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# Optical spectroscopy of the M 15 intermediate velocity cloud Based on observations made with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-m, U.S.A., Very Large Telescope, Chile, and William Herschel Telescope, La Palma, Spain.

## 1 Introduction

Fine-scale structure in low velocity interstellar gas, over scales ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of AU, has been found by many different workers using a variety of techniques, including observations of pulsars, globular clusters and binary stellar systems that act as tracers of the interstellar medium (e.g. Frail et al. 1994; Kennedy et al. 1998a; Andrews et al. 2001). The presence of this structure implies dense clumps of gas in otherwise diffuse sightlines, and large overpressures with respect to the interstellar thermal pressure of $``$ 3000 cm-3 K (Welty & Fitzpatrick 2001). Regardless of whether such clumps exist or are simply an illusion caused by geometric effects (Heiles 1997), the small-scale structures must be explained by any model of the interstellar medium.

For gas at intermediate and high velocities, fewer studies of small-scale structure exist, due to the difficulty in finding relatively bright, closely-spaced probe objects at distances greater than the absorbing material. One obvious location for probe stars is globular clusters. Hence Kerr & Knapp (1972) performed an absorption-line survey towards many such objects, in particular finding an intermediate-velocity cloud towards M 15, a globular cluster that lies at a distance of $``$ 10 kpc (Carretta et al. 2000). This cloud is a part of the IVC Complex gp (Wakker 2001), a cloud complex located in the line-of-sight towards the HVC Complex GP. Parts of Complex gp are likely to lie at a distance exceeding 0.8 kpc (Little et al. 1994). The distance towards the M 15 IVC is uncertain, although is likely to be less than 3kpc (Smoker et al. 2001). The study of parts of this cloud is the subject of the current paper.

Previous optical observations of the M 15 IVC include low-resolution Ca ii K ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=3933.663Å) and Na i D ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}^{\mathrm{D2}}`$=5889.950Å and $`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}^{\mathrm{D1}}`$=5895.924Å) absorption-line spectroscopy (Lehner et al. 1999) towards 12 cluster stars, which found that the equivalent widths of the IV component in Ca ii K range from 0.05 to 0.20 Å, although any variation from star-to-star appeared random and is close to the error in the measurement. Langer et al. (1990) also found variations in IVC Na i D equivalent widths of a factor $``$ 3 over the cluster face for a handful of stars. Fibre-optic array mapping in the Na i D absorption lines towards the cluster centre (Meyer & Lauroesch 1999) also found structure visible on scales of $``$ 4 arcsec at a velocity resolution of $``$ 16 km s-1. Using empirical relationships between the Na and H i column densities, Meyer & Lauroesch (1999) derived values of the H i column density towards the cluster centre of $``$ 5$`\times `$1020 cm-2, which imply a volume density of $``$ 1000 cm-3. This compares with the IVC H i column density towards this point, at a resolution of $``$ 2$`\times `$1 arcmin, of $``$ 4$`\times `$1019 cm-2, measured by Smoker et al. (2002) using a combined Arecibo-Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope map. This H i map, shown in Fig. 1, demonstrates that the IV H i column density is actually quite small towards the cluster centre, with a stronger IV column density, still relatively near to the cluster centre, being at R.A.$``$ 21h29m40s, Dec.$``$ 120920′′. One of the aims of the current study is thus to determine the Na i column density (and variations over small scales), in areas of the IVC where the H i is strong. Additionally, the H i observations show indications of multicomponent structure in velocity, perhaps indicative of cloudlets. Hence it was decided to search for such structure using higher spectral resolution observations than those employed by Meyer & Lauroesch (1999).

Candidate stars were chosen from the simbad astronomical database where they are all listed as being cluster members. However, a-priori a radial velocity measurement was only available for about half of the stars, and, after analysis of the data, it was found that 4 of the objects were field stars in the line-of-sight towards M 15. The majority of the sample are listed in Battistini et al. (1985), although also included are the single objects KGSY 121 (Kadla et al. 1988), M 15 ZNG-1 (Zinn et al. 1972), and BRO 24 (Brown 1951). The locations of the sample stars are depicted in Fig. 2. Three cluster stars (group ‘A’ in Fig. 2) lie near a peak in the IVC H i column density, with four cluster stars (group ‘B’) at positions where the IVC H i column density is approximately half of this value.

Section 2 describes the observations, Sect. 3 details the data reduction and analysis performed to obtain column densities towards the IVC, Sect. 4 gives the main results, Sect. 5 provides the discussion, and in Sect. 6 the conclusions and suggestions for future work are presented.

## 2 Observations

The observations towards the M 15 IVC were taken during three sessions in June-August 2001, using echelle spectrometers mounted on the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-m (APO3.5), 8.2-m Very Large Telescope (UT2; Kueyen), and 4.2-m William Herschel telescope (WHT). The post-AGB star whose spectrum was obtained with the VLT, M 15 ZNG-1, was observed in order to obtain its stellar abundance (Mooney et al. 2002), with the interstellar absorption components described here being detected serendipitously. In order to determine the contribution from the night-sky spectrum to the observed data, frequent observations of rapidly-rotating B-type stars were taken which acted as the telluric standards. For the APO3.5 and WHT observations, arc line spectra were taken frequently during the night, and hence the derived velocities are accurate to better than 0.5 km s-1, being 3 times the root mean square error on the polynomial fit to the arc-line wavelength calibration. For the VLT-observed star, arcs were only taken at the start and end of each night, thus the wavelength accuracy depends on the stability of the spectrometer. The stellar sample and observing details are listed in Table 1.

## 3 Data reduction and analysis

The APO3.5 and WHT data were reduced using standard methods within iraf111 iraf is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, U.S.A.. This included debiasing, wavelength calibration and extraction of the individual orders using doecslit. No flatfielding was performed. For the APO3.5 observations, the limited height of the slit (3.0 arcsec) precluded sky subtraction, and hence we performed a single 750-s exposure on the dark sky to estimate the contribution of the full moon to the night sky brightness. This added between 10$``$20 per cent to the continuum level for our targets, and was subtracted before the extraction was performed.

For the VLT-observed star, we used data products obtained from the pipeline-calibration which includes wavelength calibration, sky subtraction and flatfielding. The extracted spectra were imported into dipso (Howarth et al. 1996), shifted to the Dynamical Local Standard of Rest (LSR) using values obtained from the starlink programme rv (Wallace & Clayton 1996), and normalised by fitting low-order polynomials to the continuum. The radial velocities of the stars were determined by use of the two stellar Na D lines for the cluster objects, and where possible using Ca i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=6717.681Å) for the field stars, with the exception of M 15 ZNG-1 for which we used the Si iii features ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=4552.622Å, 4567.840Å). The broader H$`\delta `$ and H$`\beta `$ lines were used as a check on the derived velocity. Finally, the normalised spectra were analysed using both the apparent optical depth (AOD) method (Savage & Sembach 1991) and standard Voigt profile fitting within dipso using the elf and is programs, for which we used oscillator strengths of 0.6340, 0.318, 0.6306 and 0.33919 for the Ca K, Na D1, Na D2 and K i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=7698.974Å) lines, respectively (Welty et al. 1999). The derived fits were convolved with an instrumental $`b`$-value of 0.6006 times the FWHM shown in Table 1. The errors on the derived equivalent widths (EWs) were estimated from a combination of the baseline uncertainty plus the photon noise, and those on the column densities from the EW error, assuming a linear curve of growth.

## 4 Results

Figures 3 and 5 show the Na D spectra towards the 11 sample stars. Inspection of the telluric spectra indicate that the only possible contaminating features caused by atmospheric absorption are at $``$ 5896.46Å and $``$ 5893.83Å, which have equivalent widths of $``$ 5 mÅ, compared to $``$ 90$``$200 mÅ for the IV Na D2 equivalent widths. Additionally, for both the APO3.5 and WHT spectra, there is some narrow emission present at the wavelengths of the Na D doublet (5889.950Å and 5895.924Å), presumably caused by street lights. This ranged in LSR velocity from $``$+20 to +35 km s-1, so was just far enough removed in velocity so as not to contaminate the IV absorption-line at $``$ 65 km s-1.

The spectra are composite, and in 7 cases show a stellar component at $``$ $``$100 km s-1, low-velocity (LV) components centred upon $``$ 0 km s-1 and intermediate-velocity (IV) components at $``$ +60$``$70 km s-1. Velocities of the M 15 cluster stars range from $``$ $``$93 to $``$102 km s-1, and, at their radial distance from the centre, are each within the range of velocities observed towards M 15 by Drukier et al. (1998): the cluster having a mean LSR velocity of $``$97.1 km s-1 and velocity dispersion that changes with distance from the centre. For the M 15 cluster stars (excepting M 15 ZNG-1, which is a pAGB), we measure Na i D1 equivalent widths of between 140 and 250 mÅ, corresponding to A$``$F spectral types (Gratton & Sneden 1987; Jaschek & Jaschek 1987).

Tables 2 and 3 show the results of the profile-fitting to the IV interstellar spectra for the Na D and Ca K lines, respectively. This yields the central velocities, $`b`$-values and column densities of the IV components. For the three cluster stars in group ‘A’ (near a peak in the IVC H i column density), the derived column densities in the Na D1 line are $``$ 0.25 dex higher than those obtained for the Na D2 line, indicating that saturation is occurring in these sightlines, and that the derived column densities are lower limits.

Towards the non-detections, we estimated a 10$`\sigma `$ limiting equivalent width that would be detected using the current data, EWlim, thus;

$$\mathrm{EW}_{\mathrm{lim}}=10\sigma _{\mathrm{cont}}\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda _{\mathrm{instr}},$$
(1)
where $`\sigma _{\mathrm{cont}}`$ is 1/(continuum signal-to-noise ratio) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda _{\mathrm{instr}}`$ is the instrumental full width half maximum (FWHM) in Å. The limiting values of the Na i column densities were estimated by using the EWlim values estimated above, and $`b`$-values corresponding to the nearest star for which there were an IV gas detection, assuming that we are on the linear part of the curve of growth. Towards M 15 ZNG-1, the above equation was also used to derive upper limits to the column densities of Fe i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=3859.9111Å), Al i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=3944.0060Å) and K i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=4044.143Å). The 10$`\sigma `$ upper limits of log10($`N`$ cm-2) of these species of 12.6, 11.9 and 13.1 are high, and are not discussed further in this paper.

Figure 4 shows the K i spectra of the five stars observed with the APO3.5 (the other two observing runs not covering this wavelength region). In three of the sightlines, there are indications of IV absorption in K i. Although the signal-to-noise of the data are low, we believe that the intermediate-velocity absorption detected towards the cluster stars is likely to be interstellar in nature because; (1) There are no telluric features at the same wavelength as the IV absorption, either in the two field stars or telluric standards; (2) The features are unlikely to be stellar because the centres of two nearby lines (blueshifted by the stellar velocity) of Nb i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=7703.33Å) and Cl i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=7702.829Å) would be more than 4 km s-1 away from the IV absorption peak (at least for the stars BBFP 438 and BBFP 456); (3) The FWHM velocity widths of the IV absorption of $``$ 7$``$10 km s-1 (uncorrected for instrumental broadening: the components are unresolved) are somewhat narrower than the Na D1 stellar profiles which have uncorrected FWHM velocity widths from 13$``$16 km s-1. As a species, K i tends to have narrow velocity components, the median width FWHM of 54 Galactic sightlines observed by Welty & Hobbs (2001) being $``$ 1.2 km s-1. Equivalent widths, velocities, and column densities of the IV K i components are shown in Table 4.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 The distance to the M 15 IVC

We note that in principle the fact that we have obtained non-detections towards 4 field stars in Na D could enable us to determine a lower-distance limit to this part of the IVC, if the distances to the objects were known. Of the three field stars, two (BBFP 394 and BBFP 493), have $`V`$ magnitudes in the range delineated by the cluster stars in the current paper (see Buonanno et al. 1983), with BBFP 442 being towards the bright end of the cluster star magnitude range ($`m_V`$=12.46). The ($`BV)`$ and $`(UB)`$ colours of the field stars are $``$ 0.2$``$0.3 mag and 0.2$``$0.6 mag. bluer, respectively, than the median values for our sample of cluster stars. With the current data, due to the difficulty in ascribing a luminosity class for the field stars, we have not estimated their distances. Additionally, we note that a recent compilation of IVC and HVC Na D column densities by Wakker (2001) has indicated that to be sure of detecting an interstellar absorption in Na D towards an IVC with $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$=1019 cm-2, a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) exceeding $``$ 1000$``$2000 is required. Hence, even though the IV H i column densities exceed 1020 cm-2 towards three of our field-star sightlines, the observed SNRs of $``$ 30$``$40 in the stars without an IVC detection preclude us from making any statements about the distance to this part of the IVC.

