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# High-resolution single-pulse studies of the Vela Pulsar

## 1 Introduction

After more than thirty years of pulsar observations, the emission mechanism of pulsars is only poorly understood. One of the reasons for the absence of an accepted radiation theory is the variety of pulse phenomena, acting on several different time scales, which have to be explained. Typical time scales are present in the following forms: the rotation period of the neutron star, $`P`$, and the typical width of sub-pulses constituting an individual pulse of emission, $`\tau _s`$ \[Drake & Craft 1968\]. For a number of pulsars, these sub-pulses drift across the pulse window with a certain drift rate that is determined by the separation of two drifting sub-pulses within a single pulse and the period at which sub-pulses re-occur at the same pulse phase \[Backer 1970\]. Yet, there is another sub-class of pulsars, for which micro-structure has been identified \[Craft, Comella & Drake 1968\]. Usually sitting on top of sub-pulses, micro-pulses appear to be concentrated features of emission which often exhibit typical widths $`\tau _\mu `$ and sometimes appear quasi-periodic within a sub-pulse, showing a periodicity, $`P_\mu `$ \[Hankins 1971\].

A fundamental problem in the interpretation of these features seen in pulsar emission is the determination which of the features are truely representative of the radiation process and which are caused by propagation effects in the magnetosphere. At least for micro-structure the answer seems to be clear. It was shown that micro-pulses appear simultaneously at different, widely spaced frequencies (when corrected for dispersion, e.g. Rickett, Hankins & Cordes 1975; Boriakoff, Ferguson & Slater 1981) which would indicate a fundamental association with the emission process. However, it still remains to be shown whether micro-structure is a radial or a temporal effect. In the first case, micro-pulses may be due to individual beams similar to sub-pulse beams sweeping across the line-of-sight. In the latter, temporal modulations within a plasma column or retardation delays over a radial range may be responsible (e.g. Cordes 1979).

The detection of micro-pulses requires a sufficiently high time resolution during the observations. While at higher frequencies the dispersion smearing is greatly reduced for a given bandwidth, only coherent de-dispersion techniques have usually been powerful enough at lower frequencies (e.g. Hankins 1971). Another limiting factor is the additional effect of interstellar scattering, which can smear the pulses sufficiently to prevent the detection of micro-structure. A combination of both effects is likely to be responsible for the fact that there has not been any published micro-structure study for the brightest pulsar in the sky, the Vela pulsar, PSR B0833$``$45. Until recently, the only detailed single-pulse study of Vela to have appeared in the literature is that by Krishnamohan & Downs (1983; hereafter KD83). For their study, KD83 observed 87000 pulses at 2.3 GHz with a time resolution (including dispersion smearing) of only 750$`\mu `$s, and make no mention of micro-structure. Recently, however, in the first part of this work (Johnston et al. 2001, hereafter Paper I) we presented high time resolution observations of single pulses from the Vela pulsar made with a baseband recording system at observing frequencies of 650 and 1413 MHz. A large fraction of the pulses exhibit micro-structure, which will be the subject of this paper.

In Paper I, we noted the presence of large amplitude pulses which occur before the start of the main pulse. We called these “giant micro-pulses” as they are often 100$`\times `$ the expected flux density at those pulse phases but have only rather little effect on the pulse integrated flux density. This is in contrast to the “classical” giant pulses seen in the Crab and the millisecond pulsars PSR B1937+21 and B1821$``$24, where the flux density in a single pulse can be more than 10$`\times `$ the mean flux density. It seems likely that these giant pulses are related more to the high-energy emission from these pulsars than to the conventional radio emission \[Romani & Johnston 2001\]. In this paper we explore the relationship between the giant micro-pulses and the rest of the radio emission in more detail.

## 2 Observations

We made observations of Vela on 2000 March 15 and 2001 March 28/29 using the 64-m Parkes radio-telescope. The centre frequencies of the observations were 1.413 and 2.295 GHz; at these frequencies the system equivalent flux densities are 26 and 40 Jy respectively. Each receiver consists of two orthogonal feeds sensitive to linear polarization at 1.4 GHz and circular polarization at 2.3 GHz. The signals are down-converted and amplified before being passed into the backend. The backend, CPSR, is an enhanced version of the Caltech Baseband Recorder \[Jenet et al. 1997\]. It consists of an analogue dual-channel quadrature converter which samples data with 2-bit precision at 20 MHz. The data stream is written to DLT for subsequent off-line processing. At 1.4 GHz, $`30`$ minutes of data or $``$20000 pulses were recorded and analysed in each run. At 2.3 GHz we recorded $`120000`$ pulses or 3 hours of continuous data. Before each observation, a 90-second observation of a pulsed signal, directly injected into the receiver at a $`45\mathrm{°}`$ angle to the feed element, is made. This enables instrumental polarization to be corrected. Observations of the flux density calibrator Hydra A were made at each of the observing frequencies; this allows absolute flux densities to be obtained.

The data were calibrated and processed off-line using a workstation cluster at the Swinburne Supercomputer Centre using the technique described in Paper I. At 2.3 GHz there are 4096 time-bins per pulse period, yielding an effective resolution of 21.8 $`\mu `$s, which is considerably less than the scatter broadening. At 1.4 GHz there are 2048 for a time resolution of 44 $`\mu `$s, corresponding to about twice the time-scale of the interstellar scattering. Table 1 lists the relevant observing details.

## 3 Micro-structure

### 3.1 Data analysis

When studying the micro-structure properties of individual (sub-)pulses we are interested in identifying typical micro-pulse widths, $`\tau _\mu `$, and the possible existence of (quasi-) periodicities. The standard analysis procedure is the computation of autocorrelation functions (ACFs). In order to determine quasi-periodicities, a power spectrum of the data (PSD) can be calculated, or alternatively the power spectrum of the ACF derivative, the so-called ADP. The latter, introduced by Lange et al. (1998), produces similar results as a PSD but performs a frequency weighting without adding spurious frequencies. In the present analysis we compute ACFs, PSDs and ADPs for all pulses and compute their average for the whole ensemble of pulses. In the following we give a brief overview over the analysis techniques; interested readers should refer to Lange et al. (1998) for details.

For each pulse, a sub-pulse window 64 time-bins wide at 1.4 GHz and a window of 128 time-bins wide at 2.3 GHz is automatically determined for each pulsar by finding the maximum of a cross-correlation of the individual pulse with a box-car window of same length. For each window covering data of length 2.792 ms the ACF is computed. If a micro-pulse is present, the ACF shows a change in slope at the lag corresponding to $`\tau _\mu `$ (the first order turn-off point). A further slope change indicates the typical sub-pulse width $`\tau _s`$ (second order turn-off point). A quasi-periodicity existing within the pulse is noticeable as equally spaced peaks in the ACF, and the lag of the first peak indicates the periodicity $`P_\mu `$. Additionally, PSDs and ADPs are computed and peaks recorded along with the values found from the ACF analysis. In Figure 1 we show a typical example of the micro-structure analysis on a single pulse at 1.4 GHz.

### 3.2 Results

The results of the micro-structure analysis are presented both in the form of distributions of all relevant values obtained from the observed pulses, as well as in the mean ACF, PSD and ADP, averaged over all pulses at a given frequency. The determined quantities are summarized in Figures 2 and in Table 1 as medians and uncertainties as determined from the histograms. Notice that the various methods yield consistent results, e.g. quasi-periodicities can be determined from the peak in the average ADP (Fig. 2a, bottom right), the distribution of the maxima in the individual ACFs (Fig. 2b, middle), and the distributions of maxima found simultaneously in individual PSDs and ADPs (Fig. 2b, bottom).

At both frequencies we consistently detect micro-structure features in about 80% of all pulses. Hence, our results do not indicate that the micro-pulse component has a steeper spectrum as, for instance, inferred for PSR B2016+28 by Cordes et al. (1990). This is consistent with the finding of Lange et al. (1998) who detected micro-structure in virtually every pulsar strong enough to be observed at 4.85 GHz. We believe that previous reports on steeper spectra can be attributed to a limited signal-to-noise ratio available in those studies. Therefore, micro-structure appears to be a fundamental integral feature of pulsar radio emission.

Interestingly, we appear to detect a typical micro-structure time scale which is shorter at 2.3 GHz than at 1.4 GHz although the statistical significance is not very high. In order to test whether this is a result of the higher time resolution, we have performed our analysis on 2.3 GHz data modified to match the resolution at 1.4 GHz. We obtain the same result again, i.e. a smaller time scale at the higher frequency. In contrast, the determined periodicities are clearly identical within the errors and also agree among the different methods applied to obtain them. Hence, the micro-pulses may become narrower at 2.3 GHz but keep the same spacing if they appear in a quasi-periodic fashion. The fraction of micro-pulses for which we detect quasi-periodicities seems to be slightly smaller at the higher frequency. However, we cannot fully rule out a difference caused by a smaller signal-to-noise ratio at 2.3 GHz, or alternatively, by an effect described in the following.

In Figure 3 we show the average peak flux density of a micro-pulse at 2.3 GHz as a function of its width measured from the first turn-off point in the ACF. Those pulses for which we cannot identify a turn-off point and, hence, which are not identified to contain a micro-pulse of a certain width, are collected in the zero-th bin of this figure. This obviously happens typically for a micro-pulse width exceeding 250$`\mu `$s, which is identical to half of the quasi-periodicity (see Table 1). At this point, the micro-pulses obviously blend into each other and are not identified as separate entities any longer. The result of this effect and the increased peak flux density with larger micro-pulse width is the formation of significantly different pulse profiles when computed from those pulses for which we detect micro-structure and from those where we do not (see Fig. 2). While this effect confirms the determined average quasi-periodicity, it remains to be explained what causes the apparent correlation between micro-pulse peak flux density and width. In any case this interpretation suggests that the fraction of pulses containing micro-structure is even larger than the 80% we derive.

### 3.3 A temporal or radial origin of micro-structure?

Table 2 lists the pulsars which are known to have micro-structure. Comparing the micro-pulse separations, $`P_\mu `$, for different pulsars and frequencies, they seem to be frequency independent as previously summarized by Cordes et al. (1990). This is also true for the periodicities found for Vela at 1.4 GHz and 2.3 GHz as given in Table 1. The situation is, however, less clear for the micro-structure time-scale. Our Vela results may hint that micro-pulses may become narrower at higher frequencies, although this is not statistically significant and higher frequency data are needed. For other pulsars listed in Table 1 the uncertainties are often large – if multi-frequency data exist at all. The best studied case is PSR B1133+16, and there is indeed some indication that its time-scale is decreasing at higher frequencies: Hankins et al. (1976) reported a dependence of $`\tau _\mu \nu ^{0.22\pm 0.05}`$ which is supported by the results of Ferguson & Seiradakis (1978). However, the compilation of PSR B1133+16 data in Table 1 makes these results less obvious, yielding a formal fit of $`\tau _\mu \nu ^{0.06\pm 0.10}`$.

