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# Quantum copying can increase the practically available information

## I Introduction

It is well known that making copies of a quantum system (e.g. with a quantum copier) does not increase the amount of information present about the original. To put it another way, spreading information about the original system onto several systems does not increase the amount of information that one can obtain about the original (in fact, this usually decreases it due to noise). However, in discussions on this matter it is usually tacitly assumed that one has access to optimal measuring devices.

In practical situations, however, this is never the case. One is always restricted to imperfect measurements, due to inefficient detectors, and various sources of random noise. Although, in theory, Quantum mechanics allows one to perfectly distinguish between orthogonal states by making appropriate measurements, in practice distinguishing perfectly every time is impossible. Of course, in many situations these imperfections of measurement are insignificant, but in this article we consider those cases where such inefficiencies are relevant.

Let us investigate what can be done in principle if one is restricted to using inefficient and noisy detectors. In many practical situations what one is interested in is to determine in which one of several possible orthogonal states a system is residing. For example, this is what one does to extract transmitted information from a signal.

The basic idea explored in this article can be expressed as follows: If we can get a second chance to use the detectors at our disposal on the same state, we might do better at distinguishing it from among the range of possibilities. We will investigate what happens when one makes copies of the original state. If the available detectors are fairly poor, then one may hope that making even imperfect copies may still give improvements if one can then make independent measurements on each of the copies.

Copying machines in general use two approaches. One of the extreme cases is a classical copying machine, where measurements (destructive or non-destructive) are made on the original state, the results of which are then fed as parameters into some state preparation scheme that attempts to construct a copy of the original. This approach obviously allows one to generate an arbitrary amount of copies, possibly all identical to each other. The opposite extreme is a fully quantum copying machine that by some process that is unseen by external observers (a “black box”), creates a fixed number of copies, usually destroying the original in the process. Naturally in a realistic situation, noise will additionally degrade the quality of the copies, and copiers that utilize both of the processes above are obviously also possible.

Since one’s detection resources are restricted to imperfect detectors that discard some information about the state, then it becomes immediately obvious that classical copying gains you nothing. Any information about the original state that you can extract from the copies can be extracted just as well from the measurement results used to produce the copies – and these are made with those imperfect detectors. Quantum copying, however, *is* able to give improvements, even when degraded by noise and inefficiencies, as will be seen below.

For simplicity, and because the aim is above all to demonstrate the principle at work here, we will consider situations where one wishes to distinguish between two orthogonal possibilities for the input state. Some examples of this would be single-photon detection, distinguishing spins of spin-half particles, single-photon polarization, or distinguishing between some number of photons and no photons.

This paper sets out in more detail, and expands on a previous short article dealing with this topic by the same authors. Sec. II puts forward the general detection scheme that, utilizing entangling quantum copiers and inefficient detectors, allows one (if the copiers are good enough) to achieve surer detection than with the detectors alone. An example is given with a very simplified case of single-photon detection. Sec. III Develops a more realistic schematic model of single-photon detection, using a single controlled-NOT gate as the copier.

Subsequently, in Sec. IV we consider the noiseless case and analyze its performance with respect to the standard one-detector setup. We first consider the situation where one uses the measurement results to make a decision about what the original state was – the probability of being correct is compared between detection schemes. Secondly, we compare the total information about the original state that is in principle extractable from the measurement outcomes. Sec. V Looks at how robust the copier-enhanced detection scheme is to random noise in the copiers and detectors. Finally, in Sec. VI the properties that a quantum copying device must have to be useful are found.

## II A Detection Scheme with Quantum Copiers

Consider the case where one of a set of possible input states are to be distinguished by a measurement scheme, using (some number of identical) imperfect detectors. That is, whether the input states are mutually orthogonal, or not, the detectors at one’s disposal do not always distinguish between the inputs with certainty. One also has some (identical) quantum copiers that can act on the possible input states. For a first look at the situation, let us suppose that the possible input states are mutually orthogonal, and that one has somehow acquired perfect quantum copiers for this set of states. Assume the copiers destroy the original, and produce two copies for simplicity. Then, an obvious way to take advantage of the copiers is to send the originals through a quantum copier, before trying to detect both copies separately. (As in Fig. 1). This basically gives one a second chance to distinguish the input state, if the detection at the first copy fails.

In practice, one can never be certain whether the result given by a detector is due to noise, or the input state, but in this case, having two tries at detection allows one to better estimate whether the result was trustworthy - once again on average increasing one’s knowledge of the original.

To be slightly more concrete, consider a very simplified model of photodetection using this measurement scheme. (A more realistic model is developed in Sec. III). Suppose one has perfect copiers, and noiseless photodetectors of efficiency $`\eta `$. That is, the probability of a a count on the detector is $`\eta `$ if a photon is incident, and $`0`$ otherwise.

With the copier set up as in Fig. 1, if any of the detectors register a count, one can with certainty conclude that a photon was incident. So, if a photon *is* incident, the probability of finding it is

$$P_{\text{count}|\text{photon}}^{(1)}=\eta +(1\eta )\eta ,$$
(1)
as opposed to just $`\eta `$ with no copier, because one gets a “second chance” at detection. On the other hand, if no count is registered, then the probability that no photon was incident is

$$P_{\text{nophoton}|\text{nocount}}^{(1)}=\frac{1p}{1\eta p(2\eta )},$$
(2)
where $`p`$ is the probability that a photon is incident on average, irrespective of the measurement result. The expression of Eq. (2) is always greater than $`(1p)/(1\eta p)`$, which is the probability if no copier is used. This increase reflects the added confidence that comes from both detectors failing to register the photon.

With more copiers, one can do better. Instead of placing photodetectors at the outputs of the first copier, place copiers instead , and detect photons only when they have come out of the second lot of copiers. One can continue putting in more copiers in a similar fashion. If we let the number of copiers that photons must pass through before being detected be $`N`$, ($`N=1`$ in the case considered previously) then one finds that for this simplified scheme

$`P_{\text{count}|\text{photon}}^{(N)}`$ $`=`$ $`1(1\eta )^{(2^N)},`$ (4)
$`P^{(N)}x_{\text{nophoton}|\text{nocount}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1p}{1p+p(1\eta )^{(2^N)}}}.`$ (5)
So as $`N`$ increases, the probability of detecting a photon that is present (given that it is present) approaches one. Also, the probability that no photon was present if it was not detected also approaches one.

Note that using quantum copiers, and not classical ones is vital. A classical copier would have to rely on the same imperfect photodetectors, and would actually *reduce* the detection efficiency, since to detect a photon at one of the two copy detectors, one must have been first detected at the copier. This gives $`P_{\text{count}|\text{photon}}^{(1)}=\eta ^2(2\eta )`$, which is always less than or equal to $`\eta `$ ($`P_{\text{count}|\text{photon}}^{(0)}=\eta `$ is achieved without any copiers at all).

## III A Model of Improved Single-Photon Detection

Detection with the help of perfect quantum copiers, as briefly discussed in the previous section, is all very well, but what happens when the equipment used is noisy, and not 100% efficient? Consider the following, more realistic, model of photodetection, using the scheme outlined in Sec. II.

The possible states that are to be distinguished are the vacuum $`|0`$ and single photon $`|1`$ states. The *a priori* probability that the input state is a photon is $`p`$.

A generalized measurement on some state $`\widehat{\rho }`$ can be modeled by a positive operator-valued measure (POVM) $`\widehat{\{}A_i\}`$  described by a set of $`n`$ positive operators $`\widehat{A}_i`$, such that $`_{i=1}^n\widehat{A}{}_{i}{}^{}=\widehat{I}`$, where $`\widehat{I}`$ is the identity matrix in the Hilbert space of $`\widehat{\rho }`$ (and of the $`\widehat{A}_i`$). The probability of obtaining the $`i`$th result, by measuring on a state $`\widehat{\rho }`$ is then

$$P_i=\text{Tr}[\widehat{\rho }\widehat{A}{}_{i}{}^{}].$$
(6)
Now suppose the photodetectors at one’s disposal are noisy and have quantum efficiency $`\eta `$. The effect of these can be modeled by the POVM

$`\widehat{A}{}_{+}{}^{}=`$ $`\eta |11\left|+\eta \xi \right|00|,`$ (8)
$`\widehat{A}{}_{}{}^{}=`$ $`(1\eta )|11\left|+(1\eta \xi )\right|00|,`$ (9)
where the operator $`\widehat{A}_+`$ represents a count, and the operator $`\widehat{A}_{}`$ the lack of one. The parameter $`\xi [0,1)`$ controls the amount of noise. That is, $`\xi \eta `$ is the probability that the photodetector registers a spurious (“dark”) count when no photon is incident.

Model the quantum copier as one that has a probability $`\epsilon `$ of working correctly and producing perfect copies. Otherwise, the parameter $`\mu [1,1]`$ determines (in a somewhat arbitrary way) what is produced. This can be written

$`\widehat{\rho }{}_{1}{}^{}=|1|d1|d|`$ $`\epsilon |1|11|1|+(1\epsilon )\widehat{\rho }{}_{N}{}^{}=\widehat{\rho }{}_{1}{}^{1},`$ (11)
$`\widehat{\rho }{}_{0}{}^{}=|0|d0|d|`$ $`\epsilon |0|00|0|+(1\epsilon )\widehat{\rho }{}_{N}{}^{}=\widehat{\rho }{}_{0}{}^{1}.`$ (12)
$`|d`$ is a dummy state, that is fed into the copier, and becomes the second copy. It is included here to preserve unitarity in the perfect copying case $`\epsilon =1`$. The state produced upon failure of the copier, $`\widehat{\rho }_N`$ is independent of the original, and is given by

$$\widehat{\rho }{}_{N}{}^{}=(1|\mu |)\frac{\widehat{I}}{4}+\{\begin{array}{ccc}\mu & |1|11|1|\hfill & \text{ if }\mu >0\hfill \\ |\mu |& |0|00|0|\hfill & \text{ if }\mu 0\hfill \end{array}.$$
(13)
Here, $`\widehat{I}/4`$ is the totally random mixed state. So, for $`\mu =0`$ a totally random noise state is produced upon failure to copy, for $`\mu =1`$ vacuum, for $`\mu =1`$ photons in both copies, and for intermediate values of $`\mu `$ a linear combination of the three cases mentioned. The case briefly considered in the previous section had the parameters $`\epsilon =1`$, $`\xi =0`$.

This model (Eq. (III)) of the copier is an extension (to allow for inefficiencies) of the Wootters-Zurek copier, which has been extensively studied . In the ideal case ($`\epsilon =1`$), with the dummy input state in the vacuum ($`|d=|0`$), the transformation is:

$$|0|0|0|0|1|0|1|1.$$
(14)
This transformation can be implemented by the simplest of all quantum logic circuits, the single controlled-NOT gate. These have recently begun to be implemented for some systems (although admittedly not for single-photon systems), and are the subject of intense ongoing research, because of their application to quantum computing. This means that similar schemes to the one considered here may become experimentally realizable in the foreseeable future.

