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# Efficient Universal Leakage Elimination for Physical and Encoded Qubits

## Abstract

Decoherence-induced leakage errors can couple a physical or encoded qubit to other levels, thus potentially damaging the qubit. They can therefore be very detrimental in quantum computation and require special attention. Here we present a general method for removing such errors by using simple decoupling and recoupling pulse sequences. The proposed gates are experimentally accessible in a variety of promising quantum computing proposals.

The unit of quantum information is the qubit: an idealized two-level system consisting of a pair of orthonormal quantum states. However, this idealization neglects other levels which are typically present and can mix with those defining the qubit. Such mixing, the prevention of which is the subject of this work, is known as “leakage”. Leakage may be the result of the application of logical operations, or induced by system-bath coupling. In the former case, a rather general solution was proposed in L. Tian and S. Lloyd (2000). Here we are interested in decoherence-induced leakage. E.g., in the ion-trap QC proposal the two-level approximation may break down and spontaneous transitions may leak population out of those levels that represent the qubit in the ion J.I. Cirac and P. Zoller (1995). This is part of a more general problem: quantum computation (QC) depends on reliable components and a high degree of isolation from a noisy environment. When these conditions are satisfied, it is known that it is possible to stabilize a quantum computer using an encoding of a “logical qubit” into several physical qubits. Methods which profitably exploit such an encoding are, e.g., (closed-loop) quantum error correcting codes (QECC) Preskill (1998); E. Knill, R. Laflamme and W. Zurek (1998) and (open-loop) decoherence-free subspaces or subsystems (DFS) P. Zanardi and M. Rasetti (1997); L.-M. Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998); D.A. Lidar, I.L. Chuang and K.B. Whaley (1998); E. Knill, R. Laflamme and L. Viola (2000). The logical qubits of these codes can also undergo leakage errors, which are particularly serious: by mixing states from within the code and outside the code space, leakage completely invalidates the encoding. A simple procedure to detect and correct leakage, which can be incorporated into a fault-tolerant QECC circuit, was given in Preskill (1998). This scheme is, however, not necessarily compatible with all encodings J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.P. DiVincenzo and K.B. Whaley . Here we present a *universal*, open-loop solution to leakage elimination, which makes use of fast and strong “bang-bang” (BB) pulses Viola and Lloyd (1998); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999). We first give a general scheme for protecting qubits (whether encoded or physical) from leakage errors using an efficient pulse sequence. Then we illustrate the general result with examples taken from a variety of promising QC proposals. Particularly important is the fact that our scheme is experimentally feasible in these examples, in the sense that we only make use of the naturally available interactions.

Universal leakage elimination operator.— Here we give a general, existential argument for eliminating all leakage errors on encoded or physical qubits. Suppose that $`n`$ two-level systems (e.g., electron spins in quantum dots D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1998)) are used to encode one logical qubit, or that a $`N`$-level Hilbert space $`_N`$ supports a two-dimensional physical qubit subspace (e.g., hyperfine energy levels of an ion J.I. Cirac and P. Zoller (1995)). Let us arrange the basis vectors $`\{|n\}_{n=0}^{N1}`$ of $`_K`$ so that $`|0`$ and $`|1`$ represent the (physical or encoded) qubit states ($`N=2^n`$ for the encoded case). We refer to this as the “ordered basis”. In this basis we can classify all system operators as follows:

$$E=\left(\begin{array}{cc}B& 0\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right)E^{}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 0\\ 0& C\end{array}\right)L=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& D\\ F& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(1)
where $`B`$ and $`C`$ are $`2\times 2`$ and $`(N2)\times (N2)`$ blocks respectively, and $`D,F`$ are $`2\times (N2)`$, $`(N2)\times 2`$ blocks. Operators of type $`E`$ represent logical operations, i.e., they act entirely within the qubit subspace. $`E^{}`$ operators, on the other hand, have no effect on the qubit as they act entirely outside the qubit subspace. Finally, $`L`$ represents the leakage operators. The total system-bath Hamiltonian can be written as $`H_{SB}=H_E+H_E^{}+H_L,`$ where $`H_E`$ ($`H_E^{},H_L`$) is a linear combination of elements of the set $`E`$ ($`E^{},L`$), tensored with bath operators. Now consider

$$R_L=e^{i\varphi }\left(\begin{array}{cc}I& 0\\ 0& I\end{array}\right),$$
(2)
where the blocks have the same dimensions as in Eq. (1) and $`\varphi `$ is an overall phase. This operator satisfies $`\{R_L,L\}=0`$, while $`[R_L,E]=[R_L,E^{}]=0`$. Using a BB parity-kick sequence Viola and Lloyd (1998) it follows that $`R_L`$ is a *leakage-elimination operator* (LEO):

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}(e^{iH_{SB}t/n}R_L^{}e^{iH_{SB}t/n}R_L)^n=e^{iH_Et}e^{iH_E^{}t}$$
(3)
In practice one takes $`n=1`$ and makes the time $`t`$ very small compared to the bath correlation time Viola and Lloyd (1998). Eq. (3) then holds to order $`t^2`$, and implies that one intersperses periods of free evolution for time $`t`$ with $`R_L,R_L^{}`$ pulses which are so strong that $`H_{SB}`$ is negligible during these BB pulses. The term $`e^{iH_E^{}t}`$ in Eq. (3) has no effect on the qubit subspace. The term $`e^{iH_Et}`$ may result in logical errors, which will have to be treated by other methods, e.g., concatenation with a QECC Preskill (1998); E. Knill, R. Laflamme and W. Zurek (1998); D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon and K.B. Whaley (1999); D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, and K.B. Whaley (2002), or additional BB pulses L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999); M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar . Note that since $`R_L`$ commutes with the logical operations, they can be performed at the same time, i.e., our leakage elimination procedure is fully compatible with universal QC. We now give a procedure for generating LEOs from a controllable system Hamiltonian $`H_S`$ acting for a time $`\tau `$, i.e., $`R_L=\mathrm{exp}(iH_S\tau )`$. From Eq. (2) it follows that $`H_S`$ must act as a projection operator $`P`$ onto the qubit subspace. Furthermore, $`\tau `$ must be chosen so that $`R_L`$ acts as $`I`$ in the qubit subspace. A general choice is

$$R_L^{\mathrm{E}(1)}=\mathrm{exp}\left(\pm i\pi \widehat{n}\stackrel{}{\sigma }P\right)$$
(4)
where $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ denotes the vector of Pauli matrices, which we refer to as logical $`X,Y,Z`$ operations, and $`\widehat{n}`$ is a real unit vector. This is a valid LEO since $`\mathrm{exp}\left(i\pi \widehat{n}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\right)`$ expresses a $`2\pi `$ rotation about the axis $`\widehat{n}`$ on the qubit Bloch sphere, upon which the qubit state acquires a minus sign. A useful example is $`\tau =\pi `$ and $`H_S=|00|+|11|`$, which is a projector onto the qubit subspace and acts as identity there. This example generalizes immediately to $`d`$-dimensional qu$`d`$its:

$$R_L^{\mathrm{id}(d)}=\mathrm{exp}(\pm i\pi \underset{k=0}{\overset{d1}{}}|kk|).$$
(5)
Now let us consider leakage prevention on a code subspace of $`K`$ logical qubits, each supported by $`n`$ physical qubits. In analogy to $`R_L^{\mathrm{E}(1)}`$ we can construct a general LEO as follows. Let $`S_i`$ be a single-qubit logical (unitary) operation on the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ (encoded or physical) qubit, and let $`P_i`$ be a projection on the code subspace of that qubit. Then

$$R_L^{\mathrm{E}(K)}=\mathrm{exp}(\pm i\pi _{i=1}^KS_iP_i)$$
(6)
is a valid LEO.

Proof: We can always rotate the Bloch sphere of a qubit so that each $`S_i`$ is independently transformed into $`Z_i`$$`S_i=U_iZ_iU_i^{}`$ (where $`U_i`$ is an appropriate single-qubit unitary); $`_{i=1}^KZ_i`$ is a diagonal matrix of $`\pm 1`$, so $`\mathrm{exp}(i\pi _{i=1}^KZ_i)=I`$. Thus $`R_L^{\mathrm{E}(K)}=\mathrm{exp}(i\pi _{i=1}^KU_iZ_iU_i^{}P_i)=(_{i=1}^KU_i)\mathrm{exp}(i\pi _{i=1}^KZ_iP_i)(_{i=1}^KU_i^{})=I`$ on the code subspace, and (because of the $`P_i`$) $`=I`$ on the orthogonal complement. QED.

Sometimes we shall be able to construct single-qubit logical operators which are automatically projectors on that qubit’s subspace. We refer to such operators as “canonical”. We are now ready to apply these considerations to a number of promising QC proposals.

Example 1.— As a simple first example, consider physical qubits (without encoding), such as electrons on liquid helium P.M. Platzman and M.I. Dykman (1999), or an electron-spin qubit in quantum dots D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1998); A. Imamo$`\overline{\mathrm{g}}`$lu, D.D. Awschalom, G. Burkard, D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Loss, M. Sherwin and A. Small (1999), or a nuclear-spin qubit in donor atoms in silicon B.E. Kane (1998). In those cases, a potential well at each site traps one fermion. Usually, the ground and first excited state are taken as a qubit for a given site: $`|k=c_k^{}|\mathrm{vac}`$, where $`c_k^{}`$ is a fermionic creation operator for level $`k=0,1`$. Let $`n_k=c_k^{}c_k`$ be the fermion number operator. The logical operations for this qubit are $`E=\{X=c_0^{}c_1+c_0^{}c_1,Y=i(c_1^{}c_0c_0^{}c_1),Z=n_0n_1\}`$ whose elements satisfy $`su(2)`$ commutation relations. In this case, a general linear Hamiltonian which includes hopping terms, $`H_{SB}=_{k,l=0}^{N1}a_{kl}c_k^{}c_l`$, where $`a_{kl}`$ includes parameters and bath operators, and $`k,l`$ denote all electron states, can leak the qubit states $`k=0,1`$ into any of the other states. Using parity-kicks, we can eliminate this leakage in terms of the LEO \[recall Eq. (5)\]: $`R_L^{\mathrm{id}(1)}=\mathrm{exp}[\pm i\pi (n_0+n_1)]`$. This LEO is implemented simply by controlling on-site energies.

Let us now generalize this to $`K`$ qubits. The states of the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ qubit are $`|k_i=c_k^{}(i)|\mathrm{vac}`$. States outside of the code subspace contain at least one creation operator $`c_k^{}(i)`$ with $`k2.`$ A logical $`Z`$ operator on the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ qubit is $`Z_i=n_0(i)n_1(i)`$, which is canonical. It follows from Eq. (6) that an LEO is:

$$(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(K)})_{\mathrm{ferm}}=\mathrm{exp}(\pm i\pi (Z_1Z_2\mathrm{}Z_K)).$$
(7)
The term $`_{i=1}^KZ_i`$ involves a many-body interaction which is not naturally available. However, it can be constructed from available interactions as follows: Let us assume that the interaction between neighboring sites $`i,j`$ contains a controllable $`Z_iZ_j`$ term (in reality such control may have to be obtained indirectly, e.g., by controlling an $`X_iX_j+Y_iY_j`$ term, as shown in D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002), and as discussed in more detail below). We note the following useful “conjugation by $`\pi /4`$” formula D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, and K.B. Whaley (2002):

$$T_Ae^{i\theta B}e^{i\frac{\pi }{4}A}e^{i\theta B}e^{i\frac{\pi }{4}A}=e^{i\theta (iAB)},$$
(8)
which holds provided $`\{A,B\}=0`$ and $`A^2=B^2=I`$. Using this we can efficiently generate long-range interactions by alternately switching interactions $`A,B`$ on/off. E.g.,

$$T_{Y_2}\left[T_{Z_2Z_3}\left(T_{X_2}e^{i\theta Z_1Z_2}\right)\right]=e^{i\theta Z_1Z_2Z_3},$$
(9)
which can, in turn, be used to generate $`e^{i\theta Z_1Z_2Z_3Z_4}`$, etc. Using this recursive process, the implementation of the LEO $`(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(K)})_{\mathrm{ferm}}`$ takes $`O(K)`$ steps. Fig. 1 shows a circuit for the $`4`$-qubit case.

