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# Experimental setup and other introductory remarks

## Experimental setup and other introductory remarks

The most important parts of the setup of a micromaser experiment are sketched in Fig. 1.

A beam of neutral alkaline atoms (rubidium is the most popular species) is run through a resonator, which has a very large quality factor to ensure a long photon lifetime. The high quality is achieved by superconducting surfaces, for which purpose the resonator is made of niobium and cooled below the critical temperature of 4.2 K. This low temperature has the additional benefit that the number of thermal photons is very small (remember the Planck radiation) and thus the thermal noise is reduced.

The resonator is tuned such that it possesses a mode in the microwave regime (of TE type in Fig. 1) which is resonant with an atomic transition between two Rydberg levels. It is this privileged mode that we shall be interested in exclusively. The frequencies of all other resonator modes are very far away on the scale set by the linewidth of the privileged mode, which is extremely narrow owing to the high resonator quality.

We refer to said atomic transition between the two distinguished Rydberg states as the masing transition. Prior to entering the resonator the atoms are excited to (one of) these Rydberg states. Transitions between Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers in the 50s to 70s are in the convenient microwave range, where resonators of ultrahigh quality are available. In addition, Rydberg atoms are very large (diameters of a few thousand Ångström units are typical) and therefore possess enormous dipole moments, so that a strong coupling of the atom to the photons in the privileged mode is achieved. It is then possible that the atoms emit microwave photons with a large probability. Since the photons are stored for a rather long time in the resonator — lifetimes of a considerable fraction of a second have been realized experimentally — even a faint beam of atoms can pump the resonator effectively. In this way, a maser is operated in which single atoms traversing the resonator provide for an efficient pump. One is then dealing with a microscopic maser indeed, a micromaser.

The excitation of the atoms to the Rydberg states of interest is typically achieved by a laser beam which is crossed by the atoms cross just before they enter the resonator. It is advantageous to select a narrow velocity group in the atom beam because then all atoms interact for the same well-controlled time with the resonator photons. A velocity selection can be performed with the aid of a set of Fizeau wheels, as indicated in Fig. 1, or by other means (see the more technical review articles).

The high quality of the resonator is quite essential for all micromaser experiments. Therefore one cannot perform any direct measurements on the stored photon field. The only information available is the state of the emerging atoms. Ideally they can solely end up in either one of the states of the masing transition. The atoms are probed by state selective ionization in inhomogeneous electric fields, symbolically indicated in Fig. 1 by two pairs of nonparallel condensor plates. At the first stage only atoms in the upper masing level are ionized, in the second stage only those in the lower level. The stripped-off electrons are detected and thus the final state of the atom is determined.

The levels of the 85Rb isotope that are most relevant for many of the micromaser experiments in Garching are depicted in Fig. 2.

As indicated, the masing levels will be called $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ throughout. In this figure, the excitation from the ground state to the state $`\alpha `$ is shown as a one-step process. That can be done by a suitably tuned, frequency doubled, ring dye laser. But different excitation schemes, that involve intermediate levels, have also been used successfully.

The heart of the experiment is the interaction of the excited atom with the resonator photons. To a reasonably good approximation only the two Rydberg levels of the masing transition are significant for the dynamics during the passage of the atom through the resonator. We shall, therefore, simplify matters and think of the masing atoms as two-level systems. The state vectors $`|\text{}|\alpha `$ and $`|\text{}|\beta `$, respectively, are then used to denote the excited and the deexcited state of such a two-level atom.

## Atom-photon interaction (Jaynes-Cummings model)

A symbolic representation of the passage of a two-level atom through the resonator is shown in Fig. 3.

Initially the atom is in state $`\alpha `$ and there are supposedly $`n`$ photons in the resonator, so that the initial state vector of the combined atom-field system is $`|\alpha ,n=|\text{},n`$. After the interaction we may have either one of two final state vectors — $`|\alpha ,n`$ if no photon has been emitted, or $`|\beta ,n+1=|\text{},n+1`$ if a photon has been emitted — or a superposition of both.

For a calculation of the actual final state we use the standard Jaynes-Cummings model111The name derives from a 1963 paper . for the theoretical description of the atom-field dynamics. The fundamental variables of the privileged field mode are the photon ladder operators $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$ with their well known properties, of which

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill [a,a^{}]=1,a^{}a|n& =& |nn\hfill \\ \hfill a^{}|n& =& |n+1\sqrt{n+1}\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
are perhaps the most important ones. Likewise we employ ladder operators $`\sigma `$ and $`\sigma ^{}`$ for the two-level atoms. Their defining properties are

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}\hfill \sigma |\alpha & =& |\beta \hfill & \text{ or }& \hfill \sigma |\text{}& =& |\text{},\hfill \\ \hfill \sigma ^{}|\beta & =& |\alpha \hfill & \text{ or }& \hfill \sigma ^{}|\text{}& =& |\text{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
and

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}\hfill \sigma |\beta & =& 0\hfill & \text{ or }& \hfill \sigma |\text{}& =& 0,\hfill \\ \hfill \sigma ^{}|\alpha & =& 0\hfill & \text{ or }& \hfill \sigma ^{}|\text{}& =& 0,\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
with the consequences

$$\sigma ^2=0,\sigma ^2=0$$
(4)
as well as

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill \sigma ^{}\sigma & =& |\alpha \alpha |& =& |\text{}\text{}|,\hfill \\ \hfill \sigma \sigma ^{}& =& |\beta \beta |& =& |\text{}\text{}|.\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
The latter are useful ways of expressing the projectors to the atomic states.

In the Jaynes-Cummings model the dynamics is generated by the Hamilton operator

$$H=\underset{\text{photon}}{\underset{}{\mathrm{}\omega a^{}a\text{}}}+\underset{\text{atom}}{\underset{}{\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }\sigma ^{}\sigma \text{}}}\underset{\text{interaction}}{\underset{}{\mathrm{}g(t)(a^{}\sigma +\sigma ^{}a)\text{}}}.$$
(6)
Here, $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ is the energy per photon, $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the atomic level spacing (the deexcited atom is assigned energy zero by convenient convention), and the so-called Rabi frequency $`g(t)`$ measures the strength of the interaction. Inasmuch as the atom enters and leaves the resonator, this Rabi frequency possesses a natural time dependence. It vanishes as long as the atom is outside the resonator, and is large while the atom is inside. To the extent to which the atomic center-of-mass motion is classical,222This condition is very well obeyed under the ordinary experimental conditions. Under extreme circumstances, however, the quantum nature of the center-of-mass motion may become important . the duration of the interaction is given by the ratio $`L/v`$ of the cavity length $`L`$ and the atomic velocity $`v`$. These circumstances are sketched in Fig. 4

where we also indicate the effective Rabi frequency $`\overline{g}`$, which is given by the time average of $`g(t)`$,

$$\overline{g}=\frac{v}{L}\text{d}tg(t).$$
(7)
To be specific let us report typical numbers for the micromaser experiments in Garching that make use of the Rydberg transition of Fig. 2. The resonator is of cylindrical shape with an almost circular cross section of diameter $``$24 mm and a length $`L`$ that is also $``$24 mm. The experiments use the photons in the TE121 mode. Here one has the frequency values

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \omega \mathrm{\Omega }& & 2\pi \times 21.5\text{GHz},\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{g}& & 44\text{kHz}=\pi \times 14\text{kHz},\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
which correspond to the energy values

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{}\omega \mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }& & 9\times 10^5\text{eV},\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{}\overline{g}& & 3\times 10^{11}\text{eV}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
Please note how small is the energy per photon333Recall that visible photons have energies of 1–2 eV. and how tiny is the interaction energy.

The transition operator

$$\gamma a^{}\sigma +\sigma ^{}a$$
(10)
effects atomic transitions along with the emission or absorption of a photon:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \gamma |\text{},n& =& |\text{},n+1\sqrt{n+1},\hfill \\ \hfill \gamma |\text{},n+1& =& |\text{},n\sqrt{n+1}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
The eigenvalues of $`\gamma `$ are $`\gamma ^{}=0,\pm 1\pm \sqrt{2},\pm \sqrt{3}\mathrm{}`$, and its eigenstates (so-called ‘dressed states’ of one kind in the jargon of quantum optics) are very simple linear combination of the atom-field states that we have been using so far, viz.

$$\begin{array}{ccccccc}\hfill |\gamma _0& & |\text{},0,\hfill & & \hfill |\gamma _n^\pm & & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|\text{},n\pm |\text{},n+1\right),\hfill \\ \hfill \gamma |\gamma _0& =& 0,\hfill & & \hfill \gamma |\gamma _n^\pm & =& |\gamma _n^\pm \left(\pm \sqrt{n+1}\right).\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
They are mutually orthogonal and normalized to unity,

$$\gamma ^{}|\gamma ^{\prime \prime }=\delta (\gamma ^{},\gamma ^{\prime \prime })=\{\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill 1& & \text{if}& & \gamma ^{}=\gamma ^{\prime \prime }\hfill \\ \hfill 0& & \text{if}& & \gamma ^{}\gamma ^{\prime \prime }\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
and complete,

$$\underset{\gamma ^{}}{}|\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}|=1,$$
(14)
and constitute a convenient basis for expanding arbitrary state vectors.

The important identity

$$\gamma ^2=a^{}a+\sigma ^{}\sigma $$
(15)
is easily demonstrated with the aid of the algebraic properties of the ladder operators stated in Eqs. (1)–(5). We use it to rewrite the Hamilton operator (6) into a form,

$$H=\mathrm{}\omega \gamma ^2+\mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Omega }\omega )\sigma ^{}\sigma \mathrm{}g(t)\gamma ,$$
(16)
which is particularly transparent on resonance ($`\omega =\mathrm{\Omega })`$:

$$H(t)=\mathrm{}\omega \gamma ^2\mathrm{}g(t)\gamma .$$
(17)
For the sake of simplicity, we shall confine ourselves to this resonant situation for the rest of this tutorial review.

Since the transition operator is then a constant of motion — the vanishing commutator $`[H(t),\gamma (t)]=0`$ implies $`\gamma (t)=\gamma (t_0)`$ — the Schrödinger equation obeyed by the eigenstates of $`\gamma (t)`$ is very simple. For the left eigenstates, it reads

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}\gamma ^{},t|=\gamma ^{},t|H(t)=\left[\mathrm{}\omega \gamma ^2\mathrm{}g(t)\gamma ^{}\right]\gamma ^{},t|.$$
(18)
and can be solved immediately. The outcome is

$$\gamma ^{},t|=\underset{\text{free evolution}}{\underset{}{\mathrm{exp}\left[i\omega \gamma ^2(tt_0)\right]\text{}}}\underset{\text{interaction}}{\underset{}{\mathrm{exp}\left[i\gamma ^{}_{t_0}^t\text{d}t^{}g(t^{})\right]}}\gamma ^{},t_0|.$$
(19)
We note that the evolution is naturally split into two contributions: the free evolution and what results from the interaction.

We are particularly interested in the overall change asked for in the context of Fig. 3. Then the instants $`t_0`$ and $`t`$ are ‘before’ and ‘after’ the interaction, so that the integral in (19) equals the effective Rabi frequency of (7) times the classical interaction time $`L/v`$,

$$_{t_0}^t\text{d}t^{}g(t^{})=\overline{g}L/v\phi .$$
(20)
For obvious reasons, the quantity $`\phi `$ here introduced is called the accumulated Rabi angle. This single number summarizes the net effect of the atom-field interaction.