Note that the transformation (14) can be also considered an “entangler” rather than a copier. Consider its effect on the photon-vacuum superposition state

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+|1)\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0|0+|1|1).$$
(15)
This correlation between the copies is an essential property for the detection scheme presented here to be useful — otherwise one could not combine the results of the different detector measurements to better infer properties of the original. For example the universal quantum copying machine (UQCM), which reproduces an arbitrary qubit with the best possible fidelity cannot give gains in detector efficiency via the scheme presented above, even when no random noise is added in the copying process (analogous to $`\epsilon =1`$). This matter will be further investigated in Sec. VI where the properties of the copying machine required for this scheme to work are investigated.

## IV The Performance of the Copier-Enhanced Scheme With Noiseless Copiers

Firstly, consider the optimum case (for the copier-enhanced detection scheme) when $`\mu =1`$. In this situation, the copier produces a vacuum when it fails to work, and any noise present will come only from the possibility of dark counts by the detectors. The effect of copier noise will be considered in the next section, but for now we will ignore it, to show the general features of this setup with greater clarity.

The detection scheme outlined in Sec. III provides the observer who has the detectors with $`2^N`$ measurement results, each of which can either be a “count” (henceforth labeled as $`+`$), or “no count” (labeled as $``$). There are obviously better and worse ways for the observer to use these $`2^{(2^N)}`$ distinct possible outcomes to distinguish between a photon or vacuum input. Let us look at two of these.

### A Performance comparison for correctly choosing the most likely input state

An obvious and simple way to utilize the measurement results is to use them to decide whether it is more likely that a photon or that vacuum was input. One assumes that the person using the whole setup knows the parameters $`\eta ,\xi ,\epsilon ,\mu `$. In statistical terminology, we find the maximum likelihood estimator $`\widehat{\theta }`$ for the parameter $`\theta `$ which describes the input state $`|\theta `$, and so takes on either the value $`0`$, or $`1`$.

We wish to compare how well this strategy works with the copier-enhanced scheme and with the basic one-detector setup. To this end, we will compare $`Q`$, the probability that this “most likely” guess for the input state (i.e. that $`\widehat{\theta }=\theta `$) is correct. For simplicity and clarity, we will restrict the analysis of this method to the usual photodetection case when dark counts are rare ($`\xi 1`$).

Consider first the standard detector-only setup ($`N=0`$). The measurement outcome probabilities $`P_{j|i}`$ \[where $`P_{j|i}`$ is the probability of getting measurement result $`j\{+,\}`$, given that the incident state was the $`i`$th one ($`i\{0,1\}`$)\] are easily found using Eqs. (6) and (III)

$`P_{+|1}=\eta ,`$ $`P_{|1}=1\eta ,`$ (17)
$`P_{+|0}=\eta \xi ,`$ $`P_{|0}=1\eta \xi .`$ (18)
Now, the estimator $`\widehat{\theta }(j)`$, given a certain measurement result $`j`$, can be easily calculated from these, since $`\widehat{\theta }(j)=i`$ iff $`P_{i|j}1/2`$. One finds, for example, that if a count is detected, then the most likely input was a photon \[$`\widehat{\theta }(+)=1`$\] only if $`p>\xi /(\xi +1)`$. Similarly, the other “common sense” conclusion that if no count is seen, then it is more likely that there was no input photon \[$`\widehat{\theta }()=0`$\] occurs only if $`p<(1\eta \xi )/[2\eta (1+\xi )]`$. This is because when $`p`$, the probability of photon input is almost certain, then even if you don’t see it, it becomes more likely that an incoming photon wasn’t detected than that none came in at all. Let us ignore such situations when $`\widehat{\theta }(+)=\widehat{\theta }()`$, since then this method tells us nothing about the input state. The situation $`\widehat{\theta }(+)=0,\widehat{\theta }()=1`$ never occurs. We find that for useful parameters, the probability of being correct is

$`Q(0)`$ $`=`$ $`P_{+|1}p+P_{|0}(1p)`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`1p+\eta [p\xi (1p)].`$ (20)
Now we want to compare to this the probability of being correct if some quantum copiers are used to help things along. Consider the setup with only one copier ($`N=1`$). The measurement outcome probabilities (where $`P_{jk|i}`$ is the probability that given the $`i`$th input state, the first detector gives the result $`j`$, and the second detector gives the result $`k`$), are found using Eqs. (6) - (III), remembering that $`\mu =1`$.

$`P_{++|1}`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^2[\epsilon +(1\epsilon )\xi ^2],`$ (22)
$`P_{|1}`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon (1\eta )^2+(1\epsilon )(1\eta \xi )^2,`$ (23)
$`P_{+|1}=P_{+|1}`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon \eta (1\eta )+(1\epsilon )\eta \xi (1\eta \xi ),`$ (24)
$`P_{++|0}`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^2\xi ^2,`$ (25)
$`P_{|0}`$ $`=`$ $`(1\eta \xi )^2,`$ (26)
$`P_{+|0}=P_{+|0}`$ $`=`$ $`\eta \xi (1\eta \xi ).`$ (27)
In this case, we find that the estimation method used in this subsection is useful when $`\widehat{\theta }(++)=1`$ and $`\widehat{\theta }()=0`$. This occurs when

$$p>\frac{\xi ^2}{\epsilon (1\xi ^2)+2\xi ^2}$$
(29)
and

$$p<\frac{(1\eta \xi )^2}{2(1\eta \xi )^2\epsilon \eta [2\eta (1+\xi )](1\xi )},$$
(30)
respectively. Given these restrictions, there are still two possibilities: when the results $`(+)`$ or $`(+)`$ are obtained, either a photon or a vacuum input are more likely. It turns out that when the vacuum is more likely in this situation \[$`\widehat{\theta }(+)=\widehat{\theta }(+)=0`$\], the $`N=1`$ detection scheme with the copier always gives a worse probability of success than just using a single detector ($`N=0`$).

However, in the other case, when any count on either of the detectors is more likely to indicate that a photon was input, the scheme with the copier is often better. The probability of a correct guess is then

$$Q(1)=1p\eta \xi (12p)(2\eta \xi )+\epsilon \eta p[2\eta \xi (2\eta \xi )].$$
(31)
And so, the copier-enhanced scheme gives better results whenever $`Q(1)>Q(0)`$, i.e. when

$$\epsilon >\frac{\xi (1\eta \xi )(2p1)p(1\xi )}{p(1\xi )[\eta (1+\xi )2]}.$$
(32)
In particular, in the usual practical situation with few dark counts ( $`\xi 1`$ ), and when the probability of photon input is much greater than the probability of a dark count ($`\xi p`$), this simplifies to

$$\epsilon \frac{1}{2\eta }$$
(33)
So, the copier has to be just above 50% efficient if the quantum efficiency $`\eta `$ of the detectors is low, and somewhat better when $`\eta `$ is larger.

### B Performance comparison for information about the initial state

It was seen in the previous section that if one intends to make a definite judgment about whether a photon was incident on the (single) detector or not, then for some parameter values, the measurement result is no help at all. This is because for these parameter values, the most likely original state is always the same one, irrespective of the measurement result happens to be. The parameters $`\eta `$, $`\xi `$, and $`p`$ for which this is the case when $`N=1`$ are those that do not satisfy the relations (IV A).

Nevertheless, in such a situation the fact that a count on a photodetector is still more likely (since $`\xi <1`$) when the input is a photon then when the input is vacuum, means that this measurement will always give at least *some* information about what the input was. (Of course if dark counts are very common, it will give only a minute amount). It follows then, that the method of interpreting the results described in the previous section IV A (choosing the most likely possibility) must be wasting some information about the input state.

Let’s look instead at the total amount of information about the input state that is contained in the measurement results. This is the (Shannon) mutual information $`I_m`$ per input state between some observer $`A`$ who knows with certainty what the original states are (perhaps because they were prepared by that observer), and another observer $`B`$ who has access to the measurement results of the detection scheme. This can be readily evaluated from the expression

$$I_m=\underset{i,j}{}P_{j|i}P_i\mathrm{log}_2\frac{P_{j|i}}{P_j},$$
(34)
where $`i`$ ranges over the number of possible input states, and $`j`$ over the number of possible detection results. $`P_i`$ are the *a priori* probabilities that the $`i`$th input state entered the detection scheme, $`P_{j|i}`$ is the probability that the $`j`$th the detection result was obtained given that the $`i`$th state was input, and $`P_j`$ is the marginal probability that the $`j`$th detection result was obtained overall. In our case, the probabilities are given by (IV A) and (IV A), and can be similarly readily evaluated for $`N>1`$. Actually, this calculation is usually quite convenient, and avoids some of the complex formulae encountered with the previous method of Sec. IV A. Also, unlike the latter, it is applicable for all parameter values.

This mutual information has very concrete meaning even though in general, $`B`$ can never be actually certain what any particular input state was. It is known that by using appropriate block-coding and error-correction schemes, $`A`$ can transmit to $`B`$ an amount of *certain* information that can come arbitrarily close to the upper limit $`I_m`$ imposed by the detection probabilities. In other words, $`I_m`$ is the maximum amount of information that $`A`$ and $`B`$ can share using a given detection scheme, if they are cunning enough.

It follows then, that the detection scheme which gives a greater information content about the initial state $`I_m`$, will potentially be the more useful one. The authors have shown that the Wootters-Zurek ($`\epsilon =1`$) copier is the optimal quantum broadcaster of information when the information is decoded one-symbol at a time .

From expression (34) it can be seen that $`I_m`$ depends on the *a priori* input probabilities (the parameter $`p`$ in the cases considered here). This leads one to surmise that (at least in general) various detection schemes may do relatively better or worse depending on how frequently the input is a photon. This is in fact found to be the case. However, in what follows, we will concentrate mainly on the $`p=1/2`$ case of equiprobable photons and vacuum, since this is the situation that allows the maximum amount of information to be encoded in the original message, and so is in some ways the most basic case.

Lastly before we begin analyzing the new detection scheme, since $`I_m`$ becomes very small when most inputs are of the same type (mostly photons, or mostly vacuum), it is convenient to introduce an effective efficiency $`\eta ^e`$ of the detection scheme. If the new detection scheme gives mutual information content $`I_m(\epsilon ,\eta ,\mu ,\xi ,N,p)`$ per input state, then $`\eta ^e(I_m(\epsilon ,\eta ,\mu ,\xi ,N,p))`$ is defined as the efficiency of a noiseless detector that would give the same mutual information content if it was used by itself in the basic scheme with no copiers. i.e.

$$I_m(,\eta ^e,,0,0,p)=I_m(\epsilon ,\eta ,\mu ,\xi ,N,p).$$
(35)
$`\eta ^e`$ is a one-to-one, monotonically increasing function of $`I_m`$, and so if (and only if) some detection scheme increases $`\eta ^e`$, it also increases the mutual information. Thus, $`\eta ^e`$ and $`I_m`$ are equivalent for ranking detection schemes in terms of effectiveness. $`\eta ^e`$ also has the advantage that for some cases of the new copier-enhanced detection scheme it is independent of the photon input probability $`p`$. (Notably the basic noiseless ( but possibly inefficient) case when $`\mu =1`$, and $`\xi =0`$)

Now it is time to ask the question: for what parameter values does the copier-enhanced detection scheme provide more information about the initial states than using a single detector?

