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# QSO 2359-1241: A Bright, Highly Polarized, Radio-Moderate, Reddened, Low-Ionization Broad Absorption Line Quasar

## 1. Introduction

Rare objects with extreme properties sometimes prove exceptionally useful as case studies for unraveling the physics underlying those extreme properties. This maxim is amplified when these objects are bright and easily observed.

Quasars are rare, displaying the extremes of high luminosity that galactic nuclei are capable of achieving. This makes them potentially useful as cosmological probes, especially if the supermassive black holes of quasars trace the earliest mass concentrations (e.g., Loeb 1993) or if the ignition of quasars traces galaxy mergers (e.g., Sanders et al. 1988; Hernquist 1989; Mihos & Hernquist 1996) that are the signatory events of heirarchical cosmogonies (e.g., Turner 1999).

Among optically selected quasars, some $``$10% are radio-loud (log R\* $`>`$ 1, where R\* is the $`K`$-corrected ratio of radio-to-optical power; Sramek & Weedman 1980; Stocke et al. 1992). Only one optically selected quasar in a hundred shows blueshifted broad absorption lines from Mg II characteristic of a low-ionization outflow. Of these “LoBAL” quasars, only a small fraction shows high optical polarization greater than 3% (e.g., Schmidt & Hines 1999; Ogle et al. 1999; Hutsemekers, Lamy, & Remy 1998); just what fraction is uncertain due to the small size of samples so far studied and heterogenous selection. Furthermore, most quasars are blue and most easily selected using ultraviolet-excess techniques; selection methods without optical color biases shows only a small population of bright red quasars (e.g., Gregg et al. 1996).

While the properties of optical polarization, red color, and low-ionization absorption are rare, they often appear together. Moreover, quasars with these properties universally have strong optical Fe II emission and negligible emission from narrow forbidden lines, notably \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 (see Voit et al. 1993 and Turnshek 1996). These objects form an extreme end of quasar properties, an extreme of “eigenvector 1” of Boroson & Green (1992), and include objects such as I Zw 1, IRAS 07598+6508, and narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxies. Voit et al. (1993) and Boroson & Meyers (1992) proposed that these objects were enshrouded quasars with large covering factors, perhaps young emerging objects. Laor et al. (1997) favored the idea that these objects represent high accretion rate objects. Whatever the cause of the extreme spectral properties, it is apparently a fundamental parameter governing the appearance of quasars.

The most extreme case to date of a red, absorbed, polarized quasar is FIRST J155633.8+351758 (Becker et al. 1997). Its peak polarization of 13% (Brotherton et al. 1997) is among the largest for a broad absorption line quasar, its absorption is among the heaviest, it is among the reddest of quasars ($`BK=6.57`$; Hall et al. 1998), and it too has strong optical Fe II and weak narrow line emission (Najita et al. 2000). Becker et al. (1997) emphasized the then uniquely high radio luminosity of FIRST J155633.8+351758 which places it among radio-loud quasars, although after correcting for apparent reddening the log R\* measure categorizes this object as radio moderate. The moderate reddening and redshift ($`z=1.5`$) conspire to make this quasar faint in optical bands ($`V19`$). This object has been proposed as the tip of an iceberg of red, dusty absorbed objects, akin to the earlier suggestion by Webster et al. (1995) of a large reddened class of quasars; Chartas (2000) notes that approximately 35% of radio-quiet gravitational lenses contain BAL features and suggests that flux-limited optical surveys miss a large fraction of BAL quasars. The faintness and heavy blending of the numerous strong absorption lines has made FIRST J155633.8+351758 difficult to study in many respects.

We have discovered another member of the red, polarized LoBAL quasar class also bright in the radio. Moreover this new object is quite optically bright, which permits a variety of detailed studies. Below we report the discovery and follow-up observations in the radio and ultraviolet bands, as well as optical spectropolarimetry. Detailed analysis of the ultraviolet absorption lines and high-resolution optical spectroscopy will be presented in a companion paper (Arav et al. 2000; Paper II). We adopt $`H_0=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, $`q_0`$ = 0, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ throughout this paper.

## 2. Discovery and Follow-up Observations

We have been engaging in several programs of identifying quasars associated with radio sources in large, deep surveys such as FIRST (Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters; Becker et al. 1995) and the NVSS (NRAO222The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. VLA Sky Survey; Condon et al. 1998). By matching radio sources to optically bright stellar sources (Gregg et al. 1996; Brotherton et al. 1998; White et al. 2000; McMahon et al. 2000), quasars can be efficiently located. Such a procedure has proven successful at selecting radio-loud BAL quasars and large numbers of radio-intermediate quasars apparently overlooked using purely optical techniques (White et al. 2000).

We targeted the bright stellar source ($`O`$= 16.7, $`E`$=15.8) at $`\alpha =`$ 23h59m53$`\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}`$6, $`\delta =`$12$`\mathrm{°}`$ 4149$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$0 (J2000), coincident with NVSS J235953$``$124148 (unresolved radio source with flux density of 39.8$`\pm `$1.3 mJy at 20 cm) in a pilot program on 9 February 1995 at Keck Observatory using the LRIS spectrograph (Oke et al. 1995). The spectrum (Figure 1, $`\lambda _{observed}>4000\AA `$) reveals a $`z=0.868`$ quasar we designate as QSO 2359$``$1241, which additionally displays two deep absorption troughs blueward of the Mg II $`\lambda `$2800 emission line. The optical and radio fluxes yield a radio-loudness of log R\* = 1.66 (using the same slopes for K-corrections as do Stocke et al. 1992), making QSO 2359$``$1241 formally radio-loud. The Galactic extinction toward this object is a minimal $`E(BV)=0.029`$ (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis 1998) and does not significantly affect these numbers.

In the remainder of this section we describe our follow-up observations of this quasar, including radio imaging, optical spectropolarimetry, and ultraviolet spectroscopy333Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract No. NAS5-26555.. The analysis of the high-resolution spectroscopy, and the detailed comparison of optical and ultraviolet absorption features, is performed by Arav et al. (2000).

### 2.1. Radio

We obtained follow-up radio observations with the VLA in A-array. The 20 cm flux density peak was 37.3 mJy (17 March 1998), and the 3.6 cm flux density peak was 19.8 mJy (16 March 1998). The source was unresolved at 3.6 cm (beamsize 0.40 x 0.23 arcsec) and marginally resolved at 20 cm (beamsize 1.92 x 1.33 arcsec). This yields a radio spectral index of $`\alpha =0.36`$ (where $`\alpha `$ is defined by S$`{}_{\nu }{}^{}\nu ^\alpha `$). Bandwidth was the standard 50 MHz, and the source’s absolute flux was determined using 3C 48. The position on the 3.6 cm (better resolution) map is $`\alpha =`$ 23h59m53$`\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}`$627, $`\delta =`$12$`\mathrm{°}`$4147$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$92 (J2000), in agreement with the optical position.