Finally, we note that we can also treat bosonic systems, such as the linear optical QC proposal E. Knill, R. Laflamme, and G.J. Milburn (2001). In this case, a qubit is encoded into two modes. The first qubit has states $`|0_1=b_1^{}|\mathrm{vac}`$ and $`|1_1=b_2^{}|\mathrm{vac}`$, and the second qubit is $`|0_2=b_3^{}|\mathrm{vac}`$ and $`|1_2=b_4^{}|\mathrm{vac}`$, where $`b_i^{}`$ are bosonic creation operators. Encoded two-qubit states are $`|00=b_1^{}b_3^{}|\mathrm{vac},`$ $`|01=b_1^{}b_4^{}|\mathrm{vac},|10=b_2^{}b_3^{}|\mathrm{vac}`$ and $`|11=b_2^{}b_4^{}|\mathrm{vac}.`$ But the linear optical Hamiltonian $`H=_{k,l=1}^4a_{kl}b_k^{}b_l`$, contains beam-splitter terms like $`b_1^{}b_3`$ and $`b_2^{}b_3`$, which can cause leakage into states such as $`b_1^{}b_2^{}|\mathrm{vac}`$ or $`b_1^2|\mathrm{vac}`$. By using the LEO $`R_L^{\mathrm{id}(1)}=\mathrm{exp}\left[\pm i\pi (b_1^{}b_1+b_2^{}b_2)\right]`$, we can eliminate the leakage terms. This LEO can be implemented simply using a linear optical phaseshifter. However, generalizing this LEO to multiple encoded qubits requires a photon-photon interaction, which is not readily available.

Example 3.— A substantial number of promising solid-state QC proposals, e.g. P.M. Platzman and M.I. Dykman (1999); D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1998); A. Imamo$`\overline{\mathrm{g}}`$lu, D.D. Awschalom, G. Burkard, D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Loss, M. Sherwin and A. Small (1999); B.E. Kane (1998); D. Mozyrsky, V. Privman, and M.L. Glasser (2001), are governed by effective isotropic and anisotropic exchange interactions, which quite generally, can be written as

$$H_{\mathrm{ex}}=\underset{i<j}{}J_{ij}^xX_iX_j+J_{ij}^yY_iY_j+J_{ij}^zZ_iZ_j.$$
(10)
The encoding $`|0_L=|01`$, $`|1_L=|10`$ (using two physical qubits per logical qubit) is highly compatible with $`H_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, in the sense that universal QC can be performed by controlling the *single* parameter $`J_{ij}^x`$ in the Heisenberg ($`J_{ij}^x=J_{ij}^y=J_{ij}^z`$), XXZ ($`J_{ij}^x=\pm J_{ij}^yJ_{ij}^z`$), and XY ($`J_{ij}^x=J_{ij}^y`$, $`J_{ij}^z=0`$) instances of $`H_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, provided there is a Zeeman splitting that distinguishes single-qubit $`Z_i`$ terms. This is done using the “encoded selective recoupling” method D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002). Furthermore, the $`\{|01,|10\}`$ encoding is a DFS for collective dephasing (where the bath couples only to system $`Z_{2i1}+Z_{2i}`$ operators) L.-M. Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998); D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon and K.B. Whaley (1999); J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001). A set of logical operations on the code is $`E=\{\overline{X}_1=(X_1X_2+Y_1Y_2)/2`$, $`\overline{Y}_1=(X_2Y_1Y_2X_1)/2`$, $`\overline{Z}_1=(Z_1Z_2)/2\}`$. Only the $`\overline{X}_1`$ term is assumed to be directly controllable (by manipulation of $`J_{12}^x`$), while the $`\overline{Z}_1`$ term can be turned on/off using recoupling D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002). The $`\overline{Y}_1`$ term can then be reached in a few steps: $`e^{i\theta \overline{Y}_1}=T_{\overline{X}_1}e^{i\theta \overline{Z}_1}`$. The leakage errors are due to system-bath interactions where the system terms include any of $`X_i,Y_j,`$ $`X_iZ_j`$ and $`Y_iZ_j`$, since as is easily seen, such terms do not preserve the $`\{|01,|10\}`$ code subspace. As pointed out first in M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar , the LEO can be expressed as $`(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(1)})_{2\mathrm{DFS}}=\mathrm{exp}(i\pi \overline{X}_1)=Z_1Z_2`$, which means that it is implementable using just the controllable $`J_{12}^x`$ parameter in the instances of $`H_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ mentioned above. This form for $`(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(1)})_{2\mathrm{DFS}}`$ is an instance of Eq. (4), with $`\widehat{n}=\widehat{x}`$. Note that, in agreement with our general comments above, $`(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(1)})_{2\mathrm{DFS}}`$ commutes with every element of $`E_{2\mathrm{DFS}}`$, meaning that logical operations can be performed on the encoded subspace *while eliminating leakage*.

Next we now show how to efficiently eliminate leakage in this case on an arbitrary number of encoded qubits. The $`m^{\mathrm{th}}`$ logical qubit is encoded as $`|0_L_m=|0_{2m1}1_{2m}`$, $`|1_L_m=|1_{2m1}0_{2m}`$. The logical $`Z`$ operator is $`\overline{Z}_m=(Z_{2m1}Z_{2m})/2`$, and is canonical. It follows from Eq. (6) that a valid LEO is:

$$(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(K)})_{2\mathrm{DFS}}=\mathrm{exp}(\pm i\pi \overline{Z}_1\overline{Z}_2\mathrm{}\overline{Z}_K).$$
(11)
The next question is how to efficiently construct such an operator. The term $`\overline{Z}_1\overline{Z}_2=\frac{1}{4}(Z_1Z_3+Z_2Z_4Z_2Z_3Z_1Z_4)`$ contains next and second-next nearest-neighbor interactions. Using “conjugation by $`\pi /4`$”, they can all be generated using only nearest-neighbor interactions in terms of the relation

$`e^{i\theta Z_iZ_{i+2}}`$ $`=`$ $`T_{X_{i+1}X_{i+2}}\left(T_{Y_{i+1}Y_{i+2}}e^{i\theta Z_iZ_{i+1}}\right)`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`T_{X_{i+1}X_{i+2}+Y_{i+1}Y_{i+2}}e^{i\theta Z_iZ_{i+1}}`$
where, in accordance with D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002), we have only assumed controllability of the XY interaction term $`X_{i+1}X_{i+2}+Y_{i+1}Y_{i+2}`$. At this point we can use the recursive construction of Eq. (9) again, by replacing $`X,Y,Z`$ there by their encoded counterparts. Doing so takes $`\overline{Z}_i\overline{Z}_{i+1}`$ to $`\overline{Z}_i\overline{Z}_{i+1}\overline{Z}_{i+2}`$, etc., and will again *efficiently* construct the LEO $`(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(K)})_{2\mathrm{DFS}}`$, i.e., using $`O(K)`$ steps. An example of this for $`4`$ encoded qubits is shown in Fig. 1. It is interesting to contrast the linear scaling of this leakage elimination procedure with general error elimination using BB pulses. As shown in L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999), without additional symmetry assumptions restricting the order of coupling terms in the Hamiltonian Eq. (3), the BB procedure, if used to eliminate *all errors*, requires a number of pulses that is exponential in $`N`$.

Example 4.— Collective decoherence is a system-bath interaction that obeys full qubit permutation symmetry: $`H_{SB}^{\mathrm{Coll}.\mathrm{Dec}.}=_{\alpha =x,y,z}\left(_i\sigma _i^\alpha \right)B^\alpha `$, where $`\sigma _i^\alpha `$ are the Pauli matrices and $`B^\alpha `$ are bath operators P. Zanardi and M. Rasetti (1997); L.-M. Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998); D.A. Lidar, I.L. Chuang and K.B. Whaley (1998). This situation can be *created* from an arbitrary linear system-bath coupling $`H_{SB}^{(1)}=_i\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\stackrel{}{B}_i`$, where $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i=(X_i,Y_i,Z_i)`$ and $`\stackrel{}{B}_i`$ are bath operators, using a BB symmetrization pulse-sequence that employs *only* the Heisenberg exchange interaction L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar . The shortest DFS (or “noiseless subsystem”) encoding that protects a single logical qubit against collective decoherence uses $`3`$ physical qubits E. Knill, R. Laflamme and L. Viola (2000). In J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001) it was shown that one can perform universal QC on this DFS, again using only the Heisenberg interaction. To explain the encoding, note that the Hilbert space of $`3`$ spin $`1/2`$’s has total-spin $`\stackrel{}{S}=\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_1+\stackrel{}{\sigma }_2+\stackrel{}{\sigma }_3)`$ and splits into two $`S=1/2`$ subspaces (denoted $`\lambda =0,1`$), and a $`S=3/2`$ subspace. The states can be labeled as $`|S,\lambda ,S_z`$, and the DFS qubit is $`|0_L=\alpha |1/2,0,1/2+\beta |1/2,0,1/2`$, $`|1_L=\alpha |1/2,1,1/2+\beta |1/2,1,1/2`$, $`|\alpha |^2+|\beta |^2=1`$, i.e., the encoding is into the degeneracy of the two $`S=1/2`$ subspaces E. Knill, R. Laflamme and L. Viola (2000); J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001). Collective errors can change the $`\alpha ,\beta `$ coefficients, but have the same effect on the $`|0_L,|1_L`$ states, which is why this encoding is a DFS. If, however, we also consider bilinear system-bath coupling $`H_{SB}^{(2)}=_{i<j}_{\alpha ,\beta =\{x,y,z\}}g_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }\sigma _i^\alpha \sigma _j^\beta B_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }`$, where $`g_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }`$ is a rank-$`2`$ tensor, then the symmetrization procedure of L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar , that prepares collective decoherence conditions, will not work. In this case we must consider the possibility of leakage. The bilinear term $`g_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }\sigma _i^\alpha \sigma _j^\beta `$ can be decomposed into (i) a scalar $`g\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\stackrel{}{\sigma }_j`$, which has the effect of logical errors $`E`$; (ii) two rank-$`1`$ tensors $`\stackrel{}{\beta }`$ $`(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\times \stackrel{}{\sigma }_j)`$ and $`\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\stackrel{}{\gamma }\right)\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_j\stackrel{}{\gamma }\right)`$, which can couple between $`S=1/2`$ states, and can couple them to $`S=3/2`$ states. Note that this also applies to imperfect symmetrization at the level of a linear system-bath Hamiltonian $`H_{SB}^{(1)}`$. Thus we see that the $`S=3/2`$ subspace acts as a source for leakage, and that there is also the possibility of (non-collective) errors \[both from (ii)\] which do not have the same effect on the $`|0_L,|1_L`$ states. We defer an analysis of the latter “$`S=1/21/2`$” errors to a separate publication M.S. Byrd, L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar , but we note that they can be suppressed using techniques similar to those we discuss next.

An open-loop leakage correction circuit for this DFS, that once more uses only the Heisenberg interaction, was given in J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.P. DiVincenzo and K.B. Whaley . There the DFS qubit was defined to be $`|0_L=|1/2,0,1/2`$, $`|1_L=|1/2,1,1/2`$ and transitions to any of the other $`6`$ states were considered as leakage (this includes errors caused by collective decoherence, which are normally avoided by a DFS encoding). Here we add another element to this picture of *the Heisenberg interaction as an enabler of universal, fault-tolerant QC*, by showing that it can also provide an LEO. The importance of Heisenberg-only QC, as pointed out in D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, G. Burkard, and K. B. Whaley (2000), is in the relative ease of manipulating this interaction in a number of the most promising solid-state QC proposals D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1998); B.E. Kane (1998). Now, as shown in J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001), $`\overline{X}=\frac{1}{4\sqrt{3}}(\stackrel{}{\sigma }_1\stackrel{}{\sigma }_3\stackrel{}{\sigma }_2\stackrel{}{\sigma }_3)`$ acts as a logical $`X`$ on the DFS qubit defined above, and annihilates the $`S=3/2`$ states (i.e., it is canonical). Therefore, using Eq. (4), $`(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(1)})_{3\mathrm{DFS}}=\mathrm{exp}(\pm i\pi \overline{X})`$ is a Heisenberg-only LEO for a single $`3`$-qubit DFS which eliminates transitions to the $`S=3/2`$ subspace. An LEO for the $`K`$-qubit case is then, from Eq. (6):

$$(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(K)})_{3\mathrm{DFS}}=\mathrm{exp}(\pm i\pi (\overline{X}_1\overline{X}_2\mathrm{}\overline{X}_K)).$$
(13)
To generate this LEO from available interactions we use a procedure similar to Eq. (9). First, note that $`T_{\overline{Y}_2}T_{\overline{Z}_1}T_{\overline{Z}_1\overline{Z}_2}e^{i\theta \overline{X}_1}=e^{i\theta \overline{X}_1\overline{X}_2}`$. Efficient schemes for generating $`\overline{Z}_i\overline{Z}_j`$ were given in D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, G. Burkard, and K. B. Whaley (2000), while $`\overline{Z}_i,\overline{Y}_i`$ are directly obtainable from the Heisenberg interaction J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001). The recursive construction of $`(R_L^{\mathrm{E}(K)})_{3\mathrm{DFS}}`$ then proceeds using $`T_{\overline{Y}_3}T_{\overline{Z}_2}T_{\overline{Z}_2\overline{Z}_3}e^{i\theta \overline{X}_1\overline{X}_2}=e^{i\theta \overline{X}_1\overline{X}_2\overline{X}_3}`$, etc, which again is a procedure that scales as $`O(K)`$.

