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# Optical (VRI) Photometry in the Field of the Galaxy Cluster AC 118 at z=0.31Based on observations collected at European Southern Observatory (ESO n. 62.O-0369, 63.O-0257, 64.O-0236)

## 1 Introduction

Rich galaxy clusters are the optimal laboratory to study the evolution of galaxies because they can be identified over a wide range of redshifts, thus allowing to study the properties of homogeneous classes of galaxies as a function of cosmic time. Rich clusters are also the tracers of the evolution of cosmic structures and serve to set constraints on the initial spectrum of density fluctuation.

AC 118 (also Abell 2744) is a rich (‘Coma-like’) galaxy cluster at redshift $`z=0.31`$ and is one of the most widely studied clusters at intermediate redshifts. The first photometric (Couch & Newell 1984) and spectroscopic (Couch & Sharples 1987) data collected for this cluster exhibited a significant excess of blue galaxies with respect to local clusters (the Butcher-Oelmer effect, Butcher & Oelmer 1978a, 1978b, 1984). Couch & Sharples (1987) compared the distribution of the galaxy population of AC 118 with the morphological segregation in the Coma cluster, and suggested that the blue galaxies in AC 118 likely represent the progenitors of the local S0 galaxies.

The star formation in AC 118 was studied by Barger et al. (BAE96 (1996)) who found that a significant fraction of galaxies experimented secondary bursts of star formation in the last $`2`$ Gyr. Furthermore, since the HST image indicates that a high portion of the star forming galaxies show signs of interaction, they suggested that merging phenomena of individual galaxies are responsible of these recent hints of star formation and that this may be consistent with the hierarchical merging scenario.

AC 118 was also included in the sample of high-redshift clusters of Stanford et al. (SED98 (1998)) who have shown that the color-magnitude relations for AC 118 as well as for all the other clusters is consistent with a passive evolution of stellar populations formed at early cosmic epochs. This result, however, is not in contrast with the findings of Barger et al. (BAE96 (1996)), because of the different sample selections. It has to be noticed, in this respect, that samples constituted of morphologically selected early-type galaxies (as in Stanford et al. 1998) are affected by the ‘progenitor bias’ (see van Dokkum & Franx 2001), and always lead to conclude that early-type galaxies are old. The passive evolution scenario is also supported by the trend with the redshift of the K-band luminosity function, as was shown by de Propris et al. (1999). Couch et al. (CBS98 (1998)) pointed out that the facts may be much more involved than in the above schemes. From a detailed morphological and spectroscopic study of three clusters at z=0.31 (AC 118, AC 103 and AC 114), they draw the conclusion that several different processes drive galaxy evolution and that a significant fraction of galaxies in a rich cluster undergo morphological changes. The same conclusion was reached by Jones et al. (2000), who claimed that the S0 galaxies at the redshift of AC 118 are remnants of early-type spirals that had star formation truncated by interaction with the cluster environment (see also Adami et al. 1998; Poggianti et al. 1999).

AC 118 has been the subject of several studies at different wavelengths, from radio to X-ray (see for instance Andreani et al. 1996; Smail et al. 1997; Allen 1998, 2000; Govoni et al. 2001). The general picture describes this cluster as an assembling of different systems, with a dynamical activity suggested by a peculiar velocity distribution with two different peaks (Girardi & Mezzetti 2001), and by the strong discrepancy between the masses derived from X-ray observations and from gravitational lensing (Allen 1998). Finally, AC 118 will be one main target in the first operations of the Advanced Camera for Surveys of HST.

This paper presents new photometric data for AC 118 based on ESO-NTT imaging in the R, V and I wavebands. These data were collected in the framework of a project aimed at studying the structural properties of the cluster galaxies (Busarello et al. 2002; La Barbera et al. 2002), the color-magnitude relation (Merluzzi et al. 2002) and at deriving the fundamental plane. In this paper we also determine the photometric redshifts and briefly discuss the V and R luminosity functions. The paper is organized as follows. Sect. 2 includes a description of the data and of the data reduction and photometric calibration. In Sect. 3 we describe the aperture photometry. Sect. 4 deals with the determination of the photometric redshifts. The photometric catalogue is presented in Sect. 5, while the catalogue itself is available in electronic form only. In Sect. 6 we shortly discuss the V and R luminosity functions, and in Sect. 7 we give a summary of the paper. In this work we assume H$`{}_{0}{}^{}=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, q$`{}_{0}{}^{}=0.5`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$.

## 2 Observations, Data Reduction and Photometric Calibration

The observations were carried out at the ESO New Technology Telescope with the EMMI instrument during three runs (October 1998, October 1999 and September 2000). A field of $`8.6^{}\times 8.6^{}`$ (2.9$`\times `$2.9 Mpc) was observed in V-, R- and I-bands towards the galaxy cluster AC 118. The total integration time, the pixel scale, and the average seeing for each band are given in Table 1.

The data reduction was performed with the MIDAS and IRAF packages. Bias and flat-field corrections were achieved by the standard procedures. For the V- and R-bands the flat-field was obtained by combining twilight and dome flats, while for the I-band only the dome flat was used. In order to add the different exposures and to reject cosmic rays we used the IRAF task IMCOMBINE with the CRREJECT algorithm. The final images presented a uniform background with fluctuations smaller than 2% of the mean value.

The photometric calibration was performed into the Johnson–Kron–Cousins photometric system. Since the sky conditions were not photometric during the observations, we could not use comparison standard fields, but we proceeded as follows.

For the R-band, we used the aperture photometry for $`\mathrm{N}=92`$ sources in the cluster area provided to us by A. Stanford (see Stanford et al. SED98 (1998), hereafter SED98). Instrumental magnitudes within an aperture of the same diameter ($`5^{\prime \prime }`$ ) as in SED98 were derived from our image by using the SExtractor software (Bertin $`\&`$ Arnouts 1996) and were compared with the magnitudes of SED98. Since the FWHM of the SED98 images was $`1^{\prime \prime }`$, no seeing correction was applied for the matching with our data. The accuracy on the zero point was derived by adding in quadrature the uncertainty on the offset between the two sets of magnitudes with the uncertainty on the photometric calibration of SED98. The total uncertainty on the zero point amounts to 0.03 mag (1$`\sigma `$ standard interval).

For the V- and I-bands, the photometric calibration was performed by matching the colors of $`\mathrm{N}=17`$ stars in the NTT images with the colors of the stars from the catalogue of Landolt (1992). We proceeded as illustrated in Fig. 1. The distribution of the Landolt stars in the (V-R, R-I) diagram was described by a smooth curve. Some stars were not considered since they do not lie in the same locus of the other Landolt stars due to their high galactic extinction ($`\mathrm{E}(\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V})>0.4`$, see Schlegel et al. 1998). We verified that our curve agrees with the curve of Caldwell et al. (1993). The $`vR`$ and $`Ri`$ colors of the stars in the NTT images, where $`v`$ and $`i`$ are the instrumental magnitudes, were fitted to the smooth curve and the computed shifts were added to the zero point of the R-band image.

The accuracies on the zero points were estimated by taking into account 1) the presence of a possible color term in the calibration, 2) the uncertainty on the fitting solution and 3) the uncertainty on the R-band photometric calibration. To estimate the first source of uncertainty, we subtracted to the colors of the Landolt stars the color term in the equations of the EMMI Calibration Plan 111See http://www.ls.eso.org/lasilla/Telescopes/NEWNTT/EMMI/ and estimated the change of the fitting solution. The second source of uncertainty was estimated by the bootstrap technique taking into account the uncertainties on the instrumental magnitudes. The uncertainties on the colors of the Landolt stars were not considered, since their effect on the computation of the smooth curve turned out to be negligible. The uncertainties on the zero points are summarized in Table 2. Since the uncertainty on the R-band zero point turned out to be the major source of error, we neglected the correlation between $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ZP}_\mathrm{V}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ZP}_\mathrm{I}`$ introduced by the fitting procedure.

To check the method used for the photometric calibration, we compared our photometry with the magnitudes in the I-band of Barger et al. BAE96 (1996) (hereafter BAE96). The comparison is shown in Fig. 2. The difference between the two sets of magnitudes is fully consistent with zero within the estimated uncertainty on the I-band zero point. The dispersion amounts to 0.07 mag, in agreement with the various sources of uncertainty.

## 3 Aperture Photometry

A photometric catalogue was derived for each image by the software SExtractor (Bertin $`\&`$ Arnouts BER96 (1996)). For each object we measured the magnitude within a fixed aperture of diameter $`4.4^{\prime \prime }`$, corresponding to $``$25 kpc at $`z=0.31`$, and the Kron magnitude (Kron 1980), for which an adaptive aperture is used with diameter equal to $`\alpha r_c`$, where $`r_c`$ is the Kron radius and $`\alpha `$ is a constant. Following Bertin $`\&`$ Arnouts (BER96 (1996)), we chose $`\alpha =2.5`$, for which it is expected that the Kron magnitude encloses $`94\%`$ of the total flux of the source. The uncertainties on the magnitudes were obtained by adding in quadrature the uncertainties estimated by SExtractor with the uncertainties on the zero points.

