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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

New observational evidence for black holes provides new motivations for the investigation of the general relativistic dynamics of particles and electromagnetic fields in the vicinity of the black holes. We shall start with a brief description of the situation. The results of astronomical observations over the last decade continue to point insistently to the existence of stellar-mass and supermassive black holes in some X-ray binary systems and in galactic centres (see Horowitz $`\&`$ Teukolsky 1999; Rees 1998 for reviews). The typical examples of the stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries are Cyg X-1 discovered back in 1971, the X-ray source LMC X-3 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, as well as the source in A0620-00 discovered in 1975 and a number of recently discovered sources, such as V404 Cyg, GS 2000+25, GRO J0422+32 (for full list see Charles 1999). New observational data, such as the detection of broad iron fluorescence lines and maser emission lines of water in the spectra provide the strongest suggestion for the presence of supermassive black holes in the centres of the active galaxies MCG 6-30-15, NGC 4258 and NGC 1068 Menou, Quataert $`\&`$ Narayan 1999; Rees 1998; Miyoshi et.al 1995; Watson $`\&`$ Wallin 1994).

The supermassive black holes are also strongly believed to be in the centres of some low-level active, or non-active, galaxies. For instance, recent progress in the studies of the distributions and velocities of stars near the centres of the giant elliptical galaxy M87, Andromeda M31 and our own Galaxy have revealed the strong evidence for the existence of the supermassive black holes in these centres (Merritt $`\&`$ Oh 1997; Richstone et al. 1998; Rees 1982, 1998).

On the other hand, a convincing explanation for a huge amount of energy output from the active cores of the galaxies associated with the supermassive black holes requires the searches for mechanisms responsible for the high-level energy release. One of these mechanisms is the extraction of the rotational energy from a rotating black hole surrounded by stationary magnetic fields. The magnetic fields threading the event horizon tap the rotational energy of the black hole due to the interaction between charged particles and the induced electric field (Blandford $`\&`$ Znajek 1977; Thorne, Price $`\&`$ Macdonald 1986). The interest in this model still continues to point out new gravito-electromagnetic phenomena in the strong and weak field domains around a rotating black hole (Bic̆ák $`\&`$ Ledvinka 2000; Chamblin, Emparan $`\&`$ Gibbons 1998; Mashhoon 2001; see also Punsly 2001). Another mechanism responsible for high-level energy release is gas accretion by a black hole (see Shapiro $`\&`$ Teukolsky 1983), where energy is released mostly at the expense of the binding energy of the particles and the strong gravitational field of the black hole. It is well known that the binding energy in the innermost stable orbits of the particles determines the potential efficiency of an accretion disc. It is about 5.7 % of the rest energy in the Schwarzschild field, but in the case of a maximally rotating black hole it approaches 42 % of the rest energy. The observational data from the core of some galaxies, such as the elliptical galaxy M87 reveal that the inner part of a gas disc around a putative supermassive black hole emits non-thermal radiation and radio waves. The reason for this is believed to be synchrotron emission from ultrarelativistic electrons moving in a strong magnetic field in the inner part of the accretion flow onto the supermassive black hole (Fabian & Rees 1995; Narayan & Yi 1995; Rees 1998). This gives us a new impetus to return back once again to the investigation of the motion of charged particles in the model of a rotating black hole in a uniform magnetic field, though much insight into this problem was given in 1980s (Prasanna $`\&`$ Vishveshwara 1978; Prasanna 1980; Wagh, Dhurandeur & Dadhich 1985; Aliev $`\&`$ Gal’tsov 1989; see also Frolov $`\&`$ Novikov 1998 and references therein). In particular, the works of Prasanna & Vishveshwara (1978) and Prasanna (1980) have given a comprehensive numerical analysis of the charged particle motion in a magnetic field superposed on the Kerr metric by studying the structure of the effective potential for radial motion and integrating the complete set of equations of the motion for appropriate initial conditions.

In this paper we shall study a particular class of orbits, namely the marginally stable circular orbits of charged particles in the equatorial plane of a Kerr black hole immersed in a uniform magnetic field. The numerical analysis performed by Prasanna & Vishveshwara (1978) has revealed that the presence of a uniform magnetic field on the Kerr background increases the range of stable circular orbits. This result is confirmed in our model of the marginally stable circular motion, however we also obtain significant new results: First of all, we derive the basic equation determining the region of the marginal stability of the circular orbits, that comprises only two parameters, namely the rotation parameter of black hole and the strength of the magnetic field. We also find the closed analytical expressions for the associated angular momentum and energy of a charged particle moving in a marginally stable circular orbit. Further, for a sufficiently large values of the magnetic field, as well as for a maximum value of the black hole rotation parameter we find the limiting analytical solutions for the radii of stability of both direct and retrograde innermost circular orbits. This allows us not only to emphasize that the presence of a magnetic field enlarges the region of stability towards the event horizon, but also to find the limiting values for this enlargement both for direct and retrograde motions along with their associated energies and angular momenta. Our analytical and numerical calculations show that the combined effects of a sufficiently strong magnetic field and the rotation of a black hole give rise to the possibility of relativistic motion of the charged particles in the innermost stable direct and retrograde orbits. The existence of relativistic motion in the innermost stable direct orbits is especially important new feature worked out in our analysis. These orbits lie very close to the event horizon of a rotating black hole and they may provide a mechanism for synchrotron emission from relativistic charged particles with the signatures of the strong-gravity domain.

The paper is organized as follows. We shall first review the solution of the Maxwell equations describing a uniform magnetic field in the Kerr metric with a small electric charge (see Section 2). In Section 3 we consider the separation of variables in the Hamilton-Jacobi equation and derive the effective potential for the radial motion of charged particles around a Kerr black hole in a uniform magnetic field. These results are used in Section 4 to obtain the basic equations governing the region of the marginal stability of the circular orbits and their associated energies and angular momenta. To make the analysis more transparent in the general case, we shall first present the results of analytical and numerical calculations for the marginal stability of the circular orbits in the pure Kerr metric, as well as in a uniform magnetic field in the Schwarzchild metric (see Sections 4.1 and 4.2). Section 4.3 is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the effect of a uniform magnetic field on the radii and the assigned energy and angular momentum of the marginally stable circular orbits for various values of the magnetic field and the rotation parameter of the black hole.

## 2 Uniform magnetic field around a rotating black hole

It is well known that an electrically neutral black hole can not have intrinsic magnetic field (Ginzburg $`\&`$ Ozernoy 1965). However, a magnetic field near a black hole can arise due to external factors, such as the presence of a nearby magnetars or neutron stars. Accretion of a matter cloud may also form a magnetosphere with a superstrong magnetic field of magnitude up to $`B_M=\frac{1}{M}2\times 10^{10}(M/10^9M_{})^1G`$ around a supermassive black hole (Kardashev 1995). This value corresponds to the case when the magnetic and gravitational pressures become equal to each other (Bic̆ák $`\&`$ Janis̆ 1985). It is clear that with this value of the magnetic field the space-time geometry near a black hole will be significantly distorted (Aliev $`\&`$ Gal’tsov 1989), however, when $`BB_M`$ there is definitly a region near the black hole where the space-time is not distorted by the external magnetic field and the latter can be considered as a perturbation. We shall consider this case i.e. a rotating black hole with a small electric charge $`(QM)`$ immersed in an external magnetic field described by a corresponding solution of the Maxwell equations against the background of the Kerr metric

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{2Mr}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}\right)dt^2+{\displaystyle \frac{4Mar}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta dtd\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{A\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}d\varphi ^2`$ (1)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }\left({\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}+d\theta ^2\right),`$
where $`M`$ is the mass of the black hole, $`a=J/M`$ is its angular momentum per unit mass, $`A=(r^2+a^2)^2\mathrm{\Delta }a^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=r^2+a^22Mr`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=r^2+a^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta `$. We shall assume a magnetic field around the Kerr black hole to be uniform at infinity. In this case there is an elegant way to construct the solution of the Maxwell equation (Wald 1974). We shall now give a succinct description of this solution.

The Kerr space-time is stationary and axially symmetric that implies the existence of two commuting Killing vector fields $`\xi _{(t)}^\mu =(1,0,0,0)`$ and $`\xi _{(\varphi )}^\mu =(0,0,0,1)`$. These fields are used as a $`4`$-vector potential $`A_\mu `$ describing electromagnetic fields in the Kerr metric that are superpositions of Coulomb electric and asymptotically uniform magnetic fields. Indeed, for Ricci-flat space-times $`(R_{\mu \nu }=0)`$, the Maxwell equations for the $`4`$-vector potential in the covariant Lorentz gauge $`A_{;\mu }^\mu =0`$

$$A_{;\nu }^{\mu }{}_{}{}^{;\nu }=0$$
(2)
and the equation

$$\xi _{;\nu }^{\mu }{}_{}{}^{;\nu }=0$$
(3)
for a Killing vector are the same. The semicolon means covariant differentiation. We shall take the $`4`$-vector potential in the form

$$A^\mu =\alpha \xi _{(t)}^\mu +\beta \xi _{(\varphi )}^\mu $$
(4)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are arbitrary parameters. Next, we calculate the Maxwell $`2`$-form using equation (4). We find

$`F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2M}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{2r^2}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}\right)(\alpha \beta a\mathrm{sin}^2\theta )(dtdr+a\mathrm{sin}^2\theta drd\varphi )`$ (5)
$`\beta (2r\mathrm{sin}^2\theta drd\varphi +{\displaystyle \frac{A}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}\mathrm{sin}2\theta d\theta d\varphi )`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2Mar}{\mathrm{\Sigma }^2}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta [(\alpha a\beta (r^2+a^2))dtd\theta `$
$`+(r^2+a^2)(\alpha \beta a\mathrm{sin}^2\theta )d\theta d\varphi ],`$
which in the asymptotic region $`rM`$ reduces to

$$F=2\beta r\mathrm{sin}\theta (\mathrm{sin}\theta drd\varphi +r\mathrm{cos}\theta d\theta d\varphi ).$$
(6)
It follows that $`\beta =B/2`$, where $`B`$ is the strength of the uniform magnetic field, which is parallel to the rotation axis of the black hole. As for the remaining parameter $`\alpha `$ it can be specified using the surface integrals for the mass and angular momentum of the black hole (Bardeen, Carter $`\&`$ Hawking 1973)

$$M=\frac{1}{8\pi }\xi _{(t)}^{\mu }{}_{}{}^{;\nu }d^2\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mu \nu }J=\frac{1}{16\pi }\xi _{(\varphi )}^{\mu }{}_{}{}^{;\nu }d^2\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mu \nu }$$
(7)
along with the Gauss integral for its electric charge

$$Q=\frac{1}{4\pi }F^{\mu \nu }d^2\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mu \nu }.$$
(8)
Finally, we obtain

$$\alpha =aB\frac{Q}{2M}$$
(9)
Thus, the $`4`$-vector potential takes the form

$$A^\mu =\frac{1}{2}B\xi _{(\varphi )}^\mu \frac{Q2aMB}{2M}\xi _{(t)}^\mu .$$
(10)
We see that in addition to the usual magnetic and Coulomb parts of the electromagnetic field the 4-potential (10) also contains a contribution proportional to the rotation parameter of the black hole. It is clear that such a field appears due to the Faraday induction; a rotation of the Kerr metric produces an induced electric field, just as a field would be induced by a rotating loop in a magnetic field. The underlying geometry is such that the induced potential difference arises between the event horizon and infinitely remote point