### 2.2. UV Spectroscopy

We obtained an ultraviolet spectrum using the Hubble Space Telescope’s f/96 Faint Object Camera (FOC) with an objective prism on 1999 June 30 with an exposure time of 956s. The objective prism image was taken with the PRISM2 near-UV objective prism (NUVOP) and provided low-resolution spectroscopy. The observations were flat-fielded and geometrically corrected using the standard FOC pipeline calibrations described in detail in Nota et al. (1996). The dispersed images taken with the objective prism are aligned with the visible wavelengths on the lower end and the UV wavelengths at the upper end. The NUVOP image has a resolution of 40 Å pixel-1 at 5000 Å and 0.5 Å pixel-1 at 1700 Å. A 7 pixel wide region centered on the peak of the spectrum was extracted and summed to create the raw spectrum. This was then converted from counts per pixel to flux per Angstrom by applying the latest dispersion relation for the NUVOP and encircled energy percentages for the extracted spectrum as given in the FOV Instrument Handbook (Nota et al. 1996). The photometry and wavelength calibrations were verified by matching common spectral features and fluxes with the ground-based spectra and APM photometry. The portion of Figure 1 with $`\lambda _{observed}<4000\AA `$ is the FOC spectrum.

### 2.3. Spectropolarimetry

We observed QSO 2359$``$1241 on 21 July 1999 (UT) with the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (Oke et al. 1995) in spectropolarimetry mode (Goodrich, Cohen, & Putney 1995; Cohen et al. 1997) on the 10 meter Keck II telescope. We used a 300 line mm-1 grating blazed at 5000 Å, that, with the 1 $`\mathrm{}`$ slit (at the parallactic angle), gave an effective resolution of 10 Å (FWHM of lamp lines); the dispersion was 2.5 Å pixel-1. The seeing was $`1.2^{\prime \prime }`$. The observation was broken into four 10 minute exposures, one for each waveplate position (0$`\mathrm{°}`$, 45$`\mathrm{°}`$, 22.5$`\mathrm{°}`$, 67.5$`\mathrm{°}`$). The red end of the spectrum ($`\lambda _{obs}>`$ 7400Å) is weakly contaminated by second-order light at a level of $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ 5% (see e.g., Ogle et al. 1999).

We reduced our data to one-dimensional spectra using standard techniques within the IRAF NOAO package. The rms uncertainties in the dispersion solution were 0.2Å, and we used sky lines to ensure that our zero point was accurate to 0.1Å. Wavelengths are air wavelengths. We followed standard procedures (Miller, Robinson, & Goodrich 1988; Cohen et al. 1997) for calculating Stokes parameters and uncertainties.

Figure 2 plots our results, showing the total flux spectrum, linear polarization, position angle, and polarized flux. For clarity we have omitted error bars, but the signal-to-noise ratio is high even without binning. However for a detailed look at the polarization across the Mg II emission and absorption features, Figure 3 plots a blow-up of this region with 10 Å binning (done in Stokes $`q`$ and $`u`$ prior to calculating $`p`$) and 1 $`\sigma `$ error bars.

## 3. Results & Analysis

The first result to focus on is that this quasar does indeed possess broad absorption lines. While the high polarization, red color, and deep Mg II absorption troughs are suggestive of QSO 2359$``$1241 being a low-ionization BAL quasar, the absorption troughs themselves in the observed-frame optical are insufficient to make this classification. The ultraviolet spectrum shows BAL troughs covering more than 8,000 km s-1. Continuum placement is difficult, but we estimate that the C IV trough has a BALnicity (Weymann et al. 1991) of $``$2300 km s-1. Clearly the outflow displays a stratification in ionization and velocity, which is characterized and discussed in detail in Paper II.

The spectropolarimetric properties are somewhat unusual but not atypical of BAL quasars. QSO 2359$``$1241 is linearly polarized at $``$4% and a position angle of $``$140$`\mathrm{°}`$ at 8600 Å observed frame, rising to $``$6% and $``$150$`\mathrm{°}`$ at 4000 Å observed frame. The broad emission line (i.e. Mg II) appears unpolarized, and the polarization does not change very significantly across the absorption troughs.

The total light spectrum has a redder spectrum than that of the typical blue quasar. Additionally the manner in which the linear polarization rises toward shorter wavelengths is suggestive of a diminishing amount of dilution, as from a reddened direct light spectrum (as in 3CR 68.1, Brotherton et al. 1998). Using the color indexes defined by Yamamoto & Vansevicius (1999), $`F_{1750}/F_{2000}0.9`$ and $`F_{2100}/F_{3000}1`$, and their diagnostic diagrams, QSO 2359$``$1241 would appear to be reddened by $`E(BV)0.25`$ using a Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) extinction law as compared to the composite quasar spectrum of Francis et al. (1991). We have explored the relative reddening of QSO 2359$``$1241 as compared to a composite formed from quasars in the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey (Brotherton et al. 2000). Figure 4 shows that dereddening QSO 2359$``$1241 with an SMC-type extinction law (Prevot et al. 1984) and $`A_V=0.5`$ produces a good match. The match at the shortest wavelengths is complicated by the strong absorption and an increasing fraction of scattered light suggested by the rising polarization.

The apparent reddening of QSO 2359$``$1241 has implications for its luminosity and radio-loudness. QSO 2359$``$1241 is bright and at moderate redshift, already indicating it is a very luminous quasar with MB = $``$27.9. Dereddening boosts its luminosity to MB = $``$28.7. Figure 5 compares these numbers to those of the more than 11000 quasars in the Veron-Cetty & Veron (1998) catalog, revealing that a dereddened QSO 2359$``$1241 would be the third most luminous quasar at $`z<1`$.

The value of log R\* also drops with an increased intrinsic optical luminosity, to log R\* = 1.0 – leaving it straddling the commonly used radio-quiet/radio-loud division. The 5 GHz rest-frame luminosity is L$`{}_{R}{}^{}=10^{33.7}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1, which is still more than an order of magnitude above the radio-quiet/radio-loud division of L$`{}_{R}{}^{}=10^{32.5}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1 proposed by Miller, Rawlings, & Saunders (1993). The large radio emission certainly comes from the quasar, but it would appear that QSO 2359$``$1241 is overly optically luminous.

## 4. Discussion

QSO 2359$``$1241 is certainly a rarity among rarities. It is a radio-loud BAL quasar (although radio moderate is probably a more appropriate description as the evidence for a radio-quiet/radio-loud dichotomy has lessened; White et al. 2000). It is extremely luminous for a low redshift quasar, reminiscent of the BAL quasar APM 08279+5255 – probably the most luminous object in the known universe (e.g., Irwin et al. 1998) even after correction for lensing amplification. It is also reminiscent of the first discovered radio-loud BAL quasar, FIRST 1556+3517 (Becker et al. 1997), which also shows low-ionization absorption, colors suggestive of dust reddening (Clavel 1998; Hall et al. 1998; Najita et al. 2000), and very high optical polarization (Brotherton et al. 1997).

