta }`$)0 = 2.87 (Osterbrock 1989), wherefrom we derive E(B-V) = 0.13. This value is lower than SFD98’s dust emission reddening estimate E(B-V)FIR = 0.37. A possible explanation for this difference is that the molecular cloud related to this recent star forming region is located behind SMC-N63.

Integrated spectra of star clusters as compared to template cluster spectra of different ages and metallicities can provide parameters such as age and reddening (e.g. Piatti et al. 1998, Ahumada et al. 2000). In the present study the signal-to-noise ratios of the H86-159 and OHSC3 spectra are not ideal for a detailed study of the cluster spectral features, but the spectral distribution can be compared to templates (lower panel of Fig. 5).

Using a deep plate from the CTIO 4-meter telescope Hodge (1986) catalogued the star cluster H86-159, and CCD images confirmed that (SMC-OGLE102 – Pietrzyński et al. 1998). The present study cross-identifies the latter object with HS75-13 and its spectrum (upper panel Fig. 5) confirms that one is not dealing with a galaxy. Recently de Oliveira et al. (2000) estimated a total reddening E(B-V)MW+SMC = 0.10 and age $``$ 500 Myr for H86-159 from a colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) extracted from the OGLE photometric database (Udalski et al. 1998). As comparison (lower panel of Fig. 5) we show the reddening-free LMC cluster templates LMC-Int1 and LMC-Int2, respectively of ages 1 and 2 Gyr (Dutra et al. 1999). By applying reddening corrections to the spectrum of H86-159 following Seaton’s (1979) extinction law, we derive E(B-V)MW+SMC = 0.15 and an age of 2 Gyr. In the cluster direction SFD98’s dust emission reddening is E(B-V)FIR = 0.38. The object is central in the SMC and star forming regions are nearby (traces of diffuse gas are denoted by \[OII\] $`\lambda `$3727 Å, \[OIII\] $`\lambda \lambda `$ 4959,5007 Å superimposed on the cluster spectrum), so that important dust emission is expected in the area. The high dust emission reddening as compared to the stellar content methods (CMD and spectrum) suggests the presence of dust in the cluster background within the SMC, similarly to star cluster directions in the Galaxy (Dutra & Bica 2000). In contrast to background galaxies, Cloud clusters do not necessarily probe the total internal dust column of the Magellanic Clouds themselves. The age difference for the cluster can be explained by the fact that it is a poorly populated cluster. The turnoff is close to the photometric limit and the field is rich, which can affect significantly the CMD age determination. On the other hand, stochastic effects for bright stars and field contamination for such low mass clusters may cause important uncertainties on the integrated properties (e.g. Geisler et al. 1997). At any rate the bracket 0.5 - 2 Gyr is a considerable constraint on the cluster age.

OHSC3 (Olszewski et al. 1988) or KMHK362 (Kontizas et al. 1990) was catalogued as a star cluster. It called our attention owing to the compact nature in ESO/SERC sky survey plates. There is a neighbouring galaxy $``$ 2.3 to the northeast. This galaxy (New Galaxy 3) is an inclined spiral with dimensions $``$ 0.6$`\times `$0.2 located at J2000 04h57m05s -751308′′. We suspected a galaxy pair, but this is not confirmed by the OHSC3 spectrum. In this direction SFD98 predict E(B-V)FIR = 0.12, which was applied in the reddening correction of the OHSC3 spectrum (lower panel of Fig. 5). The spectral properties appear to be intermediate between the two template spectra leading to an age $``$ 1.5 Gyr.

## 5 Reddening-free galaxy templates

Red stellar population galaxy nuclei are ideal as reddening probes since the spectral distribution is essentially insensitive to age variations of the components, and present a small dependence on metallicity (B88). Blue stellar populations have stronger continuum variations with age distribution of the components.

B88 studied the stellar populations of early and late type galaxies by means of their nuclear integrated spectra. Early and late type galaxy nuclei were studied separately considering also luminosity differences (B88 and references therein). Spectra with similar equivalent widths and dereddened continuum distribution were grouped into high signal-to-noise templates. These templates represent the most frequent types of stellar populations found in normal galaxy nuclei. The early type templates E1 to E3 represent a decreasing metallicity sequence among giant early type galaxy nuclei dominated by old (red) stellar populations. E7 represents nuclei dominated by old populations but with significant contribution of 0.5 to 1 Gyr components. S1 to S3 represent a similar metallicity sequence to E1-E3 for red stellar populations occurring in giant spiral galaxy nuclei. Finally, S4 to S7 is a sequence of giant spiral galaxy nuclei with increasing contributions of young stellar populations.

For the spectral comparisons between sample galaxies and templates we employ equivalent widths (W) of strong absorption features. We use as metal features K CaII, CN, G Band, MgI and NaI, together with four Balmer lines. In Table 2 are shown W values for templates and individual galaxies measured with continuum tracings and feature windows following Bica & Alloin (1986) and Bica et al. (1994). For bluer stellar populations we increased the resolution of spectral properties by creating the intermediate templates S5/S6 (0.5$`\times `$S5 + 0.5$`\times `$S6), S6/S7A (0.5$`\times `$S6 + 0.5$`\times `$S7) and S6/S7B (0.25$`\times `$S6 + 0.75$`\times `$S7). This procedure in turn provides a higher resolution in reddening determinations since the continuum varies strongly for increasing contents of younger populations in galaxy nuclei. Typical W errors are $``$ 5 % and depend mostly on signal-to-noise ratio and uncertainties in the continuum positioning.

Red stellar populations are the most frequent types in the background samples (Figs. 3 and 4). In addition to the high reddening accuracy that they can provide (Sect. 6), it is important also to minimize possible observational uncertainties by creating templates from galaxies observed in the same observing runs. For these purposes we built new red stellar population templates using South Polar Cap galaxies (Sect. 2.2) and some galaxies in common with B88, which have E(B-V)$`{}_{FIR}{}^{}<`$ 0.02 (Table 3) to avoid dust cirrus (Sect. 2.2). Measurements of Ws for these galaxies (Table 2) allowed us to classify them into types E1, E2 or E3. We dereddened the spectra using E(B-V)FIR values and Seaton’s (1979) galactic extinction law. At this stage, the E2 and E3 member galaxies turned out to be very similar in terms of continuum distribution. Therefore we adopted two reference spectra T1 and T23 as counterparts in the present study of the E1 and E2/E3 templates. Members of T1 and T23 are indicated in Table 3. The remaining galaxies with somewhat higher reddening values (Table 3) have either internal reddening as dusty ellipticals (Ferrari et al. 1999) and/or foreground contribution. It is possible to determine a spectroscopic reddening value E(B-V) by fitting the observed galaxy spectrum to that of the corresponding template with similar Ws and applying continuum corrections according to Seaton’s law. We provide in column 4 of Table 3 results for individual galaxies in the templates T1 and T23 themselves and additional red stellar population galaxies in the same regions.

Table 3 indicates that dust emission and spectroscopic reddening values are consistent for small amounts of reddening. The average of spectroscopic reddening values in the present South Polar Cap sample (13 galaxies) is E(B-V) = 0.02$`\pm `$ 0.01, which is consistent with SFD98’s estimate (Sect. 2.2).

## 6 Reddening towards the Magellanic Clouds

For each background galaxy we searched for the template spectrum with comparable Ws (Table 2) which was assumed as the reddening-free reference stellar population. The resulting templates are shown in column 2 of Table 4. Making use of Seaton’s law and varying the reddening amount we dereddened the observed galaxy spectrum to match the template continuum distribution. The upper panel of Figure 6 illustrates the reddening determination for a red stellar population galaxy (HS394). Note the important reddening effect in the observed spectrum. The lower panel illustrates a blue stellar population nucleus (IRAS05338-6645). The reddening values obtained by this spectroscopic procedure are given in column 3 of Table 4. For comparison purposes the dust emission reddening E(B-V)FIR value is shown in column 4. Finally, in column 5 we give the H I column density in units of 1019 atoms cm-2 (Mathewson & Ford 1984).