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Phi }_H\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{}}=\frac{Q2aMB}{2M}.$$
(11)
Since an astrophysical object will rapidly neutralize its electric charge by a process of the selective accretion of charges from surrounding plasma, the potential difference (11) will vanish, or equivalently

$$\stackrel{~}{Q}=Q2aMB=0$$
(12)
and the black hole will acquire an inductive electric charge $`Q=2aMB`$ . On the other hand, in this very simple model we see that the Faraday induction may be a possible mechanism for the tapping of the rotational energy from a black hole. Namely, this mechanism lies in the basic structure of the model of a supermassive black hole for active galactic nuclei and quasars (Blandford $`\&`$ Znajek 1977; Kardashev 1995) .

## 3 Motion of charged particles

In a realistic model of gas accretion onto a black hole energy is released mostly at the expense of the binding energy of the test particles moving in a strong gravitational field of the black hole. This may be used to propose an alternative model for the interpretation of the observational data from the core of a number of galaxies (see Shapiro $`\&`$ Teukolsky 1983 and references therein). Moreover, as we have mentioned above the observations of the core of some galaxies reveal the existence of non-thermal radiation and radio waves. The latter can be explained by synchrotron emission from ultrarelativistic electrons in a strong magnetic field in the innermost orbits around a supermassive black hole (Rees 1998). This makes it very important to investigate in detail the motion of charged particles around a rotating black hole in an external magnetic field. In the following we shall do it using (10) as a 4-vector potential of the external magnetic field. For convenience, we shall use the gauge in which $`A^0=0`$ at infinity. Then we have

$$\stackrel{~}{A^0}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{Q}r(r^2+a^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }},\stackrel{~}{A^\varphi }=\frac{B}{2}+\frac{\stackrel{~}{Q}ra}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }}.$$
(13)
We shall study the motion of the test particles around a rotationg black hole with zero electric charge $`(\stackrel{~}{Q}0)`$ using the Hamilton-Jacobi equation

$$g^{\mu \nu }\left(\frac{S}{x^\mu }+e\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu \right)\left(\frac{S}{x^\nu }+e\stackrel{~}{A}_\nu \right)=m^2,$$
(14)
where $`e`$ and $`m`$ are the charge and the mass of a test particle, respectively. Since $`t`$ and $`\varphi `$ are the Killing variables we can write the action in the form

$$S=Et+L\varphi +f(r,\theta ),$$
(15)
where the conserved quantities $`E`$ and $`L`$ are the energy and the angular momentum of a test particle at infinity. Substituting it into equation (14) we come to the equation for unseparable part of the action

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\left({\displaystyle \frac{f}{r}}\right)^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{f}{\theta }}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{A}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}E^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }2Mr}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }}L^2+{\displaystyle \frac{4Mra}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}ELeBL\mathrm{\Sigma }`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}e^2B^2A\mathrm{sin}^2\theta +m^2\mathrm{\Sigma }=0`$ (16)
It is not possible to separate variables in this equation in general case, however one can separate it in the equatorial plane $`\theta =\pi /2`$. Then we obtain the equation for radial motion

$$r^3\left(\frac{dr}{ds}\right)^2=V(E,L,r,ϵ)$$
(17)
where $`s`$ is the proper time along the trajectory of a particle and

$`V=(r^3+a^2r+2Ma^2)E^2(r2M)L^24MaEL`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }r(1+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵL}{M}}){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{4M^2}}ϵ^2(r^3+a^2r+2Ma^2)`$ (18)
can be thought of as an effective potential of the radial motion. Here we have changed $`EE/m`$ and $`LL/m`$. The effective potential besides the energy, the angular momentum and the radius of the motion also depends on the dimensionless parameter

$$ϵ=\frac{eBM}{m},$$
(19)
which characterizes the relative influence of a uniform magnetic field on the motion of the charged particles. We shall call it as the influence parameter of the magnetic field. We note that even for small values of the magnetic field strength $`(B/B_M1)`$ the parameter $`ϵ`$ for a particle with high charge-to-mass ratio (for instance, for electron $`e/m10^{21}`$) may not be small.

## 4 Marginally stable circular orbits

We shall now describe a particular class of orbits, namely circular orbits that play an important role in understanding the essential features of the dynamics of test particles around a rotating black hole in a magnetic field. Physically, from the symmetry of the problem it is clear that the circular orbits are possible in the equatorial plane $`\theta =\pi /2`$ and to describe them one must set $`\frac{dr}{ds}`$ to be zero. This, in turn, requires vanishing of the effective potential (18)

$$V(E,L,r,ϵ)=0$$
(20)
along with its first derivative with respect to $`r`$

$$\frac{V(E,L,r,ϵ)}{r}=0$$
(21)
The simultaneous solution of these equations would determine the energy and the angular momentum of the circular motion in terms of the orbital radius, the hole’s rotation parameter and the influence parameter of the magnetic field $`ϵ`$. However, the underlying expressions involve high order polynomial equations and their analytical solution is formidable and defies analysis. Therefore in Prasanna & Vishveshwara (1978) and Prasanna (1980) the authors have appealed to a numerical analysis of equations (20) -(21) for different values of the constants of motion, orbital radii, black hole’s rotation parameter, as well as the strength parameter of the magnetic field.

Fortunately, the situation is changed if one wishes to restrict oneself to considering only the marginally stable circular orbits. After all, the stable orbits are most of interest astrophysically, as the binding energy of the marginally stable circular orbits is of an energy source for the potential efficiency of an accretion disc around a black hole. The stability of the circular motion requires the relation

$$\frac{^2V(E,L,r,ϵ)}{r^2}0$$
(22)
where the case of equality corresponds to the marginally stable circular motion. It is clear that the simultaneous solutions of equations (20) -(22) will determine the region of stability, the associated energy and angular momentum of the circular orbits. It is remarkable that in this case one can obtain the close equation governing the stability region which depends only on the rotation parameter of the black hole and the influence parameter of the magnetic field. Below we shall show that for the limiting values of the parameters this equation admits the simple analytical solutions for the radii of stability.

From equations (21) and (22) we find that the angular momentum and the energy of a test particle can be given in the form

$$L=ϵ\left(r\frac{a^2}{3r}\right)\pm \sqrt{\lambda }$$
(23)
$$E=\left[\eta \frac{ϵ}{M}\left(1\frac{2M}{3r}\right)\sqrt{\lambda }\right]^{\frac{\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}}{2}},$$
(24)
where we have used the notations

$`\lambda =2M(r{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{3r}})+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ^2}{4M^2}}[r^2(5r^24Mr+4M^2)+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}a^2(5r^26Mr+2M^2)+a^4(1+{\displaystyle \frac{4M^2}{9r^2}})]`$ (25)
and

$$\eta =1\frac{2M}{3r}\frac{ϵ^2}{6}\left[45\frac{r^2}{M^2}\frac{a^2}{M^2}\left(3\frac{2M}{r}+\frac{4M^2}{3r^2}\right)\right]$$
(26)
These expressions depend on the radius of stability of a circular orbit which yet has to be determined. Substituting (23) and (24) into equation (20) we obtain the equation

$`\left(6Mrr^2+3a^2{\displaystyle \frac{4a^2M}{r}}\right)\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{M}}\sqrt{\lambda }\right)`$
$`+ϵ^2[r^2(6{\displaystyle \frac{4r}{M}}+{\displaystyle \frac{9}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{M^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{r^3}{M^3}})`$
$`a^2(3+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{r}{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{5r^2}{M^2}})+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{a^4}{M^2}}(1{\displaystyle \frac{2M}{3r}}+{\displaystyle \frac{8M^2}{9r^2}})]`$
$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}6}a\left[\sqrt{\lambda }ϵ\left(r{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{3r}}\right)\right]\left[\eta {\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{M}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{M}{r}}\right)\sqrt{\lambda }\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}=0.`$ (27)
The solution of this equation will determine the radii of the marginally stable circular orbits as functions of the rotation parameter $`a`$, as well as of the influence parameter of the magnetic field $`ϵ`$.

It should be noted that the circular motions will occur in direct and retrograde orbits depending on whether the particles are corotating $`(L>0)`$, or counterrotating $`(L<0)`$ with respect to the rotation of a black hole. In addition, the presence of a uniform magnetic field will produce the Larmor and anti-Larmor motions depending on whether the Lorentz force points toward a black hole, or it points in the opposite direction. We recall that we are considering only the case of parallel alignment of black hole’s rotation axis and the direction of a uniform magnetic field. Therefore, as we shall see below, the Larmor motion $`(L<0)`$ will occur in retrograde orbits, while the anti-Larmor motion $`(L>0)`$ will accompany the direct orbits. Thus, in all expressions above the upper signs corresponds to the direct, or the anti-Larmor orbits and the lower signs refer to the retrograde, or the Larmor orbits. Next, before carrying out the full analysis of equations (23), (24) and (27), it is useful to proceed with the particular cases.