Figure 4 shows micro-pulse widths for different pulsars as a function of pulse period, $`P`$. We emphasize that this figures combines results derived at different frequencies (or averages of multi-frequency data if available for a given pulsar). This may introduce some scatter if a change in micro-pulse width with frequency is confirmed, but it is necessary to improve the otherwise small statistics. A similar plot using a smaller number of sources was presented by Cordes (1979) who suggested a linear dependence of $`\tau _\mu `$ on $`P`$. Obviously, this relationship still holds. The dashed line fitted to the data in Figure 4 corresponds to

$$\tau _\mu \text{(}\mu \text{s)}=(600\pm 100)P\text{(s)}^{1.1\pm 0.2}$$
(1)
Interpreting such a linear dependence on period, one should be aware that the time resolution during observations usually scales similar, suggesting a possible instrumental origin of this result. We can reject such a possibility for our observations as we have analysed our data using different resolutions achieved by re-binning the data. Moreover, Popov et al. (2001) have studied micro-structure of PSR B1133+16 at 1.65 GHz with a resolution of only 62.5 ns. Although they find some features to be as short as 10$`\mu `$s, the vast majority of their detected micro-pulses show widths that are consistent which previous low resolution results, supporting a physical meaning of the above period trend.

In Fig. 4 we also show the time-scales determined for Vela’s micro-structure at 1.4 GHz and 2.3 GHz, respectively, which were not included in the fit leading to Eqn. (1). Including the data in the fit results in a $`P^{0.9\pm 0.1}`$–dependence (dotted line), i.e. making the slope only marginally flatter. Due to the typically large uncertainties, this fit is statistically not very different from Eqn. (1) (i.e. $`\chi ^2=3.4`$ vs. $`\chi ^2=2.5`$). While it would have interesting implications for the interpretation of micro-structure if the results for Vela indicated a flattening of the period relationship towards lower periods, such a conclusion is not justified given the current data. Observations of even faster rotating pulsars are required. In any case, however, it seems to be established that there is a clear period dependence of the width of normal micro-pulses, suggesting a temporal origin of micro-structure.

Finally, we note that giant micro-pulses are typically narrower than the normal ones, e.g. measuring the width (FWHM) of five giant micro-pulses with the largest S/N observed at 2.3 GHz, we obtain widths of 114 $`\mu `$s (338 Jy), 73 $`\mu `$s (213 Jy), 100 $`\mu `$s (100 Jy), 38 $`\mu `$s (232 Jy), 41 $`\mu `$s (172 Jy) with a typical uncertainty of 21 $`\mu `$s. Such widths would fit even better to Eqn. (1), which predicts a time-scale of about $`40_{20}^{+40}`$ $`\mu `$s for Vela. However, we will argure later that giant micro-pulses may have a different origin to the normal micro-pulsars as, for example, we do not find any correlation between the strength and the width of giant micro-pulses.

## 4 Fluctuation analysis

A fluctuation analysis was carried out for the Vela pulsar by KD83. Their observations made at a frequency of 2.3 GHz was limited to an effective time resolution of 750 $`\mu `$s, i.e. a factor of 34 worse than our resolution at the same frequency. Two spectral features located at non-zero frequencies were found by KD83. In the trailing part of the pulse profile they identified a feature at 0.031 cycles period-1 and in the right edge of the main pulse peak a broad spectral feature at 0.125 cycles period-1.

Using our high resolution data, we have also performed a fluctuation spectra analysis in which we essentially follow the example of Backer (1970, 1973). Using continuous sets of individual pulses, we compute PSDs for the time series of pulse energy present in 50 adjacent windows covering the pulse profile in bins of 123 $`\mu `$s width each. Additionally, we calculate the PSD for the time series of an off-pulse window of the same size, which is subtracted from each of the on-pulse window PSDs. Usually, the power in each spectrum is normalized to match the power of the corresponding time series. However, in order to search for signals in weaker parts of the pulse profiles, we alternatively normalize the spectrum to a uniform RMS. In order to increase the signal-noise-ratio of spectral features at the cost of spectral resolution, we also compute the incoherent sum of power spectra obtained from Fast Fourier Transforms of smaller parts of the total available time series. Results are presented for 1.4 GHz and 2.3 GHz in Fig. 5. We find the same spectral features at both frequencies with a high degree of significance. Values for the pulse phase range, the determined centroid of the frequency feature and a frequency width estimated for a 10% level are listed in Table 3. Note that the features apparently existing at very small frequencies at phases $``$1.29 to 0.23 ms and 1.84 to 3.81 ms are consistent with zero frequency, similar to findings of KD83. Features 2 and 4 are obviously identical to those observed by KD83. Due to our better time resolution and sensitivity, we can however separate KD83’s second feature into three, apparently distinct features, here called 1, 2 and 3 (note the drop in power around these “frequency islands” in Fig. 5). We note that when comparing the determined centroids of these features, they seem to lie on a straight line with a slope of $`0.025\pm 0.005`$ (cycles period-1) ms-1. There are some indications that feature 2 is also visible in the longitude range of 1.82 to 1.93 ms, partly overlapping with feature 3. We performed an analysis as described by Deshpande & Rankin (2001) which shows that all three features represent the fundamental frequencies, i.e. they do not originate from higher frequencies being aliased due to the finite sampling once a period.

In Paper I we reported an extra profile feature, occurring sometimes as a strong “bump” component at the edge of the trailing profile, and speculated as to whether its appearance was periodic. Using our extremely long observation at 2.3 GHz, we can now rule out any significant periodicity for the occurrence of the bump, although the broad feature No. 4 listed in Table 3 partly covers this region.

## 5 Pulse Energy Distribution

The recent literature on the energy distribution of single pulses is rather sparse (except for those pulsars showing giant pulses). In Paper I we showed that the logarithm of the flux density of single pulses from the Vela pulsar had a Gaussian distribution (a so-called log-normal distribution). In retrospect, the distributions of single pulse energies shown in Ritchings (1976) and Hesse & Wielebinski (1974) for a variety of pulsars also appear to be log-normal although they are not discussed in that way by those authors. Cairns et al. (2001) showed that the phase-resolved intensity distributions also followed log-normal statistics in the Vela pulsar at 1.4 GHz. In this section we investigate different pulse phases at 2.3 GHz and examine their flux density distributions. Figure 6 shows the integrated pulse profile at 2.3 GHz, where we have picked out the strongest $``$2000 pulses showing the “bump” feature. Vertical lines mark the pulse phases of interest.

### 5.1 Main pulse window

We examined five phases (bins centred on the dashed lines in Fig. 6) equally spaced across the main pulse window. All of the flux density distribution of these bins can be fit with a log-normal distribution of pulse intensities convolved with a Gaussian noise distribution with constant mean 0.0 and sigma 2250 mJy. Table 4 summarises the means and sigmas of the fitted log-normal distributions. For illustration, Figure 7 shows the flux density distribution and cumulative probability distribution for phase 1.213 ms.

It is evident from the table that on the rising part of the pulse profile, the width of the distribution is large. This is the equivalent to saying that the modulation index in this part of the pulse is larger than that towards the middle of the pulse, which seems also to be the case in a number of pulsars. Also, these fits back up the idea that very large pulses in Vela arrive early, as pointed out by KD83. Cairns et al. (2001) discuss the implications for the emission mechanism of these log-normal distributions.

### 5.2 The bump region

We have attempted to isolate the bump component by choosing a window 42 bins wide indicated by the arrows on the right hand side shown Figure 6. We then computed the integrated flux density under these 42 bins for each of the 123,000 single pulses. Figure 8a shows the cumulative probability distribution along with the expected distribution from the instrumental response (which dominates the non-bump signal at these pulse phases). The presence of the bump component is clear in the figure but the form of its distribution less so. A power-law distribution overestimates the high flux probability. A log-normal distribution also does not fit the data well unless a cut-off is imposed at the low-flux end. This tends to suggest that the bump component results from a separate emitting entity.

If the Vela pulsar consisted only of this component, its flux density would be $``$14 mJy. The distribution of flux densities shows that this component regularly has “giant pulses” with flux densities exceeding $`10\times `$ the mean flux density (Fig. 8a). There are 491 such pulses in the sample and so a giant pulse occurs every 250 rotations. These pulses contribute 17% of the total flux density in these phase bins. These are similar properties to the giant pulses seen in the Crab pulsar and it is tempting then also to relate the main pulse in Vela to the so-called pre-cursor in the Crab. Such a picture is not entirely convincing however, as the flux density distribution appears not to be a power-law. Moreover, there appears to be no coincidence between the location of any of the radio emission and the high energy emission from Vela, unlike the case of the Crab pulsar (see Moffett & Hankins 1999). The geometric viewing angles in the two cases are also rather different. In Vela the line of sight cuts close to the magnetic pole (Paper I) whereas in the Crab this angle is rather large \[Moffett & Hankins 1999\]. Additionally, Vela’s high energy emission is complex with the optical and soft X-ray emission occurring significantly later than the hard X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray emission \[Strickman, Harding & de Jager 1999\]. Gouiffes (1998) has shown evidence for a component in the optical which is at the same phase as the peak of the radio emission. With only $``$1 ms time-resolution it is not clear whether any optical emission is associated with the radio bump component.