The uncertainties in the matching of the continuum distributions is small $`ϵ`$E(B-V) $``$ 0.01. The largest source of uncertainties arises from the determination of the stellar population. For red stellar populations this uncertainty is typically $`ϵ`$E(B-V) $``$ 0.02, and somewhat larger for blue stellar populations ($`ϵ`$E(B-V) $``$ 0.05).

Out of 36 SMC and LMC background galaxies, 31 show good agreement ($`\delta `$E(B-V) $``$ 0.10) between the spectroscopic and dust emission reddening values (Table 4), leading to a r.m.s. of differences of 0.04. One case of significant difference (HS75-8) is behind the SMC main body, and the remaining ones (New Galaxy 1, HS356, HS394 and LMC-DEM329) behind the LMC main body. In the latter 5 cases E(B-V)FIR is larger and H I column densities are important (Table 4). Since the slit apertures are typically 4′′ $`\times `$ 8-10′′ (Sect. 3) and SFD98’s pixel dimensions 142′′ $`\times `$ 142′′, a possible explanation is that the dust distribution is patchy with a scale significant smaller than SFD98’s pixel. We note that out of the five galaxies with significant differences three have red stellar populations (Table 4) and the spectroscopic reddening values are accurate.

The largest difference occurs for New Galaxy 1 which has a very high reddening value E(B-V)FIR = 0.68 (Table 4). This galaxy is projected at the edge of the shell emission nebula LMC-DEM76 (Davies et al. 1976). An alternative explanation to dust small scale variations is that dust in this region may be heated beyond the temperature correction range employed by SFD98. Evidence of a similar effect was pointed out by Dutra & Bica (2000) for the Galactic Center direction.

The galaxy LMC-DEM225 (Fig. 3) has a rare stellar population type dominated by a red stellar population, but with an important Balmer-line in absorption component in the range 3700 Å to 3900 Å. The most similar template in terms of Ws available in B88 is E7 (Table 2). The enhanced Balmer lines in the violet region might be explained by a somewhat younger burst (100 - 500 Myr) in LMC-DEM225, rather than the 1 Gyr burst in E7 (B88). Owing to the stellar population difference we have not determined reddening for this galaxy.

The galaxies projected on SMC surroundings (H I column density $`<`$50$`\times `$1019 atoms cm-2) have an average spectroscopic reddening value of E(B-V) = 0.01$`\pm `$ 0.02. This value is comparable to that of the South Polar Cap galaxies (Sect. 5), showing that at least in the direction of the SMC no significant difference occurs between the Polar region and b $``$ -45. This value is also comparable to the average dust emission reddening in the SMC surroundings E(B-V)FIR = 0.03$`\pm `$ 0.01 (Table 4) and that derived by SFD98 in the same region (Sect. 1). Considering the galaxies behind the SMC main body the average spectroscopic reddening is E(B-V) = 0.05$`\pm `$ 0.05 and that from dust emission in the corresponding lines of sight is E(B-V)FIR = 0.07$`\pm `$ 0.04. By subtracting the average of reddening values in the main body directions from those in the surroundings, both the spectroscopic and dust emission methods predict an internal SMC reddening $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$E(B-V) = 0.04 which is consistent with the fact that important H I column density differences occur between these regions (Table 4).

In the LMC surroundings (HI density column $`<`$50$`\times `$1019 atoms cm-2) the average spectroscopic reddening is E(B-V) = 0.06$`\pm `$ 0.03 which is similar to the average dust emission reddening value in the corresponding directions E(B-V)FIR = 0.08$`\pm `$ 0.04 (Table 4). These values are in turn similar to those derived by SFD98 (Sect. 1). We conclude that in the LMC direction at b $``$ -33 the Milky Way reddening becomes evident as compared to the Polar Cap. For the LMC main body the average spectroscopic reddening is E(B-V) = 0.12$`\pm `$ 0.10. Considering only the red population galaxies, which provide the most accurate determinations, the result is basically the same E(B-V) = 0.15$`\pm `$ 0.11. This suggests an intrinsic dispersion among lines of sight. We estimate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$E(B-V) = 0.06 between LMC main body directions and surroundings.

## 7 Concluding remarks

Spectra of nuclear regions of galaxies towards the Magellanic Clouds are useful reddening probes in the Milky Way and the Clouds themselves. By means of radial velocities we established the nature of $``$ 20 objects in terms of background galaxies or star clusters and H II regions belonging to the Clouds. The radial velocities of the observed galaxies behind the Magellanic Clouds reveal an interesting spatial distribution: most of the brighter galaxies in the main body of the LMC are in the range 4000 $`<V(\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s})<`$ 6000, while for the SMC they are more distant in the range 10000 $`<V(\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s})<`$ 20000.

We estimated reddening values by comparing observed galaxy spectra with reddening-free templates of similar stellar populations. We inferred the reddening distribution throughtout the Clouds by means of 18 galaxies in the main bodies and 18 in the surroundings. The SMC foreground reddening (E(B-V)MW = 0.01) is comparable to that of the South Polar Cap, while that of the LMC, at a lower galactic latitude is higher (E(B-V)MW = 0.06). Both Clouds are quite transparent, at least in the sampled lines of sight. The derived average internal reddening values are E(B-V)i = 0.04 and 0.06, respectively for the SMC and LMC. The resulting statistics on reddening values are likely to be skewed toward lower reddening values, since heavily reddened galaxies are less likely to be detected, especially in the most crowded central regions in the Clouds.

Following the reddening study in the Milky Way by Dutra & Bica (2000), which analyses reddening values derived from dust emission and stellar content of star clusters, the present method probes the foreground and internal reddening in the Clouds by means of background galaxies. We conclude that the dust emission and stellar population reddening values towards the Clouds agree well for 86 % of the present sample. The significant differences found are in the sense of larger E(B-V)FIR values. Possible explanations are patchy dust distribution in a scale smaller than SFD98’s resolution or dust heated above the range of the temperature map.

In order to map out in detail the dust distribution in the Magellanic Clouds large samples of background galaxies are necessary. We note that several of the present main body galaxies are not obvious on Sky Survey images, because of crowding and proximity to extended objects in the Clouds. A fundamental question is whether more reddened zones exist in the Clouds, especially in the LMC. It would be important to carry out higher resolution imaging to identify galaxies for spectroscopy in large telescopes.

## Acknowledgments

We thank the CASLEO staff for hospitality and support during the observing runs. The authors acknowledge use of the CCD and data acquisition system supported under U.S. National Science Foundation grant AST-90-15827 to R.M. Rich. We have made use of the LEDA database, (http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr), and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We use images from the Digitized Sky Survey (produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG W-2166) by means of the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) interface. This work was partially supported by the Brazilian institutions CNPq and FINEP, the Argentine institutions CONICET, ANPCyT and SECYT (UNC), and the VITAE and Antorchas foundations.


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# 1 One of the Feynman diagrams for the exclusive decay of 𝐽/𝜓 into one photon and two pions.