### 5.2 Two-component velocity structure

The presence of two-component velocity structure in IVCs and HVCs indicates the presence of cloudlets, collisions between which have been postulated as a mechanism for star formation in the halo of the Galaxy (Dyson & Hartquist 1983, although see Christodoulou et al. 1997 and Ramspeck et al. 2001). One of our observed stars, BRO 24, was chosen as a target as it lies near to a position in the IVC H i map where there are indications of two-component structure (Smoker et al. 2002). Unfortunately, this star turned out to be a field star. However, towards the object M 15 ZNG-1, we did detect two components (at $``$ +53 and +64 km s-1), in both Ca K and Na D, depicted in Fig. 5, indicating overlapping velocity components in the line-of-sight.

### 5.3 Na i and H i column densities and small-scale variations

Wakker (2001) has summarized the presently-existing absorption-line data for all species reported towards H i clouds, finding that, for LV gas, there is a mean Na i/H i column density ratio of $``$ 5$`\times `$10-9, but with a large range exceeding a factor of 10. Some IVCs (such as the LLIV arch) have similar values to this mean, with others, such as previous measurements towards the M 15 IVC (Complex gp) showing somewhat higher values, ranging from (10$``$160)$`\times `$10-9 (Langer et al. 1990; Kennedy et al. 1998b; Meyer & Lauroesch 1999). The Na i/H i column density ratios for the current dataset (based upon H i data of resolution $``$ 1$`\times `$2 arcmin), vary from $``$ (1$``$3)$`\times `$10-8, and by as much as a factor of $``$ 2 in sightlines only separated by 30 arcsec.

Towards the 7 M 15 cluster stars, we derive logarithmic column densities ($`N`$ in cm-2), log10($`N`$), of between $``$ 11.8$``$12.5, the latter value being a lower limit due to saturation. This corresponds to a factor $``$ 6 variation in column density between parts of group ‘A’ and ‘B’, which compares to a variation in Na i IVC column density of $``$ 16 over less than an arcminute towards the centre of the cloud (Meyer & Lauroesch 1999).

For the ‘A’ group of 3 stars, within the errors, two (BBFP 437, 438) have the same value of Na i column density, with BBFP 456 (separated by $``$ 30′′ from BBFP 438), having a value $``$ 70 per cent lower than the other two. A rough estimate of the volume density can be made using these data. Assuming that the IVC is at a distance of 1 kpc, the separation between BBFP 456 and the other two stars is $``$ 0.15 pc and the approximate transverse cloud size at full width half maximum column density is thus $``$ 0.3 pc. Following Shaw et al. (1996) and Kennedy et al. (1998b), if this part of the cloud is spherically symmetric, and assuming a $`N`$(Na i)/$`N`$(H i) ratio of 4$`\times `$10-9 appropriate to high-latitude clouds (Ferlet et al. 1985), the resulting volume density for log$`{}_{10}{}^{}(N`$(Na i cm-2))=12.55 is $`n_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ $``$ 1000 cm-3. Clearly if there is sheet-like structure in the IVC, this volume density is an upper limit, and hence we emphasize that given the difficulty in determining the $`N`$(Na i)/$`N`$(H i) ratio and unknown cloud geometry, this implied volume density is very uncertain.

Within the ‘B’ group, three of the stars display similar Na i column density values, apart from M 15 ZNG-1, which is deficient by $``$ 50 per cent, being separated by $``$ 1 arcmin from its closest observed companion, KGSY 121. Towards the stars ARP IV-38 and ARP II-75 (Arp 1955), Kennedy et al. (1998b) found $`N`$(Na i) values of $``$ 1.6$`\times `$1012 cm-2 and 2.5$`\times `$1013 cm-2. Using our IVC H i data of resolution $``$ 2$`\times `$1 arcmin, these correspond to $`N`$(Na i)/$`N`$(H i) values of 4$`\times `$10-8 and 2.5$`\times `$10-7, respectively. The latter value is some $``$ 25 times greater than observed towards M 15 ZNG-1 and is typical of large variations (often exceeding a factor of 10) that can occur in IVCs/HVCs (Wakker 2001). Possible reasons for this are discussed in Meyer & Lauroesch (1999).

### 5.4 Cloud conditions towards the M 15 ZNG-1 sightline

Towards the PAGB star M 15 ZNG-1, the H i column density observed at a resolution of $``$ 2$`\times `$1 arcmin is $`N_{\mathrm{HI}}`$=5$`\times `$1019 cm-2. Our echelle data of SNR $``$ 80 cover Ca i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=4226.728Å), Ca ii K and the Na i D lines, thus providing some information on the properties of the IV gas by use of these unsaturated features. We determine logarithmic column density values for Ca ii, Ca i and Na i of $``$ 12.4, $`<`$10.9 and 11.8, respectively. The Ca i/Ca ii column density ratio is $`<`$0.03. We note that this value is consistent with the composite standard model of the photoionised warm interstellar medium of Sembach et al. (2000) (their Table 5), that gives the ionisation fraction Ca i/Ca ii $``$ 0.02.

Our derived value of $`N`$(Ca ii)/$`N`$(H i) $``$ 5$`\times `$10-8 for the IVC is within the range found for the high Galactic latitude clouds studied by Albert et al. (1993), namely (0.3–30)$`\times `$10-8 cm-2. However, using the observed H i column density in combination with the correlation plot of the Ca ii abundance against H i column density for IVCs/HVCs from Wakker & Mathis (2000), a predicted Ca ii column density of $``$ 1$`\times `$10-8 cm-2 is obtained. This is $``$ 5 times smaller than the observed value. Our derived value of $`N`$(Ca ii)/$`N`$(H i) $``$ 5$`\times `$10-8 implies a depletion of $``$1.6, given a Solar calcium abundance of 2.10$`\times `$10-6 and assuming that Ca ii is the dominant ionisation species. However, the model of the photoionised warm interstellar medium of Sembach et al. (2000), predicts that the Ca ii/Ca iii fraction is $``$ 0.26. This implies that the Ca iii ion is likely to be dominant, particularly as the detection of H$`\alpha `$ emission from the cloud (Smoker et al. 2002) indicates that the gas is partially ionised (although perhaps by collisions and not photoionisation; Sembach 1995).

The $`N`$(Na i)/$`N`$(H i) ratio of $``$ 1.3$`\times `$10-8 towards this sightline compares with the value derived using the correlation for IVCs/HVCs from Wakker & Mathis (2000) of $``$ 0.7$`\times `$10-8. Combined with the Ca result, this again indicates that this part of Complex gp has high ratios of these elements with respect to H i when compared with other HVCs and IVCs (c.f. Wakker 2001). Part of this ‘overabundance’ may be due to the fact that the cloud is partially ionised: Smoker et al. (2002) find that the M 15 IVC has an H$`\alpha `$ flux exceeding 1 Rayleigh, which, using a reasonable value for the size of the cloud and the calculated emission measure, produces a H ii/H i ratio of $``$ 1$``$2$`\times f^{1/2}`$, where $`f`$ is the filling factor of H ii in the IVC.

Towards this sightline, the IVC Na i/Ca ii column density ratio is $``$ 0.25$`\pm `$0.03. Within the interstellar medium, the range of observed values is from $``$ 0.1$``$100; high ratios being found in dense, cold clouds where Ca is depleted onto dust, and low values occurring in the local warm interstellar medium, where heating of dust grains, for example by shocks, causes grain destruction and a mean Na i/Ca ii ratio of $``$ 0.22 (Bertin et al. 1993). In the local ISM, some 15$``$25 per cent of H i clouds with anomalous velocities exceeding 20 km s-1 show such low ratios (see Bertin et al. 1993 and references therein). Grain destruction by shocks is consistent with the observation of strong H$`\alpha `$ emission, perhaps caused by collisional ionisation. However, grain destruction does not appear to be total, as Smoker et al. (2002) showed that the 60$`\mu `$ IRAS map and IVC H i column density map show spatial correspondence, tentatively indicating the presence of some dust in the M 15 IVC. Additionally, large variations in the Na i/Ca ii ratio have been found to occur in components separated by only a few km s-1, and hence Welty et al. (1996) caution against using this ratio as an indicator of either cloud physical conditions or calcium depletions.

### 5.5 Tentative K i detections

There are few observations of K i ($`\lambda _{\mathrm{air}}`$=7698.974Å) in IVCs and HVCs (Wakker 2001). Because of its relatively low abundance compared with Ca or Na, combined with a low ionisation potential, K i is normally used to probe relatively dense and cool areas of the interstellar medium. Radio-line H i observations towards the peaks of the M 15 IVC imply upper limits to the kinetic temperature (in the absence of turbulence and averaged over $``$ 1 arcmin squared) of less than $``$ 500 K (Smoker et al. 2002), and H i column densities exceeding 1020 cm-2. Hence a priori there was some hope that K i would be detected, given the fact that Na and Ca are relatively abundant in the cloud.

The only previously-known detections of K i in IVCs are towards SN 1993J (Vladilo et al. 1994) and towards the M 15 IVC by Kennedy et al. (1998b). The latter found log10($`N`$(K i) cm-2) $``$ 11.4 for the cluster star M 15 ARP II-75. Using our high-resolution H i map, which has $`N_{\mathrm{IVC}}`$(H i) $``$1$`\times `$1020 cm-2, this corresponds to $`N`$(K i)/$`N`$(H i) $``$ 2.5$`\times `$10-9. Towards another cluster star, M 15 ARP II-38, towards which our H i IVC column density map has $`N_{\mathrm{IVC}}`$(H i) $``$ 4$`\times `$1019 cm-2, Kennedy et al. (1998b) obtained an upper limit to log10($`N`$(K i) cm-2) $``$ 10.6, or $`N`$(K i)/$`N`$(H i) $`<`$ 1$`\times `$10-9.

These results are similar to our K i/H i column density ratios of $``$ 0.5$``$3$`\times `$10-9 (taking into account the large uncertainty in the measurements) for three closely-spaced stars. Based on the uncertainty in our IVC K i detections, we choose not to over-interpret our results. However, we note that both the current data, and that of Kennedy et al. (1998b), display $`N`$(K i)/$`N`$(H i) values more than 10 times greater than $`N`$(K i)/$`N`$(Htot) ratios (where $`N`$(Htot)=H i \+ 2 H2) observed towards Galactic sightlines (Fig. 17 of Welty & Hobbs 2001). This may be due to a combination of different halo/disc depletions for K, ionisation of the H i in the IVC (and possible H2 content?), and the fact that our H i value is derived from data of poorer spatial resolution than the K i data. Finally, we note that the N(K i)/N(Na i) values are less than 3 times as large in the IVC as compared with the Galactic results of Welty & Hobbs (2001), indicating that the high $`N`$(K i)/$`N`$(H i) value may be caused by one of the factors listed above.