Conclusions.— Decoherence-induced leakage from the logical space of (physical or encoded) qubits is a severe source of errors for quantum computation. We have shown how to efficiently and universally eliminate such errors using sequences of “bang-bang” pulses. These pulses can be applied at the same time as logical operations, so that leakage elimination can be performed in conjunction with universal quantum computation. Applications to a variety of promising quantum computing proposals were discussed, and leakage elimination methods were presented that are directly applicable using only experimentally available interactions.

###### Acknowledgements.

The present study was sponsored by the DARPA-QuIST program (managed by AFOSR under agreement No. F49620-01-1-0468), by PRO, PREA, and the Connaught Fund (to D.A.L.). We thank Dr. S. Schneider for helpful discussions.


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# 1 Kinematics of the electroproduction of two pions

1.  Pomeron and Odderon exchanges are the theoretically dominant contributions to hadronic cross sections at high energy. They appear on an equal footing in the QCD description of hadronic reactions, and in the lowest order approximation they correspond to colour singlet exchanges in the $`t`$-channel with two and three gluons, respectively.

The relevance of the Odderon exchange for hadronic reactions was emphasized long ago . In perturbative QCD the Odderon is described by the Bartels-Kwiecinski-Praszalowicz (BKP) equation . In spite of many attempts to solve the BKP equation, its solutions are still known only partially although much progress has been recently achieved . Still this appears to be in a strong contrast with the QCD description of the Pomeron, where solutions of the leading order Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) equation are well known .

The Odderon remains a mistery also from an experimental point of view. On the one hand, recent studies of the elastic $`pp`$ scattering show that one needs the Odderon contribution to understand the data in the dip region . On the other hand, the studies of reactions which should select only the odderon exchange didn’t show any clear signal of its importance. In the case of diffractive $`\eta _c`$-meson photoproduction, the QCD prediction in the Born approximation for the cross section is rather small . The inclusion of evolution following from the BKP equation  leads to an increase of the predicted cross section for this process by one order of magnitude. Recent experimental studies at HERA of exclusive $`\pi ^0`$ photoproduction  also indicate a very small cross section for this process, in disagreement with theoretical predictions based on the stochastic vacuum model . In all these meson production processes the scattering amplitude describing Odderon exchange enters quadratically in the cross section.

In  it was suggested to study Odderon effects at the amplitude level by means of the asymmetries in open charm production. Since the final state quark-antiquark pair has no definite charge parity both Pomeron and Odderon exchanges contribute to this process. The Odderon amplitude enters linearly in the asymmetries and therefore one can hope that Odderon effects can show up more easily. Moreover, the difficulty with the understanding of soft processes in QCD calls for studies of Odderon contributions in hard processes, such as electroproduction, where factorization properties allow to perturbatively calculate a short-distance part of the scattering amplitude.

In this paper, we propose to take advantage of a number of interesting features of the two pion diffractive electroproduction process to search for the QCD-Odderon at the amplitude level. Here again the two pion state doesn’t have any definite charge parity and both Pomeron and Odderon exchanges contribute. The authors of Ref.  suggest to study the charge asymmetry in soft photoproduction of two pions to select the interference of the two amplitudes. Our work shares a number of features with this work. The originality of our study of the electroproduction process is to work in a perturbative QCD framework which enables us to derive well founded predictions in an accessible kinematical domain.

The aim of the present paper is to study the charge asymmetries in the reaction

$$e^{}(p_e)p(p_N)e^{}(p_e^{})\pi ^+(p_+)\pi ^{}(p_{})p^{}(p_N^{})$$
(1)
within perturbative QCD, see Fig. 1. This includes the convolution of perturbatively calculable hard subprocess with the two non-perturbative inputs : 2-pion generalized distribution amplitude (GDA) and Pomeron-Odderon (P/O) proton impact factors. GDA  are just the light-cone wave functions of the two pion system. Contrary to, say, $`\rho `$-meson wave functions, they do not require the selection of a particular charge parity and so are ideally suited for studies of the P/O interference. In order to justify the use of perturbation theory for this process we consider the electroproduction of this system in which the hard scale is supplied by the squared mass $`Q^2`$ of the virtual photon, $`Q^2`$ being of the order of a few GeV2.

We intend to study the dominant (for asymptotically large $`Q^2`$) contribution to the asymmetries. This corresponds to the process with longitudinally polarized photon. In this case the ”longitudinal part” of the two pion wave function is selected, which is a straightforward generalization of the longitudinal polarization of vector meson. The longitudinal polarization vector is enhanced by a Lorentz boost, together with the cross-section of longitudinally polarized pion pair production. This is the twist-2 contribution of the subprocess $`\gamma ^{}\text{P/O}q\overline{q}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, i.e. in the case of the collinear factorization for the $`q\overline{q}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ transition. At moderate $`Q^2`$ it is customary to take into account the transverse momentum $`k_{}`$ dependence of the meson wave functions which is a model way of accounting for higher twist contributions, so that for growing $`Q^2`$ the result is undistinguishible from the one of standard collinear factorization 222We postpone the consideration of $`k_{}`$-dependence for future work.. The relation between the initial and final polarization states is due to the fact that for high-energy diffractive processes s-channel helicity conservation is quite well satisfied. Since the cross sections $`\sigma _L`$ and $`\sigma _T`$ for the longitudinal and transverse photon polarization, respectively, are of the same order of magnitude at moderate $`Q^2`$ , an experimental separation of $`\sigma _L`$ is highly desirable before confronting our predictions with data.

Since the transverse polarization of the pion pair is the only source of the amplitude dependence on the azimuthal angle of the pions in their c.m. frame, the amplitudes and cross sections are independent of this angle in our approximation. As a result, the transverse charge asymmetry, resulting from the distribution in this angle and discussed in , is zero. Due to that restriction, we only study the forward-backward charge asymmetry.

In the present study we calculate the lowest perturbative order contribution to the charge asymmetry, i.e. without taking into account the evolution following from the BFKL or the BKP equation. Our results should be therefore treated as an estimate of the asymmetries. The above mentioned evolutions can be included into the scattering amplitudes in a similar way as in Ref. .

2.  The basic object necessary to calculate the charge asymmetry is the scattering amplitude for the process with a longitudinal virtual photon (Fig. 2).

$$\gamma _L^{}(q)p(p_N)\pi ^+(p_+)\pi ^{}(p_{})p^{}(p_N^{}).$$
(2)
We introduce a Sudakov representation with the Sudakov momenta $`p_1,p_2`$ obeying the equation $`s=2p_1p_2`$, where $`s`$ is related to the total energy squared of the virtual photon - proton system, $`Q^2`$ and the proton target mass $`M`$ as

$$(q+p_N)^2=sQ^2+M^2s,$$

we get for the virtual photon momentum :

$$q^\mu =p_1^\mu \frac{Q^2}{s}p_2^\mu ,$$
(3)
and for the momentum of the two pion system :

$$p_{2\pi }^\mu =(1\frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2}{s})p_1^\mu +\frac{m_{2\pi }^2+\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2}{s}p_2^\mu +p_{2\pi }^\mu ,p_{2\pi }^2=\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2.$$
(4)
The quark ($`l_1`$) and antiquark ($`l_2`$) momenta inside the loop before forming two pion system are parametrized as :

$$l_1^\mu =zp_1^\mu +\frac{m^2+(\stackrel{}{l}+z\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })^2}{zs}p_2^\mu +(l_{}+zp_{2\pi })^\mu $$
(5)
$$l_2^\mu =\overline{z}p_1^\mu +\frac{m^2+(\stackrel{}{l}+\overline{z}\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })^2}{\overline{z}s}p_2^\mu +(l_{}+\overline{z}p_{2\pi })^\mu $$
(6)
where $`2\stackrel{}{l}`$ is the relative transverse momentum of the quarks forming the two pion system and $`\overline{z}=1z`$, up to small corrections of the order $`\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2/s`$. The collinear approximation of the factorization procedure of the description of the two pion formation through the generalized distribution amplitude leads to the vector $`\stackrel{}{l}=\stackrel{}{0}`$ in the hard amplitude.

In a similar way as in (5), (6) we parametrize the momenta of produced pions as

$$p_+^\mu =\zeta p_1^\mu +\frac{m_\pi ^2+(\stackrel{}{p}+\zeta \stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })^2}{\zeta s}p_2^\mu +(p_{}+\zeta p_{2\pi })^\mu $$
(7)
$$p_{}^\mu =\overline{\zeta }p_1^\mu +\frac{m_\pi ^2+(\stackrel{}{p}+\overline{\zeta }\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })^2}{\overline{\zeta }s}p_2^\mu +(p_{}+\overline{\zeta }p_{2\pi })^\mu $$
(8)
where $`2\stackrel{}{p}`$ is now the relative transverse momentum of the produced pions, $`\zeta =\frac{p_2p_+}{p_2p_{2\pi }}`$ is the fraction of the longitudinal momentum $`p_{2\pi }`$ carried by the produced $`\pi ^+`$, and $`\overline{\zeta }=1\zeta `$. The variable $`\zeta `$ is related to the polar decay angle $`\theta `$ defined in the rest frame of the pion pair by

$$\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta =2\zeta 1,\beta \sqrt{1\frac{4m_\pi ^2}{m_{2\pi }^2}}.$$
(9)
Since the ”longitudinal part” of the two pion wave function depends only on the angle $`\theta `$ and doesn’t depend on the azimuthal decay angle $`\varphi `$ (in the same rest frame of the pair) we focus on the calculation of forward-backward asymmetries expressed in terms of $`\theta `$ (see below).

The nucleon momentum in the initial state is given by

$$p_N^\mu =p_2^\mu +\frac{M^2}{s}p_1^\mu .$$
(10)
The squared momentum transfer $`t=r^2`$($`r^\mu =p_{2\pi }^\mu q^\mu )`$ can be written as

$$t=r^2=\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2+t_{min},t_{min}=\frac{M^2(Q^2+m_{2\pi }^2)^2}{s^2}.$$
(11)
3.  It is well known (see e.g.  and references therein) that for large values of $`s`$ and small momentum transfer $`t`$ the scattering amplitudes can be represented as convolutions over the two-dimensional transverse momenta of the $`t`$-channel gluons.

For the Pomeron exchange, which corresponds in the Born approximation to the exchange of two gluons in a colour singlet state, the impact representation has the form:

$$_P=is\frac{d^2\stackrel{}{k}_1d^2\stackrel{}{k}_2\delta ^{(2)}(\stackrel{}{k}_1+\stackrel{}{k}_2\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })}{(2\pi )^2\stackrel{}{k}_1^2\stackrel{}{k}_2^2}J_P^{\gamma ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2)J_P^{NN^{}}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2)$$
(12)
where $`J_P^{\gamma ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2)`$ and $`J_P^{NN^{}}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2)`$ are the impact factors for transition
$`\gamma ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ via Pomeron exchange and of the nucleon in initial state $`N`$ into the nucleon in the final state $`N^{}`$.

The corresponding representation for the Odderon exchange, i.e. the exchange of three gluons in a colour singlet state, is given by the formula

$$_O=\frac{8\pi ^2s}{3!}\frac{d^2\stackrel{}{k}_1d^2\stackrel{}{k}_2d^2\stackrel{}{k}_3\delta ^{(2)}(\stackrel{}{k}_1+\stackrel{}{k}_2+\stackrel{}{k}_3\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })}{(2\pi )^6\stackrel{}{k}_1^2\stackrel{}{k}_2^2\stackrel{}{k}_3^2}J_O^{\gamma ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}}J_O^{NN^{}}$$
(13)
where $`J_O^{\gamma ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)`$ and $`J_O^{NN^{}}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_2)`$ are the impact factors for the transition $`\gamma ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ via Odderon exchange and of the nucleon in initial state $`N`$ into the nucleon in the final state $`N^{}`$.

The impact factors are calculated by the standard methods, see e.g. Ref.  and references therein. An important aspect of the present study is the inclusion of an appropriate two pion distribution amplitude which we now discuss.

4.  The two-pion generalized distribution amplitude (GDA)  contains the full strong interactions between the two pions. So far no experimental information exists on the two-pion GDA. Watson’s theorem imposes that the dynamical phases of the two-pion GDA are identical to the phase shifts in elastic $`\pi \pi `$ scattering as long as $`m_{2\pi }`$ is below the inelastic threshold. This relation may be used as an input for a model GDA in the $`m_{2\pi }`$-region up to 1 GeV. For higher values of $`m_{2\pi }`$ we assume that the phase is still approximately equal to the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shift. The Odderon exchange process involves the production of a pion pair in the $`C`$-even channel which corresponds to even isospin. In the numerical studies we will use a simple ansatz  for the isosinglet distribution amplitude $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{I=0}(z,\zeta ,m_{2\pi }^2)`$, in a slightly enlarged $`m_{2\pi }`$ range. We only consider the contributions from $`u`$\- and $`d`$-quarks, i.e. we take $`n_f=2`$.