The completeness of the optical catalogues was estimated following the method of Garilli et al. (GAR99 (1999)) that consists in the determination of the magnitude at which the objects start to be lost since they are below the brightness threshold in the detection cell. To estimate the completeness limit, the magnitudes in the detection cell were computed and compared to the magnitudes in the fixed aperture. The comparisons are shown in Fig. 3, where the vertical lines correspond to the detection threshold and the horizontal lines mark the completeness limit which takes into account the scatter of the relation. The completeness magnitudes are reported in Table 2.

## 4 The photometric redshifts

The optical V-, R- and I-band photometry, together with available data in the U- and K-band was used to determine the cluster membership of the sources in the photometric catalogue by the photometric redshift technique. AC 118 was observed in the U-band by BAE96 at the ESO-NTT on August 1993. The images were retrieved from the ESO NTT Science Archive and reduced following the standard procedures. For the photometric calibration we used the aperture magnitudes given in BAE96 (see their Table 4). The K-band observations have been performed at ESO-NTT with the SOFI instrument. The K-band photometry consists of a total integration of $``$4 hours over a single SOFI pointing of $`5^{}\times 5^{}`$ which, because of the jittering, covers a field of $`6^{}\times 6^{}`$ (the reduction of the SOFI image is described in Andreon 2001). The UVRIK catalogues were cross-correlated, resulting in a final list of $`\mathrm{N}=1206`$ sources detected in at least one optical band. The photometric redshifts were derived for the $`\mathrm{N}=459`$ objects with photometry available in all the wavebands.

We estimated the photometric redshifts according to the Spectral Energy Distribution fitting method (see Massarotti et al. 2001a, b, and references therein). Redshifts are obtained by comparing observed galaxy fluxes, $`f_i^{\mathrm{obs}}`$ at the $`i`$–th photometric band, with a library of reference fluxes, $`f_i^{\mathrm{templ}}(z,T)`$, depending on redshift $`z`$ and on a suitable set of parameters $`T`$, that account for galaxy morphological type, age, metallicity, etc.

We looked for redshifts in the range $`z[0.0,1.0]`$ with a step of 0.01, and introduced a further constraint in the fit by imposing that the age of the best template cannot be older than the age of the universe at the selected redshift according to the adopted cosmology. Model galaxy spectra are provided by the code of Bruzual & Charlot (BRC93 (1993)). The adopted templates consist of models with a Scalo (1986) IMF and with SFR histories of the form $`SFR(t)e^{t/\tau }`$ to match different Hubble type colors as a function of time. Choosing $`\tau =1,4,15`$ Gyr, we obtain at $`t=12.0`$ Gyr colors of $`E/S0`$, $`Sa/Sb`$, and $`Sc/Sd`$ that match those of nearby galaxies. Template spectra evolution is followed in the time interval $`t[1.0,12.0]`$ Gyr. To allow for different metallicities of early-type galaxies we introduced templates for $`E/S0`$ with $`Z/Z_{}=`$0.2, 0.4, 1 and 2.5.

The distribution of photometric redshifts is shown in Fig. 4. The distribution is dominated by the peak around the cluster redshift $`z0.3`$, indicating that most of the galaxies in the $`6^{}\times 6^{}`$ field are actually members of AC 118. The FWHM of the peak $`\mathrm{\Delta }z0.1`$ is determined by the intrinsic redshift distribution of the cluster members and on the errors on photometric redshifts.

To gain insight on the precision of the redshift estimates, we compare in Fig. 5 photometric ($`z_\mathrm{p}`$) and spectroscopic ($`z_\mathrm{s}`$) redshifts for galaxies in a bright sub–sample of the cross-correlated catalogue (see Couch & Sharples 1987; Busarello et al. 2002, in preparation). We found that the mean difference of photometric and spectroscopic redshifts is consistent with zero and that the dispersion amounts to 0.04. We notice that $`95\%`$ of the spectroscopically confirmed cluster members are found in the range $`z_\mathrm{p}[0.24,0.38]`$. On the other hand, since galaxies in the spectroscopic sample represent the bright tail of the cross-correlated catalogue, the comparison of $`z_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`z_\mathrm{s}`$ does not inform on the amplitude of the error due to photometric uncertainties for the intermediate and faint galaxy population. In order to analyze the role of measurement errors on the redshift estimates, we performed numerical simulations to generate N=500 copies of the cross-correlated catalogue, obtained by adding to each galaxy flux a number randomly extracted from the gaussian function of the photometric uncertainty In this way, we associated to each galaxy a distribution of N=500 simulated redshifts ($`z_{\mathrm{sim}}`$) and calculated the 68% percentile interval ($`\mathrm{\Delta }z_{68}`$) around the median value of the distribution. Finally we defined a galaxy as a cluster member if the interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }z_{68}`$ overlaps the range $`z[0.24,0.38]`$. In the cross-correlated catalogue N= 329 galaxies (i.e. 72% of the total) turned out to satisfy this selection criterion.

## 5 Description of the Catalogue

The photometric quantities relative to the $`\mathrm{N}=1206`$ sources in the V-, R- and I-band images are included in the catalogue, a portion of which is shown in Table 3222 The whole catalogue will be available in electronic form at the Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/ . The sample consists in all the objects detected in at least band, that are brighter than the detection limit. When an object is not detected, the corresponding columns in the table are filled with dots. The table is organized as follows.
Column 1: running number in the present catalogue.
Columns 2, 3: right ascension and declination (2000). The astrometric solution was computed by using a list of stars from the USNO catalogue. The root mean square of the residuals to the astrometric solution amounts to 0.18 arcsec.
Columns 4, 5: V-band magnitude within the aperture of diameter $`4.4^{\prime \prime }`$ and corresponding uncertainty.
Columns 6, 7: the same quantities as in columns 4, 5 for the R-band.
Columns 8, 9: the same quantities as in columns 4, 5 for the I-band.
Columns 10, 11: Kron magnitude in the V-band and corresponding uncertainty.
Columns 12, 13: the same quantities as in columns 10, 11 for the R-band.
Columns 14, 15: the same quantities as in columns 10, 11 for the I-band.
Columns 16, 17, 18: Kron radius in arcsec for the V-, R- and I-band respectively. When the Kron radius is smaller than 3.5 pixels, an aperture with this diameter, that correspond to $`1^{\prime \prime }`$, is adopted.
Column 19: stellar index. When available for more than one image, we report the value relative to the image with the best seeing.
Column 20: photometric redshift. The upper and lower values correspond to percentile intervals of $`68\%`$ (see Sect. 4.3).

## 6 R- and V-band Luminosity Functions

To obtain the cluster R and V luminosity functions (LFs) we did not make use of the cluster membership information derived from the photometric redshifts, but instead we statistically subtracted the background contribution in each band. In this way all the photometric data up to the magnitude limit can be used in each band. We did not derive the LF in the I-band because the relative data are not deep enough to estimate the slope of the LF faint end. The background counts were provided to us by S. Arnouts in R- and V-band from the ESO–Sculptor Survey (Arnouts et al. 1997). This survey, 1.53(R.A.)$`\times `$0.24(Dec) wide, was carried out in a region of sky close to the AC 118 field and with the same instrument. The reduction of those data was performed by using the same software packages and following an analogue procedure as in the present work. In particular, in both works the photometric catalogues were obtained by means of the SExtractor software and the total magnitudes, considered for the galaxy counts, were estimated with the Kron magnitude defined by adopting the same adaptive aperture.

The errors on the cluster LFs were computed by taking into account Poissonian fluctuations of counts along the cluster line of sight and of the background counts. Since the field of view of our observation is $`15`$ times smaller than the area covered by the ESO–Sculptor Survey, the errors on the cluster LFs are dominated by Poissonian errors of counts along the cluster line of sight. For this reason we did not include in the error budget the term of the background fluctuations due to the galaxy correlation function.

We modeled the cluster LFs with a weighted parametric fit of the Schechter function, obtaining as best–fit parameters: $`R^{}=19.4\pm 0.3`$ and $`\alpha _R=0.94\pm 0.16`$, $`V^{}=20.1\pm 0.4`$ and $`\alpha _V=1.02\pm 0.18`$ (the errors correspond to 1$`\sigma `$ interval). Fig. 6 shows the cluster LFs respectively in R-band (upper panel) and V-band (lower panel), with the confidence levels of the best–fit parameters. The best–fitting Schechter functions are also plotted.

Andreon (2001) derived the K-band LF in AC 118. On the whole K-band field of $`6^{}\times 6^{}`$, he found: $`K^{}=15.3`$ and $`\alpha _K=1.2`$. Taking into account the uncertainties on the $`\alpha `$ parameter (see our Fig. 6 and Fig. 9 of Andreon 2001), we conclude that $`\alpha _R`$, $`\alpha _V`$ and $`\alpha _K`$ are in agreement (within the errors), that is the faint end slope of the AC 118 LF does not depend significantly on the waveband. Choosing $`\alpha _R=\alpha _V=\alpha _K=1.1`$ we obtain $`(V^{}K^{})=4.2\pm 0.3`$ and $`(R^{}K^{})=3.4\pm 0.3`$, in agreement with the position of the bright tail of the galaxy population in the relative colour–magnitude planes (Merluzzi et al. 2002; Merluzzi et al. 2002, in preparation).