AS-ITP-2001-005

Exclusive decay of $`1^{}`$ heavy quarkonium into photon and two pions

J. P. Ma

Institute of Theoretical Physics , Academia Sinica, Beijing 100080, China

Jia-Sheng Xu

China Center of Advance Science and Technology (World Laboratory), Beijing 100080, China

and Institute of Theoretical Physics , Academia Sinica, Beijing 100080, China

## Abstract

We study the exclusive decay of $`1^{}`$ heavy quarkonium into one photon and two pions in the kinematic region, where the two-pion system has a invariant mass which is much smaller than the mass of heavy quarkonium. Neglecting effects suppressed by the inverse of the heavy quark mass, the decay amplitude can be factorized, in which the nonperturbative effect related to heavy quarkonium is represented by a non-relativistic QCD matrix element, and that related to the two pions is represented by a distribution amplitude of two gluons in the isoscalar pion pair. By taking the asymptotic form for the distribution amplitude and by using chiral perturbative theory we are able to obtain numerical predictions for the decay. Numerical results show that the decay of $`J/\psi `$ can be observed at BEPC and at CESR. Experiment observation of this process in this kinematic region at BEPC and CESR can provide information about how gluons are converted into the two pions and may supply a unique approach to study $`I=0`$ s-wave $`\pi \pi `$ scattering.
Key words: $`J/\psi `$ radiative decay, NRQCD, factorization, chiral perturbative theory
PACS numbers: 13.25Gv,14.40.Gx, 12.38.Bx, 12.39.Fe

Recently it has been proposed to study production of two pions in exclusive processes like $`\gamma +\gamma ^{}\pi +\pi `$ and like $`\gamma ^{}+hh+\pi +\pi `$. These processes will enable us to study how quarks and gluons, which are fundamental dynamical freedoms of QCD, are transmitted into the two pions. In the kinematic region, where the two pions have a much smaller invariant mass than the virtuality of the virtual photon, the scattering amplitudes of the processes take a factorized form. In this factorized form the transition of partons into the two pions are described by distribution amplitudes of partons in the two pions, which are defined with twist-2 operators. For $`\gamma +\gamma ^{}\pi +\pi `$, at the tree-level, only the distribution amplitude of quark appears in the scattering amplitude, the distribution amplitude of gluon appears at loop levels or through evolution of distribution amplitudes, while for $`\gamma ^{}+hh+\pi +\pi `$, at the tree-level, the distribution amplitude of quark as well as that of gluon contribute to the scattering amplitude, and the produced charged pion pair is in isospin $`I=0`$ or $`I=1`$ states. In all of the above processes, the produced system of two charged pions will be dominantly in an isospin $`I0`$ state. This may make it difficult to extract the distribution amplitude of gluon from experimental data, because the two pions produced through gluon conversion are in a $`I=0`$ state. In this letter we propose to study the radiative decay of $`J/\psi `$ into two pions, where the distribution amplitude of gluon appears at the tree-level and the produced two pions are dominantly in a $`I=0`$ state. This makes the extraction of gluon content of a two-pion system relatively easier in experiment. Beside this the decay also provides a possibility to study $`I=0`$ s-wave $`\pi \pi `$ scattering. The decay can be studied with the data sample of $`5\times 10^7`$ $`J/\psi `$’s whose collection will be completed with BES at the end of this year.

We consider the decay in the kinematic region where the two pions have a invariant mass which is much smaller than the mass of $`J/\psi `$. In the limit of $`m_c\mathrm{}`$ the decay amplitude can be factorized, where the nonperturbative effect of $`J/\psi `$ can be presented by a NRQCD matrix element, while the nonperturbative effect of the two pions is represented by the same distribution amplitude of gluon appearing in the exclusive processes mentioned above. Corrections to this limit may systematically be added. With the model for the distribution amplitude of gluon, developed in , we obtain numerical predictions for the decay in the heavy mass limit, and they indicate that the decay is observable at BES.

We study the exclusive decay in the rest frame of $`J/\psi `$:

$$J/\psi (P)\gamma (k_\gamma )+\pi ^+(k_+)+\pi ^{}(k_{}).$$
(1)
The momenta are indicated in the brackets. We denote $`k=k_++k_{}`$ and $`m_{\pi \pi }^2=k^2`$. At leading order of QED, the S-matrix element for the decay is

$$f|S|i=iQ_ced^4z\gamma \pi ^+\pi ^{}|A_\mu (z)\overline{c}(z)\gamma ^\mu c(z)|J/\psi ,$$
(2)
where $`Q_c`$ is the electric charge of c-quark in unit of $`e`$, $`c(z)`$ is the Dirac field for c-quark. At leading order of QCD, two gluons are emitted by the c- or $`\overline{c}`$-quark, and these two gluons will be transmitted into the two pions. Using Wick theorem we obtain:

$`f|S|i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta ^{ab}Q_ceg_s^2\epsilon _\mu ^{}(\gamma ){\displaystyle d^4zd^4yd^4xd^4x_1d^4y_1e^{i(k_\gamma z+k_2y)}}`$ (3)
$`\times 0|\overline{c}_j(x_1)c_i(y_1)|J/\psi \pi ^+\pi ^{}|G_{\mu _1}^a(x)G_{\nu _1}^b(0)|0`$
$`\times [\delta ^4(xx_1)\delta ^4(zy_1)\gamma ^{\mu _1}S_F(xy)\gamma ^{\nu _1}S_F(yz)\gamma ^\mu +\mathrm{}],`$
where $`k_2`$ is the momentum of one of emitted gluons, $`S_F(xy)`$ is the Feynman propagator of c-quark, the dots in the square bracket denotes other five terms. In the limit of $`m_c\mathrm{}`$, a $`c`$\- or $`\overline{c}`$-quark moves with a small velocity $`v`$, this fact enables us to describe nonperturbative effect related to $`J/\psi `$ by NRQCD, in which a systematic expansion in $`v`$ is employed. This expansion is extensively used for inclusive decays. This expansion can also be used here for the matrix $`0|\overline{c}_j(x_1)c_i(y_1)|J/\psi `$ , in which we expand the Dirac field $`c(x)`$ with corresponding NRQCD fields. With the expansion we obtain:

$$0|\overline{c}_j(x_1)c_i(y_1)|J/\psi =\frac{1}{6}(P_+\gamma ^lP_{})_{ij}0|\chi ^{}\sigma ^l\psi |J/\psi e^{ip(x_1+y_1)}+\mathrm{O}(v^2),$$
(4)
where $`\chi ^{}(\psi )`$ is the NRQCD field for $`\overline{c}(c)`$ quark, $`\sigma ^l(l=1,2,3)`$ is the Pauli matrix, and

$`P_\pm `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1\pm \gamma ^0)`$
$`p`$ $`=`$ $`(m_c,0,0,0).`$ (5)
The matrix $`0|\chi ^{}\sigma ^l\psi |J/\psi `$ is proportional to the polarization vector $`\epsilon ^l(J/\psi )`$ at the considered order. In this paper, we neglect the contribution from higher orders in $`v`$, the momentum of $`J/\psi `$ is then approximated by $`2p`$. It should be noted that the effect of higher order in $`v`$ may be added.

Using Eq. (4) we can write the S-matrix element as

$`f|S|i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{24}}Q_ceg_s^2(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(2pkk_\gamma )\epsilon _\mu ^{}(\gamma )0|\chi ^{}\sigma ^l\psi |J/\psi `$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k_1}{(2\pi )^4}H^{l\mu \mu _1\nu _1}(p,k,k_1)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu _1\nu _1}(k,k_1)},`$
and

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }(k,k_1)=d^4xe^{ik_1x}\pi ^+\pi ^{}|G^{a,\mu }(x)G^{a,\nu }(0)|0,$$
(7)
in which $`H^{l\mu \mu _1\nu _1}(p,k,k_1)`$ is a perturbative function, which is the amplitude for a $`c\overline{c}`$ pair emitting a photon and two gluons. The contributions in Eq.(6) can be represented by Feyman diagrams. One of them is given in Fig.1, where the kinematic variables are also indicated. The nonperturbative object $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }(k,k_1)`$ describes how two gluons are converted into $`2\pi `$.