The polarization mechanism is very likely a scattering process, as has been proposed and discussed previously for other BAL quasars (Ogle et al. 1999; Schmidt & Hines 1999; Brotherton et al. 1997; Hines & Wills 1995; Cohen et al. 1995; Goodrich & Miller 1995; Glenn, Schmidt, & Foltz 1994). The contribution from Galactic interstellar polarization is negligibly small here given the very low E(B-V) along this line of sight. While often in BAL quasars the polarization rises in absorption troughs (presumably because the scattered line of sight is less absorbed than the direct line of sight), it is not the case in QSO 2359$``$1241; higher resolution may be required to see such a rise from the rather narrow Mg II absorption features (see Arav et al. 2000). The fact that the broad emission lines are not polarized, which is also the case for the majority of BAL quasars, suggests that the scattering medium is coincident with or smaller than the broad line region. The rise in the polarization toward smaller wavelengths is also commonly seen in BAL quasars, as well as red non-OVV quasars (e.g., 3CR 68.1, Brotherton et al. 1998). A strong hypothesis is that the scattered line of sight is less reddened than that to the polarization-diluting direct continuum. Finally, the change in position angle with wavelength is uncommon but previously noted in BAL quasars (e.g., Ogle et al. 1999) and suggestive of a complex geometry in which there are multiple scattered lines of sight with different amounts of reddening.

Arav et al. (2000) show that the Mg II absorption only partially covers the continuum source, and that absorption features of different ionization show different velocity structures. As has been pointed out (e.g., Voit et al. 1993), lower ionization species in BAL outflows appear at lower velocities. The flows and geometries of these quasars are complex.

QSO 2359$``$1241 has a compact radio morphology like the vast majority of other radio-selected BAL quasars (Becker et al. 2000), and like FIRST 1556+3517 it has a flat spectrum ($`\alpha <0.5`$). Both of these properties make it likely that the geometry of QSO 2359$``$1241 is not “edge-on” to the system axis, which has been a popular model for polarized BAL quasars and appears to be a very successful idea for explaining polarized Seyfert 2 galaxies that habor hidden Seyfert 1 nuclei.

Low-ionization BAL quasars like QSO 2359$``$1241 so far observed at rest-frame optical wavelengths all have very weak or negligible \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 and other lines from extended narrow line regions and have strong optical Fe II emission. QSO 2359$``$1241 also shows strong optical Fe II emission (the multiplet near 4570 Å rest frame). These properties are also found in Narrow Line Seyfert 1 galaxies and characterize one extreme of Boroson & Green’s “eigenvector 1” which accounts for the most variance in the optical spectra of low-redshift quasars. Boroson & Green (1992) also argued that the Eddington fraction was the important parameter underlying the \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007 – Fe II anti-correlation dominated eigenvector 1. They surmised that optical Fe II emission was dependent on the covering fraction of the BLR, and that more BLR clouds (and hence higher accretion rate) would obscure the more distant NLR. Thus the covering fraction increases from the radio-loud strong \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007, weak Fe II quasars to the radio-quiet weak \[O III\] $`\lambda `$5007, strong Fe II quasars. They also noted that PG 1700+518, a BAL quasar, is found at the high covering fraction end. Laor et al. (1997) also argued in favor of this explanation after characterizing how the X-ray slope becomes softer (with an increasing excess) for quasars with small \[O III\]/Fe II.

X-rays are exceedingly weak from BAL quasars (Green & Mathur et al. 1996). Recently Gallagher et al. (1999) reviewed the X-ray properties of eight BAL quasars targeted by ASCA: only half were detected despite the hard energy sensitivity, and assuming normal quasar X-ray properties these non-detections imply columns with $`N_\mathrm{H}5\times 10^{23}cm^2`$. We have been allocated Chandra time to observe QSO 2359$``$1241 and will attempt to determine the intrinsic X-ray properties and those of the absorber likely to be present.

We speculate that low-ionization BAL quasars like QSO 2359$``$1241, and other quasars at this extreme of Boroson & Green’s eigenvector 1, represent young or recently refueled quasars with high accretion rates and high covering fractions (either from infalling fuel from a triggering event or outflowing debris from the engine running near the Eddington limit). If quasars dim as they age and fuel runs out, we may expect a high fraction of the most luminous quasars to be BAL quasars.

## 5. Summary

We have reported the discovery of the bright radio-moderate quasar QSO 2359$``$1241. This quasar is highly polarized and reddened, and possesses an intrinsic high-velocity outflow with a complex ionization/velocity structure (investigated in detail by Arav et al. 2000).

We thank the Arjun Dey and Dean Hines for their assistance. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. The W. M. Keck Observatory is a scientific partnership between the University of California and the California Institute of Technology, made possible by the generous gift of the W. M. Keck Foundation. Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant number GO-06350 from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. We acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation under grant AST 98-02791. This work has been performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-ENG-48.


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# Binary quasars

## 1 Introduction

A small fraction ($`1`$ in 1000) of quasars are observed to have at least one nearby quasar image with essentially the same redshift (e.g. Kochanek 1995; Hewett et al. 1998), and approximately 50 such systems are known in all (e.g. Keeton & Kochanek 1996). Some of the pairs (and all of the higher multiples) are the result of gravitational lensing by intervening mass distributions; some are physically distinct binary quasars. In most cases the correct interpretation is quite clear, even if considerable observational effort was required, but there is a small number ($`20`$) of pairs of quasars which cannot be categorised with certainty (e.g. Schneider 1993; Kochanek, Falco & Muñoz 1999a; Peng et al. 1999). These tend to have angular separations of $`3`$ arcsec, and in most cases are treated as potential ‘wide separation’ lenses (e.g. Narayan & White 1988; Wambsganss et al. 1995; Mortlock, Webster & Hewett 1996; Park & Gott 1997; Williams 1997). If they are lenses they indicate the presence of a significant and otherwise unknown population of dark objects with the mass of groups or clusters of galaxies (e.g. Kochanek 1995; Hawkins 1997). If they are binaries they are almost certainly the result of enhanced fuelling in galactic mergers or interactions (Djorgovski 1991; Kochanek et al. 1999a).

The arguments in support of both possibilities are summarised in Sec. 2. In Sec. 3 principal components analysis is used to objectively test the spectral similarity of several quasar pairs. The binary hypothesis is subsequently adopted for the entire pair population, and the implications for the dynamics of binary quasars are explored in Sec. 4. The conclusions are summarised in Sec. 5, together with a discussion of the future observational and theoretical possibilities.