## 7 Summary

New accurate $`\mathrm{VRI}`$ photometry has been presented for the galaxy cluster AC 118 at redshift $`z=0.31`$. The new data cover an area of 8.6$`\times `$8.6 arcmin2, corresponding to 2.9$`\times `$2.9 Mpc2. The data reduction and the method used for the photometric calibration are described in detail. For the R-band, the image zero-point is derived by using aperture photometry by SED98, while for the V- and I-band the photometric calibration is performed by matching the colors of the stars in the cluster field with those of the stars from the catalogue by Landolt (1992). The accuracies on the zero-points amount to $`0.04`$ mag.

For each band, we derive magnitudes within a fixed aperture of diameter 4.4′′ and Kron (adaptive) magnitudes. The catalogue is complete up to $`\mathrm{V}=22.8`$ mag, $`\mathrm{R}=22.3`$ mag and $`\mathrm{I}=20.8`$ mag, and includes, respectively, $`\mathrm{N}=`$ 574, 649 and 419 galaxies brighter than these limits.

The cross-correlated catalogue includes celestial coordinates, fixed aperture and Kron magnitudes, and Kron radii of $`\mathrm{N}=1206`$ sources detected in at least one band. The catalogue is available in electronic form. For the $`\mathrm{N}=459`$ sources with additional U- and K-band photometry, we also obtain a redshift estimate by applying the photometric redshift technique.

The V- and R-band photometry have been used to derive the optical luminosity function of the cluster AC 118. The best-fit Schechter parameters are $`R^{}=19.4\pm 0.3`$ and $`\alpha _R=0.94\pm 0.16`$, $`V^{}=20.1\pm 0.4`$ and $`\alpha _V=1.02\pm 0.18`$. Comparing these values with the results obtained by Andreon (2001) for the K-band LF of AC 118, we conclude that the faint end slope of the cluster LF does not depend on the waveband, while the waveband dependence of $`M^{}`$ is consistent with pure passive evolution of the stellar populations of the bright cluster galaxies.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to Adam Stanford who provided us with his own photometry of AC 118, that was used for the calibration of our R-band data and to Stephane Arnouts who provided us with the galaxy counts used to derive the cluster LFs. We thank S. Zaggia for helpful discussions. We thank the referee A. Mazure for his helpful comments. The observations at ESO were collected during the NTT guaranteed time of the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte. The U-band photometry is based on data from the ESO NTT Science Archive. Michele Massarotti is partly supported by a MURST-COFIN grant.


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# An amenable, radical Banach algebra

## Abstract

We give an example of an amenable, radical Banach algebra, relying on results from non-abelian harmonic analysis due to H. Leptin, D. Poguntke and J. Boidol.

Let $`A`$ be a Banach algebra, and let $`E`$ be a Banach $`A`$-module. A bounded linear map $`D:AE`$ is called a a derivation if

$$D(ab)=a.Db+(Da).b(a,bA).$$

A derivation $`D:AE`$ is said to be inner if

$$Da=x.aa.x(aA)$$

for some $`xE`$. For any Banach $`A`$-module $`E`$, its dual space $`E^{}`$ is naturally equipped with a Banach $`A`$-module structure via

$$x,a.\varphi :=x.a,\varphi \text{and}x,\varphi .a:=a.x,\varphi (aA,xE,\varphi E^{}).$$

We can now give the definition of an amenable Banach algebra:

###### Definition 1

A Banach algebra $`A`$ is amenable if, for each Banach $`A`$-module $`E`$, every derivation $`D:AE^{}`$ is inner.

The notion of amenability for Banach algebras was introduced by B. E. Johnson in \[Joh\]. A locally compact group $`G`$ is called amenable if it possesses a translation-invariant mean, i.e. if there is a linear functional $`\varphi :L^{\mathrm{}}(G)`$ satisfying

$$\varphi (1)=\varphi =1\text{and}\varphi (\delta _xf)=\varphi (f)(xG,fL^{\mathrm{}}(G)).$$

For instance, all abelian and all compact groups are amenable. For further information, see the monograph \[Pat\]. In \[Joh\], B. E. Johnson proved the following fundamental theorem which provides the motivation for Definition 1:

###### Theorem 2

Let $`G`$ be a locally compact group. Then $`G`$ is amenable if and only if $`L^1(G)`$ is amenable.

Since then, amenability has turned out to be an extremely fruitful concept in Banach algebra theory. We only would like to mention the following deep result due to A. Connes (\[Con\]) and U. Haagerup (\[Haa\]):

###### Theorem 3

A $`C^{}`$-algebra is amenable if and only if it is nuclear.

In \[Loy\], P. C. Curtis asked the following question:

###### Question 1

Is there an amenable, radical Banach algebra?

In these notes, I would like to answer this question affirmativly.

Let $`A`$ be a Banach algebra, and let $`\mathrm{Prim}(A)`$ denote the space of its primitive ideals endowed with the Jacobson topology. Recall that a closed subset $`F`$ of $`\mathrm{Prim}(A)`$ is a set of synthesis for $`A`$ if $`\mathrm{ker}(F)`$ is the only closed ideal $`I`$ of $`A`$ such that $`F=\mathrm{hull}(I)`$. Otherwise, $`F`$ is called a set of non-synthesis for $`A`$

###### Definition 4

A Banach algebra is said to be weakly Wiener if the empty set is a set of synthesis for $`A`$.

As is customary, we call a locally compact group $`G`$ weakly Wiener if $`L^1(G)`$ is weakly Wiener.

The following proposition is easily verified:

###### Proposition 5

Suppose there is a locally compact group which is amenable, but not weakly Wiener. Then there is an amenable, radical Banach algebra.

* Since $`G`$ fails to be weakly Wiener, there is a proper, closed ideal $`J`$ of $`L^1(G)`$ whose hull in $`\mathrm{Prim}(L^1(G))`$ is empty. Then $`R:=L^1(G)/J`$ is a radical Banach algebra which, being the quotient of an amenable Banach algebra, has to be amenable. $``$

It thus makes sense to ask:

###### Question 2

Is there a locally compact group which is amenable, but fails to be weakly Wiener?

By the proposition, an affirmative answer to Question 2 entails an affirmative one to Question 1. When I posed Question 2 to Jean Ludwig of Metz he was (to my surprise) not only able to answer the question immediately upon learning of it, but also claimed that Question 2 had already been settled in the eighties by J. Boidol. The example is the group

$$G_{4,9}(0):=\{\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill e^t& \hfill x& \hfill e^tz\\ \hfill 0& \hfill e^t& \hfill y\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1\end{array}\right]:t,x,y,z\}.$$

Another way of describing $`G_{4,9}(0)`$ is as follows. The Heisenberg group is defined as

$$H_1:=\{\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 1& \hfill x& \hfill z\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill y\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1\end{array}\right]:x,y,z\}.$$

Let $`𝔄(H_1)`$ denote the group of automorphisms of $`H_1`$, and define $`\varphi :𝔄(H_1)`$ through

$$\varphi (t)\left(\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 1& \hfill x& \hfill z\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill y\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1\end{array}\right]\right):=\left(\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill 1& \hfill e^tx& \hfill z\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill e^ty\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 1\end{array}\right]\right).$$

Then we may identify $`G_{4,9}(0)`$ with the semidirect product $`H_1\times _\varphi `$. In particular, $`G_{4,9}(0)`$ is an abelian extension of the nilpotent group $`H_1`$, thus solvable, and therefore amenable.

What remains to be shown is that $`G_{4,9}(0)`$ is not weakly Wiener. As Ludwig claims, this was proved by Boidol. Apparently, Boidol never published his finding. However, the proof of \[L-P, Theorem 6\] can be modified with the help of \[Boi, Lemma 1\] to yield the desired result.

We require two lemmas, the first of which is completely elementary:

###### Lemma 6

Let $`A`$ be a Banach algebra which is weakly Wiener. Then every quotient of $`A`$ is weakly Wiener.

The second lemma is a variant of the lemma on \[L-P, p. 130\]. For a Banach algebra $`A`$ we write $`M(A)`$ to denote its double centralizer algebra.

###### Lemma 7

Let $`A`$ be a Banach algebra which is weakly Wiener, and let $`pM(A)`$ be an idempotent such that $`ApA`$ is dense in $`A`$. Then $`pAp`$ is weakly Wiener.