## 6 Summary and Conclusions

At a resolution of $``$ 6.2$``$8.5 km s-1, we have observed absorption in Na i D at intermediate velocities towards 7 stars within the globular cluster M 15. One of these sightlines was also observed in Ca ii K, and three in K i. The Na i and Ca ii to H i column density ratios lie within the range previously observed in high latitude clouds, although both are in the upper echelons of the observed distribution for IVCs and HVCs, perhaps partly caused by ionisation of H. Variations in the Na i column density of between 0 to $``$ 70 per cent towards the IVC have been detected on scales of $``$ 30 arcsec (or $``$ 0.15pc, assuming a cloud distance of 1 kpc). Over the whole cloud, the Na i/H i column density ratio varies by as much as a factor of $``$ 25.

The Na i/Ca ii column density ratio of $``$ 0.25 is typical of gas in the local warm interstellar medium. This, and the presence of strong H$`\alpha `$ emission towards this sightline, raises the possibility that shock ionisation and grain destruction is occurring in the IVC, although the presence of weak IRAS flux implies that grain destruction is not total. Three cluster stars also show tentative detections of K i (7698.974Å), with $`N`$(K i)/$`N`$(H i) ratios of $``$ 0.5$``$3$`\times `$10-9.

Future observations should concentrate on determining the distance to this part of IVC Complex gp, via spectroscopy of field stars located towards regions of strong IVC H i column density. Towards the H i peaks, a signal-to-noise exceeding $``$ 20 in Ca K would be sufficient at a 10$`\sigma `$ level to interpret a non-detection as being a lower-distance limit, allowing for a factor of 5 variation in the $`N`$(Ca ii)/$`N`$(H i) ratio and with a resolution of $``$ 0.1Å. Finally, UV observations towards the IVC would much better constrain the gas parameters in the IVC. Although the faintness of the M 15 stars precludes this with currently-existing space-based facilities, progress may be possible using the planned Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope.

###### Acknowledgements.

Based on observations obtained with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-meter telescope, which is owned and operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium, U.S.A., the William Herschel Telescope, operated by the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma, Spain, and at the European Southern Observatory, Cerro Paranal, Chile (programme ID 67.D-0010A). We would like to thank an anonymous referee for useful comments. JVS is grateful to pparc for financial support and starlink for providing computer facilities.


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# On the communication cost of entanglement transformations

## I Pure state entanglement transformations

The quantification of entanglement began with the study of the following question: assume that two parties, generically referred to as *Alice* and *Bob*, share $`n`$ copies of a bipartite pure state $`|\varphi _{AB}`$ which by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), they would like to convert into a state that has high fidelity to $`k`$ copies of the target state $`|\psi _{AB}`$, with $`k`$ as large as possible. The basic question is then, what is $`limk/n`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$ and the fidelity goes to one?

It turns out bbps  that this optimal asymptotic ratio is equal to $`E(\varphi )/E(\psi )`$, where

$$E(\varphi )=S(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |)=\mathrm{Tr}\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\mathrm{log}\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right)$$

is the von Neumann entropy of Alice’s reduced state. For this reason, $`E`$ is often called the *entropy of entanglement*. One consequence of this result is that pure state entanglement can be interconverted *asymptotically losslessly* between its different forms, justifying the introduction of the *ebit* as a resource quantity, with its ubiquitous “incarnation”, the two–qubit EPR pair state, which, up to a local change of basis, can be written as

$$|\varphi _2^+=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|00+|11\right).$$

For the sake of quantifying entanglement, however, not only local actions by Alice and Bob but *classical communication* was considered unlimited. It is precisely these communication requirements that we study in the present paper, in which we follow Lo’s lo:ccc  suggestion to study the communication complexity of distributed quantumn information processing.

This goal notwithstanding, our point of departure will not be the theory of asymptotically faithful transformations but, rather, its finite (and more refined) variant of transformations from $`|\varphi _{AB}`$ to $`|\psi _{AB}`$ up to fidelity $`1ϵ`$, as laid out in vjn:enttrans , building on previous work nielsen , hardy , lo:popescu:beyond  for the zero–error case.

Up to local unitaries, pure entangled states are uniquely defined by the spectrum of their reduced states (either at Alice’s or Bob’s side), the eigenvalues known as the *Schmidt coefficients* $`\lambda _j`$. Indeed, it is possible to choose bases in the entangled system such that

$$|\varphi _{AB}=\underset{j}{}\sqrt{\lambda _j}|i_A|i_B.$$

The theory relates the feasibility of such an LOCC transformation to the *majorisation order* of the Schmidt coefficients $`(\lambda )`$ of $`|\varphi `$ and $`(\mu )`$ of $`|\psi `$, both vectors arranged in nonincreasing order:

$$|\varphi \stackrel{\text{LOCC}}{}|\psi \text{iff}(\lambda )(\mu ),$$

where $`(\lambda )(\mu )`$ is defined to mean

$$k\underset{j=1}{\overset{k}{}}\lambda _j\underset{j=1}{\overset{k}{}}\mu _j,$$

which can be shown to be equivalent to the existence of a doubly stochastic matrix $`M`$ such that $`(\lambda )=M(\mu )`$. By the results of hardy  and jensen:schack , any such allowed transformation can always be achieved by one–way communication, say from Alice to Bob, of $`2\mathrm{log}\mathrm{rank}\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |`$ classical bits.

The organisation of the paper is as follows. In section II we will explain the mathematical model of approximate pure state transformations and derive our main result, a lower bound on the communication cost of state transformations which holds even if the initial state is supplemented by an unlimited number of EPR pairs, and even if the communication is quantum mechanical. To our knowledge this is the first *quantitative* statement of its kind. (The need for some nonzero amount of communication in certain transformations was pointed out in lo:popescu:beyond .) We then apply the result in section III to the asymptotic transformations mentioned in the introduction, proving a lower bound of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\sqrt{n})`$ on the communication necessary for entanglement dilution, which, up to a constant factor, matches the $`O(\sqrt{n})`$ construction of Lo and Popescu lo:popescu:sqrt  for this task. In section IV we analyse a class of states that require for their creation from EPR pairs communication of the same order as their entanglement, before ending with a discussion of some open problems.

## II A lower bound on the communication cost

Assume that initally Alice and Bob share the state $`|\varphi `$, then execute several rounds of local actions and classical communication, and finally end up with some joint state $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }`$ that has high fidelity to $`|\psi `$. Allowing the use of *quantum bits* to communicate, we give Alice and Bob even more power, thereby potentially reducing the communication cost, while at the same time simplifying the appearance of the protocol: because each of the local actions can be implemented using ancillae and unitary transformations, the whole process can be reduced to a series of exchanges of quantum systems of certain dimensions $`d_i`$ between Alice and Bob, with a final tracing out (discarding) of part of Alice’s and part of Bob’s system. The total communication cost of such a procedure is just $`C=_{i=1}^N\mathrm{log}d_i`$ qubits.

The idea of the lower bound is very simple, and is explained most straightforwardly for *exact* state transformations, when $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }=|\psi \psi |`$. During the process of transformation we monitor a certain quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ associated to Alice’s reduced density operator, showing that, for each qubit communicated, it can only increase by a constant, and then observe that the final partial trace never increases $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ at all. The difference between the initial and the final $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ then provides a lower bound on the communication.

Specifically we shall consider, for $`\rho =\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |`$,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(\rho ):=S_0(\rho )S_{\mathrm{}}(\rho ),$$
(1)
where $`S_\alpha `$ are the *Rényi entropies* renyi  of order $`\alpha `$:

$$S_\alpha (\rho ):=\frac{1}{1\alpha }\mathrm{log}\mathrm{Tr}(\rho ^\alpha ).$$

For $`\alpha =0,1,\mathrm{}`$ the Rényi entropies are defined by continuous extension, with resulting formulas

$`S_0(\rho )`$ $`=\mathrm{log}\mathrm{rank}\rho ,`$
$`S_1(\rho )`$ $`=\mathrm{Tr}(\rho \mathrm{log}\rho ),`$
$`S_{\mathrm{}}(\rho )`$ $`=\mathrm{log}\rho _{\mathrm{}},`$
where $`_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the supremum norm: for selfadjoint operators it is the largest absolute value of an eigenvalue. (Throughout the paper, $`\mathrm{log}`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}`$ are understood to be base $`2`$.) Note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\rho )0`$ since $`S_\alpha (\rho )`$ is nonincreasing in $`\alpha `$ renyi , or by inspection of the definition. Furthermore, if all the non–zero eigenvalues of $`\rho `$ are the same then $`S_0(\rho )=S_{\mathrm{}}(\rho )`$ so that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\rho )=0`$. Otherwise, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\rho )`$ will be strictly greater than zero. Therefore, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\rho )`$ can be interpreted as a measure of the variation in the eigenvalues of $`\rho `$.

The key observation is that, in communication round $`i`$, the Rényi entropy of Alice’s reduced state, whose spectrum characterises the entanglement, cannot change too much. To see this, we assume without loss of generality that it is Alice’s turn to perform a unitary, rotating her reduced state to $`\rho _{AA^{}}`$. This step, obviously, does not change the Rényi entropy at all. Next, she gives Bob the $`d_i`$–dimensional system $`A^{}`$, leaving her with the new reduced state $`\rho _A`$, for which we have the relation (see comm:compl )

$$S_\alpha (\rho _{AA^{}})\mathrm{log}d_iS_\alpha (\rho _A)S_\alpha (\rho _{AA^{}})+\mathrm{log}d_i,$$
(2)
which implies (inserting $`\alpha =0,\mathrm{}`$)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(\rho _A)\mathrm{\Delta }(\rho _{AA^{}})+2\mathrm{log}d_i.$$
(3)
Thus, the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ can increase (or decrease) by at most $`2\mathrm{log}d_i`$ in step $`i`$. After the last round of communication has taken place, the joint state is $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ABA^{}B^{}}=|\psi _{AB}|\iota _{A^{}B^{}}`$. (Note that if this were not a product state, $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }`$ would necessarily not be pure.) Hence, by induction over the number of rounds, summing over the the eqs. (3) yields

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\mathrm{Tr}_{BB^{}}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ABA^{}B^{}}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ABA^{}B^{}}|\right)\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right)+2C.$$
(4)
The effect on $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the final partial trace over the primed system is easy to understand: because the Rényi entropies are additive under tensor products, i.e.

$$S_\alpha (\rho \sigma )=S_\alpha (\rho )+S_\alpha (\sigma ),$$

we obtain

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }& \left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\psi \psi |\mathrm{Tr}_B^{}|\iota \iota |\right)\hfill \\ & =\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\psi \psi |\right)+\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B^{}|\iota \iota |\right),\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
and the rightmost term is nonnegative. This proves

###### Theorem 1

A (deterministic) pure state transformation of $`|\varphi _{AB}`$ into $`|\psi _{AB}`$ requires at least

$$C\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\psi \psi |\right)\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right)\right)$$

bits of communication, even if quantum communication is allowed. $`\mathrm{}`$

We note that in comm:compl  the analogous theorem for the bare Rényi entropies $`S_\alpha `$ was used to prove bounds on the communication required to perform entanglement transformations in an approximate setting. There, changes in $`S_\alpha `$ reflected changes in the amount of entanglement present in the system. The advantage of using $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is precisely that it does not measure entanglement but, rather, variation in the Schmidt coefficients.

