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# Using the 6dF galaxy redshift survey to detect gravitationally-lensed quasars

## 1 Introduction

Gravitationally-lensed quasars are very valuable. Individual lenses can be used to constrain the properties of the source, the distribution of mass in the deflector, and, through microlensing, the composition of the deflector. The frequency of lensing can be used to place limits on the cosmological model, and the distribution of image separations provides a useful probe of the average deflector mass. These and other uses of lenses are well known, but cases of multiple imaging are still rare ($`50`$ known to date). This is not due to any lack of effort on the part of observers – most lenses are discovered by dedicated re-observation of previously identified high-redshift sources, but the likelihood of lensing is sufficiently low that imaging of up to $`1000`$ fields is required per lensing event.

It is also possible to search for lenses spectroscopically, as opposed to morphologically. A small fraction of quasars are multiply-imaged by galaxies sufficiently nearby to make the composite object appear extended, whilst the quasar is bright enough for its emission lines to be apparent in the composite spectrum. Only one quasar lens – Q 2237+0305 (Huchra et al. 1985) – has so far been discovered in this manner, but the proximity of the deflector (a redshift 0.04 spiral galaxy) has allowed a number of unique measurements to be made, as summarised by Mortlock & Webster (2000). Spectroscopic lens surveys will primarily be sensitive to these particularly useful systems, but the restriction that the deflector be so nearby also means that the frequency of such lenses is considerably lower than that of the general lens population (Kochanek 1992; Mortlock & Webster 2000). Thus a dedicated spectroscopic lens survey would be disastrously inefficient, but galaxy redshift surveys (GRSs) provide large samples of galaxy spectra as a matter of course. Such lens surveys are potentially very efficient, with the only data requirements being follow-up imaging of the best spectroscopic candidates.

Kochanek (1992) and Mortlock & Webster (2000) have already investigated the statistical likelihood of finding lensed quasars in redshift surveys. The 2 degree Field (2dF) GRS (Folkes et al. 1999) should contain at least ten lenses amongst its $`2.5\times 10^5`$ spectra111Effort is now underway to find lensed quasars in the 2dF spectra; this project, along with other spectroscopic lens searches, are described elsewhere in this issue by Mortlock, Madgwick & Lahav (2001)., and the larger Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; York et al. 2000), with close to $`10^6`$ galaxies, may yield up to a hundred spectroscopic lenses.

These results are extended to the near-infrared-selected 6 degree Field (6dF) GRS here. The survey is described in Section 2, and the lens calculation is presented in Section 3. The results are summarised in Section 4.

## 2 The 6dF galaxy redshift survey

The 6dF instrument is a multi-fibre spectrograph for the Anglo-Australian Observatory’s United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope (UKST). The largest project planned for the instrument is the 6dF GRS (e.g., Watson et al. 1998, 2000). This will involve obtaining the spectra of $`1.2\times 10^5`$ galaxy candidates, as identified in the 2 Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS; Jarrett et al. 2000), to a limiting magnitude of $`K=13.0`$. About 175 nights of observing time will be required for the 6dF survey, which should be complete by mid-2003. The 6dF instrument can obtain 150 spectra simultaneously, but the integration time required is rather long, at about an hour, due to the small aperture of telescope ($`1.5`$-m). The spectra will cover the range between 3900 Å and 7400 Å, with a resolution of 3.5 Å and a signal-to-noise ratio of $`10`$ per pixel.

The main scientific justification for the 6dF survey, given the existence of the 2dF GRS and the SDSS, is the near-infrared selection, as this relates directly to the old stellar population of the local galaxies. However there are several other distinctions important to the possibility of finding spectroscopic lenses. With a mean redshift of $`0.05`$ the 6dF GRS is considerably shallower than the 2dF sample, which has an average redshift of $`0.1`$. The 6dF spectra will have a similar signal-to-noise ratio per unit wavelength, but will cover a slightly smaller range.

## 3 Lens statistics

Mortlock & Webster (2000) contains a detailed description of how to calculate the number of spectroscopic lenses expected in a GRS. Briefly, one must integrate over the galaxy (i.e., deflector) and quasar (i.e., source) populations to find the number of lenses which satisfy the following three criteria:

* The total flux from the composite object (i.e., the sum of the light from the galaxy and quasar) must be brighter than the survey’s flux limit.
* The quasar must be bright enough to be detectable in the spectrum of the lens.222Note that the 6dF instrument’s fibres are 6 arcsec in diameter, so that there is little distinction between the total magnitude and the fibre magnitude (as defined in Mortlock & Webster 2001) of an object. For spectroscopic lens searches small fibres – like those of the 2dF instrument – are desirable as they maximise the relative contribution of the quasar’s light to the spectrum. Defining the summed quasar images’ magnitude as $`m_\mathrm{q}`$ and the galaxy’s magnitude as $`m_\mathrm{g}`$, this criterion is taken to be satisfied if $`m_\mathrm{q}m_\mathrm{g}+\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$ (Kochanek 1992). The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$ depends on the quality of the data and the “distinctiveness” of the quasars’ spectra.
* The galaxy must be sufficiently bright that the lens is identified as an extended source; it is this condition which ensures that only lenses with nearby deflectors are selected.

Figure 10 of Mortlock & Webster (2000) shows how the event rate increases with a survey’s magnitude limit and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$, but these results apply to a $`B_\mathrm{J}`$-selected GRS, whereas the 6dF sample is subject to a $`K`$-band flux limit. The target list, taken from the 2MASS survey, is also $`K`$-selected, but $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$ must be calculated in one of the optical bands (e.g., $`B`$, $`B_\mathrm{J}`$ $`V`$, $`R`$, etc.) covered by the 6dF spectra. A further complication is the paucity of available information about the quasar population at infrared wavelengths. These difficulties were circumvented by performing the calculation in the $`B_\mathrm{J}`$-band (in order to facilitate comparison with Mortlock & Webster 2000), parameterising the deflector and source populations in terms of their $`B_\mathrm{J}K`$ colours.

The $`B_\mathrm{J}`$\- and $`K`$-band galaxy luminosity functions measured, respectively, by Folkes et al. (1999) and Loveday (2000) are consistent provided the local galaxy population has $`B_\mathrm{J}K4`$. Hence the 6dF GRS should be approximately equivalent to $`B_\mathrm{J}`$-selected survey with a magnitude limit of $`17`$.

There have been no systematic $`K`$-band quasar surveys, but several attempts have been made to infer the luminosity function at these wavelengths from observations in other bands. Most quasar samples are selected using ultraviolet excess (UVX) methods (e.g., Boyle, Shanks & Peterson 1988), but dust obscuration at these wavelengths may result in serious incompleteness. UVX-selected samples typically have $`B_\mathrm{J}K2.5`$, but the radio-selected Parkes Half-Jansky Flat-Spectrum sources (Drinkwater et al. 1997) are considerably redder, with $`2<B_\mathrm{J}K<10`$ (Webster et al. 1995). These discrepancies should be resolved by upcoming infrared surveys (e.g., Warren, Hewett & Foltz 2000), but, for the moment, a range of $`B_\mathrm{J}K`$ values must be considered.

The uncertainty in the quasars’ colours also affects the determination of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$, their spectral prominence in the survey data. The 6dF spectra will be of similar quality to those obtained during the 2dF survey, for which Mortlock & Webster (2001) estimated $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}2`$. However this figure is relevant only if UVX-selected quasars are representative of the population as a whole. Whilst $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$ is calculated in the $`B_\mathrm{J}`$-band, the 6dF spectra extend past $`V`$ and $`R`$, almost to $`I`$, and quasars with $`B_\mathrm{J}K6`$ would be much more prominent in the red end (close to the $`I`$-band) of the spectra than UVX-selected objects. In terms of the model used here, this leads to an increase in $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$ by up to a magnitude, although the change depends on the exact shape of the galaxy and quasar spectra (specifically, their $`B_\mathrm{J}I`$ colours).

The results of integrating over the deflector and source populations are given in Table LABEL:table:n\_lens. With optical spectroscopy the 6dF GRS should contain about 5 lenses if quasars are as red as inferred by Webster et al. (1995), but there would also be a large number of lensed quasars in the sample that are too red to be detected in the optical spectra. The only way to find these objects would be to obtain infrared spectroscopy of the entire sample; the likely yield from this procedure is also given in Table LABEL:table:n\_lens. In this case the increase of $`N_{\mathrm{lens}}`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$ is not as marked, as such a survey would probe magnitudes at which the quasar luminosity function was much flatter (e.g., Boyle et al. 1988)

## 4 Conclusions

Kochanek (1992) and Mortlock & Webster (2000) showed that several tens of lensed quasars could be discovered in galaxy surveys by examining the spectra obtained for the presence of quasar emission features. The 6dF GRS should contain at least one lens, but could yield as many as seven if quasars are typically very red (e.g., $`B_\mathrm{J}K8`$; c.f. Webster et al. 1995). In this latter case the survey will in fact contain several tens of lenses, but most of these would only be detectable with infrared spectroscopy.

## Acknowledgements

DJM is funded by PPARC and MJD is funded by the Australian Research Council.

## References

Boyle, B.J., Shanks, T., Peterson, B.A., 1988, MNRAS, 235, 935

Drinkwater, M.J., et al., 1997, MNRAS, 284, 85

Folkes, S.R., et al., 1999, MNRAS, 308, 459

Huchra, J.P., Gorenstien, M., Kent, S., Shapiro, I., Smith, G., Horine, E., Perley, R., 1985, AJ, 90, 691

Jarrett, T.H., et al., 2000, AJ, 119, 2498

Kochanek, C.S., 1992, ApJ, 397, 381

Loveday, J., 2000, MNRAS, 312, 557

Mortlock, D.J., Webster, R.L., 2000, MNRAS, 319, 879

Mortlock, D.J., Webster, R.L., 2001, MNRAS, 321, 629

Mortlock, D.J., Madgwick, D.S., Lahav, O., 2001, PASA, in press

Warren, S.J., Hewett, P.C., Foltz, C.B., 2000, MNRAS, 312, 827

Watson, F.G., Parker, Q.A., Miziarski, S., 1998, in Optical Astronomical Instrumentation, ed. D’Odorico, S., SPIE, 834

Watson, F.G., Parker, Q.A., Bogatu, G., Farrell, T.J., Hingley, B.E., Miziarski, S., 2000, in Optical and IR Telescope Instrumentation and Detectors, eds. Iye, M., Moorwood, A.F., SPIE, 123

Webster, R.L., Francis, P.J., Peterson, B.A., Drinkwater, M.J., Masci, F.J., 1995, Nature, 375, 469

York, D.G., et al., 2000, AJ, 120, 1579


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# Relativity of pure states entanglement

## I Introduction

Due to growing interest in quantum information the properties of quantum entanglement became a subject of intensive research. Entanglement gives rise to the peculiarly quantum mechanical correlations that may exist between two subsystems. In spite of several papers published yearly on this subject we do not know the answers to even some very basic questions in this field. An example of such a question: ’Is a given quantum state (pure or mixed) of a composite system separable or entangled?’ For the simplest case of $`2\times 2`$ and $`3\times 2`$ systems this problem is solved by the Peres-Horodeccy criterion , which offers a simple condition sufficient and necessary for separability. On the other hand, in the general case of a $`K\times M`$ bi-partite system such a constructive condition remains still unknown .

Another important issue is the question: ’How much is a given quantum state entangled?’. In other words we are looking for a function of the states that quantifies entanglement. Since we do not quite understand what entanglement means this is a difficult question, but what we can do is to write down conditions that such a measure has to satisfy. A key condition is that the expected entanglement cannot increase unless the two subsystems interact in a quantum mechanical fashion. We therefore require monotonicity under local operations and classical communication (LOCC)  . The idea is that we have two subsystems A and B and two experimenters Alice and Bob who are allowed to manipulate one subsystem each in any way they please. They are also allowed to tell each other, using classical communication, what unitary transformations and measurements they perform on their respective subsystems so that Alice can allow her manipulations to depend on what Bob does and what the results of his measurements are (and conversely for Bob). There exists a very beautiful characterization of LOCC operations due to Nielsen  which we will quote in due course.