* Let $`JpAp`$ be a closed ideal, and let $`I`$ denote the closed ideal of $`A`$ generated by $`J`$. Obviously, $`I=I_0^{}`$ with

$$I_0:=J+AJ+JA+AJA,$$

and consequently, $`pIpJ`$. This means that $`IA`$. Since, by assumption, $`A`$ is weakly Wiener, there is a primitive ideal $`P`$ of $`A`$ such that $`IP`$. Let $`Q:=pApP`$. Assume that $`Q=pAp`$. Then $`(ApA)^2P`$, and since $`P`$ is primitive, $`ApAP`$. The density of $`ApA`$ in $`A`$ yields $`A=P`$, which is a contradiction. Let $`\pi `$ be an irreducible representation of $`A`$ on some linear space, say $`E`$, such that $`\mathrm{ker}\pi =P`$. Since $`A`$ is an ideal in $`M(A)`$, $`\pi `$ extends canonically to an irreducible representation of $`M(A)`$ on $`E`$, which we denote by $`\pi `$ as well. Since $`pApP`$, we have $`\pi (p)0`$. Let $`x\pi (p)E\{0\}`$. Then

$$\pi (pAp)x=\pi (pA)x=\pi (p)\pi (A)x=\pi (p)E,$$

and consequently $`(\pi |_{pAp},\pi (p)E)`$ is an irreducible representation of $`pAp`$ (compare the proof of \[B-D, Theorem 26.14\]), and $`Q`$ is primitive. $``$

Furthermore, we require the theory of generalized $`L^1`$-algebras as given in \[Lep\]. Let $`G`$ be a locally compact group, and let $`𝒜`$ be a Banach -algebra with isometric involution such that $`G`$ acts on $`𝒜`$ as a group of isometric -automorphisms; for $`xG`$, we write $`𝒜aa^x`$ for the automorphism implemented by $`x`$. The Banach space $`L^1(G,𝒜)`$ becomes a Banach -algebra with isometric involution via

$`(fg)(x):={\displaystyle _G}f(xy)^{y^1}g(y^1)𝑑y\text{and}f^{}(x):=\mathrm{\Delta }_G(x)^1(f(x^1)^x)^{}`$
$`(f,gL^1(G,𝒜),xG)`$
where $`dx`$ denotes left Haar measure, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_G`$ is the modular function on $`G`$.

Our main result will be that for a specific choice of $`𝒜`$ the algebra $`L^1(G,𝒜)`$ fails to be weakly Wiener and then use this to conclude that $`G_{4,9}(0)`$ is not weakly Wiener.

We shall be concerned with the following situation:

* $`G`$ and $`H`$ are locally compact groups, and
* $`G`$ acts continuously and automorphically on $`H`$, i.e. there is a continuous mapping $`G\times HH`$, $`(g,x)x^g`$ such that $`xy)^g=x^gy^g`$, $`(x^g)^h=x^{gh}`$, and $`x^1=x`$.

For each $`gG`$, $`dx^g`$ is left Haar measure. Thus, there is a positive real number $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)`$ such that $`dx^g=\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)dx`$.

For $`f𝒞_0(H)`$ and $`hH`$, we define $`f_h`$ and $`f^h`$ via

$$f^h(x):=f(hx)\text{and}f_h(x):=f(xh)(xH).$$

We shall also require a subalgebra $`𝒬`$ of $`𝒞_0(H)`$ with the following properties:

1. $`𝒬`$ is a -subalgebra of $`𝒞_0(H)`$ equipped with a Banach algebra $`||`$ such that $`|q^{}|=|q|q_{\mathrm{}}`$.
2. For $`q𝒬`$ and $`h`$, we have $`q^h𝒬`$ and $`|q^h|=|q|`$.
3. For each $`q𝒬`$, the map $`Hhq^h`$ is continuous.
4. The compactly supported functions in $`𝒬`$ form a dense subalgebra $`𝒬_{00}`$.
5. For every neighborhood $`U`$ of $`1_H`$, there is $`u𝒬`$ such that

* $`u0`$ and $`\mathrm{supp}(u)U`$,
    * $`u_h𝒬`$ for all $`hH`$, and
    * the map $`Hhu_h`$ is continuous.

* 1. Obviously, $`𝒞_0(H)`$ satisfies all the requirements.
    2. In case $`H`$ is abelian, we may choose $`𝒬=A(H)L^1(\widehat{H})`$.

Let $`𝒬`$ be as described above. For $`u𝒬`$ and $`gG`$, let

$$(ug)(x):=u(x^{g^1})(xH).$$

We assume moreover:

1. For each $`gG`$, the map $`𝒬qqg`$ is an isometric automorphisms of $`𝒬`$.
2. For each $`q𝒬`$, the map $`Ggqg`$ is continuous.

These assumptions are certainly true for the two examples given above.

In this situation, we may speak of $`L^1(H,𝒬)`$. For $`fL^1(H,𝒬)`$ and $`gG`$, let

$$f^g(x):=\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)^1f(x^{g^1})g(xH).$$

Thus, for each $`gG`$, the mapping $`L^1(H,𝒬)ff^g`$ is an isometric -isomorphism, and we may speak of $`L^1(G,L^1(H,𝒬))`$.

We are finally in a position to state the main theorem of these notes:

###### Theorem 8

Let $`G`$, $`H`$ and $`𝒬`$ be given as above, let $`𝒜:=L^1(H,𝒬)`$, and suppose that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}1`$. Then $`L^1(G,𝒜)`$ is not weakly Wiener.

* For the sake of brevity, write $`:=L^1(G,𝒜)`$. Let $`:=L^2(H)`$. We begin by defining a faithful -representation $`\rho `$ of $`𝒜`$ on $``$. For $`f𝒜`$ and $`\xi `$, let — note that we can view $`f`$ as a function on $`H\times H`$

$$(\rho (f)\xi )(x)=_Hf(xy,y^1)\xi (y^1)𝑑y(xH).$$
(1)
For $`u,v𝒬_{00}`$, define $`uv𝒜`$ through

$$(uv)(x):=\mathrm{\Delta }_H(x)^{1/2}u^x\overline{v}.$$

Then we have

$$(uv)(x,y)=\mathrm{\Delta }(x)^{1/2}u(xy)\overline{v(x)}(x,yH).$$
(2)
Letting $`u^{}(x):=\mathrm{\Delta }_H(x)^{1/2}u(x)`$, we obtain from (1) and (2) that

$`(\rho (uv)\xi )(x)`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle _H}\mathrm{\Delta }_H(xy^1)^{1/2}u(x)\overline{v(y^1)}\xi (y^1)𝑑y`$
$`=`$ $`u^{}(x){\displaystyle _H}\xi (y^1)\overline{v(y^1)}\mathrm{\Delta }_H(y^1)^{1/2}𝑑y`$
$`=`$ $`\xi ,v^{}u^{}(x).`$
Thus $`\rho (uv)`$ is a rank one operator, which in case $`u^{}_2=1`$ is a projection.

Fix a real valued function $`u𝒬_{00}`$ such that $`u(1_H)>0`$ and $`u^{}_2=1`$, and let $`p:=uu`$. Since $`\rho `$ is faithful and $`\rho (p)`$ has rank one, it follows that $`p`$ is a projection in $`𝒜`$ such that $`p𝒜p=p`$. Define a projection $`p^\mathrm{\#}M()`$ by letting

$$(p^\mathrm{\#}f)(g):=p^gf(g)\text{and}(fp^\mathrm{\#})(g):=f(g)p(gG).$$

We wish to apply Lemma 7. As is shown in the proof of \[L-P, Theorem 4\], $`𝒜p𝒜`$ is dense in $`𝒜`$, and as pointed out on \[L-P, p. 131\] this implies the density of $`p^\mathrm{\#}`$ in $``$. Thus, we are finished once we have established that $`_p:=p^\mathrm{\#}p^\mathrm{\#}`$ fails to be weakly Wiener.

Let $`𝒦`$ denote the compact linear operators on $``$. Again from the proof of \[L-P, Theorem 4\], we see that $`\rho (𝒜)𝒦`$. Define a unitary representation of $`G`$ on $``$ by letting

$$(\pi (g)\xi )(x):=\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)^{1/2}\xi (x^g)(gG,xH,\xi ).$$

Then for $`gG`$, $`a𝒜`$, and $`\xi `$, we have

$`(\pi (g)^{}\rho (a)\pi (g)\xi )(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}^{1/2}(g)(\rho (a)\pi (g)\xi (x^{g^1})`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}^{1/2}(g){\displaystyle _H}a(x^{g^1}y,y^1)(\pi (g)\xi )(y^1)𝑑y`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _H}a(x^{g^1}y,y^1)\xi ((y^g)^1)𝑑y`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _H}\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)^1a((xy)^{g^1},(y^1)^{g^1})\xi (y^1)𝑑y`$
$`=`$ $`(\rho (a^g)\xi )(x)(xH),`$
i.e. $`\pi `$ implements the action of $`G`$ on $`\rho (A)`$. In what follows, we shall suppress the symbol $`\rho `$ and view $`𝒜`$ as a subalgebra of $`𝒦`$.