###### Remark 2

Obviously, a similar result holds for

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^{\alpha \beta }(\rho ):=S_\alpha (\rho )S_\beta (\rho ),$$

with arbitary $`0\alpha <\beta \mathrm{}`$. Even though $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{\alpha \beta }(\rho )\mathrm{\Delta }(\rho )`$, for some $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ the *increase* of the former quantity in an entanglement transformation may exceed the increase of the latter.

###### Remark 3

As an example of a nontrivial consequence of theorem 1 we may observe that it puts severe restrictions on the entanglement transformations possible *without any communication*: none of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{\alpha \beta }`$ must increase.

For example, from a maximally entangled state only other maximally entangled states (with possibly smaller Schmidt rank) may be obtained. If the Schmidt rank of the target divides that of the initial state this is clearly possible, while inspection of eq. (5) shows that this is also necessary.

For the case of high–fidelity transformations this approach turns out to be too simple: neither $`S_0`$ nor $`S_{\mathrm{}}`$ can be well controlled if we switch from a state to one close by. For example, for the dilution task, which consists of the creation of $`\left(\alpha |00+\beta |11\right)^n`$ from EPR pairs, theorem 1 implies a lower bound of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(n)`$, while we know from lo:popescu:sqrt  that arbitrarily high fidelity can be achieved with $`O\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$ bits of communication.

Instead, we invent robust versions of $`S_0`$, $`S_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$: let the eigenvalues of $`\rho `$ be denoted $`r_j`$ and then define, for $`0ϵ<1`$,

$`S_{0,ϵ}(\rho )`$ $`:=\mathrm{log}\mathrm{min}\{|J|:{\displaystyle \underset{jJ}{}}r_j1ϵ\},`$ (6)
$`S_{\mathrm{},ϵ}(\rho )`$ $`:=\mathrm{log}\mathrm{min}\{\underset{jJ}{\mathrm{max}}r_j:{\displaystyle \underset{jJ}{}}r_j1ϵ\},`$ (7)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\rho )`$ $`:=\mathrm{log}\mathrm{min}\{|J|\left(\underset{jJ}{\mathrm{max}}r_j\right):{\displaystyle \underset{jJ}{}}r_j1ϵ\},`$ (8)
all the minimisations are understood to be over subsets $`J`$ of the eigenvalue indices $`j`$. Note that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\rho )S_{0,ϵ}(\rho )S_{\mathrm{},ϵ}(\rho ),$$
(9)
with equality generally only if $`ϵ=0`$, in which case these quantities reduce to the above $`S_0`$, $`S_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

###### Remark 4

Note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ`$ has the following “high–fidelity” relation to $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\rho )=\mathrm{min}\left\{\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(P\rho P\right):\mathrm{Tr}(\rho P)1ϵ\right\},$$

where the minimisation is over all projections $`P`$ commuting with $`\rho `$, extending the definition of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ to sub–normalised density operators. The operators $`P\rho P`$ can be interpreted as post–measurement states after the event “$`P`$” has occurred, normalised to the event probability.

More generally, we could allow any $`0B𝟙`$ in the above minimisation, such that $`\mathrm{Tr}(\rho B)1ϵ`$, and substituting the post–measurement states $`\sqrt{B}\rho \sqrt{B}`$. (By a result in winter:qstrong  this operator has high fidelity to the state $`\rho `$.) It is easy to see that the resulting quantity is within a distance of $`\mathrm{log}(1ϵ)`$ from $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ`$.

We now prove a few lemmas which will together comprise our method of estimating the communication cost, by providing the tools to estimate $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ`$ for the appropriate reduced states. We begin with the simple observation that for all states $`\rho `$ and $`ϵ^{}<ϵ<1`$:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\rho )`$ $`\mathrm{log}(1ϵ),`$ (10)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\rho )`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ^{}(\rho ).`$ (11)
###### Lemma 5

If for two states $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$, $`\rho \sigma _1ϵ`$, then

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\rho )\mathrm{\Delta }_\sqrt{ϵ}(\sigma )+\mathrm{log}\left(1\sqrt{ϵ}\right).$$

(Where $`_1`$ is the trace norm, for selfadjoint operators given by the sum of the absolute values of all eigenvalues, counting multiplicities.)

*Proof .* To begin, denote the eigenvalue lists of $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ by $`(r)`$ and $`(s)`$, respectively, in nonincreasing order. Then, because (see nielsen:chuang )

$$(r)(s)_1\rho \sigma _1ϵ,$$

we may concentrate on the eigenvalues only. Define, for $`\delta =\sqrt{ϵ}`$,

$$J:=\{j:(1\delta )s_jr_j(1+\delta )s_j\}.$$

Then, for the complement $`J^\mathrm{c}`$ of $`J`$,

$$\delta s\left(J^\mathrm{c}\right)=\underset{jJ}{}\delta s_j\underset{jJ}{}|r_js_j|ϵ,$$

implying

$$\underset{jJ}{}s_j1\sqrt{ϵ}.$$

We may clearly assume that $`s`$ is nonzero on $`J`$, otherwise shrinking $`J`$ without affecting the last inequality.

Thus, by the definition of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\sqrt{ϵ}`$,

$$\mathrm{log}\left(|J|\underset{jJ}{\mathrm{max}}s_j\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_\sqrt{ϵ}(\sigma ).$$

On the other hand, by the definition of $`J`$,

$$jJr_j0,$$

which implies that $`\mathrm{rank}\rho |J|`$. Similarly,

$$jJr_j\left(1\sqrt{ϵ}\right)s_j,$$

implies $`\mathrm{max}_jr_j\left(1\sqrt{ϵ}\right)\mathrm{max}_{jJ}s_j`$. Comparing the last two observations to the definition of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\rho )`$ finishes the proof of the claim. $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Lemma 6

For any two states $`\tau `$ and $`\omega `$, and $`ϵ<1`$,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\tau \omega )\mathrm{\Delta }_\sqrt{ϵ}(\tau )+\mathrm{log}\left(1\sqrt{ϵ}\right).$$

*Proof .* Denote the eigenvalues of $`\tau `$ and $`\omega `$ by $`t_i`$ and $`w_k`$, respectively. Let $`J`$ be a set of indices $`i`$ and $`k`$ such that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\tau \omega )=\mathrm{log}\left(|J|\underset{ikJ}{\mathrm{max}}t_iw_k\right),$$

and

$$(tw)(J)=\underset{ikJ}{}t_iw_k1ϵ.$$
(12)
We shall be interested, for certain $`k`$, in the *sections*

$$S_k:=\{i:ikJ\}$$

*of $`J`$ along $`k`$*, in particular in the set

$$K:=\{k:t(S_k)=\underset{iS_k}{}t_i1\sqrt{ϵ}\}.$$

It follows from the definition of $`K`$ and the constraint of eq. (12) that

$$w(K)=\underset{kK}{}w_k1\sqrt{ϵ}.$$
(13)
The proof is a standard Markov inequality argument: observe that we can rewrite eq. (12) using the sections:

$$1ϵ(tw)(J)=\underset{k}{}w_kt(S_k).$$

Now the right hand side is a probability average over the values $`t(S_k)`$, taken with probability $`w_k`$. We decompose the sum into two contributions which we estimate separately:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 1ϵ& \underset{kK}{}w_kt(S_k)+\underset{kK}{}w_kt(S_k)\hfill \\ & w(K)+\left(1w(K)\right)\left(1\sqrt{ϵ}\right).\hfill \end{array}$$

Hence $`\left(1w(K)\right)\sqrt{ϵ}ϵ`$, which is our claim.

Now define

$$J^{}:=\underset{kK}{}S_k\times \{k\},$$

and successively estimate

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill |J|\underset{ikJ}{\mathrm{max}}(t_iw_k)& |J^{}|\underset{ikJ^{}}{\mathrm{max}}(t_iw_k)\hfill \\ & =\underset{lK}{}|S_l|\underset{ikJ^{}}{\mathrm{max}}(t_iw_k)\hfill \\ & \underset{kK}{}|S_k|\underset{iS_k}{\mathrm{max}}(t_iw_k)\hfill \\ & =\underset{kK}{}w_k\left(|S_k|\underset{iS_k}{\mathrm{max}}t_i\right)\hfill \\ & \underset{kK}{}w_k\mathrm{exp}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }_\sqrt{ϵ}(\tau )\right)\hfill \\ & \left(1\sqrt{ϵ}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }_\sqrt{ϵ}(\tau )\right),\hfill \end{array}$$

the second last line because of $`t(S_k)1\sqrt{ϵ}`$, the last line by eq. (13), which proves the lemma. $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Remark 7

We do not know if a symmetric version of this lemma holds, with an additional term to the right analogous to the one for $`\tau `$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\tau \omega )\stackrel{\mathrm{?}}{}(1ϵ^{})\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ^{}(\tau )+(1ϵ^{})\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ^{}(\omega )+ϵ^{\prime \prime },$$

with $`ϵ^{}`$, $`ϵ^{\prime \prime }`$ functions of $`ϵ`$ which vanish for $`ϵ0`$.

This would constitute a form of “quasi–additivity” for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, since the validity of the analogous reverse inequality

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{2ϵ}(\tau \omega )\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\tau )+\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ(\omega )$$

is quite easy to see. While it may not be useful to improve on our present results, confirmation of the “quasi-additivity” would be of conceptual interest.

We are now ready to state our central result, which applies whenever the output state has high Uhlmann fidelity $`F(\sigma ,\omega )=\left(\mathrm{Tr}\sqrt{\sigma ^{1/2}\omega \sigma ^{1/2}}\right)^2`$ jozsa ; uhlmann  with the desired state, even if the output is mixed:

###### Theorem 8

Consider a state transformation protocol that takes $`|\varphi _{AB}`$ to $`|\psi _{AB}`$ with fidelity $`1ϵ`$, exchanging a total of $`C`$ qubits in the process. Then, with $`\delta =\sqrt[8]{4ϵ}`$,

$$2C\mathrm{\Delta }_\delta \left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\psi \psi |\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right)+2\mathrm{log}(1\delta ).$$

*Proof .* Like in the zero–error case, we follow the increase of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ over the course of the protocol: after the last communication has taken place, the joint state is $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ABA^{}B^{}}`$, and we have (compare eq. (4))

$$2C\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{AA^{}}\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right),$$

where $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{AA^{}}=\mathrm{Tr}_{BB^{}}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }\stackrel{~}{\psi }|`$.

Now, since $`\mathrm{Tr}_{A^{}B^{}}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }\stackrel{~}{\psi }|`$ has fidelity $`1ϵ`$ to $`|\psi _{AB}`$, we can choose a pure state $`|\iota _{A^{}B^{}}`$ such that

$$F(|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ABA^{}B^{}},|\psi _{AB}|\iota _{A^{}B^{}})1ϵ.$$

Introducing $`\psi _A=\mathrm{Tr}_B|\psi \psi |`$ and $`\iota _A^{}=\mathrm{Tr}_B^{}|\iota \iota |`$, we infer, from the monotonicity of the fidelity, that

$$F(\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{AA^{}},\psi _A\iota _A^{})1ϵ,$$

from which it follows by standard inequalities nielsen:chuang  that

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{AA^{}}\psi _A\iota _A^{}_1\sqrt{4ϵ}.$$

Now we can use lemma 5 to lower bound $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{AA^{}}\right)`$ in terms of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\sqrt[4]{4ϵ}}\left(\psi _A\iota _A^{}\right)`$, which is bounded in turn, using lemma 6, by $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\sqrt[8]{4ϵ}}(\psi _A)`$, which proves the theorem. $`\mathrm{}`$

Using the additivity of the Rényi entropies, and that $`S_\alpha \left(\frac{1}{2}𝟙\right)=1`$ for all $`\alpha `$, we observe that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(\rho \frac{1}{2}𝟙\right)=\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\rho ).$$

This implies

###### Corollary 9

The lower bound on $`C`$ of theorem 8 continues to hold even if the starting state $`|\varphi _{AB}`$ is supplemented by unlimited numbers of EPR pairs. $`\mathrm{}`$

Now suppose that $`|\varphi _{AB}`$ can be converted into a high-fidelity copy of $`|\psi _{AB}`$ using an LOCC protocol in which only $`C`$ bits are exchanged between Alice and Bob. By consuming EPR pairs for superdense coding bennett:wiesner , this protocol can be converted into a protocol requiring only $`C/2`$ qubits of communication. Since the lower bound of the corollary applies to the modified protocol, we conclude that for classical communication our bound can be improved by a factor of two.