Now it is known  that monotonicity under LOCC operations does not suffice to single out a unique measure of entanglement. A major point of the present paper is precisely to study this non-uniqueness in detail. The situation changes if we consider the asymptotic regime, in which it is assumed that we have a source producing infinitely many copies of our quantum system. In this situation suitable continuity requirements can be added to the list of properties that an entanglement measure should satisfy, and there are uniqueness theorems  that show that on pure states the only measure that fullfills all the axioms must agree with a particular measure known as the entropy of entanglement when evaluated on pure states. In the present paper we stay in the regime of one copy however.

Classifying measures of entanglement and selecting the physically relevant ones is a subject of vivid recent interest . One line of research starts with the investigation of invariants of local unitary transformations, like Schmidt coefficients for pure states . Several such invariants for mixed states of a bi–partite system were recently found , and one may try to construct existing measures of entanglement out of them or define new measures with attractive properties. Another possible approach is to quantify the entanglement by the distance of the given state to the closest separable state , or to look for the best separable approximation of an entangled state .

The aim of this paper is to elucidate some geometrical properties of the entanglement of pure states of a composite $`N\times N`$ system. Using the concept of the Schmidt decomposition we illustrate the observation  that in the regime of one copy there exists infinitely many measures of entanglement which generate different orderings of pure states. We establish a link between different measures based on the generalized entropies of the vector of Schmidt coefficients and the various distances between closest separable states .

Applying Nielsen’s characterization of LOCC, that is using the concept of majorization  (to be introduced below), we show that any state $`|\psi `$ gives rise to a natural decomposition of the set of all pure states into four sets: a) the measure zero set of interconvertible states which may be obtained from $`|\psi `$ by local unitary transformation, b) the states accessible from $`|\psi `$ by nonunitary local transformations, c) the states which can be transformed locally into $`|\psi `$, and d)—the set of incomparable states. Once all pure states that can be transformed into each other by local unitary transformations have been identified with each other, the decomposition consists of only three sets, b), c) and d). This picture mimics the well known structure of the light cone in special relativity, which divides the space–time into ’Future’, ’Past’ and the set of space–like, incomparable events. Hence our title (see also ). The same analogy works for the entirely different problem of non–unitary evolution of mixed states under the action of external random fields. Interestingly, in this case the direction of the arrow of time is reversed.

The paper is organized as follows. In section II we review the definitions of the Schmidt decomposition of a pure state, quantum Rényi entropies and majorization, while in Section III we discuss different measures of entanglement, analyze nonhermitian evolution of the density matrices, for which the majorization theory is applicable, and the corresponding local transformations of pure states. Propositions emphasizing the geometrical interpretation of the Weyl chamber consisting of ordered eigenvalues of a density matrix (or ordered vector of the Schmidt coefficients for a pure state of a bi-partite system) are proved in Appendix A.

## II Mathematical tools and definitions

### A  Schmidt decomposition

Consider a pure state $`|\psi `$ of a composite Hilbert space $`=_A_B`$ of size $`N^2`$. Introducing an orthonormal basis $`\{|n\}_{n=1}^N`$ in each subsystem, we may represent the state as

$$|\psi =\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{m=1}{\overset{N}{}}C_{mn}|n|m.$$
(1)
The complex matrix of coefficients $`C`$ of size $`N`$ needs not to be Hermitian nor normal. Its singular values (i.e. square roots of eigenvalues $`\lambda _k`$ of the positive matrix $`C^{}C`$) determine the Schmidt decomposition

$$|\psi =\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}\sqrt{\lambda _k}|k|k^{\prime \prime },$$
(2)
where the basis in $``$ is transformed by a local unitary transformation $`UV`$. Thus $`|k=U|k`$, and $`|k=V|k`$, where $`U`$ and $`V`$ are the matrices of eigenvectors of $`C^{}C`$ and $`CC^{}`$, respectively. The remarkable thing is that only a single sum is involved. In the generic case of a non-degenerate vector $`\stackrel{}{\lambda }`$, the Schmidt decomposition is unique up to two unitary diagonal matrices, up to which the matrices of eigenvectors $`U`$ and $`V`$ are determined. The normalization condition $`\psi |\psi =1`$ enforces $`_{k=1}^N\lambda _k=1`$. Thus the vector $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}=(\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _N)`$ lives in the ($`N1`$) dimensional simplex $`𝒮_N`$. Note that the Schmidt coefficients $`\lambda _k`$ do not depend on the initial basis $`|n|m`$, in which the analyzed state $`|\psi `$ is represented. They are invariant with respect to any local operations $`U_AU_B`$, and thus they may serve as ingredients of any measure of entanglement. The Schmidt simplex is almost but not quite the same as the space of orbits under local unitary transformations; since we can change the ordering of the eigenvalues by means of local unitaries some further identification of points in the Schmidt simplex has to be done before we have the space of orbits. This is discussed below (section IIID).

The Schmidt coefficients of a pure state $`|\psi `$ are equal to the eigenvalues of the reduced density operator, obtained by partial tracing, $`\rho ^A=\mathrm{tr}_B(|\psi \psi |)`$. The pure state is called entangled if it can not be represented in the product form $`|\psi =|\psi _A|\psi _B`$, where $`|\psi _A_A`$ and $`|\psi _B_B`$. This is the case if and only if there exists only one non-zero Schmidt coefficient, $`\lambda _1=1`$.

### B Entangled mixed states

Mixed states $`\rho =_ip_i|\phi _i\phi _i|`$ with $`p_i>0`$ and $`_ip_i=1`$ will also be useful in our considerations. A state $`\rho `$ is called a product state if it can be represented as a tensor product, $`\rho _{prod}=\rho ^A\rho ^B`$, where $`\rho ^A`$ acts in $`_A`$ and $`\rho ^B`$ acts in $`_B`$. A mixed state $`\rho `$ is called separable if it can be represented as a convex combination of product states, $`\rho _{sep}=_jq_j\rho _j^A\rho _j^B`$, where $`q_j>0`$ and $`_jq_j=1`$. A mixed state which is not separable is called entangled. It is easy to see that for pure states both definitions are consistent.

### C Measures of entanglement

There exist several different possibilities to quantify quantum entanglement – for a review on this subject see e.g. . Following Vedral and Plenio  we assume that each measure of entanglement $`E(\rho )`$ has to satisfy the following conditions:

(E1) $`E(\rho )=0`$ if $`\rho `$ is separable, (the condition ’if and only if’ occurs to be too strong )

(E2) Local unitary operations do not change the entanglement, i.e. $`E(\rho )=E(U_AU_B\rho U_A^{}U_B^{})`$

(E3) The expected entanglement cannot increase under operations involving local measurements and classical communication (LOCC), followed by post-selection:

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}\mathrm{tr}\rho _iE\left(\frac{\rho _i}{\mathrm{tr}\rho _i}\right)E(\rho ),$$
(3)
where $`\rho _i=V_i\rho V_i^{}`$, each of the operators $`V_i`$ is local, i.e. $`V_i=V_i^AV_i^B`$, and the set of $`M`$ these operators defines an positive operator valued measure (POVM) , i.e. $`_{i=1}^MV_i^{}V_i=𝕀`$. Note that the definition allows the actions on the two subsystems to be correlated; this is how classical communication enters. Note also that it is the expected entanglement that cannot increase—if we end up with a statistical ensemble of states there may be a non-zero probability of increased entanglement.

Sometimes one imposes further requirements

(E4) Additivity: $`E(\rho _1\rho _2)=E(\rho _1)+E(\rho _2)`$,

(E5) Continuity: $`E`$ is a continuous function of $`\rho `$,

or

(E5’) Asymptotic continuity: $`E`$ is a continuous function of the fidelity for $`n`$ copies of the same pure state, $`|\psi ^{}`$ in the asymptotic limit $`n\mathrm{}`$,

the necessity of which is still disputed in the literature . Condition (E4) is most welcome but difficult to prove in the general case of arbitrary density matrices, while condition (E5) is satisfied by many different measures. On the other hand, condition (E5’) is rather strong: assuming that the measure of entanglement fulfills some technical conditions which quantify asymptotic continuity one may show  that for pure states it is proportional to the entropy of entanglement, $`E(|\psi \psi |)=H_N(|\psi )=\mathrm{tr}(\rho ^A)\mathrm{ln}(\rho ^A)`$. Another set of axioms for the measure of entanglement which singles out the entropy of entanglement is given by Rudolph . Such requirements are indeed appropriate in the asymptotic regime but it remains interesting to investigate the regime of one copy where only the first three conditions are imposed. One of the aims of this paper is to emphasize that there exist several reasonable measures of entanglement, which for pure states are different from the entropy of entanglement.

### D Quantum Rényi entropies

Consider an $`N`$ dimensional vector $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ with non–negative components normalized as $`_{i=1}^Nx_1=1`$. The distribution of $`x_i`$ may be described by the Shannon (information) entropy $`H_N:=_{i=1}^Nx_i\mathrm{ln}x_i`$. A more general family of quantities characterizing the components of $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ is provided by the Rényi entropies  often used in information theory ;

$$H_\alpha (\stackrel{}{x}):=\frac{1}{1\alpha }\mathrm{ln}\left[\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}x_i^\alpha \right].$$
(4)
As usual, in the definition of entropies we adopt the convention that $`0\mathrm{ln}0=0`$, if necessary. The non–negative number $`\alpha 1`$ is a free parameter labeling the generalized entropy. It is easy to see that $`lim_{\alpha 1}H_\alpha =H_N`$, so for consistency we will write sometimes $`H_1`$ for $`H_N`$. The quantities $`H_\alpha (\stackrel{}{x})`$ vary from zero (for $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ with one non–zero component) to $`\mathrm{ln}N`$, for the vector $`\stackrel{}{x}_{}`$ with all components equal, $`x_i=1/N`$. It is possible to show that the generalized entropy is a non–increasing function of its parameter: for any $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ and $`\alpha _2>\alpha _1`$, the inequality $`H_{\alpha _2}(\stackrel{}{x})H_{\alpha _1}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ holds .

Some special cases of $`H_\alpha `$ are of particular interest. Let $`r`$ denote the number of non-zero components of the vector $`\stackrel{}{x}`$, $`x_1`$ be its largest component, and $`|\stackrel{}{x}|=(_{i=1}^rx_i^2)^{1/2}`$ be its length. Then

$$H_0(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{ln}r,H_2(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{ln}|\stackrel{}{x}|^2,H_{\mathrm{}}(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{ln}x_1.$$
(5)
To get some experience with the properties of generalized entropies let us look at Fig. 1, which shows the iso-entropy curves for $`N=3`$. The equilateral triangle, of side length $`\sqrt{2}`$, lies in the plane $`x_3=1x_2x_1`$ and its corners are labeled by the co-ordinates $`(x_1,x_2,x_3)`$. At these three points the generalized entropies attain their minima, $`H_\alpha =0`$, for any values of $`\alpha 0`$. The maximum $`H_\alpha =\mathrm{ln}3`$ is achieved at the center of the triangle, which represents the uniform vector $`\stackrel{}{x}_{}`$. The maximum is rather flat for $`\alpha =1/3`$, as shown in Fig. 1a. For even smaller, non-negative values of $`\alpha `$ the isoentropy lines become parallel to the closest side of the triangle. The entropy $`H_0`$ vanish at the corners of the triangle, is equal to $`\mathrm{ln}2`$ at its sides and equals to $`\mathrm{ln}3`$ for any point inside the triangle. The other example, $`\alpha =5`$, presented in Fig. 1d. is similar to the limiting case $`H_{\mathrm{}}`$, for which the iso-entropy curves are parallel to the most distant side of the triangle.

For any two values of $`\alpha `$ the isoentropy lines intersect. Thus any pair of two different generalized entropies induces a different ordering of vectors $`\stackrel{}{x}`$. In our considerations the vector $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ will represent two entirely different objects:

a) the spectrum $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ of a $`N=3`$ density matrix $`\rho `$

or

b) the vector of the Schmidt coefficients $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ of a pure state of the $`3\times 3`$ composite system.