We have thus found a first central result of micromaser theory:

Resonant interaction leads to a change
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \gamma ^{}|& & e^{i\phi \gamma ^{}}\gamma ^{}|\hfill \\ \hfill |\gamma ^{}& & |\gamma ^{}e^{i\phi \gamma ^{}}\hfill \end{array}$$
on top of the free evolution.  (21)
As an application let us reconsider the situation of Fig. 3. First, we write the initial state vector $`|\text{},n`$ as a superposition of eigenvectors of the interaction operator $`\gamma `$,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill |\text{},n& =& \frac{1}{2}\left(|\text{},n+|\text{},n+1\right)+\frac{1}{2}\left(|\text{},n|\text{},n+1\right)\hfill \\ & =& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|\gamma _n^++|\gamma _n^{}\right).\hfill \end{array}$$
(22)
Second, we make use of (21) to find the change resulting from the interaction,

$$|\text{},n\text{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left[|\gamma _n^+\mathrm{exp}(i\phi \sqrt{n+1})+|\gamma _n^{}\mathrm{exp}(i\phi \sqrt{n+1})\right].$$
(23)
Third, we express the outcome in terms of the atom-field states,

$$|\text{},n\text{}|\text{},n\mathrm{cos}(\phi \sqrt{n+1})+|\text{},n+1[i\mathrm{sin}(\phi \sqrt{n+1})],$$
(24)
which is the desired result. In particular, it states the probabilities with which the two possible final atom-field states occur,

$$|\text{},n\text{}\{\begin{array}{ccc}|\text{},n& \text{with probability}& \mathrm{cos}^2(\phi \sqrt{n+1}),\hfill \\ |\text{},n+1& \text{with probability}& \mathrm{sin}^2(\phi \sqrt{n+1}).\hfill \end{array}$$
(25)
It is essential to realize that this result is dramatically different from the one in the usual spontaneous-and-induced emission process. There the physics is well described by the lowest-order perturbation theory, in which the argument $`\phi \sqrt{n+1}`$ of the sine and cosine function in (25) is infinitesimal and individual transitions are not happening frequently. In addition, usual spontaneous emission involves not only just one mode of the radiation field but a continuous range of modes with neighboring frequencies. In summary, the photon emission in a micromaser experiment has nothing in common with the much more familiar spontaneous emission by atoms in free space.

We note that there are special situations in which the photon emission happens with certainty,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill |\text{},n\text{}|\text{},n+1& \text{if}& \phi \sqrt{n+1}=\pi /2\hfill \\ & & (\text{e.\hspace{0.17em}g.}n=0,\phi =\pi /2),\hfill \end{array}$$
(26)
or in which surely no emission takes place,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill |\text{},n\text{}|\text{},n& \text{if}& \phi \sqrt{n+1}=\pi \hfill \\ & & (\text{e.\hspace{0.17em}g.}n=0,\phi =\pi ).\hfill \end{array}$$
(27)
Of course, one could add integer multiples to $`\phi \sqrt{n+1}`$ in both cases without changing the final states. Clearly, these special situations are unknown in the context of the usual spontaneous emission. In the micromaser the atom can first emit and then reabsorb the photon — this is the case of (27) — thus undergoing a complete Rabi cycle, or perhaps a few complete cycles.

## One-atom operation

The beam of atoms in Fig. 1 comes originally from an opening in an oven, has been collimated, and perhaps velocity selected, before it is directed through the resonator. If no special action is taken, as is the standard experimental situation, the atoms in the beam are uncorrelated. In other words, the atoms arrive at random. The probability $`p(t)\text{d}t`$ that two successive atoms are separated in time by $`t\mathrm{}t+\text{d}t`$ is thus given by the Poisson formula444The Poisson formula governs also more mudane phenomena, such as the temporal spacing between drops of rain.

$$p(t)\text{d}t=e^{rt}r\text{d}t,$$
(28)
where $`r`$ is the rate at which the atoms arrive. The average temporal spacing between atoms is clearly equal to $`1/r`$; the average spatial distance is then $`v/r`$ if all atoms move at the same speed $`v`$, a condition that we shall assume to be obeyed for the time being.

If the beam is faint enough, most of the atoms will enter the resonator after the preceding atom has left it, and will leave before the succeeding atom arrives. This is the situation depicted in Fig. 5.

The probability that the middle atom in this figure gives rise to such a one-atom event is equal to the product of the probabilities that both spacings, $`t_{}`$ and $`t_+`$, exceed the classical interaction time $`L/v`$. Now, the Poisson statistics (28) imply that the probability for a spacing greater than a certain specified period $`T`$ is given by

$$_T^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}tp(t)=e^{rT}.$$
(29)
Consequently, the asked-for probability of a one-atom event is

$$\underset{t_{}>L/v}{\underset{}{\mathrm{exp}(rL/v)}}\times \underset{t_+>L/v}{\underset{}{\mathrm{exp}(rL/v)}}=\mathrm{exp}(2rL/v).$$
(30)
A typical number for $`L/v`$ is 50 $`\mu `$s, so that at the rather large beam rate of $`r1000/`$s this probability is about $`\mathrm{exp}(0.1)90\%`$. In other words, 90% of the atoms would contribute to one-atom events. More typical is a beam rate of $`r10/`$s, for which the probability for one-atom events is about $`\mathrm{exp}(0.001)=99.9\%`$. Collective events, in which more than one atom interact with the resonator photons at the same time, are then extremely rare and can be justifiably disregarded. We are then dealing with the One-Atom Maser, the most intriguing version of the micromaser.

## One-atom maser: Dynamics

For the theoretical treatment of the dynamics of the photon field in the one-atom maser (OAM) we employ the standard master equation approach. It deals with a coarse grain time evolution of the photon field. Changes in the field that occur on the short time scale, on which the atom-field interaction happens, are ignored. In essence, one is only interested in the changes that occur in the photon state during the passage of a fair number of atoms.

Since we are focussing on the state of the photon field, rather than on the state of the entire system consisting of very many atoms and the photon field, we are treating a partial system. More precisely: we are treating an open, driven quantum system. Its state cannot be described in terms of a state vector $`|`$ or (one of) its wavefunctions. What one needs is a state operator $`\rho `$, which is a positive operator of unit trace. These two properties of $`\rho `$ ensure that all probabilities $`\left|\rho \right|`$ are non-negative and that the sum of all probabilities of a complete set of mutually exclusive alternatives is unity.

The matrix elements of $`\rho `$ make up the so-called density matrix; for instance, when the photon number states $`n|`$ and $`|m`$ are used, we get the number-state density matrix $`\rho _{nm}=n\left|\rho \right|m`$. Just like there are very many wavefunctions to one state vector $`|`$, there are also very many density matrices to one state operator $`\rho `$. It is clearly advantageous to concentrate on the (somewhat abstract) state operator in the first place, and to choose a convenient matrix representation later when it is really needed.

For the photon field inside the resonator of a OAM, the state operator $`\rho `$ — we shall frequently speak of ‘the state $`\rho `$’ simply — is a time-dependent function of the ladder operators $`a^{}`$ and $`a`$: $`\rho =\rho _t(a^{},a)`$. For the benefit of more transparent equations, we shall suppress the arguments of $`\rho `$ where misunderstandings are unlikely. The master equation obeyed by $`\rho `$ has the general structure

$$\frac{}{t}\rho =\frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{free}}}+\frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{gain}}}+\frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{loss}}}.$$
(31)
The ‘free’ contribution is, of course, generated by the photon part of the Hamilton operator (6),

$$\frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{free}}}=\frac{1}{i\mathrm{}}[H_{\text{photon}},\rho ]=i\omega [a^{}a,\rho ].$$
(32)
The ‘gain’ contribution to (31) is the additional change resulting from the interacting atoms traversing the resonator, and the ‘loss’ contribution originates in the coupling of the photons to their surroundings. We shall first derive the gain term and then turn to the loss term.

The gain is determined by considering the situation of Fig. 6.

After employing the number-state matrix of the initial field state $`\rho `$,

$$\rho (a^{},a)=\underset{n,m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}|n\rho _{nm}m|,$$
(33)
to write the complete initial state $`P`$ in the form555The letter $`P`$ is a capital $`\rho `$, not a capital $`p`$.

$$P=\underset{n,m}{}|\text{},n\rho _{nm}\text{},m|.$$
(34)
Now we can make use of Eq. (24) to find the effect of the interaction,

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill P& \text{}& \underset{n,m}{}& \left[|\text{},n\mathrm{cos}(\phi \sqrt{n+1})|\text{},n+1i\mathrm{sin}(\phi \sqrt{n+1})\right]\rho _{nm}\hfill \\ & & & \times [\mathrm{cos}(\phi \sqrt{m+1})\text{},m|+i\mathrm{sin}(\phi \sqrt{m+1})\text{},m+1\left|\right]\hfill \\ & & & P_{\text{after}}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(35)
This is the final state operator of the complete system consisting of one atom and the photon field (we remember that the ‘free’ evolution comes on top). We do not care about the atom and therefore we trace over the two-level degree of freedom (symbolically: $`\text{tr}_{\text{atom}}`$) to obtain the final photon state,

$$\rho (a^{},a)\text{}\text{tr}_{\text{atom}}\left\{P_{\text{after}}\right\}.$$
(36)
In more detail this reads

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \rho =\underset{n,m}{}|n\rho _{nm}m|& \\ \hfill \text{}& \underset{n,m}{}\left[\right|n\mathrm{cos}(\phi \sqrt{n+1})\rho _{nm}\mathrm{cos}(\phi \sqrt{m+1})m|\hfill \\ & +|n+1\mathrm{sin}(\phi \sqrt{n+1})\rho _{nm}\mathrm{sin}(\phi \sqrt{m+1})m+1|].\hfill \end{array}$$
(37)
Upon recalling that $`a^{}(aa^{})^{1/2}`$ is a normalized ladder operator,

$$a^{}(aa^{})^{1/2}|n=|n+1,$$
(38)
one establishes the identities

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill |n\mathrm{cos}(\phi \sqrt{n+1})& =& \mathrm{cos}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]|n,\hfill \\ \hfill |n+1\mathrm{sin}(\phi \sqrt{n+1})& =& a^{}\frac{\mathrm{sin}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]}{(aa^{})^{1/2}}|n.\hfill \end{array}$$
(39)
These are then used to arrive at a second central result of micromaser theory:

Resonant interaction of atoms entering in the   state leads to a change
$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill \rho & \hfill \mathrm{cos}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]& \rho & \mathrm{cos}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]\hfill \\ & \hfill +a^{}\frac{\mathrm{sin}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]}{(aa^{})^{1/2}}& \rho & \frac{\mathrm{sin}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]}{(aa^{})^{1/2}}a\hfill \end{array}$$
in the photon state on top of the free evolution.  (40)
We add the remark that an analogous result with $`a^{}`$ and $`a`$ interchanged is found for atoms that enter the resonator in the   state. The derivation is left to the reader as a simple exercise.

The gain term in (31) is now available. It is given by

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{gain}}}=& \left[\text{beam rate}\right]\times \left[\text{change by one atom}\right]\hfill \\ \hfill =& r\{\mathrm{cos}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]\rho \mathrm{cos}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]\hfill \\ & +a^{}\frac{\mathrm{sin}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]}{(aa^{})^{1/2}}\rho \frac{\mathrm{sin}[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]}{(aa^{})^{1/2}}a\rho \}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(41)
This expression is valid for the coarse grain time scale provided that the arriving atoms are uncorrelated, as we have assumed in Eq. (28), for example.

We turn to the loss term. Here we have to model the coupling to a thermal reservoir. In view of what we have at hand, the simplest model is that of a thermal beam of very many, very weakly interacting atoms. This beam is supposed to be at a certain temperature, so that the rate $`r_\alpha `$ of   atoms is larger than the rate $`r_\beta `$ of the   atoms. The ratio of these partial rates is, of course, given by the Boltzmann factor,

$$r_\alpha /r_\beta =\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{k_\text{B}T}\right)\frac{\nu }{\nu +1},$$
(42)
where $`k_\text{B}`$ is the Boltzmann constant and $`T`$ the temperature. Anticipating its convenience, we introduce the parametrization in terms of the positive number $`\nu `$ whose physical significance will become clear later.