Consider firstly the simplest case of interest, where there are no spurious (“dark”) counts in the photodetectors ($`\xi =0`$), and one has a copier of efficiency $`\epsilon `$, that produces vacuum upon failure ($`\mu =1`$). This will give some idea about the relationship between the detector and copier efficiencies required, leaving the effects of noise for later consideration in Sec. V.

As mentioned previously, in this situation the effective efficiency is independent of $`p`$, and with one layer of copiers ($`N=1`$), it is found to be given by the simple expression

$$\eta _{(1)}^e=\epsilon \left[1(1\eta )^2\right].$$
(36)
Since this is independent of $`p`$, introducing a second lot of copiers, is equivalent to replacing $`\eta `$ in the above expression by $`\eta _{(1)}^e`$ i.e. $`\eta _{(n+1)}^e=\epsilon \left[1(1\eta _{(n)}^e)^2\right]`$. In fact, in the limit of never-ending amounts of copiers, the effective efficiency approaches

$$\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\eta _{_{(N)}}^e=2\frac{1}{\epsilon }.$$
(37)
One finds that effective efficiency is improved (over $`\eta ^e=\eta `$) by the copier scheme whenever

$$\epsilon >\frac{1}{2\eta }.$$
(38)
This is the same as the condition (33) that is needed to improve the probability of making a correct guess with the method of Sec IV A.

Since no random noise is introduced by either copier or detector, improvement is achieved whenever more copiers are added, to arbitrary order $`N`$. The relative improvement in effective efficiency ($`\eta _{_{(3)}}^e/\eta `$) when three layers of copiers are used ($`N=3`$) is shown in Fig. 2. A few things of interest to note in this figure:

1. The copier efficiency required is always above $`\eta `$ and above $`1/2`$.
2. A gain in efficiency can be achieved even with quite poor copiers — for relatively small detector efficiencies $`\eta `$ (which occur for photodetection in practice), the copier efficiency required is only slightly above half.
3. For very good detectors, to get improvement, the copier efficiency $`\epsilon `$ has to be slightly greater than the detector efficiency $`\eta `$.
4. For low efficiencies, the relative gain in efficiency can be very high, and can reach approximately $`2^N`$ for very poor detectors and very good copiers.

To examine how much improvement can be achieved in more detail, consider when the efficiency of the detectors is $`\eta =0.6`$. This is a typical efficiency for a pretty good single-photon detector at present. This is shown by the solid lines in Fig. 3. Note how quite large efficiency gains are achievable even when the copier efficiency is slightly over the threshold useful value of $`5/70.714`$ (from Eq. (38)), and how adding more copiers easily introduces more gains at first, but after three levels of copiers, adding more becomes a lot of effort for not much gain.

## V The effect of Random Noise on Detection Scheme Usefulness

Following on from the analysis in Sec. IV B, let us now introduce various types of noise into the detection scheme. Unfortunately nice analytical results like (36) - (38) disappear, so what follows is based on the results of numerical calculations. Additionally, the results now also depend on the photon input probabilities $`p`$.

Firstly consider the effect of dark counts ($`\xi 0`$), while still keeping the copier noiseless ($`\mu =1`$). The regions of efficiency gain and loss with one copier are shown in Fig. 4. In real detectors, dark counts always occur, but are usually kept quite rare, so realistic values of $`\xi `$ are of the order of $`\xi 0.01`$. Thus (as can be seen from Fig. 4) for likely parameters, dark counts do not reduce the effectiveness of the copier detection scheme by much at all.

Next, consider noise in the copier. In our scheme, noise is linearly introduced into the copying process by varying the parameter $`\mu `$ away from $`|\mu |=1`$. The amount of noise increases as $`\mu `$ approaches zero, until only pure noise occurs upon failure of the copying for $`\mu =0`$. The dependence on $`\mu `$ of the values of $`\epsilon `$ and $`\eta `$ needed for efficiency gain is shown in Fig. 5. In the particular case shown, photons and vacuum are equiprobable ($`p=1/2`$) and there are no dark counts ($`\xi =0`$).

Firstly, it is seen that in most cases, the optimum output for the copier to produce upon failure is vacuum ($`\mu =1`$), and the worst situation is when it produces photons by default ($`\mu =1`$). Totally random default output ($`\mu =0`$) requires the copier inefficiency to be reduced by roughly a factor of two relative to what is permissible for vacuum default output. Unfortunately, little is known to date about how much noise will be inevitably introduced in a practical quantum copier, but it seems reasonable that the default output can be made somewhat (perhaps significantly) better than random. If noise could be made 10% probable (perhaps not an unreasonable figure) upon failure to copy, then copiers with efficiency $`\epsilon `$ of about $`0.65`$ would improve detection for typical quantum efficiencies $`\eta `$ of about $`0.3`$ or $`0.4`$. Either way, it is seen that even overwhelming noise upon failure to copy, still allows fairly inefficient (say $`\epsilon 0.8`$) copiers to improve the detection efficiency. This is perhaps somewhat unexpected.

Since the effective efficiency $`\eta ^e`$ only varies with photon frequency $`p`$ when noise is present, the next question which arises when considering noisy schemes, is what effect does $`p`$ have on the performance of the new detection scheme? Fig. 6 shows regions of efficiency increase in terms of $`\epsilon `$ and $`\eta `$ for a single copier scheme, when it is used on sets of input states containing different proportions of photons $`p`$. The copier in this case produces the maximum amount of noise upon failure (i.e. $`\mu =0`$). Features seen include

1. Efficiency is easiest to increase when $`p`$ is close to one, i.e. there are photons coming in most of the time.
2. When photons are rare ($`p`$ small), the copiers have to be very efficient to be useful, since one wants to register almost all of those that do come along.
3. When photons and vacuum are of a similar frequency, the necessary copier efficiency changes slowly. (see how the $`p=0.4,0.5,0.6`$ curves are close together).

The behaviour exhibited is fairly typical, although $`\mu =0`$ appears to be the worst case scenario, as it is the most noisy. In less noisy situations, the required copier efficiency $`\epsilon `$ increases more slowly with decreasing $`p`$.

## VI Required Copier Properties

As mentioned briefly at the end of Sec. III (15), the fact that the quantum copier produces entangled states when the input is a superposition is important for the scheme outlined above to work. Let us consider what properties a quantum copier must have to be useful in this scheme.

The scenario where it is easiest to enhance the detection of information is where the detectors are very weak ($`\eta `$ very small) and there are no dark counts ($`\xi =0`$). So, if a copier is of no use in this situation, it will not be useful for any detector parameters whatsoever. This will let us specify the broadest range of copier parameters for which they may be useful in improving detection efficiencies.

In any detection situation, we can choose the basis in which to specify the transformation to be the one in which the detectors measure populations only. Since this simplifies the mathematics, let us do so in what follows. We impose one condition on the copier to make the analysis clearer: the states of the copies considered separately (that is, the reduced density matrices of the copies) are identical. This is the usual situation, where both copies are the same. This allows us to write the copying transformation of the two possible input states (including any noise introduced by experimental factors) as

$`|11|`$ $`a_1|1|11|1\left|+a_2\right|0|00|0|`$ (40)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1a_1a_2)\widehat{M}+\widehat{C}{}_{a}{}^{},`$ (41)
$`|00|`$ $`b_1|1|11|1\left|+b_2\right|0|00|0|`$ (42)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1b_1b_2)\widehat{M}+\widehat{C}{}_{b}{}^{},`$ (43)
where

$$\widehat{M}=|0|10|1|+|1|01|0|,$$
(44)
and where $`0a_1+a_21`$, $`0b1+b_21`$, and $`\widehat{C}_a`$, $`\widehat{C}_b`$ consist only of coherences, so do not contribute to the measurement probabilities, since we have chosen the basis so that what the detectors measure become the populations.

The information about the original states transmitted to the observer with the detectors can be easily calculated using the relations (6), (III), (34), noting that when a copier is present, the POVM which describes the combined measurements at both detectors simply consists of all tensor products of the one-detector POVM

$$\{\widehat{A}{}_{nm}{}^{}=\widehat{A}{}_{n}{}^{}\widehat{A}{}_{m}{}^{}:n,m\{+,\}\}.$$
(45)
The information with weak detectors, input photon probability $`p`$, and no copier is

$$I_o(\eta ,p)=\eta p\mathrm{log}_2p.$$
(46)
And with copier:

$`I_m(\eta ,`$ $`p`$ $`,A,B)`$ (47)
$`=`$ $`\eta pA\mathrm{log}_2A+\eta (1p)B\mathrm{log}_2B`$ (49)
$`\eta [pA+(1p)B]\mathrm{log}_2[pA+(1p)B],`$
that depends only on two parameters of the copier

$$A=1+a_1a_2;B=1+b_1b_2.$$
(50)
Fig. 7 shows the values of parameters $`A`$ and $`B`$ over which copiers are useful for detection enhancement, for various $`p`$. Some points to note about this figure:

1. The diagonal $`A=B`$ corresponds to (via (47)) the worst-case situation where no information about the input states is recoverable from the detectors ($`I_m=0`$).
2. When $`A>1`$, photon inputs create photon outputs more often than vacuum, while if $`B<1`$, vacuum inputs create vacuum outputs more often than photons. Thus, the region $`A>1`$,$`B<1`$ corresponds to imperfect cloning transformations, while the region $`A<1`$,$`B>1`$ corresponds to imperfect ’swapping’ transformations which most often transform photons into vacuum, and vacuum into two photons.
3. Relabeling $`|1|0`$, and $`|0|1`$ in the copying transformation does not keep the recovered information $`I_m`$ invariant because the detectors do not react the same way to photons and vacuum. This is why Fig. 7 is not symmetric about $`A=B`$.
4. The noisy copying transformation (III) used in previous sections of this article can be made to correspond to any values of $`A`$ and $`B`$ where $`A>B`$ by appropriate choices of $`\mu `$ and $`\epsilon `$. In fact,

$`A`$ $`=`$ $`1+\mu +\epsilon (1\mu ),`$ (52)
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`1+\mu \epsilon (1+\mu ),`$ (53)
and families of such transformations with a set efficiency $`\epsilon `$ are parallel to the dividing line $`A=B`$.
5. Greater ranges of copiers become useful as $`p`$ (the *a priori* input photon frequency) becomes larger. For very low photon frequencies, only the close vicinity of $`(A,B)=(2,0)`$ gives improvements.
6. The Wootters-Zurek copying machine (or entangler) lies at this point $`(A,B)=(2,0)`$, and is the only copying transformation which gives improvement for arbitrary photon frequency $`p`$.
7. The well known Universal Quantum Copying Machine (UQCM), which reproduces an arbitrary qubit with the best fidelity lies at $`(A,B)=(5/3,1/3)`$, outside the region of detection improvement for any $`p`$, and hence is never useful for the type of detection enhancement scheme discussed here.

Thus one can see that quantum copying transformations used in such a detection improvement scheme as outlined here must be similar in their properties to the Wootters-Zurek copier (the controlled-NOT gate), and the degree of similarity required depends on the input photon frequency.

## VII Conclusions

We have provided an example of how spreading information about quantum states onto a larger number of subsystems, actually increases the amount of information about the original state that is available to an observer. The key reason why this occurs is that in realistic situations, observers are always restricted in how close to the ideal their measurements can be. Then, quantum copying the original state may allow the observer to make better use of the detection apparatus at their disposal.