Thus the pictures of isoentropy lines may have two entirely different meanings. In the former case a), the entropy $`H_N`$ is equivalent to the von Neumann entropy, $`S_N(\rho )=\mathrm{Tr}[\rho \mathrm{ln}\rho ]`$, while other quantum Renyi entropies

$$S_\alpha (\rho )=\frac{1}{1\alpha }\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{tr}\rho ^\alpha $$
(6)
play the role of different measures of degree of mixing . The entropy $`S_0`$ is a function of the rank $`r`$ of the density matrix, i.e. the number of positive eigenvalues of $`\rho `$. Thus it is not a continuous function of its argument in contrast to generalized entropies $`S_\alpha `$ with $`\alpha >0`$. For $`\alpha =2`$ we have $`S_2=\mathrm{ln}[\mathrm{Tr}\rho ^2]=\mathrm{ln}R`$, where the purity (also called inverse participation ratio) $`R(\rho )=[\mathrm{Tr}\rho ^2]^1`$ describes the ”effective number of states” involved in the mixture $`\rho `$ and varies from unity (for pure states) to $`N`$ (for $`\rho _{}=𝕀/3`$). The purity of any state depends only on its Hilbert-Schmidt distance from the maximally mixed state $`\rho _{}`$, represented by the center of the triangle. Thus the curves of constant $`R`$ have the shape of a circle, and the corners – the points most distant form $`\rho _{}`$ – denote three orthogonal pure states. Note that due to the presence of the logarithm in the definition (6) the generalized entropies are additive for product states,

$$S_\alpha (\rho _1\rho _2)=S_\alpha (\rho _1)+S_\alpha (\rho _2)$$
(7)
for any $`\alpha 0`$.

In the latter case b) the centers of the triangles plotted in Fig. 1 represent the maximally entangled states $`|\psi _{}=(|11+|22+|33)/\sqrt{3}`$ and the corners denote separable states. The generalized entropy of a vector of the Schmidt coefficients equals the Renyi entropy of the reduced density matrices, $`H_\alpha (|\psi )=S_\alpha [\mathrm{tr}_B(|\psi \psi |)]=S_\alpha [\mathrm{tr}_A(|\psi \psi |)]`$. In particular $`H_N`$ coincides with the entropy of entanglement of the corresponding pure states of the composite $`3\times 3`$ system. As discussed later, all generalized entropies $`H_\alpha `$ for $`\alpha 0`$ fulfill the conditions (E1)-(E3), and may thus serve as legitimate measures of the pure state entanglement. Moreover, for any product pure states these measures are additive, $`H_\alpha (|\psi _1|\psi _2)=H_\alpha (|\psi _1)+H_\alpha (|\psi _2)`$. This property, following from (7), was pointed out by Vidal .

Note that an analogous construction of isoentropy hypersurfaces in the $`(N1)`$ dimensional simplex may represent mixed states acting in $`_N`$ or pure states of the composite $`N\times N`$ system. For any $`N3`$ the entropies $`H_\alpha (\stackrel{}{x})`$ provide not equivalent measures of uniformity/disorder in the distribution of the components $`x_i`$.

### E Majorization

The question, which of any two vectors is more ’mixed’ (or more disordered) can be approached by the theory of majorization , which allows one to introduce a partial order into the this set. Consider two vectors $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{y}`$, consisting of $`N`$ non-negative components each. We order the components of both vectors in a decreasing order, (what is sometimes emphasized by the notation $`x^{}`$), and assume that they are normalized in the sense $`_{i=1}^Nx_i=_{i=1}^Ny_i=1`$. We say that $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ is majorized by $`\stackrel{}{y}`$, written $`\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}`$, if

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}x_i\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}y_i$$
(8)
for $`k=1,2,\mathrm{},N1`$. Since the sum of all components of both vectors are equal, we obtain an equivalent formulation of majorization

$$\underset{i=l}{\overset{N}{}}x_i\underset{i=l}{\overset{N}{}}y_i$$
(9)
for all $`l=2,\mathrm{},N`$. Vaguely speaking, the vector $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ is more ’mixed’ than the vector, $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ and its distribution function grows slower with the index $`i`$ (see Fig. 2).

The functions which preserve the majorization order are called Schur convex,

$$\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}\mathrm{implies}f(\stackrel{}{x})f(\stackrel{}{y}).$$
(10)
Examples of Schur convex functions include $`f_q(\stackrel{}{x})=_{i=1}^Nx_i^q`$ for any $`q1`$, $`\stackrel{~}{f}_q(\stackrel{}{x})=_{i=1}^Nx_i^q`$ for any $`0<q<1`$, and $`f_e(\stackrel{}{x})=_{i=1}^Nx_i\mathrm{ln}x_i`$ , while these functions with reversed sign are Schur concave. To show a simple application of the theory of majorization let us then consider two density matrices $`\rho _x`$ and $`\rho _y`$, with spectra $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{y}`$, respectively. If $`\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}`$ then due to Schur-convexity $`H_\alpha (\stackrel{}{x})H_\alpha (\stackrel{}{y})`$ for $`\alpha 0`$, since at $`\alpha =1`$ the prefactor $`1/(1\alpha )`$ in (4) changes the sign and the direction of the inequality is reversed.

A classical theorem by Hardy, Littlewood and Polya states that $`\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}`$ if and only if there exists a bistochastic matrix $`B`$ such that $`\stackrel{}{x}=B\stackrel{}{y}`$. A matrix $`B_{ij}`$ with non-negative elements is called bistochastic if sum of all elements in each row and each column equals to unity. As shown later by Horn  this theorem can be strengthened by replacing the word bistochastic by unistochastic. A bistochastic matrix $`B`$ is called unistochastic, if there exists an unitary matrix $`U`$ such that $`B_{ij}=|U_{ij}|^2`$. All $`N=2`$ bistochastic matrices are unistochastic, but this is not true for $`N3`$ .

Another useful feature of majorization is related to the so called $`T`$–transform. It is a matrix of size $`N`$ which acts as identity on all but two dimensions where it has the form of a bistochastic matrix

$$\stackrel{~}{T}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}t& 1t\\ 1t& t\end{array}\right].$$
(11)
so $`t[0,1]`$. One can prove  that $`\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}`$ if and only if there exist a set of $`T`$–transforms $`T_1,T_2,\mathrm{},T_k`$ that $`x=T_1T_2\mathrm{}T_ky`$. The maximal number of the $`T`$–transforms needed is not larger than $`N1`$. A simple proof of this fact and of the Horn lemma is recently provided by Nielsen .

Sometimes it is useful to compare non normalized vectors, such that $`_{i=1}^Nx_i_{i=1}^Ny_i=1`$. In such a case one introduces the relation of weak majorization  defining $`\stackrel{}{x}_w\stackrel{}{y}`$ if

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}x_i\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}y_i\mathrm{for}k=1,2,\mathrm{},N.$$
(12)
Then vector $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ is said to be weakly submajorized by $`\stackrel{}{y}`$, or alternatively, weakly majorized from below.

Majorization technique allows one to obtain effective necessary criteria for separability of mixed states, as recently shown by Nielsen and Kempe : If a mixed state $`\rho `$ is separable then $`\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{d}_A`$ and $`\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{d}_B`$ where $`\stackrel{}{d}_A`$ and $`\stackrel{}{d}_B`$ denote the spectra of the reduced operators $`\rho ^A`$ and $`\rho ^B`$. Since the Rényi entropies are Schur concave, one obtains

$$S_\alpha (\rho ^A)S_\alpha (\rho )\mathrm{and}S_\alpha (\rho ^B)S_\alpha (\rho )$$
(13)
for any separable $`\rho `$ and $`\alpha 0`$, which generalizes earlier results of Horodeccy .

## III Pure states entanglement

### A Distance to the closest separable state

For any entangled state $`\rho _{ent}`$ the distance to the closest separable state $`\rho _c`$ may be considered as a measure of entanglement. Each metric in the space of mixed quantum states will thus define a certain measure of entanglement. Vedral and Plenio have shown  that the Bures distance , $`D_B(\rho _1,\rho _2)^2=22\mathrm{t}\mathrm{r}|\rho _1^{1/2}\rho _2\rho _1^{1/2}|`$, to the closest separable state fulfills the required conditions $`(E1)(E3)`$. For a pure state written in the Schmidt decomposition as in ( 2) the closest separable state is

$$\rho _c=\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}\lambda _k|kkkk|,$$
(14)
(this result is proved in  for $`N=2`$ and stated for larger $`N`$). The state $`\rho _c`$ is typically mixed and its squared Bures distance to the pure state $`\rho _\psi =|\psi \psi |`$ reads

$$D_B^2(\rho _\psi ,\rho _c)=22\sqrt{\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}\lambda _k^2}=22\sqrt{1/R}.$$
(15)
The inverse participation ratio $`R`$ is closely related with the generalized entropy of order $`2`$, namely $`R=\mathrm{exp}(H_2)`$. Therefore the circles around the maximally entangled state, forming the isoentropy lines for $`H_2`$ (see Fig. 1c), form also the lines of the same Bures entanglement. The same concerns generalized concurrence, another measure of entanglement recently introduced by Rungta et al. .

Vedral and Plenio discussed also the quantum relative entropy, $`S(\rho _1|\rho _2):=\mathrm{tr}[\rho _1(\mathrm{ln}\rho _1\mathrm{ln}\rho _2)]`$. Although this quantity does not induce a true metric (e.g. it is not symmetric), the entropy $`S(\rho _{ent}|\rho _c)`$ satisfies $`(E1)(E3)`$ and may be considered as a measure of entanglement. Moreover, they showed that the state (14) is also the ’closest’ separable state to the pure state $`\rho _\psi `$ and the smallest relative entropy $`S_{\mathrm{min}}=_{k=1}^N\lambda _k\mathrm{ln}\lambda _k`$ coincides with the Shannon entropy $`H_N`$ of the vector of the Schmidt coefficients. This quantity, often briefly called entanglement of the pure state $`\rho _\psi `$, is given a special physical meaning, since the probability of not distinguishing between the analyzed entangled state $`\rho _{ent}`$ and the closest separable state $`\rho _c`$ after $`n`$ measurements behaves as $`\mathrm{exp}[nS(\rho _{ent}|\rho _c)]`$ . Furthermore, the entanglement of formation  of any mixed state $`\rho `$, defined as the minimal average entanglement of pure states, the mixture of which generates $`\rho `$, for a pure state reduces to the entropy of entanglement $`H_N`$.

For any entangled pure state (2) one may also look for the closest separable pure state. This problem was recently considered by Lockhart and Steiner , who show that the state $`|\varphi :=|1^{}1^{\prime \prime }1^{}1^{\prime \prime }|`$ corresponding to the largest Schmidt coefficient $`\lambda _1:=\mathrm{max}\{\lambda _i\}`$ is the closest. They were using the Hilbert–Schmidt distance, $`D_{HS}(\rho _1,\rho _2)=[\mathrm{tr}(\rho _1\rho _2)^2]^{1/2}`$, and found $`D_{HS}(\rho _\psi ,\rho _\varphi )=[22\lambda _1]^{1/2}`$. However, the projective cross-ratio $`\kappa :=|\psi |\varphi |^2=\lambda _1`$ is the only parameter determining the standard distances in the space of pure state, e.g. the Bures distance $`D_B(\rho _\psi ,\rho _\varphi )=[2(1\sqrt{\kappa })]^{1/2}`$, the trace distance $`D_{tr}(\rho _\psi ,\rho _\varphi )=2[1\kappa ]^{1/2}`$, and the Fubini–Study distance $`D_{FS}(|\psi ,|\varphi )=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{arccos}(2\kappa 1)=\mathrm{arccos}(\sqrt{\kappa })`$. All these functions are monotone, so the measure of entanglement defined as the distance (any of the above) to the closest separable pure state defines an ordering of the pure states identical with that given by the Chebyshev–like like entropy $`H_{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{ln}\lambda _1`$. We have thus shown that three different settings of the problem of finding for any pure state of an $`N\times N`$ system the closest separable state reduce to the generalized entropies with $`\alpha =1,2`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$.

On the other hand one should not expect that every reasonable measure of pure states entanglement satisfying conditions (E1)–(E3) is neccessarily a function of one of the entropies (4). As a counterexample let us mention the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of the nontrivial block of the Gram matrix introduced in . They can be expressed as symmetric functions of all Schmidt coefficients, e.g. $`_{i>j}\lambda _i\lambda _j`$, $`_{i>j>l}\lambda _i\lambda _j\lambda _l`$,…, where the summation goes over all possible sets of $`k`$ indices, $`k=2,\mathrm{},N`$ . All these functions are Schur–concave , and thus entanglement monotones, although in the general case, (for $`N3`$) they are not functions of the generalized entropies.