### 5.3 Giant micro-pulses

As previously discussed in Paper I, giant micro-pulses of emission are present at phases just prior to the main pulse. These are very sporadic, and have significant phase jitter of about 1 ms. We therefore chose a pulse window of about this size located at early phases as shown in Figure 6 to examine the flux density distribution of these micro-pulses. Figure 8b shows the cumulative probability distribution of the flux densities in these bins. It is evident that a power-law at high flux densities is necessary. The slope of the power law is $`2.85`$, similar to that seen in both the Crab pulsar and PSR B1937+21. The occurrences of the giant micro-pulses are rather rare, only 60 pulses out of 123,000 form the power-law tail in the figure. Are the giant micro-pulses just an extension of the micro-structure pattern to outside the main pulse window or are they more related to the true giant pulses as seen in the Crab pulsar and PSR B1937+21? Assuming that Eqn. (1) is also valid for very small periods (cf. discussion in Section 3.3), one can estimate an expected micro-structure time-scale for PSR B1937+21. Interesting, the resulting time-scale of $`0.5`$ $`\mu `$s is coincident with the width measured for narrow (classical) giant pulses by Kinkhabwala & Thorsett (2000) at 1.4 GHz and 2.3 GHz. For the Crab pulsar the situation is more difficult. Its giant pulses often appear to be severely scattered, but Sallmen et al. (1999) report that any intrinsic time-scale of the pulse is unresolved at 0.6 GHz ($`10`$ $`\mu `$s), while at 4.9 GHz pulse components are typically as short as 0.1 to 0.4 $`\mu `$s. This is much smaller than an extrapolated time-scale of 14$`\mu `$s.

In summary, the observed energy distribution of the giant micro-pulses bears similarities with that of known giant pulses (e.g. Romani & Johnston 2001). The giant micro-pulses tend to be narrower than the normal ones and, additionally, appear in a window outside that of the normal average profile. Hence, they may originate in the outer gap, as has been argued for the classical giant pulses (Romani & Johnston 2001), unlike the bulk of the radio emission.

## 6 Circular Polarization

As is well known, Vela shows a very high fraction of linear polarization at all pulse phases and for every pulse. Apart from the bump region, there are no orthogonal mode jumps at any pulse phase (KD83, Paper I). It is clear therefore, that one mode completely dominates in the Vela pulsar at all times; any other orthogonal mode, if present at all, must be less than $``$5% of the power of the dominant mode. The circular polarization of the integrated profile increases with increasing observing frequency and is about 15% at 2.3 GHz with a predominantly negative sign throughout the pulse. Individual pulses showing micro-structure appear to have circular polarization which is highly correlated with the total intensity. Occasionally the sign of circular polarization can be positive under a given micro-structure feature. A typical example of this is shown in Figure 9. Some micro-structure features are found to be greater than 90% circularly polarized which poses challenges to emission theories. It is important to re-iterate that change of the sign of the circular polarization is not accompanied by a orthogonal mode transition in the linear polarization (as is seen in other pulsars, see e.g. Cordes & Hankins 1977). This lack of mode transitions is not expected in the model of McKinnon & Stinebring (2000).

In order to study the relationship between total and circular intensity (Stokes $`I`$ and $`V`$) for the micro-pulses in more detail, we also performed the same micro-structure analysis on $`V`$ measured at 2.3 GHz. In contrast to the procedure described in Section 3.1, we used a fixed window of 128 phase bins centred on the central pulse peak. Consistent with the total power result summarized in Table 1, we detect micro-structure in $`V`$ in 83% of all measured pulses. The determined time scale $`\tau _\mu `$ of $`87\pm 43`$ $`\mu `$s is somewhat smaller than that for $`I`$ at the same frequency but just consistent within the uncertainties. We tentatively conclude that the micro-structure properties seen for $`V`$ are consistent with those seen in total power. This is similar to the result found in other pulsars by Cordes & Hankins (1977) and confirms the visual impression (see Fig. 9) that changes in the sign of the circular polarization occur at the edges of the micro-structure rather than the middle.

We also examined the distribution of flux densities of $`V`$ in a given phase bin. Indeed, we find that the distribution is again log-normal with the same value of sigma as for $`I`$ in the same phase bin. This is a remarkable result and implies that $`V/I`$ should be virtually constant from pulse to pulse in spite of large variations in flux. The distribution of $`V/I`$ is a Gaussian with a mean equal to the $`V`$ of the integrated profile and a sigma of 0.13. Figure 10 shows these distributions.

In spite of the excellent signal-to-noise ratio of the data, the distribution of $`V/I`$ is affected by noise. For example, when both $`V`$ and $`I`$ are low then $`V/I`$ is essentially random and this will cause a ‘pedestal’ in the distribution. When $`V`$ is close to zero this will cause an excess of counts near $`V/I=0`$ and the distribution may appear peakier than Gaussian. To quantify this effect we simulated the data in the following way. First we picked a value for $`I`$ from a log-normal distribution with a mean and sigma derived from the data as in Section 5.1. We then picked a random value for $`V`$ from a Gaussian distribution in $`V/I`$ with a mean equal to the integrated $`V`$ in that phase bin and a sigma ($`\sigma _v`$) which is a free parameter. Following this, Gaussian noise was added to both $`I`$ and $`V`$ (independently) and the ‘observed’ $`V`$, $`I`$, and $`V/I`$ were computed. This was repeated multiple times and the output distributions could then be compared with the real data.

We find that in the centre of the pulse, when $`\sigma _v=0`$, the resultant output distribution of $`V/I`$ has a width of 0.05. This is significantly less than the true distribution. We therefore find we need an intrinsic $`\sigma _v`$ of 0.11 to reproduce the observed data. As we go towards the edges of the pulse profile, the observed value of $`\sigma _v`$ becomes larger and larger. We find that virtually all of this increase can be explained by the decrease in signal-to-noise and that the underlying distribution of $`\sigma _v`$ is constant at 0.11.

## 7 Discussion

The origin of micro-structure is only one of the many questions still to be answered when studying pulsar radio emission. Micro-structure may be the product of either longitudinal modulation of the radiation pattern and/or caused by radial modulation of the emission or the creating plasma during the propagation in the magnetosphere. In any case, these and previous results indicate that micro-structure is an integral feature of pulsar emission that has to be explained together with the observed fluctuations and polarization.

Popov et al. (2001) found that the micro-pulse width of PSR B1133+16 scales with the width of the sub-pulse and the average component width, indicating that micro-structure may be related to the sweep of the beam. Interestingly, we find an obvious period dependence of the micro-pulse width which is a indeed good argument in favour of a temporal origin (i.e. sweeping of beams of emission) of micro-structure. The exact $`\tau _\mu P`$ relationship and any possible break-down of such at very small periods will be probed by observing faster rotating pulsars and by studying Vela at an even higher frequency. If a change of micro-pulse width with frequency is indeed confirmed, we estimate that observations at 4.8 GHz should reveal a micro-structure width as predicted by Eqn. (1).

It is conceivable that the change in slope of the correlation of the micro-pulses’ peak flux density with their width shown in Figure 3 could be an artifact due to the finite sampling time. However, it could also indicate that there is an underlying population of superimposed and blended, even narrower micro-pulses with widths of typically 50 – 100 $`\mu `$s. Such narrow micro-pulses would be similar in width to the giant micro-pulses although they would not have similar peak flux densities, necessarily. However, if there is a population of narrow (normal) micro-pulses, it would be very difficult to explain why we still observe quasi-periodic micro-pulses with a preferred period – despite the blending. The preferred quasi-periodicity is even constant for different frequencies, while the observed average micro-pulse width is maybe not. Again, light can be shed on these questions if simultaneous multi-frequency observations of Vela micro-structure become available.

If confirmed, the decrease in the observed average width of a micro-pulse is stronger than but consistent with the general behaviour of the average pulse profiles (or even sub-pulses) which is often attributed to a Radius-to-Frequency mapping. If micro-structure represents micro-pulses emitted at a particular altitude sweeping our line-of-sight, we would indeed expect a smaller width at higher frequencies. The model of “micro-beams” creating the micro-pulses also finds support in the observations of “wiggles” in the position angle (PA) swing of the linearly polarized intensity. Compared to the very smooth average PA swing, that of individual pulses typically shows deviations from a average slope on time scales consistent with an average micro-pulse width, possibly relating these wiggles to PAs of separate micro-pulses (see Fig. 9). The quasi-periodicities may then be caused by a radial modulation of the emission. For instance, the spacing between separate micro-pulses may be determined by a radial distribution of emission patches, possibly arranged in a periodic way during the creation of the emitting plasma or modulations during propagation along the magnetic field lines. If that is the case, we would not necessarily expect a dependence of the quasi-periodicities, $`P_\mu `$, on rotation period unless the mechanism is directly dependent on the period value. Indeed, the data do not suggest any correlation between pulsar spin period and the quasi-periods observed in micro-pulses (see Table 2).

While we can conclude that normal micro-structure is an integral part of pulsar radio emission, in agreement with the results of Lange et al. (1998) and Popov et al. (2001), our study of the giant micro-pulses shows that these are different. They appear occasionally at pulse phases usually not covered by the normal pulses, have typically large amplitudes, appear to be narrower than normal micro-pulses, and also exhibit a power law in their cumulative probability distribution. All these properties strongly suggest that giant micro-pulses are a separate component of emission and more closely related to the classical giant pulses. The bump component is yet another facet which appears to be a separate feature that may also be related to giant pulses. Again, it appears only rarely and also exhibits a energy distribution that is not compatible with a log-normal distribution. As pointed out, if Vela consisted of only the bump component, it would regularly have classical giant pulses with a flux density exceeding the mean flux density by an order of magnitude. If classical giant pulses are related to high energy emission as suggested by Romani & Johnston (2001), and if giant micro-pulses and the bump are in turn related to giant pulses, then the absence of high-energy emission from these locations needs to be explained.

## 8 Summary

We have detected micro-structure in about 80% of all pulses, independent of frequency. Micro-pulses occurring in quasi-periodic fashion show the same separation at 1.4 and 2.3 GHz but may appear less frequently at the higher frequency. While there is a correlation between micro-pulse width and corresponding peak flux density, the width may decrease with frequency although this trend must be confirmed at higher frequencies. At 1.4 and 2.3 GHz, the micro-pulse width is somewhat larger than expected from extrapolation from other, slower rotating pulsars, although a period dependence is clearly visible. Narrower, giant micro-pulses which occur at pulse phases before the main pulse are indications of a possible relationship between giant micro-pulses and classical giant pulses. This is supported by our finding shown that the flux density distribution of the giant micro-pulses is best fitted by a power-law. All micro-pulses are highly linearly polarized and often show a large degree of circular polarization, with a strong correlation between Stokes $`V`$ and $`I`$. We find that phase-resolved intensity distribution are best fitted with log-normal statistics. We conclude that the “bump” component seems to be an extra component superposed on the main pulse

In summary, we find that Vela contains a mixture of emission properties representing both “classical” properties of radio pulsars and other radio features which are most likely related to high-energy emission. The Vela pulsar hence represents an ideal test case to study the relationship between radio and high-energy emission in significant detail.