For the   atoms in the beam, we have a contribution to the loss term which is analogous to the right-hand side of Eq. (41), except that we are now dealing with a tiny Rabi angle $`\varphi `$ rather than with the macroscopic angle $`\phi `$. The lowest non-vanishing order in $`\varphi `$ is all that we are going to take into account. Thus we find

$$\frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{loss,}\alpha }}=r_\alpha \varphi ^2\left[a^{}\rho a\frac{1}{2}aa^{}\rho \frac{1}{2}\rho aa^{}\right]$$
(43)
for the   contribution. The   contribution is immediately available too, because the remark after (40) implies that we have to interchange the ladder operators $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$,

$$\frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{loss,}\beta }}=r_\beta \varphi ^2\left[a\rho a^{}\frac{1}{2}a^{}a\rho \frac{1}{2}\rho a^{}a\right].$$
(44)
Upon introducing the loss rate $`A(r_\beta r_\alpha )\varphi ^2`$ and the parameter $`\nu `$ of (42) we combine these partial answers into

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{loss}}}=& \hfill \frac{1}{2}A(\nu +1)\left[a^{}a\rho 2a\rho a^{}+\rho a^{}a\right]& \\ & \hfill \frac{1}{2}A\nu \left[aa^{}\rho 2a^{}\rho a+\rho aa^{}\right]& .\hfill \end{array}$$
(45)
The three ingredients of the master equation (31) are now at hand.

The physical significance of the rate $`A`$ and the number $`\nu `$ is revealed by a quick look at the dynamics of an unpumped resonator, for which

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{}{t}\rho _{|_{\text{loss}}}=i\omega [a^{}a,\rho ]& \hfill \frac{1}{2}A(\nu +1)\left[a^{}a\rho 2a\rho a^{}+\rho a^{}a\right]\\ & \hfill \frac{1}{2}A\nu \left[aa^{}\rho 2a^{}\rho a+\rho aa^{}\right]\end{array}$$
(46)
is the equation of motion. This master equation is in fact so simple that the general solution for an arbitrary initial state can be written down in a number of ways. In the present context that is not so essential. We are content with these observations:

* The stationary state of (46) is the thermal photon state

$$\rho _{\text{th}}=\frac{1}{\nu +1}\left(\frac{\nu }{\nu +1}\right)^{a^{}a}=\left[1\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{k_\text{B}T}\right)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{k_\text{B}T}a^{}a\right),$$
(47)
which identifies $`\nu `$ as the number of thermal photons inside the resonator at temperature $`T`$.
* For the evolution of the mean photon field $`a=\text{tr}\{a\rho \}`$ (where $`\text{tr}\text{tr}_{\text{photon}}`$ for short) we have

$$\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t}a=\text{tr}\left\{a\frac{}{t}\rho \right\}=(i\omega A/2)a,$$
(48)
so that

$$a_t=a_0e^{i\omega t}e^{At/2}.$$
(49)
This shows that the field decays with the rate $`A/2`$ towards its stationary null value.
* Likewise we find for the mean number of photons,

$$\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t}a^{}a=\text{tr}\left\{a^{}a\frac{}{t}\rho \right\}=A(a^{}a\nu ),$$
(50)
and therefore

$$a^{}a_t=\nu +(a^{}a_0\nu )e^{At}.$$
(51)
The mean photon number decays with rate $`A`$ towards its stationary value of $`\nu `$.

Thus the meaning of $`A`$ and $`\nu `$ is quite clear.

The relation between the temperature of the resonator and the number of thermal photons deserves a little attention. With the numbers of Eqs. (8) and (9) we find the entries in this table:

| $`T`$ | $`\nu `$ | remarks |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1.5 K | 1.96 | early experiments |
| 0.5 K | 0.15 | typical values |
| 80 mK | $`2.5\times 10^6`$ | achieved |

Please observe that in the microwave domain thermal photons are usually present in considerable amounts. This situation is quite different from that of the optical domain in which thermal photons are irrelevant.

Another remark concerns the connection between the decay constant $`A`$ and the quality factor $`Q`$ of the resonator. Per definition the energy stored decreases to $`1/e`$-th of its initial value while the field undergoes $`Q`$ cycles,

$$e^{At}=e^1\text{for}\omega t=2\pi Q:A=\frac{\omega }{2\pi }/Q.$$
(52)
In the Garching micromaser experiments one has $`\omega 2\pi \times 21.5\text{GHz}`$, and quality factors of $`Q10^9\mathrm{}10^{10}`$ have been achieved, so that the photon life time $`1/A`$ can be as large as a few hundred microseconds.

## One-atom maser: Steady state. General matters

The OAM master equation (31) with (32), (41), and (45) does not contain any terms that are sensitive to the phase of the photon field.666In more technical terms this statement says that (31) is invariant under the unitary transformation $`\rho U^{}\rho U`$ with $`U=\mathrm{exp}(i\chi a^{}a)`$ where $`\chi `$ is an arbitrary (constant) phase angle. Another way of putting this states that the diagonals of the number-state matrix of $`\rho `$ are dynamically uncoupled. Therefore, a state $`\rho `$ which at one time is diagonal in this sense, stays diagonal for all times. A diagonal state is represented by a state operator $`\rho `$ that depends solely on the product $`a^{}a`$, the photon number operator, but not on the ladder operators $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$ individually: $`\rho =\rho (a^{}a)`$. The numbers $`\rho (n)=n\left|\rho (a^{}a)\right|n`$ are the probabilities to find $`n`$ photons in the resonator.

For such a diagonal state, the master equation (31) is particularly transparent. It constitutes a third central result of micromaser theory:

Master equation for diagonal states of the one-atom maser:
$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill \frac{}{t}\rho _t(a^{}a)=& \hfill r\mathrm{sin}^2\left[\phi (a^{}a)^{1/2}\right]\rho _t(a^{}a1)& & [\text{a}]\hfill \\ & \hfill +A(\nu +1)(a^{}a+1)\rho _t(a^{}a+1)& & [\text{b}]\hfill \\ & \hfill +A\nu a^{}a\rho _t(a^{}a1)& & [\text{c}]\text{}\hfill \\ & \hfill r\mathrm{sin}^2\left[\phi (a^{}a+1)^{1/2}\right]\rho _t(a^{}a)& & [\text{d}]\hfill \\ & \hfill A(\nu +1)a^{}a\rho _t(a^{}a)& & [\text{e}]\hfill \\ & \hfill A\nu (a^{}a+1)\rho _t(a^{}a)& & [\text{f}]\hfill \end{array}$$
(53)
The six terms on the right-hand side possess obvious meanings. These are stated in the probability flux diagram of Fig. 7.

In the steady state $`\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}`$ of (53) — which is, of course, also the steady state of (31) — the gains and losses of $`\rho (a^{}a)`$ have to add up to zero. A rearrangement of the right-hand-side terms in (53),

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill r\mathrm{sin}^2\left[\phi (a^{}a)^{1/2}\right]\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a1)& & [\text{a}]\hfill \\ \hfill +A\nu a^{}a\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a1)& & [\text{c}]\hfill \\ \hfill A(\nu +1)a^{}a\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a)& & [\text{e}]\text{}\hfill \\ \hfill =r\mathrm{sin}^2\left[\phi (a^{}a+1)^{1/2}\right]\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a)& & [\text{d}]\hfill \\ \hfill A\nu (a^{}a+1)\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a)& & [\text{f}]\hfill \\ \hfill A(\nu +1)(a^{}a+1)\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a+1)& ,\hfill & [\text{b}]\hfill \end{array}$$
(54)
combines them into two groups of three. Now, observe that the replacement $`a^{}aa^{}a+1`$ turns the \[a,c,e\] group into the \[d,f,b\] group. By induction we therefore conclude that the value of the \[a,c,e\] group is the same for each value of $`a^{}a`$. But for $`a^{}a=0`$ it is zero. So we arrive at the two-term recurrence relation

$$A(\nu +1)a^{}a\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a)=\left(r\mathrm{sin}^2[\phi (a^{}a)^{1/2}]+A\nu a^{}a\right)\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a1),$$
(55)
which is equivalent to the three-term relation (54) but considerably simpler.

The transition from (54) to (55) recognizes the detailed balance in steady state, illustrated in Fig. 8.

It comes about because the photon number ladder ends at the $`a^{}a=0`$ rung.

The recurrence relation (55) can be solved immediately, and we obtain a fourth central result of micromaser theory:

The steady state of the one-atom maser, pumped by resonant   atoms, is given by
$$\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a)=\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(0)\underset{n=1}{\overset{a^{}a}{}}\left[\frac{\nu }{\nu +1}+\frac{r/A}{\nu +1}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi \sqrt{n})}{n}\right],$$
where the value of $`\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(0)`$ is determinedby the normalization of $`\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}`$ to unit trace.  (56)
We note that this steady state is determined uniquely by three numbers: the thermal photon number $`\nu `$, the accumulated Rabi angle $`\phi `$, and the ratio $`r/A`$ of the pump and the decay rates. This ratio tells us how many pump atoms traverse the resonator (on average) during one photon life time. Therefore, we call $`r/A`$ the effective pump rate.777In the micromaser literature the symbol $`N_{\text{ex}}`$ is frequently used as an abbreviation for $`r/A`$ where the subscript ‘ex’ is a reminder of ‘excited.’ We do not adopt this custom.

A simple, but necessary, check of consistency is provided by the consideration of the $`r=0`$ case, the case of an unpumped resonator. The steady state of (56) is then the thermal state $`\rho _{\text{th}}`$ of (47), as it must be.

## One-atom maser: Steady state. Examples

For fixed values of the effective pump rate $`r/A`$ and the thermal photon number $`\nu `$, the steady state of the OAM is traditionally studied as a function of the so-called ‘pump parameter’ $`\theta \phi \sqrt{r/A}`$. Why this scaling of the Rabi angle appears convenient will become plausible later.

For a certain OAM steady state $`\rho `$ — for simplicity, we drop the superscript of $`\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}`$ until we start considering the time dependence of $`\rho `$ again — the fundamental statistical quantities of interest are mean the photon number $`a^{}a=\text{tr}\{a^{}a\rho \}`$ and its normalized variance,

$$\frac{(a^{}a)^2a^{}a^2}{a^{}a}.$$
(57)
This quantity (or its square root) is known under various names in the literature,888These names derive from a 1947 paper by Fano  and a 1979 paper by Mandel , I believe. such as ‘Fano factor,’ or ‘Mandel’s Q parameter,’ or ‘Fano-Mandel measure.’ We prefer the first one in this list. The normalization in (57) is to the value of a Poissonian distribution (as in a coherent state of the harmonic oscillator or a classical state of the radiation field),

$$\rho (n)_{|_{\text{Poisson}}}=\frac{1}{n!}a^{}a^n\mathrm{exp}(a^{}a),$$
(58)
for which $`(a^{}a)^2a^{}a^2=a^{}a`$. With this normalization comes the jargon of calling a state $`\rho `$ ‘superpoissonian’ if its Fano factor exceeds unity, and ‘subpoissonian’ if it is less than unity. An example for a superpoissonian state is the thermal state of Eq. (47); its Fano factor equals $`\nu +1`$.

In Fig. 9 the dependence of the photon number and the Fano factor on the pump parameter $`\theta `$ is shown for an effective pump rate of $`r/A=200`$ and $`\nu =0.15`$ thermal photons. As $`\theta `$ increases from $`\theta =0`$, we see an initial rapid growth of both the photon number and the Fano factor. Both numbers reach a maximum and then decrease toward a minimum near $`\theta =2\pi `$. This pattern repeats itself roughly with a $`\theta `$ period of $`2\pi `$.

The maximal value of $`a^{}a`$, reached near $`\theta =\pi /2`$, is very close to 200, the value of the effective pump rate. Thus, for this pump parameter the interaction time is just right to ensure that almost all atoms emit a photon into the resonator. At the minimum near $`\theta =2\pi `$, by contrast, a large fraction of the atoms do not emit. The interaction time is longer, so that the atoms have a good change to undergo a complete Rabi cycle $`|\text{}|\text{}|\text{}`$ and leave the resonator in the excited state.

The bottom part of the plot of the Fano factor in Fig. 9 is enlarged in Fig. 10. We observe that there are large $`\theta `$ intervals in which the Fano factor is less than one, thus indicating a subpoissonian state of the photon field. It is clear that such states can be realized experimentally, since a very precise control of the parameters $`r/A`$, $`\nu `$, and $`\theta `$ is not necessary to stay inside the appropriate parameter range.