In particular, more efficiency of detection can be gained by employing entangling quantum copiers such as a controlled-NOT gate. In fact if the efficiency of the detectors is far from 100% (such as in single-photon detection) the copier does not have to be very efficient itself, and significant gains in detection can still be made.

From Fig. 2, and others, it can be seen that to be useful, the quantum copiers must be successful with an efficiency $`\epsilon `$ over 50% and somewhat greater than the detector efficiency $`\eta `$. It is not generally clear how feasible this is for various physical systems, or measurement schemes that one might wish to employ. With current technology it is often still easier to make measurements on a system, rather than entangling it with other known systems, however this varies from measurement to measurement and from system to system. The physical processes involved in measurement and quantum copying are often quite different: the former requires creating a correlation between a quantum system and a macroscopic pointer, whereas the latter involves creating quantum entanglement between two similar microscopic states. Efficient detection depends on correlating the system with its environment in a strong, yet controlled way, whereas quantum copying depends on isolating the system from its environment. One thus supposes that the usefulness of a scheme such as the one outlined here will depend on the system and measurements in question, due to the relative ease of implementing detection and controlled quantum evolution in those systems.

The copier parameters required for usefulness of the proposed scheme when random noise is present are found to depend somewhat on the relative frequency of the various states to be distinguished. In any case, the copying transformation must be similar to a controlled-NOT gate, the exact degree of similarity depending on the relative frequency of the input states. The effectiveness of the scheme is, however, quite robust to random noise in the detection and copying. We note that although a detailed analysis was carried out for the case of single-photon detection, the basic scheme immediately generalizes to the case of distinguishing between any two mutually orthogonal states with inefficient detectors, and can be readily generalized to a larger set of input states, and different detectors.

The analysis that is carried out in terms of mutual information between the sequence of input states, and an observer using the detection scheme, is seen to be a simple to use, and powerful method of evaluating detection schemes.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to R., P., and M. Horodecki for an illuminating discussion, and we appreciate the helpful remarks from an anonymous referee regarding Sec. IV A.


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# 1 Main results

## 1 Main results

Our basic result is the following.

###### Theorem 1

Fix a standard Young tableau $`T`$ of shape $`\lambda k`$, let $`N(n;T)`$ be the number of tableaux of $`n`$ cells that contain $`T`$ as a subtableau,444A subtableau of a tableau $`T`$ of $`n`$ cells is a tableau that is formed by the letters $`1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ in $`T`$, for some $`kn`$. and let $`t_n`$ be the number of all tableaux of $`n`$ cells. Then we have

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{N(n;T)}{t_n}=\frac{f^\lambda }{k!},$$
(1)
where $`f^\lambda `$ is the number of all tableaux of shape $`\lambda `$. In other words, the probability that a large tableau contains $`T`$ is equal to the number of tableaux whose shape is that of $`T`$, divided by $`k!`$.

We now state two corollaries of this theorem, after which we will discuss several applications. Two excellent references regarding the general theory of tableaux are  and .

###### Corollary 1

Let $`𝒞`$ be a collection of Young tableaux, none of which is a subtableau of any other in the collection, and let $`N(n;𝒞)`$ be the number of Young tableaux of $`n`$ cells which have a subtableau in $`𝒞`$. The probability that a randomly chosen tableau of $`n`$ cells has a subtableau in $`𝒞`$ is then $`N(n;𝒞)/t_n`$, where $`t_n`$ is the number of tableaux of $`n`$ cells (equivalently, the number of involutions of $`n`$ letters). We have

$$\mathrm{Prob}(𝒞)=\text{def}\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{N(n;𝒞)}{t_n}=\underset{T𝒞}{}\frac{f^{\lambda (T)}}{|T|!},$$
(2)
where $`\lambda (T)`$ is the shape of tableau $`T`$ and $`|T|`$ is the number of cells in $`T`$.

Thus we can speak of “the probability that a Young tableau has a subtableau appearing in $`𝒞`$,” without reference to the size, $`n`$, of the tableau. This phrase will mean the limit in (2).

The next corollary is the special case of Corollary 1 in which the distinguished list $`𝒞`$ of tableaux is defined by a list of allowable shapes.

###### Corollary 2

Let $``$ be a list of Ferrers diagrams with no shape a subshape of another in the list, and let $`N(n;)`$ be the number of Young tableaux of $`n`$ cells which have a subtableau with shape in $``$. The probability that a tableau of $`n`$ cells has such a subtableau is then $`N(n;)/t_n`$, and we have

$$\mathrm{Prob}()=\text{def}\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{N(n;)}{t_n}=\underset{\lambda }{}\frac{(f^\lambda )^2}{|\lambda |!}.$$
(3)
From these results, we will deduce a number of interesting consequences:

1. Let $`𝒞`$ be the list of all tableaux of $`k`$ cells such that the letter $`k`$ lives in the $`(i,j)`$ position, for some fixed $`(i,j)`$. Then $`\mathrm{Prob}(𝒞)`$ is the probability that a Young tableau has the entry $`k`$ in its $`(i,j)`$ position. We will find a rather explicit formula (see subsection 4.1 below) for this probability. This formula was previously found by Regev .
2. Let $`𝒞`$ be the list of all tableaux of $`k`$ cells in which a certain fixed collection of cells contain prescribed entries. Then $`\mathrm{Prob}(𝒞)`$ is the probability that a Young tableau has the prescribed entries in the prescribed cells. We will find a rather explicit formula for this probability (see subsection 4.2 below). In the case where the fixed collection of cells consists of just two cells, this formula was also previously found by Regev , who also found this two-cell probability with a variety of measures on the space of tableaux. Our result, while it applies to arbitrary collections of prescribed cells, holds only in the uniform measure on tableaux.
3. Let $``$ be the list of all partitions of the integer $`k`$ whose parts are $`2`$, in Corollary 2. Then $`\mathrm{Prob}()`$ is the probability that a Young tableau has its smallest $`k`$ letters in just two columns, and we’ll find an explicit formula for it (see subsection 4.3 below).

Finally, in section 5, we will find the probability that the $`(1,2)`$ entry of a tableau of $`n`$ cells is $`k`$, in the form of an exact formula that is valid for every $`n,k`$. The asymptotic form of this result will illustrate the rate of approach to the limit in the more general theorems already cited above.

We thank the anonymous referee who noted that our proof of Corollaries 1 and 2 actually proved them in the form shown here, which is more general than our original statement.

## 2 Proof of Theorem 1

The set of letters $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},\mathrm{}\}`$ is denoted $`[\mathrm{}]`$. We begin with a small observation.

###### Proposition 1

In the Robinson-Schensted (RS) correspondence between involutions $`\varphi `$, of $`n`$ letters, and tableaux $`T`$, of $`n`$ cells, the subtableau of $`T`$ in the letters $`[k]`$ depends only on the order of the first $`k`$ letters in the involution $`\varphi `$, and does not depend on their preimages or on the disposition of the remaining $`nk`$ letters.

To see this, note that when a letter $`>k`$ is inserted into some stage of the RS algorithm it cannot disturb the position of any letter $`k`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

Fix a tableau $`T`$, of $`k`$ cells. How many involutions of $`n`$ letters correspond to a tableau that contains $`T`$ as a subtableau? To answer this, let $`Z(k)`$ denote the set of all permutations of $`k`$ letters which correspond, under the RS correspondence, to an ordered pair of tableaux $`(T,T^{})`$ for some tableau $`T^{}`$. Then an involution of $`n`$ letters will correspond to a tableau that contains $`T`$ iff the set of letters $`1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ in its value sequence appear in one of the arrangements in $`Z(k)`$.

Thus if $`\sigma `$ is some permutation of $`k`$ letters, and $`F_n(\sigma )`$ denotes the number of involutions of $`n`$ letters which contain $`\sigma `$ as a subsequence, then exactly

$$\underset{\sigma Z(k)}{}F_n(\sigma )$$

involutions of $`n`$ letters correspond to tableaux which contain $`T`$ as a subtableau, so the probability that a random $`n`$-tableau contains $`T`$ is

$$\underset{\sigma Z(k)}{}\frac{F_n(\sigma )}{t_n},$$
(4)
where $`t_n`$ is the number of $`n`$-involutions. What can be said about the summand $`F_n(\sigma )/t_n`$? It is the probability that a random involution of $`[n]`$ contains the letters $`1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ in some particular order $`\sigma `$. If instead we had wanted the probability that a random permutation of $`[n]`$ contains the letters $`1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ in some particular order, the question would have been trivial: the required probability would be exactly $`1/k!`$, no matter what the “particular order” was.

We claim that for involutions the answer is essentially the same, up to a term that is $`o(1)`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$.

###### Lemma 1

Let $`\sigma `$ be a fixed permutation of $`k`$ letters. The probability that a random involution of $`n`$ letters contains $`\sigma `$ as a subsequence is $`1/k!+o(1)`$, for $`n\mathrm{}`$.

We will prove this lemma in the next section as a corollary of a more general theorem about the quasirandomness of families of permutations.

However, for the moment let us imagine that we have proved the Lemma, and we will now finish the proof of Theorem 1. By (4) and the Lemma, the probability that a tableau of $`n`$ letters contains a given subtableau $`T`$ of $`k`$ letters is

$$\underset{\sigma Z(k)}{}\left(\frac{1}{k!}+o(1)\right)=\frac{|Z(k)|}{k!}+o(1)(n\mathrm{}).$$

Since $`Z(k)`$ is the number of all permutations of $`k`$ letters corresponding to ordered pairs of the form $`(T,T^{})`$ for some $`T^{}`$, well-known RS theory gives that this is simply the number of tableaux $`T^{}`$ whose shape is that of $`T`$, i.e. $`f^{\lambda (T)}`$. Thus the probability that a tableau of $`n`$ letters contains a fixed $`T`$ of $`k`$ letters as a subtableau is

$$\frac{f^{\lambda (T)}}{k!}+o(1)(n\mathrm{}),$$

and the proof of Theorem 1 is complete. $`\mathrm{}`$

Corollary 1 follows from the theorem by summing over the tableaux in the list $`𝒞`$, since two tableaux cannot be subtableaux of the same larger tableaux unless one is a subtableau of the other. Corollary 2 follows from Corollary 1 since, if $`𝒞`$ is the list of all of the tableaux whose shapes are in $``$,

$`{\displaystyle \underset{T𝒞}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{f^{\lambda (T)}}{|T|!}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\{T:\lambda (T)=\lambda \}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{f^{\lambda (T)}}{|T|!}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\{T:\lambda (T)=\lambda \}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{f^\lambda }{|\lambda |!}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{f^\lambda }{|\lambda |!}}{\displaystyle \underset{\{T:\lambda (T)=\lambda \}}{}}1={\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(f^\lambda )^2}{|\lambda |!}}.`$
## 3 Involutions are typical

In this section we will prove a proposition that implies Lemma 1 above.

Let $`𝒫`$ be a collection of permutations such that $`𝒫_n=𝒫𝒮_n`$ is non-empty for infinitely many values of $`n`$, where $`𝒮_n`$ is the set of all permutations of $`[n]`$.