###### Corollary 10

If the state transformation $`|\varphi _{AB}`$ to $`|\psi _{AB}`$ can be accomplished with fidelity $`1ϵ`$ by exchanging a total of $`C`$ classical bits then, with $`\delta =\sqrt[8]{4ϵ}`$,

$$C\mathrm{\Delta }_\delta \left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\psi \psi |\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right)+2\mathrm{log}(1\delta ).$$

$`\mathrm{}`$

###### Remark 11

Sometimes, direct application of these results can give an overly conservative lower bound because $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right)`$ can be much larger than the corresponding $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right)`$.

Here we note that a lower bound on $`C`$ in terms of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ`$ of both the initial and the final state exists: simply observe that changing the initial state $`|\varphi `$ into some state $`|\varphi ^{}`$ with fidelity $`1ϵ_0`$, the protocol results in a state $`\rho ^{}`$ that has fidelity $`1ϵ_0`$ to $`\rho `$ (because the fidelity does not decrease under completely positive trace preserving maps), which in turn has fidelity $`1ϵ`$ to $`|\psi `$. By a result of bfjs  this implies that the transformation from $`|\varphi ^{}`$ to $`|\psi `$ has fidelity $`1ϵ^{}`$, with some universal function $`ϵ^{}`$ of $`ϵ`$ and $`ϵ_0`$. We may then apply theorem 8 to this transformation.

###### Remark 12

Of course one can also define a robust version of our previous $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{\alpha \beta }`$ (see remark 2):

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ^{\alpha \beta }(\rho ):=\mathrm{min}\left\{\frac{\mathrm{log}\left(_{jJ}r_j^\alpha \right)}{1\alpha }\frac{\mathrm{log}\left(_{jJ}r_j^\beta \right)}{1\beta }\right\},$$

again with minimisation over all subsets of indices $`J`$ such that $`_{jJ}r_j1ϵ`$. Unsurprisingly, a variant of theorem 8 also holds for this quantity:

Consider an entanglement transformation from $`|\varphi `$ to $`|\psi `$ with fidelity $`1ϵ`$ and a total communication cost of $`C`$ qubits. Then, for $`0\alpha <1<\beta \mathrm{}`$,

$$2C\mathrm{\Delta }_\delta ^{\alpha \beta }\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\psi \psi |\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_0^{\alpha \beta }\left(\mathrm{Tr}_B|\varphi \varphi |\right)+\delta ^{},$$

with $`\delta =\sqrt[8]{4ϵ}`$ and $`\delta ^{}=\left(\frac{2\alpha }{1\alpha }+\frac{2\beta }{\beta 1}\right)\mathrm{log}\left(1\sqrt{\delta }\right)`$.

The proof is slightly more cumbersome version of the proof for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\delta =\mathrm{\Delta }_\delta ^0\mathrm{}`$ case.

## III Entanglement concentration and dilution

In bbps  it was shown that, using only local operations, Alice and Bob can convert a state $`|\psi _{AB}^n`$ to a high fidelity approximation of $`|\varphi _2^+^{nE(\psi )O\left(\sqrt{n}\right)}`$. We reproduce the argument here, as the relevant concepts are used again in the dilution protocol and our lower bound.

Diagonalise $`\rho _A=\mathrm{Tr}_B|\psi \psi |=_{i=1}^dr_i|e_ie_i|`$. For a distribution $`P`$ on $`\{1,\mathrm{},d\}`$ we can introduce the *type classes* of sequences $`i^n=i_1\mathrm{}i_n`$:

$$𝒯_P^n:=\{i^n:iN(i|i^n)=nP(i)\},$$

where $`N(i|i^n)`$ counts the number of occurences of $`i`$ in $`i^n`$. The number of non–empty type classes is $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n+d1}{d1}\right)(n+1)^d`$, and the corresponding $`P`$ are called $`n`$*types*.

For $`\delta >0`$ we have the set of *typical sequences*

$$𝒯_{r,\delta }^n:=\{𝒯_P^n:P\text{ s.t. }i|P_ir_i|\frac{\delta \sqrt{r_i(1r_i)}}{\sqrt{n}}\}.$$

Standard facts about these concepts are to be found in wolfowitz  (see also csiszar:koerner ):

$`r^n\left(𝒯_{r,\delta }^n\right)`$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{d}{\delta ^2}},`$ (14)
$`i^n𝒯_P^nr^n(i^n)`$ $`=\mathrm{exp}\left(n(D(Pr)+H(P))\right),`$ (15)
with the relative entropy (or entropy divergence) $`D(Pr)=_iP_i\mathrm{log}\frac{P_i}{r_i}`$. Furthermore,

$`\left|𝒯_{r,\delta }^n\right|`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left(nH(r)+Kd\delta \sqrt{n}\right),`$ (16)
$`\left|𝒯_P^n\right|`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left(nH(P)\right),`$ (17)
$`\left|𝒯_P^n\right|`$ $`(n+1)^d\mathrm{exp}\left(nH(P)\right),`$ (18)
$`\left|𝒯_P^n\right|`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left(nH(r)Kd\delta \sqrt{n}\right)\text{if }P\text{ typical},`$ (19)
for an absolute constant $`K>0`$. These sets allow for the definition of corresponding projectors $`\mathrm{\Pi }_P^n:=_{i^n𝒯_P^n}|e_{i^n}e_{i^n}|`$, and similarly $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\rho ,\delta }^n`$, with probability and trace relations identical to eqs. (1419). Note that $`H(r)=S(\rho )`$, by definition.

The concentration protocol only requires Alice and Bob to each independently perform the projective measurement $`(\mathrm{\Pi }_P^n)_{Pn\text{–type}}`$. (Without loss of generality $`|\psi `$ is in Schmidt diagonal form, and the bases with respect to which the projectors are defined are *identical* eigenbases of the reduced states.) The result $`P`$ will be the same for Alice and Bob, and by eq. (14) it will be typical with probability $`1ϵ`$ (choosing $`\delta `$ large enough). Moreover, by eq. (19) the resulting states $`|\varphi _P`$ are maximally entangled states of Schmidt rank $`\mathrm{exp}\left(nH(r)Kd\delta \sqrt{n}\right)`$. Local measurements, corresponding to a partition of $`𝒯_P^n`$ into blocks of size $`2^m`$ (and a remainder of smaller size), for $`m=nH(r)Kd\delta \sqrt{n}+\mathrm{log}ϵ`$, project this further down to a state isomorphic to $`|\varphi _2^+^m`$, with probability $`1ϵ`$. This shows that $`|\psi ^n`$ can be converted by local operations into $`m`$ EPR pairs, with fidelity $`12ϵ`$, establishing that asymptotically $`|\psi `$ is worth $`E(\psi )`$ EPR pairs.

In the same work it was demonstrated that the reverse is true as well: using LOCC, $`|\varphi _2^+^{nE(\psi )+O\left(\sqrt{n}\right)}`$ can be converted to a high fidelity approximation of $`|\psi _{AB}^n`$.

Alice simply prepares the state $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\rho ,\delta }^n|\psi ^n`$ (properly normalized) locally. By eq. (16) it has Schmidt rank $`\mathrm{exp}\left(nH(r)+Kd\delta \sqrt{n}\right)`$, enabling Alice to teleport teleportation  the half intended for Bob using $`nH(r)+Kd\delta \sqrt{n}`$ EPR pairs.

Note that this method requires communication of $`2nE(\psi )+O\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$ classical bits from Alice to Bob, which is of the order of the entanglement manipulated. Whether this amount can be reduced is, therefore, a legitimate and interesting question. In lo:popescu:sqrt  it was shown that, indeed, communication of $`O\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$ classical bits are sufficient, by the following method:

They demonstrated that there exists a state $`|\chi `$ entangling $`O\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$ qubits, and local unitaries $`U_A`$ and $`U_B`$ such that

$$F((U_AU_B)|\psi ^n,|\varphi _2^+^{nEO\left(\sqrt{n}\right)}|\chi )1ϵ.$$
(20)
This state arises naturally by looking at what was done in the concentration procedure above, in a reversible setting. Applying the same dilution procedure as before but to the smaller state $`|\chi `$, that is, local preparation by Alice followed by teleportation of Bob’s share, then only consumes $`O\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$ ebits and twice that amount of classical communication (as Lo lo:ccc  has shown this factor can be reduced to $`1`$, i.e., a state of Schmidt rank $`d`$ can be prepared using $`\mathrm{log}d`$ bits of entanglement and communicating $`\mathrm{log}d`$ classical bits).

Let us now apply our main result to show that any protocol to create $`|\psi ^n`$ up to fidelity $`1ϵ`$ from EPR pairs must use $`\mathrm{\Omega }\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$ bits of communication:

Noting first that EPR pairs have $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0`$, we have only to lower bound $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\delta \left(\psi _A^n\right)`$ in order to make use of theorem 8. This we do by using eq. (9). First, we show that

$$S_{\mathrm{},\delta }\left(\psi _A^n\right)nE(\psi )D(ϵ)\sqrt{n}+o\left(\sqrt{n}\right),$$

with a constant $`D(ϵ)>0`$ (for $`\delta =\sqrt[8]{4ϵ}<1/2`$):

Observe that $`S_{\mathrm{},\delta }`$ is particularly easy to understand; it is the negative logarithm of the largest eigenvalue such that the sum of the eigenvalues exceeding this one is bounded by $`\delta `$.

Define the independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random variables $`X_j`$, $`j=1,\mathrm{},n`$, by letting

$$\mathrm{Pr}\{X_j=\mathrm{log}r_i\}=r_i,$$

where $`(r_i)`$ are the Schmidt coefficients of $`|\psi `$. Note that their expectation $`𝔼X_j`$ equals $`E(\psi )`$, and that they are nonconstant, unless $`|\psi `$ is maximally entangled, so that the variance $`\sigma ^2`$ is nonzero.

Hence we can apply the central limit theorem:

$$\mathrm{Pr}\left\{\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}X_jnE(\psi )+x\sigma \sqrt{n}\right\}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}_{\mathrm{}}^xe^{t^2/2}dt.$$

This implies that the sum of the largest eigenvalues, from $`\mathrm{exp}\left(nE(\psi )+D(ϵ)\sqrt{n}+o(\sqrt{n})\right)`$ up (including multiplicities), is bounded from below by $`\delta `$, and our claim follows.

Next, we lower bound $`S_{0,\delta }\left(\psi _A^n\right)`$. An optimal set $`J`$ in the definition, eq. (6), must consist of the indices of the $`|J|`$ largest eigenvalues such that their sum is barely above $`1ϵ`$.