## 2 Known quasar pairs

Table LABEL:table:binaries lists all known quasar pairs which have not been confirmed as gravitational lenses, in order of increasing right ascension. This list has been compiled mainly from previous lens candidate compilations (Turner 1988; Surdej 1990a,b; Surdej et al. 1991; Surdej 1991; Schneider, Ehlers & Falco 1992; Surdej & Soucail 1993; Schneider 1993; Keeton & Kochanek 1996; Kochanek et al. 1999a), but also includes more recent discoveries, such as Q 0101.8$``$3012 \[Boyle et al. 1998\] and the small separation pair Q 1208+1011 (Magain et al. 1992; Maoz et al. 1992). The criteria by which these pairs are given their tentative classifications are discussed in Sec. 2.1, and a detailed summary of the status of each pair is given in Mortlock \[Mortlock 1999\]. Some statistical arguments relating only to the overall properties of the population of pairs are presented in Sec. 2.2.

### 2.1 Classification criteria

From the discovery of the first gravitational lens (Walsh, Carswell & Weymann 1979) and the subsequent interest in lensed quasars, it was soon realised that reasonably objective criteria must be established to determine whether pairs were lenses (e.g. Webster & Fitchett 1986; Schneider et al. 1992; Kochanek 1993; Kochanek et al. 1999a).

A pair can only be positively confirmed as a binary if the spectra of the images are vastly different, if only one image is radio-loud (i.e. an ‘$`O^2R`$’ pair, in the notation of Kochanek et al. 1999a), or if the quasars’ host are detected. The only necessary condition a binary must satisfy is that its components’ spectra not be ‘too similar’ to each other, the meaning of which is investigated further in Secs. 2.2 and 3.

The main sufficient conditions for a pair to be identified as a lens are: the presence of more than two images333It is possible that a physical triple or quadruple quasar exists, but this seems very unlikely, as discussed in Sec. 4.2.2.; the measurement of a time-delay between the images; or the detection of a plausible deflector. Naively, both a sufficient and necessary condition for a pair to be a lens is that its components’ spectra are identical, as gravitational lensing is achromatic. However the difficulty in assessing just how similar two spectra are, combined with the generic nature of quasar spectra, means that it is difficult to prove a pair is not a binary on these grounds, as discussed further in Sec. 3. Spectral similarity is not a necessary condition either – the light from a lensed quasar travels along different lines-of-sight to the observer, which can result in a number of achromatic effects. Dust along one line-of-sight can redden individual images (e.g. Falco et al. 1999); microlensing by stellar-mass objects can magnify the continuum of one image relative to the emission lines; intrinsic variability coupled with the time-delay can result in the simultaneous spectra of components differing; and even the fact that the light that makes up each image comes from slightly different points in the quasar can result in different spectra being observed444It is possible, for example, for a lens to have broad absorption features in only one component if the absorbing ‘clouds’ around a quasar are sufficiently small. The physical separation of photons in the two light paths would be only a few pc as they passed through the clouds, but it is possible that the broad line region consists of sheets of plasma only a few metres thick \[Blandford & Rees 1991\], in which case the two lines-of-sight are effectively uncorrelated. This possibility is why Q 0151+0448 \[Meylan et al. 1990\] and Q 2153$``$2056 \[Hewett et al. 1998\] have been classified more tentatively here than by Peng et al. \[Peng et al. 1999\].. Further, the images of a lensed quasar can even yield different redshifts – the two components of Q 0957+561 have redshifts which differ by $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=0.0023\pm 0.00017`$ \[Wills & Wills 1980\].

Clearly the ambiguous quasar pairs do not satisfy any of these sufficient conditions, although some come close. The generic uncertain pair has no visible deflector, but qualitatively similar spectra, neither of which allows a definite classification.

### 2.2 The population of pairs

If the 11 ambiguous pairs in Table LABEL:table:binaries are predominantly lenses, the statistical properties of the sample should match those of the confirmed lenses, and likewise if they are mainly binaries. Their are some potential pit-falls to this approach (e.g. the definition of the samples; the presence of recently discovered pairs, such as Q 0101.8$``$3012, which may not require the existence of a particularly dark lens) but it is a potentially powerful method.

Kochanek et al. \[Kochanek et al. 1999a\] used this technique to argue that most of the wide separation (i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta 3`$ arcsec) pairs are not lenses for the following reasons. The existence of the $`O^2R`$ binaries, combined with the knowledge that most quasars are radio-quiet, implies a comparable or larger population of $`O^2`$ binaries – presumably the majority of the 10 in Table LABEL:table:binaries. The distribution of the ambiguous pairs’ redshifts is significantly different to that of the confirmed lenses, which is very difficult to account for in terms of lensing (e.g. Williams 1997). The distribution of flux ratios of the pairs and of the confirmed two-image lenses differ greatly (Fig. 1), although neither are consistent with the distribution predicted by a simple, spherical lens model, implying that further investigation is warranted. Lastly, if the pairs are lenses, the absence of a smooth fall-off at larger separations is at odds with most theoretical models that predict wide separation lenses (e.g. Narayan & White 1988; Kochanek 1995).

The statistical objections to the binary hypothesis have been the uncanny similarities of pairs’ spectra (which is addressed in Sec. 3) and the high number of pairs at such small separations (relative to the predictions of the generic quasar-quasar correlation function). However, Kochanek et al. \[Kochanek et al. 1999a\] showed that the number of pairs observed was consistent with the number expected from the observed small-scale quasar-galaxy correlation function. Further implications of this are explored in Sec. 4.

## 3 Spectral similarities of quasar pairs

The spectra of many of the pairs do appear unusually alike, but, before this can be regarded as an objection to the binary hypothesis, it must be shown quantitatively that they are significantly more alike than those of randomly chosen quasars555Even then, there are some reasons to think that binaries may have similar spectra due to their common environment and formation time \[Peng et al. 1999\]. However it is difficult to see how either could influence the localised velocity fields that are responsible for the emission line shapes.. There have been several attempts to implement this sort of test, but the limitations of the data have proved critical in most cases. Turner et al. \[Turner et al. 1988\] found that the the emission line shapes of Q 1634+267 A and B were more similar to each other than they were to those of another quasar of comparable luminosity and redshift, although the use of only a single comparison object limited the strength of the conclusions. Peng et al. \[Peng et al. 1999\] found that the C iv equivalent widths and continuum slopes of 14 pairs (all those in Table LABEL:table:binaries bar Q 0101.8$``$3012 and Q 1208+1011) were more alike than over 97 per cent of comparable random quasar samples, implying that the apparent spectral similarities are real. Lastly, Hawkins \[Hawkins 1997\] found that the colours of the two components of Q 2138$``$431 and Q 2345+007 were closer than expected, when compared to those of $`10`$ other quasars with similar redshifts. However the control quasars represent a heterogeneous sample, which can only increase the relative similarity of the pairs’ colours. This illustrates why such relative tests are better at demonstrating pairs can be binary objects. In a related investigation, Small et al. \[Small et al. 1997\] showed that the differences between the component spectra of Q 1634+267 and Q 2345+007 were no larger than the temporal variations in other quasars. Hence these pairs are consistent with being lenses, despite the differences in their spectra. However this represents only a necessary condition, and is not a sufficient condition for the lensing interpretation. The choice of experiment is probably an artifact the greater interest in finding lenses.