## Acknowledgements

This research was partly funded by grants from the Australian Research Council. MK thanks the School of Physics of the University of Sydney for their hospitality. We are grateful to M. Bailes for providing us with the computer resources at the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing to analyse our data. The Australia Telescope is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by the CSIRO.


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# Geometric Phase and Modulo Relations for Probability Amplitudes as Functions on Complex Parameter Spaces

## I Introduction

The study of correlations between the behavior of the phase and modulo of complex probability amplitudes is a relevant topic in a number of physical problems such as the “phase problem” in diffraction theory phaseret , the study of phase singularities phasesing  and the semi-classical or WKB approximation WKBapp  to name a few. In the phase problem, for instance, the aim is to infer phase information in the diffracted wave from the observed cross section, which only involves the magnitude of the wave. In the study of phase dislocations, it is known that regions of vanishing amplitude are characterized by surrounding regions of generally non-uniform vortex-type phase singularities. Finally, in the semi-classical approximation, the phase gradient is in correspondence with the classical momentum and the behavior of the magnitude of the amplitude is correlated to the phase gradient by Liouville’s theorem.

From a different standpoint, significant insight into the geometrical meaning of both the modulus and the phase of probability amplitudes has emerged from the study of the ray space $``$ (also known as projective Hilbert space), particularly in connection with geometric phases berry ; simon ; anaha87 ; sambhand , quantum information theorywootters ; ravietal , and other topics falling under the general category of ‘geometric quantum mechanics’ anaha90b ; brodyhugh . From the work of Berry berry , Simon simon , Aharonov and Anandan anaha87 , it is known that under cyclic evolution a geometric phase factor is acquired by the amplitude, which is interpreted as the holonomy associated with a natural connection (the so-called Berry-Simon connection) on the $`U(1)`$ bundle over $``$, and which is proportional to the symplectic area enclosed by the circuit in $``$. Samuel and Bhandari sambhand  have also shown that the so-called Pancharatnam phase difference between any two states can be expressed as a line integral of the Berry-Simon connection along the geodesic connecting the two states, as measured with the Fubini-Study metric, the natural metric on $``$. Finally, there exists a natural geometric interpretation to transition probabilities in the ray space as the cosine of the geodesic distance with respect to the Fubini-Study metricanaha90b , a measure that is intimately related to information-theoretic measures of statistical distance between two probability distributions wootters ; ravietal .

In the present paper, the aim is to shed additional insight into the correlation between the phase and magnitude of transition probability amplitudes from the point of view of geometric quantum mechanics. Specifically, we study amplitudes of the form $`\psi _f|\psi `$, where $`|\psi _f`$ is any fixed state in Hibert space and $`|\psi `$ is parameterized on a complex parameter subspace $``$ of the ray space $``$, or, in particular, the ray space itself. We then obtain general geometric relations between the two polar components of the amplitude arising from holomorphicity and metric constraints natural to such complex parameter spaces. We note that a number of state families of broad physical interest are valued on complex parameter spaces, including the family of coherent or more generally squeezed states, the Bloch sphere of spin-$`1/2`$ states, as well as complex extensions of real parameter families.

A brief summary of the main results and the structure of the paper is in order. In section II we spell out in greater detail the geometric setting involved, which is more precisely that of holomorphic line bundles over the complex parameter space $``$. Such bundles share with the more general line bundles over arbitrary parameter spaces (arising, for instance, in connection with Berry phases) two important geometric objects, namely the Berry-Simon connection $`𝑨=i\psi |𝒅\psi `$ and the quantum geometric tensor $`𝑯𝒅\psi ||𝒅\psi \psi |𝒅\psi 𝒅\psi |\psi `$. The symmetric part of $`𝑯`$ gives rise to a “quantum” metric on $``$, (the Fubini-Study metric when $`=`$), while the anti-symmetric part, here denoted by $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, is proportional to the field-strength tensor associated with the connection. There are, however, additional constraints that follow from the fact that $``$ is a complex submanifold of $``$. In particular, state sections of the corresponding line bundle satisfy generalized holomorphicity conditions and the base manifold inherits from the ray space its Kähler structure. These constraints are then used in section III to show that the polar components of $`\psi _f|\psi =\sqrt{p}e^{i\eta }`$ satisfy a generalized version of Cauchy-Riemann conditions on the logarithm of $`\psi _f|\psi `$, the relations

$`\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ $`=`$ $`𝛀\left(\eta 𝑨\right)`$
$`\left(\eta 𝑨\right)`$ $`=`$ $`𝛀\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$
where the inner product is with respect to the quantum metric on $``$. With the aid of these conditions, it is then possible to reconstruct either polar component of the amplitude from the parametric dependence of the other, as well as to obtain additional constraints on the behavior of $`p`$ and $`\eta `$. A brief illustration of the the generalized Cauchy-Riemann conditions on the Bloch sphere is given in section IV. In section V we turn to the case when $`=`$, where we explore the consequences of previously obtained results in conjunction with an additional geometric relation that exists between the transition probability $`p`$ and geodesic distances as measured by the Fubini-Study metric. In particular, we give a generalization of the Samuel and Bhandari result for the Pancharatnam phase for non-geodesic paths. More importantly, it is shown that the transition amplitude can be parameterized entirely in terms of its phase according to the formula

$$\psi _f|\psi =\frac{e^{i\eta }}{\sqrt{1+q\eta 𝑨^2}},$$
(1)
where $`q`$ is an arbitrary parameter in the definition of the metric. Prompted by a certain resemblance to the WKB formula $`\psi _{WKB}(x)=e^{i\eta (x)}/\sqrt{|\eta |}`$, a trajectory interpretation to the phase gradient on $``$ is obtained. Finally, in section VI, we establish a connection between our results and the geometric phase acquired during cyclic and non-cyclic evolutions.

## II Geometry of Holomorphic Line Bundles

We devote some time to introduce the relevant geometric aspects that are involved. Let the map $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }:`$ define a family of unnormalized state vectors $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }(z)`$, which only depend on a set of local holomorphic coordinates $`z^a`$ on $``$. The family $`|\psi `$ is then obtained by projecting $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ onto the set of pure normalized state vectors according to

$$|\psi (z,\overline{z})=\frac{e^{i\gamma (z,\overline{z})}}{\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\psi }(\overline{z})|\stackrel{~}{\psi }(z)}}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }(z),$$
(2)
where $`\gamma `$ is some (real) phase factor that for the moment will be assumed to be an arbitrary function of $`z`$ and $`\overline{z}`$.

It will also be convenient to keep in mind alternative parameterizations of $`|\psi `$ in terms of the set of real coordinates $`(x^a,y^a)`$ related to $`z^a`$ ($`\overline{z}^a`$) as usual by $`z^a=x^a+iy^a`$ ($`\overline{z}^a=x^aiy^a`$ ), and more generally in terms of arbitrary real coordinates on $``$ which will be denoted by $`\xi ^\mu `$ with the index $`\mu `$ ranging form $`1`$ to $`2k`$ (throughout the section we use Latin indices $`a,b\mathrm{}`$ (ranging from $`1`$ to $`k`$) to denote complex coordinates or their real and imaginary components and Greek indices to denote general coordinates).

Neglecting for the moment the fact that $``$ is a complex manifold, we see that there is a correspondence between a point in $``$, and a pure-state density matrix $`|\psi \psi |`$, and therefore a point in the ray space $``$, the equivalence class of states under the equivalence relation $`|\psi e^{i\varphi }|\psi `$. The geometric setting is therefore that of the $`U(1)`$ or line bundle $`P(,U(1))`$ over the parameter space $``$simon ; nakahara , on which a choice of $`|\psi `$ with a given phase factor $`\gamma `$ corresponds to a particular choice of local section.

Now, as is well known in the context of geometric phasesGeoPhaseLet , there is a natural geometric connection that can be defined on the line bundle over a parameter space $``$, which is expressed locally by the so-called Berry-Simon (BS) connection $`1`$-form $`𝑨=A_\mu 𝒅\xi ^\mu `$, with components

$$A_\mu =i\psi |_\mu \psi $$
(3)
where $`_\mu =\frac{}{\xi ^\mu }`$ in arbitrary coordinates. This connection is naturally induced by the Dirac inner product on Hilbert space $`\varphi |\psi `$ in the sense that the horizontal motion defined by this connection corresponds to infinitesimal variations orthogonal to $`|\psi `$, i.e., $`\psi |\delta _{\mathrm{Horiz}}\psi =0`$. The resulting covariant derivative of a section $`|\psi `$,

$$D_\mu |\psi \left[_\mu iA_\mu \right]|\psi ,$$
(4)
therefore satisfies $`\psi |D_\mu \psi =0`$. By virtue of (2), it is clear that under a $`U(1)`$ gauge transformation $`|\psi e^{i\delta \gamma }|\psi `$, $`A_\mu `$ transforms as $`A_\mu A_\mu +_\mu \delta \gamma `$, in such a way that $`D_\mu |\psi `$ transforms homogeneously as $`D_\mu |\psi e^{i\delta \gamma }D_\mu |\psi `$. Furthermore, a $`U(1)`$ gauge transformation may always be introduced so that the connection form is set to zero at least at one point in $``$. As usual, the failure of the covariant derivative to commute in different directions is measured by the curl of $`𝑨`$.