A look at the histograms in Fig. 11 might be helpful in understanding why the Fano factor covers such a large range of values. For reference each histogram is compared with a corresponding Poissonian one with the same mean number of photons. Whereas we have an almost poissonian distribution for $`\theta =\pi /2`$ (at the maximum of the $`a^{}a`$), the distribution for $`\theta =0.32442\pi `$ is much broader than the Poissonian one, and that for $`\theta =2\pi `$ is much narrower. In these cases it is easily understood that the respective Fano factors are close to, much larger than, or much smaller than unity. A different situation is observed for $`\theta =2.09`$ where, according to Fig. 9, the Fano factor is particularly large. In Fig. 11 we recognize the reason for that: there are two narrow peaks — each subpoissonianly narrow — separated by many photon numbers $`n`$. As a consequence, the Fano factor, which is a global property of the distribution, is enormous.

The notion of the ‘maser threshold’ is also most easily understood in the context of such histograms. The thermal state (47) is surely below threshold by any definition. Likewise the possonian state (58), which is so typical for the output of a laser, is certainly above threshold. A striking difference between the two is that the maximum of the poissonian state is at a large photon number $`n`$, whereas in the thermal state the largest probability is the one for zero photons. This invites the following criterion based on the relative size of $`\rho (0)`$, the probability for no photons, and $`\rho (1)`$, that for one photon:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \rho (0)>\rho (1)& :\hfill & \text{below threshold,}\hfill \\ \hfill \rho (0)=\rho (1)& :\hfill & \text{at threshold,}\hfill \\ \hfill \rho (0)<\rho (1)& :\hfill & \text{above threshold.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(59)
In view of the recurrence relation (55), the explicit OAM version reads

$$\frac{r}{A}\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi )\left\{\begin{array}{c}<\\ =\\ >\end{array}\right\}1:\left\{\begin{array}{c}\text{below}\\ \text{at}\\ \text{above}\end{array}\right\}\text{threshold.}$$
(60)
In particular, if the effective rate $`r/A`$ is large, the threshold value of $`\phi `$ is so small that $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi )`$ can be replaced by $`\phi ^2`$, and then we have simply $`\theta =1`$ at the maser threshold. This is one reason why the pump parameter $`\theta `$ is sometimes preferred over the unscaled Rabi angle $`\phi `$. These matters are illustrated in Fig. 12 where the value $`r/A=4`$ is chosen for the effective rate, so that $`\phi =30^{}`$ holds at the threshold. We note that the thermal photon number $`\nu `$ plays no role in (60).

The threshold concept has its obvious limitations when the photon number distribution may have more than one peak, as realized in the $`\theta =2.09`$ case of Fig. 11. More interesting is the question of how many minima and maxima are there and at which $`n`$ values. The answer is obtained after first recognizing this consequence of the recurrence relation (55):

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill \text{if}& \frac{r}{A}\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi \sqrt{n})>n& \text{then}& \rho (n)>\rho (n1),\hfill \\ \hfill \text{if}& \frac{r}{A}\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi \sqrt{n})<n& \text{then}& \rho (n)<\rho (n1).\hfill \end{array}$$
(61)
In this way the $`n`$ ranges in which $`\rho (n)`$ decreases or increases monotonically are determined. At the switch-over values we find the maxima and minima in the photon number distribution. The conditions (61) acquire a more universal appearance when we introduce a new variable $`\vartheta \phi \sqrt{n}`$. Then we have

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{sin}^2(\vartheta )>(\vartheta /\theta )^2& \text{between minima and maxima,}\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{sin}^2(\vartheta )<(\vartheta /\theta )^2& \text{between maxima and minima,}\hfill \end{array}$$
(62)
where the pump parameter $`\theta =\phi \sqrt{r/A}`$ appears naturally. This is another reason for using $`\theta `$ rather than $`\phi `$. In passing we mention that the critical $`\vartheta `$ values, for which $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\vartheta )=(\vartheta /\theta )^2`$ holds, play a great role in the semiclassical theory of the micromaser. In the context of the quantum treatment discussed here, they determine the $`n`$ values of the extrema in the photon number distribution. This is illustrated in Fig. 13. The corresponding histogram of $`\rho (n)`$ should show four maxima, and in Fig. 14 it does indeed. Of course, not all maxima have to be as pronounced as the two in the $`\theta =2.09\pi `$ case of Fig. 11 (d). Again we note that, as in (60), the thermal photon number $`\nu `$ is irrelevant in (62). The number of the extrema in the histogram of the photon number distribution as well as their locations are solely determined by the value of $`\theta `$. Naturally, further details may depend strongly on the value of $`\nu `$.

In the discussion of the plots in Fig. 9 we had remarked that the pattern roughly repeats itself with a $`\theta `$ period of $`2\pi `$. That may be true for the parameter range of Fig. 9, but for other values of the effective rate $`r/A`$, other thermal photon numbers $`\nu `$, or other $`\theta `$ ranges matters tend to be different. As an example we take a look at Fig. 15 where the rate is much smaller, namely $`r/A=6`$, and the temperature much higher, $`\nu =2`$. Rather than the regular pattern of Fig. 9 we observe an irregular behavior. The initial oscillation is quickly damped away, but builds up again at larger values of the Rabi angle $`\phi `$, that is: at longer interaction times. This phenomenon is reminiscent of and related to the so-called Jaynes-Cummings revivals. Strictly speaking, the latter occur when a two-level atom is in permanent (resonant) interaction with photons of one field mode. The Rabi angle is then proportional to the elapsed interaction time. Although the OAM plots in Fig. 15 refer to many atoms with a fixed common interaction time, it is nevertheless clear that the revivals in this figure are similar — both in their appearance and in their physical origin — to those Jaynes-Cummings revivals.

## One-atom maser: Steady state. Energy balance

One cannot measure the photon state itself in micromaser experiments — by counting photons, say — because that would violate the requirement of a very large quality factor of the resonator. The experimenter can only look at the atoms emerging from the resonator after having interacted with the photon field. The experimental data consists of the statistics of the final atomic states. For instance, one could count which fraction ends up in the excited   state and which fraction emits a photon and comes out in the deexcited   state. It is an essential task of OAM theory to compute these fractions, and many other statistical properties of the emerging atoms, and to relate them, whenever possible, to the properties of the photon state inside the resonator.

The calculation of the probability for a $`\text{}\text{}`$ transition during the passage of the atom through the resonator is based on the result (25). We recall that $`|\text{},n|\text{},n+1`$ happens with probability $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi \sqrt{n+1})`$. Therefore, if the atom encounters a state

$$\rho (a^{}a)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}|n\rho (n)n|,$$
(63)
then the total transition probability is given by

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \text{prob}(\text{}\text{})& =& \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\rho (n)\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi \sqrt{n+1})\hfill \\ & =& \text{tr}\{\rho \mathrm{sin}^2[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]\}\hfill \\ & =& \mathrm{sin}^2[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}].\hfill \end{array}$$
(64)
This probability can be computed immediately once the steady state $`\rho `$ has been determined in accordance with (56). In a series of challenging experiments, actual measurements have been performed (see  and the references therein, in particular  and ), and very good agreement with the theoretical predictions has been found.

When we multiply the transition probability (64) by the beam rate $`r`$ and the energy per photon $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, we obtain the rate at which the photon field gains energy: $`r\mathrm{}\omega \text{prob}(\text{}\text{})`$. In view of Eq. (50), the energy loss rate is likewise given by the product of the decay rate $`A`$, the energy per photon $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, and the difference between the actual mean photon number $`a^{}a`$ and the thermal photon number $`\nu `$: $`A\mathrm{}\omega (a^{}a\nu )`$. In steady state these two rates must be equal. After canceling the common factor of $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ we thus arrive at a fifth central result of micromaser theory:

In the steady state of a one-atom maser, pumped by resonant   atoms, the energy balance implies the equality
$$\underset{\text{ }\text{ energy gain rate}}{\underset{}{r\mathrm{sin}^2[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]}}=\underset{\text{ energy loss rate}}{\underset{}{A(a^{}a\nu )}}.$$
The expectation value on the left-hand side can be measured experimentally.  (65)
We emphasize that by determining the fraction of atoms that have emitted a photon one can experimentally measure the mean photon number inside the resonator. The link between the two quantities is provided by the theory of the OAM and stated in (65).

The way in which we derived this statement simply appealed to the physical significance of the expressions on the two sides. A more formal derivation employs the two-term recurrence relation (55) in the form

$$r\mathrm{sin}^2[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]\rho (a^{}a)=A\left[(\nu +1)\rho (a^{}a+1)\nu \rho (a^{}a)\right](a^{}a+1).$$
(66)
Upon taking the trace on both sides, we find

$$r\mathrm{sin}^2[\phi (aa^{})^{1/2}]=A(\nu +1)a^{}aA\nu a^{}a+1,$$
(67)
which, after an elementary simplification, is recognized to be identical to the statement in (65).

## One-atom maser: Trapped states

At zero temperature there are no thermal photons: $`\nu =0`$. Then the contributions \[c\] and \[e\] are not present in Eqs. (53) and (54) and in Figs. 7 and 8. As a consequence, the steady state (56) of the one-atom maser is particularly simple, viz.

$$\left[\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a)\right]=\rho (a^{}a)=\rho (0)\frac{(r/A)^{a^{}a}}{(a^{}a)!}\underset{n=1}{\overset{a^{}a}{}}\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi \sqrt{n}).$$
(68)
In contrast to the general $`\nu 0`$ case of (56), here the individual factors of the product might vanish. Thus we note this property of (68):

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill \text{if}& \mathrm{sin}^2(\phi \sqrt{N})=0& \text{holds for}& N=1,2,3,\mathrm{},\hfill \\ \hfill \text{then}& \rho (a^{}a)=0& \text{holds for}& a^{}aN.\hfill \end{array}$$
(69)
One says that the photon number is ‘trapped’ below $`a^{}a=N`$.

Such trapped states are very characteristic of the OAM dynamics. For purely energetic reasons, the mean photon number $`a^{}a`$ could be as large as the effective pump rate $`r/A`$ \[recall Eq. (65), here for $`\nu =0`$\]. The specific OAM dynamics, however, may limit the photon number to much smaller values. We illustrate this in Fig. 16, where the histogram for $`\phi =\pi /2`$, that is: $`N=4`$ in (69), shows nonzero probabilities only for the photon numbers $`n=0,1,2,3`$, although the effective rate, $`r/A=10`$, is more than twice as large. A second plot in this figure demonstrates how a small number of thermal photons ($`\nu =0.1`$) removes the trapping.

A very remarkable trapped state is the trapped vacuum state, which is realized if $`\phi `$ equals an integer multiple of $`\pi `$. In Fig. 17, the trapped vacuum states at $`\phi =\pi `$ and $`\phi =2\pi `$ are visible as pronounced dips in the plot of the mean photon number. Note also the minimum at $`\phi =\pi /\sqrt{2}`$ that corresponds to a trapping below $`a^{}a=2`$.

When the vacuum is trapped, the atoms perform one or more complete Rabi cycles while traversing the resonator. In other words, each atom first emits a photon and then reabsorbs it — perhaps repeatedly — eventually leaving the resonator in the excited state   in which it entered. This is, of course, the $`n=0`$ situation of Eq. (27). Under these circumstances it does not matter how frequent the one-atom events are, nor if they occur in accordance with the Poisson statistics of (28). It is simply impossible to get photons into the resonator.