Once more invoking the central limit theorem, the sum of the smallest eigenvalues (including multiplicities) of $`\psi _A^n`$ up to $`\mathrm{exp}\left(nE(\psi )D(ϵ)\sqrt{n}+o(\sqrt{n})\right)`$ is at least $`\delta `$.

We exhibit now a large type class inside the set corresponding to larger eigenvalues, which by the preceding is a subset of $`J`$: there exists an $`n`$–type $`P`$ such that $`|P_ir_i|1/n`$, for all $`i`$. This entails that for $`i^n𝒯_P^n`$

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{log}r^n(i^n)& =n\underset{i}{}P_i\mathrm{log}r_i\hfill \\ & =n\underset{i}{}\left(r_i\pm \frac{1}{n}\right)\mathrm{log}r_i\hfill \\ & =nH(r)\pm \underset{i}{}|\mathrm{log}r_i|\hfill \\ & =nE(\psi )\pm C.\hfill \end{array}$$

Thus, $`𝒯_P^nJ`$ as soon as $`D(ϵ)>0`$ and $`n`$ is large enough.

On the other hand, because $`Pr_1d/n`$, we have (using a well–known estimate for Shannon entropies, see csiszar:koerner ) that

$$|H(P)H(r)|\frac{d}{n}\mathrm{log}n,$$

and we conclude, by eq. (18), that

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill |J|& |𝒯_P^n|\hfill \\ & (n+1)^d\mathrm{exp}\left(nH(P)\right)\hfill \\ & \mathrm{exp}\left(nH(r)d\mathrm{log}nd\mathrm{log}(n+1)\right).\hfill \end{array}$$

It follows that $`S_{0,\delta }(\psi _A^n)nE(\psi )O(\mathrm{log}n)`$.

Combining the estimates of $`S_{0,\delta }`$ and $`S_{\mathrm{},\delta }`$, we obtain

###### Theorem 13

For every bipartite pure state $`|\psi _{AB}`$ that is neither separable nor maximally entangled and every sufficiently small $`ϵ`$ there exists a positive constant $`D(ϵ)`$ such that the communication cost of creating $`|\psi ^n`$ up to fidelity $`1ϵ`$ from EPR pairs is at least $`CD(ϵ)\sqrt{n}o\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Remark 14

Recently, secret shared randomness has been proposed as a “classical analogue of entanglement” collins:popescu , partly to increase intuition on entanglement transformations, and partly to be able to distinguish the quantum effects of entanglement from those that are statistically explainable.

Specifically, pure state entanglement was parallelled to classical *perfect* correlation: Alice and Bob share a joint random variable $`(X,Y)`$, where $`X`$ belongs to Alice, $`Y`$ to Bob and $`X=Y`$ with probability $`1`$. Entanglement transformations by LOCC have their analogue in transformations of these random variables by local (classical) actions and *public discussion*, which can be listened to by an eavesdropper. The analogue of EPR pairs are shared random bits: $`\mathrm{Pr}\{X=Y=0\}=\mathrm{Pr}\{X=Y=1\}=1/2`$.

Now it is an easy result of the theory of shared randomness (see ahlswede:csiszar  for definitions) that in an i.i.d. setting $`(X,Y)`$ can be asymptotically converted into the Shannon entropy $`H(X)`$ of $`X`$ many shared secret bits and, inversely, this amount of shared randomness can be used to generate $`(X,Y)`$: more precisely, both transformations can be performed with asymptotically vanishing total variational distance of the distributions. These operations are the classical analogues of entanglement concentration and dilution.

What is remarkable is that in this setting both the concentration and dilution processes require *no public discussion whatsoever*. Thus, our $`\mathrm{\Omega }\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$ lower bound is a purely *quantum* phenomenon that has no counterpart in the “classical analogue”.

## IV States with large <br>communication cost

In embezzle , the states

$$|\mu (n)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{H_n}}\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{i}}|i|i,$$

with the harmonic sum $`H_n=_{i=1}^n\frac{1}{i}`$, were introduced to show that the concept of “approximate pure state transformations with unlimited catalysis” allows *any* state transformation (this was dubbed “embezzling entanglement” in embezzle ). In particular it was shown that for every pure state $`|\varphi `$ of Schmidt rank $`m`$ there are local isometries $`U_A`$ and $`U_B`$ such that

$$F(|\mu (n)|\varphi ,(U_AU_B)|\mu (n))1\frac{\mathrm{log}m}{\mathrm{log}n}.$$

It is straightforward to verify that the entanglement of $`|\mu (n)`$ is asymptotically $`\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{log}n`$, and we shall demonstrate here that the communication cost to produce it from EPR pairs is of the same order:

Theorem 8 asks us to lower bound $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\delta `$ of Alice’s reduced state

$$\rho _A=\frac{1}{H_n}\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{1}{i}|ii|,$$

which we do using eq. (9):

$`S_{0,\delta }(\rho _A)`$ $`=\mathrm{log}\mathrm{min}\left\{k:{\displaystyle \underset{i=k+1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{iH_n}}\delta \right\},`$ (21)
$`S_{\mathrm{},\delta }(\rho _A)`$ $`=\mathrm{log}H_n+\mathrm{log}\mathrm{max}\left\{k:{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{k1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{iH_n}}\delta \right\}.`$ (22)
Now, asymptotically $`(\mathrm{log}n)1H_n\mathrm{log}(n+1)`$, and eqs. (21) and (22) allow us to estimate

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_\delta (\rho _A)\left((12\delta )\mathrm{log}n\right)4\mathrm{log}\mathrm{log}(n+1),$$
(23)
resulting in a lower bound

$$C\left(\frac{1}{2}\sqrt[8]{4ϵ}\right)\mathrm{log}nO(\mathrm{log}\mathrm{log}n)$$

for the communication cost to create $`|\mu (n)`$ up to fidelity $`1ϵ`$ from EPR pairs. In fact, the classical communication cost is, by corollary 10, lower bounded by $`\left(1o(1)\right)\mathrm{log}n`$, asymptotically matching the upper bound $`\mathrm{log}n`$ from Lo’s earlier mentioned state preparation method in lo:ccc .

Other states with entanglement being of the same order as the communication necessary to create them are the $`|\chi `$ of eq. (20): their entanglement is at most $`O(\sqrt{n})`$ while theorem 13 implies a lower bound of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\sqrt{n})`$ on the communication resources.

## V Conclusion

We have exhibited the first quantitative lower bound on the communication cost of general entanglement transformations. It is good enough to prove that the Lo/Popescu protocol of entanglement dilution is within a constant factor of being optimal, requiring $`\mathrm{\Theta }\left(\sqrt{n}\right)`$ bits of communication. Also, it can be used to show that there exist states whose communication cost for creation from EPR pairs is of the same order as their entanglement, making local preparation and teleportation essentially the optimal strategy.

It is unknown to us how tight our lower bound can be made or if there is an upper bound involving similar quantities, so we leave these questions open for future research. On a different note, it has repeatedly been speculated (such as in lo:popescu:sqrt ) that the classical communication cost is related to the *loss of entanglement* in a transformation. Observe that this seems to fit perfectly for concentration and dilution, and it might be that in an appropriate model the entanglement loss in a pure state transformation provides an upper bound on the minimal communication cost required to perform it.

Other applications may include the study of quantum communication complexity, where a technique for lower bounding the communication exists cdnt ; astvw ; comm:compl  that requires estimation of the communication cost of certain pure state entanglement transformations. In the cited works this cost was lower bounded by observing that some measure of entanglement has increased. Our method could be useful as it gives nontrivial lower bounds even when the entanglement remains constant or decreases, and continues to be effective in the presence of unlimited numbers of EPR pairs.

After the present paper was finished, the independent work of Harrow and Lo harrow:lo  came to our attention, which proves the $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\sqrt{n})`$ lower bound on entanglement dilution by a different method (though there are similarities) that simultaneously provides a lower bound on the entanglement loss.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Wim van Dam for his suggestion to also consider general Rényi entropies, and Karol and Michal Horodecki for posing the problem solved in remark 3. We want to thank Aram Harrow and Hoi–Kwong Lo for making their draft of harrow:lo  available to us and for stimulating discussions. P.H. was supported by US National Science Foundation grant no. EIA–0086038 and a Sherman Fairchild Fellowship. A.W. is supported by the U.K. Engineering an Physical Sciences Research Council. This work was carried out during the second author’s visit to the Institute of Quantum Information, Caltech, in January 2002.


text:
# Center-of-mass motion in many-body theory of BEC

## I Introduction

In a recent paper García-Ripoll, Pérez-García, and Vekslerchik gpv  have studied the properties of the solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation in a time-dependent, anisotropic harmonic potential

$$i_t\psi (𝐫,t)=\left(\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }+\frac{1}{2}𝐫\widehat{A}(t)𝐫+G(|\psi (𝐫,t)|)\right)\psi (𝐫,t),$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{A}(t)`$ is an arbitrary symmetric positive $`3\times 3`$ matrix and $`G`$ is an arbitrary real function. They have shown that from every solution of this equation one may obtain the whole family of new solutions by a translation accompanied by a change of the phase

$`\psi (𝐫,t)\psi ^{}(𝐫,t)=\psi (𝐫𝐑(t),t)e^{i\theta (𝐫,t)},`$ (2)
provided $`𝐑(t)`$ is a solution of the classical equation of motion in the harmonic potential

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2𝐑(t)}{dt^2}}=\widehat{A}(t)𝐑(t)`$ (3)
and the phase $`\theta (𝐫,t)`$ is given by the formula

$`\theta (𝐫,t)=𝐫{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐑(t)}{dt}}f(t),`$ (4)
where $`f(t)`$ is the classical action calculated along the trajectory $`𝐑(t)`$ (a factor of $`1/2`$ is missing in Eq. (12) of Ref. gpv )

$`f(t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t\left({\displaystyle \frac{d𝐑(t)}{dt}}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐑(t)}{dt}}𝐑(t)\widehat{A}(t)𝐑(t)\right).`$ (5)
This result implies that the motion of the center of the wave packet is governed by the classical equation (3) and it decouples from the internal motion that determines the shape of the wave packet. It has been argued in gpv  that such a decoupling may be of significance for the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates, since they are often described in the mean-field approximation by the nonlinear Schrödinger equation.

In this paper we extend the conclusions of Ref. gpv  to the general case of a mutually interacting many-body quantum system. Our generalization is inspired by the observation that the new solutions (2) may be generated from the initial solution by the displacement operator well known in quantum optics glauber ; scully

$`e^{i(\widehat{𝐫}𝐏(t)\widehat{𝐩}𝐑(t))},`$ (6)
where $`\widehat{𝐫}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐩}=i`$ are the quantum mechanical position and momentum operators whereas $`𝐑(t)`$ and $`𝐏(t)`$ represent the phase-space trajectory of a classical particle in the harmonic potential. In order to show that the transformation

$`\psi (𝐫,t)\psi ^{}(𝐫,t)=e^{i(\widehat{𝐫}𝐏(t)\widehat{𝐩}𝐑(t))}\psi (𝐫,t)`$ (7)
is the same as that given by (2), we apply the Baker-Hausdorff formula (using the canonical commutation relations between $`\widehat{𝐫}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐩}`$) to write the displacement operator in the form

$`e^{i(\widehat{𝐫}𝐏(t)\widehat{𝐩}𝐑(t))}=e^{i𝐑(t)𝐏(t)/2}e^{i\widehat{𝐫}𝐏(t)}e^{i\widehat{𝐩}𝐑(t)}.`$ (8)
The last term on the r.h.s shifts the argument of the wave function by $`𝐑(t)`$ and the middle term produces the first term of the phase (4). Finally, we note that the action $`f(t)`$ after integration by parts reduces to the boundary terms

$`f(t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐑(t)}{dt}}𝐑(t)|_0^t.`$ (9)
Therefore, the first term on the r.h.s. of (8) reproduces the second term of the phase (4) (up to an irrelevant constant phase given by the lower boundary term).