### 4.1 Kerr black hole

In the absence of a magnetic field the energy and the angular momentum of a test particle in the marginally stable circular orbits around a Kerr black hole are obtained from equations (23) and (24) for $`ϵ=0`$. We have

$$E=\sqrt{1\frac{2M}{3r}},L=\pm \sqrt{2M\left(r\frac{a^2}{3r}\right)},$$
(28)
where, the radii $`r=r_{ms}`$ of the orbits satisfy the equation

$`6Mr^2r^34a^2M+3a^2r`$
$`2\sqrt{2}aM^{1/2}\left[\left(3r2M\right)\left(3r^2a^2\right)\right]^{\frac{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}}{2}}=0`$ (29)
which is of a particular case of equation (27) for $`ϵ=0`$. Since the radii of stability are different for direct and retrograde motions, their appropriate energy and angular momentum given in equations (28) are different as well. The solution of (29) can be written in the form

$$r_{ms}=M\left\{3+\sqrt{k_1+k_2}\left[2k_1k_2\frac{16(3k_1)}{\sqrt{k_1+k_2}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}\right\}$$
(30)
where

$`k_1`$ $`=`$ $`3+{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{M^2}},`$
$`k_2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(3{\displaystyle \frac{a}{M}}\right)\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{a}{M}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{a}{M}}\right)^{\frac{2}{3}}+`$ (31)
$`\left(3+{\displaystyle \frac{a}{M}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{a}{M}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{a}{M}}\right)^{\frac{2}{3}}`$
This expression agrees with that found by Bardeen et al. long ago (Bardeen et al. 1972). For a nonrotating black hole, $`a=0`$, it gives $`r_{ms}=6M`$, while in the maximally rotating case, $`a=M`$, one finds $`r=M`$ for the direct orbits and $`r=9M`$ for the retrograde orbits. Taking these into account in (28) we find the limiting values for the energy of the direct and retrograde motions

$$E_{direct}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}},E_{retrograte}=\frac{5}{3\sqrt{3}}.$$
(32)
In order to make the above limits more trasparent and also with the purpose of comparing them with the corresponding quantities in the presence of an external magnetic field Table 1 provides the full list for the values of the radii, of their assigned energies and angular momenta as functions of the rotation parameter of a black hole. It is important to note that the limiting value of the energy of a direct orbit determines the maximum binding energy that can be assigned to a last stable circular orbits. One can easily find that this quantity is of order of $`42\%`$ of the rest energy and it determines the efficiency of an accretion disc around a maximally rotating black hole.

### 4.2 Schwarzschild black hole in a magnetic field

From equations (23) and (24) it is clear that the case $`a=0`$ will give us the angular momentum and the energy of a charged particle moving in a marginally stable circular orbit around a nonrotating black hole immersed into a uniform magnetic field

$$L=ϵr\pm \frac{r^{1/2}}{2M}\mathrm{\Lambda }$$
(33)
and

$$E=\left[\left(1\frac{2M}{3r}\right)\left(1\frac{ϵr^{1/2}}{2M^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)+\frac{ϵ^2}{6}\left(\frac{5r^2}{M^2}4\right)\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
(34)
where

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\left[8M^3+ϵ^2r(5r^24Mr+4M^2)\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}$$

and the stability radius $`r=r_{ms}`$ is determined by the equation

$$\left(6Mrr^2\right)\left(1\frac{ϵr^{1/2}}{2M^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)+ϵ^2r^2\left(6\frac{4r}{M}+\frac{9}{2}\frac{r^2}{M^2}\frac{r^3}{M^3}\right)=0$$
(35)
As we have mentioned above in this case there exist two different kind of motions depending on the directions of the Lorentz force with respect to a black hole. In turn, it is associated with two signs in equations (33)-(35). Following to papers by Gal’tsov $`\&`$ Petukhov (1978) and Aliev $`\&`$ Gal’tsov (1989) we shall distinguish the two kind of motions as the Larmor (the lower signs in (33)-(35)) and the anti-Larmor (the upper signs in (33)-(35)) motions. In order to get more insight into these motions it is useful to obtain the expressions for the angular momentum and energy in the asymptotically flat region $`rM`$. Solving equations (20) and (21) simultaneously for $`rM`$ we find that for orbits with $`L<0`$

$$L\frac{eBr^2}{2m},E\sqrt{1+\left(\frac{eBr}{m}\right)^2}.$$
(36)
It follows that this kind of motion is nothing but an ordinary cyclotron rotation in a uniform magnetic field under the Lorentz force pointing towards the centre of the orbit of typical radius

$$r=\frac{mv}{eB\sqrt{1v^2}}$$
(37)
This is the Larmor motion, while in the opposite case of orbits with $`L>0`$ we find that $`E1`$, that is the anti-Larmor motion when the Lorentz force points outwards the centre of the motion may occur only in the presence of a black hole. Next, we need to solve equation (35) for $`r`$. It is of a high order polynomial equation and only for large values of $`ϵ`$ $`(ϵ1)`$ one can find the limiting solutions

$$r_L=\frac{5+\sqrt{13}}{2}M,r_A2M.$$
(38)
Note that the radii of the marginally stable circular orbits are different for the Larmor $`(r_L)`$ and anti-Larmor $`(r_A)`$ motions, the effect of a uniform magnetic field shifts both of them towards the event horizon and even right up to the event horizon for the anti-Larmor motion when $`ϵ`$ is large enough. These conclusions are in agreement with those made in Gal’tsov $`\&`$ Petukhov (1978) on the basis of numerical calculations. Substituting the radii (38) in equations (33)-(34) respectively, we find that for $`ϵ1`$

$$E_L5.56ϵM,L23.47ϵM$$
(39)
for the Larmor motion and

$$E_A0,L2ϵM$$
(40)
for the anti-Larmor motion. First of all, it follows from (39) that for $`ϵ1`$ there exists a stable ultarelativistic motion of charged particles, while in the absence of a magnetic field as is well known, a stable motion in the field of a nonrotating black hole is only non-relativistic. In addition, the energy of the anti-Larmor motion in the innermost stable orbit tends to zero and the corresponding binding energy approaches $`100\%`$ of the rest energy, in contrast to $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}42}\%`$ that of in the field of a maximally rotating black hole. A more detailed analysis of how the above conclusions are made is given in Table 2. It exhibits the full list for the values of the radii and of the associated energies and angular momenta as functions of the influence parameter of the magnetic field $`ϵ`$.

### 4.3 General case

We now turn to the consideration of the combined effects of the black hole rotation and a uniform magnetic field on the marginally stable circular orbits. The radii of their stability are determined by equation (27), which in the general case can be solved only numerically. However, in the case of a maximally rotating black hole and large enough values of the magnetic field strength $`(ϵ1)`$ we find the limiting analytical solution for a retrograde motion

$$r=2M\left\{1+2\mathrm{cos}\left[\frac{1}{3}tan^1\left(\frac{\sqrt{7}}{3}\right)\right]\right\}$$
(41)
while, for a direct motion we have the two different radii

$$r_1M,r_2=(1+\sqrt{2})M.$$
(42)
The appearance of the two stable orbits can apparently be related to the effect of the expelling of magnetic flux lines from the horizon of a black hole as the rotation parameter of the hole increases (Bic̆ák $`\&`$ Janis̆ 1985). In our case a large enough value of the magnetic field shifts the innermost stable circular orbits to the event horizon and this, in turn, along with the increase of the hole’s rotation parameter provides the expulsion of the magnetic field lines from the black hole. As a result of this the above two anti-Larmor orbits appear. In the case of the first orbits the radius of stability tends the event horizon, but the effect of the magnetic field on it should become less and less as it approaches the horizon. In the second case the anti-Larmor motion is expelled from the black hole and it occurs at the limiting radius given by $`r_2`$ in (42).

A more precise description of it, of course, requires the detailed numerical analysis of equation (27). The results are listed in Tables 3.1-3.2. Comparing these results and also the radii (41)-(42) with those given in subsection 4.1 we see that the magnetic field always plays a stabilizing role in its effect on the circular orbits. In the Kerr metric the region of stability for direct orbits enlarges towards the event horizon with the increase of hole’s rotation parameter, while for prograde orbits it moves in the opposite direction (see Table 1). The presence of a large-scale uniform magnetic field around a Kerr black hole shifts the innermost stable circular orbits towards the horizon for both direct and retrograde motions.

However, as it is seen from Table 3.2, when $`ϵ`$ is large enough the direct motion decays into two motions and the separation becomes more significant as the rotation parameter tends to its maximum value. This is due to the effect of the expelling of the magnetic field from nearby region of the horizon as the angular momentum of the black hole increases. At the same time, Tables 3.1-3.2. show that for retrograde orbits the rotation of a black hole opposes to the stabilizing effect of the magnetic field, leading finally to the limiting value of the radius given in (41).

Some results of the numerical analysis of equation (27) are also depicted in Figs.1-2. Fig.1 shows the dependence of the radii of marginally stable circular orbits on the rotation parameter $`a`$ for values of $`ϵ=0,1`$. In Fig.2 for various values of the black hole rotation parameter we illustrate the enlargement of the region of the marginal stability with the growth of the influence parameter of the magnetic field. In both cases we observe that even not very large value of the magnetic field produces an essential enlargement in the region of the marginally stable circular orbits towards the horizon of the black hole.

Next, substituting the value of the radius (41) into equations (23)-(24) we calculate the limiting value for the pertaining energy and angular momentum at a retrograde motion

$$E=7.82ϵ,L=42.55ϵM.$$
(43)
As $`ϵ1`$, the retrograde motion of a charged particle at the last stable circular orbit around a maximally rotating black hole is of a relativistic motion as in the case of a nonrotating black hole (see equation (39)), however, the rotation further enhances this effect. In the same way, using the radius $`r_2`$ in (42) we find the energy and the angular momentum

$$E=0.41ϵ,L=3.82ϵM$$
(44)
pertaining to the innermost direct, anti-Larmor, motion. It follows that the anti-Larmor motion of a charged particle at the radius $`r_2`$ may also become relativistic for $`ϵ1`$, in contrast to that in the case of a nonrotating black hole, where the corresponding energy tends to zero (equation (40)).

In Tables 3.1-3.2 we also give the full list for the values of the energies and angular momenta pertaining to the marginally stable circular orbits. Comparing these quantities with those in Table 2 we see that in all cases the energy of the retrograde motion monotonically increases up to its relativistic values as the influence of the magnetic field, as well as the rotation of the black hole increase. However, the energy of the anti-Larmor motion around a Schwarzschild black hole systematically decreases as a test particle approaches the event horizon. The rotation of the black hole drastically changes the situation. The energies of direct motions increase monotonically as the hole’s rotation parameter increases, excepting the nearest to the horzon region, where the effect of the expelling of the magnetic field becomes dominant (Bic̆ák $`\&`$ Janis̆ 1985). Thus, we may conclude that for large enough values of the magnetic field strength, $`ϵ1`$, both retrograde and direct motions of charged particles around a rotating black hole become relativistic along the innermost stable circular orbits. It is especially important to note the possibility of the relativistic stable direct orbits near the event horizon of a rotationg black hole in the presence of a strong magnetic field, unlike the case of a nonrotating black hole. This is due to the intimate connection between gravitation and electrodynamics that arises in the model considered here.