When $``$ is a complex manifold as is the case in question, there is added richness brought about by the complex nature of the base space. In particular, it is possible to construct a more refined notion of the line bundle over M, namely a Holomorphic line bundlekobayashi ; nakahara ; bottchern ; gsw . The notion of such bundles rests on a generalization of the concept of a holomorphic function, in the sense that by a suitable gauge transformation it is possible to have a section satisfy, at a given point , the standard holomorphic condition $`\frac{}{\overline{z}^a}|\psi =0`$. Let us se how this comes about with the parameterization (2). By construction we have that the unnormalized vector $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ satisfies the holomorphic condition

$$\frac{}{\overline{z}^a}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }(z)=0,$$
(5)
with $`\overline{z}^\alpha =x^aiy^a`$. It is clear however, that $`|\psi `$ is not strictly holomorphic, as the anti-holomorphic coordinates $`\overline{z}^a`$ appear not only in the phase factor $`\gamma `$, but more importantly in the normalization factor which involves the anti-holomorphic map $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }(\overline{z})|`$. Thus we have in general that

$$\frac{}{\overline{z}^a}|\psi =\left[\frac{}{\overline{z}^a}\mathrm{log}\frac{e^{i\gamma }}{\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }}}\right]|\psi .$$
(6)
Now, taking the inner product of this expression with $`|\psi `$ itself, we find that

$$\psi |\frac{}{\overline{z}^a}|\psi =\left[\frac{}{\overline{z}^a}\mathrm{log}\frac{e^{i\gamma }}{\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }}}\right].$$
(7)
Expressing the BS 1-form in the complex basis as $`𝑨=A_a𝒅z^a+A_{\overline{a}}𝒅\overline{z}^a`$ with

$$A_a=i\psi |_a\psi A_{\overline{a}}=i\psi |_{\overline{a}}\psi $$

(where $`_a=\frac{}{z^a}`$, $`_{\overline{a}}=\frac{}{\overline{z}^a}`$), and splitting the covariant derivative $`D`$ into holomorphic and anti-holomorphic components, we have

$$D_a=\frac{}{z^a}iA_a,D_{\overline{a}}=\frac{}{\overline{z}^a}iA_{\overline{a}}.$$

Thus, we find from (6) and (7) that the section $`|\psi `$ satisfies a generalized “gauge covariant” holomorphic condition

$$D_{\overline{a}}|\psi =0.$$
(8)
However, it is always possible to gauge away the BS connection at least at one point. At that point then, the section satisfies the usual holomorphic condition $`_{\overline{a}}|\psi =0`$. Thus, modulo a $`U(1)`$ gauge transformation, $`|\psi `$ is a locally holomorphic section. For future reference, we shall also need the dual, now anti-holomorphic condition, on the bra $`\psi |`$. This is given by

$$D_a\psi |=\left[_a+iA_a\right]\psi |=0.$$
(9)
We now consider geometric aspects of the base space $``$ and introduce additional objects that will be of use later. Viewed as a general parameter space $``$, the horizontal motion associated with the BS connection on the line bundle over $``$ induces naturally on the base space $``$ a gauge-invariant rank-2 hermitian tensor

$$H_{\mu \nu }=qD_\mu \psi |D_\nu \psi ,$$
(10)
which Berry WilcShap  has named the quantum geometric tensor. Here, $`q`$ is any strictly positive real number to be adjusted for convenience. The real part of $`H_{\mu \nu }`$ is positive definite and symmetric, and thus defines a metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ on $``$, the quantum metric, with line element

$$ds^2=g_{\mu \nu }d\xi ^\mu d\xi ^\nu =q\left[d\psi |d\psi d\psi |\psi \psi |d\psi \right].$$
(11)
In turn, the imaginary part of $`H`$ is anti-symmetric and is closely related to the curl of the BS connection 1-form $`𝑨`$:

$$𝛀=\mathrm{Im}H=\frac{q}{2}𝒅\psi ||𝒅\psi =\frac{q}{2}𝒅𝑨.$$
(12)
Since $`𝒅^2=0`$ it follows that $`𝛀`$ is automatically closed.

When $``$ is the base space for the hermitian line bundle, considerable simplifications follow. First of all, from the generalized holomorphic condition $`|D_{\overline{a}}\psi =0`$ and its dual, we have that in complex coordinates the quantum geometric tensor takes as components

$$H_{\overline{a}b}=D_{\overline{a}}\psi |D_b\psi H_{a\overline{b}}=0.$$
(13)
This implies that the metric, as well as the 2-form $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ may be written out as

$`𝒈`$ $`=`$ $`g_{a\overline{b}}𝒅z^a𝒅\overline{z}^b+g_{\overline{a}b}𝒅\overline{z}^a𝒅z^b`$
$`𝛀`$ $`=`$ $`ig_{a\overline{b}}𝒅z^a𝒅\overline{z}^b.`$ (14)
where $`g_{a\overline{b}}=g_{\overline{b}a}=\frac{1}{2}H_{a\overline{b}}.`$ Note that if the metric is non-degenerate as we shall assume henceforth, it then follows, on the one hand, that the $`U(1)`$ connection $`𝑨`$ is non-trivial, and on the other, that both $`𝒈`$ and $`𝛀`$ admit inverses. In particular the inverse metric takes the form

$$𝒈^1=g^{a\overline{b}}_a_{\overline{b}}+g^{\overline{a}b}_{\overline{a}}_b$$
(15)
where $`g^{\overline{a}b}=g^{b\overline{a}}`$ satisfies $`g_{a\overline{b}}g^{\overline{b}c}=\delta _a^c`$.

To understand the significance of (II), we now introduce the so-called complex structure, the defining tensorial object for a complex manifold. In complex coordinates, the complex structure tensor $`J`$ takes the canonical form

$$J^a{}_{b}{}^{}=i\delta ^a{}_{b}{}^{}J^{\overline{a}}{}_{\overline{b}}{}^{}=i\delta ^{\overline{a}}_{\overline{b}}$$
(16)
with the remaining components vanishing. The complex structure satisfies $`J^\mu {}_{\lambda }{}^{}J_{}^{\lambda }{}_{\nu }{}^{}=\delta ^\mu _\nu `$ (i.e., $`J^2=1`$) and implements the multiplication by $`i`$ ($`i`$) on vector fields with holomorphic (anti-holomorphic) indices. In terms of $`J`$, it is readily verified that the metric satisfies

$$g_{\mu \nu }=J^\gamma {}_{\mu }{}^{}J_{}^{\lambda }{}_{\nu }{}^{}g_{\gamma \lambda }^{}.$$
(17)
In this case on says that the metric is Hermitian. In turn, the two-form $`𝛀`$ is what is known as the Kähler form of the metric, defined by

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mu \nu }=g_{\lambda \nu }J^\lambda {}_{\mu }{}^{},$$
(18)
i.e., $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mu \nu }=J_{\mu \nu }`$. The expressions for $`𝒈`$ and $`𝛀`$ in (II), where $`g_{ab}=g_{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=\mathrm{\Omega }_{ab}=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=0`$, are the canonical forms that a Hermitian metric and its Kähler form take in complex coordinates.

When the Kähler form $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is closed, as in our case, $``$ is known as a Kähler manifold and the metric a Kähler metric. The offshoot of this is a compatibility between the Hemitian and Riemannian structures of the manifold, embodied by the fact that

$$𝒅\mathrm{\Omega }=0_\mu J^\nu {}_{\lambda }{}^{}=0,$$
(19)
where $`_\mu `$ denotes covariant covariant differentiation of ordinary tensor fields on $``$ with respect to the affine connection associated with the metric $`g`$. The condition $`d𝛀=0`$ entails that the hermitian components $`g_{a\overline{b}}`$ of the metric and the Kähler form satisfy in complex coordinates the symmetry conditions:

$$_cg_{a\overline{b}}=_ag_{c\overline{b}}_{\overline{c}}g_{\overline{a}b}=z^{\overline{a}}g_{\overline{c}b}.$$
(20)
From the definition of the affine connection in arbitrary coordinates, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu \lambda }^\mu =\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \gamma }(_\mu g_{\nu \gamma }+_\nu g_{\mu \gamma }_\gamma g_{\mu \nu })`$, it is then straightforward to verify that in complex coordinates the affine connection takes the form

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^a{}_{bc}{}^{}=g^{\overline{d}a}_bg_{c\overline{d}}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\overline{a}}{}_{\overline{b}\overline{c}}{}^{}=g^{\overline{a}d}_{\overline{b}}g_{d\overline{c}},$$
(21)
with the symbols mixing holomorphic and ani-holomorphic indices vanishing. Covariant differentiation with respect to a holomorphic (anti-holomorphic) coordinate therefore acts like regular differentiation on anti-holomorphic (holomorphic) indices. Another way of saying this is that the affine connection preserves the separation between holomorphic and anti-holomorphic tensor fields. We remark that in complex manifolds that are not Kähler, it is still possible to define a Hermitian connection taking the form (21) and satisfying $`J=0`$, but this connection will not coincide with the affine connection.

A second consequence of the symmetry conditions (20) is that the Kähler metric may be derived locally from a scalar potential function, the so called Kähler potential, according to $`g_{a\overline{b}}=_a_{\overline{b}}K(z,\overline{z}).`$ This can be seen by noting from (7) that

$$𝑨=𝒅\gamma +\frac{1}{2i}_a\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }𝒅z^a\frac{1}{2i}_{\overline{a}}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }𝒅\overline{z}^a,$$
(22)
from which we see that

$$𝛀=\frac{q}{2}𝒅𝑨=\frac{iq}{2}_a_{\overline{b}}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }𝒅z^a𝒅\overline{z}^b.$$
(23)
Consequently, from (II), we have that

$$g_{a\overline{b}}=\frac{q}{2}_a_{\overline{b}}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }.$$
(24)
so that an appropriate Kähler potential is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{K}=\frac{q}{2}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }.$$
(25)
Note however that this potential is not uniquely defined, since one is free to add to $`K(z,\overline{z})`$ any function of the form $`f_1(z)+f_2(\overline{z})`$ without changing $`g_{a\overline{b}}`$. Note finally that a choice of gauge in which $`\gamma (z,\overline{z})=Re[f(z)]=\frac{1}{2}\left[f(z)+f^{}(\overline{z})\right]`$ for some arbitrary holomorphic function $`f(z)`$, is equivalent to a re-parameterization of $`|\psi `$ in which in 2, the phase $`\gamma `$ is set to zero and the unnormalized vector $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ gets replaced by $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}=e^{f(z)}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$. In such case, all geometric objects of interest for us, namely, the Berry-Simon connection and the second-rank tensors obtained from the quantum geometric tensor can be derived from the Kähler potential $`\stackrel{~}{K^{}}=\frac{q}{2}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}`$. The freedom that remains in the choice of $`f`$ corresponds to the freedom in the definition of the Kähler potential.

## III Generalized Cauchy-Riemann Conditions

We now explore the consequences on the behavior of the polar components of any transition amplitude

$$\psi _f|\psi (\xi )=\sqrt{p(\xi )}e^{i\eta (\xi )},$$

where $`|\psi (\xi )`$ is a section of a holomorphic line bundle over a complex submanifold $``$, i.e., of the form (2), as described in the previous section, and $`\xi `$ are arbitrary real coordinates on $``$.

The first thing to note is that due to the arbitrariness in the definition of the phase $`\gamma `$ in (6), the notion of phase $`\psi _f|\psi `$ is tied to the choice of gauge. Specifically, the phase $`\eta \mathrm{arg}\psi _f|\psi `$, transforms under the $`U(1)`$ gauge transformations $`|\psi e^{i\delta \gamma }|\psi `$ as

$$\eta \eta +\delta \gamma .$$

It then becomes convenient to introduce a gauge- invariant notion of phase variation by means of the $`BS`$-connection This is done by defining a gauge invariant phase gradient

$$V_\mu _\mu \eta A_\mu .$$
(26)
Clearly, the 1-form $`𝑽=V_\mu 𝒅\xi ^\mu `$ is not closed but rather satisfies $`𝒅𝑽=𝒅𝑨\frac{2}{q}𝛀`$. The modulus of $`\psi _f|\psi `$, $`\sqrt{p}|\psi _f|\psi |`$, is of course gauge invariant.