The action of the displacement operator on a solution of a nonlinear Schrödinger equation leads to a shift of the center of the wave packet. The vector $`𝐑(t)`$ that determines this shift is a solution of the classical equations of motion in the harmonic potential. Therefore, the center of the wave packet always follows a classical trajectory. In the present paper, we cary out a similar analysis for an interacting many-body system. The role of the center of the wave packet is played by the center of mass operator of the whole system.

In Section II we construct the transformation analogous to (7) in the many-body theory of a system of mutually interacting bosons (or fermions) and we show that it also transforms solutions of the Schrödinger equation into new solutions of this equation. In Section III we show that all these properties are a result of a complete decoupling of the center of mass dynamics from the internal dynamics of the system confined in a harmonic potential. This decoupling has been noticed before (cf., for example, Ref. pp ). In Section IV we analyze the spectrum of stationary states for a rotating trap and we point out that the decoupling causes the splitting of the spectrum. We also show that for an anisotropic trap there always exists a region of instability at intermediate rotational velocities.

## II Displacement operator in many-body theory

The many-body theory of interacting atoms will be described within the formalism of second quantization. We shall use systematically the Schrödinger picture — all operators will be time independent. The Hamiltonian of the system of atoms contained in a harmonic trap (in natural units, $`m=1,\mathrm{}=1`$) has the form

$`\widehat{H}(t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\left(\mathbf{}\mathbf{}+𝐫\widehat{A}(t)𝐫\right)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3rd^3r^{}\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫^{})V(𝐫𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)},`$
where $`\widehat{A}(t)`$ is the matrix of the harmonic potential of the previous Section and $`V(𝐫𝐫^{})`$ is an arbitrary two-particle interaction potential. The field operators $`\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)`$ and $`\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)`$ that annihilate and create particles at the point $`𝐫`$ obey the standard Bose-Einstein or Fermi-Dirac commutation relations (we disregard the spin degrees of freedom)

$`[\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫),\widehat{\psi }(𝐫^{})]_{}=\delta ^{(3)}(𝐫𝐫^{}).`$ (11)
In the construction of the displacement operator in many-body theory (following our earlier works bb ; bb1 ) we employ the operators of the total number of particles $`\widehat{N}`$, of the of the total position $`\widehat{𝐑}`$, and of the total momentum $`\widehat{𝐏}`$:

$`\widehat{N}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)},`$ (12a)
$`\widehat{𝐑}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)𝐫\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)},`$ (12b)
$`\widehat{𝐏}`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\mathbf{}\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}.`$ (12c)
The number of particles operator $`\widehat{N}`$ is a constant of motion and it commutes with $`\widehat{𝐑}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐏}`$. The operators $`\widehat{𝐑}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐏}`$ satisfy the commutation relations

$`[\widehat{R}_k,\widehat{P}_l]=i\widehat{N}\delta _{kl}.`$ (13)
We define the many-body unitary displacement operator $`\widehat{D}(t)`$ by the same general formula (6) but with second-quantized operators $`\widehat{𝐑}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐏}`$ playing now the role of position and momentum,

$`\widehat{D}(t)=e^{i(\widehat{𝐑}𝐏(t)\widehat{𝐏}𝐑(t))}.`$ (14)
We would like to note that the new displacement operator $`\widehat{D}(t)`$ does not share all the properties of the Glauber displacement operator in quantum optics. Namely, it does not generate a coherent state when acting on the vacuum state but leaves the vacuum state unchanged $`\widehat{D}(t)|0=|0`$. This is due to the fact that the many-body vacuum state is not an exact counterpart of the QED vacuum.

In the proof of the invariance of the Schrödinger equation

$`i_t|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)=\widehat{H}(t)|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)`$ (15)
under the action of $`\widehat{D}(t)`$ we shall again employ the Baker-Hausdorff decomposition of the displacement operator:

$`e^{i(\widehat{𝐑}𝐏(t)\widehat{𝐏}𝐑(t))}=e^{i\widehat{N}C(t)}e^{i\widehat{𝐑}𝐏(t)}e^{i\widehat{𝐏}𝐑(t)},`$ (16)
where $`C(t)=𝐑(t)𝐏(t)/2`$. Next we observe that the three factors on the r.h.s. of this formula act in the following way on the annihilation operators

$`e^{i\widehat{N}C(t)}\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)e^{i\widehat{N}C(t)}=e^{iC(t)}\widehat{\psi }(𝐫),`$ (17a)
$`e^{i\widehat{𝐑}𝐏(t)}\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)e^{i\widehat{𝐑}𝐏(t)}=e^{i𝐫𝐏(t)}\widehat{\psi }(𝐫),`$ (17b)
$`e^{i\widehat{𝐏}𝐑(t)}\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)e^{i\widehat{𝐏}𝐑(t)}=\widehat{\psi }(𝐫𝐑(t)),`$ (17c)
where we have used the following commutation relations between the operators $`\widehat{N}`$, $`\widehat{𝐑}`$, and $`\widehat{𝐏}`$ and the annihilation operators,

$`[\widehat{N},\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)]`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{\psi }(𝐫),`$ (18a)
$`[\widehat{𝐑},\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)]`$ $`=`$ $`𝐫\widehat{\psi }(𝐫),`$ (18b)
$`[\widehat{𝐏},\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)]`$ $`=`$ $`i\widehat{\psi }(𝐫).`$ (18c)
The formulas for the creation operators are obtained by hermitian conjugation. With the help of Eqs. (17) we may calculate the action of the displacement operator on the Hamiltonian

$`\widehat{D}^{}(t)\widehat{H}(t)\widehat{D}(t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\left(i\mathbf{}+𝐏(t)\right)^2\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}`$ (19)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\left(𝐫+𝐑(t)\right)\widehat{A}(t)\left(𝐫+𝐑(t)\right)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3rd^3r^{}\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫^{})V(𝐫𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}`$
$`=`$ $`\widehat{H}(t)+\widehat{𝐏}𝐏(t)+\widehat{𝐑}\widehat{A}(t)𝐑(t)+{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{N}}{2}}\left(𝐏(t)𝐏(t)+𝐑(t)\widehat{A}(t)𝐑(t)\right).`$
The interaction term in the Hamiltonian does not change because it is invariant under translation and under the change of the phase of the field operators. The last ingredient needed to prove the invariance of the Schrödinger equation is the following transformation formula for the time derivative

$`\widehat{D}^{}(t)i_t\widehat{D}(t)=i_t+{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{N}}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\left(𝐑(t)𝐏(t)\right)}{dt}}`$ (20)
$``$ $`\widehat{𝐑}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐏(t)}{dt}}+\widehat{𝐏}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐑(t)}{dt}}\widehat{N}𝐑(t){\displaystyle \frac{d𝐏(t)}{dt}}.`$
All the terms in this formula that contain functions $`𝐑(t)`$ and $`𝐏(t)`$ cancel with their counterparts in the transformed Hamiltonian (with the use of the classical equations of motion) and we finally obtain

$`i_t\widehat{D}(t)|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)=\widehat{H}(t)\widehat{D}(t)|\mathrm{\Psi }(t).`$ (21)
Therefore, for each classical trajectory we obtain a new solution of the many-body Schrödinger equation, as was the case for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation.

In order to connect this result with the effective one-particle theory described in the Introduction, we shall represent the state vectors by the $`n`$-particle wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫_1,𝐫_2,\mathrm{},𝐫_n,t)`$,

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫_1,𝐫_2,\mathrm{},𝐫_n,t)=0|\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_1)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_2)\mathrm{}\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_n)|\mathrm{\Psi }(t).`$ (22)
Using the unitarity of the displacement operator and the invariance of vacuum state, we obtain (with the help of the formulas (17)) the following relation between the the wave functions of the initial $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)`$ and the transformed state $`\widehat{D}(t)|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)`$

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫_1,𝐫_2,\mathrm{},𝐫_n,t)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐫_1,𝐫_2,\mathrm{},𝐫_n,t)=0|\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_1)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_2)\mathrm{}\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_n)\widehat{D}(t)|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)`$ (23)
$`=`$ $`0|\widehat{D}(t)\widehat{D}^{}(t)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_1)\widehat{D}(t)\widehat{D}^{}(t)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_2)\widehat{D}(t)\widehat{D}^{}(t)\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\widehat{D}(t)\widehat{D}^{}(t)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫_n)\widehat{D}(t)|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)`$
$`=`$ $`e^{i\theta (𝐫_1,t)+i\theta (𝐫_2,t)+\mathrm{}+i\theta (𝐫_n,t)}\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫_1𝐑(t),𝐫_2𝐑(t),\mathrm{},𝐫_n𝐑(t),t),`$
where the phase $`\theta (𝐫,t)`$ is given by the same formula (4) as in the one-particle theory. Thus, to each solution of the many-body Schrödinger equation there corresponds the whole family of solutions labeled by the classical trajectories in a harmonic trap. The new many-body wave functions are obtained from the original wave function by exactly the same transformation as in the one-particle case: a time-dependent shift of its arguments and a multiplication by the same phase factors. The transformation formula (23) acquires a particularly simple form in the special case, when the initial wave function describes a state in which the center of mass is not entangled with the internal degrees of freedom,

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫_1,𝐫_2,\mathrm{},𝐫_n,t)=\mathrm{\Phi }(𝝆,t)\mathrm{\Phi }(𝝃_1,𝝃_2,\mathrm{},𝝃_{n1},t),`$ (24)
where $`𝝆=(𝐫_1+𝐫_2+\mathrm{}+𝐫_n)/n`$ and $`𝝃_1,𝝃_2,\mathrm{},𝝃_{n1}`$ are some relative coordinates, invariant under the translations $`𝐫_i𝐫_i+𝐚`$. Then, the transformation (23) affects only the center of mass wave function

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝝆,t)e^{i\theta (𝝆,t)}\mathrm{\Phi }(𝝆𝐑(t),t),`$ (25)
leaving the wave function of the internal motion intact. A general many-body wave function can always be written as a sum of product wave functions (24). The action of the displacement operator on a general wave function describing a state in which the center of mass motion is entangled with the internal motion gives

$`\widehat{D}(t)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫_1,𝐫_2,\mathrm{},𝐫_n,t)=e^{i\theta (𝝆,t)}`$ (26)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\mathrm{\Phi }_k(𝝆𝐑(t),t)\mathrm{\Phi }_k(𝝃_1,𝝃_2,\mathrm{},𝝃_{n1},t)`$ .
In this case the integration over the center of mass position (either $`𝝆`$ or $`𝐑(t)`$) introduced in Ref. pp  leads to a mixed internal state of the condensate. The results presented in this Section are closely related to the fact that, as is shown in the next Section, the total Hamiltonian (10) may be split into the Hamiltonian of the center of mass and the Hamiltonian of the internal motion.