Let $`G`$ act on $`𝒦`$ in the trivial way, and consider the generalized group algebra $`L^1(G,𝒦)`$. For $`f`$, let

$$f^{\mathrm{}}(g):=\pi (g)f(g)(gG).$$

It is easy to see that $`f^{\mathrm{}}L^1(G,𝒦)`$, and that $`\sigma :L^1(G,𝒦),ff^{\mathrm{}}`$ is a faithful -homomorphism. We wish to compute $`\sigma (_p)`$. For $`f`$ and $`gG`$, we have $`(p^\mathrm{\#}fp^\mathrm{\#})(g)=p^gf(g)p`$, i.e. we have

$$f_pf(g)=p^gf(g)p\text{ for almost all }gG.$$

Thus, for $`f`$ and for almost all $`gG`$, we have

$$f^{\mathrm{}}(g)=\pi (g)f(g)=\pi (g)p^gf(g)p=p\pi (g)f(g)p=\varphi (g)p,$$

for some $`\varphi (g)`$. Let $`||_{}`$ denote the $`C^{}`$-norm on $`𝒦`$. Then we have

$$|\varphi (g)|=|f^{\mathrm{}}(g)|_{}=|f(g)|_{}f(g).$$

Consequently, $`\sigma (_p)L^1(G)pL^1(G,𝒦)p`$. View $`𝒬_{00}`$ as a subspace of $``$. Then cleary $`\pi (G)𝒬_{00}𝒬_{00}`$. In particular, we have

$$(\pi (g)u)(x)=\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}^{1/2}(g)u(x^g)(gG,xH).$$

Define

$$w(g):=\pi (g^1)uu(gG).$$

Is is easily seen (compare \[L-P, p. 129\]) that

$$p^g𝒜p=w(g)\text{and}|\omega (g)|_{}=1.$$

It follows hat each $`f_p`$ has the form $`f(g)=\varphi (g)w(g)`$. Letting

$$\omega (g):=w(g)(gG),$$

we conclude that $`\sigma (_p)`$ is the Beurling algebra $`L^1(G,\omega )`$ (it is shown on \[L-P, p. 130\] that $`\omega `$ is indeed a weight). For $`gG`$, we have

$`\omega (g)`$ $`=`$ $`\pi (g^1)uu`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _H}|(\pi (g^1)u)^xu|\mathrm{\Delta }_H(x)^{1/2}𝑑x`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle _H}(\pi (g^1)u)^xu_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Delta }_H(x)^{1/2}𝑑x`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _H}(\underset{yH}{sup}|\pi (g^1)u(xy)u(y)|)\mathrm{\Delta }_H(x)^{1/2}𝑑x`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle _H}|\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)^{1/2}u(1_H)u(x^1)|\mathrm{\Delta }_H(x)^{1/2}𝑑x`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)^{1/2}\left[\underset{:=\mathrm{\Omega }>0}{\underset{}{u(1_H){\displaystyle _H}\mathrm{\Delta }_H(x)^{1/2}|u(x^1)|𝑑x}}\right].`$
Assume that $`_p`$ is weakly Wiener. Then by Lemma 6, $`L^1(G,\omega )`$ is weakly Wiener. Since $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}^{1/2}()`$ is a homomorphism from $`G`$ into the abelian group $`\{0\}`$, there is no loss of generality if we assume that $`G`$ is also abelian. By assumption, there is $`gG`$, such that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)^{1/2}>1`$. We thus have

$$\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{log}\omega (g^n)}{n^2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Omega }}{n^2}+\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g^n)^{1/2}}{n^2}=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Omega }}{n^2}+\frac{1}{2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{G,H}(g)}{n}=\mathrm{}.$$

Thus, $`L^1(G,\omega )`$ does not satisfy the Beurling-Domar condition (\[Rei, p. 132\]) for a Beurling algebra to be weakly Wiener, and we have reached a contradiction (compare \[Boi\]). $``$

###### Corollary 9

$`G_{4,9}(0)`$ is not weakly Wiener.

* We identify $`L^1(G_{4,9}(0))`$ and $`L^1(,L^1(H_1))`$. For $`fL^1(H_1)`$, define

$$\dot{f}(x,s):=f(x,y,z)e^{i(sy+z)}𝑑y𝑑z.$$

The map $`L^1(H_1)f\dot{f}`$ is easily seen to be an epimorphism onto $`𝒜:=L^1(,𝒬)`$ with $`𝒬:=A()`$, which in turn induces an epimorphism from $`L^1(G_{4,9}(0))`$ onto $`L^1(,𝒜)`$. So, if $`L^1(G_{4,9}(0))`$ is weakly Wiener, the same must be true for $`L^1(,𝒜)`$ by Lemma 6 (here, the action of $``$ on $``$ is given by $`(t,x)e^tx`$). Consequently, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_,(t)=e^t1`$. From Theorem 8, we obtain that $`L^1(,𝒜)`$ cannot be wekaly Wiener. $``$

In view of the proposition, we finally obtain the promised answer to Question 1:

###### Corollary 10

There is an amenable, radical Banach algebra.

It is not clear at all (and in fact extremely unlikely) that the amenable, radical Banach algebra whose existence we have just proved is commutative. Hence, the following question remains open (\[Hel, Problem 13\]):

###### Question 3

Is there a commutative, amenable, radical Banach algebra?

| Address: | Fachbereich 9 Mathematik |
| --- | --- |
|  | Universität des Saarlandes |
|  | Postfach 151150 |
|  | 66041 Saarbrücken |
|  | Germany |
| E-mail: | runde@math.uni-sb.de |


text:
# The role of interaction vertices in bound state calculations

## 1 Introduction

In general, a proper description of bound states requires an infinite summation of all possible interactions. Since this is usually not an easy task various approximation methods are used. Perhaps the best known approximations for the one-body and two-body systems are, respectively, the rainbow and the ladder approximations. The Dyson-Schwinger equation is usually used to sum the rainbow diagrams for the one-body propagator, and the Bethe-Salpeter equation in ladder approximation sums the two-body ladders exactly. In both cases these kernels do not sum any crossed exchanges. We now know that, for scalar theories, crossed ladder exchanges make a very significant contribution to the binding energies of two-body systems , and that “crossed rainbow” diagrams make equally significant contributions to the one-body dressed mass . This means that equations that include crossed exchanges approximately do a better job of reproducing the exact result than does the Bethe-Salpeter equation (in ladder approximation) or the Dyson-Schwinger equation (in rainbow approximation). In this letter our goals are (i) to study the role of vertex corrections in the two-body Greens’ function, and to (ii) to discuss the remarkable implication of the cancellation of rainbow and crossed rainbow diagrams in the one-body propagator. Here, and in the next section, we only discuss vertex corrections to the two-body Greens’ function, and return to the one-body propagator in Sec. III below.

In general a consistent treatment of any nonperturbative calculation must involve summation of all possible vertex corrections. Vertex corrections are those irreducible diagrams that surround an interaction vertex. Take $`\varphi ^3`$ theory as an example. The elementary vertex is the three-point vertex, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_3`$, but the particle interactions will lead to the appearance of $`n`$th order irreducable vertices, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$, as illustrated in Fig. 1.

The propagation of a bound state therefore involves a summation of all diagrams with the inclusion of higher order vertices (Fig. 2). A rigorous determination of all of these vertices is in general not feasible. In the literature on bound states $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n>3}`$ interaction vertices are usually completely ignored. The 3-point vertex $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_3`$ can be approximately calculated in the ladder approximation . However a rigorous determination of the exact form of the 3-point vertex is difficult, for this requires the knowledge of even higher order vertices.

In order to be able to make a connection between the exact theory and predictions based on approximate bound state equations it is essential that the role of interaction vertices be understood. The Feynman-Schwinger Representation (FSR) is a useful technique for this purpose. The FSR is an approach based on Euclidean path integrals similar to lattice gauge theory . In this approach the path integrals over quantum fields are integrated out and replaced by path integrals over the trajectories of the particles.

In this paper we determine exactly the bound state mass for two scalar particles in scalar QED in the quenched approximation, i.e. neglecting only charge loop contributions, but including all self-energy, vertex and crossed ladder contributions. We in particular demonstrate, for the first time, that the full bound state result dictated by a Lagrangian can be well approximated by summing only generalized ladder diagrams (“generalized” ladders include crossed ladders and, in theories with an elementary four-point interaction, both overlapping and non-overlapping “triangle” and “bubble” diagrams). In the next section we investigate the interplay of vertex, self-energy and wave function normalizations within the context of massive scalar QED (SQED). First we look at the implications in 0+1 dimensions, where exact analytic results can be obtained using the FSR method. Next we extend the analysis to 3+1 dimensions using numerical methods, and show that in SQED3+1 wave function normalization and vertex function normalization exactly cancel.

## 2 Determination of vertex contributions using the FSR approach

The Minkowski metric expression for the SQED Lagrangian in Feynman gauge is

$`_{\mathrm{SQED}}`$ $`=`$ $`m^2\chi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mu ^2A_\mu ^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(^\mu A_\mu )^2`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`(_\mu ieA_\mu )\chi ^{}(^\mu +ieA^\mu )\chi ,`$
where $`A_\mu `$ is the gauge field of mass $`\mu `$, $`\chi `$ is a charged field of mass $`m`$ and charge $`e`$, $`F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu `$, and $`A_\mu ^2=A_\mu A^\mu `$, $`F_{\mu \nu }^2=F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }`$.