If $`\tau `$ is a sequence of $`k`$ distinct elements of $`[n]`$, let $`h(n,\tau )`$ be the number of elements of $`𝒫_n`$ that have $`\tau `$ as a subsequence. If $`𝒫_n\mathrm{}`$, the probability that a random element of $`𝒫_n`$ has $`\tau `$ as a subsequence is $`\stackrel{~}{p}(n,\tau )=h(n,\tau )/|𝒫_n|`$.

Inspired by the terminology of Chung and Graham , we say that $`𝒫`$ is quasirandom if, for each $`k1`$,

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\underset{\tau }{\mathrm{max}}\left|\stackrel{~}{p}(n,\tau )\frac{1}{k!}\right|0,$$

where the limit is restricted to those $`n`$ for which $`𝒫_n`$ is nonempty and the maximum is over all sequences $`\tau `$ of $`k`$ distinct elements of $`[n]`$.

In this section we will first give a general criterion, involving the fixed points of the permutations in the family $`𝒫`$, that guarantees the quasirandomness of the family. Then we will show that the involutions satisfy this criterion, which is the result that we need for the analysis of the limiting distributions of the entries of standard tableaux.

###### Theorem 2

If each $`𝒫_n`$ is a union of conjugacy classes of $`𝒮_n`$, and the average number of fixed points of elements of $`𝒫_n`$ is $`o(n)`$, then $`𝒫`$ is quasirandom.

Proof. We restrict $`n`$ to values for which $`𝒫_n\mathrm{}`$ and fix $`k1`$. Let $`I`$ be any $`k`$ subset of $`[n]`$, and let $`𝒮`$ be the set of all permutations of $`I`$. Also let $`f_n`$ be the average number of fixed points of elements of $`𝒫_n`$.

The set $`𝒫_n`$ can be expressed as a disjoint union

$$𝒫_n=A(I)\underset{\tau 𝒮}{}B(\tau ),$$

where $`A(I)=\{\varphi 𝒫_n|\varphi (I)I\mathrm{}\}`$, and

$$B(\tau )=\{\varphi 𝒫_n|\varphi A(I)\text{and }\varphi \text{ contains }\tau \text{ as a subsequence}\}.$$

The basic idea of the proof is that $`A(I)`$ is small compared to $`𝒫_n`$ and the size of $`B(\tau )`$ is independent of $`\tau `$.

We begin by showing that $`A(I)`$ is small. Since $`𝒫_n`$ is closed under conjugation, all elements of $`[n]`$ are equally likely to be fixed points of members of $`𝒫_n`$. Thus if we let $`tI`$, then the probability that a random element of $`𝒫_n`$ fixes $`t`$ is exactly $`f_n/n`$, For the same reason, the probability that $`t`$ is mapped onto a specified element of $`I`$ other than $`t`$ is exactly

$$\frac{1f_n/n}{n1.}$$

Therefore, the probability that $`t`$ is mapped to an element of $`I`$ is

$$\frac{f_n}{n}+(k1)\frac{1f_n/n}{n1}=\frac{n(k1)+f_n(nk)}{n(n1)}.$$

Consequently, the probability $`q(I)`$ that a random element of $`𝒫_n`$ is in $`A(I)`$ is

$$q(I)=\frac{|A(I)|}{|𝒫_n|}k\left(\frac{n(k1)+f_n(nk)}{n(n1)}\right),$$
(5)
which shows that $`q(I)=o(1)`$ if $`f_n=o(n)`$.

Next, let $`\tau _1`$ and $`\tau _2`$ be permutations of $`I`$ (that is, elements of $`𝒮`$). Let $`\varphi `$ be the element of $`𝒮_n`$ which fixes everything not in $`I`$ and maps $`\tau _1`$ element-wise onto $`\tau _2`$. Then conjugation by $`\varphi `$ is a bijection from $`B(\tau _1)`$ to $`B(\tau _2)`$, so $`B(\tau _1)`$ and $`B(\tau _2)`$ have the same size. Thus the sets $`B(\tau )`$ have the same size for any $`\tau 𝒮`$.

Altogether, then, we find that

$$\frac{1q(I)}{k!}\stackrel{~}{p}(n,\tau )\frac{1q(I)}{k!}+q(I),$$

which is the result we want. The left and right sides come from supposing that none or all of the elements of $`A(I)`$, respectively, contain the subsequence $`\tau 𝒮`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

To apply Theorem 2 to the set of all involutions, it suffices to show that involutions have on average $`o(n)`$ fixed points. Since the involutions fixing some specified point are just the involutions of the remaining points, we have that the average number of fixed points is exactly $`nt_{n1}/t_n`$, which, in view of the well known asymptotic behavior of $`t_n`$, viz.

$$t_n=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}n^{n/2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{n}{2}+\sqrt{n}\frac{1}{4}\right)(1+o(1))(n\mathrm{}),$$
(6)
is $`(1+o(1))\sqrt{n}`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

## 4 Applications

In this section we will apply Theorem 1 to the examples that were listed above in section 1.

### 4.1 Occupancy of a cell in a tableau

For fixed positive integers $`(i,j)`$ and $`k`$, what is the probability that a Young tableau has its $`(i,j)`$ entry equal to $`k`$?

The list $`𝒞`$ here consists of all tableaux of $`k`$ cells whose $`(i,j)`$ entry is $`k`$. The required probability is, by Corollary 1,

$$\frac{1}{k!}\underset{T_{i,j}=k;|T|=k}{}f^{\lambda (T)}=\frac{1}{k!}\underset{|\lambda |=k}{}f^\lambda f^{\lambda (i,j)},$$
(7)
where the latter sum extends over all partitions $`\lambda `$ of the integer $`k`$ whose Ferrers diagram has the cell $`(i,j)`$ as a corner position, and $`\lambda (i,j)`$ is the Ferrers diagram of $`\lambda `$ after removing the corner $`(i,j)`$.

In particular cases one can make this quite explicit. Short computations with the hook formula now reveal, for instance, the following.

1. The probability that the $`(1,2)`$ entry of a Young tableau is $`k`$ is $`(k1)/k!`$, for $`k=2,3,\mathrm{}`$.
2. The probability that the $`(1,3)`$ entry of a Young tableau is $`k`$ is

$$\frac{(2k2)!}{(k3)!k!(k+1)!}(k=3,4,5,\mathrm{}),$$

and the probability that the $`(2,2)`$ entry is $`k+1`$ is exactly the same! These cases were previously derived by Regev , and the fact that the $`(1,3)`$ and the $`(2,2)`$ answers are so related is explained there in a more combinatorial way.

We show below a short table of the limiting probability (7) that the $`(i,j)`$ entry of a Young tableau is equal to $`k`$.

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccccccc}𝐤\backslash (𝐢,𝐣):& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟑})& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟒})& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟓})& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟔})& (\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟐})& (\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟑})& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟐}:& \frac{1}{2}& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟑}:& \frac{1}{3}& \frac{1}{6}& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟒}:& \frac{1}{8}& \frac{1}{4}& \frac{1}{24}& 0& 0& \frac{1}{6}& 0& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟓}:& \frac{1}{30}& \frac{7}{30}& \frac{1}{10}& \frac{1}{120}& 0& \frac{1}{4}& 0& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟔}:& \frac{1}{144}& \frac{1}{6}& \frac{7}{48}& \frac{1}{36}& \frac{1}{720}& \frac{7}{30}& \frac{5}{144}& & & & & \end{array}$$

Professor Okounkov has kindly communicated to us (p.c.) another, independent proof of the result (7).

### 4.2 Occupancies of several cells in a tableau

Suppose we’re given a finite collection of cells $`(i_1,j_1),\mathrm{},(i_m,j_m)`$ and a collection of entries $`k_1,\mathrm{},k_m`$. Let $`K=\mathrm{max}_ik_i`$. In Corollary 1 let the list $`𝒞`$ consist of all tableaux of $`K`$ cells that have the given entries in the given cells. Then the probability that a Young tableau has all of the entries

$$\{k_r\mathrm{cell}(i_r,j_r):r=1,\mathrm{},m\}$$

is

$$\frac{1}{K!}f^{\lambda (T)}$$
(8)
where the sum extends over all tableaux of $`K`$ cells that have the given set of entries in the given set of cells.

We show below a short table of the joint distribution of cells $`(1,2)`$ and $`(1,3)`$. That is, the entry in row $`r`$ and column $`s`$ below is the limiting probability (8) that a Young tableau $`T`$ will have $`T(1,2)=r`$ and $`T(1,3)=s`$.

$$\begin{array}{ccccccccccccc}𝐫\backslash 𝐬:& \mathrm{𝟑}& \mathrm{𝟒}& \mathrm{𝟓}& \mathrm{𝟔}& \mathrm{𝟕}& \mathrm{𝟖}& \mathrm{𝟗}& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟐}:& \frac{1}{6}& \frac{1}{8}& \frac{11}{120}& \frac{7}{120}& \frac{9}{280}& \frac{209}{13440}& \frac{2431}{362880}& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟑}:& 0& \frac{1}{8}& \frac{11}{120}& \frac{7}{120}& \frac{9}{280}& \frac{209}{13440}& \frac{2431}{362880}& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟒}:& 0& 0& \frac{1}{20}& \frac{13}{360}& \frac{53}{2520}& \frac{47}{4480}& \frac{209}{45360}& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟓}:& 0& 0& 0& \frac{1}{72}& \frac{5}{504}& \frac{73}{13440}& \frac{913}{362880}& & & & & \\ & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{𝟔}:& 0& 0& 0& 0& \frac{1}{336}& \frac{17}{8064}& \frac{5}{4536}& & & & & \end{array}$$

### 4.3 An interesting special case

When the distinguished list $`𝒞`$ of $`k`$-tableaux consists of all tableaux that have a certain specified list $``$ of shapes, or partitions of the integer $`k`$, we can use Corollary 2. It tells us that the probability that in a Young tableau, the subtableau formed by the letters $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},k\}`$ has one of the shapes in a given list $``$ of shapes is

$$\frac{1}{k!}\underset{\lambda }{}(f^\lambda )^2.$$

This will be recognized as a partial sum of the “Parseval identity”

$$\frac{1}{k!}\underset{|\lambda |=k}{}(f^\lambda )^2=1$$
(9)
that holds in the symmetric group $`𝒮_k`$. In fact Corollary 2 shows that the quantity $`(f^\lambda )^2/k!`$ is the probability that in a large tableau $`T`$ the letters $`1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ will be arranged in the shape $`\lambda `$, and from this interpetation, (9) is obvious.

An example of this type, i.e., where membership in the distinguished list $`𝒞`$ depends only on the shape of the tableau, is the following: what is the probability that in a large Young tableau the letters $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},k\}`$ are contained in a subtableau of at most two columns?

From Corollary 2 and the hook formula it is a brief exercise to verify that this probability is

$$\frac{1}{(k+1)!}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k}{k}\right)(k=1,2,3,\mathrm{}).$$

## 5 An exact solution for the cell $`(1,2)`$

One of the consequences of our main theorem is, as we saw in item 1 of subsection 4.1 above, the fact that the probability that the entry in the $`(1,2)`$ position of a tableau is equal to $`k`$ is $`(k1)/k!`$. It is instructive to work out this case also independently of our main theorem because it happens that an exact solution can be found for each $`n`$, instead of only a solution for the limiting probability. This will shed some light on the rate of convergence to the limit (see (13) below).