### B $`2\times 2`$ system - only one ordering of pure states

For pedagogical reasons we start to analyze the pure state entanglement with the simplest $`2\times 2`$ system. Pure states of this $`N=4`$ system may be parametrized as

$$|\psi _4=(\mathrm{cos}\vartheta _3,\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _3\mathrm{cos}\vartheta _2e^{i\phi _3},\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _3\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _2\mathrm{cos}\vartheta _1e^{i\phi _2},\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _3\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _2\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _1e^{i\phi _1}),$$
(16)
where $`\vartheta _k[0,\pi /2],`$ and $`\phi _k[0,2\pi )`$ for $`k=1,2,3`$. The states $`|\psi `$ belong to the complex projective manifold $`P^3`$. This space is compact and has $`6`$ real dimensions, e.g. three polar angles $`\vartheta _i`$ and three azimuthal angles $`\phi _i`$.

To get a better understanding of $`P^3`$, let us recall the structure of the space of pure states for systems of even lower dimension. The set of the $`N=2`$ pure states, $`|\psi _2=(\mathrm{cos}\vartheta ,\mathrm{sin}\vartheta e^{i\varphi })`$, is described by the Bloch sphere $`P^1S^2`$. The sphere may be drawn in a simplified way by an interval (a meridian labeled by $`\vartheta [0,\pi ]`$), each point of which represents a circle (a parallel $`\vartheta =`$const with $`\phi [0,2\pi )`$). At both poles the circles reduce to a point - see Fig.2.

The $`4`$–dimensional manifold $`P^2`$ of the $`N=3`$ pure states can be parametrized as $`|\psi _3=(\mathrm{cos}\vartheta _2,\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _2\mathrm{cos}\vartheta _1e^{i\phi _2},\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _2\mathrm{sin}\vartheta _1e^{i\phi _1})`$ where $`\vartheta _1[0,\pi /2],`$ $`\vartheta _2[0,\pi /2)`$ and $`\phi _1,\phi _2[0,2\pi ).`$ These local coordinates allow us to describe (almost all of) this space as shown in Fig.2b. The angles $`(\vartheta _1,\vartheta _2)`$, describe a point in the positive octant of a sphere $`S^2`$ (or in an equilateral triangle, what is topologically equivalent) which represents entire $`2`$-torus formed of both phases $`\phi _i`$ . Each point on one the three edges of the octant represents a circle, so each entire edge corresponds to a sphere. Note that three corners of the triangle are not the ’corners’ in $`P^2`$ – in the same sense as for $`N=2`$ the poles (the edges of the meridian) are topologically equivalent to all other points on the sphere.

These two examples help us to imagine the structure of the space $`P^3`$ of the $`N=4`$ pure states. It may thus be represented as a $`1/16`$ part of the hypersphere $`S^3`$, parametrized by the angles $`\vartheta _k`$. Each point inside such a ’hyper-octant’ (or simpler, the tetrahedron) represents a $`3`$–torus spanned by the phases $`\phi _k`$, each point on the face of the simplex a $`2`$–torus and each point of the edge a circle. In general all points of $`P^3`$ are equivalent. This symmetry becomes broken if out of these $`N=4`$ system we distinguish two two-levels subsystems.

The corners of the tetrahedron represent mutually orthogonal states; let us use the standard notation and label them $`(),(+),(+)`$, and $`(++)`$. In principle one could find analytically the entropy of entanglement $`H_1`$ (or any other generalized entropy $`H_\alpha `$) for each point of the simplex (and each choice of the phases $`\phi _k`$). To get a more transparent picture we prefer to plot $`H_1(|\psi )`$ at the surface of the tetrahedron - see Fig.4.

Four corners represent the separable states. The same concerns four edges of the simplex irrespective of the phases running along the circles. Find two maximally entangled Bell states proportional to $`|++|+`$ and $`|+++|`$ localized in the middle of two non-connected edges. The other two orthogonal entangled states, $`(|++|+)/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`(|++|)/\sqrt{2}`$, contain non-zero phase, (minus sign) and do not belong to this plot. The structure of the picture changes with other choices of the basis. If one uses the Bell basis of the four maximally entangled states and places them into four corners then the separability of the edge states depends on the phases $`\phi `$.

One may portray any other generalized entropy $`H_\alpha (|\psi )`$ in a similar plot. However, in this case of pure states of the $`2\times 2`$ system, all measures of the entanglement are equivalent in the sense that one measure is a function of the other one. Therefore any two entanglement measures, $`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$, generate the same ordering

$$E_1(\rho _1)>E_1(\rho _2)E_2(\rho _1)>E_2(\rho _2)$$
(17)
for any density operators representing pure states, $`\rho _i=|\psi _i\psi _i|`$. This is due to the fact that for $`N=2`$ the entanglement of any pure state is completely characterized by only one relevant parameter – the Schmidt angle $`\beta [0,\pi /4]`$, such that $`\lambda _1=\mathrm{cos}^2(\beta )`$ while $`\lambda _2=\mathrm{sin}^2(\beta )`$. The distribution of the Schmidt angle for random pure states distributed according to the natural, unitarily invariant measure on $`P^3`$ is given by $`P(\beta )=3\mathrm{cos}(2\beta )\mathrm{sin}(4\beta )`$. A simple integration allows us to find the mean angle, $`\beta _{P^3}=1/3`$ which incidentally equals the mean entropy of entanglement, $`H_1(|\psi )_{P^3}=1/3`$ .

### C Global transformations of mixed states

Before dealing with the more complicated case of entanglement for the $`3\times 3`$ system let us make a detour to have a closer look at the space of mixed quantum states acting in $`_N`$. Any state $`\rho `$ may brought to a diagonal form by a unitary evolution $`\rho \rho ^{}=U\rho U^{}`$ which preserves the vector of eigenvalues $`\stackrel{}{d}=\{d_1,d_2,\mathrm{},d_N\}`$. The normalization condition assures tr$`\rho =_{i=1}^Nd_i=1`$.

Any physical operation can be described by a superoperator $`\stackrel{~}{M}:\rho \rho ^{}`$ that preserves positivity of the mixed state $`\rho `$. Strictly speaking the term ’positive’ refers to positive semidefinite Hermitian operators, which do not have negative eigenvalues. Moreover, the system may be coupled to an environment, and $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ may be trivially extended to $`\stackrel{~}{M}𝕀`$. A superoperator $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ is completely positive if for all such extensions $`\stackrel{~}{M}𝕀`$ is positive. A completely positive (CP)-map which preserves the trace (normalization of the state is conserved) is called a stochastic map or quantum channel. It is capable to describe any quantum operation including the process of quantum measurement and may be represented in the Krauss form

$$\rho \rho ^{}=\stackrel{~}{M}(\rho )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}A_i\rho A_i^{},$$
(18)
where the set of $`k`$ operators $`A_i`$ satisfies the completeness relation, $`_{i=1}^kA_i^{}A_i=𝕀`$.

In the following we shall consider a smaller subset of quantum channels, which may be written in the form $`\rho ^{}=M(\rho )=_{i=1}^kp_iU_i\rho U_i^{}`$, where each operator $`U_i`$ is unitary and the positive coefficients $`p_i`$ sum to unity. These operations, called external random fields , are unital, since the maximally mixed state $`\rho _{}=𝕀/N`$ is preserved, $`M(\rho _{})=\rho _{}`$. Maps which preserve both the trace and the identity are called bistochastic.

Let $`\stackrel{}{d}^{}`$ denote the vector of eigenvalues of $`\rho ^{}=M(\rho )`$. Then one can prove  the following majorization relation, $`\stackrel{}{d}^{}\stackrel{}{d}`$. Using the concept of the $`T`$–transforms we are going to show the converse: given a vector of eigenvalues $`\stackrel{}{d}^{}`$ such that $`\stackrel{}{d}^{}\stackrel{}{d}`$ there exists a bistochastic map $`M:\rho ^{}=M(\rho )`$, written $`\rho \stackrel{\mathrm{global}}{}\rho ^{}`$. Thus both properties are equivalent,

$$\rho \stackrel{\mathrm{global}}{}\rho ^{}\stackrel{}{d}^{}\stackrel{}{d}.$$
(19)
For simplicity we start discussing the $`N=3`$ case, represented in Fig. 5. Consider a state $`\rho `$ with spectrum $`\stackrel{}{d}`$, (its components are ordered as $`d_1d_2d_3`$) and a transformation $`M_{12}(\rho )=w_{12}U_{12}\rho U_{12}^{}+(1w_{12})\rho `$. The unitary matrix $`U_{12}`$ acts as an identity on all but two first components, (labeling the matrix) which get mixed by the orthogonal submatrix: $`(U_{12})_{11}=(U_{12})_{12}=(U_{12})_{22}=1/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`(U_{12})_{21}=1/\sqrt{2}`$ . In this way $`M_1`$ moves $`\rho `$ along the horizontal line joining $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ with $`\stackrel{}{d}_a=(d_{12},d_{12},d_3)`$, where $`d_{12}=(d_1+d_2)/2`$. The length of this move is controlled by the weight parameter $`w_{12}`$. An analogous transformation $`M_{23}(\rho )`$ defined by the unitary matrix $`U_{23}`$ which preserves the first eigenvalue $`d_1`$, allows one to obtain any state along the line between $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{d}_b=(d_1,d_{23},d_{23})`$, where $`d_{23}=(d_2+d_3)/2`$. It is easy to see that any state with the spectrum fulfilling $`\stackrel{}{d}^{}\stackrel{}{d}`$ (shaded region in Fig. 5a), may be reached by a superposition of operations $`M_{ij}`$, which correspond to $`T`$–transforms. Observe that the lines limiting the accessible region are parallel to the isoentropy curves $`H_0`$ and $`H_{\mathrm{}}`$, respectively.

This construction is simply generalized for arbitrary $`N`$: the accessible region of states with spectra majorized by $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ is a convex polytope with $`2(N1)`$ faces. The point $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ sits in one of its corners, which joins $`N1`$ edges – lines generated from $`\rho `$ by the transformations $`M_{i,i+1}`$, where $`i=1,\mathrm{},N1`$. Therefore every face forming the part of boundary of the accessible region, (corresponding to the light cone in special relativity), may be generated by a sequence of $`(N2)`$ T–transforms acting on $`\stackrel{}{d}`$. The first transform, $`M_{1,2}`$, moves $`\rho `$ along a line paralell to the closest face of the simplex, so the entropy $`H_0`$ is conserved. All other transforms, $`M_{i,i+1}`$, do not influence the largest component, $`d_1`$, so the entropy $`H_{\mathrm{}}`$ remains unchanged.

The majorization property $`\stackrel{}{d}^{}\stackrel{}{d}`$ assures that the Von Neumann entropy and all other entropies $`S_\alpha `$ for $`\alpha 0`$ grow (strictly speaking do not decrease) during the time evolution governed by random external fields $`M`$. Note that the factor $`1/(1\alpha )`$ in the definition (4) is crucial to assure the Schur convexity of $`H_\alpha `$. For any state $`\rho `$ it is easy to specify the set of all states $`\rho ^{}`$ accessible from it by external random fields. For these states, denoted in Fig. 5b by $`F`$ as ’Future’, all generalized entropies satisfy $`S_\alpha (\rho ^{})S_\alpha (\rho )`$. The complementary set of all states $`{}_{}{}^{}\rho `$ which may be transformed by $`M`$ into $`\rho `$ is denoted by $`P`$ as ’Past’. Obviously $`S_\alpha (\rho )S_\alpha (^{}\rho )`$. There exists also a set $`C`$ of noncomparable states, which are not ordered with respect to $`\rho `$ by the majorization relation. This structure is thus analogous to the special relativity picture of the light cone. The actual shape of the ’cone’ (e.g. the size of the angle ’Future’) depends on the degeneracy of $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ as shown in Fig. 5b: in the generic case it is equal to $`2\pi /3`$, while at a bisetrix it shrinks to $`\pi /3`$. The ’world line’ crossing the point $`\rho `$ and representing a possible trajectory in the space of density matrices is located inside the accessible region $`F`$.