The final FSR result for the two-body propagator involves a quantum mechanical path integral that sums up contributions coming from all possible trajectories of the two charged particles $`\chi `$. This path integral is

$$G\mathrm{}_0^{\mathrm{}}ds\mathrm{}_0^{\mathrm{}}d\overline{s}\mathrm{}(𝒟z)_{xy}\mathrm{}(𝒟\overline{z})_{\overline{x}\overline{y}}e^{K[z,s]K[\overline{z},\overline{s}]}W(C),$$
(2)
where the particle trajectories $`z_i(\tau )`$ and $`\overline{z}_i(\tau )`$ are parametric functions of the parameter $`\tau `$, with endpoints $`z_i(0)=x_i`$, $`\overline{z}_i(0)=\overline{x}_i`$, $`z_i(1)=y_i`$, and $`\overline{z}_i(1)=\overline{y}_i`$, with $`i=`$1 to 4. The kinetic term is defined by

$`K[z,s]`$ $`=`$ $`m^2s+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4s}}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\tau \dot{z}^2(\tau ),`$ (3)
and the Wilson loop average $`W(C)`$, obtained in this case by an analytic integration over the fields $`A_\mu `$, is

$`W(C)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2}}{\displaystyle _C}dz_\mu {\displaystyle _C}d\overline{z}_\nu \mathrm{\Delta }_{\mu \nu }(z\overline{z},\mu )],`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mu \nu }(x,\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{ipx}}{p^2+\mu ^2}},`$
where the contour $`C`$ goes from $`xy\overline{y}\overline{x}x`$. In the numerical calculations the ultraviolet singularities are regulated by using a double Pauli-Villars subtraction

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mu \nu }(x,\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{ipx}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^2\mu ^2)(\mathrm{\Lambda }_2^2\mu ^2)}{(p^2+\mu ^2)(p^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^2)(p^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }_2^2)}}.`$
In the limit of large $`z_4(1)=\overline{z}_4(1)=T`$, the ground state mass is given by

$$M_2=\underset{T\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{d}{dT}\mathrm{ln}[G(T)]=\frac{𝒟ZS^{}[Z]e^{S[Z]}}{𝒟Ze^{S[Z]}}.$$
(4)
Equation (2) has a very nice physical interpretation. The term $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mu \nu }(z_az_b,\mu )`$ describes the propagation of gauge field interations between any two points on the particle trajectories, and the appearance of these interaction terms in the exponent means that the interactions are summed to all orders with arbitrary ordering of the points on the trajectories. Self-interactions come from terms with the two points $`z_a`$ and $`z_b`$ on the same trajectory, generalized ladder exchanges arise if the two points are on different trajectories, and vertex corrections arise from a combination of the two.

### 2.1 SQED0+1

In order to understand the role of vertex corrections we first consider the simple case of SQED in 0+1 dimension. This interaction has been discussed in detail in Refs .

In 0+1 dimension the FSR formulation yields the exact, analytic result for the $`n`$-body bound state interaction energy. It is

$`V_{\mathrm{total}}`$ $`=`$ $`V_{\mathrm{self}}+V_{\mathrm{exchange}}`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`n{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\mu ^2}}n(n1){\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\mu ^2}},`$
$`=`$ $`n(n2){\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\mu ^2}},`$ (6)
where the first term in (5) is from self-energy corrections, and the second from exchange contributions. The exact $`n`$-body dressed mass for SQED in 0+1 dimension is then

$`M_n`$ $`=`$ $`nm+V_{\mathrm{total}},`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`nmn(n2){\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\mu ^2}},`$
$`=`$ $`nM_1+V_{\mathrm{exchange}},`$ (8)
We emphasize that vertex corrections in the FSR approach are automatically taken into account by combinations of self energy and exchange interactions, and because these two interactions are additive in 0+1 dimension, the vertex corrections are identically zero! This fact is summarized in Eq. (8), which shows that the exact result for the $`n`$-body bound state can be written as the sum of $`n`$ dressed single particle masses plus energy arising from the generalized ladder exchanges (only).

In Fig. 3 we display the one-body and two-body bound state results. The figure shows the effects of higher order interaction vertices are included if one uses the dressed mass obtained from the original Lagrangian, the bare vertices with the original coupling strength $`e`$, and then sums all exchange interactions. This statement may be symbolically expressed by

$`L(e,\mu ,m)+V_{\mathrm{total}}`$ $``$ $`L(e,\mu ,M_1)+V_{\mathrm{exchange}}`$ (9)
where $`V_{\mathrm{total}}`$ implies that all interactions are summed.

It might appear that these results are an oddity of 0+1 dimension. In the next section we will show that they also hold for 3+1 dimensions.

### 2.2 SQED3+1

We adopt the following procedure for determining the contribution of vertex corrections in 3+1 dimension. We start with an initial bare mass $`m`$ and calculate the full two-body bound state result with the inclusion of all interactions: generalized ladders, self energies and vertex corrections. Let us denote the result for the exact two-body bound state mass by $`M_2^{\mathrm{tot}}(e^2,m)`$, since it will be a function of the coupling strength $`e`$ and the bare input mass $`m`$, and the superscript “tot” implies that all interactions are summed. Next we calculate the dressed one-body mass $`M_1(e^2,m)`$. Then using the dressed mass value $`M_1(e^2,m)`$ we calculate the bound state mass $`M_2^{\mathrm{exch}}(e^2,M_1)`$ by summing only the generalized exchange interaction contributions. In this last calculation we sum only exchange interactions (generalized ladders), but the self energy is approximately taken into account since we use the (constant) dressed one-body mass as input. However the vertex corrections and wavefunction renormalization are completely left out since we use the original vertex provided by the Lagrangian. In order to compare the full result where all interactions have been summed with the result obtained by two dressed particles interacting only by generalized ladder exchanges we plot the bound state masses obtained by these methods. Numerical results are presented in Fig. 4. This result is qualitatively similar to that obtained analytically for SQED in 0+1 dimension.

To summarize the analytical and numerical results we have presented here we give the following prescription for bound state calculations: In order to get the full result for bound states it is a good approximation to first solve for dressed one-body masses exactly (summing all generalized rainbow diagrams), and then use these dressed masses and the bare interaction vertex provided by the Lagrangian to calculate the bound state mass by summing only generalized ladder interactions (leaving out vertex corrections). In terms of Feynman graphs this prescription can be expressed as in Fig. 5

## 3 Discussion

The significance of the results presented above rests in the fact that the problem of calculating exact results for bound state masses in SQED has been reduced to that of calculating only generalized ladders. Summation of generalized ladders can be addressed within the context of bound state equations . Here, for the first time, we have demonstrated the connection between the full prediction of a Lagrangian and the summation of generalized ladder diagrams. Our results are rigorous for SQED, but are only suggestive for more general theories with spin or internal symmetries. Since we have neglected charged particle loops (our results are in quenched approximation), and the current is conserved in SQED, it is perhaps not surprizing that the bare coupling is not renormalized, but the fact that the momentum dependence of the dressed mass and vertex corrections seem to cancel is surprizing and unexpected. If we were to unquench our calculation, or to use a theory without a conserved current, it is reasonable to expect that both the bare interaction and the mass would be renormalized.

Finally, we call attention to a remarkable cancellation that occurs in the one-body calculations. The exact self energies shown in Figs. 3 and 4 are nearly linear in $`e^2`$ . This remarkable fact implies that the exact self energy is well approximated by the lowest order result from perturbation theory. It is instructive to see how this comes about. If we expand the self energy to fourth order, expanding each term about the bare mass $`m`$, we have

$`S_d^1(p^2)`$ $`=`$ $`m^2p^2+\mathrm{\Sigma }(p^2)`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`m^2p^2+\mathrm{\Sigma }_2+(p^2m^2)\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{}+\mathrm{\Sigma }_4,`$
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{}}(m^2)`$ is the contribution of order $`e^{\mathrm{}}`$ evaluated at $`p^2=m^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}=d\mathrm{\Sigma }(p^2)/dp^2`$ evaluated at $`p^2=m^2`$, and the formula is valid for $`p^2m^2e^2`$. Expanding the dressed mass in a power series in $`e^2`$

$`M_1^2`$ $`=`$ $`m^2+m_2^2+m_4^2+\mathrm{},`$ (11)
where $`m_{\mathrm{}}^2`$ is the contribution of order $`e^{\mathrm{}}`$, and substituting into Eq. (10), give

$`M_1^2`$ $`=`$ $`m^2+\mathrm{\Sigma }_2+\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2+\mathrm{\Sigma }_4+\mathrm{},`$ (12)
The mass is then

$`M_1`$ $`=`$ $`m+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4m^2\left[\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_2+\mathrm{\Sigma }_4\right]\mathrm{\Sigma }_2^2}{8m^3}}+\mathrm{},`$ (13)
The linearity of the exact result implies that the forth order term in Eq. (13) must be zero (or very small), and this can be easily confirmed by direct calculations!

The cancellation of the fourth order mass correction (and all higher orders) is reminisent of the cancellations between generalized ladders that explains why quasipotential equations are more effective that the ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation in explaining two-body binding energies. It shows that a simple evaluation of the second order self energy at the bare mass point is more accurate than solution of the Dyson Schwinger equation in rainbow approximation.

The general lesson seems to be that attempts to sum a small subclass of diagrams exactly is often less accurate than the approximate summation of a larger class of diagrams.

## 4 Acknowledgement

This work was supported in part by the US Department of Energy under grant No. DE-FG02-97ER41032. The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility under DOE contract DE-AC05-84ER40150.


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# Quantum entanglement in carbon nanotubes

## Abstract

With the surge of research in quantum information, the issue of producing entangled states has gained prominence. Here, we show that judiciously bringing together two systems of strongly interacting electrons with vastly differing ground states - the gapped BCS superconductor and the Luttinger liquid, - can result in quantum entanglement. We propose three sets of measurements involving single-walled metallic carbon nanotubes (SWNT) which have been shown to exhibit Luttinger liquid physics, to test our claim and as nanoscience experiments of interest in and of themselves.