Let $`f(n,k)`$ be the number of standard Young tableaux $`T`$ of $`n`$ cells (and more than one column) for which $`T_{1,2}=k`$. That is, $`f(n,k)`$ is the number of standard tableaux with the letter $`k`$ occuring in the first row and second column. If we look at the first few values of $`n`$ we see the values of $`f(n,k)\}_{k=1}^n`$ that are shown below.

$`n=2:`$ $`0,1`$
$`n=3:`$ $`0,2,1`$
$`n=4:`$ $`0,5,3,1`$
$`n=5:`$ $`0,13,8,3,1`$
$`n=6:`$ $`0,38,24,9,3,1`$
$`n=7:`$ $`0,116,74,28,9,3,1`$
$`n=8:`$ $`0,382,246,93,29,9,3,1`$
$`n=9:`$ $`0,1310,848,321,98,29,9,3,1`$
Based on the Robinson-Schensted correspondence, we will find an exact formula (see (12) below) for these numbers.

###### Lemma 2

For $`1kn1`$, let $`F(n,k)`$ denote the set of involutions of $`[n]`$ that contain the subsequence $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{}k`$ and in which the letter $`k+1`$ occurs before $`k`$. Then

$$f(n,k)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1,\hfill & \text{if }k=0\text{;}\hfill \\ \multicolumn{2}{c}{}\\ |F(n,k1)|,\hfill & \text{if }1kn\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

Proof. Since the RS-correspondence is a bijection between all involutions and all pairs of standard tableaux $`(P,P)`$, it suffices to show that under the RS-correspondence, an element $`\omega F(n,k1)`$ is sent to a pair $`(T,T)`$ where the first $`k1`$ entries in the first column of $`T`$ are $`1,2,\mathrm{},k1`$ and $`kT_{1,2}`$. This follows from the definition of column insertion. That is, a letter $`\mathrm{}`$ is bumped out of the first column only if a letter $`j`$, where $`j<\mathrm{}`$, is column inserted after $`\mathrm{}`$. If $`\mathrm{}`$ is any of the letters $`1,2,\mathrm{},k1`$, there is no letter $`j`$ where $`j<\mathrm{}`$ inserted after $`\mathrm{}`$ and thus these letters all remain in the first column. On the other hand, since $`k`$ is inserted before $`k1`$, it must be bumped to the second column and takes position $`T_{1,2}`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Lemma 3

Let $`G(n,k)`$ be the number of involutions of $`[n]`$ containing the subsequence $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{}k`$. Then we have

$$G(n,k)=\underset{jk}{}f(n,j+1).$$
(11)
Proof. The set of all involutions containing the subsequence $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{}k`$ can be divided into the subset where $`k+1`$ occurs before $`k`$ and the subset where $`k+1`$ occurs after $`k`$. By definition, this is to say that $`G(n,k)=|F(n,k)|+G(n,k+1)`$, which, after summation on $`k`$, establishes the result. $`\mathrm{}`$

Now we can find an explicit formula for $`f(n,k)`$ in terms of the number of certain involutions.

###### Theorem 3

Let $`f(n,k)`$ denote the number of standard tableaux on $`n`$ letters with the entry $`k`$ occuring in the (1,2) position. We then have the exact formula

$$f(n,k)=\underset{j=0}{\overset{k1}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk}{kj1}\right)t_{n2k+j+2}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk}{k1}\right)t_{n2k+1}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk}{k}\right)t_{n2k}.$$
(12)
Proof. Suppose $`G(n,k)`$ is, as in Lemma 3, the number of involutions of $`[n]`$ which contain the subsequence $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{}k`$. The number of these whose value at 1 is 1 is $`G(n1,k1)`$. Now consider such an involution $`\varphi `$ for which $`\varphi (1)>1`$. Then in fact $`\varphi (1)>k`$. Hence we can choose the locations of the subsequence $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{}k`$ in $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk}{k}\right)`$ ways. Having done that, the values of $`\varphi `$ at $`1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ are also determined since an involution is composed only of elementary transpositions. That leaves $`n2k`$ values, which can be any involution of $`n2k`$ letters. Thus

$$G(n,k)=G(n1,k1)+\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk}{k}\right)t_{n2k}.$$

Hence we have

$$G(n,k)=\underset{j=0}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk}{kj}\right)t_{n2k+j}=\underset{j=0}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk}{j}\right)t_{nkj}.$$

But if we have an explicit formula for $`G`$ then we have one for $`f`$ too, in view of (11). Indeed if we subtract (11) with $`k`$ replaced by $`k+1`$ from (11) we find that

$`f(n,k+1)`$ $`=`$ $`G(n,k)G(n,k+1)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{k}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk}{kj}}\right)t_{n2k+j}{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{k+1}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{nk1}{k+1j}}\right)t_{n2k2+j},`$
thus proving our claim. $`\mathrm{}`$

Now if we use the asymptotic formula (6) it is easy to see, from (12), that

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{f(n,k)}{t_n}=\frac{k1}{k!},$$

which we had previously derived from Corollary 1. But now we can use the asymptotic formula with a little more detail, on (12), and obtain the rate of approach to the limit.

###### Theorem 4

For each $`k=3,4\mathrm{}`$, the probability that $`k`$ occurs in the $`(1,2)`$ position of a Young tableau of $`n`$ cells is

$$\frac{k1}{k!}+\frac{k4}{3(k3)!}\frac{1}{n^{3/2}}+O\left(\frac{1}{n^2}\right)(n\mathrm{}).$$
(13)


text:
# Contents

## 1 Keeping up with experiments

Besides existing machines and a whole bunch of data sets, further lepton pair colliders such as the Next Linear Collider (NLC) and the Future Muon Collider (FMC) are designed for the future. They will be able to determine the properties of heavy particles to an extend never reached by present colliders. Especially they will be able to measure the properties of the top quark which was first measured at the Tevatron with a mass of $`m_t=174.3\pm 5\mathrm{GeV}`$ (see e.g.  and references therein). Although the top quark will be studied at the LHC and the Tevatron (RUN-II) as well with an expected accuracy for the mass of $`23\mathrm{GeV}`$, the measurements at NLC are expected to have an accuracy of $`0.1\%`$ ($`100200\mathrm{MeV}`$.

Theorists are therefore asked to improve their predictions, too. Of special interest is the consideration of the cross section near the pair production threshold because the resonance observed there is constituted solely by a colour singlet state. A lot has been done in the past and just recently to calculate and match corresponding diagrams up to the next-to-next-to-leading order in order to determine this cross section (for an overview on work that has been done see e.g. Ref. ). But the question remains what we actually want to determine. What can we say about the mass of a particle which never will show up in nature in isolated fashion because of its confinement? Does the term of the mass of the top quark really makes sense?

The everydays life of theorists show that this actually makes no sense. There are different concepts on the market – each of them with different advantages and disadvantages, regions of validy and failure. They all show that there cannot be a unique definition of the quark mass. Instead the task of the theory can only be to quantify and limit the theoretical uncertainties to an amount comparable to the experimental measurements. One of these theory-born uncertainties are special kinds of IR singularities known as renormalons which limit the accuracy of a prediction to the order of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. Just recently this problem has been overcome (a synapsis of the progress is given in Ref. ), and this talk will deal with the different concepts which were developed in this context, closing with an own suggestion presented by the authors .

## 2 $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass and on-shell or pole mass

A mass quite often used in perturbation theory is the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass. It is related to the bare mass of the underlying QCD by the calculation of self energy diagrams of the quark. The term $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass indicates that for this calculation we use the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ subtraction scheme which itself is based on the dimensional regularization method. The calculation of self energy diagrams which is done actually up to the third order QCD perturbation theory  leads to a couple of master diagrams which are calculated at center-of-mass energies in the deep Euklidean domain ($`q^2<0`$, $`|q|`$ large) where the perturbation series converge sufficiently good. This $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass of course does not fit the range around the threshold and spoils the non-relativistic expansion if applied. But the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass can be continued to this region.

The continuation is done by the Borel transformation. This transform can be understood as the extrapolation from the deep Euklidean domain to the $`t\overline{t}`$ threshold domain where a simultaneous limit of the negative center-of-mass energy and the order of the used derivative is taken. The ratio of these two quantities remains fixed and constitutes the Borel parameter. As shown in Ref. , this Borel transformation can be made explicit for the case of the “large $`\beta _0`$ limit” where the prescription of Brodsky, Lepage and Mackenzie  is used to sum up all fermion loop insertions (being proportional to the zeroth order QCD beta function coefficient $`\beta _0=11C_A/32N_F/3`$) in order to obtain an estimate (for a relation of this estimate to the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass see Ref. ).

If we use the prescription for the static quark-antiquark potential $`V(r)`$, we obtain

$$V(r)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}V_n(\beta _0\alpha _s)^{n+1}.$$
(1)
The Borel transformation of this series expression leads to

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(r;u)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{V_n}{n!}u^n$$
(2)
The series for the Borel transformed quantity converges even if the perturbative series for $`V(r)`$ itself is divergent. The inverse Borel transformation

$$V(r)=_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{u/(\beta _0\alpha _s)}\stackrel{~}{V}(r;u)𝑑u$$
(3)
provides then a good definition. However, there might occur singularities on the integration contour. As mentioned before, for the “large $`\beta _0`$” estimate (also known as “naive non-abelianization”) we obtain an explicit expression

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(r;u)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1/2+u)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1/2u)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2u+1)}$$
(4)
which has simple poles for $`u=k+1/2`$, $`k=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$. These singularities are a special case of IR renormalons.

The same happens then for the continuation of the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass to the on-shell mass in the threshold region. This on-shell mass is appropriate to the treatment near the threshold because the quark is then assumed to be nearly on-shell. The on-shell mass $`m`$ (or pole mass as it is called more often) can be determined by the demand that the inverse Fermi propagator should vanish at this point,

$$(S_F(q))^1|_{q^2=m^2}=0.$$
(5)
But the continuation of the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass via Borel transformation to the pole mass leads again to IR renormalon ambiguities.

So there is no way out? Wait, there is one! Both the pole mass and the static potential show an IR renormalon ambiguity. Maybe they cancel in a specific combination of these two quantities? Indeed it emerges that in the combination $`2m+V(r)`$ the IR sensitivity vanishes. Only for this reason it is then possible to construct a quantity which has no such ambiguities. In fact there are several of them, called threshold masses which we will deal with in the following.