The simplex can be divided into $`N!`$ asymmetric simplices (called Weyl chambers in group theory), which differ by the permutation of the components of the vector $`\stackrel{}{d}`$. In the discussed case $`N=3`$ three bisetrices split the simplex into $`6`$ right triangles, one of which is shown in Fig. 5a. A permutation of the components of $`\stackrel{}{d}`$, which might be considered as a special unitary case of the random fields $`M`$, maps $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ into a corresponding symmetric point in one of the other $`6`$ right triangles. Therefore, in the generic case of a non-degenerate spectrum of $`\rho `$, the entire decomposition of the $`N=3`$ equilateral triangle of eigenvalues looks as shown in Fig 5c. The set ’Future’ has the form of a hexagon, which contains two triples of equal sides, and becomes regular for $`\stackrel{}{d}=(3,2,1)/6`$, or in general for $`\stackrel{}{d}=(1/3+x,1/3,1/3x)`$, where $`x(0,1/3]`$. If the spectrum of $`\rho `$ is degenerate (the vector $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ is located at a bisetrix), the hexagon reduces to an equilateral triangle.

It is not difficult to understand how this construction works in higher dimensions: the set ’Future’ is a convex polytope, defined by the convex hull of $`N!`$ points obtained from $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ by permutations of its components. This set contains $`N!`$ identical simplices surrounding $`\rho _{}`$ and is topologically equivalent to a ball. It consists of $`N!`$ vertices (one for each permutation), each joining $`N1`$ edges. Thus in the generic case this polytope has $`N!(N1)/2`$ edges and $`2^N2`$ (hyper)faces of dimension $`N2`$. For $`N=4`$ it is a polyhedron with $`24`$ vertices, $`36`$ edges and $`14`$ faces; if the vertex at $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ lies on the line

$$\stackrel{}{d}(x)=\frac{x}{6}(3,2,1,0)+\frac{1x}{4}(1,1,1,1);0x1$$
(20)
then we obtain an Archimedean solid known as the truncated octahedron whose surface is composed of $`8`$ regular hexagons and $`6`$ squares. By definition an Archimedean solid has regular but not equal faces . If the eigenvalues are degenerate, the polytope degenerates as well. It is amusing to notice that a number of Platonic and Archimedean solids appear for special choices of $`\stackrel{}{d}`$. In particular there is a surface in the simplex at which the degeneracy pattern is $`\stackrel{}{d}=(x_0,x,x,x_3)`$. If the vertex sits at a particular line on this surface then the polytope is the Archimedean cub-octahedron. Similarly, the surfaces determined by $`\stackrel{}{d}=(x_0,x_1,x,x)`$ or $`\stackrel{}{d}=(x,x,x_2,x_3)`$ contain lines giving rise to the truncated tetrahedron. On the lines $`\stackrel{}{d}=(x_0,x,x,x)`$ and $`\stackrel{}{d}=(x,x,x,x_3)`$ we obtain regular tetrahedra while the line $`\stackrel{}{d}=(x,x,y,y)`$ yields regular octahedra. So much about the ’Future’. The set ’Past’ consists of $`N`$ disjoint parts occupying neighbourhoods of each corner, while $`C`$ consists of $`2^N2`$ parts, each for every face of the set ’Future’. The flat geometry of the simplex of eigenvalues has a concrete meaning, since the Euclidean distance between any two points of a Weyl chamber (Fig. 5a) is equal to the Hilbert-Schmidt distance between the global orbits they generate – see Appendix A.

Note that the analogy with special relativity does not work in the simplest case of $`N=2`$, for which all measures of the degree of mixing are equivalent. All of them become functions of one single parameter, (say, the distance to the center of the Bloch ball), and generate the same order of the density matrices. The situation changes for $`N=3`$, for which the spectrum of $`\rho `$ depends on two parameters, as recently discussed by Jozsa and Schlienz . They obtained interesting relations between different entropies $`H_\alpha `$, which may also be proved using the techniques of majorization. which may also be proved using the techniques of majorization. For example, if we move in the triangle of eigenvalues along a circle of a constant $`R`$ and tr$`\rho ^3`$ grows (the entropy $`H_3`$ decreases), then the von Neumann entropy $`H_1`$ increases. Such relations may be figured out by superimposing together different isoentropy curves shown in Fig. 1.

### D Local transformations of pure states

Consider now the set of pure states of an $`N\times N`$ composite system. We divide it into equivalence classes consisting of states that can be transformed into each other by local unitary transformations; the resulting orbit space is precisely a Weyl chamber in the Schmidt simplex. Let $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\psi =\{\lambda _1(\psi ),\mathrm{},\lambda _N(\psi )\}`$ represents the vector of the Schmidt coefficients of a state $`|\psi `$ ordered in the descending order. Define a deterministic LOCC transformation as one that takes states to states (as opposed to one that transforms a state to a statistical ensemble of states). Nielsen has shown that a deterministic LOCC transformation of a given state $`|\psi `$ into $`|\varphi `$ is possible if and only if the corresponding vectors of Schmidt coefficients satisfy the majorization relation

$$|\psi \stackrel{\mathrm{LOCC}}{}|\varphi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi .$$
(21)
Note a similarity between this relation concerning the local transformation of pure states and the condition (19) concerning the global bistochastic transformations of mixed states.

Any pure state $`|\psi `$ allows one to split the Schmidt simplex, representing local orbits of pure states, into three regions: ’Future’ $`F`$, ’Past’ $`P`$, and non-comparable, $`C`$. This structure for $`N=3`$ is shown in Fig. 6. Although Fig. 5 describes an entirely different physical problem, both picures are almost identical. The only difference consists in the arrow of time: the ’Past’ for the evolution in the space of density matrices corresponds to the ’Future’ for the local entanglement transformations and vice versa. The triangles plotted here should not be confused with Fig. 4. In fact the analogous plot for $`N=2`$ would contain only one line, say joining the states $`(++)`$ and $`()`$, along which the entanglement takes all values in $`[0,\mathrm{ln}2]`$. On the other hand, the triangle shown in Fig. 6 may be given a direct geometrical interpretation, provided it is deformed into an octant of the sphere. Formally this may be achieved by the transformation $`\{\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _N\}\{\lambda _1^2,\mathrm{},\lambda _N^2\}.`$ Then the length of the arc joining two points of the Weyl chamber (which covers $`1/48`$ of the sphere) is proportional to the Fubini-Study distance between the local orbits they generate - see Appendix A.

In general, all different measures of mixing increase during the operations considered and all the measures of entanglement decrease. In particular it follows that all generalized entropies $`H_\alpha (\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ and their convex functions belong to the class of entanglement monotones which do not increase during local operations . For example $`H_{\mathrm{}}(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ equals minus maximal Schmidt coefficient, $`\lambda _1`$, a simple entanglement monotone discussed by Vidal . The entropies $`H_\alpha `$ satisfy thus the conditions (E1)-(E3) required for a measure of the entanglement. The maximal fidelity of a pure state, $`F_{\mathrm{max}}(\psi )=(_{i=1}^N\sqrt{\lambda _i})^2/N`$ , a convex function of the generalized entropy, $`F_{\mathrm{max}}=\mathrm{exp}(H_{1/2})/N`$, is also an entanglement monotone due to the Schur convexity. So is another measure of entanglement called robustness, which is defined as the minimal amount of separable noise that has to be mixed with the analyzed state to wash out completely its quantum correlations . For pure states the robustness equals $`NF_{\mathrm{max}}1=\mathrm{exp}(H_{1/2})1`$.

Another quantity used to characterize the entanglement is called negativity . It is based on the concept of partial transposition (transposition in one of the two subsystems). It is known that for any separable state $`\rho `$ its partial transpose $`\rho ^{T_2}`$ is positive , and the negativity is expressed by the trace norm, $`t:=|\rho ^{T_2}|_{\mathrm{tr}}1`$, i.e. by the sum of absolute values of the eigenvalues. Negativity is an entanglement monotone and satisfies the axioms (E1)–(E3) . For pure states of $`2\times 2`$ system it is equal to concurrence, used by Wootters to calculate the entanglement of formation . For any $`N\times N`$ pure state written in the Schmidt form (2), the partially transposed matrix $`\rho ^{T_2}`$ has a simple block structure: it consists of $`N`$ Schmidt numbers at the diagonal (which sum to unity) and $`N(N1)/2`$ blocks of size $`2`$, one for each pair of different indices $`(i,j)`$. Eigenvalues of each block are $`\pm \sqrt{\lambda _i\lambda _j}`$, so the negativity reads

$$t(|\psi )=2\underset{i>j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\sqrt{\lambda _i\lambda _j}=\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\sqrt{\lambda _i}\right)^21,$$
(22)
which varies from $`0`$ for separable states to $`N1`$ for maximally entangled states. It is easy to see that for pure states the negativity is equal to robustness, so is also a function of the quantum Rényi entropy entropy of order one half, $`t=\mathrm{exp}(H_{1/2})1`$. Interestingly, the same behaviour for the pure states is characteristic to the cross norm \- another measure of entanglement introduced by Rudolph . Although negativity $`t`$ does not satisfy (E4) its nonlinear function, $`H_{1/2}=\mathrm{ln}(t+1)`$, is additive in the general case of arbitrary mixed states, as all other Rényi entropies. On the other hand, the negativity suffers a serious drawback: it is not capable to detect so-called bound entangled states with positive partial transpose, which are known to exist for quantum systems with dim$`8`$ .

Let us emphasize that the analogy to special relativity holds for the description of local transformations of pure states entanglement. This analogy was put forward explicitly in the paper by Hwang et al.  and used (correctly) to describe a related problem of the mixed states entanglement. As we point out in this work, the same analogy is useful also in investigating the pure states entanglement. However, the authors of  discussed only the simplest $`2\times 2`$ problem, for which all entanglement measures for pure states generate the same ordering. In the general case this is no longer true. For example the maximal fidelity $`F_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and the entropy of entanglement $`H_1`$ generate different ordering of pure states for $`N>2`$, as can be deduced in Fig. 1 for $`N=3`$. The fact that various entanglement measures generate different ordering of the set of pure states (condition (17) is violated), has been raised in . Vidal concludes that it is necessary to use $`N1`$ different measures of entanglement to provide a detailed description of the set of pure states of $`N\times N`$ system. This is a consequence of the fact that there exists exactly $`N1`$ independent Schmidt coefficients in the decomposition (2). A possible set of entanglement monotones is given by the sum of the $`Nk+1`$ smallest Schmidt coefficients, $`E_k=_{i=k}^N\lambda _i`$, with $`k=2,\mathrm{}N`$ . Note that the sum of $`N1`$ smallest coefficients is related to the already mentioned monotone, the largest coefficient, $`\lambda _1=1E_2`$.

Pure states with the same set of the Schmidt coefficients (e.g. $`6`$ points in fig. 6c generated be reflections with respect to all bisetrices) are called interconvertible , since they (and only they) might be transformed reversibly by local transformations. The generic orbit of pure states equivalent by local unitary operations has $`N^2N1`$ dimensions, and this number decreases in the case of a degeneracy in the vector of the Schmidt coefficients . On the other hand, the ’noncomparable’ states cannot be joined by a local transformation in any direction. The existence of such pairs of states (analogous to the space–like events in special relativity) was recently discussed in . In fact, Nielsen conjectured  that the probability of picking at random two incomparable states out of the set of all $`N\times N`$ pure states (according to the natural, rotationally invariant measure) tends to unity in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$. We may now support this conjecture with a simple geometrical argument: the states close to the faces of the Schmidt simplex are incomparable, (see Fig. 6c) and it is well known that for large dimensional simplices almost all its volume is contained in a thin ’skin’ close to its faces. Furthermore, the natural, unitarily invariant measure on $`P^{N1}`$ generates the Hilbert-Schmidt measure in the Schmidt simplex , according to which the degeneracies in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are avoided: the probability distribution exhibits maxima in vicinity of the faces of the simplex, while its minima occur at the center of the simplex and along the symmetry planes (bisetrices of the triangle) including the corners.