A crucial point is the choice of the parametrization of the phases in the GDA’s. Let us discuss first the isosinglet $`s`$ and $`d`$wave phase shifts, $`\delta _0`$ and $`\delta _2`$. Through interference effects, the rapid variation of a phase shift leads to a characteristic $`m_{2\pi }`$-dependence of the asymmetry. We use

$`\mathrm{\Phi }^{I=0}(z,\zeta ,m_{2\pi })=10z(1z)(2z1)R_\pi `$
$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3\beta ^2}{2}}e^{i\delta _0(m_{2\pi })}|BW_{f_0}(m_{2\pi }^2)|+\beta ^2e^{i\delta _2(m_{2\pi })}|BW_{f_2}(m_{2\pi }^2)|P_2(\mathrm{cos}\theta )\right],`$ (14)
with $`R_\pi =0.5`$ and $`\beta `$ given by Eq. (9). In our studies we fix the shapes of the phase shifts $`\delta _0`$ and $`\delta _2`$ from a fit to data presented in . Let us stress that the exact description of the phase shifts is crucial for our analysis. It is well known that the Breit-Wigner parametrization of the amplitude is only a reasonable approximation in the vicinity of the resonance peaks. In particular the vicinity of the $`K\overline{K}`$-threshold leads to some theoretical uncertainty of our results, although we do not expect a dramatic effect.

$`|BW_f(m_{2\pi }^2)|`$ is the modulus of the Breit-Wigner amplitudes

$$BW_{f_0}(m_{2\pi }^2)=\frac{m_{f_0}^2}{m_{f_0}^2m_{2\pi }^2im_{f_0}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0}},m_{f_0}=980\text{MeV},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_0}=50100\text{MeV}$$
(15)
$$BW_{f_2}(m_{2\pi }^2)=\frac{m_{f_2}^2}{m_{f_2}^2m_{2\pi }^2im_{f_2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_2}},m_{f_2}=1275\text{MeV},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{f_2}=186\text{MeV}.$$
(16)
To take into account of the uncertainty in the $`f_0`$ width, we will present results for the two extreme allowed values.

The Pomeron exchange process involves the production of a pion pair in the $`C`$-odd state. Its amplitude can be fully computed for values of $`m_{2\pi }`$ where the timelike electromagnetic pion form factor $`F_\pi (m_{2\pi }^2)`$ is known provided the lowest Gegenbauer polynomial component is dominant. The modulus of $`F_\pi `$ has been well measured in the process $`e^+e^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$. By Watson’s theorem its phase is equal to the $`p`$-wave phase shift $`\delta _1`$, provided that $`m_{2\pi }`$ is in the range where $`\pi \pi `$ scattering is elastic. This is rather well satisfied for values of $`m_{2\pi }`$ up to 1 GeV. We assume that for $`m_{2\pi }`$ up to 1.5 GeV we can still use the phase shifts from $`\pi \pi `$ elastic scattering as the phase of the distribution amplitude. In our numerical studies we take a $`F_\pi `$-parameterization inspired by the $`N=1`$ model of Ref.

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^{I=1}(z,\zeta ,m_{2\pi })=6z(1z)\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta F_\pi (m_{2\pi }^2),$$
(17)
where

$$F_\pi (m_{2\pi }^2)=\frac{1}{(10.145)}BW_\rho \frac{1+1.8510^3BW_\omega }{1+1.8510^3},$$
(18)
with

$`BW_\rho (m_{2\pi }^2)={\displaystyle \frac{m_\rho ^2}{m_\rho ^2m_{2\pi }^2i\sqrt{m_{2\pi }^2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho (m_{2\pi }^2)}},`$ (19)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho (m_{2\pi }^2)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{m_\rho ^2}{m_{2\pi }^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(m_{2\pi }^24m_\pi ^2)^{3/2}}{(m_\rho ^24m_\pi ^2)^{3/2}}},m_\rho =773\text{MeV},\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho =145\text{MeV},`$
and

$$BW_\omega (m_{2\pi }^2)=\frac{m_\omega ^2}{m_\omega ^2m_{2\pi }^2im_\omega \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega },m_\omega =782\text{MeV},\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega =8.5\text{MeV}.$$
(20)
The parametrization of the pion form-factor given by Eq. (18) leads to a reasonable description of the data on the square of the pion form-factor, see . It describes also satisfactorily the $`p`$-wave phase shift in the region of $`2\pi `$ invariant mass smaller than $`1.5`$ GeV. Above $`1`$ GeV the phase shift given by the original parametrization of Ref.  strongly overestimates the data points presented in , due to a problematic $`\rho ^{}(1370)`$ contribution. Since a correct treatment of phases is crucial for our predictions, we do not include any $`\rho ^{}`$ contribution.

5.  After choosing the two pion distribution amplitude, the calculation of the necessary impact factors is straightforward. Skipping unessential details, let us now present the final results. For the longitudinal polarization of virtual photon $`\gamma _L^{}`$ we obtain for the impact-factor for $`\gamma _L^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ the following formulas:

* Pomeron exchange:

$$J_P^{\gamma _L^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2)=\frac{ieg^2\delta ^{ab}Q}{2N_C}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑zz\overline{z}P_P(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2)\mathrm{\Phi }^{I=1}(z,\zeta ,m_{2\pi }^2)$$
(21)
$$P_P(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2)=\frac{1}{z^2\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2+\mu ^2}+\frac{1}{\overline{z}^2\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2+\mu ^2}\frac{1}{(\stackrel{}{k}_1z\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })^2+\mu ^2}\frac{1}{(\stackrel{}{k}_1\overline{z}\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })^2+\mu ^2}$$
(22)
where $`\stackrel{}{k}_1+\stackrel{}{k}_2=\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }`$ and $`\mu ^2=m_q^2+z\overline{z}Q^2`$.
* Odderon exchange (where $`\stackrel{}{k}_1+\stackrel{}{k}_2+\stackrel{}{k}_3=\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }`$) :

$$J_O^{\gamma _L^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}}(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)=\frac{ieg^3d^{abc}Q}{4N_C}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑zz\overline{z}P_O(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{\Phi }^{I=0}(z,\zeta ,m_{2\pi }^2)$$
(23)
$`P_O(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{z^2\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2+\mu ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{z}^2\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2+\mu ^2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\stackrel{}{k}_iz\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })^2+\mu ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\stackrel{}{k}_i\overline{z}\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi })^2+\mu ^2}}\right)`$ (24)

The value of the strong coupling constant $`g`$ in the hard block is assumed to correspond to the 1-loop running coupling constant with $`n_f=2`$, $`\alpha _s(Q^2)=\frac{g^2}{4\pi }=12\pi /[29\mathrm{ln}(\frac{Q^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^2})]`$. In order to estimate the theoretical error we vary the value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}=0.20.35`$GeV. This does not lead to any dramatic change in the magnitude of the asymmetry.

Finally we have to fix the soft parts of our amplitudes, i.e. the proton impact factors. They cannot be calculated within perturbation theory. In our estimates we will use phenomenological, eikonal models of these impact factors proposed in Refs.  and . We take

* for the Pomeron exchange :

$$J_P^{NN^{}}=i\frac{\overline{g}^2\delta ^{ab}}{2N_C}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}\left[\frac{A^2}{A^2+1/2\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }^2}\frac{A^2}{A^2+1/2(\stackrel{}{k}_1^2+\stackrel{}{k}_2^2)}\right],$$
(25)
* for the Odderon exchange :

$$J_O^{NN^{}}=i\frac{\overline{g}^3d^{abc}}{4N_C}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}\left[F(\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi },0,0)\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}F(\stackrel{}{k}_i,\stackrel{}{p}_{2\pi }\stackrel{}{k}_i,0)+2F(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)\right]$$
(26)
where

$$F(\stackrel{}{k}_1,\stackrel{}{k}_2,\stackrel{}{k}_3)=\frac{A^2}{A^2+\frac{1}{2}\left[(\stackrel{}{k}_1\stackrel{}{k}_2)^2+(\stackrel{}{k}_2\stackrel{}{k}_3)^2+(\stackrel{}{k}_3\stackrel{}{k}_1)^2\right]}$$
(27)
and $`A=\frac{m_\rho }{2}`$.

In these formula, we have denoted the QCD-coupling constant as $`\overline{g}`$. While it is natural to take $`Q^2`$ as the scale of the strong coupling constant in the upper impact factor, a typical hadronic scale $`M^2`$ is better suited for the lower one. The value of the coupling constant $`\overline{g}=g(M^2)`$ is one of the main sources of theoretical uncertainties of our numerical results.

In the original Refs.  it was assumed that $`\alpha _{soft}=\frac{\overline{g}^2}{4\pi }1`$. In view of the results of the recent studies , it seems that this value is too large for a correct description of the $`pp`$ differential cross-section in the region of the dip, and one should rather take $`\alpha _{soft}=0.30.7`$. In order to visualize this rather large uncertainty we present our results with an error band corresponding to this interval of $`\alpha _{soft}`$. We also want to emphasize that an increase of the value of $`\alpha _{soft}`$ to $`\alpha _{soft}1`$ raises our predictions for the asymmetry by a factor $`1.3`$.

6.  Let us now present our estimates of the charge asymmetry. We define the forward - backward asymmetry as

$`A(Q^2,t,m_{2\pi }^2)={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta d\sigma (s,Q^2,t,m_{2\pi }^2,\theta )}{𝑑\sigma (s,Q^2,t,m_{2\pi }^2,\theta )}}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\underset{1}{\overset{1}{}}\mathrm{cos}\theta d\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\text{Re}\left[_P^{\gamma _L^{}}(_O^{\gamma _L^{}})^{}\right]}{\underset{1}{\overset{1}{}}d\mathrm{cos}\theta \left[|_P^{\gamma _L^{}}|^2+|_O^{\gamma _L^{}}|^2\right]}}`$ (28)
which may be rewritten as

$$A(Q^2,t,m_{2\pi }^2)=\frac{\underset{(1\beta )/2}{\overset{(1+\beta )/2}{}}𝑑\zeta \frac{1}{\beta }(2\zeta 1)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\text{Re}\left[_P^{\gamma _L^{}}(_O^{\gamma _L^{}})^{}\right]}{\underset{(1\beta )/2}{\overset{(1+\beta )/2}{}}𝑑\zeta \left[|_P^{\gamma _L^{}}|^2+|_O^{\gamma _L^{}}|^2\right]}$$
(29)
Instead of weighted integration of the cross-section it is possible to perform a full angular analysis. The numerator of the asymmetry would then be provided by the $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$-term which is characteristic of the longitudinal polarization of the pion pair, while in the denominator one may extract experimentally the contribution of the longitudinally polarized pion pair in complete analogy to the case of longitudinally polarized vector mesons.

We checked that the squared Odderon contribution in the denominator can be neglected, so that the asymmetry is practically a measure of the ratio of the Odderon and the Pomeron amplitudes.

There is no $`s`$dependence in our framework, within the approximation which we make, provided $`s`$ is large enough for the usual high energy approximation to hold. The charge asymmetry is plotted in Figs. 3 and 4 as a function of the two pion invariant mass $`m_{2\pi }`$.

The main characteristic is the high numerical value that we get for values of $`m_{2\pi }`$ around the $`f_0`$ mass. This is in strong contrast to the result obtained in a completely different framework by the authors of Ref. . The characterisic $`m_{2\pi }`$ dependence in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 is completely understood in terms of the $`\pi \pi `$ phase shifts and the factor $`\mathrm{sin}(\delta ^0\delta ^1)`$. The phase difference vanishes for $`m_{2\pi }0.75`$GeV and $`m_{2\pi }1`$GeV resulting in two zeros of the charge asymmetry. The magnitude of the asymmetry depends much on the width of the $`f_0`$ meson which is estimated to be $`50100`$ MeV. The curve shown in the Fig. 3 and in the Fig. 4 are obtained with the extreme values of this width. The $`d`$wave contribution shows up around 1.3 GeV on Figs. 3, 4 and 5. In Fig. 5 we show also the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the asymmetry which turns out to be rather moderate.

The $`t`$ dependence of the asymmetry, which is plotted in Fig. 6, is quite interesting since it has a characteristic zero around $`t=0.1`$ GeV2. This zero in the odderon amplitude has already been discussed in Ref. . The practical outcome of this $`t`$-dependence is that it is better to focus on moderate values of t and, if an integration over t is needed in order to improve the statistics, to choose at least $`t0.1`$GeV2 as a lower integration limit.