## Approximations in one-atom-maser theory

A direct experimental demonstration of the trapped vacuum state has not been achieved as yet. To understand why, we recall that the theoretical result (68) is based upon various approximations. Let us reconsider them and their significance for the trapped vacuum state. In this context, the most important approximations are:

* The interaction time is assumed to be the same for all atoms.
This assumption has two aspects:

+ The atoms should have the same velocity $`v`$.
    Differing velocities lead to differing Rabi angle $`\phi `$. Fortunately, however, the trapping condition requires $`\phi =\pi `$, where $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\phi )`$ has a minimum. Therefore, deviations from the ideal $`\phi `$ value of $`\pi `$ do not change anything to first order. A velocity control to about one percent is good enough, and that can be realized experimentally.
    + Atomic decays to other levels do not occur.
    The Rydberg states of Fig. 2 do not meet this condition sufficiently well; a few percent of the atoms make ultraviolet transitions to low lying levels and thus stop interacting with the photons in the privileged mode before they actually leave the resonator. Therefore, one has to use Rydberg states that live even longer, the so-called circular states in which both the angular and the magnetic quantum number are maximal . The masing of such circular states has already been demonstrated experimentally . A one-atom-maser operation is likely to be realized in the near future.
* The transition frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of Eq. (6) is assumed to be equal to the photonfrequency $`\omega `$ for all atoms.
This has also two main aspects:

+ The resonator must be mechanically stable.
    Apparently one does not have to worry much about this. I am told that the detuning resulting from mechanical instabilities is less than 100 Hz.999A detuning should not be compared with the transition frequency of $`21.5`$ GHz, but rather with the Rabi frequency of $`14`$ kHz.
    + Electric stray fields must be small.
    Here the concern is about Stark shifts of the atomic levels. Inasmuch as the stray fields are prominent only in the entry and exit ports of the resonator, and not so much inside where the relevant atom-photon interaction takes place, they are not very critical. In other experiments, however, in which the atoms are prepared in coherent superpositions of   and  , stray fields are a great nuisance because the differential Stark shift changes the phase relations between   and   and thus may destroy the desired superposition.
* The photon damping is neglected during the atom-photon interaction.
This is harmless. Indeed, the Jaynes-Cummings model can be extended by the inclusion of photon damping. One then finds  that the trapping condition of (69) is altered slightly, but trapping still exists.
* Collective events are not taken into account.
This is a critical point. We shall deal with it in some detail.

## Two-atom events

A typical number for $`AL/v`$ in the Garching micromaser experiments is $`10^4\pi `$. For an effective beam rate of $`r/A=10`$, the probability (30) for a one-atom event is then $`\mathrm{exp}(2rL/v)=\mathrm{exp}[2(r/A)\times (AL/v)]=99.4\%`$. In this situation, only $`0.6\%`$ of the atoms participate in collective events, and most of those in two-atom events.

Although these collective events are very rare, they may cause dramatic effects nevertheless. In particular, they destroy the trapped vacuum state completely. The physical reason is the following. After two atoms, say, have been in the resonator simultaneously, the photon field is no longer in the vacuum state, there are nonzero probabilities for one or two photons. Single atoms that follow will then emit more photons and so drive the maser field further away from the vacuum. This is demonstrated in Fig. 18. Eventually, after a large number of one-atom events, the maser field will return to the vacuum state. The analysis given below shows that very many one-atom events are needed to undo the damage caused by a single two-atom event, so many indeed that another two-atom event is very likely to occur in the meantime. Therefore, we have to conclude that, despite their rare occurrence, the collective events prevent the observation of the trapped vacuum state in a micromaser with a poissonian pump beam.

Consider the OAM dynamics of Eq. (53) at zero temperature ($`\nu =0`$) and for $`\phi =\pi `$,

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{}{t}\rho _t(a^{}a)=& r_1\mathrm{sin}^2\left[\pi (a^{}a)^{1/2}\right]\rho _t(a^{}a1)+A(a^{}a+1)\rho _t(a^{}a+1)\hfill \\ & \left\{r_1\mathrm{sin}^2\left[\pi (a^{}a+1)^{1/2}\right]+Aa^{}a\right\}\rho _t(a^{}a),\hfill \end{array}$$
(70)
where $`r_1`$ is the rate of one-atom events; its relation to the beam rate $`r`$ is given by $`r_1=r\mathrm{exp}(2rL/v)`$. One verifies easily that the vacuum state $`\rho _{\text{vac}}=\delta (a^{}a,0)`$ is the steady state of (70).

For $`\phi =\pi `$, the trapping condition is not only obeyed by $`N=1`$, but also by $`N=4,9,16,\mathrm{}`$, so that the threshold from three to four photons cannot be crossed by one-atom events. Now, after a two-atom event has happened to an initial vacuum state, the probabilities for one or two photons will be nonzero, but those for three or more photons still vanish. As long as only one-atom events occur thereafter, the probabilities for more than three photons remain zero. Thus a fitting ansatz for $`\rho _t(a^{}a)`$ is

$$\rho _t=\alpha _t^{(0)}\delta (a^{}a,0)+\alpha _t^{(1)}\delta (a^{}a,1)+\alpha _t^{(2)}\delta (a^{}a,2)+\alpha _t^{(3)}\delta (a^{}a,3),$$
(71)
wherein the time-dependent numerical coefficients $`\alpha _t^{(0,1,2,3)}`$ are the respective probabilities to have no, one, two, or three photons in the resonator. The sum of these probabilities is 100% — this is the normalization of $`\rho `$ to unit trace — and that requires $`\alpha ^{(0)}=1\alpha ^{(1)}\alpha ^{(2)}\alpha ^{(3)}`$.

At $`t=0`$, we have $`\alpha _0^{(3)}=0`$, of course, and typical numbers for the initial values of $`\alpha _t^{(1)}`$ and $`\alpha _t^{(2)}`$ are

$$\alpha _0^{(1)}=\frac{1}{3}\left[\mathrm{sin}(\pi \sqrt{6})\right]^2=0.3250,\alpha _0^{(2)}=\frac{8}{9}\left[\mathrm{sin}(\pi \sqrt{3/2})\right]^4=0.1575.$$
(72)
As implied by (70), the time dependence of these coefficients is determined by

$$\left[\frac{1}{A}\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t}+\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1+\frac{r_1\text{}}{A\text{}}\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \sqrt{2})& 2& 0\\ \frac{r_1\text{}}{A\text{}}\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \sqrt{2})& 2+\frac{r_1\text{}}{A\text{}}\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \sqrt{3})& 3\\ 0& \frac{r_1\text{}}{A\text{}}\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \sqrt{3})& 3\end{array}\right)\right]\left(\begin{array}{c}\alpha _t^{(1)}\\ \alpha _t^{(2)}\\ \alpha _t^{(3)}\end{array}\right)=0.$$
(73)
The time scale for the return to the vacuum is set by the eigenvalues of this $`3\times 3`$ matrix, more precisely: by the smallest one. For $`r/A=10`$, $`r_1/A=9.937`$ these eigenvalues are

$$13.974,6.7225,0.063869=\frac{r_1/A}{155.6}.$$
(74)
Please note that the smallest one is very small indeed. It takes hundreds of one-atom events to get close to the vacuum state; see Fig. 18 again, where the photon states are reported for $`r_1t=0,2,5,100,200`$. During such a long time, another collective event is very likely to occur, so that the vacuum state will not be reached at all.

To be more specific, we note that the experimental signature for the trapped vacuum state is the observation of all atoms emerging in the excited   state. Therefore, an appropriate numerical criterion should involve the probability that the atom emits a photon if it traverses the resonator at time $`t`$. This probability is given in Eq. (64). For states of the form (71) it reads

$$\text{prob}_t(\text{}\text{})=\alpha _t^{\text{(1)}}\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \sqrt{2})+\alpha _t^{\text{(2)}}\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \sqrt{3}).$$
(75)
This probability is plotted in Fig. 19. If we now require that 99% of the atoms emerge in the upper state  , then the emission probability must get as small as 1% before we would say that the vacuum state has been reached again. The time $`t=370/r_1`$ has to go by for the parameters we have been using consistently, and the probability that at least one more collective event takes place in the meantime is 68.8% . This number is discouragingly large — it is clear that one needs to operate the micromaser with a pump beam that has considerably fewer collective events, if the trapped vacuum state is to be observed.

The small eigenvalue of the $`3\times 3`$ matrix in (73) is one theoretical indication that very long time scales are present in the dynamics of the micromaser. In this context, it is worth mentioning that very recent experiments  have demonstrated the presence of extremely large time scales in rather different dynamical regimes of the micromaser as well.

## Correlations among emerging atoms

We have remarked above that the photon state cannot be observed directly in micromaser experiments. The only reproducible data concerns the emerging atoms, more specifically: their statistical properties. Experimental tests of the micromaser theory must therefore compare the measured atom statistics to the theoretically predicted ones. We have seen one elementary example already, in the context of Eq. (65). On the one hand, one can calculate the transition probability (64); on the other hand, it can be measured by counting the atoms that end up in the   or the   state.

More subtle are statistical predictions about correlations among emerging atoms. The general theory for their calculation is rather involved  and well beyond the scope of this tutorial review. We shall therefore be content with presenting two rather simple examples. They serve the purpose of conveying the spirit in which such calculations are done without requiring too much technical detail.

Consider a OAM at zero temperature ($`\nu =0`$) operated with a Rabi angle of $`\phi =\pi /\sqrt{2}`$, so that the trapped state with one photon at most,

$$\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}=\frac{1}{A+r\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2})}\left[A\delta (a^{}a,0)+r\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2})\delta (a^{}a,1)\right],$$
(76)
is the steady state. The meaning of this $`\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}`$ is this: it is to be used for statistical predictions, if nothing else is known. For instance, the (a priori) probability for an atom to end up in the   state is

$$\text{tr}\left\{\mathrm{sin}^2[\pi (a^{}a/2)^{1/2}]\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}(a^{}a)\right\}=\frac{A\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2})}{A+r\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2})},$$
(77)
as stated in Eq. (64).

Now suppose that we have just registered, at $`t=0`$, an atom in the   state. What is then the probability that the next atom emerges also in the   state? We are here asking for a conditional probability, rather than for an a priori probability. The steady state $`\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}`$ is not appropriate any more. In its stead we must employ that time dependent state $`\rho _t`$ which correctly accounts for the imposed conditions. Then

$$\text{prob}_t(\text{}\text{})=\text{tr}\left\{\mathrm{sin}^2[\pi (a^{}a/2)^{1/2}]\rho _t\right\}$$
(78)
is the transition probability if the next atom comes after the elapse of time $`t`$. And the probability that the next atom arrives between $`t`$ and $`t+\text{d}t`$ is $`\text{d}tr\mathrm{exp}(rt)`$, where we remind ourselves of the Poisson formula (28). Upon putting things together, we find that the asked-for probability that the next atom also emits a photon is given by

$$\text{prob(next in }\text{}\text{)}=_0^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}tre^{rt}\text{tr}\left\{\mathrm{sin}^2[\pi (a^{}a/2)^{1/2}]\rho _t\right\}.$$
(79)
We still have to say how the correct $`\rho _t`$ is calculated. This requires to find (i) the appropriate initial state $`\rho _0`$ and (ii) the appropriate master equation for $`\rho _t`$.

At $`t=0`$, we know that an atom has just been registered in the   state. Prior to its passage through the resonator we had no additional information, so that then $`\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}`$ applies. Immediately after the observation of the initial   atom, however, the photon state is reduced to account for this information,

$$\text{state reduction:}\rho ^{\text{(SS)}}\delta (a^{}a,1)\rho _0.$$
(80)
In other words: after the registration of the atom emerging in the   state we know with certainty that there is one photon in the resonator.

Until the next atom arrives, there are no other atoms traversing the resonator. Consequently, $`\rho _t`$ is determined by the master equation (46) of the unpumped resonator (here for $`\nu =0`$). So we find first

$$\rho _t=\left(1e^{At}\right)\delta (a^{}a,0)+e^{At}\delta (a^{}a,1),$$
(81)
then

$$\text{prob}_t(\text{}\text{})=\left(1e^{At}\right)\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2}),$$
(82)
and finally

$$\text{prob(next in }\text{}\text{)}=\left(1\frac{r}{A}\right)\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2}).$$
(83)
This answers the question asked above. Compared with the a priori transition probability in (77), this conditional transition probability is smaller.