The analysis that follows is directed towards determining whether the two ambiguous quasar pairs in the Large Bright Quasar Survey (LBQS) are consistent with being binaries. The data is described in Sec. 3.1 and the method of comparison discussed in Sec. 3.2. The results and interpretation are given in Sec. 3.3.

### 3.1 Quasar pairs in the Large Bright Quasar Survey

The LBQS is a sample of 1055 quasars with $`m_{B_\mathrm{J}}18.5`$, selected spectroscopically and without any reference to morphology (Hewett, Foltz & Chaffee 1995). Due to both its size and its well-characterised selection effects, it is an excellent source of data for studying the similarities and differences between quasar spectra.

As part of the survey, there was a systematic search for companions within $`10`$ arcsec of each quasar. The companion search has sufficient dynamic range ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m3.5`$) to easily pick out most secondary lensed images, and also to detect potentially dimmer binary companions. The search has yielded three pairs so far (listed in Table LABEL:table:lbqs), and it is ‘unlikely that further pairs will be identified’ \[Hewett et al. 1998\]. Q 1009$``$0252 \[Hewett et al. 1994\] is a confirmed lens; Q 1429$``$0053 \[Hewett et al. 1989\] is a reasonable lens candidate; and Q 2153$``$2056 \[Hewett et al. 1998\] is probably a binary quasar. The spectra of all three pairs, taken concurrently in each case, are shown in Fig. 2, and it is clear that there are significant differences between the primary and companion of both Q 1009$``$0252 (the lens) and Q 2153$``$2056. However, a more quantitative, and hence objective, means of testing the similarity of the spectra is needed to proceed further.

### 3.2 Comparison of quasar spectra

The most common method of analysing spectra (aside from visual inspection) is to measure the properties of individual features, such as emission lines and continuum properties. The weakness of this approach is that the classification of the features is usually subjective at some level.

It is preferable to use a completely quantitative method, such as principal components analysis (PCA; Whitney 1983; Murtagh & Hecht 1987; Mittaz, Penston & Snijders 1990). PCA can be used on pre-determined features, but, for the reasons given above, it is more powerful to perform PCA on the raw spectra. This ‘spectral’ PCA has the advantages that it is a completely objective analysis, uses all the available data, and is adept at dealing with low signal-to-noise ratio spectra. With each spectrum treated as a vector in a multi-dimensional space, the sample of spectra represents a distribution in this space, the centroid of which is the mean spectrum. Subtracting the mean from each spectrum yields a set of points (centred on the origin) which represents the variation between spectra. The vector (or spectrum, of sorts) along which this distribution is most elongated is the first principle component (PC) of the sample. Subtracting it from all the already mean-subtracted spectra allows the procedure to be repeated, generating the subsequent components. The subtraction of only the first few PCs usually (i.e. if the PCA is successful) leaves a condensed, spherical distribution of points that is essentially a hyper-sphere of noise. Almost all the information is contained the in the first few components; the data compression involved can be large. Francis et al. \[Francis et al. 1992\] found that the LBQS spectra could be expressed in terms of coefficients of $`10`$ components, as opposed to several hundred wavelength bins.

Following Francis et al. \[Francis et al. 1992\], two subsets were taken from the LBQS for the PCA. Sample 1 contains 325 quasars (including all three pairs) with $`1.4z2.7`$, and rest-frame spectra covering the range from 1400 Å to 2200 Å. Importantly, this range covers several prominent emission lines, notably C iv (1549 Å) and Al iii/C iii\] (1858 Å/1909 Å). Sample 2 has only 209 quasars (including the the lens and the wide separation pair Q 1429$``$0053), but, with $`1.8z3.3`$, covers a sligtly bluer part of rest-frame spectrum: 1180 Å to 1780 Å. It includes the C iv emission line and the Ly $`\alpha `$/N v complex (1216 Å/1240 Å). The other wide separation pair, Q 2153$``$2056, could not be included in sample 2, as the available spectra (Fig. 2 (c)) do not include the Ly $`\alpha `$/N v blend. A number of quasars, including the stated pairs, appear in both samples.

Spectral PCA was performed on both subsamples, generating a set of PC spectra for each sample, and a set of coefficients for each quasar. As expected, most of the variation between spectra was contained in the first few components, which are shown in Fig. 3 (for sample 1), and Fig. 4 (for sample 2). The components are similar to those shown in Francis et al. \[Francis et al. 1992\] (as expected, given the related set of input spectra), and their interpretation is also similar. The first three components of both samples are related to: the cores of the emission lines (PC 1; Figs. 3 and 4 (b)); the continuum slope (PC 2; Figs. 3 and 4 (c)); and broad absorption lines (PC 3; Figs. 3 and 4 (d)). The 4th PC of samples 1 and 2 relate to the wings of of the C iv and Ly $`\alpha `$ emission lines, respectively (Figs. 3 and 4 (e)). It is promising that the C iv line is prominent in the first PC, as it is the most prominent difference between the spectra of several of the confirmed binaries (Q 1216+5032 and Q 1343+2640), and both Turner et al. \[Turner 1988\] and Peng et al. \[Peng et al. 1999\] found its properties revealing.

Whilst the PCA has enabled each spectrum to be specified in terms of several numbers (i.e. the coefficients of the first few PCs), each spectrum is still a multi-dimensional vector. The data can be further compressed by defining a metric in the PC space. The PCA naturally scales the variance in each component with its relative importance, so a simple Euclidean metric is chosen. The difference, $`D`$, between the spectra of two quasars A and B is then given by

$$D_{\mathrm{A}B}=\left[\underset{n=1}{\overset{n_{\mathrm{m}ax}}{}}(C_{\mathrm{A},n}C_{\mathrm{B},n})^2\right]^{1/2},$$
(1)
where $`C_{\mathrm{A},n}`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{B},n}`$ are the coefficients of the $`n`$th principal component of spectra of A and B, respectively, and $`n_{\mathrm{m}ax}`$ is the highest component used. The latter does not have an appreciable affect on the results, as long as the first few components are included, so $`n_{\mathrm{m}ax}=4`$ was used.

Two sets of $`D`$-values were created for each sample: the differences between all the spectra in the sample; and the differences between each of the pairs’ primaries and the rest of the sample (which determines the fraction of spectra in the sample that are closer to the primary in question than its companion). The resultant cumulative plots are shown for sample 1 and sample 2 in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively.

### 3.3 Implications for the quasar pairs

The two components of the confirmed lens, Q 1009$``$0252, are clearly different. This is not unexpected – as discussed in Sec. 2.1, there are a number of reasons why lensed spectra need not be the same. However, this analysis shows that they can actually be less similar than a two spectra chosen at random: Fig. 5 shows that 75 per cent of random pairs are more alike than the components of the lens. However the main difference between the two spectra of the Q 1009$``$0252 is the reddening of the companion spectrum (Fig. 2 (a)), which is probably due to dust along the line-of-sight to the fainter image (see Sec. 2.1 and Falco et al. 1999).