Now, since $`|\psi _f`$ is assumed to be a constant vector, it follows from (8) that the amplitude $`\psi _f|\psi `$ is as well subject to the generalized holomorphic (anti-holomorphic) conditions when expressed in local complex coordinates

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{z}^a}}iA_{\overline{a}}\right]\psi _f|\psi `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (27)
$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{}{z^a}}+iA_a\right]\psi |\psi _f`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (28)
Assuming then that $`\psi _f|\psi 0`$, the logarithm of the amplitude can be defined analytically, and we find that

$`i\left[_{\overline{a}}\eta A_{\overline{a}}\right]+_{\overline{a}}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`i\left[_a\eta A_a\right]+_a\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (29)
As mentioned earlier, by a suitable choice of gauge it is possible to have the section $`|\psi `$ satsify ordinary Cauchy-Riemann conditions at a specified point. Correspondingly, the above conditions can be brought locally to the form of ordinary Cauchy-Riemamann conditions.

For our purposes, it will be more convenient to cast the above expression in terms of the Kähler form $`𝛀`$ which has a more immediate interpretation in terms of the Berry-Simon connection $`𝑨`$ (recall that $`𝛀=\frac{q}{2}𝒅𝑨`$). Using the facts that $`J^\nu {}_{\mu }{}^{}V_{\nu }^{}=J_\nu {}_{\mu }{}^{}V_{}^{\nu }=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mu \nu }V^\nu =\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }V_{\nu }^{}`$ and that in mixed-rank form $`J^2=\mathrm{\Omega }^2=1`$, we then have the following alternative expressions:

$`_\mu \mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }[_\nu \eta A_\nu ],`$ (30a)
$`_\mu \eta `$ $`=`$ $`A_\mu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }_{\nu }^{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}.`$ (30b)
We shall refer to these as the generalized Cauchy Riemann conditions satisfied by the polar components of the amplitude $`\psi _f|\psi `$. These conditions constitute the first important result of the paper, and will serve as a starting point for a number of additional relations that will be derived in the forthcoming.

The most important consequence of (30) is the existence of the reconstruction formulas on $``$

$$\eta (\xi )\eta (\xi _o)=_{\xi _o}^\xi 𝑑\xi ^\mu \left[A_\mu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }_{\nu }^{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}\right]$$
(31)
and

$$\sqrt{\frac{p(\xi )}{p(\xi _o)}}=\mathrm{exp}\left[_{\xi _o}^\xi d\xi ^\mu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }[_\nu \eta A_\nu ]\right],$$
(32)
by means of which one polar component of the amplitude $`\psi _f|\psi `$ can be obtained from the other by line integration once the connection is specified. Since both formulas arise from exact differentials, the choice of integration path can be left arbitrary as long as any two paths may be deformed continuously into one another within a simply-connected region excluding singularities. However, since the individual terms in the integrands are not generally exact, all terms must be evaluated along the same path. This path independence must reflect itself, therefore, in ancillary relations that both $`p`$ and $`\eta `$ have to satisfy in order to guarantee that the left hand sides of (30a) and (30b) are exact differentials, conditions that will be examined in more detail shortly.

Before doing so, we use the fact that the quantum metric (11) on $``$ is a hermitain metric to establish relations on the magnitude and angle between the gauge invariant gradients $`\eta 𝑨`$ and $`\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ on $``$. The hermitian condition on the metric is that the complex structure should preserve the inner product, i.e. $`𝑿𝒀=(J𝑿)(J𝒀)`$. This implies from the generalized Cauchy-Riemann conditions that the gauge invariant gradients have the same magnitude as defined in terms of the quantum metric

$$|\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}|=|\eta 𝑨|.$$
(33)
A second property of a hermitian metric is that $`𝑿𝑱𝑿=0`$, a property that in a Kähler manifold follows automatically from the anti-symmetry of the Kähler form $`𝛀`$. It follows therefore from (30) that

$$p\left(\eta 𝑨\right)=0.$$
(34)
A particular consequence is therefore that lines of constant phase and constant transition probability necessarily meet at right angles wherever $`𝑨`$ is made to to vanish by a choice of gauge.

Next, we turn to the previously mentioned integrability conditions. The most evident one comes from re-arranging (30b) to read $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }_{\nu }^{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=A_\mu _\mu \eta ,`$ in which case we see that the one-form $`𝛀𝒅\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ is equivalent to the BS connection up to the gauge term $`𝒅\eta `$. Correspondingly, the curl of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }_{\nu }^{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ must lead to the same curl of $`A_\mu `$, which, up to a constant, is nothing more than the Kähler form. Using the fact that the Kähler form is covariantly constant, we then have

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu {}_{}{}^{\gamma }_{\mu }^{}_\gamma \mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\gamma }_{\nu }^{}_\gamma \mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=\frac{2}{q}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mu \nu }.$$

Multiplying on both sides by the Kähler form and using $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2=1`$, the equation can then be transformed to

$$[_\mu _\nu +\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\alpha }\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu }^{}{}_{}{}^{\beta }_{\alpha }^{}_\beta ]\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=\frac{2}{q}g_{\mu \nu }.$$
(35)
The interpretation of this equation becomes more straightforward in complex coordinates, in which case it reads

$$q_a_{\overline{b}}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=g_{a\overline{b}}.$$
(36)
Since $`_a_{\overline{b}}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=_a_{\overline{b}}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$, we further see that the condition is that $`q\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ is a Kähler potential for the quantum metric on $``$. This can be seen more clearly by noting from (2) that

$`q\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q}{2}}\mathrm{log}\left[\psi _f|\psi \psi |\psi _f\right]`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q}{2}}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }+q\mathrm{log}\psi _f|\stackrel{~}{\psi }+q\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\psi _f.`$
Apart from the purely holomorphic and anti-holomorphic functions $`\mathrm{log}\psi _f|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ and $`\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\psi _f`$ respectively, this is nothing more than minus the Kähler potential $`\stackrel{~}{K}=\frac{q}{2}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ mentioned in Section II.

Concerning the second integrability condition, we can use the fact that $`_\mu \mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ is a gradient to obtain from 30a that

$$[_\mu \delta _\nu ^\beta +\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\alpha }\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu }^{}{}_{}{}^{\beta }_{\alpha }^{}](_\beta \eta A_\beta )=0,$$
(37)
a condition that in complex coordinates takes the form

$$_a(_{\overline{b}}\eta A_{\overline{b}})+_{\overline{b}}(_a\eta A_a)=0.$$
(38)
Further insight into this condition is obtained from the expression (LABEL:) in which case we see that $`_aA_{\overline{b}}+_{\overline{b}}A_a`$ is nothing more than $`2_a_{\overline{b}}\gamma `$. Therefore, under the restricted choice of $`\gamma =\frac{1}{2}\left[f(z)+\overline{f}(\overline{z})\right]`$ mentioned previously as the condition in which all geometric quantities can be derived from the Kaḧler potential, we have that $`_a_{\overline{b}}\gamma =0`$ and therefore that

$$_a_{\overline{b}}\eta =0.$$

In other words, the second condition expresses the fact that modulo a gauge term mixing holomorphic and anti-holomorphic coordinates, the phase $`\eta `$ is a linear combination of a purely holomorphic and a purely anti-holomorphic function. This can be seen most clearly by noting from (2) that

$$\eta =\gamma +\frac{1}{2i}\mathrm{log}\psi _f|\stackrel{~}{\psi }\frac{1}{2i}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\psi _f.$$

We see therefore that the integrability conditions (35) and (37) ensuring the consistency of the generalized Cauchy-Riemann conditions 30 are rather trivial consequences of the parameterization (2) of state sections on a holomorphic line bundle. Still, they lead to non-trivial constraints on the behavior of the phase and modulo of the amplitude when the parameter space is viewed as a general Riemannian manifold.

In particular, by contracting indices in (35) and (37) we determine that the phase and modulo of $`\psi _f|\psi `$ satisfy locally the scalar conditions

$`(\eta 𝑨)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (39a)
$`^2\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2k}{q}},`$ (39b)
where $`k`$ is the complex dimension of $``$ and $``$ and $`^2`$ are the divergence and Laplacian operators on $``$ associated with the quantum metric. Note that since it is always possible to choose $`𝑨=0`$ (for instance with the restricted choice of gauge mentioned previously), the first condition can always be brought to the form $`^2\eta =0`$.

Finally, it is interesting to note that from the scalar conditions (39) and the relations (33) and (34) one obtains

$`\left[p(\eta 𝑨)\right]`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (40)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|\eta 𝑨|^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2\sqrt{p}}{\sqrt{p}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{q}},`$ (41)
a set of equations analogous to the generalized Hamilton-Jacobi equation and the probability conservation equation arising from the time-independent Schrödinger equation a free particle in a magnetic field. That the probability amplitude $`\psi _f|\psi `$ therefore satisfies on $``$ the corresponding Schödinger equation

$$\frac{1}{2}(i𝑨)(i𝑨)\psi _f|\psi =\frac{k}{q}\psi _f|\psi $$

can be verified by noting that in complex coordinates $`g^{a\overline{b}}D_aD_{\overline{b}}\psi _f|\psi =0`$ and using the commutation relation $`[D_a,D_{\overline{b}}]=\frac{2i}{q}\mathrm{\Omega }_{a\overline{b}}=\frac{2}{q}g_{a\overline{b}}`$. The analogy between $`(\eta 𝑨)`$ and a velocity field suggests that it may be possible to establish a trajectory interpretation for the invariant phase gradient. We shall see in Section V that such an interpretation is indeed possible on the ray space.