7.  Let us now comment on the possible theoretical uncertainties of our calculations.

* Higher twist contributions and corrections to the calculated expressions of order $`m_{2\pi }^2/Q^2`$ or $`t/Q^2`$ may well be non negligible. For instance, $`k_{}`$ effects in the $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ wave function mentioned above may be important at relatively low $`Q^2`$  as well as the effects of transversely polarized photon. An estimate of these corrections is certainly desirable but clearly out of the scope of the present paper.
* QCD evolution à la BFKL and $`\mathrm{ln}(s/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^2)`$ corrections may be calculated for the Pomeron and Odderon exchanges as well as the $`\mathrm{ln}(Q^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^2)`$ corrections for the generalized distribution amplitudes. We expect that they do not have drastic effects on ratios such as the charge asymmetry which we have calculated. This may be controlled in the future.
* The exact values of the scales of the coupling constants should be determined by the presently unknown higher order corrections in the hard and soft parts, respectively. It is interesting that in the case of the dominance of Abelian contributions to radiative corrections, the coupling renormalization would be reduced, by use of the Ward identities, to bubble insertions into the gluon line, so that the scales would be common for the hard and soft parts and determined by the gluon off-shellness. Due to the integration over the gluon momenta the latter should be averaged to some intermediate value between $`Q^2`$ and $`M^2`$, so that the above naive estimate may still be valid.
* The $`\pi \pi `$ distribution amplitude is a non perturbative object which we certainly do not exactly know. Although its phase is theoretically under control in the lower mass range, its magnitude and its $`z`$ and $`\zeta `$ dependence may be quite different from the simple ansatz that we have adopted. Let us stress however that parts of this uncertainty can be resolved by other experiments, namely two pion production in $`e\gamma `$ collisions  and in $`ep`$ collisions at medium energies  sensitive to the C-even and C-odd components of GDA.

Let us now briefly indicate possible future studies closely related to the approach that we have developed.

* Single spin asymmetries should show up in the same reaction . Longitudinally polarized electron beams are providing circularly polarized virtual photons. In turn, they give rise to single spin azimuthal asymmetries, similar to those appearing in the $`\gamma ^{}\gamma `$ production of pion pairs  and triplets . The expression for the asymmetry is similar to the one for the charge asymmetry with the notable difference that the imaginary, instead of real part of the relevant product of amplitudes appears in the numerator of the analog of Eq.S0.Ex5. The consequence is that, in the case of the Pomeron-Odderon interference, whose amplitudes are mostly imaginary and real, respectively, there appears a factor $`\mathrm{cos}(\delta _0\delta _1)`$ instead of $`\mathrm{sin}(\delta _0\delta _1)`$, which leads to a completely different $`m_{2\pi }`$ dependence. Note that in the case of the calculations of the single spin asymmetry one has to take into account transverse polarizations of a photon.
* Charge asymmetries can also be studied in the interesting case of $`\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ scattering which may be measured at $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders. A specific feature of this case is that both impact factors are calculable within perturbative QCD.

8.  In conclusion, let us stress that we have demonstrated that the understanding of diffractive processes within perturbative QCD is bound to the discovery of sizable charge asymmetries in electroproduction of two charged mesons.

We applied the powerful tool of QCD factorization when the hard part (subprocess) is calculated perturbatively, while the soft ingredients (GDA and proton impact factor) should be modeled or, better, measured, which poses a new challenging problem for experimentalists,

Data on this reaction in the kinematical domain suitable for our calculation (i.e. large $`s`$, small $`t`$, $`Q^2`$ above $`1`$GeV2 and $`m_{2\pi }`$ below $`1.5`$ GeV) should be easy to get and analyze by the experimental set-ups H1  and ZEUS  at HERA. We are eagerly waiting for this confrontation of theory with data, which should lead us towards the discovery of the Odderon.

9. Acknowledgements

We acknowledge useful discussions with S. Brodsky, A.V. Efremov, I.F. Ginzburg, B. Loiseau, S.V. Mikhailov, B. Nicolescu, J. Olsson, T.N. Pham, A. Schäfer, T.N. Truong and S. Wallon.

This work is supported in part by the TMR and IHRP Programmes of the European Union, Contracts No. FMRX-CT98-0194 and No. HPRN-CT-2000-00130, RFFI Grant 16696, and iNTAS Project 587 (Call 2000).


text:
# Selfsimilar random fractal measure using contraction method in probabilistic metric spaces

## 1 Introduction

Contraction methods for proving the existence and uniqueness of nonrandom selfsimilar fractal sets and measures were first applied by Hutchinson . Further results and applications to image compression were obtained by Barnsley and Demko  and Barnsley . At the same time Falconer , Graf , and Mauldin and Williams  randomized each step in the approximation process to obtain sefsimilar random fractal sets. Atbeiter  and Olsen  studied selfsimilar random fractal measures applying nonrandom metrics. More recently Hutchinson and Rüschendorf  introduced probability metrics defined by expectation for random measure and established existence, uniqueness and approximation properties of selfsimilar random fractal measures. In these works a finite first moment condition is essential.

In this paper it will shown that, using probabilistic metric spaces techniques, we can weak the first moment condition for existence and uniqueness of selfsimilar measures.

The theory of probabilistic metric spaces, introduced in 1942 by K. Menger , was developed by numerous authors, as it can be realized upon consulting the list of references in , as well as those in . The study of contraction mappings for probabilistic metric spaces was initiated by V. M. Sehgal , and H. Sherwood .

## 2 Selfsimilar random fractal measures

Recently Hutchinson and Rüschendorf  gave a simple proof for the existence and uniqueness of invariant random measures using the $`L^q`$-metric, $`0<q\mathrm{}`$. The underlying probability space for the iteration procedure is generated by selecting independent and identically distributed scaling laws. Let $`(X,d)`$ be a complete separable metric space. A scaling law with weights $`𝐒`$ is a 2N-tuple $`(p_1,S_1,\mathrm{}.,p_n,S_N),N1,`$ of positive real numbers $`p_i`$ such that $`_{i=1}^Np_i=1`$ and of Lipschitz maps $`S_i:XX`$ with Lipschitz constant $`r_i=LipS_i`$ , i$``${1,…,N}.

Denote $`M=M(X)`$ the set of finite mass Borel regular measures on X with the weak topology. If $`\mu M`$, then the measure $`𝐒\mu `$ is defined by

$$𝐒\mu =\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_iS_i\mu ,$$

where $`S_i\mu `$ is the usual push forward measure, i.e.

$$S_i\mu (A)=\mu (S_i^1(A)),\text{for}AX.$$

We say $`\mu `$ satisfies the scaling law S or is a selfsimilar fractal measure  if $`𝐒\mu =\mu .`$

Let $`M_q`$ denote the set of unit mass Borel regular measures $`\mu `$ on X with finite q-th moment. That is,

$$M_q=\{\mu M|\mu (X)=1,d^q(x,a)𝑑\mu (x)<\mathrm{}\}$$

for some (and hence any) $`aX`$. Note that, if $`pq`$ then $`M_pM_q.`$

The minimal metric $`l_q`$ on $`M_q`$ is defined by

$$l_q(\mu ,\nu )=inf\{(d^q(x,y)𝑑\gamma (x,y))^{\frac{1}{q}1}|\pi _1\gamma =\mu ,\pi _2\gamma =\nu \}$$

where $``$ denotes the minimum of the relevant numbers and $`\pi _i\gamma `$ denotes the i-th marginal of $`\gamma `$, i.e. projection of the measure $`\gamma `$ on $`X\times X`$ onto the i-th component.

We have the following properties of $`l_q`$ (see ):

a) Suppose $`\alpha `$ is a positive real, $`S:XX`$ is Lipschitz, and $``$ denotes the maximum of the relevant numbers. Then for $`q>0`$ and for measures $`\mu ,\nu `$ we have the following properties:

$$l_q^{q1}(\alpha \mu ,\alpha \nu )=\alpha l_q^{q1}(\mu ,\nu ),$$

$$l_q^{q1}(\mu _1+\mu _2,\nu _1+\nu _2)l_q^{q1}(\mu _1,\nu _1)+l_q^{q1}(\mu _2,\nu _2),$$

$$l_q(S\mu ,S\nu )(LipS)^{q1}l_q(\mu ,\nu )$$

b) $`(M_q,l_q)`$ is a complete separable metric space and $`l_q(\mu _n,\mu )0`$ if and only if

(i) $`\mu _n\mu `$ (weak convergence) and

(ii) $`d^q(x,a)𝑑\mu _n(x)d^q(x,a)𝑑\mu (x)`$ (convergence of q-th moments).

c) If $`\delta _a`$ is the Dirac measure at $`aX`$, then

$$l_q(\mu ,\mu (X)\delta _a)=(d^q(x,a)𝑑\mu (x))^{\frac{1}{q}1},$$

$$l_q(\delta _a,\delta _b)=d^{1q}(a,b).$$

Let $`𝐌`$ denote the set of all random measures $`\mu `$ with value in M, i.e. random variables $`\mu :\mathrm{\Omega }M.`$ Let $`𝐌_𝐪`$ denote the space of random measures $`\mu :\mathrm{\Omega }M_q`$ with finite expected q-th moment i.e.

$$𝐌_𝐪:=\{\mu 𝐌|\mu ^\omega (X)=1a.s.,E_\omega _Xd^q(x,a)d\mu ^\omega (x)<\mathrm{}\}$$
(1)
The notation $`E_\omega `$ indicate that the expectation is with respect to the variable $`\omega `$. It follows from (1) that $`\mu ^\omega M_q`$ a.s. Note that $`𝐌_𝐩𝐌_𝐪`$ if $`qp`$.Moreover, since $`E^{\frac{1}{q}}|f|^qexp(E\mathrm{log}|f|)`$ as $`q0,`$

$$𝐌_\mathrm{𝟎}:=_{q>0}𝐌_𝐪=\{\mu 𝐌|\mu _\omega (X)=1a.s.,E_\omega _X\mathrm{log}d(x,a)d\mu ^\omega (x)<\mathrm{}\}.$$

For random measures $`\mu ,\nu 𝐌_𝐪,`$ define

$$l_q^{}(\mu ,\nu ):=\{\begin{array}{cc}E_\omega ^{\frac{1}{q}}l_q^q(\mu ^\omega ,\nu ^\omega ),\hfill & q1\\ E_\omega l_q(\mu ^\omega ,\nu ^\omega ),\hfill & 0<q<1.\end{array}$$

One can check as in , that $`(𝐌_𝐪,𝐥_𝐪^{})`$ is a complete separable metric space. Note that $`l_q^{}(\mu ,\nu )=l_q(\mu ,\nu )`$ if $`\mu `$ and $`\nu `$ are constant random measures.

Let $``$ denote the class of probability distributions on $`𝐌`$. i.e.

$$=\{𝒟=dist\mu |\mu 𝐌\}.$$

Let $`_q`$ be the set of probability distributions of random measures $`\mu 𝐌_q.`$ If $`qp`$ then $`_p_q`$. Let

$$_0:=_{q>0}_q.$$

The minimal metric on $`_q`$ is defined by

$$l_q^{}(𝒟_1,𝒟_2)=inf\{l_q^{}(\mu ,\nu )|\mu \stackrel{d}{=}D_1,\nu \stackrel{d}{=}D_2\}.$$

It follows that $`(_q,l_q^{})`$ is a complete separable metric space with the next properties:

$$a)l_q^{}(\alpha 𝒟_1,\alpha 𝒟_2)=\alpha l_q^{}(𝒟_1,𝒟_2),$$

$$b)l_q^{}(𝒟_1+𝒟_2,𝒟_3+𝒟_4)l_q^{}^q(𝒟_1,𝒟_3)+l_q^{}^q(𝒟_2,𝒟_4)$$

for $`𝒟_i_q,i=1,2,3,4.`$

A random scaling law $`𝐒=(p_1,S_1,p_2,S_2,\mathrm{},p_n,S_N)`$ is a random variable whose values are scaling laws, with $`_{i=1}^Np_i=1`$ a.s. We write $`𝒮=dist𝐒`$ for the probability distribution determined by $`𝐒`$ and $`\stackrel{d}{=}`$ for the equality in distribution.

If $`\mu `$ is a random measure, then the random measure $`𝐒\mu `$ is defined (up to probability distribution) by

$$𝐒\mu :=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_iS_i\mu ^{(i)},$$

where $`𝐒,\mu ^{(1)},\mathrm{},\mu ^{(N)}`$ are independent of one another and $`\mu ^{(i)}\stackrel{d}{=}\mu .`$ If $`𝒟=dist\mu `$ we define $`𝒮𝒟=dist𝐒\mu .`$

We say $`\mu `$ satisfies the scaling law $`𝐒`$, or is a selfsimilar random fractal measure,  if

$$𝐒\mu \stackrel{d}{=}\mu ,\text{or equivalently}𝒮𝒟=𝒟$$

and $`𝒟`$ is called a selfsimilar random fractal distribution.

To generate random selfsimilaar fractal measure we use the next iterative procedure (see ):

Fix $`q>0`$.