## III Decoupling of the center of mass motion

The separability of the center of mass dynamics from the internal dynamics in a harmonic trap follows directly from the form (10) of the Hamiltonian. Indeed, this Hamiltonian may be written as a sum of two commuting parts: the Hamiltonian of the center of mass motion $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}(t)`$ and the Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(t)`$ describing the internal structure of the condensate,

$`\widehat{H}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}(t)+\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(t),`$ (27)
$`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐏}\widehat{𝐏}}{2\widehat{N}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐑}\widehat{A}(t)\widehat{𝐑}}{2\widehat{N}}},`$ (28)
$`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)(_\mathrm{C}_\mathrm{C}+𝐫_\mathrm{C}\widehat{A}(t)𝐫_\mathrm{C})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3rd^3r^{}\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫^{})V(𝐫𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)},`$ (29)
where $`_\mathrm{C}`$ and $`𝐫_\mathrm{C}`$ are the one-particle operators shifted by the (normalized) center of mass operators

$`𝐫_\mathrm{C}=𝐫\widehat{𝐑}/\widehat{N},i_\mathrm{C}=i\widehat{𝐏}/\widehat{N}.`$ (30)
The sum (27) describes the dynamics of two independent systems since the center of mass operators $`\widehat{𝐑}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐏}`$ commute with the Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(t)`$, despite the appearance of these operators in $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(t)`$. To prove this statement we observe that

$`[\widehat{𝐑},\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(t)]=[\widehat{𝐑},\widehat{H}(t)][\widehat{𝐑},\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}(t)]=\widehat{𝐏}\widehat{𝐏}=0.`$ (31)
Similarly one can show that $`[\widehat{𝐏},\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(t)]=0`$.

The many-body displacement operator (14), constructed from the center of mass operators $`\widehat{𝐑}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐏}`$, commutes with $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}(t)`$. Therefore, the transformation generated by the displacement operator does not change the internal state of the system; it only acts on the center of mass variables.

## IV Separability of the spectrum

The Hamiltonian (10) is time dependent because we have allowed for a time dependent trap potential. Such a Hamiltonian does not possess true stationary states. The most interesting case of a time-dependent harmonic potential occurs when the time dependence is caused by a rotation of the trap. Then, by going to the rotating frame we can eliminate the time dependence and study the spectral properties of the resulting Hamiltonian. The price to be paid for this simplification is the appearance of an extra term in the Hamiltonian — the scalar product $`𝛀\widehat{𝐌}`$ of the angular velocity $`𝛀`$ and the total angular momentum of the system $`\widehat{𝐌}`$,

$`\widehat{𝐌}=i{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)(𝐫\times )\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}.`$ (32)
This term is responsible for the inertial forces: the Coriolis force and the centrifugal force. The total Hamiltonian in the rotating frame is

$`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{R}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}+\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I},`$ (33)
$`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐏}\widehat{𝐏}}{2\widehat{N}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐑}\widehat{A}\widehat{𝐑}}{2\widehat{N}}}𝛀{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐑}\times \widehat{𝐏}}{\widehat{N}}},`$ (34)
$`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\left(_\mathrm{C}_\mathrm{C}+𝐫_\mathrm{C}\widehat{A}𝐫_\mathrm{C}\right)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}`$ (35)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3rd^3r^{}\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫^{})V(𝐫𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)}`$
$`+`$ $`i𝛀{\displaystyle d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)(𝐫_\mathrm{C}\times _\mathrm{C})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)},`$
where $`\widehat{A}`$ is the time independent matrix whose eigenvalues $`a_x`$, $`a_y`$, and $`a_z`$ are the squared frequencies of the trap potential. We use the coordinate system with the axes directed along the principal directions of the trap potential.

The transformation to the rotating frame preserves the separability of the center of mass motion from the internal motion. Therefore, the spectrum of the many-body Hamiltonian is a Cartesian product of the center of mass spectrum and the spectrum of the internal motion. Each eigenvalue of the Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{I}`$ gives rise to the whole ladder made of the levels of the center of mass Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}`$. These levels can be exactly calculated regardless of the form of the mutual interaction. Since for a fixed number of particles the commutation relations between $`\widehat{𝐑}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐏}`$ are canonical (up to a numerical factor of $`n`$), the center of mass dynamics is that of a three-dimensional anisotropic harmonic oscillator in a rotating frame. The characteristic frequencies of this oscillator can be calculated from the following classical equations of motion determined by the Hamiltonian (34) (the equations of motion and the characteristic frequencies given in Ref. gpv  are incorrect)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2𝐑(t)}{dt^2}}=\widehat{A}𝐑(t)𝛀\times \left(2{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐑(t)}{dt}}+𝛀\times 𝐑(t)\right).`$ (36)
The characteristic equation for this system may be expressed in terms of six invariant quantities built from $`\widehat{A}`$ and $`𝛀`$ and it has the form

$`\omega ^6\omega ^4(2𝛀^2+\mathrm{Tr}\{\widehat{A}\})+\omega ^2\left((𝛀^2)^2+3𝛀\widehat{A}𝛀\mathrm{Tr}\{A\}𝛀^2+\mathrm{Tr}\{A\}^2/2\mathrm{Tr}\{\widehat{A}^2\}/2\right)`$
$`𝛀^2𝛀\widehat{A}𝛀+\mathrm{Tr}\{A\}𝛀\widehat{A}𝛀𝛀\widehat{A}^2𝛀\mathrm{Det}\{A\}=0.`$ (37)
One may solve this third order equation for $`\omega ^2`$ but the formulas are quite complicated. We give here the explicit solution only in the simple case, when the angular rotation vector is directed along one of the principal axes, say the $`z`$ axis, of the potential ellipsoid and the axes $`x`$ and $`y`$ are directed along the two remaining principal directions. In this case the frequency of oscillations along the $`z`$ direction is not modified by the rotation, $`\omega _z=\sqrt{a_z}`$. The frequencies of the oscillations in the perpendicular directions become equal to

$`\omega _\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2\mathrm{\Omega }^2+a_+\pm \sqrt{a_{}^2+8\mathrm{\Omega }^2a_+}}}{\sqrt{2}}},`$ (38)
where $`a_\pm =a_x\pm a_y`$. The spectrum of $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}`$ is discrete when the frequencies $`\omega _\pm `$ are real. This is true (cf. bmrs ) for slow rotations ($`\mathrm{\Omega }<\sqrt{a_x}`$) or for fast rotations ($`\mathrm{\Omega }>\sqrt{a_y}`$), where we have assumed for definitness that $`a_x<a_y`$. In the intermediate region, the classical oscillations are unstable. This means that for the intermediate values of the rotational frequency the spectrum of $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{CM}}`$ is continuous and the condensate as a whole falls out of the trap. The counterintuitive result that for fast rotations the oscillations are stable is due to the action of the Coriolis force. The stabilizing effect of the Coriolis force is well known in other physical situations. It plays the crucial role in the Paul paul  trap and also in the dynamics of nonspreading electronic wave packets in Rydberg states, called Trojan states bke ; bb2 .

The appearance of an unstable region of rotational velocities between the stable regions of slow and fast rotations is not limited to the special case discussed above, but is a general property of the anisotropic rotating oscillator. This can be seen from the properties of the free term in the characteristic equation (IV). This term (taken with the minus sign) is always equal to the product of the squares of the three eigenfrequencies. In the absence of rotation this term is equal to $`a_xa_ya_z`$. In turn, for fast rotations this term is again positive since it is dominated by $`𝛀^2𝛀\widehat{A}𝛀`$. The signature of an unstable behavior is the change of sign that indicates that one of the characteristic frequencies becomes imaginary. In the Appendix we show that for an anisotropic trap this change of sign always takes place. Therefore there always exists an intermediate region of rotational velocities for which the center of mass escapes from the rotating trap.

## V Conclusions

We have made a full use of the fact that for a many-body system of interacting atoms in a general harmonic potential the dynamics of the center of mass decouples from the internal dynamics. In the time-dependent description, this leads to the appearance of families of states generated by the action of the displacement operator. The members of each family are labeled by the solutions of the equations of motion for a classical particle in the trap. Each family is built on an internal state of the system. The internal states are not affected by the displacement operator.

For rotating traps — that are often used in BEC experiments — one may employ the time-independent description by using the rotating frame. In that case one may study the spectrum characterizing stationary states of the system. The decoupling of the center of mass Hamiltonian leads to the splitting of the spectrum. The spectrum of the full Hamiltonian is a Cartesian product of the center of mass spectrum and the spectrum of the internal motion. The spectrum of the center of mass Hamiltonian may be discrete or continuous depending on the value of the rotational velocity. For sufficiently slow rotations the spectrum is discrete because the centrifugal force is not strong enough to overcome the trap attraction. For sufficiently fast rotations the spectrum is again discrete because the Coriolis force stabilizes the center of mass motion. In the two stable regions the eigenvalue spectrum forms a triplet of ladders with equally spaced rungs built on each eigenvalue of the internal Hamiltonian. The spacings are given by the three frequencies, solutions of the characteristic equation (IV). For intermediate values of the rotational velocity the spectrum is continuous that means that the center of mass motion is unbounded — the condensate escapes from the trap.

The spectrum of the center of mass Hamiltonian is not influenced by the internal dynamics but the inverse is not true. The eigenvalue spectrum of the internal Hamiltonian does depend on the properties of the trap. For example, in an exactly soluble model with harmonic mutual interactions studied previously bb1 , the trap potential modifies the frequency of the quadrupole oscillations. In the present paper we have considered the case of arbitrary two-body mutual interactions but our results are also valid in the general case of $`n`$-body interactions provided the interaction potential is a function of coordinate differences only.

The decoupling of the center of mass motion may have direct observational consequences for small condensates, i.e. for condensates whose physical dimensions are small as compared to the extension of the center of mass wave function. Such condensates may be produced, for example, when interatomic forces are attractive (as in lithium). Then, all many-particle correlation functions are highly peaked at small distances between the particles. In this case, the center of mass wave function contains significant (probabilistic) information about the position of the whole condensate. In particular, the vortex lines embedded in this wave function will have experimentally testable consequences; the probability of finding the atoms of the condensate close to the vortex line is small. Since the center of mass wave function obeys the one-particle Schrödinger equation in a trap, the explicit solutions of this equation exhibiting various vortex structures that were studied in detail in Refs. bmrs  and bbs  will become relevant.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Mariusz Gajda for fruitful discussions.

*

## Appendix A

In this Appendix we prove that in a rotating anisotropic trap there always exists a range of rotational velocities $`𝛀`$ where the center of mass motion is unstable. In such a region one of the characteristic frequencies will be imaginary. As mentioned in the main text, this proof is based on the analysis of the characteristic equation (IV). The (minus) free term in this equation is equal to the product of the three characteristic frequencies squared. As seen from (IV), it is a biquadratic polynomial in the absolute value of $`𝛀`$

$`\omega _1^2\omega _2^2\omega _3^2=\mathrm{\Omega }^4𝒏\widehat{A}𝒏`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }^2\left(\mathrm{Tr}\{A\}𝒏\widehat{A}𝒏𝒏\widehat{A}^2𝒏\right)+\mathrm{Det}\{A\},`$ (39)
where $`𝒏`$ is the unit vector in the direction of $`𝛀`$. The signature of the transition to an unstable region is the change of sign of this polynomial occurring at its zeros. The polynomial (A) has zeros if the discriminant $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is positive

$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\mathrm{Tr}\{A\}𝒏\widehat{A}𝒏𝒏\widehat{A}^2𝒏\right)^2`$ (40)
$``$ $`4\mathrm{D}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{t}\{A\}𝒏\widehat{A}𝒏.`$
Without loss of generality, we may assume that $`a_x<a_y<a_z`$. Then, by rearranging the terms, we can easily obtain the form of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ that exhibits its positivity

$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`=`$ $`\left(n_x^2a_x(a_za_y)+n_y^2a_y(a_za_x)+n_z^2a_z(a_xa_y)\right)^2`$ (41)
$`+`$ $`4n_y^2n_z^2a_ya_z(a_za_x)(a_ya_x)0.`$
The vanishing of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ means that there is one double root for $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$. In that case there is no region of instability. This occurs only when the trap is not fully anisotropic but has a symmetry axis and rotates around this direction.