In the heavy quark limit the two-pion system will have a large momentum $`k`$, we take a coordinate system in which the direction of $`𝐤`$ is the $`z`$-direction. For convenience we will work in the light-cone coordinate system, in which the components of $`k`$ are given by

$$k^\mu =(k^+,k^{},\mathrm{𝟎}),k^+=(k^0+k^3)/\sqrt{2},k^{}=(k^0k^3)/\sqrt{2}.$$
(8)
In the light-cone coordinate system we introduce two light cone vectors and a tensor:

$`n^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(0,1,0,0),l^\mu =(1,0,0,0),`$
$`d_T^{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`g^{\mu \nu }n^\mu l^\nu n^\nu l^\mu ,`$ (9)
and we take the gauge

$$nG(x)=0.$$
(10)
The $`x`$-dependence of the matrix element in Eq.(7) is controlled by different scales. The $`x^{}`$-dependence is controlled by $`k^+`$, which is large, while the $`x^+`$ and $`𝐱_𝐓`$-dependence are controlled by the scale $`k^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$, which are small in comparison with $`k^+`$. With this observation we can expand the matrix element in $`x^{}`$ and in $`𝐱_𝐓`$. At the leading order only twist-2 operators contributes to the matrix element. We will neglect higher orders in the expansion, i.e., we only keep contributions of twist-2 operators. Then we obtain:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }(k,k_1)=(2\pi )^4\delta (k_1^{})\delta ^2(k_{1T})\frac{1}{k^+}\frac{1}{x_1(1x_1)}\left[\frac{1}{2}d_T^{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })\right],$$

with

$`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^+}}{\displaystyle \frac{dx^{}}{2\pi }e^{ik_1^+x^{}}\times \pi ^+\pi ^{}|G^{a,+\mu }(x^{}n)G_\mu ^{a,+}(0)|0},`$
$`x_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k_1n}{kn}},\zeta ={\displaystyle \frac{k_+n}{kn}}.`$ (11)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$ is the gluonic distribution amplitude which describe how a pion pair is produced by two collinear gluons, it represents a nonperturbative effect and can only be calculated with nonperturbative methods or extracted from experiment. As it stands, it is gauge invariant in the gauge $`nG(x)=0`$. In other gauges we need to supply a Wilson line operator to make it gauge invariance. With Eq.(11) it is straightforward to obtain the $`S`$-matrix element at the tree-level in our approximation:

$`f|S|i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{12m_c^2}}Q_ceg_s^2(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(2pkk_\gamma )\epsilon ^{\mathrm{}}(\gamma )0|\chi ^{}\sigma ^{\mathrm{}}\psi |J/\psi `$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑x_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x_1(1x_1)}}{\displaystyle \frac{8m_c^2(1x_1)m_{\pi \pi }^2(12x_1)}{4m_c^2(1x_1)m_{\pi \pi }^2(12x_1)}}\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi }).`$
In the calculation we have kept the mass $`m_{\pi \pi }`$. Usually the effect of $`m_{\pi \pi }`$ should be combined with effects of twist-4 operators as a correction to the above result. We have checked that striping the $`m_{\pi \pi }`$ terms changes the results by less than $`5\%`$. In Eq.(13) the nonperturbative effect related to $`J/\psi `$ and that to the two-pion system are separated, the former is represented by a NRQCD matrix element, while the later is represented by the matrix element of gluonic operators, which is defined in Eq.(12). The NRQCD matrix element is related to the wave-function of $`J/\psi `$ in potential models and can be estimated with these models. It can also be calculated with lattice QCD or extracted from experiment. Little is known numerically about the matrix element of gluonic operators, i.e., the function $`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$. A detailed study of properties of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$ can be found in . For our numerical prediction we will use their results for $`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$, in which asymptotic form of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$ is taken as an Ansatz for $`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$. It should be noted that the renormalization scale $`\mu `$ should be taken as $`2m_c`$ in our case. Because it is not very large, the actual shape of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$ may look dramatically different than that of the asymptotic form. Keeping this in mind we take the form $`\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })`$ as that given in :

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^G(x_1,\zeta ,m_{\pi \pi })=60M_2^Gx_1^2(1x_1)^2\left[\frac{3C\beta ^2}{12}f_0(m_{\pi \pi })P_0(\mathrm{cos}\theta _c)\frac{\beta ^2}{6}f_2(m_{\pi \pi })P_2(\mathrm{cos}\theta _c)\right],$$

where $`\theta _c`$ is the scattering angle of $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\beta `$ is the velocity of $`\pi ^+`$ in the center of mass system of the two pions, they are related to $`\zeta `$ and $`m_{\pi \pi }`$ by

$$\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta _c=2\zeta 1,\beta =\sqrt{1\frac{4m_\pi ^2}{m_{\pi \pi }^2}}.$$
(13)
$`C`$ is a constant and takes $`C=1+bm_\pi ^2+O(m_\pi ^4)`$ with $`b1.7\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ , $`M_2^G`$ is the momentum fraction carried by gluons in the pion, its asymptotic value is

$$M_2^G=\frac{4C_F}{N_f+4C_F}.$$
(14)
$`f_0(m_{\pi \pi })`$ and $`f_2(m_{\pi \pi })`$ are the Omnès functions for $`\mathrm{I}=0`$ S- and D-wave $`\pi \pi `$ scattering, respectively. The Omnès function $`f_2(m_{\pi \pi })`$ is dominated by the $`f_2(1270)`$ resonance resulting a peak at $`m_{\pi \pi }=1.275\mathrm{GeV}`$, while the Omnès function $`f_0(m_{\pi \pi })`$ in the relevant $`m_{\pi \pi }`$ region we studied ($`m_{\pi \pi }0.70\mathrm{GeV}`$) can be calculated by the chiral perturbative theory, the result is

$$f_0(m_{\pi \pi })=1+\frac{m_{\pi \pi }^2}{192\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}+\frac{2m_{\pi \pi }^2m_\pi ^2}{32\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}\left[\beta \mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{1\beta }{1+\beta }\right)+2+i\pi \beta \right],$$
(15)
where $`f_\pi =93\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$is the pion decay constant.

With these results we are able to predict the shape of the differential decay branching ratio $`d\mathrm{BR}(J/\psi )/dm_{\pi \pi }`$ numerically where we use the leptonic decay of $`J/\psi `$ to determine the NRQCD matrix element. The result is presented in Fig.2, where we take the parameters: $`m_c=1.5`$GeV and $`\alpha _s(2m_c)=0.31`$. We also calculate the decay branching ratio, where we use a upper cut $`M`$ for $`m_{\pi \pi }`$, hence the decay branching width is a function of $`M`$:

$$\mathrm{BR}(J/\psi )=_{2m_\pi }^M𝑑m_{\pi \pi }\frac{d\mathrm{BR}(J/\psi )}{dm_{\pi \pi }}.$$
(16)
The numerical result for this decay ratio is given in Fig.3. For $`M>0.38\mathrm{GeV}`$, we can read from Fig.3 that the branching ratio is larger than $`10^4`$, for $`M=0.70\mathrm{GeV}`$ the branching ratio is $`9.3\times 10^4`$. Therefore it is likely that the decay mode can be measured using the data collected at BES. In the kinematic region we consider the dominant contribution to the differential decay width is from $`f_0(m_{\pi \pi })`$. The contribution from $`f_2(m_{\pi \pi })`$ is less than $`10\%`$. This gives a possibility to study $`I=0`$ s-wave $`\pi \pi `$ scattering in the decay. Similar results for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$-decay are also obtained, which are presented in Fig.4 and in Fig. 5. For $`m_{\pi \pi }0.70\mathrm{GeV}`$, the branching ratio is $`2.0\times 10^5`$.

It should be noted that the two-pion system produced in the decay is in a S-wave state in our approximation. At twist-2 level, the produced system can also be in a D-wave state, the corresponding tensor distribution amplitude can be found in . However the decay amplitude for a D-wave state is kinematically suppressed, because it is proportional to $`(k_+k_{})^\mu (k_+k_{})^\nu `$ and the relative momentum $`(k_+k_{})`$ of the two pions is a small quantity in the kinematic region considered here. If one replaces the two-pions system by the tensor meson $`f_2(1270)`$, one also finds that the decay amplitude for $`f_2`$ with the helicity $`\pm 2`$ is kinematically suppressed. Although the effect of the D-wave state is suppressed, it can lead to some nonzero azimuthal asymmetries which may be observable in experiment.

To summarize: In this letter we have studied the exclusive decay of $`1^{}`$ heavy quarkonium into one photon and two pions. At leading twist, the S-matrix of the decay takes a factorized form, the nonperturbative effect related to heavy quarkonium and that related to the light hadrons can be separated, the former is represented by a non-relativistic QCD matrix element, while the later is represented by the two-gluon to isoscalar two-pion distribution amplitude. By taking the asymptotic form for the distribution amplitude and by using chiral perturbative theory we are able to obtain numerical predictions for the decay. For $`J/\psi `$ , the branch ratio for $`m_{\pi \pi }0.70\mathrm{GeV}`$ is $`9.3\times 10^4`$, while for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$, the branch ratio for $`m_{\pi \pi }0.70\mathrm{GeV}`$ is $`2.0\times 10^5`$. The decay of $`J/\psi `$ can be studied at BES and the study can provide a possibility to study $`I=0`$ s-wave $`\pi \pi `$ scattering.