## 5 Conclusions

The main purpose of this paper was to study the combined effects of the rotation of a Kerr black hole and an external magnetic field on the marginally stable circular motion of charged particles. We have presented general equations governing the energy, the angular momentum and the region of the marginal stability of circular orbits around a rotating black hole in a uniform magnetic field. The analytical results obtained for large enough values of the magnetic field strength and for a maximum value of the black hole angular momentum, as well as the numerical analysis performed in general case have shown that in all cases of the circular orbits the magnetic field essentially enlarges the region of their marginal stability towards the event horizon. As for the effect of the rotation of a black hole it has been found to be different for direct and retrograde motions: For retrograde motion the rotation opposes to the magnetic field in its stabilizing effect, though the latter always remains be dominant and for extreme values of the magnetic field and rotation parameter there exists a limiting value for the enlargement of the region of stability towards the event horizon. In the case of direct motion the presence of a rotation produces an additional shift of the stable orbits to the event horizon. However, for large enough values of the magnetic field, when the innermost stable motion occurs at a radius that lies very close to the event horizon, the magnetic field lines are expelled from the black hole as the hole’s rotation parameter increases. Accordingly, the direct motion occurs in two different orbits; one of them is also expelled from the black hole, while the other one being affected less and less by the magnetic field approaches the event horizon as the rotation becomes maximum.

We have shown that the presence of a strong magnetic field around a rotating black holes provides the possibility of retrograde motion in the innermost stable relativistic orbits and the rotation of the black hole further enhances this effect. It is very important that, unlike the Schwarzschild case, the combined effects of a sufficiently large magnetic field and the rotation of a black hole also result in relativistic motions in the innermost stable direct orbits that lie very close to the event horizon. Thus, nearby the event horizon of a rotating black hole there may exist a source of synchrotron emission from relativistic charged particles moving in stable circular orbits. This, of course, may play an important role both in the searches for black holes and in making feasible the probes of the metric in the strong-gravity domain.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank E. İnönü, I. H. Duru, M Hortaçsu for their stimulating interest in our work and C. Saçlıoğlu for reading the manuscript and valuable comments.

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Table 1. Marginally stable circular orbits around a Kerr black hole in the absence of a magnetic field

| $`ϵ=0`$ |  | direct orbits |  |  | retrograde orbits |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`a/M`$ | $`r/M`$ | $`E`$ | $`L/M`$ | $`r/M`$ | $`E`$ | $`L/M`$ |
| 0.0 | 6.0 | 0.94 | 3.46 | 6.0 | 0.94 | -3.46 |
| 0.2 | 5.32 | 0.93 | 3.26 | 6.63 | 0.94 | -3.64 |
| 0.4 | 4.61 | 0.92 | 3.03 | 7.25 | 0.95 | -3.80 |
| 0.6 | 3.82 | 0.90 | 2.75 | 7.85 | 0.95 | -3.96 |
| 0.8 | 2.90 | 0.87 | 2.37 | 8.43 | 0.95 | -4.10 |
| 0.999 | 1.18 | 0.65 | 1.34 | 8.99 | 0.96 | -4.24 |

Table 2. Marginally stable circular orbits around a nonrotating black hole in a uniform magnetic field

| $`a=0`$ |  | anti-Larmor orbits |  |  | Larmor orbits |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`ϵ`$ | $`r/M`$ | $`E`$ | $`L/M`$ | $`r/M`$ | $`E`$ | $`L/M`$ |
| 0.0 | 6.0 | 0.94 | 3.46 | 6.0 | 0.94 | -3.46 |
| 0.2 | 3.98 | 0.78 | 3.51 | 4.63 | 1.57 | -6.32 |
| 0.4 | 3.35 | 0.71 | 3.92 | 4.41 | 2.50 | -10.35 |
| 0.6 | 3.05 | 0.65 | 4.34 | 4.35 | 3.52 | -14.73 |
| 0.8 | 2.86 | 0.62 | 4.74 | 4.33 | 4.59 | -19.27 |
| 1.0 | 2.74 | 0.58 | 5.18 | 4.32 | 5.67 | -23.86 |
| 1.4 | 2.58 | 0.53 | 6.03 | 4.31 | 7.86 | -33.11 |
| 2.0 | 2.43 | 0.49 | 7.19 | 4.30 | 11.16 | -46.99 |
| 10.0 | 2.10 | 0.32 | 23.16 | 4.30 | 55.60 | -234.42 |
| 100.0 | 2.01 | 0.29 | 203.01 | 4.30 | 556.00 | -2343.99 |

Table 3.1. Marginally stable circular orbits around a Kerr black hole in a uniform magnetic field with $`ϵ=1`$.

| $`ϵ=1`$ |  | direct orbits |  |  | retrograde orbits |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`a/M`$ | $`r/M`$ | $`E`$ | $`L/M`$ | $`r/M`$ | $`E`$ | $`L/M`$ |
| 0.0 | 2.74 | 0.58 | 5.18 | 4.32 | 5.67 | -23.86 |
| 0.2 | 2.57 | 0.62 | 4.46 | 4.67 | 6.16 | -27.55 |
| 0.4 | 2.38 | 0.65 | 3.76 | 4.99 | 6.61 | -31.17 |
| 0.6 | 2.17 | 0.69 | 3.10 | 5.31 | 7.06 | -35.02 |
| 0.8 | 1.89 | 0.71 | 2.38 | 5.61 | 7.49 | -38.84 |
| 0.999 | 1.15 | 0.59 | 1.21 | 5.89 | 7.89 | -42.58 |

Table 3.2. The influence of a sufficiently strong magnetic field on the marginally stable circular orbits around a Kerr black hole
$`ϵ=100`$   direct   orbits      retrograde     orbits   $`a/M`$   $`r_1/M`$  $`E_1`$ $`L_1/M`$   $`r_2/M`$  $`E_2`$ $`L_2/M`$   $`r/M`$     $`E`$     $`L/M`$     0.0   2.01  0.29 203.01   2.01  0.29 203.01   4.30    556.00    -2343.99   0.2   1.98  9.97 195.55   2.05  9.49 219.31   4.65    605.31    -2714.25   0.4   1.93  19.74 185.63   2.13  18.46 246.97   4.98    652.19    -3090.56   0.6   1.84  29.09 168.84   2.23  26.44 288.74   5.29    696.60    -3468.64   0.8   1.68  37.34 141.35   2.35  33.32 343.57   5.59    739.89    -3857.50   0.999   1.13  36.15 73.75   2.47  39.55 405.10   5.88    782.03    -4255.20

Captions to figures;

Figure 1. The dependence of the radii of marginally stable circular orbits around a Kerr black hole on the rotation parameter $`a`$ of the black hole for given $`ϵ=0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$. The solid curves refer to the innermost direct orbits, while the dashed curves correspond to the innermost retrograde orbits, the position of the event horizon is shown by the bold curve $`r_+`$.

Figure 2. The dependence of the radii of marginally stable circular orbits around a Kerr black hole in a uniform magnetic field on the influence parameter of the magnetic field $`ϵ`$. The solid curves indicate the innermost direct orbits, while the dashed curves correspond to the innermost retrograde orbits $`(\alpha =a/M=0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.5},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1})`$.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The cosmological constant problem can be cast into two questions. First, there is an old question:

(i) Why is the vacuum energy determined by a momentum scale much smaller than any reasonable cut-off scale in effective field theory of particle interactions?

This is sometimes referred to as the “old” cosmological constant problem. In view of the present astrophysical observations  one should also find an answer to the second question:

(ii) How come that the vacuum energy and the matter energy are comparable today? Do we live in a special epoch?

This is the so-called “cosmic coincidence” problem. To our knowledge the only existing framework, which can address both questions simultaneously, is the anthropic approach . Below we will concentrate on a dynamical solution of the “old” cosmological constant problem suggested in  which is based on a nonlinear and generally covariant model of metastable graviton proposed in Refs. . We have nothing to say about the “cosmic coincidence” problem.

Before reviewing the solution of Ref.  let us formulate the question properly. As it stands, the question (i) is ill-posed for our purposes. Let us first recall why the vacuum energy in the universe is normally assumed to be small.

In general relativity the cosmological expansion of the universe is described by a standard metric

$`ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)d\stackrel{}{x}^2.`$ (1)
Here $`a(t)`$ is the scale factor and $`t`$ is time in the co-moving coordinate system (we assume for definiteness that three-dimensional curvature is zero). In the presence of the vacuum energy density $``$, the scale factor $`a(t)`$ obeys the Friedmann equation

$`H^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)^2={\displaystyle \frac{}{3M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}},`$ (2)
where $`\dot{a}da/dt`$ (for simplicity we set $`>0`$).

We have no direct experimental way to measure $``$. Instead, we measure space-time curvature by cosmological observations, and then determine $``$ through Eq. (2). Thus, claiming that $``$ should be small we implicitly assume that Eq. (2) is valid for arbitrarily large length scales. This assumption does not need to be true.

Many approaches to the cosmological constant problem were designed to dynamically cancel the right-hand side of Eq. (2). Within four-dimensional local field theories with a finite number of degrees of freedom dynamical cancellation is ruled out by Weinberg’s no-go theorem . We take an alternative route. Following , we accept that the vacuum energy in our world can be large, but we question the validity of Eq. (2) in the extreme low-energy approximation.

We use the framework of Refs.  where gravity in general, and the Friedmann equation, in particular, is modified for wave lengths larger than a certain critical value. The cosmological constant problem is then remedied in the following way: Due to large-distance modification of gravity the energy density $`\text{ }>(1\mathrm{TeV})^4`$ does not curve the space as it would in the conventional Einstein gravity. Therefore, the observed space-time curvature is small, despite the fact that $``$ is huge (as it comes out naturally). This is the most crucial point of the approach of Ref.  — the point where we depart from the previous investigations.

Before we come to details, let us briefly discuss the Weinberg no-go theorem  adapted to the present case (for details see Ref. ). The theorem states that $``$ cannot be canceled (without fine-tuning) in any effective four-dimensional theory that satisfies the following conditions:

(a) General covariance;

(b) Conventional four-dimensional gravity is mediated by a massless graviton;

(c) Theory contains a finite number of fields below the cut-off scale;

(d) Theory contains no negative norm states.