The components of Q 2153$``$2056 are also more dissimilar than those of random pairs. Naively, the lesson of Q 1009$``$0252 implies that Q 2153$``$2056 cannot be rejected as a lens on this basis alone. The difference between the spectra of Q 2153$``$2056 cannot be so readily explained in terms of lensing – indeed it appears that the companion is a broad absorption line quasar, which is only explained simply666See Sec. 2.1 for a complex explanation. if they are two distinct objects. This distinction reveals one of the limitations of PCA – there is no physics or plausibility input, and so it cannot tell that some spectral differences (specifically Q 1009$``$0252) might be due to dust. In this instance, a continuum fit to the spectra would circumvent this problem. Due to both the spectral differences and the absence of a visible deflector, Hewett et al. \[Hewett et al. 1998\] interpret Q 2153$``$2056 as a probable binary, a conclusion which is confirmed here.

The results for Q 1429$``$0053 (which is a more probable lens a priori) are more interesting. For the wavelength range covered by sample 1, the components of Q 1429$``$0053 are more similar than $`85`$ per cent of random pairs. It also appears that Q 1429$``$0053 is a slightly unusual quasar spectrally, and so only $`9`$ per cent of the spectra are more similar to the primary than its companion. The sample 2 results paint a slightly different picture. Q 1429$``$0053 B is no more similar to Q 1429$``$0053 A than a random quasar from the sample. This is despite the fact that Q 1429$``$0053 A is at least slightly unusual – the dashed line and the solid line (representing the whole sample) are quite separated in Fig. 6. Such results are perfectly consistent with Q 1429$``$0053 being a lens (c.f. Q 1009$``$0252), but are also perfectly consistent with the two spectra having been drawn at random from the LBQS, and hence consistent with Q 1429$``$0053 being two distinct quasars. However, almost all the difference between the two components of Q 1429$``$0053 can be attributed to the relative strengths of the Ly $`\alpha `$-N v complex (appearing at $`4800`$ Å in Fig. 2 (b)), the equivalent widths differ by $`50`$ per cent. The possibility of microlensing of the the secondary image (See Sec. 2.1.) means that the lens interpretation is still possible, although the macrolensing flux ratio this would imply ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m3.5`$) is very unlikely a priori (e.g. Fig. 1).

There are several potential systematic errors which, whilst they do not affect the above conclusions, are important in principle. The samples covered a wide redshift range, possibly increasing the spread in the samples’ spectra; this could result in a true binary being rejected, but could not result in a lens being wrongly classed a binary. Another potential bias that is unimportant is the faintness of the companion images in these pairs – lower luminosity quasars might have different spectra. If the pairs are lenses this is clearly irrelevant, as they are not intrinsically so faint. If they are binaries, any bias that might make the spectra appear more dissimilar is acceptable, even desirable.

The main source of random uncertainty is the low quality of the companions’ spectra (despite the fact that PCA is adept at analysing low signal-to-noise data), which is simply a function of their faintness (Table LABEL:table:lbqs). Several hours’ observation on a 10-m class telescope would yield companion spectra of better quality than the current primary spectra.

On the basis of these results and the existing work summarised in Sec. 2, all the ambiguous pairs are assumed to be binaries in Sec. 4. This, however, is quite an adventurous extrapolation – the broader but less rigorous results of Peng et al. \[Peng et al. 1999\] imply that the spectra of the pair population are unusually alike.

## 4 Dynamics of binary quasars

If all the quasar pairs listed in Table LABEL:table:binaries are physical binaries, there are far too many to represent a simple a small-scale manifestation of quasar clustering \[Djorgovski 1991\]. The fairly natural conclusion (Djorgovski 1991; Schneider 1993) is that any close quasar pairs are the result of increased nuclear activity in interacting galaxies. Kochanek et al. \[Kochanek et al. 1999a\] showed that the number of binaries matches the number expected from the quasar-galaxy correlation function at small scales. Henceforth, all the pairs in Table LABEL:table:binaries are treated as physical binaries, and the merger model is also adopted. The sample of pairs can then be used to constrain the distribution of physical separations (Sec. 4.1), and also to investigate the formation and evolution of binary quasars (Sec. 4.2).

### 4.1 Physical separations

The projected separations of the quasar pairs can be inferred for a given cosmological model (Sec. 4.1.1), but some method of inversion is required to obtain the distribution of physical separations. A random deprojection is explored in Sec. 4.1.2 and a simple orbital model is discussed in Sec. 4.1.3.

#### 4.1.1 Cosmological models

The projected separations of the pairs are given by $`R=\mathrm{\Delta }\theta d_\mathrm{A}(0,z)`$, where $`d_\mathrm{A}`$ is the angular diameter distance, and so $`R`$ varies with the cosmological model (and also within a model, due to weak lensing). Three models are used: the Einstein-de Sitter (EdS) model ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m}_0}=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_0}=0`$); a low-density model ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m}_0}=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_0}=0`$); and a low-density, spatially-flat model ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m}_0}=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_0}=0.7`$), where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m}_0}`$ is the ratio of the current density of the universe to the critical density and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_0}`$ is the similarly normalised cosmological constant (e.g. Carroll, Press & Turner 1992). The $`10`$ per cent error in Hubble’s constant (taken to be $`H_0=70`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 here) does not contribute significantly to the uncertainty in $`R`$.

#### 4.1.2 Random deprojection

The problem of deprojection – effectively obtaining three dimensional information from a two-dimensional image of the sky – is an old one, with a number of different partial solutions (e.g. Courant & Hilbert 1962; Gerhard & Binney 1996). The problem at hand is to obtain a probability distribution of the physical separation, $`\mathrm{d}p/\mathrm{d}r|_R`$, given an observed projected separation, $`R`$. A Bayesian approach is adopted whereby the separation vector, $`𝒓`$, is considered to be randomly-oriented, a posteriori. Mathematically, $`\mathrm{d}p/\mathrm{d}i=\mathrm{sin}(i)`$, where $`i`$ is the (inclination) angle between $`𝒓`$ and the line-of-sight. It is normalised for the range $`0i<\pi /2`$, and the projected separation is given by $`R=r|\mathrm{sin}(i)|`$. From this, a change of variables yields

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}p}{\mathrm{d}r}}|_R`$ $`=`$ $`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}p}{\mathrm{d}i}}\right|\left|{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}i}{\mathrm{d}r}}\right|`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{ccc}0,\hfill & \mathrm{if}\hfill & r<R,\hfill \\ & & \\ \frac{16}{\pi }\frac{R^3}{r^4}\sqrt{1\frac{R^2}{r^2}},\hfill & \mathrm{i}f\hfill & rR,\hfill \end{array}`$
where the final distribution is also normalised to unity, and has an expectation value of $`16/(3\pi )R`$, assuming $`R>0`$.