Acknowledgments

The work of J. P. Ma is supported by National Science Foundation of P. R. China and by the Hundred Young Scientist Program of Academia Sinica of P. R. China, the work of J. S. Xu is supported by the Postdoctoral Foundation of P. R. China and by The K. C. Wong Education Foundation, Hong Kong.


text:
# References

Relativistic restrictions on the distinguishability

of orthogonal quantum states

S.N.Molotkov and S.S.Nazin

Institute of Solid State Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences

Chernogolovka, Moscow District, 142432, Russia

## Abstract

We analyze the restrictions on distinguishability of quantum states imposed by special relativity. An explicit expression relating the error probability for distinguishing between two orthogonal single-photon states to the time interval $`T`$ between the beginning of the measurement procedure and the moment when the measurement result is obtained by the observer.

PACS numbers: 89.70.+c, 03.65.-w

Many problems of non-relativistic quantum information theory involve the task of distinguishing between two quantum states.

Basic principles of non-relativistic classical physics implicitly assume that any measurement of a physical system can in principle be carried out with arbitrarily high accuracy and without disturbing the system state. Moreover, because of the absence of any restrictions on the maximum possible speed any measurement (even spatially non-local) can in principle be carried out arbitrarily fast (formally, in zero time). Therefore any two states of a physical system can be can be distinguished reliably, instantaneously, and without disturbing them.

In the non-relativistic quantum mechanics any measurement of a quantum system generally disturbs its state. There is a fundamental difference between the distinguishing of a pair of orthogonal and a pair of non-orthogonal quantum states. For orthogonal states the state of a quantum system can be reliably (with zero error probability) identified without disturbing it . The very possibility of obtaining the measurement result instantaneously (in zero time) implicitly contains the absence of any restrictions on the maximum possible speed.

Non-orthogonal states are fundamentally non-distinguishable reliably, i.e., it is never possible to distinguish between the two non-orthogonal states of a quantum system with zero error probability. The exact lower boundary for the probability of this error has been established long ago \[3–5\]. That is why all the non-relativistic quantum cryptographic protocols are based on non-orthogonal states. There exist no fundamental restrictions on instantaneous distinguishing (although with non-zero error probability) between a pair of non-orthogonal states.

The relativistic quantum theory (which actually arises as the quantum field theory, since no meaningful interpretation of relativistic quantum mechanics can be proposed) should also contain additional (compared with the non-relativistic quantum mechanics) restrictions on the time required for distinguishing of quantum states. The fundamental restrictions imposed by special relativity on the measurability of dynamical observables of quantum systems were first considered in 1931 in the paper by Landau and Peierls . Qualitative analysis of Ref.  based on the uncertainty relations together with the limitation on the maximum possible speed led to the conclusion that, in contrast to the non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the relativistic theory the exact determination of momentum can no longer be preformed in any finite time. The authors of Ref.  actually arrive at the conclusion that no non-local dynamical variable of a quantum system can be measured.

In the non-relativistic theory the momentum can in principle be measured with any accuracy in spite of the fact that the momentum eigenfunctions are the plane waves which are infinitely extended in space. To be more precise, the plane wave is not a physically realizable state since it does not belong to the Hilbert space of square-integrable functions and instead can be considered as a generalized eigenvector of the momentum operator  (i.e., a continuous linear functional in the rigged Hilbert space ). Any generalized eigenvector (plane wave) can be approximated with arbitrarily high accuracy by a normalized state localized in a large enough but still finite spatial domain yielding the average value of the momentum operator equal to the plane wave momentum. The momentum measurement assumes the accessibility of the entire state extended over arbitrarily large spatial domain. In the non-relativistic quantum mechanics there are no restrictions on having an instantaneous access to any domain and hence the momentum (and other observables) can in principle measured with arbitrarily high accuracy. However, special relativity implies that the access to an infinite domain requires infinite time and in that sense the dynamical variables are cannot be measured if we demand their determination in a finite time.

The analysis of measurements of relativistic quantum systems was further advanced in 1933 in the work of Bohr and Rosenfeld . Their critical remarks concerning Ref. do not affect the restrictions derived in that work since they actually follow from the basic principles of special relativity. and can only be eliminated rejecting the special relativity theory. The arguments of Ref.  were later reproduced in Ref.  without any changes.

The orthogonality of two quantum states is, strictly speaking, a non-local property, both in Hilbert space and in the Minkowskii space-time. However, this circumstance alone does not imply. for example, that the two orthogonal states cannot be distinguished by local measurements (in the sense that the measurement outcome can be ascribed to a particular spatial point).

Special relativity imposes additional restrictions on the distinguishability of the states of a physical system. These restrictions arise already in the classical relativistic physics. Due to the existence of maximum possible speed, the instantaneous spatially non-local measurements become impossible. In the relativistic theory the very concepts of time in simultaneity are no longer absolute and become meaningful only when related to a certain reference frame. However, the specific nature of the problems related to the transfer of information implies that the events of sending (preparing a state) and receiving information (measuring the state) should be causally related, i.e. separated by a time-like interval which does not depend on the reference frame.

The relativistic restrictions on non-local measurements arising already in the classical case can be seen from the following simple example. Suppose the observer has to distinguish between two extended objects (two rulers with different known lengths $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ aligned along the $`x`$-axis) which are randomly submitted to him. The length is defined in a standard way as the difference between the coordinates of the ruler ends taken in the specified (laboratory) reference frame at the same moment of time . Measurement of length implicitly assumes that the information should be transferred from the ruler ends to the observer which inevitable requires a finite time of at least $`T=L_{min}/2c`$ ($`L_{min}=\mathrm{min}\{L_1,L_2\}`$. More formally, the space-like cross-section of the extended objects (rulers) should be fully covered by the backward light cone issued from the point were the observer is located (Fig. 1).

Similarly, the time required for distinguishing between different three-dimensional classical objects is determined as the time obtained when covering the largest cross-section (by a space-like hyperplane) of the object at a given time by the back part of the light cone (Fig. 1).

Change to a different inertial reference frame moving relative to the laboratory one results in the Lorentz contraction of the geometrical sizes by a factor of $`\sqrt{1\beta ^2}`$ and deceleration of time by the same factor. However, the time measured with the clocks in the laboratory reference frame remains unaltered, and it is this time that is important for the information exchange protocols.

Hence, it is not surprising that distinguishing of infinitely extended objects would require infinite time.

Bearing in mind problems of quantum information theory, we shall be interested in the restrictions imposed by the relativistic quantum theory on the time required to obtain a measurement result when distinguishing between two orthogonal states of a quantum system. Although the arguments on the finiteness of the time required for the observer to obtain a final measurement result are very general in nature, the time in question depends on the particular structure of the states involved.

Below we shall consider the problem of distinguishing between two orthogonal single-photon states for which it is possible establish a general relation between the error of state identification and the time interval $`T`$ between the beginning of the measurement procedure and the moment when the measurement result is obtained by the observer.

For our purposes, it is sufficient to consider only the pure states since any state can be written (although generally not in unique way) as a statistical mixture of pure states.