Entangled pairs are quantum entities consisting of two components sharing a common wave function; a measurement on one component predetermines the state of the other . Such pairs are a basic resource for quantum information processing, and recent years have begun to see many promising approaches to their production in small numbers (e.g. ). For large scale implementation of quantum information technology, a realization of entanglement in solid state systems and an appropriate means of transporting the components of the entangled pair over long distances are essential. While the constituent Cooper pairs of a gapped BCS superconductor have been studied as a possible natural source of such pairs , the question of separating and transporting them requires further investigation. Here we show how electron-electron interactions in one dimension enables sequential injection of entangled pairs from a superconductor into two nanotubes. The SWNTs, in turn, would allow for transport of entangled states over appreciable distances.

SWNTs, essentially long conducting cylinders of nanoscale diameters and lengths ’$`L`$’ of several microns, are indeed well-suited as carriers for coherent spin states. They are extremely pure systems with large Fermi velocities of $`v_F10^6m/s`$, and are known to exhibit ballistic transport over very long distances. In particular, at low energies compared to the subband spacing $`ϵ_01eV`$, transport is characterized by four ballistic modes propagating with linear dispersion. At low temperatures, $`TT_\varphi =\mathrm{}v_F/k_BL`$, electrons can thus travel the entire length of the tube without losing coherence due to thermal effects. Moreover, nanotubes are expected to be nearly ideal spin conductors, as indeed supported by recent experiments. In addition, they can be grown in a controlled fashion, and as illustrated by their recent employment in building electronic circuit elements, they show a manipulability fit for solid state devices. While all these features bode well for transport and usage of entangled pairs, as detailed in what follows, the actual injection and separation of these pairs into the two tubes rely on the fact that nanotubes have demonstrated Luttinger liquid behavior characteristic of electrons interacting in 1D.

The basic set-up we consider consists of two nanotubes A and B, end-contacted well within a coherence length of each other to a gapped singlet-paired superconductor as in Fig.1. Each wire can be described in bosonized language by a four channel Luttinger liquid Hamiltonian

$$H_i=\underset{a}{}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑xv_a[g_a^1(_x\theta _a^i)^2+g_a(_x\varphi _a^i)^2],$$
(1)
where $`i=A,B`$ denotes the wires, and $`a=\rho _\pm ,\sigma _\pm `$ correspond to the four free sectors of the theory where, by linear transformations we have made a change of basis from the spin-channel indices ($`1,1,2,2`$). The relation between the bosonic fields $`\theta _{n\alpha }^i`$, $`\varphi _{n\alpha }^i`$ ($`n=1/2,\alpha =/`$) and the original chiral right-/left-moving fermionic fields $`\psi _{R/Ln\alpha }^i`$ is expressed through the Bosonization procedure via the transformation $`\psi _{R/Ln\alpha }^ie^{i(\varphi _{n\alpha }^i\pm \theta _{n\alpha }^i)}`$. The parameter $`g_a`$ captures the strength of interactions; $`g_a=1`$ for the non-interacting channels $`a=(\rho ,\sigma \pm )`$, while for the charge sector $`g_{\rho +}`$ has the value $`g_{\rho +}=g0.25`$. The velocities of the free modes $`v_a`$ are given by $`v_a=v_F/g_a`$.

As it is desirable to inject entangled pairs individually, we focus on the case of high resistance contacts where successive Cooper pairs hop sequentially from or into the superconductor. This limit corresponds to almost perfect backscattering at the superconductor-nanotube interface, whence $`\psi _{nL\alpha }^i(0)=\psi _{nR\alpha }^i(0)`$ where $`i=A,B`$ denotes the wire and $`n`$ refers to the channel indices $`1`$ and $`2`$. In the bosonized language, these boundary conditions become $`\theta _a^i(0)=0`$ for $`i=A,B`$ and all $`a=\rho _\pm ,\sigma _\pm `$.

In this set-up we analyze perturbatively the effects of a small amount of Cooper pair tunneling between the superconductor and the two wires. The corresponding Hamiltonian $`H_t`$ for such processes is given by $`H_t=_{i=A,B}H_{ii}^t+H_{AB}^t`$ where $`H_{ii}^t`$ describes the tunneling of whole pairs into wire ‘$`i`$’, and $`H_{AB}^t`$ describes processes in which one electron of the pair tunnels into the tube A and the other one into the tube $`B`$. Thus

$`H_{ii}^t(x)=`$ $`v_FT_{ii}[\psi _{ib}^{}(0)\psi _{ic}^{}(0)`$ (3)
$`\psi _{ib}^{}(0)\psi _{ic}^{}(0)+(h.c.)],`$
$`H_{AB}^t(x)=`$ $`v_FT_{AB}[\psi _{Ab}^{}(0)\psi _{Bc}^{}(0)`$ (5)
$`\psi _{Ab}^{}(0)\psi _{Bc}^{}(0)+(h.c.)],`$
where $`\psi _{i\sigma b}^{}`$ are creation operators for electrons in wire ‘$`i`$’ with corresponding spin $`\sigma `$ and flavor $`b=1R,1L,2R`$ and $`2L`$. The coefficients $`T_{ii}`$ and $`T_{AB}`$ are the bare tunneling amplitudes.

As the common wave-function for each Cooper pair in the bulk is peaked at its center of mass, in a non-interacting model the transmission probability for a pair to enter e.g. wire A, $`t_{AA}|T_{AA}|^2`$, is much higher than the transmission probability for the pair-splitting process, $`t_{AB}|T_{AB}|^2`$, i.e. $`t_{AA}t_{AB}`$. Naively, then, one might expect each Cooper pair to tunnel entirely into one tube or the other. However, due to interactions, tunneling of charge into the ends of the nanotubes involves more than the mere overlap of single-particle electronic wave-functions between the tube and the superconductor. Addition of one extra electron into a tube involves the coherent rearrangement of all electrons in its bulk. As a consequence of this Luttinger liquid physics, one can show that the single electron tunneling density of states at a low energy $`E`$ compared to $`ϵ_0`$ goes as $`\rho _e(E)ϵ_0^1(E/ϵ_0)^{\frac{1}{4}(\frac{1}{g}1)}`$, while the density of states available to tunnel in a Cooper pair is $`\rho _{2e}(E)ϵ_0^1(E/ϵ_0)^{\frac{1}{g}}`$. If the two nanotubes are raised to a voltage, $`Vk_BT/e`$ above the superconductor, Fermi’s Golden Rule reveals that the rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{AA}`$, at which entire Cooper pairs tunnel from the superconductor into the end of one tube, is proportional to $`eV\rho _{2e}`$, and at any given temperature $`T`$, has the dependence $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{AA}(eV/h)(k_BT/ϵ_0)^{\frac{1}{g}1}`$. However, the rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{AB}`$, at which split entangled pairs are injected into both tubes is proportional to the convolution of their one particle tunneling densities of states and has the dependence $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{AB}(eV/h)(k_BT/ϵ_0)^{\frac{1}{2}(\frac{1}{g}1)}`$. Remarkably, at low temperature, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{AB}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{AA}`$, and thus almost all charge transfer occurs as split entangled pairs. We now turn to three sets of measurements that capture these principles in a concrete manner.

The simplest experimental signature of the splitting of Cooper pairs may be obtained from the transconductance measured for two nanotubes as shown in Fig.1. In response to a voltage difference between the nanotubes and the superconductor, we compute the resulting currents flowing into the two wires. We start from the Hamiltonian of Eq. (1) with the appropriate boundary conditions and, along the lines of Ref. , we use a non-equilibrium Keldysh technique  perturbative in the amount of Cooper pair tunneling described by Eq. (5). To bring out the physics of the Cooper pair splitting, we first consider the specific case of applying a voltage drop $`V_A`$ across tube A and none across tube B under the condition $`k_BTeV_Aϵ_0,\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the superconducting gap. In tube A, the applied voltage would produce a current with two components – one due to entire pairs tunneling in A, $`I_{AA}t_{AA}[(2e)^2/h](eV_A/ϵ_0)^{2\alpha }V_A`$, and another due to the splitting of pairs into the two tubes, $`I_{AB}t_{AB}(e^2/h)(eV_A/ϵ_0)^\alpha V_A`$, where $`\alpha =(1/g1)/21.5`$. Strikingly, the current $`I_{AB}`$ runs equally in both tubes, in spite of the absence of a voltage drop across tube B. The non-linear behavior of current is a reflection of the power laws in the density of states, and despite the fact that $`t_{AB}<t_{AA}`$, the contribution from the pair split process clearly dominates at low voltages.

More generally, at finite temperature $`T`$, when voltage drops $`V_A`$ and $`V_B`$ are present across both tubes, one can define an associated conductance matrix $`G_{ij}=I_i/V_j`$, where $`i,j`$ stand for the tubes A and B. It has the form

$`G_{AA}`$ $`=t_{AA}{\displaystyle \frac{(2e)^2}{h}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_BT}{ϵ_0}}\right]^{2\alpha }_{2\alpha }\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2eV_A}{k_BT}}\right]`$ (7)
$`+t_{AB}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{h}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_BT}{ϵ_0}}\right]^\alpha _\alpha \left[{\displaystyle \frac{e(V_A+V_B)}{k_BT}}\right],`$
$`G_{AB}`$ $`=t_{AB}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{h}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_BT}{ϵ_0}}\right]^\alpha _\alpha \left[{\displaystyle \frac{e(V_A+V_B)}{k_BT}}\right],`$ (8)
with $`G_{BB}`$ obtained from $`G_{AA}`$ by interchanging $`A`$ and $`B`$. Here, the scaling function $`_\alpha [x]=_x[2\mathrm{sinh}(x/2)|\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha /2+ix/2\pi )|^2]`$ (where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(z)`$ is the gamma function) and has the limits $`_\alpha (x)_{x0}|\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha /2)|^2`$, $`_\alpha (x)_x\mathrm{}(1+\alpha )(x/2\pi )^\alpha `$. The dominance of split Cooper pair injection in charge transfer is directly seen in Eqs. (7,8), which implies that for $`k_BTϵ_0`$, the two differential conductances $`G_{AA}G_{AB}`$.