Since we do not try to cancel $``$ but rather intend to suppress the space-time curvature induced by it, one could have argued that the theorem is inapplicable to begin with. However, this argument is incomplete and unsatisfactory. The point is that in any theory obeying conditions (a-d) Eq. (2) is valid. Therefore, in any such theory small $`H^2`$ would require small $``$.

We conclude that a successful solution must violate at least one condition in (a-d). The solution of Ref.  does violate (b) and (c). In particular, the zero-mode graviton, that mediates gravity in the far-infrared, has a coupling which is many orders of magnitude smaller than the Newton coupling. That is why large value of $``$ does not induce huge curvature.

The mode that mediates gravity between shorter wave-length sources, such as most of the sources in the observable part of the universe, is coupled to the sources with the usual Newton constant. This gives rise to conventional interactions for observable sources in the universe.

Note that the division in two different modes is purely for convenience. In general one could just drop the mode expansion language altogether and state that the strength of gravity depends on the wave length of the source. Although in the present case condition (c) is violated, in other possible realizations of the present idea this may not be necessary. At the same time, violation of condition (b) seems inevitable in any model that solves the cosmological constant problem through large-distance modification of gravity.

In four-dimensional general relativity gravitational interactions are mediated (at least at distances $`r\text{ }>`$ 0.1 mm) by a massless spin-2 particle, the graviton $`h_{\mu \nu }`$. General covariance (and the absence of ghosts and tachyons) requires the universality of the graviton coupling to matter

$`h_{\mu \nu }T^{\mu \nu }.`$ (3)
General covariance also fixes uniquely the low-energy effective action to be the Einstein-Hilbert action

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}{2}}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}\left(R2\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)},`$ (4)
where the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2`$ is included. The universal coupling to all sorts of energy, including the vacuum energy, is the reason for the emergence of the cosmological constant problem.

If the measured four-dimensional gravity were not mediated by an exactly massless state, the universality of coupling could be avoided. Thus, one may hope that in such theories very large wave-length sources (such as the vacuum energy) may effectively decouple from four-dimensional gravity, eliminating the cosmological constant problem. This is what happens in theories with infinite-volume extra dimensions. This phenomenon can be understood from the point of view of a four-dimensional brane observer as a modification of the equation of motion for the graviton. In conventional linearized general relativity the graviton obeys the following free field equation:

$`^2h_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},`$ (5)
while in the present case  (see also Sec. 4) the graviton obeys a modified linearized equation

$`\left\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{M_{}^{N2}}{c_1(N)M_{}^{N2}+c_2(N)\left(^2\right)^{\frac{N2}{2}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r_c^2^2}}\right\}^2h_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},`$ (6)
where $`M_{}`$ is the scale of higher dimensional theory, $`c_{1,2}`$ are some constants, and $`N`$ denotes the number of extra dimensions. $`r_c=M_{\mathrm{Pl}}/M_{}^2`$ is the critical crossover distance beyond which gravity is modified, as described by Eq. (6). The effective strength of gravity is set by the operator in the braces, which tends to unity for the short wave length ($`r_c`$) gravitons. As a result, Eq. (6) becomes indistinguishable from Eq. (5). Thus, in this region, the theory reproduces predictions of ordinary gravity with the standard $`G_N`$ coupling. However, in the deep-infrared region, where the momenta are smaller than $`r_c^1`$, new terms in (6) dominate over the conventional term (5). Hence, infrared physics is modified. It is this modification that serves as a loophole in the no-go theorem for solving the cosmological constant problem. It is remarkable that such a modification takes place in a manifestly generally covariant theory.

## 2 A brief overview of the model

The effective low-energy action in these theories takes the form

$`S=M_{}^{2+N}{\displaystyle d^4xd^N\rho \sqrt{G}}+{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{\overline{g}}\left(+M_{\mathrm{ind}}^2R+_{\mathrm{SM}}\right)}.`$ (7)
Here $`G_{AB}`$ stands for a $`(4+N)`$-dimensional metric $`(A,B=0,1,2,\mathrm{},3+N)`$, while $`\rho `$ are “perpendicular” coordinates. For simplicity we do not consider brane fluctuations. Thus, the induced metric on the brane is given by

$`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }(x)G_{\mu \nu }(x,\rho _n=0),(n=4,\mathrm{},3+N).`$ (8)
The first term in (7) is the bulk Einstein-Hilbert action for $`(4+N)`$-dimensional gravity, with the fundamental scale $`M_{}`$. The expression in (7) has to be understood as an effective low-energy Lagrangian valid for graviton momenta smaller than $`M_{}`$. We imply that, in addition, there are an infinite number of gauge-invariant high-dimensional bulk operators suppressed by inverse powers of $`M_{}`$.

The $`M_{\mathrm{ind}}^2R`$ term in (7) is the four-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert (EH) term of the induced metric. This term plays a crucial role. It ensures that the laws of four-dimensional gravity are reproduced at observable distances on the brane despite the fact that there is no localized zero-mode graviton. Its coefficient $`M_{\mathrm{ind}}`$ is another parameter of the model. $``$ denotes the brane tension. Thus, the low-energy action, as it stands in (7), is governed by three parameters $`M_{}`$, $`M_{\mathrm{ind}}`$ and $``$. Both parameters $`M_{}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{ind}}`$ are perturbatively-stable under quantum corrections. The parameter $``$ plays the role of the vacuum energy.

For $`=0`$ the gravitational dynamics on the brane is as follows. The infinite extra space notwithstanding, a brane observer measures four-dimensional gravitational interaction up to a certain critical distance $`r_c`$. The potential between two static sources on the brane scales as

$`V(r){\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_{\mathrm{ind}}^2r}},`$ (9)
for distances in the interval

$`M_{}^1<r<r_c,`$ (10)
where

$`r_c\{\begin{array}{cc}M_{\mathrm{ind}}^2/M_{}^3\text{for}N=1\hfill & \\ M_{\mathrm{ind}}/M_{}^2\text{for}N>1\hfill & \end{array}.`$ (13)
However, at distances smaller than $`M_{}^1`$ and larger than $`r_c`$ gravity changes. An important requirement is that gravity must be soft above the scale $`M_{}`$ . The expression (9) fixes $`M_{\mathrm{ind}}^2=M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2/2`$. In order for the late-time cosmology to be standard we require that $`r_cH_0^110^{28}\mathrm{cm}`$. This restricts the value of the bulk gravity scale to lie in the ball-park

$`\begin{array}{cc}10^3\mathrm{eV}<M_{}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}100}\mathrm{MeV}\text{for}N=1,\hfill & \\ M_{}10^3\mathrm{eV}\text{for}N>1.\hfill & \end{array}`$ (16)
Inclusion of non-vanishing $`M_{}^4`$ triggers inflation on the brane. The inflation rate is rather peculiar and is given by

$`H^2M_{}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_{}^4}{}}\right)^{\frac{2}{N2}}.`$ (17)
(This formula is not applicable to the $`N=2`$ case; see Ref.  for a discussion of induced gravity in this case.) Therefore, a large vacuum energy density $``$ causes a small rate of inflation for $`N>2`$.

The following question immediately come to one’s mind: How can such a behavior be understood from the standpoint of a four-dimensional observer on the brane? We will answer this question using the linearized analysis of .

The effect can be best understood in terms of the four-dimensional mode expansion. From this perspective a high-dimensional graviton represents a continuum of four-dimensional states and can be expanded in these states. Below we will be interested only in spin-2 components for which the KK decomposition can schematically be written as follows:

$$h_{\mu \nu }(x,\rho _n)=d^Nmϵ_{\mu \nu }^m(x)\sigma _m(\rho _n),$$
(18)
where $`ϵ_{\mu \nu }^m(x)`$ are four-dimensional spin-2 fields of mass $`m`$ and $`\sigma _m(\rho _n)`$ are their wave-function profiles in extra dimensions. The strength of individual mode coupling to a brane source is given by the value of the wave function at the position of the brane, that is $`\sigma _m(0)`$. Four-dimensional gravity on the brane is mediated by exchange of all the above modes. Each of these modes gives rise to a Yukawa type gravitational potential. The net result is

$$V(r)\frac{1}{M_{}^{2+N}}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑mm^{N1}|\sigma _m(0)|^2\frac{e^{rm}}{r}.$$
(19)
It is a crucial property of the model (7) that four-dimensional gravity on the brane is recovered for $`rr_c`$ due to the fact that modes with $`m>1/r_c`$ have suppressed wave-functions  and, therefore, the above integral is effectively cut-off at the upper limit at $`m1/r_c`$. Most easily this can be seen from the propagator analysis. Gravitational potential (19) on the brane is mediated by an “effective” 4D graviton which can be defined as

$$h_{\mu \nu }(x,0)=d^Nmϵ_{\mu \nu }^m(x)\sigma _m(0).$$
(20)
The Green’s function for this state can be defined in a usual way. Using (20) and orthogonality of the $`ϵ_{\mu \nu }^m(x)`$ states we obtain

$$𝒢(xx^{},0)_{\mu \nu ,\gamma \delta }=h_{\mu \nu }(x,0)h_{\gamma \delta }(x^{},0)=d^Nm|\sigma _m(0)|^2ϵ_{\mu \nu }^m(x)ϵ_{\gamma \delta }^m(x^{}).$$
(21)
From now on we will suppress the tensor structure, which is not essential for this discussion. Passing to the Euclidean momentum space we get the following expression for the scalar part of the propagator

$$G(p,0)=𝑑mm^{N1}\frac{|\sigma _m(0)|^2}{m^2+p^2}.$$
(22)
This is the spectral representation for the Green’s function

$$G(p,0)=𝑑s\frac{\rho (s)}{s+p^2},$$
(23)
with $`sm^2`$ and

$$\rho (s)=\frac{1}{2}s^{\frac{N2}{2}}|\sigma _\sqrt{s}(0)|^2.$$
(24)
Therefore, the spectral representation can be simply understood as the Kaluza-Klein mode expansion (18). Then, the wave-function suppression of the heavy modes can be read off from Eqs. (22) and (23) by using the explicit form of the propagator $`G(p)`$ ,

$`G(p,0)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2p^2+M_{}^{2+N}D^1(p,0)}},`$ (25)
where $`D^1(p,0)`$ is the inverse Green’s function of the bulk theory with no brane. For the purposes of the present discussion it is enough to note that at large momenta $`pr_c^1`$ the above propagator behaves as

$`G(p,0){\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2p^2}},`$ (26)
which is the propagator of a massless four-dimensional graviton with the coupling $`1/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2`$. Substituting (26) in the left-hand side of (23) we find that the function $`\rho (s)`$ must be suppressed at $`sr_c^2`$. If so, the relation (24) implies that the wave functions of the heavy modes must be vanishingly small as well.