Suppose we have a pair of orthogonal states in the Hilbert space $``$, $`|\psi _{0,1}`$, $`\psi _0|\psi _1=0`$. There are three natural levels of description of the measurement process in quantum mechanics which differ in the amount of information they provide \[4,12–15\]. The simplest description of the measurement procedure lists only the possible measurement outcomes (i.e., specifies the space of possible measurement outcomes $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$) and gives the relative frequencies (probabilities) of occurrence of particular outcomes (i.e. the probability of the measurement outcome lying in a measurable subset $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Theta }`$) for a given input state of the measured quantum system. In that sense the measurements are in one-to-one correspondence with the positive identity resolutions on $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ in $``$ \[3,4,12–15\], i.e. the families of Hermitian operators $`M_t(\mathrm{\Delta })`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Theta }`$, which act in $``$ and satisfy the following properties:
$`1`$) $`M_t(\mathrm{})=0`$, $`M_t(\mathrm{\Theta })=I`$, (normalization)
$`2`$) $`M_t(\mathrm{\Delta })0`$, (positivity) and
$`3`$) $`M_t(\mathrm{\Delta })=_jM(\mathrm{\Delta }_j)`$, if $`\mathrm{\Delta }=_j\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j\mathrm{\Delta }_i=\mathrm{}`$ for $`ij`$ (additivity).
In this approach, the measure $`\mu _{t,\rho }`$ of a set $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is defined as

$$\mu _{t,\rho }(\mathrm{\Delta })=\mathrm{Prob}_t(\theta \mathrm{\Delta })=\text{Tr}\{\rho M_t(\mathrm{\Delta })\}.$$
(1)
In other words, $`M_t(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ define a positive operator-valued measure. Different parameters $`t`$ correspond to physically different measurements. Here the parameter $`t`$ has the meaning of the moment of time when the measurement began. It should be emphasized that the time $`t`$ is a parameter and does not belong to the outcome space. It has also nothing to do with the moment of time when the final measurement result is obtained by the observer (related to the time required to read off and deliver the classical information from a non-local measuring apparatus to the observer). To avoid confusion, we shall use the capital letter $`T`$ for the latter time.

Specification of a positive operator-valued measure (POVM) is a formal description of a physical device realizing a black box taking a quantum state as an input and producing a classical output which is the probability distribution given by Eq. (1). This description of a physical measuring procedure is not the most detailed one, and any particular identity resolution can generally be realized by various different physical devices.

A special case of POVM is provided by the spectral orthogonal identity resolutions generated by the families of spectral projectors associated with the self-adjoint operators in $``$. These identity resolution satisfy the additional requirement

$$M_t(\mathrm{\Delta }_1)M_t(\mathrm{\Delta }_2)=0,\text{if}\mathrm{\Delta }_1\mathrm{\Delta }_2=0.$$

It should be noted that this approach completely ignores the problem of finding the state of the system after the measurement which gave a particular result. However, since in this paper we shall not be interested in the system state after the measurement, it will be sufficient for us to stay at this simplest level of the measurement procedure so that we do shall not use the concept of instrument (or superoperator) \[4,11–15\].

The states can be reliably distinguished with the measurement described by the following orthogonal identity resolution in $``$

$$𝒫_0+𝒫_1+𝒫_{}=I,𝒫_{0,1}=|\psi _{0,1}\psi _{0,1}|,𝒫_{}=I𝒫_0𝒫_1,$$
(2)
where $`𝒫_{0,1}`$ are the projectors on the subspace $`_{0,1}`$ spanned on the states $`|\psi _{0,1}`$, and $`𝒫_{}`$ is the projector on the subspace $`_{0,1}^{}=(_0_1)^{}`$. For example, for the input state $`|\psi _0`$ the probability of obtaining the outcome in the channel $`0`$ (the outcome space is $`\mathrm{\Theta }=\{0,1,\}`$) is

$$\text{Pr}\{|\psi _0\}=\text{Tr}\{|\psi _0\psi _0|𝒫_0\}=1,$$
(3)
while the probability for obtaining an outcome in the channels $`𝒫_{1,}`$ is identically zero:

$$\text{Pr}\{|\psi _0\}=\text{Tr}\{|\psi _0\psi _0|𝒫_{1,}\}=0.$$
(4)
Similar relations hold for the input state $`|\psi _1`$. Equations (2–4) mean that the orthogonal states are reliably distinguishable. An important point is that the duration of the considered measurement procedure has not yet been mentioned.

Our conclusions concerning the time moment when the final result is obtained will be related to the time required for the result to be “communicated” to the observer; to be more precise, the estimates that will be obtained below provide the lower bound on this time interval. To derive these estimates, one should only know the identity resolution $`M_t(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ rather than the instrument (superoperator) corresponding to the particular measurement procedure. The outcome space $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ can have arbitrarily complicated nature, but in any case the complete description of the measurement procedure involves description of the spatial domains involved (either explicit or implicit) which proves to be sufficient for the derivation of the restrictions imposed by the finiteness of the speed of light.

In the non-relativistic case, specification of the instrument (superoperator) allows one not only to calculate the probabilities of different measurement outcomes but also to determine the state of the quantum system after the measurement which gave a particular outcome. The relativistic quantum theory still lacks a clear and consistent description of the state of quantum system just after the measurement procedure (i.e. the system state vector collapse). Various aspects of this problem were discussed in the papers by Hellwig and Krauss , Aharonov and Albert , Ghirardi et al. , and Finkelstein . A comprehensive description of the measurement procedure should be given by a complete relativistic theory of quantum measurements which is yet to be biult. However, we believe that some problems can be solved even without a detailed description of the measurement procedure.

Up to this moment, we have only used the properties of the abstract Hilbert state space of the quantum system. Therefore, taking into account that the states of the relativistic quantum fields are described by the rays in the Hilbert space state, one can conclude that the measurements over quantum fields are also described by identity resolutions. Formally, the specific realization of the abstract Hilbert space does not matter and in each case can be chosen in the form most suitable for a particular problem considered. However, all quantum states should be associated with some physical system and all the measurements and other manipulations with the quantum systems are performed in space (or space-time in the relativistic case). There exist no physical systems with the degrees of freedom decribed by the state vector in a Hilbert state space separately from the spatial degrees of freedom (because actually the different sorts of particles are classified according to the irreducible representations of the Poincare group containing the subgroup of translations in the Minkowskii space-time ).

In the non-relativistic quantum mechanics, due to the absence of any restrictions on the maximum possible speed, the observer can in principle to instantaneously (at an arbitrarily chosen moment of time) obtain the results of non-local measurements even for infinitely extended states. In the relativistic quantum field theory the situation is quite different. First of all, the quantum field states are generated by the field operators (more accurately, by the operator-valued distributions) . Smearing functions in the momentum representation are defined by their values on the mass shell resulting in the fundamental non-localizability in the position space, i.e. the corresponding smearing function supports in the position spaces are unbounded sets \[7,20–24\]. However, one can construct the free field states whose spatial localization is arbitrarily close to the exponential one ($`\text{exp}(\alpha |𝐱|/\text{ln(ln(}\mathrm{}|𝐱|)))`$, with any $`\alpha `$). In the absence of the limitations on the maximum possible speed this fact alone would not result in any restrictions, just as it is the case for the non-relativistic quantum mechanics. However, in the presence of the maximum allowed propagation speed for both quantum and classical objects the non-localizability (which itself arises when the special relativity requirements are taken into account in the field quantization procedure ) results in a situation which is quite different from the non-relativistic case. Reliable distinguishing of a pair of orthogonal states of a quantum field requires the access to the entire space and hence the time required for the measurement outcome to be conveyed to the observer is infinite. However, the answer of the sort that distinguishing between the two orthogonal states of a quantum field requires infinite time is physically hardly satisfactory.

The formulation of the problem where the observer has the access to the entire space to reliably (with unit probability) distinguish between the two states is hardly sensible. The observer can never control the entire space. Therefore, the requirement of reliable distinguishability should be weakened and reformulate the problem in the following way. The observer controls a finite (although arbitrarily large) spatial domain where he can perform any measurements. Our aim is to find relation between the probability error in the state identification and the domain size (or, equivalently, with the time $`T`$ required for the final result to be obtained by the observer) and the structure of the states themselves. In other words, for the specified input states and domain size (and therefore the time required to obtain the measurement outcome) one has to find the optimal measurement minimizing the state identification error probability.