Beginning with a nonrandom measure $`\mu _0M_q`$ one iteratively applies iid scaling laws with distribution $`𝒮`$ to obtain a sequence $`\mu _n`$ of random measures in $`𝐌_𝐪`$ and a corresponding sequence $`𝒟_n`$ of distributions in $`_q`$, as follows:

(i) Select a scaling law $`𝐒`$ via the distribution S and define.

$$\mu _1=𝐒\mu _0=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}p_iS_i\mu _0,i.e.\mu _1(\omega )=𝐒\mu _0=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}p_i(\omega )S_i(\omega )\mu _0,𝒟_1\stackrel{d}{=}\mu _1,$$

(ii) Select $`𝐒_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐒_𝐧`$ via $`𝐒`$ with $`𝐒^𝐢=(p_1^i,S_1^i,\mathrm{},p_N^i,S_N^i),i\{1,2,\mathrm{},N\}`$ independent of each other and of $`𝐒`$ and define

$$\mu _2:=𝐒^2\mu _0=\underset{i,j}{}p_ip_j^iS_iS_j^i\mu _0,𝒟_2\stackrel{d}{=}\mu _0$$

(iii) Select $`𝐒^{ij}=(p_1^i,S_1^{ij},\mathrm{},p_N^i,S_N^{i,j})`$ via $`𝒮`$, independent of one another and of $`𝐒^\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐒^𝐍,𝐒`$ and define

$$\mu _3=𝐒^3\mu _0=\underset{i,j,k}{}p_ip_j^ip_k^{ij}S_iS_j^iS_k^{ij}\mu _0,𝒟_3\stackrel{d}{=}\mu _3,$$

etc.

Thus $`\mu _{n+1}=_{i=1}^Np_iS_i\mu _n^{(i)}`$ where $`\mu _n^{(i)}\stackrel{d}{=}\mu _n\stackrel{d}{=}𝒟_n,`$ $`𝐒=\stackrel{𝐝}{=}𝒮,`$ and the $`\mu _n^{(i)}`$ and $`𝐒`$ are independent. It follows that $`𝒟_n=𝒮𝒟_{n1}=𝒮^n𝒟_\mathcal{0}`$, where $`𝒟_0`$ is the distribution of $`\mu _0`$. If $`\mu _0M_q,`$ then $`𝒟_0`$ is constant.

The underlying probability space for a.s. convergence is defined above (see ).

A construction tree ( or a construction process ) is a map $`\omega :\{1,\mathrm{},N\}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the set of (nonrandom) scaling laws. A construction tree specifies at each node of the scaling law used to define constructively a recursive sequence of random measures. Denote the scaling law of $`\omega `$ at the node $`\sigma `$ by the 2N-tuple

$$𝐒^\sigma (\omega )=\omega (\sigma )=(p_1^\sigma (\omega ),S_1^\sigma (\omega ),\mathrm{},p_N^\sigma (\omega ),S_N^\sigma (\omega ))$$

where $`p_i^\sigma `$ are weights and $`S_i^\sigma `$ Lipschitz maps. The sample space of all construction trees is denoted by $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}.`$ The underlying probability space $`(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }},\stackrel{~}{𝒦},\stackrel{~}{P})`$ for the iteration procedure is generated by selecting identical distributed and independent scaling laws $`\omega (\sigma )\stackrel{d}{=}𝐒`$ for each $`\sigma \{1,\mathrm{},N\}^{}`$.

In  it is proved the following theorem:

###### Theorem 2.1

Let $`𝐒=(p_1,S_1,p_2S_2,\mathrm{},p_n,S_N)`$ be a random scaling law, with $`_{i=1}^Np_i=1`$ a.s. Assume $`\lambda _q:=E_\omega (_{i=1}^Np_ir_i^q)<1`$ and

$$E_\omega (\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_id^q(S_ia,a)<\mathrm{}\text{for some}q>0,\text{and for}aX.$$
(2)
Then

a) the operator $`𝐒:𝐌_𝐪𝐌_𝐪`$ is a contraction map with respect to $`l_q^{}.`$

b) If $`\mu ^{}`$ is the unique fixed point of $`𝐒`$ and $`\mu _0M_p`$ (or more generally $`𝐌_q)`$, then

$$E_\omega ^{\frac{1}{q}}l_q^q(\mu _n,\mu ^{})\frac{\lambda _q^{\frac{k}{q}}}{1\lambda _q^{\frac{1}{q}}}E_\omega ^{\frac{1}{q}}l_q^q(\mu _0,𝐒\mu _0)0,q1$$

$$E_\omega l_q(\mu _n,\mu ^{})\frac{\lambda _q^k}{1\lambda _q}E_\omega l_q(\mu _0,𝐒\mu _0)0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}<q<1$$

as $`k\mathrm{}.`$ In particular $`\mu _n\mu ^{}`$ a.s. in the sense of weak convergence of measures.

Moreover, up to probability distribution, $`\mu ^{}`$ is the unique unit mass random measure with $`E_\omega \mathrm{ln}d(x,a)d_\mu ^\omega <\mathrm{}`$ which satisfies $`𝐒`$.

Using contraction method in probabilistic metric spaces, instead of condition (2) we can give weaker condition for the existence and uniqueness of invariant measure. More precisely, in Section 4 we will prove the following

###### Theorem 2.2

Let $`𝐒=(p_1,S_1,p_2S_2,\mathrm{},p_n,S_N)`$ be a random scaling law, which satisfies $`_{i=1}^Np_i=1`$ a.s. and suppose $`\lambda _q:=esssup(_{i=1}^Np_ir_i^q)<1`$ for some $`q>0`$. If there exist $`\alpha M_q`$ and a positive number $`\gamma `$ such that

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|l_q(\alpha (\omega ),𝐒\alpha (\omega ))t\})\frac{\gamma }{t},\text{for all}t>0,$$
(3)
then there exists $`\mu ^{}`$ such that $`𝐒\mu ^{}=\mu ^{}a.s.`$ and exponentially fast.

Moreover up to probability distribution $`\mu ^{}`$ is the unique unit mass random measure which satisfies $`𝐒`$.

Remark: If condition (2) is satisfied then condition (3) hold also. To see this, let $`aX`$ and $`\alpha (\omega ):=\delta _a`$ for all $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }.`$ We have:

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|l_q(\delta _a(\omega ),𝐒\delta _a(\omega ))t\})=$$

$$=P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|l_q(\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i\delta _a(\omega ),\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_iS_i\delta _a(\omega ))t\})$$

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_il_q(\delta _a(\omega ),S_i\delta _a(\omega ))t\})=$$

$$=P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_id^q(S_ia,a))t\})\frac{1}{t}E_\omega (\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_id^q(S_ia,a))=\frac{\gamma }{t}$$

However, condition (3) can be satisfied also if

$$E_\omega (\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_id^q(S_ia,a))=\mathrm{}\text{for all}q>0.$$

Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }=]0,1]`$ with the Lebesque measure, let X be the interval $`[0,\mathrm{}[`$ and $`N=1`$. Define $`S:XX`$ by $`S^\omega (x)=\frac{x}{2}+e^{\frac{1}{\omega }}`$. This map is a contraction with ratio $`\frac{1}{2}`$. For $`q>0`$, the expectation $`E_\omega d^q(S0,0)=\mathrm{},`$ however

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|l_q(S0,0)t\})=\frac{1}{t}$$

for all $`t>0.`$

## 3 Invariant sets in E-spaces

### 3.1 Menger spaces

Let $`𝐑`$ denote the set of real numbers and $`𝐑_+:=\{x𝐑:x0\}.`$ A mapping $`F:`$R$`[0,1]`$ is called a distribution function if it is non-decreasing, left continuous with $`inf_{t𝐑}F(t)=0`$ and $`sup_{t𝐑}F(t)=1`$ (see ). By $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ we shall denote the set of all distribution functions $`F.`$ Let $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ be ordered by the relation ”$``$”, i.e. $`FG`$ if and only if $`F(t)G(t)`$ for all real t. Also $`F<G`$ if and only if $`FG`$ but $`FG`$. We set $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+:=\{F\mathrm{\Delta }:F(0)=0\}.`$

Throughout this paper H will denote the Heviside distribution function defined by

$$H(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}0,& x0,\\ 1,& x>0.\end{array}$$

Let $`X`$ be a nonempty set. For a mapping $`:X\times X\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ and $`x,yX`$ we shall denote $`(x,y)`$ by $`F_{x,y}`$, and the value of $`F_{x,y}`$ at $`t𝐑`$ by $`F_{x,y}(t)`$, respectively. The pair $`(X,)`$ is a probabilistic metric space (briefly PM space) if $`X`$ is a nonempty set and $`:X\times X\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ is a mapping satisfying the following conditions:

$`1^0`$. $`F_{x,y}(t)=F_{y,x}(t)`$ for all $`x,yX`$ and $`t𝐑;`$

$`2^0`$. $`F_{x,y}(t)=1`$, for every $`t>0`$, if and only if $`x=y`$;

$`3^0`$. if $`F_{x,y}(s)=1`$ and $`F_{y,z}(t)=1`$ then $`F_{x,z}(s+t)=1.`$

A mapping $`T:[0,1]\times [0,1][0,1]`$ is called a t-norm if the following conditions are satisfied:

$`4^0`$. $`T(a,1)=a`$ for every $`a[0,1];`$

$`5^0`$. $`T(a,b)=T(b,a)`$ for every $`a,b[0,1]`$

$`6^0`$. if $`ac`$ and $`bd`$ then $`T(a,b)T(c,d);`$

$`7^0`$. $`T(a,T(b,c))=T(T(a,b),c)`$ for every $`a,b,c[0,1].`$

A Menger space is a triplet $`(X,,T),`$ where $`(X,)`$ is a probabilistic metric space, where $`T`$ is a t-norm, and instead of $`3^0`$ we have the stronger condition

$`8^0`$. $`F_{x,y}(s+t)T(F_{x,z}(s),F_{z,y}(t))`$ for all $`x,y,zX`$ and $`s,t𝐑_+.`$

The $`(t,ϵ)`$-topology in a Menger space was introduced in 1960 by B. Schweizer and A. Sklar . The base for the neighbourhoods of an element $`xX`$ is given by

$$\{U_x(t,ϵ)X:t>0,ϵ]0,1[\},$$

where

$$U_x(t,ϵ):=\{yX:F_{x,y}(t)>1ϵ\}.$$

In 1966, V.M. Sehgal  introduced the notion of a contraction mapping in PM spaces. The mapping $`f:XX`$ is said to be a contraction if there exists $`r]0,1[`$ such that

$$F_{f(x),f(y)}(rt)F_{x,y}(t)$$

for every $`x,yX`$ and $`t𝐑_+.`$

A sequence $`(x_n)_{n𝐍}`$ from $`X`$ is said to be fundamental if

$$\underset{n,m\mathrm{}}{lim}F_{x_m,x_n}(t)=1$$

for all $`t>0.`$ The element $`xX`$ is called limit of the sequence $`(x_n)_{n𝐍}`$, and we write $`lim_n\mathrm{}x_n=x`$ or $`x_nx`$, if $`lim_n\mathrm{}F_{x,x_n}(t)=1`$ for all $`t>0.`$ A probabilistic metric (Menger) space is said to be complete if every fundamental sequence in that space is convergent.

Let $`A`$ and $`B`$ nonempty subsets of $`X.`$ The probabilistic Hausdorff-Pompeiu distance between $`A`$ and $`B`$ is the function $`F_{A,B}:𝐑[\mathrm{𝟎},\mathrm{𝟏}]`$ defined by

$$F_{A,B}(t):=\underset{s<t}{sup}T(\underset{xA}{inf}\underset{yB}{sup}F_{x,y}(s),\underset{yB}{inf}\underset{xA}{sup}F_{x,y}(s)).$$

In the following we remember some properties proved in :

###### Proposition 3.1

If $`𝒞`$ is a nonempty collection of nonempty closed bounded sets in a Menger space $`(X,,T)`$ with $`T`$ continuous, then $`(𝒞,_𝒞,T)`$ is also Menger space, where $`_𝒞`$ is defined by $`_𝒞(A,B):=F_{A,B}`$ for all $`A,B𝒞`$ .

Proof. See . $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Proposition 3.2

Let $`T_m(a,b):=\mathrm{max}\{a+b1,0\}`$. If $`(X,,T_m)`$ is a complete Menger space and $`𝒞`$ is the collection of all nonempty closed bounded subsets of $`X`$ in $`(t,ϵ)`$ topology, then $`(𝒞,_𝒞,T_m)`$ is also a complete Menger space.

Proof. See . $`\mathrm{}`$

### 3.2  E-spaces

The notion of E-space was introduced by Sherwood  in 1969. Next we recall this definition. Let $`(\mathrm{\Omega },𝒦,P)`$ be a probability space and let $`(Y,\rho )`$ be a metric space. The ordered pair $`(,)`$ is an E-space over the metric space $`(Y,\rho )`$ (briefly, an E-space) if the elements of $``$ are random variables from $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ into Y and $``$ is the mapping from $`\times `$ into $`\mathrm{\Delta }^+`$ defined via $`(x,y)=F_{x,y}`$, where

$$F_{x,y}(t)=P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|d(x(\omega ),y(\omega ))<t\})$$

for every $`t`$ $`𝐑`$. Usually $`(\mathrm{\Omega },𝒦,P)`$ is called the base and $`(Y,\rho )`$ the target space of the E-space. If $``$ satisfies the condition

$$(x,y)H,forxy,$$

with H defined in paragraf 3.1., then $`(,)`$ is said to be a canonical E-space. Sherwood  proved that every canonical E-space is a Menger space under $`T=T_m`$, where $`T_m(a,b)=\mathrm{max}\{a+b1,0\}`$. In the following we suppose that $``$ is a canonical E-space.