For the $`N=1`$ case both the propagator  and the wave-function profiles can be evaluated analytically ,

$`G(p,0)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2p^2+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}M_{}^3p}},`$ (27)
and

$`|\sigma _m(0)|^2={\displaystyle \frac{4}{4+m^2M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^4/M_{}^6}}.`$ (28)
This shows that all the modes which are heavier than $`r_c^1=M_{}^3/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2`$ are suppressed on the brane. Substituting (28) into (19) we derive the usual Newton potential (9) at distances $`rr_c`$.

One can interpret the above Green’s function as describing a metastable state that decays into the bulk states with the lifetime $`\tau _cr_c`$. A remarkable fact is that the existence of such a metastable state is perfectly compatible with the exact four-dimensional general covariance.

## 3 Dilution of the cosmological constant

It is instructive to rederive the above-mentioned results with extra dimensions being compactified at very large cosmological distances. For non-vanishing $``$ the compactification is not trivial. If we were to set the compactification radius $`L`$ smaller than the gravitational radius of the brane

$`\rho _gM_{}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{M_{}^4}}\right)^{\frac{1}{N2}},`$ (29)
this would distort the brane gravitational background very strongly. Therefore, $`L`$ has to be at least somewhat larger than $`\rho _g`$. For realistic values of $``$ and $`M_{}`$ this leads to an estimate $`L\text{ }>H_0^110^{28}\mathrm{cm}`$ . In what follows for simplicity we will not distinguish the values of $`L`$, $`\rho _g`$ and $`H_0^1`$, in spite of the fact that there should be an order of magnitude difference between these scales ($`L\text{ }>\rho _g\text{ }>H_0^1`$). We simply set all these values in the ball-park of $`H_0^1`$. Let us now address the question: what does a 4D observer see on the brane?

Because the space is compactified, there is a mass gap in the KK modes. Start from the zero-mode massless graviton. This mode couples universally to the brane matter and vacuum energy. However, because the compactification scale is huge $`L\rho _gH_0^1`$ the coupling of the zero mode $`G_{\mathrm{zm}}`$ is tiny. Indeed,

$`G_{\mathrm{zm}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_{}^{2+N}L^N+M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}}.`$ (30)
The first term in the denominator is due to the compactness of the extra space and the second term is due to the induced EH term in (7). In particular, $`M_{}^{2+N}L^NM_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2`$ and, therefore,

$`G_{\mathrm{zm}}G_N.`$ (31)
Besides the zero mode, there is a tower of massive KK modes, with masses quantized in the units of $`H_0`$. A priori each of these modes is important for interactions at observable distances $`L`$, for instance in the solar system. However, due to the presence of the induced EH term on the brane (7) the wave functions of these modes are suppressed on the 4D world volume. The net result due to the KK modes can now be summarized as a single metastable graviton with the lifetime $`LH_0^1`$. The two descriptions — one in terms of the KK modes, and the other one in terms of the metastable graviton — are complimentary to each other.

The coupling of this metastable graviton to matter is determined by the coefficient in front of the induced EH term in (7). Since the latter is set to be $`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$, the metastable mode couples to matter with the Newton coupling $`G_N`$. Therefore, at observable distances, that are somewhat smaller than $`10^{28}\mathrm{cm}`$, the laws of 4D gravity are enforced by a metastable graviton which at these scales can be treated as a (almost) stable spin-2 state interacting with $`G_N`$. For these scales the presence of the zero mode is irrelevant because of its tiny coupling $`G_{\mathrm{zm}}`$. This provides conventional gravity and cosmology for any time scale up until today.

Let us now turn to distances somewhat larger that $`10^{28}\mathrm{cm}`$. There, the metastable mode does not mediate interactions (since its lifetime is less than $`H_0^1`$). Instead, one should think in terms of the massive KK modes. Since the mass of the lightest KK mode is $`H_0`$, the interactions due to the KK modes are exponentially suppressed at distances larger than $`H_0^1`$. Therefore, one is left with the zero mode interactions only. Any source which has characteristic wave lengths larger than $`H_0^1`$, (i.e., the characteristic momenta smaller than $`H_0`$) will feel gravity only due to the zero mode. Because the coupling of the zero mode is tiny (30), the curvature $`R`$ produced by this source will also be small

$`RG_{\mathrm{zm}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{M_{}^{2+N}L^N}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}}.`$ (32)
Since $`RH^2`$ and $`L\rho _g`$ where $`\rho _g`$ is defined in (29) we find from (32)

$`H^2M_{}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_{}^4}{}}\right)^{\frac{2}{N2}}.`$ (33)
This coincides with (17). Therefore, the small inflation rate (small curvature) is due to the fact that the zero mode is very weakly coupled to vacuum energy. Summarizing, compactification of extra dimensions with the ultra-large radius (29) produces essentially the same physical picture as in the model with infinite extra dimensions.

## 4 Four-dimensional picture on the brane

In this section we return to the uncompactified case. Four-dimensional gravitational interactions are mediated by a gapless infinite tower of Kaluza-Klein modes the wave functions of which are suppressed on the brane. Alternatively, these interactions can be thought of to be mediated by a single metastable four-dimensional graviton. The expression for the two-point Green’s function on the brane  leads to the following equation for this four-dimensional “effective” graviton :

$`\left(^2+m_c\sqrt{^2}\right)h_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\pi G_N\left(T_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\eta _{\mu \nu }T\right).`$ (34)
Here $`TT_\nu ^\nu `$ and $`m_cr_c^1M_{}^3/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2`$. This refers to one extra dimension<sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3Two branches of the square root in (34) lead to the standard and self-inflationary cosmological solutions ., $`N=1`$. As before, $`M_{}`$ denotes an ultraviolet scale at which gravity breaks down as an effective field theory. On phenomenological grounds, this can be any scale in the interval $`10^3\mathrm{eV}<M_{}<M_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$. As we discussed before, in the five-dimensional model we have $`10^3\mathrm{eV}<M_{}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}100}\mathrm{MeV}`$, so that $`m_c<H_010^{42}\mathrm{GeV}`$ is less than the Hubble scale $`H_0`$.

We would like to provide a nonlinear completion of Eq. (34). Let us start with the right-hand side (r.h.s.) of the equation. It is known that in the massive (metastable) graviton theory the tensorial structure of the graviton propagator is affected by nonlinear corrections . The expression which takes these nonlinear effects into account can be parametrized as follows:

$`\mathrm{r}.\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{s}.=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\pi G_N\{T_{\mu \nu }𝒦\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_c}{\mu }}\right)\eta _{\mu \nu }T\},`$ (35)
where $`𝒦(m_c/\mu )`$ is a function of the physical scale $`\mu `$ set by the source $`T`$ and of the distance from the source . For large (unobservable) distances it gives rise to $`𝒦(m_c/\mu )1/3`$, i.e., the result in (34). However, at measurable distances (e.g. solar system) we have $`𝒦(m_c/\mu )1/2`$ due to nonlinear effects. Hence, the discontinuity in the mass parameter $`m_c`$  is in fact absent in nonlinear theory of massive gravity  and, in particular, in the model of metastable graviton , as was shown in  (see also ). Therefore, for the distances of practical interest

$`\mathrm{r}.\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{s}.=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\pi G_N(T_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta _{\mu \nu }T),`$ (36)
which is a correct tensorial structure of the conventional Einstein equation.

The next step is to perform a nonlinear completion of the left-hand side (l.h.s.) of Eq. (35). The latter procedure is somewhat arbitrary from the point of view of pure 4D theory, however it is uniquely fixed by the higher dimensional theory . Here we are interested in qualitative features which are independent of the form of the completion. To this end one can use the substitution

$`h_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{^2}}R_{\mu \nu },`$ (37)
where $`R_{\mu \nu }`$ denotes the Ricci tensor. Furthermore, performing simple algebra we find the following nonlinear completion of the Eq. (35):

$`𝒢_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{m_c}{\sqrt{^2}}}𝒢_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}8}\pi G_NT_{\mu \nu },`$ (38)
where $`𝒢_{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }(1/2)g_{\mu \nu }R`$. This should be compared with the conventional Einstein equation

$`𝒢_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\pi G_NT_{\mu \nu }.`$ (39)
Note that the second term on the l.h.s in Eq. (38) does not appear in the Einstein equation. In fact, this is the very same term that dominates in the infrared region. The Bianchi identity imposes a new constraint on possible gravitational backgrounds $`m_c^\mu (^2)^{1/2}𝒢_{\mu \nu }=0`$ (in the linearized approximation the latter reduces to a gauge fixing condition). One can also note that from the standpoint of four-dimensional theory a violation of unitarity takes place. This corresponds to the fact that the metastable graviton can decay into KK modes. It is clear that the full five-dimensional unitarity is preserved while it can be violated in any given four-dimensional subspace.

As we have already mentioned, the procedure of the nonlinear completion used above is not unique. From the 4D point of view there is no guiding principle for this completion. In general, an infinite number of nonlinear terms with arbitrary coefficients can be added to the r.h.s. of (37). This would lead to an infinite number of new terms on the l.h.s. of Eq. (38). However, what is critical is that there is a unique set of these terms which complete the 4D theory to a higher dimensional theory that we started from. The purpose of the exercise performed above is to demonstrate that the presence of these nonlocal terms leads to modification of gravity in the infrared.

Similar arguments apply to higher co-dimensions. In a model with $`(4+N)`$ dimensions  the equation analogous to (35) takes the form

$`\left\{^2+{\displaystyle \frac{M_{}^{N+2}/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}{c_1(N)M_{}^{N2}+c_2(N)\left(^2\right)^{\frac{N2}{2}}}}\right\}h_{\mu \nu }=8\pi G_N\left\{T_{\mu \nu }𝒦\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_c}{\mu }}\right)\eta _{\mu \nu }T\right\},`$ (40)
where $`c_{1,2}(N)`$ are some constants that depend on $`N`$  (we do not discuss here the $`N=2`$ case for which there are logarithmic functions of $`^2`$ on the l.h.s. in (40)). Using the same method as above we propose a nonlinear completion of the equation which looks as follows:

$`𝒢_{\mu \nu }+\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{M_{}^{N+2}/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}{c_1(N)M_{}^{N2}+c_2(N)\left(^2\right)^{\frac{N2}{2}}}}\right\}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{^2}}𝒢_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\pi G_NT_{\mu \nu }.`$ (41)
One observes the same pattern: the second term on the l.h.s. dominates in the infrared. Hence, infrared gravity is modified. This is a necessary condition for the present approach to solve the cosmological constant problem. However, it is not sufficient, generally speaking. As we argued in Ref. , and in the previous sections, only $`N>2`$ models can solve the cosmological constant problem.