## IV Phase/Modulo relations on the Bloch Sphere

Let us for the moment flesh out the preceding results with a simple concrete illustration. Consider the family of spin-$`1/2`$ states $`|\widehat{n}`$ represented by points on the Bloch sphere labeled by the usual polar angles $`\theta ,\varphi `$,

$$|\widehat{n}=\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}\\ \mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}e^{i\varphi }\end{array}\right),$$
(42)
where the basis used is the standard $`|\pm `$ eigenbasis of $`\sigma _3`$. As is well known, the two-sphere is in fact a complex manifold, namely the complex projective space $`P^1`$. To see this, note that the parameterization of the unnormalized state $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$

$$|\stackrel{~}{\psi }(z)=\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ z\end{array}\right),$$
(43)
maps, according to (2), to the quantum state section (42) after the identification

$$z=\mathrm{tan}\frac{\theta }{2}e^{i\varphi },\gamma =0.$$
(44)
The map corresponds to a stereographic projection of the sphere to the complex plane, mapping the south pole into $`z=\mathrm{}`$.

We proceed by calculating the geometric objects of interest. From the Kaḧler potential, $`\stackrel{~}{K}=\frac{q}{2}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{\psi }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }=\frac{q}{2}\mathrm{log}(1+z\overline{z})`$, it is straightforward to compute the metric element, i.e.,

$$ds^2=q\frac{dzd\overline{z}}{(1+|z|^2)^2}=\frac{q}{4}\left[d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2\right].$$
(45)
Choosing $`q=4`$ for this example, the quantum metric reduces to the usual metric on the unit sphere, with non vanishing components

$$g_{\theta \theta }=1g_{\varphi \varphi }=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta .$$

The BS connection form is more straightforward to calculate from (42) and we find that

$$𝑨=\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\theta }{2}𝒅\varphi =\frac{1}{2}(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )𝒅\varphi .$$
(46)
The BS connection leads therefore to the Kähler form

$$𝛀=\frac{q}{2}𝒅𝑨=\mathrm{sin}\theta 𝒅\theta 𝒅\varphi ,$$
(47)
which is immediately recognized as the volume form for the unit two-sphere.

With this, it is then possible to express the generalized Cauchy Riemann conditions for the polar components of some amplitude $`\psi _f|\widehat{n}`$ in a more conventional form by embedding them in three dimensional space. Letting $`\widehat{n}`$ now stand for $`\stackrel{}{r}/r`$ and using standard vector notation, the connection becomes

$$\stackrel{}{A}=\frac{1}{2r}\left[\frac{1\mathrm{cos}\theta }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }\right]\widehat{\varphi },$$
(48)
which is the usual “Dirac string” vector potential for a magnetic charge $`1/2`$ located at the origin and with the string singularity along the south pole. Relations (30b) and (30b) now read

$`\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{n}\times \left(\stackrel{}{}\eta \stackrel{}{A}\right)`$
$`\stackrel{}{}\eta `$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{A}+\widehat{n}\times \stackrel{}{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p},`$ (49)
where $`p`$ and $`\eta `$ are assumed to depend only on the polar angles. We verify this in a simple example. Take

$$|\widehat{n}=\mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}e^{i\varphi },$$
(50)
wherefrom we see that $`\sqrt{p}=\mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}`$ and $`\eta =\varphi `$ so that

$$\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=\frac{1}{2r}\mathrm{cot}\frac{\theta }{2}\widehat{\theta }$$

and $`\stackrel{}{}\eta =\frac{1}{r\mathrm{sin}\theta }\widehat{\varphi }`$. The gauge invariant phase gradient is therefore

$$\stackrel{}{}\eta \stackrel{}{A}=\frac{1}{2r\mathrm{sin}\theta }\left[1\frac{1}{2}(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )\right]\widehat{\varphi }=\frac{1}{2r}\mathrm{cot}\frac{\theta }{2}\widehat{\varphi }$$

and thus we verify that $`\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=\widehat{n}\times (\stackrel{}{}\eta \stackrel{}{A})`$.

More generally, we obtain a coordinate-independent geometric interpretation of the phase gradient for a transition amplitude $`\widehat{m}|\widehat{n}`$ for fixed $`|\widehat{m}`$ not necessarily on the same section as $`|\widehat{n}`$. Since the transition probability is

$$p=|\widehat{m}|\widehat{n}|^2=\frac{1}{2}\left(1+\widehat{n}\widehat{m}\right),$$
(51)
using $`\stackrel{}{}(\widehat{n}\widehat{m})=(\widehat{m}(\widehat{m}\widehat{n})\widehat{n})/r`$ we obtain

$$\widehat{n}\times \stackrel{}{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=\left(\frac{1}{2r}\right)\frac{\widehat{n}\times \widehat{m}}{1+\widehat{n}\widehat{m}}.$$
(52)
But noting that the vector potential (48) may also be expressed as $`\stackrel{}{A}=\left(\frac{1}{2r}\right)\frac{\widehat{z}\times \widehat{n}}{1+\widehat{n}\widehat{z}}`$, we see by comparison that $`\widehat{n}\times \stackrel{}{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$, and hence the invariant phase gradient $`\stackrel{}{}\eta \stackrel{}{A}`$, is the vector potential in a fixed gauge (specified by (52)) for a magnetic monopole of charge $`1/2`$ centered at the origin with the string singularity running along the $`\widehat{m}`$ axis. Thus, the phase gradient $`\stackrel{}{}\eta `$ is nothing more than the sum of two vector potentials for two magnetic charges of opposite sign at the origin, with the respective Dirac flux strings running along the directions $`\widehat{z}`$ and $`\widehat{m}`$. Equivalently, we can say that the phase gradient $`\stackrel{}{}\eta `$ is the local vector potential at the exterior of single trapped-flux-line running along $`\widehat{z}`$ axis into the origin and exiting along the $`\widehat{m}`$ axis (Fig. 1), with the flux enclosed being $`1/2\times 4\pi =2\pi `$.

Some global properties of the phase dependence now become evident. First, the invariant phase gradient has only vortex-like singularity at $`\widehat{n}=\widehat{m}`$, where the amplitude $`\widehat{m}|\widehat{n}`$ vanishes, with a circulation $`(\stackrel{}{}\eta \stackrel{}{A}).d\stackrel{}{l}=2\pi `$. On the other hand, the actual phase gradient has, generically, two such singularities with circulation $`\stackrel{}{}\eta .d\stackrel{}{l}=\pm 2\pi `$ at the two points on the unit sphere where the flux line crosses. One of these points is fixed to be $`\widehat{n}=\widehat{m}`$ corresponding to the actual singularity at $`\widehat{m}|\widehat{n}=0`$; the other point reflects the string singularity in the connection and is therefore dependent on the choice of section $`|\widehat{n}`$. Note that while additional singularities may be created by means of singular gauge transformations, the string singularity associated with the connection cannot be removed. The exception is when the string singularity happens to be precisely at $`\widehat{n}=\widehat{m}`$, in which case both singular points disappear and the phase is essentially a constant up to non-singular gauge transformations.

## V Additional Phase/Modulo Relations on the Ray Space

So far, we have considered phase/modulo relations for transition amplitudes of the form $`\psi _f|\psi `$ where $`|\psi `$ is a section of the holomorphic bundle over an arbitrary complex pure quantum state manifold. Any such space is itself a complex submanifold of the so-called ray space $``$, the entire space of pure quantum states modulo a phase transformation. If $`n+1`$ is the dimensionality of the Hilbert space of the quantum system, then the ray space is the complex projective space $`P^{n1}`$. A state section $`|\psi `$ over $``$ is therefore a section over a holomorphic line bundle as well, and hence the results of the previous section hold without change. However, on the ray space, it is possible to establish an additional geometric relation between the transition probability $`p=|\psi _f|\psi |^2`$ and geodesic distances on $``$ as measured with the quantum metric. By virtue of the generalized Cauchy-Riemann conditions 30, this new relation has far reaching-consequences, as we now show.

On the ray space, the quantum metric $`ds^2=q\left[d\psi |d\psi d\psi |\psi \psi |d\psi \right]`$ is known as the Fubini-Study metric, and is the most natural Riemannian metric on the ray space as it the only one invariant under unitary transformations. Geometrically, the metric arises quite naturally by defining for two arbitrary rays in Hilbert space $`[|\varphi ]`$ and $`[|\psi ]`$ (represented by the normalized states $`|\varphi `$ and $`|\psi `$), the distance function anaha90b

$$s(\varphi ,\psi )=\sqrt{q}\mathrm{cos}^1|\psi |\varphi |.$$
(53)
The Fubini-Study metric is then obtained by choosing $`|\varphi `$ and $`|\psi `$ on the same section and taking the limit when $`|\varphi `$ goes to $`|\psi `$, in which case

$$|\varphi |\psi +|d\psi +\frac{1}{2}|d^2\psi ,$$

thus yielding the infinitesimal distance function $`ds(\varphi ,\psi )=\sqrt{q}\sqrt{d\psi |d\psi d\psi |\psi \psi |d\psi }.`$

From the above considerations it holds, therefore, that the modulus of the amplitude $`\psi _f|\psi (\xi )`$ can be expressed as a function of the Fubini-Study geodesic distance $`s(\xi )`$ between the rays $`[|\psi ]`$ and the fixed state $`[|\psi _f]`$, according to

$$\sqrt{p(\xi )}=\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{s(\xi )}{\sqrt{q}}\right).$$
(54)
From this, we deduce that the gradient of $`\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}`$ is given by

$$\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{q}}\mathrm{tan}\left(\frac{s}{\sqrt{q}}\right)s.$$

Now, since the modulus of the gradient measures the rate of change with respect to the metric length, it is clear that

$$|s|^2=1.$$
(55)
Translated in terms of $`\sqrt{p}`$, we then have that

$$q|\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}|^2=\mathrm{tan}^2\left(\frac{s}{\sqrt{q}}\right)=\frac{1}{p}1.$$
(56)
A brief comment on the statistical interpretation of this expression is in order. On the ray space, we may define for any observable $`\widehat{A}`$, the corresponding expectation value function $`A(\xi )=\psi |\widehat{A}|\psi `$. It is then possible to show (see e.g. brodyhugh ) that the uncertainty $`\mathrm{\Delta }A^2=\psi |\widehat{A}^2|\psi A(\xi )^2`$ is related to the gradient of $`A(\xi )`$ by

$$\frac{4}{q}\mathrm{\Delta }A^2=g^{\mu \nu }(_\mu A)(_\nu A)=|A|^2,$$

where $`g^{\mu \nu }`$ is the inverse to the Fubini-Study metric. Taking $`\widehat{A}`$ to be the projection operator $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}=|\psi _f\psi _f|`$, we obtain $`\mathrm{\Pi }=p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Pi }^2=p(1p)`$. Thus,

$$|p|^2=\frac{4}{q}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Pi }^2=\frac{4}{q}p(1p),$$
(57)
which can be seen to follow directly from (56). Therefore, the connection between the transition probability and the Fubini-Study metric is such that the variantion of $`p`$ with respect to the geodesic distance is, up to a proportionality constant, the variance in the frequency with which $`|\psi _f`$ is obtained given $`|\psi `$ wootters .