### E Probabilistic transformations of pure states

Finally we discuss the case when the majorization condition (21) is not fulfilled, so that deterministic local transformation of the pure state $`|\psi `$ into $`|\varphi `$ is not possible. It is not possible to create entanglement by means of LOCC if the initial state is separable, but it can be shown that if the numbers of nonzero components in both Schmidt vectors are the same then one may still transform $`|\psi `$ into $`|\varphi `$ with a non-zero probability $`P`$ of success. More precisely it was shown by Vidal  that the optimal protocol yields

$$P(|\psi |\varphi )=\underset{k[1,N]}{\mathrm{min}}\frac{_{\mathrm{i}=\mathrm{k}}^\mathrm{N}\lambda _\mathrm{i}(\psi )}{_{\mathrm{i}=\mathrm{k}}^\mathrm{N}\lambda _\mathrm{i}(\varphi )}=\underset{\mathrm{k}[1,\mathrm{N}]}{\mathrm{min}}\frac{\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{k}(\psi )}{\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{k}(\varphi )}.$$
(23)
This statement may be rephrased by saing that the optimal probability $`P(|\psi |\varphi )`$ is the greatest weight $`p`$ such that the submajorization relation holds ,

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_\psi _wp\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi .$$
(24)
Probabilistic transformations are important because they make entanglement purification procedures possible.

Figure 7 shows the probability of accessing different regions of the Schmidt simplex for pure states of a $`3\times 3`$ system for four different initial states $`|\psi `$. The shape of the black figure ($`p=1`$ represents deterministic transformations) is identical with the set ’Future’ in Fig.6. The more entangled final state $`|\varphi `$ (closer to the maximally entangled state in the center of the triangle), the smaller probability $`p`$ of a successful transformation. Observe that the contour lines (plotted at $`p=0.2,0.4,0.6`$ and $`0.8`$) are constructed from the iso-entropy lines $`H_\alpha `$ for $`\alpha 0`$ and $`\alpha \mathrm{}`$ (see Fig. 1.)

## IV Concluding remarks

We presented a brief review of various measures of entanglement and ways to define them. Analyzing geometrical properties of the pure states entanglement we have shown that there exist several non-equivalent measures of entanglement which generate different ordering of states. Four different measures often discussed in the literature: robustness of entanglement (negativity or cross norm), entropy of entanglement, Bures distance to the closest mixed state and the distance to the closest pure state are functions of the generalized Rényi–like entropies of the vector of the Schmidt coefficients (4) with $`\alpha =1/2,1,2`$ and $`\alpha \mathrm{}`$, respectively, - see Table 1.

| Measure of | Formula for | Monotone function |
| --- | --- | --- |
| entanglement | pure states | of $`H_\alpha `$ with |
| Schmidt rank | number of nonzero $`\lambda _i`$ | $`\alpha =0`$ |
| Maximal fidelity | $`F_{\mathrm{max}}=\mathrm{exp}(H_{1/2})/N`$ |  |
| Negativity | $`t=\mathrm{exp}(H_{1/2})1`$ | $`\alpha =\frac{1}{2}`$ |
| Robustness | $`NF_{\mathrm{max}}1=\mathrm{exp}(H_{1/2})1=t`$ |  |
| Cross–norm |  |  |
| Entropy of entanglement | $`E=H_N=_{i=1}^N\lambda _i\mathrm{ln}\lambda _i`$ |  |
| Relative entropy | $`\mathrm{min}_{SEP}S(\rho ||\rho _s)=E`$ |  |
| Entropy of formation | $`E_F=E`$ | $`\alpha =1`$ |
| Entropy of distillation | $`E_D=E`$ |  |
| Minimal Bures distance |  |  |
| to a separable (mixed) state | $`\mathrm{min}_{SEP}(D_B)=2[1\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{2}H_2)]`$ | $`\alpha =2`$ |
| Generalized concurrence |  |  |
| Minimal distance to |  |  |
| a separable (pure) state |  |  |
| Fubini-Study distance | $`\mathrm{min}_{SEP}(D_{FS})=\mathrm{arccos}[\sqrt{\lambda _{\mathrm{max}}}]`$ |  |
| trace distance | $`\mathrm{min}_{SEP}(D_{tr})=2\sqrt{1\lambda _{\mathrm{max}}}`$ | $`\alpha \mathrm{}`$ |
| Hilbert-Schmidt distance | $`\mathrm{min}_{SEP}(D_{HS})=\sqrt{2(1\lambda _{\mathrm{max}})}`$ |  |
| Bures distance | $`\mathrm{min}_{SEP}(D_B)=\sqrt{2(1\sqrt{\lambda _{\mathrm{max}}})}`$ |  |

Table. 1. Measures of the entanglement for $`N\times N`$ bi–partite system ordered according to the properties at the manifold of pure states.

Out of these measures only the entropy of entanglement is additive, if pure states are concerned. The remaining quantities (not equivalent to $`S`$) are not, but each measure may be related with a certain additive generalized entropy $`H_\alpha `$. Thus no single measure seems to be a priori distinguished. On the other hand, some of them may be preferred by certain experimentally feasible protocols of local manipulations of the pure states, (e.g. the distillation of entanglement), or by the property (E5’) of the asymptotic continuity .

The above analysis has direct consequences for the more complicated problem of the entanglement of mixed states. Consider the definition of entanglement of formation of a mixed state

$$EoF(\rho ):=\mathrm{min}\underset{i=1}{\overset{L}{}}p_iE(|\psi _i),p_i>0,$$
(25)
where the minimum is taken with over all pure states decompositions $`\rho =_{i=1}^Lp_i|\psi \psi |`$ of a finite length $`L`$, normalized by $`_{i=1}^Lp_i=1`$. In this expression one makes use of the entropy of entanglement, $`E(|\psi )=H_N(|\psi )`$, but one may also apply other generalized entropies $`H_\alpha (|\psi )`$ to generate reasonable measures of the mixed states entanglement . It is easy to see that these generalized entropies of formation induce different orderings in the set of density matrices.

Time evolution of pure states under such transformations reveals an analogy to special relativity: We first divide the set of pure states into equivalence classes consisting of the orbits under local unitary transformations. Then we find that for each point in this space of equivalence classes of pure states there exists a ’light cone’ which divides the space into the ’Future’ (F), the ’Past’ (P) and the non–comparable states (C). In the Schmidt simplex the role of the light cone is played by the accessible region limited by (hyper)faces spanned by any set of $`(N2)`$ edges determined by the $`T`$–transforms. Thus it is a generalized cone bounded by hyperplanes. This “causal structure” (to pursue the analogy to relativity) induces a partial ordering of the states but there is no complete ordering and in this sense then there does not exist a preferred measure of entanglement, just as there does not exist an absolute time in relativity. On the other hand (unlike in special relativity) the underlying “spacetime” is not maximally symmetric, although it comes close to be so. In such situations one often finds that one time slicing is more “natural” than another. Pursuing the analogy further one expects that a particular measure of entanglement can be singled out by the physical context.

It is a pleasure to thank Johan Brännlund, Paweł Horodecki, Marek Kuś and Thomas Wellens for inspiring discussions. We appreciate helpful remarks raised by the referee. Financial support by Komitet Badań Naukowych in Warsaw under the grant 2P03B-072 19, the NFR, and the European Science Foundation are gratefully acknowledged.

## A Distances in Weyl chambers as distances between orbits

Before discussing possible interpretation of the distance in Weyl chamber let us formulate two simple lemmas related to the majorization theory.

Lemma 1. Let $`\stackrel{}{x}`$, $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{z}`$ be three normalized probability vectors with $`N`$ components in the descending order each, and let $`\stackrel{}{z}\stackrel{}{y}`$. Then the scalar products fulfill

$$\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{z}\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}.$$
(A1)
Proof: For simplicity we start with $`N=3`$ and consider the difference $`\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{z}`$. It is equal to the sum of three terms, $`x_1(y_1z_1)+x_2(y_2z_2)+x_3(y_3z_3)=(x_1x_2)(y_1z_1)+(x_2x_3)(y_1+y_2z_1z_2)+x_3(y_1+y_2+y_3z_1z_2z_3)`$, the first two are non-negative and the last one vanishes. In the similar way, for an arbitrary $`N`$ we represent $`_{k=1}^Nx_k(y_kz_k)`$ as $`_{k=1}^{N1}(x_kx_{k+1})_{i=1}^k(y_iz_i)`$. Due to ordering of the components of $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ and the majorization relation $`\stackrel{}{z}\stackrel{}{y}`$ this expression contains non-negative terms only, and this proves the thesis (A1) $`\mathrm{}`$.

Although the next lemma we shall use is closely related with recent results of Nielsen , we formulate it in the form most suitable for our purposes and for consistency provide its proof.

Lemma 2. Let $`\rho `$ be a density matrix, $`\stackrel{}{\lambda }`$ its spectrum and $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ denotes the diagonal elements of $`\rho `$ represented in a certain basis. Then $`\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{\lambda }`$.

Proof: Any density matrix may be diagonalized, $`\rho =U\lambda U^{}`$. Thus the diagonal elements read $`x_i=\rho _{ii}=U_{ij}\lambda _jU_{ji}^{}`$. Introducing a unistochastic matrix $`D_{ij}:=|U_{ij}|^2`$ we may then write $`\stackrel{}{x}=D\stackrel{}{\lambda }`$, so due to the Horn lemma  the majorization relation $`\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{\lambda }`$ holds $`\mathrm{}`$.

Now we are ready to formulate statements concerning the Weyl chamber which contains the set of diagonal density matrices with all entries ordered.

Proposition 1: Let $`h`$ and $`g`$ be two diagonal density matrices of size $`N`$ with all components in a descending order, so they belong to the same Weyl chamber. Let $`U`$ and $`V`$ denote arbitary unitary matrices of size $`N`$. Then

a) $`D_{HS}(h,g)D_{HS}(UhU^{},VgV^{})`$,

b) the Euclidean distance between any two points in the Weyl chamber is equal to the Hilbert–Schmidt distance between the global orbits they generate.

Proof:. Let $`W=U^{}V`$. Applying the definition $`[D_{HS}(h,g)]^2=\mathrm{Tr}(hg)^2`$ we may rewrite the difference of the squared distances, $`Q=[D_{HS}(UhU^{},VgV^{})]^2[D_{HS}(h,g)]^2`$ as $`2\mathrm{T}\mathrm{r}W^{}hWg+2\mathrm{T}\mathrm{r}hg`$. Let $`\stackrel{}{h}^{}`$ denote the vector of the diagonal elements of $`W^{}hW`$, so the difference we compute is $`Q=2(\stackrel{}{h}\stackrel{}{g}\stackrel{}{h}^{}\stackrel{}{g})`$. Applying lemma 2 we obtain $`\stackrel{}{h}^{}\stackrel{}{d}`$, and using lemma 1 we conclude that the difference $`Q`$ is non–negative, which gives the statement a). Thus the HS–distance between two orbits, $`UhU^{}`$ and $`VgV^{}`$, equal to the HS–distance between closest points $`h`$ and $`g`$, reads $`D_{HS}(h,g)=[_{i=1}^N(h_ig_i)]^{1/2}`$. This is just the standard expression for the Euclidean distance between two points in the Weyl chamber which represent both diagonal density matrices, $`h`$ and $`g`$ $`\mathrm{}`$.

A similar statement may also be formulated for other distances (trace, Bures), but they do not allow for such a simple geometric interpretation as does the Hilbert-Schmidt distance used above. Note that the assumption that both density matrices belong to the same Weyl chamber is crucial, since a generic orbit visits the simplex of eigenvalues $`N!`$ times, corresponding to permutations of the components in the spectrum.

The above proposition clarifies the geometry of Fig. 5a, which shows the asymmetric part of the simplex of eigenvalues of the density matrices. To characterize in an analogous way the part of the Schmidt simplex of pure states presented in Fig. 6a, we need to change its geometry. The equilateral triangle from Fig. 6b has to be deformed into an octant of the sphere. More precisely, we take the vector of the Schmidt coefficients $`\stackrel{}{\lambda }=\{\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _N\}`$ of a pure state of a $`N\times N`$ bi-partite system and transform it to $`\{\lambda _1^2,\mathrm{},\lambda _N^2\}.`$ Then the $`N1`$ dimensional Schmidt simplex is mapped into a $`1/2^{N+1}`$ part of the hypersphere $`S^{N1}`$, equipped with a natural Riemannian distance (for $`N=3`$ it is just the length of the arc at the sphere $`S^2`$). This geometry allows us to formulate an analogous

Proposition 2: Let $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu `$ be two vectors of Schmidt coefficients, representing two pure states $`|\varphi `$ and $`|\psi `$ of a $`N\times N`$ bi–partite system. Assume that all their components are ordered in a descending manner, so both points belong to the same Weyl chamber. Let $`U=U_1U_2`$ and $`V=V_1V_2`$ denote arbitary local unitary transformations. Then

a) $`D_{FS}(|\psi ,|\varphi )D_{FS}(U_1U_2|\psi ,V_1V_2|\varphi )`$,

b) the Riemannian distance between any two points in the Weyl chamber (a subset of the deformed Schmidt simplex) is equal to the Fubini–Study distance between the local orbits they generate.