We shall consider the most interesting for applications case of the gauge field, i.e. the photons. The electromagnetic field operators are written as

$$A_\mu ^\pm (\widehat{x})=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}\frac{d𝐤}{\sqrt{2k_0}}\text{e}^{\pm i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}}e_\mu ^m(𝐤)a_m^\pm (𝐤)$$
(5)
and satisfy the commutation relations

$$[A_\mu ^{}(\widehat{x}),A_\nu ^+(\widehat{x}^{})]_{}=ig_{\mu \nu }D_0^{}(\widehat{x}\widehat{x}^{}),$$
(6)
where $`D_0^{}(\widehat{x}\widehat{x}^{})`$ is the massless field commutator function

$$D_0^\pm (\widehat{x})=\pm \frac{1}{i(2\pi )^3}\frac{d𝐩}{2p_0}\text{e}^{\pm i\widehat{p}\widehat{x}}=\frac{1}{4\pi }\epsilon (x_0)\delta (\widehat{x}^2),\epsilon (x_0)\delta (\widehat{x}^2)\frac{\delta (x_0|𝐱|)\delta (x_0+|𝐱|)}{2|𝐱|}.$$
(7)
Here $`A_\mu ^\pm (\widehat{x})`$ are the creation (annihilation) operators of the four types of photons — two transverse, one longitudinal, and one temporal. The longitudinal and temporal photons are actually fictitious and can be eliminated by introducing an indefinite metrics . Our goal is most simply achieved by using a particular gauge. We shall work in the subspace of physical states employing the Coulomb gauge $`A_\mu =(𝐀,\phi =0)`$ thus dealing with the two physical transverse states of the electromagnetic field. The operator-valued distribution is a three-component vector

$$\stackrel{}{𝝍}(\widehat{x})=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}_{V_0^+}\frac{d𝐤}{\sqrt{2k_0}}\underset{s=\pm 1}{}𝐰(𝐤,s)\{a(𝐤,s)\text{e}^{i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}}+a^+(𝐤,s)\text{e}^{i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}}\},$$
(8)
where $`𝐰(𝐤,s)`$ is a three-dimensional vector describing the helicity state $`s=\pm 1`$,

$$𝐰(𝐤,\pm )=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}[𝐞_1(𝐤)\pm i𝐞_2(𝐤)],𝐞_1(𝐤)𝐞_2(𝐤),|𝐰(𝐤,s)|^2=1,$$
(9)
and $`𝐞_{1,2}(𝐤)`$ are the orthogonal vectors normal to $`𝐤`$. The field operators satisfy Maxwell equations

$$\times \stackrel{}{𝝍}(\widehat{x})=i\frac{}{t}\stackrel{}{𝝍}(\widehat{x}),$$
(10)
$$\stackrel{}{𝝍}(\widehat{x})=0.$$

The smeared field operators can be written as

$$\stackrel{}{𝝍}(f)=\underset{s=\pm 1}{}\stackrel{}{𝝍}(\widehat{x},s)f(\widehat{x},s)𝑑\widehat{x}=$$
(11)
$$\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}_{V_0^+}\frac{d𝐤}{\sqrt{2k_0}}\underset{s=\pm 1}{}𝐰(𝐤,s)\{f(𝐤,s)\text{e}^{i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}}a^+(𝐤,s)+f^{}(𝐤,s)\text{e}^{i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}}a(𝐤,s)\},$$

where the function $`f(𝐤,s)`$ is defined as the restriction of $`f(\widehat{k},s)`$ to the mass shell ($`f(\widehat{k},s)`$ is the four-dimensional Fourier transform of $`f(\widehat{x},s)`$, where $`f(\widehat{x},s)`$ is an arbitrary function from $`𝒥(\widehat{x})`$, i.e. belongs to the space of test functions).

We shall consider the problem of distinguishing between the two single-photon states which differ only in their helicity state. The two single-photon states with orthogonal helicities and the same spatial amplitude $`f`$ can be written as

$$\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_{0,1}=\left(\stackrel{}{𝝍}^+(f_{0,1})\right)|0=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}_{V_0^+}\frac{d𝐤}{\sqrt{2k_0}}f(𝐤)𝐰(𝐤,\pm )a^+(𝐤,\pm )\text{e}^{i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}}|0=$$
(12)
$$𝑑𝐱f(𝐱,t)\stackrel{}{\psi }^+(𝐱,t,\pm )|0=𝑑𝐱^{}f(𝐱^{},t^{})\stackrel{}{\psi }^+(𝐱^{},t^{},\pm )|0,$$

where

$$\stackrel{}{\psi }^+(𝐱,t,\pm )=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}_{V_0^+}\frac{d𝐤}{\sqrt{2k_0}}𝐰(𝐤,\pm )a^+(𝐤,\pm )\text{e}^{i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}},f(𝐱,t)=𝑑𝐤f(𝐤)\text{e}^{i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}}$$
(13)
The state with subscript 0 contains components with different k but only with “$`+`$” helicity, while the state with subscripts 1 only the “$``$” helicity components. The measurement allowing to reliably distinguish between these two states is described by the following orthogonal identity resolution in the one-particle subspace:

$$I=𝓟_0+𝓟_1+𝓟_{},𝓟_{0,1}=|\stackrel{}{𝝍}_{0,1}\stackrel{}{𝝍}_{0,1}|,𝓟_{}=I𝓟_0𝓟_1,$$
(14)
where the operator identity is

$$I=\underset{s=\pm }{}𝓜_t(d𝐱,\pm )=\underset{s=\pm 1}{}_{V_0^+}d𝐤(𝐰(𝐤,s)\text{ }|𝐤,s)(𝐤,s|\text{ }𝐰(𝐤,s)),|𝐤,s=a^+(𝐤,s)|0,$$
(15)
$$𝓜_t(d𝐱,\pm )=(d𝐤\text{e}^{i\widehat{k}\widehat{x}}𝐰(𝐤,\pm )|𝐤,\pm \left)\right(d𝐤^{}𝐤^{},\pm |𝐰(𝐤^{},\pm )\text{e}^{i\widehat{k^{}}\widehat{x}})\frac{d𝐱}{(2\pi )^3}$$
(16)
The time $`t`$ in this identity resolution is a parameter which has the same value for all points $`𝐱`$. As will be seen later, this time should be interpreted as the time at which the measurement by a classical apparatus is performed.

The probabilities of obtaining an outcome in the channels $`𝒫_j`$ are

$$\text{Pr}_i\{|\stackrel{}{𝝍}_j\}=\text{Tr}\{|\stackrel{}{𝝍}_i\stackrel{}{𝝍}_i|𝓟_j\}=|\stackrel{}{𝝍}_j|\stackrel{}{𝝍}_i|^2=$$
(17)
$$\delta _{s,s^{}}|d𝐱d𝐱^{}f^{}(𝐱,t)D_0^+(𝐱𝐱^{},tt^{})f(𝐱^{},t^{})|^2=\delta _{s,s^{}}|_{V_0^+}f^{}(𝐤)f(𝐤)\frac{d𝐤}{2|𝐤|}|^2=\delta _{i,j},$$

The values $`s,s^{}=+`$ correspond to $`i,j=0`$, while $`s,s^{}=`$ correspond to $`i,j=1`$. There is a realtionship between the field amplitudes $`f(𝐱,t)`$ and $`f(𝐱^{},t^{})`$ arising because of the causality resulting from the propagation effects described by the commutator function. This relationship actually reflects the fact that the coefficients (amplitudes $`f(𝐱,t)`$) are actually the expansion coefficients of the state vector $`\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_{0,1}`$ from the Hilbert space in two different bases, $`\stackrel{}{𝝍}^+(𝐱,t,\pm )|0`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝝍}^+(𝐱^{},t^{},\pm )|0`$.

The commutator function is the scalar product of two generalized basis vectors,

$$D_0^{}(𝐱𝐱^{},tt^{})=i0|\stackrel{}{𝝍}^{}(𝐱,t,\pm )\stackrel{}{𝝍}^+(𝐱^{},t^{},\pm )|0,t>t^{}.$$
(18)
Since the field amplitude $`f(𝐱,t)`$ is non-localizable, the measurement described by Eqs. (14–16) and obtaining of a reliable result assumes the access to the entire space (to be more precise, to the entire space-like domain where $`f(𝐱,t)0`$) at time $`t`$. Since the indicated space-like domain is infinite, the observer needs an infinite time to reliably distinguish between the two orthogonal states.