Let us then proceed to explore a number of consequences that follow from this connection in conjunction with previously obtained results stemming from the generalized Cauchy-Riemann conditions (30). Thus far we have seen that from the phase of $`\psi _f|\psi `$ it is possible to recover the functional dependence of its modulo be means of line integration. It is now easy to show that in the ray space, the modulus of the amplitude can also be obtained by differentiation of the phase. For this we note, as shown earlier, that from the generalized Cauchy Riemann conditions and the definition of the quantum metric it follows that $`|\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}|^2=|\eta 𝑨|^2.`$ Using (56) we see therefore that

$$|\eta 𝑨|^2=1/p1,$$

and hence that the transition probability can also be expressed as

$$p=\frac{1}{1+q|\eta 𝑨|^2}.$$
(58)
In other words, we see that the amplitude can be parameterized entirely in terms of its phase factor according to

$$\psi _f|\psi =\frac{e^{i\eta }}{\sqrt{1+q|\eta 𝑨|^2}}.$$
(59)
a form that, if the invariant phase gradient is treated as some velocity field as in semi-classical physics, bears a slight resemblance to the WKB formula $`\psi (x)e^{i\eta }/\sqrt{|\eta ^{}|}`$ in one dimension (note however the different powers of $`\eta ^{}`$ in the radical).

The resemblance is sufficiently intriguing to motivate a interpretation of the invariant phase gradient as a sort of velocity field of certain trajectories on the ray space. This can be done as follows. From the generalized Cauchy-Riemann condition (30), we have that

$$_\mu \mathrm{log}\sqrt{p}=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mu \nu }V^\nu .$$
(60)
Using (58), we substitute $`p=(1+qV_\lambda V^\lambda )^1`$ to obtain

$$\frac{q}{2}\frac{_\mu (V_\nu V^\nu )}{1+qV_\lambda V^\lambda }=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mu \nu }V^\nu $$
(61)
We now use the fact that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu (V_\nu V^\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`V^\nu _\mu V_\nu `$ (62)
$`=`$ $`V^\nu _\nu V_\mu +V^\nu (_\mu V_\nu _\nu V_\mu )`$
$`=`$ $`V^\nu _\nu V_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{2}{q}}V^\nu \mathrm{\Omega }_{\mu \nu }`$
where we have used the fact that $`𝒅𝑽=𝒅(𝒅\eta 𝑨)=𝒅𝑨=\frac{2}{q}𝛀`$. Hence we have that

$$_𝑽V^\mu =\frac{1}{q}\left(1q|𝑽|^2\right)\mathrm{\Omega }^\mu {}_{\nu }{}^{}V_{}^{\nu },$$
(63)
where $`_𝑽=V^\nu _\nu `$ is the covariant derivative along the vector field $`V^\mu `$. Now note that because of the anti-symmetry of $`𝛀`$, the magnitude of $`𝑽`$ is preserved along its integral lines, i.e., $`_𝑽|𝑽|^2=0`$, in consistency with the the fact that the transition probability is constant in the direction of $`𝑽`$. Parameterizing the integral curves of $`𝑽`$ in terms of the geodesic distance along the curve as $`V^\mu =|𝑽|\frac{d\xi ^\mu }{ds},`$ we obtain the equation

$$\frac{d^2\xi ^\mu }{ds^2}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu \lambda }^\mu \frac{d\xi ^\nu }{ds}\frac{d\xi ^\lambda }{ds}=e_{|𝑽|}F^\mu {}_{\nu }{}^{}\frac{d\xi ^\mu }{ds}$$
(64)
where $`e_{|𝑽|}`$ is a specific constant to each curve given by

$$e_{|𝑽|}=\frac{1q|𝑽|^2}{2|𝑽|},$$

and $`F^\mu _\nu `$ is the field strength associated with the Berry-Simon connection $`(𝑭=𝒅𝑨)`$. From this we see that integral curves of the invariant phase gradient vector field $`V^\mu `$ are in correspondence with trajectories on the ray space of charged particles subject to the magnetic field associated with the Berry-Simon connection.

Finally, it is worth noting a simplification on the ray space of the scalar integrability condition (39b) that follows from relation (56), namely

$$^2p=\frac{4(k+1)}{q}\left[p\frac{1}{k+1}\right].$$
(65)
Since the ray space is compact, $`_{}𝑑\mu ^2p=0`$, and therefore a volume integration over the entire space of this equation entails that

$$p_{}=\frac{_{}𝑑\mu p}{_{}𝑑\mu }=\frac{1}{k+1},$$

in consistency with the fact that the average of $`|\psi \psi |`$ over the entire ray space should be the completely mixed density matrix of a $`k+1`$ dimensional Hilbert space. Equation (65) then tells us that the deviation of the transition probability from its average value on the ray space is an eigenfunction of the laplacian operator with eigenvalue $`\frac{4}{q}(k+1)`$. This is easily verified for the Bloch sphere ($`k=1`$ and choosing $`q=4`$), in which case $`p\frac{1}{2}=\frac{1}{2}\widehat{n}\widehat{m}`$ is made up of spherical harmonics of order $`l=1`$.

## VI Geometric Phases

To conclude, we connect the present results with known results on geometric phases. As a first application we make a connection with a result of Samuel and Bhandari on the Pancharatnam phase. Pancharatnam suggested that an operational definition of what it meant for to quantum states to be “in” or ”out of” phase was naturally provided by the inner product between the two states. The phase $`\eta =\mathrm{arg}\psi _f|\psi `$ is therefore also called the Pancharatnam phase difference. Samuel and Bhandari sambhand  have shown that this phase has an intrinsic geometric meaning as it can be obtained from the Berry-Simon connection using the geodesic rule, i.e,

$$\eta =𝑑\xi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu }A_\mu $$
(66)
where the integral is evaluated along the geodesic connecting the ray $`[|\psi _f]`$ with $`[|\psi ]`$ and where it is assumed that $`|\psi _f`$ is an element of the same state section as $`|\psi `$. With the aid of the Cauchy-Riemann and the relationship between $`p`$ and the geodesic distance, it is now seen that for an arbitrary integration path between the two rays (67) generalizes to

$$\eta =\eta _o+𝑑\xi ^\mu A_\mu +\frac{1}{\sqrt{q}}𝑑\xi ^\mu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }_{\nu }^{}s\mathrm{tan}\frac{s}{\sqrt{q}},$$
(67)
where $`s`$ denotes the geodesic distance from the initial ray to point of integration. If the path of integration is chosen along the geodesic, then from the anti-symmetry of the Kähler form the differential $`d\xi ^\mu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu ^\nu _\nu s`$ vanishes and equation is obtained up to the phase relating $`|\psi _f`$ with the element of the section $`|\psi `$ at $`[|\psi _f]`$.

Next, we turn to geometric phases under time evolution. As is well known, in the course of time evolution the amplitude between the instantaneous state of a system $`|\psi ;t`$, and the initial state $`|\psi ;0`$ acquires a total phase that can be decomposed into a dynamical phase $`𝑑tE(t)=𝑑t\psi ;t|\widehat{H}(t)|\psi ;t`$ and a geometric part. It has been shown by Aharonov and Anandan anaha87  that when the system undergoes a cyclic evolution so that the state returns to the initial ray, the geometric contribution to the phase difference acquired is given by $`𝑨`$. The result generalizes a previous result by Berryberry , in which the same geometric phase difference is acquired in the course of adiabatic evolution if the initial state is initially an eigenstate of an adiabatically varying Hamiltonian.

We now wish to generalize the above results by showing that the phase difference between the exact state $`|\psi ;t`$ and any arbitrary state $`|\psi _f`$ can also be separated into dynamic and geometric contributions and give explicit formulas for the geometric component. The idea then is to consider the phase of an amplitude $`\psi _f|\psi ;t`$

$$\beta =\mathrm{arg}\psi _f|\psi ;t$$

where the state $`|\psi ;t`$ satsifies the evolution equation

$$i_t|\psi ;t=\widehat{H}(t)|\psi ;t.$$

We consider, as an intermediate step, some arbitrary state section $`|\psi (\xi )`$ on the $`U(1)`$ bundle over the ray space, so that at any given time the time evolved state may be written as

$$|\psi ;t=e^{i\varphi (t)}|\psi (\xi (t)).$$

Substituting into the Schr odinger equation and taking the inner product with $`|\psi ;t`$, we then find that the phase factor $`\varphi (t)`$ satisfies

$`\dot{\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`\psi |\widehat{H}(t)|\psi +i\psi (\xi )|_t|\psi (\xi )`$
$`=`$ $`E(t)A_\mu \dot{\xi }^\mu .`$
Now, letting $`\eta =\mathrm{arg}\psi _f|\psi `$, we then have

$`\dot{\beta }`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{\varphi }+\dot{\eta }`$ (68)
$`=`$ $`E(t)A_\mu \dot{\xi }^\mu +\eta _{,\mu }\dot{\xi }^\mu .`$ (69)
Thus we recognize the term $`\eta _{,\mu }A_\mu `$ as the invariant phase gradient for the transition amplitude corresponding to the state section in question. We can then apply the generalized Cauchy-Riemann conditions to deduce finally that

$$\dot{\beta }=E(t)\dot{\xi }^\mu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }_{\nu }^{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p(\xi )}.$$
(70)
The result shows that in the course of time evolution, the amplitude $`\mathrm{arg}\psi _f|\psi ;t`$ acquires aside from the dynamical phase, a geometric component

$$\beta _g=𝑑\xi ^\mu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }_{\nu }^{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p(\xi )}.$$
(71)
To see the connection between this result and the cyclic geometric phase we recall that the curl of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }_{\nu }^{}\mathrm{log}\sqrt{p(\xi )}𝒅\xi ^\mu `$ is the same curl as the curl of $`𝑨`$. Thus, when the evolution on the ray space is cyclic, we obtain the usual geometric phase $`𝑨`$. Note also that the present results are can be extended to any complex submanifold of $``$ if under time evolution the state remains on the manifold, for instance by virtue of adiabatic time evolution.

## VII  Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Y. Aharonov, J. Anandan, P. Mazur and E.C.G. Sudarshan for helpful discussions. This work was supported in part by the Office of naval Research under grant no. N00014-00-1-0383.