The time dependent transition probability (82) vanishes for $`t=0`$ and approaches $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2})`$ for $`t\mathrm{}`$. Both properties are easily understood on physical grounds. At $`t=0`$, that is: immediately after the first atom was found in the   state, the trapping condition forbids the emission of another photon into the resonator. And if no atom has traversed the resonator for a time long compared to the photon life time $`1/A`$ — this is the physical significance of the mathematical $`t\mathrm{}`$ limit — the photon field is in the vacuum state, and then the transition probability is given by (25) with $`n=0`$ and $`\phi =\pi /\sqrt{2}`$.

As another example, we consider again that at $`t=0`$ an atom is found in the   state, but let us now ask this question: If another atom comes between $`t`$ and $`t+\text{d}t`$, with which probability will it be in the   state as well? Note the difference. Above we were interested in the next atom, now in another atom. Clearly, the initial state is obtained by the same reduction, viz. that of (80), but now $`\rho _t`$ is determined by the OAM master equation (70) with $`\phi =\pi /\sqrt{2}`$. Rather than (82), we get here

$$\text{prob}_t(\text{}\text{})=\underset{\text{a priori probability}}{\underset{}{\text{}\frac{A\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2})}{A+r\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2})}}}\underset{\text{correlation function for }\text{}\text{ atoms}}{\underset{}{\text{}\left(1\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(A+r\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /\sqrt{2})\right)t\right]\right)}}.$$
(84)
We recognize that the first factor is the a priori probability of (77), and the second factor is the so-called correlation function. It is a numerical measure for the strength of the correlations among atoms emerging in the   state. If the temporal separation is too large — physically: $`t1/A,1/r`$ — there must not be any correlations. Indeed, the correlation function approaches unity for $`t\mathrm{}`$, and the conditional probability (84) equals the a priori probability in this limit, as it should.

These two examples must suffice as illustrations for the typical reasonings that are necessary for the computation of statistical properties of the emerging atoms. Let us just mention that the experimental data refers actually to the statistics of the detector clicks, rather than to the atoms themselves, and therefore the efficiencies of the detectors have to be taken into account as well. Naturally, that introduces further complications which are, however, under good theoretical control.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere gratitude towards the organizers and the sponsors of the 19th Nathiagali Summer College for the very kind hospitality I experienced in Pakistan and particularly in Nathiagali. I thank especially M. S. Zubairy, K. A. Shoaib, and S. M. Farooqi for treating me so well. The splendid company of I. Ashraf and S. Qamar is unforgettable.


text:
# Stabilization of Quantum Information: A Unified Dynamical-Algebraic Approach

## I Introduction

Stabilizing quantum-information processing against the environmental interactions as well as operation imperfections is a vital goal for any practical application of the protocols of Quantum Information and Quantum Computation theory. To the date three kind of strategies have been devised in order to satisfy such a crucial requirement: a) Error Correcting Codes which, in analogy with classical information theory, stabilize actively quantum information by using redundant encoding and measurements; b) Error Avoiding Codes pursue a passive stabilization by exploiting symmetry properties of the environment-induced noise for suitable redundant encoding; c) Noise suppression schemes in which, exploiting symmetry properties and with no redundant encoding, the unwanted interactions are averaged away by frequently iterated external pulses. We shall show how all these schemes derive conceptually from a unified dynamical-algebraic framework.

Such an underlying dynamical-algebraic structure is provided by the the reducibility of the operator algebra describing the faulty interactions of the coding quantum system. This property in turns amounts to the existence of a non-trivial group of symmetries for the global dynamics. We describe a unified framework which allows us to build systematically new classes of error correcting codes and noiseless subsystems. Moreover we shall argue how by using symmetrization strategies one can artificially produce noiseless subsystems and to perform universal quantum computation within these decoherence-free sectors.

## II Noiseless Subsystems

Suppose that $`S`$ is quantum system coupled to an environment. Without further assumptions the decoherence induced by this coupling is likely to affect all the states of $`S.`$ Suppose now that $`S`$ turns out to be bi-partite, say $`S=S_1+S_2,`$ and moreover that the environment is actually coupled just with $`S_1.`$ If this is the case one can encode information is the quantum state of $`S_2`$ in a obvious noiseless way.

The idea underlying the algebraic constructions that will follow is conceptually nothing but an extension of the extremely simple example above: the symmetry of the system plus environment dynamical algebra provides $`S`$ with an hidden multi-partite structure such that the environment is not able to extract information out of some of these “virtual” subsystems.

Let $`S`$ be an open quantum system, with (finite-dimensional) state-space $`,`$ and self-Hamiltonian $`H_S,`$ coupled to its environment through the hamiltonian $`H_I=_\alpha S_\alpha B_\alpha 0,`$ where the $`S_\alpha `$’s ($`B_\alpha `$’s) are system (environment) operators. The unital associative algebra $`𝒜`$ closed under hermitian conjugation $`SS^{},`$ generated by the $`S_\alpha `$’s and $`H_S`$ will be referred to as the interaction algebra. In general $`𝒜`$ is a reducible -closed subalgebra of the algebra $`\text{End}()`$ of all the linear operators over $`:`$ it can be written as a direct sum of $`d_J\times d_J`$ (complex) matrix algebras each one of which appears with a multiplicity $`n_J`$

$$𝒜_{J𝒥}\mathrm{𝐈𝐝}_{n_J}M(d_J,\text{ }\mathrm{C}).$$
(1)
where $`𝒥`$ is suitable finite set labelling the irreducible components of $`𝒜.`$ The associated state-space decomposition reads

$$_{J𝒥}\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{n_J}\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{d_J}.$$
(2)
These decompositions encode all information about the possible quantum stabilization strategies.

Knill et al noticed that (1) implies that each factor $`\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{n_J}`$ in eq. (2) corresponds to a sort of effective subsystem of $`S`$ coupled to the environment in a state independent way. Such subsystems are then referred to as noiseless. In particular one gets a noiseless code i.e., a decoherence-free subspace, $`𝒞`$ when in equation (2) there appear one-dimensional irreps $`J_0`$ with multiplicity greater than one $`𝒞\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{n_{J_0}}\text{ }\mathrm{C}`$ .

The commutant of $`𝒜`$ is defined as $`𝒜^{}`$ in End$`()`$ of $`𝒜`$ by $`𝒜^{}:=\{X|[X,𝒜]=0\}.`$

The existence of a NS is equivalent to

$$𝒜^{}_{J𝒥}M(n_J,\text{ }\mathrm{C})\mathrm{𝐈𝐝}_{d_J}\text{ }\mathrm{C}\mathrm{𝐈𝐝}$$
(3)
The condition $`𝒜^{}\text{ }\mathrm{C}\mathrm{𝐈𝐝}`$ is amounts to the existence of a non-trivial group of symmetries $`𝒢U𝒜^{}.`$ One has that the more symmetric a dynamics, the more likely it supports NSs.

When $`\{S_\alpha \}`$ is a commuting set of hermitian operators. $`𝒜`$ is an abelian algebra and Eq. (2) \[with $`d_J=1`$\] is the decomposition of the state-space according the joint eigenspaces of the $`S_\alpha `$’s. The pointer basis discussed in relation to the so-called environment-induced superselection is nothing but an orthonormal basis associated to the resolution (2). Thus the NS’s provide in a sense the natural noncommutative extension of the pointer basis.

Now we discuss the relation between NSs and error correction. The interaction algebra $`𝒜`$ has to to be thought of generated by error operators and it is assumed to satisfy Eq. 1. Let $`|J\lambda \mu (J𝒥,\lambda =1,\mathrm{},n_J;\mu =1,\mathrm{},d_J)`$ be an orthonormal basis associated to the decomposition (1). Let $`_\mu ^J:=\text{span}\{|J\lambda \mu |\lambda =1,\mathrm{},n_J\},`$ and let $`_\lambda ^J`$ be defined analogously. The next proposition shows that to each NS there is associated a family of ECCs called $`𝒜`$-codes. It is a simple consequence of (1) and of the definition of ECCs.

The $`_\mu ^J`$’s ($`_\mu ^J`$) are $`𝒜`$-codes ( $`𝒜^{}`$-codes) for any subset $`E`$ of error operator such that $`e_i,e_jEe_i^{}e_j𝒜`$

The standard stabilizer codes are recovered when one considers a $`N`$-partite qubit system, and an abelian subgroup $`𝒢`$ of the Pauli group $`𝒫.`$ Let us consider the state-space decomposition (2) associated to $`𝒢.`$ If $`𝒢`$ has $`k<N`$ generators then $`|𝒢|=2^k,`$ whereas from commutativity it follows $`d_J=1`$ and $`|𝒥|=|𝒢|.`$ Moreover one finds $`n_J=2^{Nk}:`$ each of the $`2^k`$ joint eigenspaces of $`𝒢`$ (stabilizer code) encode $`Nk`$ logical qubits. It follows that

$$=_{J=1}^{2^k}\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{2^{Nk}}\text{ }\mathrm{C}\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{2^{Nk}}\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{2^k}.$$
(4)
The allowed errors belong to the algebra $`𝒜=\mathrm{𝐈𝐝}_{2^{Nk}}M(2^k,\text{ }\mathrm{C}).`$ In particular errors $`e_i,e_j𝒜𝒫`$ are such that $`e_i^{}e_j`$ either belong to $`𝒢`$ or anticommute with (at least) one element $`𝒢.`$ In this latter case one has a a non-trivial action on the $`\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{2^k}`$ factor.

Let us finally stress out that the NSs approach described so far works even in the case in which the interaction operators $`S_\alpha `$ represent, rather than coupling with external degrees of freedom, internal unwanted internal interactions i.e., $`H_S^{}=H_S+_\alpha S_\alpha .`$

## III Collective Decoherence.

Collective decoherence arises when a multi-partite quantum system, is coupled symmetrically with a common environment. This is the paradigmatic case for the emergenge of noiseless subspaces and NS’s as well. More specifically one has a $`N`$-qubit system $`_N:=(\text{ }\mathrm{C}^2)^N`$ and the relevant interaction algebra $`𝒜_N`$ coincides with the algebra of completely symmetric operators over $`_N.`$ The commutant $`𝒜_N^{}`$ is the group algebra $`\nu (\text{ }\mathrm{C}𝒮_N),`$ where $`\nu `$ is the natural representation of the symmetric group $`𝒮_N`$ over $`_N:`$ $`\nu (\pi )_{j=1}^N|j=_{j=1}^N|\pi (j),(\pi 𝒮_N).`$ Uing elementary $`su(2)`$ representation theory one finds:

$`𝒜_N`$ supports NS with dimensions

$$n_J=\frac{(2J+1)N!}{(N/2+J+1)!(N/2J)!}$$
(5)
where $`J`$ runs from $`0`$ ($`1/2`$) for $`N`$ even (odd). If in the above $`𝒜_N`$ is replaced by its commutant, the above result holds with $`n_J=2J+1.`$ Of course collective decoherence allows for $`𝒜_N`$-codes as well.

In order to illustrate the general ideas let us consider r $`N=3.`$ One has $`(\text{ }\mathrm{C}^2)^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}\text{ }\mathrm{C}\text{ }\mathrm{C}^4+\text{ }\mathrm{C}^2\text{ }\mathrm{C}^2.`$ The last term can be written as $`\text{span}\{|\psi _\beta ^\alpha \}_{\alpha \beta =1}^2`$ where

$`|\psi _1^1`$ $`=`$ $`2^{1/2}(|010|100),|\psi _2^1=2^{1/2}(|011|101)`$ (6)
$`|\psi _1^2`$ $`=`$ $`2/\sqrt{6}[1/2(|010+|100)|001],`$ (7)
$`|\psi _2^2`$ $`=`$ $`2/\sqrt{6}[|1101/2(|011+|101)].`$ (8)
The vectors $`|\psi _\beta ^1`$ and $`|\psi _\beta ^2`$ ( $`|\psi _1^\alpha `$ and $`|\psi _2^\alpha `$) span a two-dimensional $`𝒜_3`$-code ($`𝒜_3^{}`$-code). Taking the trace with respect to the index $`\alpha `$ ($`\beta `$) one gets the $`𝒜_3^{}`$ ($`𝒜_3`$) NS’s. Moreover the first term corresponds to a trivial four-dimensional $`𝒜_3^{}`$ code.