Let us now consider the problem of distinguishing between the two states where only a finite spatial domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (whose supplement to the entire space is $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$) is accessible for the measurements. The outcome space is the set $`\mathrm{\Theta }=\{(+,)\times \mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{?}`$. The measurement outcomes in the domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are accessible to the observer while the outcome ? formally corresponding to the firing of a detecor in the domain $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is inaccessible. The measurement is described by an identity resolution defined on $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ and related to the time moment $`t`$:

$$I=I_{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}}+I_\mathrm{\Omega },I_\mathrm{\Omega }=_\mathrm{\Omega }\left(𝓜_t(d𝐱,+)+𝓜_t(d𝐱,)\right).$$
(19)
Intuitively, this identity resolution corresponds to an “evenly distributed” over the domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ classical apparatus which at each spatial point $`𝐱`$ produces an outcome at time $`t`$ in one of the two channels (“$`+`$” or “$``$”) corresponding to two different helicities.

Although the identity resolution (19) formally seems to be non-local (contains integration over the spatial domains), the outcomes themselves are local (the classical device fires at a particular spatial point producing a measurement outcome associated with that point). In the present case the outome space coincides with the physical position space where all the measurements are actually preformed in contrast to the situation where the measurement is described by the orthogonal projectors (2–4) acting in the Hilbert state space $``$ (which are also implicitly non-local in the physical position space through the non-locality of the state amplitudes); in that case the outcome space consists of three outcomes (0, 1, and $``$) and one cannot tell at which spatial point the detector fired.

The aim is to correctly identify the states which are randomly produced for measurements with known a priori probabilities $`\pi _0`$ and $`\pi _1`$ ($`\pi _0+\pi _1=1`$). In the bases $`\stackrel{}{𝝍}^+(𝐱,t,\pm )|0`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝝍}^+(𝐱^{},t^{},\pm )|0`$ generated by the field operators the states are written as

$$\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_{0,1}=d𝐱f(𝐱,t)\stackrel{}{𝝍}^+(𝐱,t,\pm )|0=d𝐱^{}f(𝐱^{},t^{})\stackrel{}{𝝍}^+(𝐱^{},t^{},\pm )|0,$$
(20)
The outcomes can either occur in the accessible domain or, formally, in the inaccessible domain (corresponding to the outcome “?”). The probability for an outcome to take place in the inaccessible domain $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is

$$\text{Pr}\{\rho ,\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}\}=\text{Tr}\{\rho I_{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}}\}=\pi _0\text{Tr}\{\rho _0I_{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}}\}+\pi _1\text{Tr}\{\rho _1I_{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}}\}=\pi _0p_t+\pi _1p_t=p_t,$$
(21)
where

$$p_t=_{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}}d𝐱|p(𝐱,t)|^2$$
(22)
and

$$p(𝐱,t)=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}\frac{d𝐤}{\sqrt{2|𝐤|}}f(𝐤)\text{e}^{i(\mathrm{𝐤𝐱}|𝐤|t)}$$
(23)
This formula describes the probability for detection of photons with the $`+`$ ($`\pi _0p_t`$) and “$``$”($`\pi _1p_t`$) helicities in the neighbourhood of a random point $`d𝐱`$ at time $`t`$. The function $`f(𝐱,t)`$ is the state amplitude at time $`t`$. If the measurement is performed at a different time $`t_1`$, the contributions will be given by the points where the state amplitude at time $`t_1`$ is different from zero, i.e. the causally related points (see Eq. (18)).

Therefore, if no outcome was detected in the inaccessible domain, the observer should conclude that the outcome took place in the inaccessible domain from the states $`\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_0`$ or $`\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_1`$ with the probabilities

$$p_0=\frac{\pi _0p_t}{\pi _0p_t+\pi _1p_t}=\pi _0\mathrm{and}p_1=\frac{\pi _1p_t}{\pi _0p_t+\pi _1p_t}=\pi _1,$$
(24)
respectively.

Thus, if the measurement outcome took place in the inaccessible domain, the state identification error probability is equal to the product of the conditional probability of incorrect state indentification for the case of the ? measurement outcome and the fraction of the outcomes (relative frequency of these outcomes) in the inaccessible domain $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$:

$$P_e(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }})=(\pi _0p_1+\pi _1p_0)p_t.$$
(25)
If the states are produced with equal probabilities ($`\pi _0=\pi _1=1/2`$), the error probability is imply equal to the fraction of outcomes in $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. The total probability of outcomes in the entire outcome space $`\mathrm{\Omega }\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is 1 due to the normalization condition $`𝑑𝐱|p(𝐱,t)|^2=1`$.

We shall now find the measurement minimizing the error probability for the case where an outcome takes place in the accessible domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (see Ref.  for details). One has

$$P_e(\mathrm{\Omega })=\pi _0\text{Tr}\{\rho _0I_\mathrm{\Omega }\}+\underset{E_0}{\mathrm{min}}\text{Tr}\{\mathrm{\Gamma }E_0\}.$$
(26)
In the basis consisting of the two orthogonal helicities states ($`+`$ and $``$) the operator $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ has the form

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\pi _1\rho _1\pi _0\rho _0=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\pi _1\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_1\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_1|& 0\\ 0& \pi _0\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_0\stackrel{}{|𝝍}_0|\end{array}\right).$$
(27)
The optimal measurement is easily found to be

$$E_0=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 0\\ 0& I_\mathrm{\Omega }\end{array}\right),E_1=\left(\begin{array}{cc}I_\mathrm{\Omega }& 0\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right).$$
(28)
According to Eqs.(26–28), the state identification error for this measurement is zero if the outcome takes place in the accessible domain:

$$P_e(\mathrm{\Omega })=0.$$
(29)
Therefore, making use of Eqs. (25) and (28) one obtains that the total error probability

$$P_e(\mathrm{\Omega },\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }})=P_e(\mathrm{\Omega })+P_e(\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }})=2\pi _0\pi _1p_t=2\pi _0\pi _1_{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}}d𝐱|p(𝐱,t)|^2$$
(30)
and is determined by the fraction of outcomes in the inaccessible domain. Since the domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (and hence its supplement to the entire space $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$) are specified in advance, the error is minimized by choosing the time $`t`$ (the moment when the measurement is performed) corresponding to the minimal fraction of outcomes in the inaccessible domain. This requirement is intuitively obvious since because of the spatio-temporal evolution of the amplitude $`f(𝐱,t)`$ the measurement should be started at the moment when the squared modulus of $`p(𝐱,t)`$ integrated over the accessible domain reaches its maximum (accordingly, its integral over the inaccessible domain is minimal).

To find out whether the outcome did take place in the accessible domain, the observer should look through the entire accessible domain to check if the measuring device (detector) fired in one of the channels (for “$`+`$” or “$``$” helicities) at some point in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ after the time $`t`$. The domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cannot be scanned faster than in time $`T`$ determined by the condition of covering this domain by the backward light cone (see preceding discussion) as required by the special relativity theory.

Thus, we have found an explicit expression for the measurement minimizing the state identification error probability in the problem of distinguishing between the two orthogonal states for the given spatial domain accessible for the measurements (and, accordingly, the time $`T`$ required to obtain the final result). The time $`T`$ of course depends on the structure of the states involved. The time $`T`$ should in no case be interpreted as the duration of the measurement procedure. In each particluar experiment the measurement result arises at a certain random point x in the domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at time $`t`$. In some measurement the point x can coincide with the point where the observer is located at time $`t`$ and in those cases the states will be distinguished instantly ($`T_{min}=0`$). However, in other experiments the outcomes will occur at other spatial points so that some finite time will be required for the observer to check if the measurement outcome did take place in the domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for one of the two helicity channels. Time interval $`T`$ is actually the minimum time allowing a relible distinguishability of the two states for the measurement outcomes arising at arbitrary point of the domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

The authors are grateful to Prof. V.L.Golo for valuable critical remarks.

This work was supported by the Russian Fund for Basic Research (grant N 99-02-18127), the project “Physical foundations of quantum computer” and the program “Advanced technologies and devices of micro- and nanoelectronics” (project N 02.04.5.2.40.T.50).