The convergence in an E-space is exactly the probability convergence. The E-space $`(,)`$ is said to be complete if the Menger space $`(,,T_m)`$ is complete.

###### Proposition 3.3

If $`(Y,\rho )`$ is a complete metric space then the E-space $`(,)`$ is also complete.

Proof. This property is well-known for $`Y=R`$ (see e.g. , Theorem VII.4.2.\]). In the general case the proof is analogous.

Let $`(x_n)_{n𝐍}`$ be a Cauchy sequence of elements of $``$, that is

$$\underset{n,m\mathrm{}}{lim}F_{x_n,x_{n+m}}(t)=1,\text{for all}t>0.$$

First we show that there exists a subsequence $`(x_{n_k})_{k𝐍}`$ of the given sequence which is convergent almost everywhere to a random variable x. Let as set positive numbers $`ϵ_i`$ so that $`_{i=1}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_i<\mathrm{}`$ and put $`\delta _p=_{i=p}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_i,p=1,2,\mathrm{}.`$ For each i there is a natural number $`k_i`$, such that

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|\rho (x_k(\omega ),x_l(\omega ))ϵ_i\})<ϵ_i\text{for}k,lk_i.$$

We can assume that $`k_1<k_2<\mathrm{}<k_i<\mathrm{}`$. Then

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|\rho (x_{k_{i+1}}(\omega ),x_{k_i}(\omega ))ϵ_i\})<ϵ_i\text{for}k,lk_i.$$

Let us put

$$D_p=_{i=p}^{\mathrm{}}\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|\rho (x_{k_{i+1}},x_{k_i})ϵ_i\}.$$

Then $`P(D_p)<\delta _p.`$ Lastly, for the intersection $`D^{}=_{p=1}^{\mathrm{}}D_p`$ we obviously have $`P(D^{})=0`$ since $`\delta _p0`$. We shall show that the sequence $`(x_{k_i}(\omega ))`$ has a finite limit $`x(\omega )`$ at every point $`\omega \{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|\rho (x_k(\omega ),x_m(\omega ))>t\}D^{}.`$ For some p we have $`xD_p`$. Consequently, $`\rho (x_{k_{i+1}}(\omega ),x_{k_i}(\omega ))<ϵ_i`$, for all $`ip.`$ It follows that for any two indices i and j such that $`j>ip`$ we have

$$\rho (x_{k_j}(\omega ),x_{k_i}(\omega ))\underset{m=i}{\overset{j1}{}}\rho (x_{k_{m+1}}(\omega ),x_{k_m}(\omega ))<$$

$$<\underset{m=i}{\overset{j1}{}}ϵ_m<\underset{m=i}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}ϵ_m=\delta _i.$$

Thus $`lim_{i,j\mathrm{}}\rho (x_{k_j}(\omega ),x_{k_i}(\omega )))=0.`$ This means that $`(x_k(\omega ))_{k𝐍}`$ is a Chauchy sequence for every $`\omega `$ which implies the pointwise convergence of $`(x_{k_i})_{i𝐍}`$ to a finite limit function. Now it only remains to put

$$x(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{ccc}limx_{k_i}(\omega )\hfill & for& \omega D^{}\\ 0\hfill & for& \omega D^{}\end{array}$$

to obtain the desired limit random variable. By Lebeque theorem (see e.g.  theorem VI.5.2) $`x_{k_i}x`$ with respect to d. Thus, every Cauchy sequence in $``$ has a limit, which means that the space $``$ is complete. $`\mathrm{}`$

The next result was proved in :

###### Theorem 3.1

Let $`(,)`$ be a complete E- space, $`N𝐍^{}`$, and let $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_N:`$ be contractions with ratio $`r_1,\mathrm{}r_N`$, respectively. Suppose that there exists an element $`z`$ and a real number $`\gamma `$ such that

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|\rho (z(\omega ),f_i(z(\omega ))t\})\frac{\gamma }{t},$$
(4)
for all $`i\{1,..,N\}`$ and for all $`t>0.`$ Then there exists a unique nonempty closed bounded and compact subset $`K`$ of $``$ such that

$$f_1(K)\mathrm{}f_N(K)=K.$$

###### Corollary 3.1

Let $`(,)`$ be a complete E- space, and let $`f:`$ be a contraction with ratio $`r`$. Suppose there exists $`z`$ and a real number $`\gamma `$ such that

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|\rho (z(\omega ),f(z)(\omega ))t\})\frac{\gamma }{t}\text{for all}t>0.$$

Then there exists a unique $`x_0`$ such that $`f(x_0)=x_0.`$

## 4 Proof of Theorem 2.2

First we give two lemmas. Let $`_q`$ be the set of random variables with values in $`M_q`$ and let $`_q(\alpha )`$ be the set

$$_q(\alpha ):=\{\beta _q|\gamma >0P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|l_q(\alpha (\omega ),\beta (\omega ))t\})\frac{\gamma }{t},\text{for all}t>0\}.$$

###### Lemma 4.1

$`𝐌_q_q(\alpha )`$ for all $`\alpha M_q.`$

Proof: For $`\beta 𝐌_q`$ we have

$$P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|l_q(\alpha (\omega ),\beta (\omega ))t\})=_{l_q(\alpha (\omega ),\beta (\omega ))t}𝑑P$$

$$\frac{1}{t}_\mathrm{\Omega }l_q(\alpha (\omega ),\beta (\omega ))𝑑P=\frac{1}{t}E_\omega l_q(\alpha (\omega ),\beta (\omega )).$$

Hence $`\beta _q`$ we have $`\gamma =E_\omega l_q(\alpha (\omega ),\beta (\omega ))<\mathrm{}`$ for all $`t>0.`$ $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Lemma 4.2

$`(_q,)`$ is a complete E-space.

Proof: Choose $`Y:=_q`$ and $`_{\mu ,\nu }(t):=P(\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }|l_q(\mu (\omega ),\nu (\omega ))<t\})`$ in the Proposition 3.3. $`\mathrm{}`$

Proof of Theorem 2.2: Let $`𝒮`$ be a random scaling law. Define $`f:_q_q`$ by $`f(\mu )=𝐒\mu `$, i.e.

$$𝐒\mu (\omega )=\underset{i}{}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \mu (\omega ^{(i)}).$$

We first claim that if $`\mu _q`$ then $`𝐒\mu _q.`$ For this, choose iid $`\mu (\omega ^{(i)})\stackrel{d}{=}\mu (\omega )`$ and $`(p_1^\omega ,S_1^\omega ,\mathrm{},p_N^\omega ,S_N^\omega )\stackrel{d}{=}𝐒`$ independent of $`\mu (\omega ).`$ For $`q1`$ and $`b=S_i^\omega (a)`$ we compute

$$d^q(x,a)d(𝐒\mu ^(\omega )(x))=l_q^q(\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \mu (\omega ^{(i)}),\delta _a)=$$

$$=l_q^q(\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \mu (\omega ^{(i)}),\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \delta _b)$$

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega r_i^ql_q^q(\mu (\omega ^{(i)}),\delta _b).$$

Since $`\mu (\omega ^{(i)})M_q`$ we have

$$d^q(x,a)d(𝐒\mu (x)<\mathrm{}.$$

The case $`0<q<1`$ is dealt similarly, replacing $`l_q^q`$ by $`l_q`$:

$$d^q(x,a)d(𝐒\mu ^(\omega )(x))=l_q(\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \mu (\omega ^{(i)}),\delta _a)=$$

$$=l_q(\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \mu (\omega ^{(i)}),\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \delta _b)$$

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega r_i^ql_q(\mu (\omega ^{(i)}),\delta _b)<\mathrm{}.$$

To establish the contraction property let $`\mu ,\nu _q`$, $`\mu (\omega ^{(i)})\stackrel{d}{=}\mu (\omega ),\nu (\omega ^{(i)})\stackrel{d}{=}\nu (\omega ),i\{1,2,\mathrm{},N\}`$ and $`q1`$. We have

$$F_{f(\mu ),f(\nu )}(t)=P(\{\omega \overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}|l_q(f(\mu (\omega )),f(\nu (\omega ))<t\})=$$

$$=P(\{\omega \overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}|l_q(\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \mu (\omega ^{(i)}),\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega S_i^\omega \nu (\omega ^{(i)}))<t\})$$

$$P(\{\omega \overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}|[\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_i^\omega (r_i)^ql_q^q(\mu (\omega ^{(i)}),\nu (\omega ^{(i)}))]^{\frac{1}{q}}<t\})$$

$$P(\{\omega \overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}|[\lambda _ql_q^q(\mu (\omega ),\nu (\omega ))]^{\frac{1}{q}}<t\})=F_{\mu ,\nu }(\frac{t}{\lambda _q^{\frac{1}{q}}})$$

for all $`t>0`$. In case $`0<q<1`$, one replaces $`l_q^q`$ everywhere by $`l_q`$. Thus $`𝐒`$ is a contraction map with ratio $`\lambda _q^{\frac{1}{q}1}`$. We can apply Corollary 3.1 for $`r=\lambda _q^{\frac{1}{q}1}`$. If $`\mu ^{}`$ is the unique fixed point of $`𝐒`$ and $`\mu _0M_q`$ then

$$F_{𝐒^n\mu _0,\mu ^{}}(t)=P(\{\omega \overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}|l_q(𝐒^n\mu _0,\mu ^{})<t\})$$

$$P(\{\omega \overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}|\frac{\lambda _q^{\frac{n}{q}}}{1\lambda _q^{\frac{1}{q}}}l_q(\mu _0,𝐒\mu _0)<t\}).$$

and

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}F_{𝐒^n\mu _0,\mu ^{}}(t)=1\text{for all }t>0.$$

From $`\mu _{n+1}(\omega )=𝐒\mu _n(\omega )`$ it follows that $`\mu _m\mu ^{}`$exponentially fast. Moreover, for $`q1`$

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\overline{P}(l_q^q(𝐒^n\nu _0,\mu ^{})ϵ)\underset{i=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{el_q^q(𝐒^n\mu _0,\mu ^{})}{ϵ}c\underset{i=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\lambda _q^n}{ϵ}<\mathrm{}.$$

This implies by Borel Catelli lemma that $`l_q(\mu _n,\mu ^{})0`$ a.s.

For the uniqueness let $`𝒟`$ the set of probability distribution of members of $`_q.`$ We define on $`𝒟`$ the probability metric by

$$F_{𝒜,}(t)=\underset{s<t}{sup}sup\{F_{\mu ,\nu }(s)|\mu \stackrel{d}{=}𝒜,\nu \stackrel{d}{=}\}.$$

To establish the contraction property, let $`𝒜,𝒟`$. For $`q1`$, on has

$$F_{𝒮𝒜,𝒮}(t)=\underset{s<t}{sup}sup\{F_{𝐒\mu ,𝐒\nu }(s)|\mu \stackrel{d}{=}𝒜,\nu \stackrel{d}{=}\}$$

$$\underset{s<t}{sup}sup\{F_{\mu ,\nu }(\frac{s}{\lambda _q})|\mu \stackrel{d}{=}𝒜,\nu \stackrel{d}{=}\}=F_{𝒜,}(\frac{t}{\lambda _q})$$

for all $`t>0.`$ In case $`0<q<1`$ on work similarly.

Let $`𝒟_1`$ and $`𝒟_2`$ such that $`𝒮𝒟_1=𝒟_1`$ and $`𝒮𝒟_2=𝒟_2`$.

Since $`𝒟_1=𝒮^n(𝒟_1)`$ and $`𝒟_2=𝒮^n(𝒟_2)`$ we have

$$F_{𝒟_1,𝒟_2}(t)F_{𝒟_1,𝒟_2}(\frac{t}{r^n})$$

for all $`t>0`$. Using $`lim_n\mathrm{}r^n=0`$ it follows that

$$F_{𝒟_1,𝒟_2}(t)=1,$$

for all $`t>0.`$ $`\mathrm{}`$

Remark: Since $`\lambda _q^{\frac{1}{q}}max_ir_i`$ as $`q\mathrm{}`$, we can regard Theorem 3.1. from  as a limit case of Theorem 2.2. More precisely, if $`max_ir_i<1`$ then $`sprt\mu ^{}`$ is the unique compact set satisfying $`(S_1,\mathrm{},S_N).`$


text:
# A High Statistics Measurement of the Λ_𝑐⁺ Lifetime

FOCUS Collaboration

## Abstract

A high statistics measurement of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ lifetime from the Fermilab fixed-target FOCUS photoproduction experiment is presented. We describe the analysis technique with particular attention to the determination of the systematic uncertainty. The measured value of $`204.6\pm 3.4(\mathrm{stat}.)\pm 2.5(\mathrm{syst}.)`$ fs from $`8034\pm 122`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_cpK\pi `$ decays represents a significant improvement over the present world average.

preprint: FERMILAB-Pub-02/015-E

Experimental measurements of charm particle lifetimes have been used in the study of strong interaction physics. The measurements provide some guidance for theoretical calculations of non-perturbative strong interaction processes. The steady improvement in the precision of the measurements has not only helped to improve our theoretical understanding of strong interactions, but also to help stimulate the development of better theoretical tools. These have progressed from the spectator model to various quarks models and currently to Heavy Quark Expansion methods Bellini et al. (1997). These calculational tools are the same or similar to those used in other areas, for example to determine the size of the $`V_{ub}`$ CKM element through inclusive semileptonic $`B`$ decays Voloshin (2001). More precise measurements of all of the charm particle lifetimes will help continue this process of improvement and extension of applicability.