Convolving $`\mathrm{d}p/\mathrm{d}r|_R`$ with the data gives an approximation to the physical separation distribution of the binary quasars, the differential and cumulative forms of which in Fig. 7. This ‘random deprojection’ shows a tail of pairs with quite large separations and a possible paucity of small separation pairs. (The one pair with $`r10`$ kpc, Q 1208+1011 is a probable lens; if it were confirmed as such, the small separation ‘hole’ would be quite clear.) Any hole cannot explained by selection effects, as there are a large number of lenses with angular separations of $`1`$ arcsec, implying that any such binaries would have been found. Kochanek et al. \[Kochanek et al. 1999a\] showed that dynamical friction (Sec. 4.2.3) can account for the hole, although the inferred separation distribution (linearly rising with $`r`$) is otherwise quite different from the approximately exponential fall-off apparent in Fig. 7. Some clues as to the nature of small separation binaries might be given by the discovery of three possible binaries in a sample of $`100`$ BL Lacs \[Scarpa et al. 1999\]. The frequency of these pairs is far too high to be explained in terms of gravitational lensing by galaxies, but the binary interpretation is no more comfortable. It would require not only that a few per cent of BL Lacs are binaries, but that the optical jets of the companion BL Lacs are parallel.

#### 4.1.3 Orbital models

An approach almost opposite to the random deprojection used in Sec. 4.1.2 is to assume an orbital model for the binaries, and fit the resultant distribution of projected separations to the data. The paths of two quasars in a pair of merging galaxies is undoubtedly complex, but a natural first approximation is to assume that they are in decaying elliptical orbits. However averaging over the random orientation removes most of the effects of ellipticity, so circular orbits can be used in general \[Mortlock 1999\]. The main difference was in the radius of closest approach, which may be relevant to the activation of the quasars (Sec. 4.2.2). The existence of the outer cut-off of between 50 kpc and 100 kpc is confirmed, independent of the distribution of separations used. The putative inner cut-off is less well constrained, and, assuming $`\mathrm{d}p/\mathrm{d}rr`$ (based on the dynamical friction approximation discussed in Sec. 4.2.3), the data is consistent with a population of pairs extending to zero separation, as shown in Fig. 8. However, formally better fits are obtained with an inner cut-off of $`10`$ kpc, especially if the smallest separation pair, Q 1208+1011, is a lens as suspected. An inner cut-off would imply that the at least one of the quasars in each pair ‘turns off’ prior to the complete decay of the orbits. Possible reasons for this are discussed in Sec. 4.2.3.

### 4.2 Physical processes

If binary quasars are the result of galactic collisions during which both nuclei become active, the assumption that the systems are bound implies a minimum mass for the systems (Sec. 4.2.1), and the distribution of physical separations (along with timing arguments) can be used to investigate both the activation and evolution of the pairs (Secs. 4.2.2 and 4.2.3, respectively).

#### 4.2.1 Total energy

It is possible that quasars could form in ‘glancing’ collisions (e.g. Noguchi 1987, 1988), but the absence of ‘post-collisional’ pairs with larger separations argues against this for the binary population, implying that they exist in gravitationally bound systems. The minimum possible centre-of-mass frame energy of a pair (obtained by setting the line-of-sight separation and projected velocity difference to zero) is

$$E_{\mathrm{m}in}=\frac{M_\mathrm{A}M_\mathrm{B}}{M_\mathrm{A}+M_\mathrm{B}}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }v_{||}^2}{2}\frac{GM_\mathrm{A}M_\mathrm{B}}{R},$$
(6)
where $`G`$ is Newton’s gravitational constant, and $`M_\mathrm{A}`$ and $`M_\mathrm{B}`$ are the masses associated with the two quasars. Inverting equation (6) and assuming $`E_{\mathrm{m}in}=0`$ gives the hard lower limit for the mass of a bound system as

$$M_{\mathrm{t}ot}=M_\mathrm{A}+M_\mathrm{B}\frac{R\mathrm{\Delta }v_{||}^2}{2G}.$$
(7)
Fig. 9 shows a scatter plot of the projected separations and velocity differences of all the pairs in Table LABEL:table:binaries, with the large uncertainties in both $`R`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }v_{||}`$ clearly important. Despite this, $`M_{\mathrm{t}ot}5\times 10^{11}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ is inferred, confirming that quasars are typically in larger galaxies (Hooper, Impey & Foltz 1997). However using the random deprojection disussed in Sec. 4.1.2 to account for the projection effects yields a larger (but softer) limit of $`M_{\mathrm{t}ot}2\times 10^{12}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ \[Mortlock 1999\].

#### 4.2.2 (Re-)activation

It is widely believed that quasars are the active nuclei of galaxies, where gas (and other material) accretes onto a massive central black hole (e.g. Lynden-Bell 1969; Rees 1984). Many galaxies have massive but quiescent black holes at their centres (e.g. Kormendy et al. 1996, 1997), and there are several plausible explanations for how they may begin accreting and become active galactic nuclei. One important mechanism appears to be encounters between galaxies, which can result in the formation of a massive black hole (e.g. Rees 1984) or provide fuel to previously quiescent nuclei. This is supported by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations which show that many quasars’ host galaxies are distorted (Bahcall, Kirhakos & Schneider 1995a; Boyce, Disney & Bleaken 1999) and that low-redshift quasars are often found to be physically associated with other galaxies (e.g. Yee 1987; Bahcall, Kirhakos & Schneider 1995b; Bahcall et al. 1997) or involved in collisions \[Steidel & Sargent 1990\]. $`N`$-body simulations also show that gravitational torques between colliding galaxies can cause gas to flow to their cores, potentially acting as fuel for the central black holes \[Barnes & Hernquist 1996\]. The scales of the in-flows are not great enough to produce new black holes, but are consistent with the re-fuelling model. However, the simulations only predict in-flow to within a few hundred pc of the galaxies’ cores, whereas typical quasar accretion disks extend out to only pc scales \[Peterson 1997\]. It is not clear whether dissipation is sufficient to allow the gas to fall further.

The formation of binary quasars is qualitatively consistent with the reactivation process, provided that the progenitors (or their central black holes) are sufficiently massive. The observational result that the activation radius is between 50 kpc and 100 kpc (Sec. 4.1) implies that quasar formation does not occur until quite late in the collision process. This is consistent with the $`N`$-body simulations of Barnes & Hernquist \[Barnes & Hernquist 1996\], which showed that gas inflows took some time to occur.