## IV NS synthesis by Symmetrization .

A typical situation in which NSs could arise is when the interaction algebra is contained in some reducible group representation $`\rho `$ of a finite order (or compact) group $`𝒢`$ Suppose that the irrep decomposition of $``$ associated to r $`\rho `$ has the form of Eq. (2) in which the $`𝒥`$ labels a set of $`𝒢`$-irreps $`\rho _J`$ (dim $`\rho _J=d_J`$). $`\rho `$ by extends linearly to the group algebra $`\text{ }\mathrm{C}𝒢:=_{g𝒢}\text{ }\mathrm{C}|g`$ giving rise to a decomposition as in Eq. 1. It follows

If $`𝒜\rho (\text{ }\mathrm{C}𝒢)`$ then the dynamics supports (at least) $`|𝒥|`$ NS’s with dimensions $`\{n_J(\rho )\}_{J𝒥}.`$

The non-trivial assumption in the above statement is the reducibility of $`\rho `$ in that any subalgebra of operators belongs to a group-algebra. As already stressed this is equivalent to a symmetry assumption. When this required symmetry is lacking one can artificially generate it by resorting the so-called bang-bang techniques. These are physical procedures, involving iterated external ultra-fast “pulses” $`\{\rho _g\}_{g𝒢}`$, whereby one can synthesize, from a dynamics generated by the $`S_\alpha `$’s, to a dynamics generated by $`\pi _\rho (S_\alpha )`$’s where

$$\pi _\rho :X\pi _\rho (X):=\frac{1}{|𝒢|}\underset{g𝒢}{}\rho _gX\rho _g^{}\rho (\text{ }\mathrm{C}𝒢)^{}.$$
(9)
projects any operator $`X`$ over the commutant of the algebra $`\rho (\text{ }\mathrm{C}𝒢)`$ generated by the bang-bang operations. If one will, preserving the system self-dynamics, to get rid of unwanted interactions $`\mathrm{\S }_\alpha `$ with the environmnet he has to look for a group $`𝒢U(),`$ such that i) $`H_S\text{ }\mathrm{C}𝒢^{},`$ ii) the $`S_\alpha `$’s transform according to non-trivial irreps under the (adjoint) action of $`𝒢.`$ Then it can be shown that $`\pi _𝒢(S_\alpha )=0:`$ the effective dynamics of $`S`$ is unitary.

To understand how this strategies might be useful for artificial NSs synthesis is sufficient to notice that Prop. 2 holds even for the commutant by replacing the $`n_J`$’s with the $`d_J`$’s. Since the $`𝒢`$-symmetrization of an operator belongs to $`\rho (\text{ }\mathrm{C}𝒢)^{},`$ one immediately finds that:

$`𝒢`$-symmetrization of $`𝒜`$ supports (at least) $`|𝒥|`$ NS’s with dimensions $`\{d_J(\rho )\}_{J𝒥}.`$

It is remarkable that NSs do not allow just for safe encoding of quantum information but even for its manipulation. Form the mathematical point of view this result stems once again quite easily from the basic Eq. 1which shows that the elements of $`𝒜^{}`$ have non-trivial action over the $`\text{ }\mathrm{C}^{n_J}`$ factors. Therefore:

If an experimenter has at disposal unitaries in $`U𝒜^{}`$ universal QC is realizable within the NSs. When such gates are not available from the outset they can be obtained through a $`𝒢`$-symmetrization of a couple of generic hamiltonians, where $`𝒢:=U𝒜`$.

## V NS: Robusteness

In this section we prove a robusteness result for NSs extending analogous ones obtained for decoherence-free subspaces. Let $`_S`$ ($`_B`$) denote the system state (environment) state-space. Here $`S`$ represents the NS and the environment includes both the coupled factor in Eq (2) and the external degrees of freedom.

The evolution of the subsystem $`S`$ is given by $`_\epsilon ^t(\rho ):=\text{tr}_B[e^{t_\epsilon }(\rho \sigma )],`$ where $`\rho 𝒮(_S),\sigma 𝒮(_B).`$ and the Liouvillian operator is given by $`_\epsilon :=_0+\epsilon _1,`$ where $`e^{t_0}`$ acts trivially over $`S`$ i.e., $`e^{t_0}(\rho \sigma )=\rho \sigma _t^{}.`$ In particular $`\rho 𝐈_B`$ is a fixed point.

The fidelity is defined as

$$F_\epsilon (t):=\text{tr}_S[\rho _\epsilon ^t(\rho )]=<\rho 𝐈_B,e^t(\rho \sigma )>=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\epsilon ^nf_n(t).$$
(10)
One has $`e^t=e^{t_0}_t^\epsilon e^{t_0},`$ in which, by defining $`_\epsilon (\tau ):=e^{\tau _0}_1e^{\tau _0}`$

$`_\epsilon ^t`$ $`:=`$ $`e^{t_0}e^te^{t_0}=𝐓\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle _0^t}_1(\tau )𝑑\tau \right)`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\epsilon ^n{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑\tau _1\mathrm{}{\displaystyle _0^{\tau _{n1}}}𝑑\tau _n_1^{\tau _1}\mathrm{}_1^{\tau _n}.`$ (12)
$`F_\epsilon (t)`$ $`=`$ $`<\rho 𝐈_B,e^t(\rho \sigma )>=<\rho 𝐈_B,e^{t_0}_\epsilon ^t(\rho \sigma _t^{})>`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`<e^{t_0^{}}(\rho 𝐈_B),_\epsilon ^t(\rho \sigma _t^{})>=<\rho 𝐈_B,_\epsilon ^t(\rho \sigma _t^{})>`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\epsilon ^n{\displaystyle _0^t}d\tau _1\mathrm{}{\displaystyle _0^{\tau _{n1}}}d\tau _n<\rho 𝐈,_1^{\tau _1}\mathrm{}_1^{\tau _n}(\rho \sigma _t^{})>`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`1+\epsilon {\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑\tau <\rho 𝐈_B,_1^\tau (\rho \sigma _t^{})>+o(\epsilon ^2)`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`1+\epsilon {\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑\tau <\rho 𝐈_B,_1(\rho \sigma _\tau ^{\prime \prime })>+o(\epsilon ^2)=1+o(\epsilon ^2)`$ (17)
Where, for obtaining the last equality, we assumed

$$<\rho 𝐈_B,_1(\rho \sigma _\tau ^{\prime \prime })>=0.$$
(18)
We assume that the infinitesimal generator $``$ of the dynamical semi-group has the following standard (Lindblad) form that holds for Markovian evolutions

$$(\rho ):=\frac{1}{2}\underset{\mu }{}([L_\mu \rho ,L_\mu ^{}]+[L_\mu ,\rho L_\mu ^{}]).$$
(19)
Perturbing the Lindblad operators $`L_\mu L_\mu +\epsilon \delta L_\mu ,`$ one gets $`+\epsilon [_1+\epsilon _2],`$ where

$`_1(\omega ):={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}([\delta L_\mu \omega ,L_\mu ^{}]+[\delta L_\mu ,\omega L_\mu ^{}]+[L_\mu \omega ,\delta L_\mu ^{}]+[L_\mu ,\omega \delta L_\mu ^{}]),`$ (20)
$`_2(\omega ):={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}([\delta L_\mu \omega ,\delta L_\mu ^{}]+[\delta L_\mu ,\omega \delta L_\mu ^{}]).`$ (21)
Moreover $`L_\mu :=𝐈_SB_\mu ,`$ and $`\delta L_\mu :=X_\mu A_\mu .`$ Let us consider the first two terms of Eq. (20) for a given $`\mu `$ and with $`\omega =\rho \sigma `$

$`2\delta L_\mu (\rho \sigma )L_\mu ^{}L_\mu ^{}\delta L_\mu (\rho \sigma )(\rho \sigma )L_\mu ^{}\delta L_\mu `$ (22)
$`=`$ $`2X_\mu \rho A_\mu \sigma L_\mu ^{}X_\mu \rho L_\mu ^{}A_\mu \sigma \rho X_\mu \sigma L_\mu ^{}A_\mu `$ (23)
multiplying by $`\rho 𝐈_B`$ and taking the trace

$`\text{tr}_S(\rho X_\mu \rho )\text{tr}_B(2A_\mu \sigma L_\mu ^{}L_\mu ^{}A_\mu \sigma \sigma L_\mu ^{}A_\mu )=0.`$ (24)
Reasoning in the very same way, even the last terms of Eq. (20) give a vaninshing contribution. This show that relation (18) is fulfilled by $`_1`$.

## VI Conclusions.

The possibility of noiseless enconding and processing of quantum information is traced back to the existence of an underlying multi-partite structure. The origin of such hidden structure is purely algebraic and it is dictated by the interactions between the systems and the environmentr: When the latter admits non trivial symmetry group then noiseless subsystems allowing for universal quantum computation exist. This NSs approach, introduced by Knill et al as a generalization of decoherence-free subspaces, is robust against perturbations and provides an analog of the pointer basis in the noncommutative realm. The notion of NS has been shown to be crucial for a unified understanding and designing of e error correction/avoidance strategies. In particular we argued how one can use decoupling/symmetrization techniques for artificial synthesis of systems supporting NSs, and how to perform on such NSs non-trivial computations.


text:
# Vortices in vibrated granular rods

## I Introduction

Granular materials are well known examples of dissipative nonequilibrium systems that show a rich variety of collective phenomenon such as convection, wave patterns, and segregation Melo94 ; knight93 ; tennakoon98 ; makse97 . Most studies utilize spherical particles to investigate these bulk properties. However, in most natural or industrial settings one can find an abundance of anisotropic granular materials viz. rice, medicine capsules, and even logs. Therefore it is surprising that very few studies of prolate granular materials have been carried out. Mounfield and Edwards Mounfield  applied the concepts of configurational statistical mechanics to study the nature of the isotropic to nematic phase transition in a granular system of elongated particles. In recent experiments utilizing a tall narrow cylinder, Villarruel et al. Villarruel  studied the effects of anisotropy on granular packing. They observed the appearance of smectic states with the direction given by the container walls.

In thermal systems, particle anisotropy is known to produce ordered states. Examples are rod and plate shaped colloids and liquid crystals, which show orientational order and form nematic and smectic phases Onsager ; Khokhlov ; Dogic ; Kooij ; deGennes . The ordering mechanism was found to be entropically driven, i.e. as thermodynamic equilibrium is reached, the process of entropy maximization leads to long range order. It is not obvious that such mechanisms carry over to granular systems because the thermal energy scale is very much smaller than the potential energy required for particle rearrangement, and energy has to be supplied actively to produce sustained motion. Therefore, an interesting question arises – does shape anisotropy lead to self-organization and pattern formation in granular materials?

In this paper, we report the observation of novel vortex patterns exhibited by granular rods that are vibrated vertically inside a container. We obtain the phase diagram for the observed patterns as a function of the acceleration of the driving and the packing fraction of the rods. We find that for sufficiently large packing fractions, the rods tend to align vertically and undergo vortex motion. Using high frame rate imaging and particle tracking, we have measured the velocity fields of the vortices as a function of packing fraction and driving frequency. Based on our experimental observations, we argue that the inclination of the rods causes motion due to collisions with the bottom boundary. To bolster our claim, we conduct experiments with single row of rods in an annulus to demonstrate that motion is always in the direction of inclination. Thus we show that shape anisotropy leads to translational motion in such systems.