Precise charm lifetime measurements are now beginning to emerge from $`e^+e^{}`$ collider experiments G. Bonvicini et al. (1999); A. H. Mahmood et al. (2001). The effects of lifetime and vertex resolution are also important in mixing and CP violation measurements R. Godang et al. (2000); K. Abe et al. . It is crucial to have accurate lifetime measurements from fixed-target experiments to act as a standard to evaluate any relative systematic differences. The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ lifetime presented in this paper represents the most accurate measurement of this quantity to date and is a significant improvement over the present world average.

The data used were collected by the FOCUS collaboration in the 1997 fixed-target run at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The FOCUS spectrometer is an upgrade of the spectrometer used in the E687 photoproduction experiment P. L. Frabetti et al. (1992). The vertex region consists of four BeO targets and 16 planes of silicon strip detectors (SSD). Two of the SSD planes were placed immediately downstream of the second target, and two immediately downstream of the fourth (most downstream) target. Momentum analysis was made possible by the use of 5 multiwire proportional chambers and two magnets with opposite polarities. Hadronic particle identification was achieved using three multicell threshold Čerenkov counters J. M. Link et al. . The data for this measurement were taken using a photon beam with average energy of $`180`$ GeV for triggered events.

The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+pK^{}\pi ^+`$111The charge conjugate mode is implicitly implied unless otherwise stated. candidates are reconstructed using a candidate driven algorithm which is highly efficient for all decays including short lived ones. All $`pK^{}\pi ^+`$ candidates are tested to see if they form a vertex with a confidence level greater than 1%. The candidate $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ momentum vector is then projected to search for a production vertex with one or more tracks. As many tracks as possible are included in the production vertex so long as the vertex confidence level is larger than 1%. The production vertex is required to be within one of the four targets. The separation $`L`$ between the production and decay vertices is required to be larger than $`6\sigma _L`$ where $`\sigma _L`$ is the error on $`L`$ calculated on a candidate-by-candidate basis. In addition, each track in the $`pK^{}\pi ^+`$ candidate combination must also satisfy the appropriate Čerenkov particle identification criteria.

The $`pK\pi `$ invariant mass plot for data is shown in Fig. 1. The fit shown uses a Gaussian signal and a quadratic background function which yields $`8034\pm 122`$ reconstructed $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ decays. The lifetime analysis uses $`pK\pi `$ candidates within the signal and symmetric sideband regions as shown in the figure. All three regions are $`4\sigma _m`$ wide and the centers of the sideband regions are located $`\pm 6\sigma _m`$ from the mean of the fitted Gaussian, where $`\sigma _m=8.2`$ MeV/$`c^2`$ is the width of the fitted Gaussian.

For the lifetime analysis we use the reduced proper time, $`t^{}=(L6\sigma _L)/\beta \gamma c`$ 222The reduced proper time has the clock started at the minimum allowed time for each decay candidate. In the absence of other corrections, it does not matter where along the decay exponential one starts the clock, hence the reduced proper time also follows a pure exponential., where $`\beta \gamma =p_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}/m_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$ and require it to be less than 1 ps to reduce long-lived backgrounds. This requirement was already made for the data shown in Fig. 1. The use of the reduced proper time ensures that only a small acceptance correction to the lifetime distribution is needed. The average proper time resolution for this decay sample (42 fs) is small enough compared to the lifetime to use a binned likelihood method P. L. Frabetti et al. (1993).

The $`t^{}`$ distributions for the decays in the signal and sideband regions are binned into two separate histograms from 0–1 ps in 20 fs bins. The observed number of decays in the ith $`t^{}`$ bin is $`s_i`$ for the signal region and $`b_i`$ for the sideband region. The $`t^{}`$ distribution of the sideband region is used as a measure of the lifetime distribution of background events in the signal region. Thus the expected number of decays in the ith $`t^{}`$ bin of the signal region is given by:

$`\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{Expected}\\ \mathrm{Events}\end{array}=n_i=S{\displaystyle \frac{f(t_i^{})e^{t_i^{}/\tau }}{_if(t_i^{})e^{t_i^{}/\tau }}}+B{\displaystyle \frac{b_i}{_ib_i}}.`$ (3)
The likelihood that is maximized in the fit is given by

$`\mathrm{Likelihood}={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_i^{s_i}e^{n_i}}{s_i!}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{(\alpha B)^{N_b}e^{\alpha B}}{N_b!}}`$ (4)
where $`S`$ is the total number of signal events and $`B`$ is the total number of background events in the signal region and $`S+B=\mathrm{\Sigma }s_i`$. The total number of events in the sideband region is $`N_b=\mathrm{\Sigma }_ib_i`$ and $`\alpha `$ is the ratio of the number of events in the sideband region to the number of background events in the signal region. The value of $`\alpha `$ is obtained from the fit to the invariant mass distribution and is very close to $`2`$. $`B`$ and $`\tau `$ are the fit parameters.

The effects of geometrical acceptance, detector and reconstruction efficiencies, and absorption are given by the $`f(t^{})`$ correction function. The $`f(t^{})`$ is determined using a detailed Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of the experiment where the production (using Pythia T. Sjöstrand et al. (2001)) was tuned so that the production distributions for data and MC matched. Note that only the shape of the $`f(t^{})`$ function is important and it is obtained by dividing the observed MC $`t^{}`$ distribution by a pure exponential with the MC generated lifetime. The $`f(t^{})`$ distribution is shown in Fig. 2(a).

Using the likelihood function given above we obtained a fitted lifetime of $`204.6\pm 3.4`$ fs. The lifetime distribution of all decays in the signal region is shown in Fig. 2(b) together with the fit and the level of background contained in the signal region.

Detailed studies were performed to determine the systematic uncertainty in this measurement.

The uncertainty in the absolute time scale was investigated by studying the absolute length and momentum scales in the experiment. For the length scale, comparisons were made between measurements of the distances between silicon planes in the target region. The values obtained using vertex positions in the data with the standard vertexing code agree well with those obtained using precision instruments. The absolute momentum and mass scales were checked by comparing the reconstructed masses of charm and strange mesons and hyperons with established values. Our studies showed no evidence of any scale offset, but due to the limited statistical precision of these comparisons we assign an uncertainty of $`\pm 0.11`$% to the absolute time scale.

The backgrounds are composed of a non-charm and a charm component; these two background components are approximately equal in our sample and fairly evenly distributed across the signal and sideband mass regions. The level and lifetime distribution of the background in the signal mass region is assumed to be well represented by symmetric mass sidebands close to the signal region. The uncertainties that arise because of these assumptions were determined by a large number of studies.

The contamination from $`D^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^+`$, $`D^+K^{}K^+\pi ^+`$ and $`D_s^+K^{}K^+\pi ^+`$ decays misidentified as $`pK^{}\pi ^+`$ decays were determined in our sample. We loosened the Čerenkov requirements on the data and used the MC efficiencies to extrapolate to tighter particle identification criteria. From this we found the above three decays respectively contribute 0.5%, 1.3% and 2.7% of the total background in the signal region. The small contribution of these reflection backgrounds and the fact that they are distributed fairly uniformly across the signal and sideband mass regions mean they give rise to insignificant uncertainties. This was verified in a test by explicitly eliminating them by cutting out the appropriate mass regions. Using variations in particle identification and vertexing selection to significantly change the signal/background ratio also showed no significant uncertainties.

The background lifetime uncertainty was further investigated by using symmetric sidebands of different widths ($`4`$$`16\sigma _m`$), and located at different separations from the signal region ($`\pm 4`$ to $`\pm 16\sigma _m`$). The effect of using only the low or only the high mass sideband was also studied. The effect of having the fit parameter $`B`$ truly free by eliminating the background term in the likelihood (second term in Eq. (4)) was studied and found to be inconsequential. Note that the results of the $`pK\pi `$ mass fit are only used in the background term in the likelihood.

Finally, an independent analysis which did not rely on knowledge of the background lifetime distribution was performed. In this analysis the data were split into twenty 50 fs wide reduced proper time bins from 0–1 ps. The number of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+pK^{}\pi ^+`$ decays in each bin was determined in a mass fit and the yields fitted to an exponential decay distribution modified by a $`f(t^{})`$ correction function. This $`f(t^{})`$ function was obtained separately for this analysis from the MC, doing the same split into twenty time bins and fitting the mass distributions for each MC bin. This $`f(t^{})`$ correction function agrees well with that obtained in the standard analysis method.

From these studies we assign a background systematic uncertainty of $`\pm 0.77`$%.

Uncertainties in the $`f(t^{})`$ correction include uncertainties from the geometrical acceptance, the detector and reconstruction efficiencies, the production model, the absorption cross-sections, and the decay dynamics.

With our chosen selection criteria, the $`f(t^{})`$ correction reduces the fitted lifetime by 1.19%. A number of studies were performed to study the uncertainty in this correction. Since the correction function is obtained from MC simulations, care was taken to ensure that this simulation correctly reproduces a very large number of data distributions. In particular the MC reproduces the data $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ longitudinal and transverse momenta, the multiplicity of the production vertex, and the decay length and proper time resolutions. A sensitive check of the acceptance and efficiency part of the MC correction was done using high statistics $`K_S^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ decays. Short-lived $`K_S^0`$ decays were reconstructed using the same analysis methods in the same decay region as the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ decays. Since the $`K_S^0`$ lifetime is well known we can determine the $`f(t^{})`$ correction in data and compare it to that obtained in our MC simulation. The agreement is excellent but was limited by both data and MC statistics to a sensitivity of $`\pm 2`$% of the correction. Using this as the level of the uncertainty in the $`f(t^{})`$ correction, we can assign a systematic uncertainty due to this correction of $`\pm 0.83`$%. Possible time dependent systematic effects were looked for by splitting the data into different time periods and comparing the fitted lifetimes. We also compared the separate fitted lifetimes for decays originating from each of the four targets. No systematic uncertainties were found in these two comparisons.

Our limited knowledge of the production and decay of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ could contribute to a systematic uncertainty. This was studied using different MC simulations where the production parameters and the resonance substructure of the decay were varied over reasonable ranges. Production systematics were also studied by splitting the data into different bins of longitudinal and transverse $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ momenta, primary vertex multiplicity, and by comparing the fitted lifetimes for particles and anti-particles. We assign a systematic uncertainty of $`\pm 0.38`$% due to our limited knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ production and decay.

In order to use the reduced proper time we must be able to correctly model our proper time resolution. This was verified by comparing the distributions for data and MC and by studying splits of the data sample that can be sensitive to resolution effects. The data were split into bins of proper time resolution and reconstructed invariant mass. Variations of the proper time bin width from 10 to 100 fs were also studied as was changing the fitted range from 0–0.6 ps to 0–1.4 ps, and from 0–1 ps to 0.2–1 ps. We assign a systematic uncertainty of $`\pm 0.12`$% to the lifetime due to resolution uncertainties.

The systematic uncertainty due to absorption of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ and daughter particles was studied by varying the charm interaction cross-section by 100% and the daughter particle interaction cross-sections by 50% in the MC. It was also studied by comparing the lifetimes of decays occuring inside and outside of the target, and by comparing the lifetimes for decays where the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ was produced in the upstream half of each target with those produced in the downstream half of the same target. We determined a systematic uncertainty of $`\pm 0.23`$% due to absorption.

Contributions to the systematic uncertainty are summarized in Table 1. Taking contributions to be uncorrelated we obtain a total systematic uncertainty of $`\pm 1.23`$% or $`\pm 2.5`$ fs.

We have measured the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ lifetime to be $`204.6\pm 3.4(\mathrm{stat}.)\pm 2.5(\mathrm{syst}.)`$ fs using $`8034\pm 122`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_cpK\pi `$ decays from the Fermilab FOCUS photoproduction experiment. This measurement represents a significant improvement in accuracy and special care was taken to investigate and properly quantify possible systematic uncertainties. Table 2 compares our measurement with previous recent published results. The difference between this measurement and the measurement from the CLEO $`e^+e^{}`$ experiment may point to the emergence of possible relative systematic effects H. W. K. Cheung . Any such systematic difference would be important to resolve given the number of recent and future mixing and CP-violation measurements that rely on accurate knowledge of lifetime distributions.

We wish to acknowledge the assistance of the staffs of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the INFN of Italy, and the physics departments of the collaborating institutions. This research was supported in part by the U. S. National Science Foundation, the U. S. Department of Energy, the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare and Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica, the Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, CONACyT-México, the Korean Ministry of Education, and the Korean Science and Engineering Foundation.