## 3 Threshold mass definitions

The first definition we want to mention here is the definition given by Hoang and Teubner . We mention it first because it is the most sophisticated definition. Starting with the non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) , an effective theory designed to handle the non-relativistic quark-antiquark system which separates the low-momentum scales $`mv`$ and $`mv^2`$ from the high momentum scale $`m`$ ($`v`$ is the velocity of the quark), they stress the relevance of the different scales $`v`$ and $`\alpha _s`$ and their interrelation. Especially in the non-relativistic regime even the space and time components can be scaled differently. So there are “soft” ($`qm(v;v)`$), “potential” ($`qm(v^2;v)`$), and “ultrasoft” regions ($`qm(v^2;v^2)`$) where the last one is populated only by gluons, not by quarks. If we separate the dynamical degrees of freedom also from the “soft” heavy quarks and gluons and the “potential” gluons, supplemented by an expansion in momentum components to the order $`mv^2`$, this leads to the construction of the “potential NRQCD” (PNRQCD)  with the Langrangian

$$_{\mathrm{PNRQCD}}=\stackrel{~}{}_{\mathrm{NRQCD}}+(\psi ^{}\psi )(\stackrel{}{r})V(\stackrel{}{r})(\chi ^{}\chi )(\stackrel{}{0})d^3r.$$
(6)
Here the heavy quark-antiquark potential $`V(\stackrel{}{r})`$ occurs, $`\psi `$ and $`\chi `$ are the quark and antiquark spinors, respectively. Finally the authors of Ref.  come to the conclusion that an adequate threshold mass definition is given by one half of the perturbative mass of a fictious toponium $`1^3S_1`$ ground state. This threshold mass definition is referred to in the literature as $`1S`$ mass.

A second threshold mass definition is given by Bigi et al.  and is known by the name “low scale” (LS) mass.

Finally, Beneke gave a definition which then led to the generalization suggested by us. The static potential subtracted (PS) mass  is the minimal version of a threshold mass. As the name tells us, the definition is given by combining IR singular parts taken from the static quark-antiquark potential with the pole mass in order to cancel out the IR sensitivity. Starting point is the observation that the IR sensitive parts of the potential stem from long distance contributions, i.e. small values of the three-momentum. If we therefore restrict the three-momentum range of the potential as expressed by the Fourier transformation

$$V(|\stackrel{}{r}|)=\frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}}\stackrel{~}{V}(|\stackrel{}{q}|)$$
(7)
by $`|\stackrel{}{q}|<\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, this results (for the leading order Coulomb potential) in the contribution

$$_{|\stackrel{}{q}|<\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}}\frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}}\left(\frac{4\pi \alpha _sC_F}{\stackrel{}{q}^2}\right)=\frac{2\alpha _sC_F}{\pi }\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}+O(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}^3r^2)$$
(8)
which restricts the accuracy. The way out is to use a potential $`V(r;\mu _f)`$ defined by the Fourier transformation with $`|\stackrel{}{q}|>\mu _f`$ and to subsume the remaining part to the mass,

$$m_{\mathrm{PS}}(\mu _f)=m\delta m_{\mathrm{PS}}(\mu _f),\delta m_{\mathrm{PS}}(\mu _f)=\frac{1}{2}_{|\stackrel{}{q}|<\mu _f}\frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}\stackrel{~}{V}(|\stackrel{}{q}|)$$
(9)
(it is legitimate to use $`e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}}1`$ here). The scale $`\mu _f`$ introduced by this is called factorization scale. It drops out again if the static PS mass is related to the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass.

## 4 A dynamic mass definition

It has been pointed out already in Ref.  that the replacement

$$\frac{1}{vq}i\pi \delta (vq)$$
(10)
in the self energy leads to the leading infrared behaviour. We have taken this consideration as starting point for our definition and extended it to the more general non-static case.

The general structure of the self energy diagram for an on-shell quark with mass $`m`$ and momentum $`p`$ ($`p^2=m^2`$) is shown in Fig. 1. The expression for this diagram is given by

$`i\mathrm{\Sigma }(p/)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{M}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4l_m}{(2\pi )^4}}S_{\{\alpha _n\}}^{\{a_n\}}(\{l_m\})(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _{N+1}}T_{a_{N+1}})\times `$ (11)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{n=N}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{p/_nm}}(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _n}T_{a_n})`$
where the last factor is a non-commutative product with decreasing index $`n`$. The line momenta $`k_n`$ are linear combinations of the gluon loop momenta $`l_m`$, the particular representation is specified by the structure $`S`$. The symbol $`\{l_m\}`$ means the set of all these loop momenta, the same symbol is used for the Lorentz and colour indices. In general we have $`MN`$ which means that line momenta can be correlated. The momenta of the virtual quark states are given by $`p_n=p+k_n`$.

The quark is considered to be at rest, $`p=(m,\stackrel{}{0})`$, and it interacts with a number of gluons. The subdiagram $`S`$ displayed in Fig. 1 describes the interaction between the gluons. In general the quark lines between the interaction points represent virtual quark states. However, if the virtual quark comes very close to the mass shell and the total momentum of the cloud of virtual gluons becomes soft, this situation gives rise to long-distance nonperturbative QCD interactions. The described (virtual) contributions results in the soft part of the self energy, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}`$. So we define

$`i\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}(p/)={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{M}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4l_m}{(2\pi )^4}}S_{\{\alpha _n\}}^{\{a_n\}}(\{l_m\})(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _{N+1}}T_{a_{N+1}})\times `$ (12)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{n=N}{\overset{i+1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{p/_nm}}(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _n}T_{a_n})i(p/_i+m)(i\pi \delta (p_i^2m^2))\times `$
$`\times \left(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _i}T_{a_i}\right){\displaystyle \underset{n=i1}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{p/_nm}}\left(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _n}T_{a_n}\right).`$
One can derive this expression from Eq. (11) by using the identity

$$\frac{1}{p^2m^2+iϵ}=i\pi \delta (p^2m^2)+P\left(\frac{1}{p^2m^2}\right)$$
(13)
and the fact that the principal value integral does not give any infrared sensitive contribution. The delta function can be used to remove the integration over the zero component of $`k_i`$. In order to parameterize the softness of the gluon cloud we impose a cutoff on the spatial component, $`|\stackrel{}{k}_i|<\mu _f`$, and indicate this by the label $`\mu _f`$ for the factorization scale written at the upper limit of the three-dimensional integral. So we can rewrite Eq. (12) as

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}(p/,\mu _f)=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}^{\mu _f}\frac{d^3k_i}{(2\pi )^3}V(\stackrel{}{k}_i,p)$$
(14)
where

$`V(\stackrel{}{k}_i,p)={\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{M1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4l_m}{(2\pi )^4}}S_{\{\alpha _n\}}^{\{a_n\}}(\{l_m\})(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _{N+1}}T_{a_{N+1}})\times `$
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{n=N}{\overset{i+1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{p/_nm}}(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _n}T_{a_n}){\displaystyle \frac{p/_i+m}{2p_i^0}}(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _i}T_{a_i}){\displaystyle \underset{n=i1}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{p/_nm}}(ig_s\gamma ^{\alpha _n}T_{a_n})`$
and finally define

$$m_{\overline{\mathrm{PS}}}=m\delta m_{\overline{\mathrm{PS}}}\text{with}\delta m_{\overline{\mathrm{PS}}}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}(p/)|_{p/=m}.$$
(16)
In the following we deal with the different realizations of this compact expression. As we will see explicitly, the function $`V(\stackrel{}{k},p)`$ occurring as integrand can be seen as quark-antiquark potential where we have summed over the spin of the tensor product of a final state with an initial state. Because the static quark-antiquark potential is used in a similar way in Ref. , we recover the result of Ref.  in the static limit.

## 5 The one-loop contribution

The leading order contribution to the self energy of the quark is given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(p/)=i\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}(ig_s\gamma _\alpha T_a)\frac{i}{p/+/km}(ig_s\gamma ^\alpha T_a)\frac{i}{k^2}$$
(17)
where Feynman gauge is used for the gluon. The soft part of it is given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}(p/,\mu _f)=\frac{1}{2}^{\mu _f}\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}V(\stackrel{}{k},p),V(\stackrel{}{k},p)=V_+(\stackrel{}{k},p)+V_{}(\stackrel{}{k},p)$$
(18)
where

$$V_\pm (\stackrel{}{k},p)=\frac{g_s^2C_F(\sqrt{m^2+\kappa ^2}2m)}{2m\sqrt{m^2+\kappa ^2}(\sqrt{m^2+\kappa ^2}m)}$$
(19)
and $`\kappa =|\stackrel{}{k}|`$. The procedure of taking the soft part by setting a cut is shown in Fig. 2(a–b).

The two potential parts are known as the scattering potential $`V_+(\stackrel{}{k},p)`$ and the annihilation potential $`V_{}(\stackrel{}{k},p)`$ and correspond to the two zeros $`k_\pm =\pm \sqrt{\kappa ^2+m^2}m`$ of the delta function. Integrating the potential up to the factorization scale $`\mu _f`$, we obtain

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}(\mu _f)=\frac{\alpha _sC_F}{2\pi }m\left\{3\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mu _f}{m}+\sqrt{\frac{\mu _f^2}{m^2}+1}\right)\frac{\mu _f}{m}\sqrt{\frac{\mu _f^2}{m^2}+1}\right\}.$$
(20)
The expansion of this expression in small values of $`\mu _f/m`$ results in

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}(\mu _f)=\frac{\alpha _sC_F}{\pi }\mu _f\left\{1\frac{\mu _f^2}{2m^2}+O\left(\frac{\mu _f^4}{m^4}\right)\right\}.$$
(21)
The first term reproduces the result given in Ref.  to leading order in $`\alpha _s`$ while the second term is the recoil correction to the static limit in this order of perturbation theory. This second term is related to the Breit-Fermi potential but does not coincide with it.

## 6 Two-loop contributions

To take a step beyond the leading order perturbation theory, we consider two-loop diagrams for the heavy quark self energy as shown in Fig. 3.

In cutting the quark line in all possible ways we obtain a lot of diagrams from the ones shown in Fig. 3. However, we find that the final contribution of the two abelian diagrams in Fig. 3(a–b) to the soft part of the self energy is suppressed by $`\mu _f^2/m^2`$. Therefore it turns out that the only abelian diagrams which can give a non-suppressed contribution to the soft part of the quark self energy are the diagrams containing the vacuum polarization of the gluon as shown in Fig. 3(d–f). The simple calculation of these diagrams within the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme, accounting only for light fermion loops, gluon loop (and ghost loop if Feynman gauge is used) results after renormalization in

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}^A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle ^\mu }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \alpha _s(\mu )C_F}{|\stackrel{}{k}|^2}}\right)\left\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )}{4\pi }}\left(a_1\beta _0\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{k}|^2}{\mu ^2}}\right)\right)\right\}`$ (22)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )C_F}{\pi }}\mu _f\left\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )}{4\pi }}\left(a_1\beta _0\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _f^2}{\mu ^2}}\right)\right)\right\}`$
with the same coefficient $`a_1`$ as in Ref.  (see below). This result has been anticipated because the expression in the curly brackets of the integrand reproduces the next-to-leading order correction to the QCD Coulomb potential.