Proof:. In the analogy to the proposition 1, the proof of this proposition may be based on the lemmas 1 and 2. Alternatively, one can make use of lemma 1 of a recent paper of Vidal et al. , which states that the maximal fidelity $`F=|\varphi |U_1U_2|\psi |^2`$ is obtained for $`U_1=U_2=𝕀`$ and is equal to $`F_{\mathrm{max}}=(_{k=1}^N\sqrt{\lambda _k\mu _k})^2`$. This fact allows us to establish part b) of the proposition, since the Riemannian distance between two points in the Weyl chamber $`D_R(\stackrel{}{\lambda },\stackrel{}{\mu })`$ is equal to $`\mathrm{cos}^1(\sqrt{F_{\mathrm{max}}})=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{cos}^1(2F_{\mathrm{max}}1)`$ and coincides with the Fubini–Study distance between pure states $`|\varphi `$ and $`|\psi `$ $`\mathrm{}`$.

Note that the both propositions resemble the situation for a fibre bundle, where a metric on the total bundle space gives a shortest distance between the fibres that can then be used to define a metric on the base manifold. However, in our situation not all orbits need to be the same: the dimensionality of local orbits generated by degenerated Schmidt vectors (located at the boundary of the Weyl chamber) is analyzed in ref .


text:
# Pure-radiation gravitational fields with a simple twist and a Killing vector

## I Introduction

There exist many papers dealing with algebraically special, expanding and twisting pure-radiation solutions of the Einstein equations. An extensive bibliography up to 1980 exists in Ref. . Further results on pure-radiation fields can be found in Refs. \[2-7\]. The standard form of the metric is

$$ds^2=\frac{2d\zeta d\overline{\zeta }}{\rho \overline{\rho }P^2}2\mathrm{\Omega }\left[dr+Wd\zeta +\overline{W}d\overline{\zeta }+H\mathrm{\Omega }\right],$$
(1)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }=du+Ld\zeta +\overline{L}d\overline{\zeta }.`$

Here $`r`$ is the coordinate along the null congruence of geodesics, $`u`$ is the retarded time, while $`\zeta ,`$ $`\overline{\zeta }`$ span a two-dimensional surface. The metric components are determined by the $`r`$-independent real functions $`P,`$ $`m,`$ $`M`$ and the complex function $`L`$

$$2i\mathrm{\Sigma }=P^2\left(\overline{}L\overline{L}\right),$$
(2)
$$\rho =\frac{1}{r+i\mathrm{\Sigma }},$$
(3)
$$W=\rho ^1L_u+i\mathrm{\Sigma },$$
(4)
$$H=r\left(\mathrm{ln}P\right)_u(mr+M\mathrm{\Sigma })\rho \overline{\rho }+\frac{K}{2},$$
(5)
$$K=2P^2Re\left[\left(\overline{}\mathrm{ln}P\overline{L}_u\right)\right],$$
(6)
where $`=_\zeta L_u`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the twist. The functions mentioned above satisfy the system of equations

$$\left(3L_u\right)\left(m+iM\right)=0,$$
(7)
$$P^3M=Im\overline{}\overline{}V,$$
(8)
$$n^2=2P^3\left[P^3\left(m+iM\right)\right]_u+2P^3\left(\overline{}\overline{}V\right)_u2P^2\left(V\right)_u\left(\overline{}\overline{}V\right)_u,$$
(9)
where $`V_u=P`$ , $`n`$ is the energy density of pure radiation and the Newton constant is set to $`1`$. Equations (7)-(9) are in fact Eqs. (26.32) and (26.33) from Ref. .

It has been noticed in different contexts that the condition $`M=0`$ simplifies the equations \[4-6,8,9\]. In a previous paper  we explored this condition with the help of Stephani’s method  for some algebraically special, axisymmetric, expanding and twisting gravitational fields. They depend on $`u`$ and $`\sigma =\zeta \overline{\zeta }`$ intrinsically i.e. the $`u`$-dependence cannot be taken away by applying the gauge transformations (25.27) from Ref. . In the present paper we find solutions for fields which depend on $`u`$ and the real part of $`\zeta ,`$ $`x=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\zeta +\overline{\zeta }\right)`$ and have the simplest possible twist. Many of the well known algebraically special exact solutions possess this kind of symmetry . Among them are the only known seed vacuum Robinson-Trautman solution of type III, the static C-metric and the only known expanding vacuum solution of type $`N`$ with twist, namely the Hauser solution, given respectively by Eqs. (24.15), (24.23) and (25.71) from Ref. .

In Sec. II Eqs. (7)-(9) are reformulated in terms of an invariant potential which leads to the $`L_u=0`$ gauge. In Sec. III solutions with separated variables $`u`$ and $`x`$ are found. In Sec. IV the main Eq. (8) for simplest twist is shown to be equivalent to a case of the Euler-Darboux equation, somewhat different from the equation derived in Ref. . On its turn it is a complex version of the central equation in the theory of aligned colliding plane waves (CPW). Three new solutions are found. In Sec. V a homogenous hypergeometric solution is derived, exploiting the similarity between Eq. (8) and the Euler-Tricomi equation. It contains as a special case the Hauser solution of type $`N`$. Section VI contains some conclusions.

## II Field equations in the $`L_u=0`$ gauge

Following  we introduce the invariant complex potential $`\varphi `$ which solves Eq. (7):

$$m+iM=\varphi _u^3,$$
(10)
$$L=\frac{\varphi _x}{\sqrt{2}\varphi _u}.$$
(11)
When $`M=0`$ we can apply the transformation

$$u^{}=f(u,x),$$
(12)
$$\left(m+iM\right)^{}=f_u^3\left(m+iM\right)$$
(13)
to make $`m`$ a positive or a negative constant $`m_0`$, so that

$$\varphi =m_0^{1/3}\left[u+iq\left(x\right)\right],$$
(14)
$$L=\frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}q_x$$
(15)
with real $`q`$. Obviously $`L_u=0`$. This gauge differs from the usual gauge $`P_u=0`$ but is very suitable when the Newman-Unti-Tamburino (NUT) parameter $`M`$ vanishes. Equations (8) and (9) simplify

$$\overline{}\overline{}V=\overline{}\overline{}V,$$
(16)
$$n^2=6m_0P^1P_u+2P^3\overline{}\overline{}P2P^2P\overline{}\overline{}P$$
(17)
with $`=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(_xiq_x_u\right)`$. The second equation is in fact an inequality. When $`P_u0,`$ $`n^2`$ can be made positive by the choice of $`m_0`$ at least for some region of spacetime . The expressions for the metric components simplify too, e.g., the gauge invariants $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`K`$ become

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\frac{1}{2}q_{xx}P^2,$$
(18)
$$K=P^2\left(\overline{}+\overline{}\right)\mathrm{ln}P.$$
(19)
When $`m+iM=0`$ (Petrov types III and $`N`$) Eq. (7) is an identity but still a potential $`\varphi `$ may be introduced with the property $`\varphi =0`$ and the subclass of solutions satisfying Eq. (14) (with $`m_0=1`$ ) can be studied. One should put $`m_0=0`$ in all other equations.

The main equation (16), which is of fourth order with respect to $`V`$, becomes in both cases a linear second order equation for $`P`$. Equation (18) shows that $`q`$ must be at least quadratic in $`x`$ for a non-trivial twist. Let us choose the simplest possibility: $`q=\frac{x^2}{2},`$ $`L=\frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}x`$. Then equations (16) and (17) read

$$x^2P_{uu}+P_{xx}=0,$$
(20)
$$2n^2=12m_0P^1P_u3P^3P_{uu}4x^4P^2P_{uu}^2P^2\left(P_u+2xP_{ux}\right)^2.$$
(21)
The last two terms in Eq. (21) are definitely negative, so the first term must be necessarily positive for a type II solution and the second term must be positive for a type III solution.

## III Solution with separated variables

Suppose that $`P=F\left(x\right)G\left(u\right)`$. Equation (20) splits into two parts

$$G_{uu}=cG,$$
(22)
$$F_{xx}+cx^2F=0,$$
(23)
where $`c`$ is an arbitrary constant. There are three types of solutions, depending on the sign of $`c`$. If $`c=0`$ we have

$$P=ux,$$
(24)
$$n^2=\frac{6m_0}{u}\frac{9}{2}u^2x^4.$$
(25)
Type III solutions have negative energy while type II solutions have negative energy density for $`x\mathrm{}`$. If $`c>0,`$ $`P`$ contains Bessel functions, e.g.,

$$P=\sqrt{x}J_{1/4}\left(\frac{\sqrt{c}}{2}x^2\right)e^{\sqrt{c}u},$$
(26)
$$4n^2=24\sqrt{c}m_02c\left(3+4cx^4\right)F^4e^{4\sqrt{c}u}2cP^2\left(F+2xF_x\right)^2e^{2\sqrt{c}u}.$$
(27)
The first term can be made positive when $`m_0<0,`$ but the second has a negative pole when $`x\mathrm{}`$ because $`\left(xF\right)^4x^2`$. There are no solutions with everywhere positive $`n^2`$. The third case $`c<0`$ gives a generic solution with modified Bessel functions like

$$P=\sqrt{x}K_{1/4}\left(\frac{\sqrt{c}}{2}x^2\right)\mathrm{sin}\sqrt{c}u,$$
(28)
$$4n^2=24\sqrt{c}m_0\mathrm{cot}\left(\sqrt{c}u\right)2c\left(3+4cx^4\right)F^4\mathrm{sin}^4\sqrt{c}u+2cP^2\left(F+2xF_x\right)^2\mathrm{cos}^2\sqrt{c}u.$$
(29)
The first term changes sign and has poles in $`u`$, thus type II solutions are unphysical. Type III solutions have negative $`n^2`$ when e.g. $`u=\pi /\sqrt{c}`$, although the second term doesn’t have poles in $`u`$.

Equations (24) and (26) have been obtained by another method in a more general form in Ref.  but the energy density has not been discussed in details.

If we separate the variables like $`P=F\left(x\right)+G\left(u\right)`$ then

$$G=\frac{cu^2}{2}+c_1u+c_2,$$
(30)
$$F=\frac{cx^4}{12}+c_3+c_4,$$
(31)
where $`c_i`$ are constants. Numerous negative terms arise and the region of positivity of $`n^2`$ is rather complicated due to the many arbitrary constants. A more detailed discussion in a general setting of this type of separation of variables may be found in Ref. .

## IV Reduction to the Euler-Darboux equation

Equation (20) with $`x^2`$ replaced by $`x^l`$ where $`l`$ is an integer has been studied in the past . Green functions for different boundary problems have been found. The basis of these results is the change of variables which transforms Eq. (20) into the Euler-Darboux equation

$$4P_{\phi \omega }+\frac{1}{\phi +\omega }\left(P_\phi +P_\omega \right)=0,$$
(32)
$$\phi =u+\frac{i}{2}x^2,$$
(33)
where $`\omega =\overline{\phi }`$.This equation is similar to Eq. (24) from Ref.  and the main equation for aligned colliding plane waves  - one needs only to replace the multiplier $`4`$ by $`2`$. This, however, is not a trivial change and can’t be achieved by scaling the variables or $`P`$. Nevertheless, one may use the numerous techniques developed in the search for CPW solutions and applied in Ref.  for axisymmetric fields. We shall find analogues of these solutions. As pointed out in Ref.  the reality of $`P`$ must be ensured because the variables $`\phi ,`$ $`\omega `$ are complex.

The simplest solution

$$P=i^{1/2}\left(\phi +\omega \right)^{1/2}=x$$
(34)
is a time-independent vacuum solution of Kerr-Schild type.