## 5 Killing cosmological constant does not kill inflation

The present scenario solves the cosmological constant problem due to modification of 4D gravity at very low energies. Due to this modification a strictly constant vacuum energy curves four-dimensional space extremely weakly. As we have seen, the contribution to the effective Hubble expansion rate from the vacuum energy $``$ is set by an inverse power of $``$, see Eq. (17). A question to be discussed in this section is whether the dilution of cosmological constant kills inflation. Naively this seems inevitable. According to the inflationary scenario, our 4D universe underwent the period of an exponentially fast expansion (for a review see ). In the standard case this is achieved by introducing a slow-rolling scalar field, the inflaton. During the slow-roll epoch the potential energy dominates and mimics an approximately constant vacuum energy. This leads to an accelerated growth of the scale factor.

However, as we have just argued, in the present case any constant vacuum energy is diluted according to Eq. (17). If so, it seems that the same should happen to any inflationary energy density. In other words, one would naively expect that standard inflation with the energy density $`_{\mathrm{inf}}`$ should generate the acceleration rate $`HM_{}\left(M_{}^4/_{\mathrm{inf}}\right)^{1/N2}`$. If such a relation indeed took place during the slow-roll period this would eliminate inflation and all the benefits one gets with it. Fortunately, this is not the case as we will now argue.

The relation (17) is only true for energy sources with wave lengths $`r_cH_0^1`$. Brane sources of shorter wave lengths gravitate according to the conventional 4D laws since they are coupled to the resonance graviton. Furthermore, let us recall that $`_{\mathrm{inf}}`$ is time-dependent during slow-roll inflation, with a typical time scale that is smaller than $`r_c`$ by many orders of magnitude. For instance, consider inflation with $`_{\mathrm{inf}}\text{ }>(1\mathrm{TeV})^4`$. For such inflation to solve the horizon and flatness problems and generate density perturbations, $`_{\mathrm{inf}}(t)`$ must be approximately constant on the time scale of the inflationary Hubble time $`M_P/\sqrt{_{\mathrm{inf}}}<\mathrm{mm}`$. This is at least $`30`$ orders of magnitude smaller than our $`r_c`$. That is why inflation in our scenario proceeds in the same manner as in the conventional setup. Below we will consider this issue in more detail.

Let us first consider the simplest nonlinearly-completed effective 4D equation (41). Although it is equivalent to the high-dimensional model (7) only in the linearized approximation, nevertheless, it captures the most essential feature — the large-distance modification of gravity. Taking the trace of the above equation we get the following relation between the curvature and stress tensor

$$\left[1+\frac{M_{}^{N2}}{c_1M_{}^{N2}+c_2^{N2}}\frac{1}{(r_c)^2}\right]R=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\pi G_NT_\mu ^\mu .$$
(42)
Let us consider a constant vacuum energy $``$ as the source in the r.h.s. of this equation. In the conventional Einstein gravity this would induce curvature $`RG_N`$.

However, this cannot be a solution in our case since the second term on the l.h.s. diverges for a constant curvature. This divergence is just an artifact of our simplified non-linear completion in which we keep only finite number of the $`^1`$ operators. Careful resummation of all such terms should give rise to a small but finite curvature as it is apparent from the high-dimensional description (see Eq. (17)).

What is important, however, is the fact that the nonlocal terms dominate for constant curvature, while they are negligible for time-dependent sources with characteristic wavelengths $`r_c`$. For instance, let us assume $`T_\mu ^\mu `$ is the energy density of a slowly-rolling inflaton field. For the standard inflation, a typical time scale of change in the energy density is by many orders of magnitude smaller than any reasonable value of $`r_c`$. For a typical slow-roll inflation with $`H10^{12}\mathrm{GeV}`$ we get

$$\left[\frac{1}{(r_c)^2}\right]R\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{108}R.$$
(43)
From this estimate it is clear that the nonlocal terms are negligible, and the standard relation is intact.

Were we able to calculate all nonlocal terms in 4D world volume, we would recover the series of the form

$$\left[1+\frac{M_{}^{N2}}{c_1M_{}^{N2}+c_2^{N2}}\frac{1}{(r_c)^2}+\underset{n}{}\frac{a_n}{(r_c)^n}\right]R=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\pi G_NT_\mu ^\mu ,$$
(44)
where the coefficients $`a_n`$ are, generally speaking, functions of metric invariants that die away in the linearized flat-space limit. For the time independent curvature, such as the one induced by a constant vacuum energy, each term diverges. Hence, explicit summation must be performed in (44). In each particular case the summation should be possible, in principle. However, in practice it may be much easier to solve directly the high-dimensional equations. This, as we know, indicates that the resulting curvature is given by Eq. (17) and is tiny.

The proportionality of the curvature to the negative power of vacuum energy is a peculiar property of large wave-length sources. Nothing of the kind happens for shorter wave-length sources. For the slow-roll inflationary curvature the contribution from nonlocal terms is completely negligible. This is why we expect that inflation, as well as all “short distance” physics, obey the conventional laws. A simple dimensional analysis shows that deviations from the conventional behavior must be suppressed by powers of $`\lambda /r_c`$, where $`\lambda `$ is a typical wave length (or time scale) of the system. Thus, our solution predicts measurable deviations from predictions of the Einstein gravity for sufficiently large objects. In fact this was explicitly demonstrated in Ref.  in the five-dimensional example where the deviation for the Jupiter orbit might be potentially observable.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank S. Dimopoulos, A. Vainshtein and A. Vilenkin for useful discussions on the subject of the paper. The work of G.D. is supported in part by a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering, by Alfred P. Sloan foundation fellowship and by NSF grant PHY-0070787. G.G. and M.S. are supported by DOE grant DE-FG02-94ER408.


text:
# Polarization Entangled W State using Parametric Down-Conversion

## Abstract

An experimental scheme for preparing a polarization entangled W states from four photons emitted by parametric down-conversion is proposed. We consider two different configurations and a method of improving the yield by using single photon sources. In the proposed scheme, one uses only linear optical elements and photon detectors, so that this scheme is feasible by current technologies.

In the quantum information processing including many quantum protocols and quantum computation N-H , quantum entanglement plays a crucial rule. Most of the quantum protocols concern with the bipartite system, mainly because the nature of multipartite entanglement has not been clarified yet. Recently, however, the nature of multipartite entanglement, especially, that of tripartite entanglement begins to be clarified. In dur00 , Dür et al. have classified the tripartite pure states based on the equivalence under stochastic LOCC (local operations and classical communication). They showed that there are two different kinds of genuine tripartite entanglement. One is Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states ghz89 , which is represented, for example, as

$`|\mathrm{GHZ}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|000+|111\right),`$ (1)
where $`\{|0,|1\}`$ is the orthonormal basis for a qubit. The other is W states, which is represented, for example, by

$`|W={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}\left(|001+|010+|010\right).`$ (2)
These two states cannot be converted to each other by LOCC with nonzero success probability. These states show different behavior when one of the qubits is discarded. For three qubits in GHZ states, the remaining two qubits are completely unentangled. But, for W states, the remaining two qubits are still entangled. Indeed it was shown that W states are optimal in the amount of such pairwise entanglementKoashi00 .

Many works have been devoted to the study of GHZ states in connection with Bell’s theorem Mer90-1 ; GHSZ90 ; Mer90-2 ; Roy91 , and violation of Bell inequalities are demonstrated experimentally zei00 . Besides the fundamental studies of GHZ states, several applications of these states such as the quantum teleportation Karlsson01 , the quantum secret sharing hillery99 ; Cleve99  and the quantum key distribution protocol Kempe99 ; Dukin01  have been proposed.

On the other hand, the study of W states has not been done until recently. For application, the quantum key distribution (QKD) with W states is proposed Jaewoo02 , and a W-class state is used for the optimal universal quantum cloning machine Buzek96 ; Buzek97 ; Gisin97 ; Buzek97-2 ; Bruss98 ; Murao99 . In fundamental aspects, Cabello Cabello02  has illustrated some differences between the violation of local realism exhibited by W states and that by GHZ states. The W states have a clearer prescription for selecting a pair of qubits to be subjected to a Bell’s theorem test than the GHZ states have. Thus, not only for the purpose of the realization of some applications, but also for the fundamental interests, it is important to prepare W states experimentally.

So far, several schemes for preparation of W states have been proposed. Zeilinger, Horne, and Greenberger proposed a scheme using third order nonlinearity for path entangled photons Zei97 . Guo and Zhang proposed a scheme for three entangled atoms via cavity quantum electrodynamics Guo02 .

In this paper, we propose an experimentally feasible scheme for preparing a polarization entangled W states. The scheme is composed of parametric down-conversion (PDC), linear optical elements, and photon detectors, so that our scheme is feasible by current technologies. In our proposal, there is no interference between the photons passing through different paths, which makes it easy for us to align the optical elements and makes our system insensitive to fluctuations of optical path lengths.