For the only non-abelian diagram in Fig. 3(c) we obtain

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}^{NA}=\frac{\alpha _s^2C_FC_A}{8m}\mu _f^2.$$
(23)
This result has been anticipated, too, to be minus one half of the non-abelian correction to the QCD Coulomb potential, which is known in the literature (see for example Refs. ),

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{soft}}^{NA}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle ^{\mu _f}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2\alpha _s^2C_FC_A}{m|\stackrel{}{k}|}}\right\}={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^2C_FC_A}{8m}}\mu _f^2.`$ (24)
## 7 Our final result

Summarizing all contribution up to NNLO accuracy, we obtain

$`m_{\overline{\mathrm{PS}}}(\mu _f)m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )C_F}{\pi }}\mu _f\{1+C_0^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _f}{m}}+C_0^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _f^2}{m^2}}+`$ (25)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )}{4\pi }}(C_1+C_1^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _f}{m}})+C_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )}{4\pi }}\right)^2\}`$
(a result to a not yet specified order in $`\mu _f/m`$) where $`m`$ is the pole mass, $`\mu `$ is the renormalization scale, $`\mu _f`$ is the factorization scale, and

$`C_0`$ $`=`$ $`1,C_0^{}=0,C_0^{\prime \prime }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},`$
$`C_1`$ $`=`$ $`a_12\beta _0\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _f}{\mu }}\right),C_1^{}=C_A{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{2}},`$
$`C_2`$ $`=`$ $`a_22(2a_1\beta _0+\beta _1)\left(\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _f}{\mu }}\right)1\right)+`$ (26)
$`+4\beta _0^2\left(\mathrm{ln}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _f}{\mu }}\right)2\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _f}{\mu }}\right)+2\right).`$
The constants $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ are given by

$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{31}{9}}C_A{\displaystyle \frac{20}{9}}T_FN_F,`$
$`a_2`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{4343}{162}}+4\pi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^4}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{22}{3}}\zeta _3\right)C_A^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1798}{81}}+{\displaystyle \frac{56}{3}}\zeta _3\right)C_AT_FN_F+`$ (27)
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{20}{9}}T_FN_F\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{55}{3}}16\zeta _3\right)C_FT_FN_F,`$
the coefficients of the beta function are known as

$`\beta _0={\displaystyle \frac{11}{3}}C_A{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}T_FN_F,\beta _1={\displaystyle \frac{34}{3}}C_A^2{\displaystyle \frac{20}{3}}C_AT_FN_F4C_FT_FN_F`$ (28)
where $`C_F=4/3`$, $`C_A=3`$ and $`T_F=1/2`$ are colour factors and $`N_F=5`$ is the number of light flavours. The coefficients $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ in Eq. (25) have been derived in Ref.  by using known corrections to the QCD potential. In Ref.  we have obtained the coefficients $`C_0^{}`$, $`C_0^{\prime \prime }`$, and $`C_1^{}`$. Note that our result can be represented in a condensed form as

$$m_{\overline{\mathrm{PS}}}(\mu _f)m=\frac{1}{2}^{\mu _f}\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\left(V_C(|\stackrel{}{k}|)+V_R(|\stackrel{}{k}|)+V_{NA}(|\stackrel{}{k}|)\right)$$
(29)
where the first term $`V_C`$ is the static Coulomb potential, $`V_R`$ is the relativistic correction (which is related to Breit-Fermi potential but does not coincide with it), and $`V_{NA}`$ is the non-abelian correction. Note that we did not include electroweak corrections in our calculations.

Using the relation given by Eq. (25) between $`m_{\overline{\mathrm{PS}}}`$ and $`m`$ as well as the relation between $`m`$ and $`\overline{m}(\overline{m})`$ given in Refs. , we fix the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ mass to take the values $`\overline{m}(\overline{m})=160\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`165\mathrm{GeV}`$, and $`170\mathrm{GeV}`$ and determine the pole mass at LO, NLO, and NNLO. This pole mass is then used as input parameter $`m`$ in Eq. (25) to determine the PS and $`\overline{\mathrm{PS}}`$ masses at LO, NLO, and NNLO. The results of these calculations are collected in Table 1. Taking the $`\overline{\mathrm{PS}}`$ mass instead of the PS mass, we observe an improvement of the convergence. The differences for the mass values in going from LO to NLO to NNLO for e.g. $`\overline{m}(\overline{m})=165\mathrm{GeV}`$ read $`7.64\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`1.64\mathrm{GeV}`$, and $`0.52\mathrm{GeV}`$ for the pole mass, $`6.72\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`1.21\mathrm{GeV}`$, and $`0.29\mathrm{GeV}`$ for the PS mass and finally $`6.72\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`1.21\mathrm{GeV}`$, and $`0.27\mathrm{GeV}`$ for the $`\overline{\mathrm{PS}}`$ mass. So the tendency is going in the proper direction. However, we stress that the goal, namely to avoid the infrared renormalon ambiguities, is already reached by the static PS mass as well as by the other threshold masses which have been developed.

## 8 What to do with our result then?

Having mass values for the top quark at hand, we can consider the cross section of the process $`e^+e^{}t\overline{t}`$ in the near threshold region where the velocity $`v`$ of the top quark is small. It is well known that the conventional perturbative expansion does not work in the non-relativistic region because of the presence of the Coulomb singularities at small velocities $`v0`$. The terms proportional to $`(\alpha _s/v)^n`$ appear due to the instantaneous Coulomb interaction between the top and the antitop quark. The standard technique for resumming the terms $`(\alpha _s/v)^n`$ consists in using the Schrödinger equation for the quark-antiquark potential

$$(HEi\mathrm{\Gamma })G(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}^{}|E+i\mathrm{\Gamma })=\delta ^3(rr^{})$$
(30)
where $`H`$ is the non-relativistic Hamiltonian of the heavy quark-antiquark system, to find the Green function. The Green function is then related to the relative cross section by the optical theorem,

$`R`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (e^+e^{}t\overline{t})}{\sigma (e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{})}}=`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`e_Q^2N_c{\displaystyle \frac{24\pi }{s}}C(r_0)\mathrm{Im}\left[\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}^2}{3m^2}}\right)G(r_0,r_0|E+i\mathrm{\Gamma })\right]|_{r_00}`$
where $`\sigma (e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{})=4\pi \alpha ^2/3s`$, $`e_Q`$ is the electric charge of the top quark, $`N_c`$ is the number of colours, $`\sqrt{s}=2m+E`$ is the total center-of-mass energy of the quark-antiquark system, $`m`$ is the top quark pole mass and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the top quark width. The unknown short distance coefficient $`C(r_0)`$ can be fixed by using a direct QCD calculation of the vector vertex at NNLO in the so-called intermediate region  and by using the direct matching procedure suggested in Ref. .

If we take the PS mass as input parameter instead of the pole mass, the energy value $`E`$ has to be changed to $`\sqrt{s}2m_{\mathrm{PS}}(\mu _f)`$ instead of $`\sqrt{s}2m`$. The same holds for the $`\overline{\mathrm{PS}}`$ mass. It is shown  that the Schrödinger equation can be reduced to the equation

$$(H_1E_1)G_1(r,r^{}|E_1)=\delta ^3(rr^{})$$
(32)
with the energy $`E_1=\overline{E}+\overline{E}^2/4m`$, $`\overline{E}=E+i\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and with the Hamiltonian

$`H_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}^2}{m}}+V_C(r)+{\displaystyle \frac{3\overline{E}}{2m}}V_0(r)\left({\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{C_A}{C_F}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{V_0^2(r)}{2m}},`$
$`V_0(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )C_F}{r}},`$
$`V_C(r)`$ $`=`$ $`V_0(r)\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )C_F}{4\pi }}(2\beta _0\mathrm{ln}(\mu ^{}r)+a_1)+`$
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu )}{4\pi }}\right)^2(\beta _0^2(4\mathrm{ln}^2(\mu ^{}r)+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{3}})+2(\beta _1+2\beta _0a_1)\mathrm{ln}(\mu ^{}r)+a_2)\}`$
where $`\mu ^{}=\mu e^{\gamma _E}`$, $`\mu `$ is the renormalization scale, and $`\gamma _E`$ is Euler’s constant. The final expression for the cross section is then given by

$$R=\frac{8\pi }{m^2}C(r_0)\mathrm{Im}\left[\left(1\frac{5\overline{E}}{6m}\right)G_1(r_0,r_0|E_1)\right]|_{r_00}$$
(34)
with $`G_1(r_0,r_0|E_1)`$ being the solution of Eq. (32) at $`r=r^{}=r_0`$. For the numerical solution we use the program derived in Ref. . Note that we do not take into account an initial photon radiation which would change the shape of the cross section. This can be easily included in the Monte Carlo simulation.

Taking the pole mass as input parameter, the top quark cross section at LO, NLO, and NNLO is shown in Fig. 4 as a function of the center-of-mass energy. For the top quark pole mass we use $`m_t=175.05\mathrm{GeV}`$, for the top quark width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t=1.43\mathrm{GeV}`$, and for the QCD coupling constant $`\alpha _s(m_Z)=0.119`$ . Different values $`\mu =15\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`30\mathrm{GeV}`$, and $`60\mathrm{GeV}`$ for the renormalization scale are selected because they roughly correspond to the typical spatial momenta for the top quark. We see that the NNLO curve modifies the line shape by the amount of $`2030\%`$ which is as large as the NLO correction. It also shifts the position of the $`1S`$ peak by approximately $`600\mathrm{MeV}`$. These large shifts of the peak position are expected because of the renormalon ambiguity.

If we do the same for the PS mass value $`m_{\mathrm{PS}}(\mu _f=20\mathrm{GeV})=173.30\mathrm{GeV}`$ which corresponds to the pole mass $`m=175.05\mathrm{GeV}`$ according to the “large $`\beta _0`$” accuracy estimate, we obtain a picture like in Fig. 5 where we observe an improvement in the stability of the position of the first peak in comparison to the previous analysis as we go from LO to NLO to NNLO. Actually, for the three values $`\mu =15\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`30\mathrm{GeV}`$, and $`60\mathrm{GeV}`$ we obtain the maxima of the $`1S`$ peak for NNLO at $`s_{\mathrm{max}}=347.32\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`347.41\mathrm{GeV}`$, and $`347.48\mathrm{GeV}`$ while the maximal values are given by $`R_{\mathrm{max}}=1.379`$, $`1.184`$, and $`1.088`$, respectively. This demonstrated that a large variation in the renormalization scale $`\mu `$ gives rise only to a shift of about $`160\mathrm{MeV}`$ for the $`1S`$ peak position at NNLO while the variation for $`R_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is still large. The same procedure done for the $`\overline{\mathrm{PS}}`$ mass shows no observable difference. The differences shown in Table 1 are too small to make any viewable effect.

## Conclusion and discussion

We discussed the potential subtracted (PS) mass suggested in Ref.  as a definition of the quark mass alternative to the pole mass. In contrast to the pole mass, this mass is not sensitive to the non-perturbative QCD effects. We have derived recoil corrections to the relation of the pole mass with the PS mass. In addition, we demonstrated that, if we use the PS or the $`\overline{\mathrm{PS}}`$ mass in the calculations, the perturbative predictions for the cross section become much more stable at higher orders of QCD (shifts are below $`0.1\mathrm{GeV}`$). This understanding removes one of the obstacles for an accurate top mass measurement and one can expect that the top quark mass will be extracted from a threshold scan at NLC with an accuracy of about $`100200\mathrm{MeV}`$.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Ratindranath Akhoury, Ed Yao, Martin Beneke and Andre Hoang for valuable discussions. O.Y. acknowledges support from the US Department of Energy (DOE). S.G. acknowledges a grant given by the DFG, FRG, he also would like to thank the members of the theory group at the Newman Lab for their hospitality during his stay.