A solution with separated variables $`P=F\left(\phi \right)G\left(\omega \right)`$ exists. Replacement in Eq. (32) yields

$$P=A\left[\left(\sigma +\phi \right)\left(\sigma +\overline{\phi }\right)\right]^{1/4},$$
(35)
where $`A`$ and $`\sigma `$ are constants. $`A`$ is ignorable and $`\sigma `$ can be hidden in $`u`$ to obtain a real solution:

$$P=B^{1/4},$$
(36)
$$Bu^2+\frac{1}{4}x^4.$$
(37)
This solution is analogous to the solution given by Eqs. (27) and (28) from Ref. and has a number of nice features. The energy density is

$$n^2=\frac{3m_0}{B^{3/2}}u+\frac{3}{16B^3}\left(x^46u^2\right)\frac{1}{128B^5}\left[4x^4\left(6u^2x^4\right)^2+u^2\left(9x^44u^2\right)^2\right].$$
(38)
In the following we suppose that the retarded time satisfies the condition $`u>u_0>0`$ for some constant $`u_0`$. Equation (38) is regular in $`x`$ unlike many other solutions, plagued by singular pipes for $`x=0`$ or $`x=\pm \mathrm{}`$ . When $`m_0<0`$ the first term dominates over the others if $`m_0`$ is big enough and consequently $`n^2`$ is positive. Unfortunately, type III solutions are not with positive $`n^2`$ for any $`x`$ because the second term changes sign. The gauge invariants (18) and (19) are regular in $`x`$ and vanish when $`u\mathrm{}`$:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\frac{1}{2}P^2,$$
(39)
$$K=\frac{x^2}{4B^{3/2}}.$$
(40)
The same is true for the Weyl scalars  with leading terms given by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_2=m_0\rho ^3,$$
(41)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }_3=\rho ^2P^3I+O\left(\rho ^3\right),$$
(42)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }_4=\rho P^2I_u+O\left(\rho ^2\right),$$
(43)
$$I=P^1\overline{}\overline{}P.$$
(44)
An exception is $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ which approaches $`m_0/r^3`$ as $`u\mathrm{}`$.

Let us present next an analogue of the $`\mathrm{cosh}^1`$ solution found in Ref. . We substitute the ansatz $`P=P\left(a\right),`$

$$a=\frac{i\left(\phi +\overline{\phi }\right)}{\phi \overline{\phi }}=\frac{2u}{x^2},$$
(45)
into Eq. (32). The result is an elliptic integral of the first kind $`F(\psi ,\kappa ):`$

$$P=\sqrt{2}F(\psi ,\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}),$$
(46)
$$\psi =\mathrm{arccos}(1+a^2)^{1/4},$$
(47)
$$P_a=\left(1+a^2\right)^{3/4}.$$
(48)
The function $`P`$ is bounded: $`0P\sqrt{2}F(\frac{\pi }{2},\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})`$. The solution possesses regular characteristics like the previous one:

$$n^2=\frac{12m_0x}{P\left(4B\right)^{3/4}}+\frac{18uxP^3}{\left(4B\right)^{7/4}}\frac{9x^2P^2}{4B^{3/2}},$$
(49)
$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\frac{1}{2}P^2,$$
(50)
$$K=\frac{2}{B^{1/2}}.$$
(51)
All terms in Eq. (49) are regular. The first term is positive for $`m_0>0`$ and type II solutions with positive $`n^2`$ exist for big enough $`m_0`$. The second term is positive too but does not always dominate over the third one. The Weyl scalars are also regular and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3,`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ vanish when $`u\mathrm{}`$.

Let us transform now the Euler-Darboux equation (32) into its canonical form. Introducing the new variables $`\tau =x^2,`$ $`\lambda =2u`$ we obtain

$$P_{\tau \tau }+\frac{1}{2\tau }P_\tau +P_{\lambda \lambda }=0.$$
(52)
This is an analogue of Eq. (25) from Ref.  and its solution is given by the Bessel functions from Sec. III. We can go further, utilizing the coordinates for the first Yurtsever solution :

$$\tau =\nu \mathrm{sin}\eta ,$$
(53)
$$\lambda =\nu \mathrm{cos}\eta ,$$
(54)
$$\nu ^2=4B,$$
(55)
$$\mathrm{cos}\eta =\left(1+\frac{x^4}{4u^2}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(56)
Then Eq. (52) becomes

$$P_{\nu \nu }+\frac{1}{\nu ^2}P_{\eta \eta }+\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{3}{\nu }P_\nu +\frac{1}{\nu ^2}\mathrm{cot}\eta P_\eta \right)=0.$$
(57)
It has a separable solution of the kind $`P=\nu ^lY\left(\eta \right)`$. $`Y,`$ instead of being a Legendre function of the first or second kind, satisfies the equation

$$\left(1w^2\right)Y_{ww}\frac{3}{2}wY_w+l\left(l+\frac{1}{2}\right)Y=0,$$
(58)
where $`w=\mathrm{cos}\eta `$. Its solution is a hypergeometric function and

$$P=\left(4B\right)^{l/2}F(\epsilon ,\sigma ,\frac{3}{4},X),$$
(59)
where $`\epsilon +\sigma =\frac{5}{2},`$ $`\epsilon \sigma =l\left(l+\frac{1}{2}\right)`$ and

$$X=\frac{1}{2}\left(1+uB^{1/2}\right).$$
(60)
$`P`$ is real because $`0X1`$. The hypergeometric function is reducible to a Legendre function:

$$F(\epsilon ,\sigma ,\frac{3}{4},X)=\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3}{4}\right)\left(\frac{x^4}{4B}\right)^{7/8}P_{\frac{1+\epsilon }{2}}^{7/4}\left(uB^{1/2}\right).$$
(61)
If $`l=\frac{1}{2}`$, either $`\epsilon `$ or $`\sigma `$ vanishes and formula (59) degenerates to the rational function given by Eq. (36).

## V Hydrodynamical analogy

Equation (20) has certain similarities with the Euler-Tricomi equation

$$x\mathrm{\Phi }_{uu}\mathrm{\Phi }_{xx}=0.$$
(62)
It appears in hydrodynamics in the study of a two-dimensional flow of compressible fluid with velocity near the velocity of sound . It is a limiting case of the more complex Chapligin equation which has integrals among the hypergeometric functions . The Euler-Tricomi equation is invariant under the transformations $`u^2cu^2,`$ $`x^3cx^3`$ which leads to a homogeneous hypergeometric solution. It is discussed at length in Ref.. In our case Eq.(20) is invariant under $`uc^2u,`$ $`xcx`$ and we can try a homogenous solution

$$P=u^kF\left(z\right),$$
(63)
$$z=\frac{x^4}{4u^2},$$
(64)
where $`k`$ is the degree of homogeneity. Then Eq. (20) becomes

$$z\left(z1\right)F_{zz}+\left[\left(\frac{3}{2}k\right)z\frac{3}{4}\right]F_z+\frac{k\left(k1\right)}{4}F=0.$$
(65)
Once again this is a hypergeometric equation and one of its fundamental solutions leads to

$$P=u^kF(\frac{k}{2},\frac{1k}{2},\frac{3}{4},z).$$
(66)
In fact, the hypergeometric function in Eq.(66) degenerates to a Legendre function for any $`k`$

$$P=2^{1/4}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3}{4}\right)u^k\left(z\right)^{1/8}\left(1z\right)^{\frac{k}{2}\frac{1}{8}}P_{k3/4}^{1/4}\left[\left(1z\right)^{1/2}\right].$$
(67)
It becomes a rational function in some cases. Thus if $`k=\frac{1}{4}`$

$$P=\left(\frac{u}{2}\right)^{1/4}\left[1+\left(1z\right)^{1/2}\right]^{1/4},$$
(68)
and if $`k=\frac{3}{4}`$

$$P=\left(\frac{2}{u^3}\right)^{1/4}\left(1z\right)^{1/2}\left[1+\left(1z\right)^{1/2}\right]^{1/4}.$$
(69)
Exploiting only Eq. (64) one finds the following identities

$$kP=uP_u+\frac{1}{2}xP_x,$$
(70)
$$P_{uu}=P_1B_0^1,$$
(71)
$$P_u+2xP_{xu}=\left(4k3\right)u^1\left(kP\frac{1}{2}xP_x\right)4uP_1B_0^1,$$
(72)
$$P_14k\left(k1\right)P\left(4k3\right)xP_x.$$
(73)
They hold for any solution of Eq. (65). Plugging Eqs. (70)-(73) into Eq. (21) one can study the properties of the energy density. It simplifies drastically when $`k=\frac{3}{4}`$:

$$P=u^{3/4}F(\frac{3}{8},\frac{1}{8},\frac{3}{4},z),$$
(74)
$$\frac{1}{6}n^2=m_0P^1P_u=\frac{m_0}{4u}\left[3\frac{zF(\frac{5}{8},\frac{9}{8},\frac{7}{4},z)}{2F(\frac{3}{8},\frac{1}{8},\frac{3}{4},z)}\right].$$
(75)
When $`0z1`$ it can be checked with MAPLEV that the r.h.s. of Eq. (75) is positive for $`m_0>0`$. In the region $`1z\mathrm{}`$ an analytic continuation of the hypergeometric functions should be performed. Thus

$$F(\frac{3}{8},\frac{1}{8},\frac{3}{4},z)=A_1\left(z\right)^{3/8}F(\frac{3}{8},\frac{1}{8},\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{z})+A_2\left(z\right)^{1/8}F(\frac{1}{8},\frac{3}{8},\frac{3}{2},\frac{1}{z}),$$
(76)
$`A_1={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3}{4}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1}{8}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{9}{8}\right)}},`$

$`A_2={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3}{4}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3}{8}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{5}{8}\right)}},`$

and similarly for the other hypergeometric function in Eq. (75). A check with MAPLEV confirms again the positivity of $`n^2`$. The energy density is regular in $`u`$ and $`z`$. When $`m_0=0`$ a vacuum solution is obtained. It has $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2=0`$ and then the higher terms in Eq. (42) vanish . From Eq. (44) it follows that

$$I=\frac{3}{4\left(x^22iu\right)}$$
(77)
and $`I=0,`$ $`I_u0`$. Therefore $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3=0`$, while $`\mathrm{\Psi }_40`$ and the solution is of type $`N`$. In fact, this is the Hauser solution  in the $`L_u=0`$ gauge.

Let us show this in detail. We have used the transformation (13) to bring $`\varphi `$ to the simple form (14) (with $`m_0=1`$ since the field is of type $`N`$) and then have dropped the primes. Restoring them, Eqs. (12)-(14) show that

$$f=u^{}=Cx^2u,$$
(78)
where $`C`$ is an arbitrary constant which we fix to $`C=1/2`$. Under transformation (12) $`P`$ and $`L`$ change as

$$P^{}=f_u^1P,$$
(79)
$$L^{}=f_uL\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}f_x,$$
(80)
(see Eq. (25.27) from Ref. ). $`P^{}`$ is given by Eq. (74) while $`L^{}=ix/\sqrt{2}`$. Then the original $`P`$ and $`L`$ are given by

$$P=x^{7/2}F\left(u\right),$$
(81)
$$L=\frac{\sqrt{2}}{x}\left(u+i\right),$$
(82)
$$F\left(u\right)=\frac{1}{2}A_1F(\frac{3}{8},\frac{1}{8},\frac{1}{2},u^2)+\frac{1}{4}A_2uF(\frac{1}{8},\frac{3}{8},\frac{3}{2},u^2).$$
(83)
We have used formula (76) to derive the expression for $`F\left(u\right)`$. Equations (81)-(83) give exactly the Hauser solution  as written out in Refs.  and . Equation (83) is a specific linear combination of the even and odd solutions given in Ref.  which fixes the one-parameter freedom of the Hauser solution. This ends the proof of our assertion.

## VI Conclusion

We have shown that when the NUT parameter $`M`$ vanishes and the gauge $`L_u=0`$ is used, the main equation (20) for expanding pure radiation fields with a simple twist and a special symmetry becomes a tractable second order linear equation for $`P`$. It is reducible to a case of the Euler-Darboux equation, somewhat different from the central equation in the theory of aligned colliding plane waves. We have found regular solutions, separating the variables in different coordinate systems. In some cases the regions of positivity of the energy density were investigated. Another analogy with the Euler-Tricomi equation, appearing in the hydrodynamics of two-dimensional fluid flow, has been exploited to find homogenous solutions. Interestingly enough, the Hauser vacuum solution of type $`N`$ is an exceptional member of the family of type II solutions with degree of homogeneity $`\frac{3}{4}`$.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Bulgarian National Fund for Scientific Research under Contract No. F-632.