The transconductance experiment directly measures the fact that charge is simultaneously injected into both nanotubes. It is not, however, sensitive to the spin state of these electrons. We next consider a Josephson current measurement which verifies that spin $`1/2`$ is added to each wire. Here, as in Fig.2, we consider two nanotubes A and B, meeting at points X and Y separated by distance ’$`L`$’ along the tubes.

At each junction, a superconducting lead makes a point contact with both tubes. To probe the spin state of the electrons, tube A (tube B) is subjected to a magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}=B_A\widehat{x}`$ ($`\stackrel{}{B}=B_B\widehat{x}`$). It may be convenient to choose the field axis $`\widehat{x}`$ parallel to the junction so as to minimize orbital effects. For this particular set-up the Hamiltonian for each wire is similar to the one described in Eq. (1), with the limits of integration extending over the entire range in the position space, as opposed to the imposition of hard boundary conditions of the previous set-up. We compute the free energy of the system perturbatively in the tunneling of Cooper pairs at points X and Y described by a tunneling term similar (but not identical) to Eq. (5). We find that, at low temperature (when the thermal coherence length $`L_\varphi =\mathrm{}v_F/k_BT>L`$), the nanotubes act as a Josephson weak link with associated critical current

$`I_c={\displaystyle \frac{ev_F}{L}}\{{\displaystyle \underset{i=A,B}{}}[\stackrel{~}{t}_{ii}^{(1)}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{L}}\right)^{2\beta }+\stackrel{~}{t}_{ii}^{(2)}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{L}}\right)^\alpha \mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝐠\mu _BB_iL}{\mathrm{}v_F}}\right)]`$ (9)
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{L}}\right)^\beta [\stackrel{~}{t}_{AB}^{(1)}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝐠\mu _B\delta BL}{2\mathrm{}v_F}}\right)+\stackrel{~}{t}_{AB}^{(2)}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝐠\mu _BB_TL}{2\mathrm{}v_F}}\right)]\},`$ (10)
where $`\delta B=B_AB_B`$, $`B_T=B_A+B_B`$ and $`\beta =(g+1/g)/41/2`$. Also $`d`$ is the diameter of the tube and is of the order of a few nanometers, $`𝐠`$ is the Landé factor, and $`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton. The dimensionless constants $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{ii}^{(1/2)}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{AB}^{(1/2)}`$ are proportional to the (small) bare transmission probabilities of Cooper pairs from the superconductors to the nanotubes in the unsplit and split processes, respectively. The index ’$`1`$’ refers to injection of pairs of electrons with the same chirality (two right movers or two left movers) into the wires, while the index ’$`2`$’ refers to injection of pairs consisting of a left-moving and a right-moving electron. Notice the highly anomalous length dependence compared to the case of non-interacting wires, where the Josephson current is inversely proportional to the separation length $`L`$. Because they have the largest power-law prefactor, the pair-splitting ($`\stackrel{~}{t}_{AB}^{(1/2)}`$) terms are enhanced relative to the next largest contribution by a factor of $`(L/d)^{0.6}63`$ for typical nanotube parameters. Strikingly, as a function of either one of the applied magnetic fields $`B_A`$ and $`B_B`$, contributions from Cooper pair split processes oscillate with half the frequency of those generated by unsplit pairs ($`\stackrel{~}{t}_{ii}^{(2)}`$). We estimate the period of these magnetic field oscillations to be in the Tesla range. In an actual experiment, in which some flux between the nanotubes is inevitable, the above critical current will give the envelope for much faster Aharanov-Bohm oscillations (on the scale of a few Gauss) in the critical current, but the two types of oscillations can be easily distinguished by their very different periodicities.

While the proposed measurements establish that charge enters from the superconductor in the form of separated electrons with spin $`1/2`$ each, they do not establish that these electrons are actually in the (maximally) entangled singlet state $`[|>_A|>_B|>_A|>_B]/\sqrt{2}`$. This entanglement is encoded in correlations between the injected spins. As a simple but revealing example, consider the joint probability $`P_{}`$ that both electrons in a given pair have spin “up” along a selected axis $`\widehat{𝐳}`$. In the singlet case, illustrating the EPR ’paradox’, once spin up is measured in tube A, spin down is automatically selected in tube B, and the probability is zero. Contrast this with the measurement of an unentangled up-down pair $`|>_{A\widehat{𝐦}}|>_{B\widehat{𝐦}}`$ along an arbitrary direction $`\widehat{𝐦}`$. If one attempts to preserve spin-rotational invariance on average by choosing the axis $`\widehat{𝐦}`$ with uniform probability on the unit sphere, the probability $`P_{}>0`$ is non-vanishing, due to pairs that are not oriented along $`\widehat{𝐳}`$.

We now propose a specific measurement to test the presence of entanglement through current correlations, i.e. noise. Specifically, in the transconductance set-up of Fig.1, what is required is an experimental measurement of the currents $`I_{i\widehat{𝐧}}`$ of electrons with a given spin orientation (along $`\widehat{𝐧}`$) in each nanotube, $`i=A,B`$. Experimentally, this could be accomplished by a variety of spin-filtering techniques, e.g. by attaching two oppositely polarized half-metallic ferromagnets via ideal adiabatic contacts to each nanotube (many other schemes, e.g Ref. are possible.) Consider measuring spin-filtered currents along the $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ axis in tube A and along an axis $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ oriented at an angle $`\theta `$ with respect to $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ in tube B. When a finite voltage drop $`V_A`$ is applied across tube A, the most revealing measurements are those with no voltage drop across tube B, since then all the current in it is due to pair splitting processes.

In a manner similar to the one used to compute the conductance matrix for the system described in Fig.1 we make use of a perturbative Keldysh approach  to derive forms for the spin-filtered currents and current-current correlations. For the case of singlet Cooper pair tunneling, the spin-filtered current correlations at zero temperature are found to be:

$`I_{A\pm \widehat{𝐳}}I_{B\pm \widehat{𝐧}}`$ $`=e\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}I_{B\widehat{𝐧}},`$ (11)
$`I_{A\pm \widehat{𝐳}}I_{B\widehat{𝐧}}`$ $`=e\mathrm{cos}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}I_{B\widehat{𝐧}},`$ (12)
$`I_{B\widehat{𝐧}}`$ $`=I_{B\widehat{𝐧}},`$ (13)
where $`\theta `$ is the angle between the $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ axes. From Eq. (13) we see that when both measurements are made along the $`\widehat{𝐳}`$-axis ($`\theta =0`$), as expected, correlations between like spin currents in the two wires vanish. Also, measurements on B can be made in the x-y plane ($`\theta =\pi /2`$). Then, as seen in Eq. (13), measuring spin-up(or spin-down) in tube A, provides a 50-percent chance of spin-up and a 50-percent chance of spin-down for tube B. By contrast, in the case considered above of tunneling of classically random unentangled spin-up spin-down pairs, one would expect zero temperature correlations of the form

$`I_{A\pm \widehat{𝐳}}I_{B\pm \widehat{𝐧}}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{e}{3}}[1+\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}]I_{B\widehat{𝐧}},`$ (14)
$`I_{A\pm \widehat{𝐳}}I_{B\widehat{𝐧}}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{e}{3}}[1+\mathrm{cos}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}]I_{B\widehat{𝐧}}.`$ (15)
Though the correlations show an angular dependence on $`\theta `$, their form is very different from the entangled case of Eq. (13). Specifically, as anticipated for measurements along the $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ axis in both tubes ($`\theta =0`$), we have $`<I_{A\pm \widehat{𝐳}}I_{B\pm \widehat{𝐳}}>=e/3<I_{B\widehat{𝐳}}>`$, which is non-zero, in stark contrast to the entangled case.

To conclude, in the vast search for physical realizations of entanglement, we have described one method of extracting singlet pairs from a superconducting source. If employing nanotubes for this purpose indeed proves tractable, the next stage in the realm of quantum information would involve new challenges such as probing information at the single electron level and building arrays of coupled logic gates. In the fields of nanoscience and Luttinger physics, attention, both theoretical and experimental, has fallen on bringing effectively one-dimensional systems into contact with superconductors . Here we have hoped to provide more food for thought in these fields by describing two nanotubes in contact with a gapped BCS superconductor.

While finalizing this work we became aware of a related independent proposal by P. Recher and D. Loss . The analysis of  is based on a set-up similar to the one we describe here, yielding similar results with the ones we derive in the first part of our paper.

We are grateful to Daniel Loss for discussions. This research is supported by NSF grants DMR-9985255, DMR-97-04005, DMR95-28578, PHY94-07194, and the Sloan and Packard foundations.