In our scheme, we utilize four photons emitted collinearly from type-II PDC, which are in the following state,

$`|2_{0\mathrm{H}}|2_{0\mathrm{V}},`$ (3)
where $`|n`$ is the normalized $`n`$-photon number state. The subscript numbers label the spatial modes, and $`\mathrm{H}`$ and $`\mathrm{V}`$ represent horizontal and vertical polarization modes, respectively. As shown in Fig. 1, these photons are split into four spatial modes (1, 2, 3, and 3) by beam splitters (BSk, $`k=1,2,3`$), whose reflectivity and transmissivity are independent of polarization. The transformation by BSk is expressed by

$`|1_\mathrm{H}`$ $``$ $`r_k|1_{k\mathrm{H}}+t_k|1_{k^{}\mathrm{H}},`$
$`|1_\mathrm{V}`$ $``$ $`r_ke^{i\varphi _k}|1_{k\mathrm{V}}+t_ke^{i\psi _k}|1_{k^{}\mathrm{V}},`$
$`|2_\mathrm{H}`$ $``$ $`r_k^2|2_{k\mathrm{H}}+t_k^2|2_{k^{}\mathrm{H}}+2r_kt_k|1_{k\mathrm{H}}|1_{k^{}\mathrm{H}},`$ (4)
and

$`|2_\mathrm{V}`$ $``$ $`r_k^2e^{2i\varphi _k}|2_{k\mathrm{V}}+t_k^2e^{2i\psi _k}|2_{k^{}\mathrm{V}}`$ (5)
$`+2r_kt_ke^{i(\varphi _k+\psi _k)}|1_{k\mathrm{V}}|1_{k^{}\mathrm{V}},`$
where $`r_k`$ and $`t_k`$ are the reflection and transmission coefficients of BSk, respectively, which satisfy $`|r_k|^2+|t_k|^2=1`$. We assume that $`r_k`$ and $`t_k`$ are real, without loss of generality. Here $`\varphi _k`$ and $`\psi _k`$ are the phase differences between mode $`\mathrm{H}`$ and $`\mathrm{V}`$ for reflected and transmitted photons, respectively. For simplicity, we omit the modes in the vacuum, using abbreviations such as $`|1_{k\mathrm{V}}|0_{k^{}\mathrm{V}}|1_{k\mathrm{V}}`$. After these transformations, the phase offsets for the photons in mode 2 and 3 are compensated by birefringent phase shifters (BPSk, $`k=2,3`$). The amount of compensation is chosen as

$`|1_{2\mathrm{V}}e^{i(\varphi _2+\psi _2+\psi _3)}|1_{2\mathrm{V}}`$ (6)
for BPS2, and

$`|1_{3\mathrm{V}}e^{i(\varphi _3+\psi _3)}|1_{3\mathrm{V}}`$ (7)
for BPS3. After compensating these phase differences, we are only interested in the case where there is a single photon in each spatial mode ($`1`$, $`2`$, $`3`$, and $`3^{}`$). If such a case is successfully selected, these photons are in the following state,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(e^{i\varphi _1}|1_{1\mathrm{V}}|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}+e^{i(\psi _1+\psi _2+\psi _3)}|1_{1\mathrm{H}}|W_\mathrm{H}_{233^{}})`$ (8)
where $`|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$ and $`|W_\mathrm{H}_{233^{}}`$ are the W states which can be written as

$`|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(|1_{2\mathrm{H}}|1_{3H}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{V}}+|1_{2\mathrm{H}}|1_{3\mathrm{V}}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{H}}`$
$`+|1_{2\mathrm{V}}|1_{3\mathrm{H}}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{H}})`$
and

$`|W_\mathrm{H}_{233^{}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(|1_{2\mathrm{V}}|1_{3\mathrm{V}}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{H}}+|1_{2\mathrm{V}}|1_{3\mathrm{H}}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{V}}`$
$`+|1_{2\mathrm{H}}|1_{3\mathrm{V}}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{V}}).`$
The probability of obtaining the photons in the state of Eq. (8) is $`(2\sqrt{6}r_1t_1^3r_2t_2^2r_3t_3)^2`$. If we detect a single photon at the photon detector D1V and the state is projected to $`|1_{1\mathrm{V}}|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$, we obtain three photons in the state $`|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$. Even if we detect a single photon at the photon detector D1H and the state is projected to $`|1_{1\mathrm{H}}|W_\mathrm{H}_{233^{}}`$, we can also obtain the state $`|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$ after rotating the polarization by $`90^{}`$ in mode 2, 3, and 3. In this case, the maximum probability of obtaining the photons in the state $`|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$ is $`3/32`$ when we set $`r_1^2=1/4`$, $`r_2^2=1/3`$, and $`r_3^2=1/2`$.

Although it is difficult to select the single photon in each spatial mode without destroying the photons, we can discard the photocounts caused by the non-W states if we are allowed to perform the postselection where we select the events of the photocounts in mode $`2`$, $`3`$, and $`3^{}`$.

In practice, to implement our scheme experimentally, we have to pay attention to the errors and the efficiency of generating the photons in W states. The errors in the selected state are mainly caused by generation of three photon pairs at PDC and the dark counts of photon detectors. In PDC, the photon pair generation rate per pulse $`\gamma `$ is approximately $`10^4`$ in typical multi-photon experiments zei99 ; zei00 ; Zeilinger01 ; Zeilinger02 . The three-pair generation rate $`O(\gamma ^3)`$ is approximately $`10^4`$ lower than two-pair generation rate $`O(\gamma ^2)`$. The dark counts of current photon detectors is quite low for multi-photon coincidence measurement, so that these errors are negligible. (See also TYamamoto01  about this kind of errors.) To see whether the efficiency of generating three photons in the W state is acceptable, we compare the yield of the W state with that of GHZ states in zei99 ; zei00 ; Zeilinger01 ; Zeilinger02  where type-II PDC is also used for generating three photons. In the GHZ experiment, the probability of obtaining the photons in the GHZ state after generating two photon pairs is $`3/8`$. Compared with this probability, the yield of W states in our scheme is smaller by a factor $`1/4`$ . However, using stimulated PDC Bouwmeester01 , the four-photon generation rate can be 16 times higher than spontaneous PDC, which suggest that our proposal is experimentally feasible.

We can also consider another setup (scheme II) as shown in Fig. 2. In this scheme, after compensations similar to scheme I expressed by

$`|1_{2\mathrm{V}}e^{i(\varphi _1\varphi _2+\psi _1+\psi _3)}|1_{2\mathrm{V}}`$ (9)
and

$`|1_{3\mathrm{V}}e^{i(\varphi _3+\psi _3)}|1_{3\mathrm{V}},`$ (10)
we obtain the photons in the following state,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(e^{i\varphi _1}|1_{1\mathrm{V}}|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}+e^{i(\psi _1\psi _2+\psi _3)}|1_{1\mathrm{H}}|W_\mathrm{H}_{233^{}})`$ (11)
with the probability $`(2\sqrt{6}r_1^2t_1^2r_2t_2r_3t_3)^2`$. The maximum probability of obtaining these photons in the state W is $`3/32`$, which is the same as scheme I, when we set $`r_1^2=r_2^2=r_3^2=1/2`$. This scheme has an advantage that the maximum probability can be obtained by using only symmetric beam splitters.

So far, we have assumed that the reflectivity and transmissivity of BSk are independent of polarization. If these depend on the polarization, the fidelity of the final state to the desired W state becomes lower. In this case, scheme I and scheme II show slightly different behavior. Here, we represent the polarization-dependent reflection and transmission coefficient of BSk as $`r_{kL}`$ and $`t_{kL}`$, respectively, which satisfy $`r_{kL}^2+t_{kL}^2=1`$ where $`L=\mathrm{H},\mathrm{V}`$. We also introduce the error factor $`\delta _{k\mathrm{L}}`$ defined by $`\delta _{k\mathrm{L}}=r_{kL}^2(r_k^{opt})^2`$ where $`r_k^{opt}`$ is the optimal reflectivity, namely $`(r_1^{opt})^2=1/4`$, $`(r_2^{opt})^2=1/3`$, and $`(r_3^{opt})^2=1/2`$ in scheme I and $`(r_1^{opt})^2=(r_2^{opt})^2=(r_3^{opt})^2=1/2`$ in scheme II. When $`\delta _{k\mathrm{L}}`$ are small, the fidelity $`\mathrm{F}_\mathrm{I}`$ in scheme I and $`\mathrm{F}_{\mathrm{II}}`$ in scheme II are given by

$`\mathrm{F}_\mathrm{I}`$ $``$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}(27\delta _2^2+16\delta _3^2)+O(\delta _k^3)`$ (12)
and

$`\mathrm{F}_{\mathrm{II}}`$ $``$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{2}{9}}[(2\delta _1+\delta _2)^2+3\delta _3^2]+O(\delta _k^3).`$ (13)
where $`\delta _k=\delta _{k\mathrm{H}}\delta _{k\mathrm{V}}`$. In scheme I, $`\delta _1`$ merely changes the amplitudes of $`|1_{1\mathrm{V}}|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$ and $`|1_{1\mathrm{H}}|W_\mathrm{H}_{233^{}}`$ in Eq. (8), so that this does not affect the fidelity unlike scheme II.

The use of a single photon source (SPS), which is currently being developed YYamamoto01 ; YYamamoto02 , will improve the rate of generating the photons in W states. An ideal SPS emits a single photon in a single mode at a desired time. In this case, we can start from only three photons in the state $`|2_{0\mathrm{H}}|1_{0\mathrm{V}}`$ (or $`|2_{0\mathrm{V}}|1_{0\mathrm{H}}`$ ). To prepare this initial state, three SPSs and a symmetric beam splitter (BS1) are arranged as shown in Fig 3 (SPS1 and SPS2 emit a photon in mode H and SPS3 emits a photon in mode V). The state at the output ports of BS1 is $`(|2|0+|0|2)/\sqrt{2}`$, so that we obtain three photons in the state $`|2_{0\mathrm{H}}|1_{0\mathrm{V}}`$ with probability $`1/2`$ under the condition that each SPS has emitted a photon. After we transform these photons by BS2 and BS3, and in the case where there is one photon in each spatial mode, we can obtain the photons in the state $`|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$. The probability of obtaining the photons in the state $`|W_\mathrm{V}_{233^{}}`$ after generating a photon from each SPS is $`1/2(\sqrt{6}r_2t_2^2r_3t_3)^2`$ and the maximum of this probability is $`3/32`$, which is the same as above schemes, at $`r_2^2=r_3^2=1/2`$. The generation rate of one photon from SPS is approximately $`0.4`$ per pulse YYamamoto02  so that three-photon generation rate is about $`0.064`$ per pulse, which is significantly larger than $`10^8`$ per pulse for PDC zei99 . Since SPS and PDC currently achieve almost the same repetition rate, using SPS improves the rate of preparing the state W.

In our scheme, one can also prepare non-equally weighted states belonging to W-class. An example is the state used for the optimal universal quantum cloning machine via teleportation by three distant parties Bruss98 ,

$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}}|1_{2\mathrm{H}}|1_{3H}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{V}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}|1_{2\mathrm{H}}|1_{3\mathrm{V}}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{H}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}|1_{2\mathrm{V}}|1_{3\mathrm{H}}|1_{3^{}\mathrm{H}}.`$ (14)
To prepare such states, one can generally include additional polarization dependent losses in mode $`2`$, $`3`$, and $`3^{}`$ and adjust BPSk properly.

In summary, we have proposed simple schemes for preparing the the photons in W states by using parametric down-conversion, linear optical elements, and photon detectors. The schemes are easy to implement and feasible by current technologies. Our schemes can be improved by using single photon sources to obtain a higher rate of generating the photons.

We thank K. Nagata, J. Shimamura, and S. K. Özdemir for helpful discussions.