## II Experimental apparatus

The experiments were performed in a circular anodized aluminum container with a diameter $`D=6.0`$ cm and depth $`H=1.5`$ cm. (Limited experiments were also carried out in a container with $`D=8.5`$ cm.) The container is leveled to within 0.002 cm and is attached to an electro-mechanical shaker through a rigid linear bearing that allows motion only in the vertical direction. The cell is driven by a sinusoidal signal at a frequency $`f`$, and is monitored by an accelerometer via a lock-in amplifier. The experiments were conducted using copper cylinders with uniform length $`l=6.2`$ mm and diameter $`d=0.5`$ mm. The cylindrical surface of the rods is coated with a grey tin-oxide layer to diminish light reflection and has a coefficient of friction $`\mu =0.32`$. The patterns that form are imaged from above using a high-frame rate digital camera (Kodak SR-1000). Since the flat ends of the rods reflect light better than the sides, they appear as bright spots when imaged from above. If the rods are inclined greater than 35 degrees, they reflect far less light compared to nearly vertical and horizontal rods.

One control parameter for our experiments is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=𝒜(2\pi f)^2/g`$, where $`𝒜`$ is the driving amplitude and $`g`$ is the acceleration due to gravity. A second control parameter is the non-dimensional number fraction $`n_\varphi =N/N_{max}`$, where $`N`$ is the total number of rods in the container and $`N_{max}=\frac{\pi }{\sqrt{12}}\left(\frac{D}{d}\right)^2`$ is the maximum number of rods required to obtain a vertically aligned monolayer. Therefore, $`n_\varphi =1`$ corresponds to having one layer of triangularly packed vertical rods.

## III Observed patterns

The system is initialized by pouring the rods into the container and then increasing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, which establishes a random state. Figure 1 shows the phase diagram of the observed patterns as a function of $`n_\varphi `$ ($`f=50`$ Hz). The rods are observed to remain static in the initial configuration until $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.47`$. As $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is increased above this value, the rods heap towards one side of the container similar to previous observations with spherical particles heap-ref . As the acceleration is increased further above $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.6`$, the rods are observed to spread-out evenly inside the container, and form horizontal layers with random orientations. An example of such a nematic phase observed at low $`n_\varphi `$ is shown in Fig. 2(a). Above a critical $`n_\varphi `$, a second transition is observed. Chaotically moving domains of almost vertical rods are observed to spontaneously form and coexist with horizontal rods fraden . An example is shown in Fig. 2(b).

As $`n_\varphi `$ is increased further, the domains of near-vertical rods that are formed coalesce and undergo vortex motion. Fig. 2(c) shows an example of two counter-rotating vortices. For large number fractions ($`n_\varphi >0.49`$), a single large stable vortex made entirely of near-vertical rods in the center and inclined rods at its’ boundary, is observed \[Fig. 2(d)\].

If the acceleration is increased further, a gas like state is reached where the rods vibrate vigorously inside the container and the nematic and vortex states are destroyed. For the highest $`n_\varphi `$, a pure gaseous state is not reached due to the limits of the apparatus. Instead, domains of ordered vertical rods are observed to coexist with the gas of rods.

### III.1 Domain Growth

We now discuss how vortices nucleate and grow as a function of time. An example of the growth process is shown in Fig. 3, and a movie can be viewed at Ref. movies . Starting from a random state, pockets of near-vertical domains are observed to nucleate uniformly inside the container. This is in contrast with previous observations where the ordered domains grow inward from the boundary Villarruel . The pockets of vertical domains grow in time by merging to form larger domains of almost vertical rods. The domains are then observed to collectively move as the the system becomes more ordered and then finally show vorticity.

We measure the growth of the domains by taking time-lapse images of the process described above. The growth of near-vertical domains is then measured from the ratio of the domain area to that of the total container area as a function of time. The fraction of rods that are near-vertical, $`n_v`$ is plotted in Fig. 4 for a range of $`n_\varphi `$ at a fixed driving acceleration and frequency, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=3.4`$ and $`f=50`$ Hz.

We find that there exist two growth regimes \[a model is discussed in Sec. V\]. For short times, the growth rate depends on $`n_\varphi `$ in the following way. If $`n_\varphi `$ is below a critical value, domains appear but never organize into large vortices. However, as $`n_\varphi `$ is increased the short time growth is slowed by the high packing. That is, more time is required for small domains to form due to the lack of voids present. A void filling model for domain growth will be discussed in Sec. V. The saturation value of $`n_v`$ increases with $`n_\varphi `$. The difference in the values arises due to the definitions of $`n_v`$ and $`n_\varphi `$.

The variation of the relative number of near-vertical rods as a function of $`n_\varphi `$ is plotted in Fig. 5. We show separate data for the relative number of inclined rods, vertical rods and horizontal rods. Rods that are tilted between 30 and 80 degrees are considered inclined, and the rest are considered as either horizontal or vertical (the inclination of the rod was obtained by measuring the distance $`x`$ between adjacent rods and calculating sin$`{}_{}{}^{1}[d/x]`$). For $`n_\varphi <0.22`$, the container has only horizontal rods. As $`n_\varphi `$ increases, more rods tend to the vertical direction. For $`n_\varphi >`$ 0.71 most rods are either vertical or horizontal.

### III.2 Spatial structure of the vortex and velocity fields

We next discuss the spatial structure of the vortex. In Fig. 6, a close-up image of a vortex pattern is displayed which shows the progressive inclination of the rods from the center of the vortex. We note that the direction of motion corresponds to the direction of inclination (for Fig. 6 the motion is counterclockwise). In this case the inclination of the rods varies from approximately 85 to 40 degrees near the edges. The change in inclination of the rods within the vortex is less at higher $`n_\varphi `$ due to the increased packing.

By acquiring images at 250 (frames s<sup>-1</sup>), we were able to track the ends of the vertical rods and obtain the velocity fields of the vortices. In addition to the rotational motion, rods also vibrated due to the collisonal interactions with their neighbors. We first track IDL  the ends of the near-vertical rods and then perform spatial and temporal averaging to obtain the vortex fields. An example of the velocity field of a vortex is presented in Fig. 7 (here the temporal averages include 100 consecutive frames, and spatial averages were taken over an area of $`2d\times 2d`$).

The averaged azimuthal velocity $`v(r)`$, as a function of the distance $`r`$ from the center of the vortex, is shown in Fig. 8(a) for a range of $`n_\varphi `$. The data was obtained at a constant acceleration $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=3.00`$ for a frequency $`f=50`$ Hz. We note that for small distances relative to the center of the vortices, the averaged velocity $`v(r)`$ increases linearly with the distance $`r`$ indicating solid body rotation. At intermediate ranges, this linear relationship is not observed, and therefore shearing occurs inside the vortices. As the boundary of the vortex is approached, velocity decreases due to friction with the horizontal rods at the edge. It is interesting to note that the horizontal rods at the edge of the vortex are often aligned tangentially with the boundary of the vortex \[see Fig. 2(c)\]. We also observe that the slope of the averaged velocity $`v(r)`$ at small $`r`$ systematically decreases as the packing fraction $`n_\varphi `$ is increased. Thus the angular velocity of the inner core of the vortex decreases with its size.

### III.3 Frequency dependence

We also explored the rotation rate dependence of the vortices as a function of $`f`$. Figure 8(b) shows $`v(r)`$ for $`n_\varphi =0.53`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=3.00`$ for vortices of equivalent size. As stated, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is held constant while frequency is increased, which decreases vibration velocity. Therefore, we demonstrate that the vortex speed systematically increases with vibration velocity.

## IV Horizontally vibrated container

To test if the transition to a vertical state is dependent on the way the container is vibrated, experiments were performed with horizontal driving. There do in fact exist similarities: at low $`n_\varphi `$ heaping and nematic like domains of horizontal rods are observed; at high $`n_\varphi `$ the rods tend to align vertically and form ordered domains. An image is shown in Fig. 9. In contrast to the vertical shaking the vertically aligned domains do not migrate and coarsen into vortices. We also find that in this case the convection is stronger and destroys the motion of the vertically ordered domains.

## V Discussion

We first discuss possible mechanisms responsible for the rod to align vertically at high packing fractions. The tendency of the rods to align vertically at high packing fractions may be understood in terms of a void filling mechanism. If voids (i.e. space between rods), are small then they can only be filled with a near-vertical rod. On the other hand, larger voids will accommodate a horizontal rod. Assuming that the distribution of voids decreases with void size, the most probable configuration will be regions of vertical rods. Furthermore, the decrease in the number of large voids is enhanced by the coalescence of regions of vertically aligned rods. This also drives the system to pack more closely and produces a decreased overall center of mass. Thus ordering at high packing fractions can be explained by a process that is analogous to configurational entropy driven ordering in thermal systems Mounfield .

To describe the nucleation and growth of the vertical domains at high $`n_\varphi `$ shown in Fig. 3 and 4 we present a simple analysis. The rods are assumed to be either vertical or horizontal. We then assume that the growth rate is initially linear and asymptotically must decrease to zero as the number of horizontal rods is diminished and a steady state is reached. Then the evolution of $`n_v`$ is described by,

$$\frac{n_v}{t}=\alpha n_v(\beta n_v).$$
(1)
where, $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are constants that depend on $`n_\varphi `$. Eq. 1 can be integrated and is fit to the measured $`n_v(t)`$ in Fig. 4. This simplified interpretation seems to capture the nucleation, growth, and saturation of the near-vertical domains in our experiments.

In previous work, Villarruel et al. Villarruel , the experiments were carried out in a system where the diameter of the container and the length of the rods were comparable. The container was tapped and thus the rods experienced considerable shearing with the side boundary. They observed that vertical domains nucleated at the boundaries and subsequently propagate to the center of the cell. These observations are consistent with our findings. We have shown that vertical domains can nucleate away from the sidewalls and form independent of the direction of the driving.

Next, we elucidate the physical mechanism that is responsible for the vortex motion. We performed additional experiments with a row of cylindrical rods with $`l=`$ 5.1 cm and $`d=`$ 0.6 cm in a 1-D annulus with a mean radius of 5.5 cm \[see Fig. 10\]. When subjected to vertical motion, the rods were always observed to move in the direction of the inclination. No translation motion is observed when the rods were vertical. A movie showing this property can be found at Ref. movies . We also used ball point pens and pencils to check that the detailed shape of the rod and the tip is not important to this translation mechanism. We find that the translation speed depends on the driving frequency and the inclination, qualitatively similar to that observed for the vortices.

The physical mechanism for the motion of the inclined rods, based on our observation, appears to be as follows. When the inclined rods are vibrated vertically, they hit the bottom plate at a point away from their center of mass. Because the rotation of the rod about its center of mass is constrained due to the neighboring rods, it gets launched in the direction of the inclination. Thus, the greater the inclination of the rods, the further they get launched and land (viz. projectile motion), giving rise to translational motion.

From these direct observations we conclude that the inclined rods form the engine that drives the vortex. The vertical rods in the center of the vortex are simply pulled around by shear induced by the inclined rods. As the number of rods is increased and the size of the vortex increases, the inclination of the rods also decreases because of greater packing. Therefore, the speed of the very large vortices is expected to decrease with the size of the vortex, consistent with our observation \[see Fig. 8(a)\]. We also note that the frequency dependence of $`v(r)`$ is compatible with the mechanism described above. By decreasing the frequency of the driving signal at fixed $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the velocity of the driving plate is increased. Therefore, one expects $`v(r)`$ to increase with decrease in frequency, consistent with our observations \[see Fig. 8(b)\].

## VI Conclusion

In conclusion, granular rods are observed to form vertically aligned domains at high packing fractions, independent of the direction of vibration. Novel vortex patterns are observed when the rods are vibrated vertically. We have measured the growth of near-vertical domains and have developed a simple void filling model that well describes our results. We have also shown a new translation mechanism which occurs due to anisotropy. Based on these observations, Aranson and Tsimring aranson  have developed a phenomenological model that describes the formation and coarsening of the vortices.

###### Acknowledgements.

We acknowledge stimulating discussions with Lev Tsimring and Igor Aranson, and Eric Frederick for assistance with the experiments. We thank Seth Fraden for inspiring the experiments, for sharing unpublished data, and for providing us with some of the rods which were purchased under his NSF grant, DMR-0088008. This work was supported by the NSF under Grant No. DMR-9983659, and by the donors of the Petroleum Research Fund.