The separation scale of the binaries, together with the requirement of a massive black hole, is also suggestive of the fact that quasars form in larger galaxies. If this is the case, encounters between dwarfs and large galaxies can result in the formation of a quasar, but only collisions between two large galaxies can result in a binary quasar. The fraction of merger-related quasars which are binaries is comparable to the fraction of collisions in which both galaxies have central black holes of $`10^6M_{\mathrm{}}`$. Assuming a Schechter \[Schechter 1976\] mass function for the galaxies, and that $`20`$ per cent of those heavier than $`M_{}10^{11}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ contain large black holes \[Magorrian et al. 1998\], about 1 per cent of all merger-formed quasars should be in binary systems777It also implies that only $`1`$ per cent of multiple quasars should be triples etc., justifying the assumption that all observed triples and quadruples are actually lenses.. Combined with the observation that only 1 quasar in $`1000`$ is a binary, this implies that about 10 per cent of quasar activity is related to galactic interactions. This is probably an underestimate of the fraction, however, as interactions between two large galaxies are almost certainly more efficient than collisions involving a dwarf galaxy. Further, if quasars all have a dusty torus which is both optically thick and subtends a large fraction of the solid angle around the central engine, both the quasars in a pair must be close to face-on for it to be observed as a binary. Extrapolating from the observation that $`25`$ per cent of all Seyferts are of Type I \[Peterson 1997\], 1 in $`4`$ of all quasars are visible, but only 1 in $`16`$ binaries are detected as such. It is thus possible that $`50`$ per cent of all quasars are formed during galactic interactions and collisions.

#### 4.2.3 Evolution

The theoretical and observational evidence discussed in Sec. 4.2.2 is consistent with binary quasars forming during galactic mergers. Once the merger has begun to settle, the quasars can be treated as point-masses moving in a static, isothermal halo. Their orbits slowly decay, as they lose energy and angular momentum through dynamical friction (e.g. Binney & Tremaine 1987), eventually either merging (e.g. Makino & Ebisuzaki 1994) or forming a hard binary that lasts for a Hubble time or more (e.g. Begelman, Blandford & Rees 1980; Rajagopal & Romani 1996). If the quasars have mass $`M10^9M_{\mathrm{}}`$ by this stage, and are in circular orbits of speed $`\sqrt{2}\sigma `$ (where $`\sigma `$ is the velocity dispersion of the halo), the time spent with separation at radius $`r`$ is \[Binney & Tremaine 1987\]

$$\left|\frac{\mathrm{d}t}{\mathrm{d}r}\right|3.3\frac{\sigma }{GM\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda })}r,$$
(8)
where $`\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda })\mathrm{ln}(2r_{}\sigma ^2/GM)`$ is the Coulomb logarithm, which characterises the strength of the interaction, and $`r_{}10`$ kpc \[Lacey & Cole 1993\]. Hence $`\mathrm{d}p/\mathrm{d}rr`$, as used in Sec. 4.1.3 to fit the observed separation distribution. The orbital decay proceeds at a greater rate as $`r`$ decreases, potentially explaining the small separation hole (Sec. 4.1).

The time-scale for the decay, $`t_{\mathrm{D}F}`$, is found by integrating equation (8) from $`r_{\mathrm{m}ax}`$ to 0. Following Binney & Tremaine \[Binney & Tremaine 1987\],

$`t_{\mathrm{D}F}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1.65}{\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda })}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_{\mathrm{m}ax}^2\sigma }{GM}}`$ (9)
$``$ $`4\times 10^9\left({\displaystyle \frac{r_{\mathrm{m}ax}}{20\mathrm{kpc}}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{200kms^1}}{\displaystyle \frac{10^9M_{\mathrm{}}}{M}}\mathrm{yr},`$
where the scale values have been chosen to give the shortest plausible decay time888The value of $`r_{\mathrm{m}ax}`$ used is half the activation radius inferred in Sec. 4.1, as it is possible that both quasars orbit the centre of the halo, whence their distance between them is twice their orbital radius. Also, the black holes themselves might start with $`M10^9M_{\mathrm{}}`$, but they must be associated with most of their eventual mass; hence the choice of the canonical mass.. The dynamical time-scale of the binaries is then close to a Hubble time, and much longer than both the ‘settling’ time of the merged halo ($`<10^9`$ yr; Barnes 1992) and the expected quasar lifetime. A black hole of initial mass $`10^7M_{\mathrm{}}`$ (as implied by dynamical measurements of local galaxies; Kormendy et al. 1996) accreting at the Eddington limit \[Peterson 1997\] would reach $`10^{10}M_{\mathrm{}}`$ in much less than $`10^9`$ yr. No such massive black holes are observed now (e.g. Kormendy & Richstone 1995), so this places an upper limit on quasar masses and hence their lifetimes. Comparison of the three time-scales implies that binary quasars are short-lived, existing only whilst the host galaxies are actively merging. The most likely explanation for the death of the binaries (and other quasars in mergers) is that the in-flow of gas ceases, probably as the merger becomes more stable. Moreover, by the time the orbits decay due to dynamical friction, the merging black holes are already quiescent, and the observed binary separation distribution is a random sampling of the chaotic phase of the merger.

If the above model is correct, the hosts of binary quasars should be distinct (in the case of a ‘new-born’ binary), or, more likely, highly distorted. The host galaxies of MGC 2214+3350 A and B \[Muñoz et al. 1998\] have been detected by the HST, and in fact out-shine the quasars in the $`H`$-band \[Kochanek et al. 1999b\]. The galaxies show no obvious signs of being distorted, which implies both that their physical separation is considerably greater than their projected separation of $`20`$ kpc, and that the nuclei have only recently become active. Comparable observations – which need not be prohibitively deep – of some of the other ambiguous pairs ought to prove similarly revealing.

## 5 Conclusions

Djorgovski \[Djorgovski 1991\] and Kochanek et al. \[Kochanek et al. 1999a\] have both argued that most of the known wide separation quasars pairs are not the result of gravitational lensing, as summarised in Sec. 2. However, there have also been some valid objections to the interpretation of the pairs as physical binaries. The strongest was that the spectra of the pairs appear to be very similar. Sec. 3 consists of a quantitative evaluation of this claim for the three quasar pairs discovered as part of the LBQS, and shows that, despite appearances, none of these pairs can be rejected as binaries on spectral grounds. Extrapolating to the rest of the ambiguous quasar pairs, the simplest conclusion is that they are all binary quasars.

The adoption of the binary hypothesis for the entire population of 16 pairs listed in Table LABEL:table:binaries provides a significant data-set of binary quasars, and even if some do turn out to be lenses, the statistical properties of the population will not be greatly changed. Assuming quasars are the nuclei of large galaxies, the velocity differences of the pairs are consistent with them belonging to bound systems, which supports the idea that they are part of galactic mergers. Both the orbital and deprojection analyses presented in Sec. 4.1 suggest that the galactic nuclei become active at separations of between 50 kpc and 100 kpc, depending on the cosmology and the ellipticity of the quasars’ orbits. This is certainly consistent with the scales at which the tides from large galaxies become important. However the time-scales suggested for the orbits of the nuclei to decay are very large – certainly longer than the lifetime of a quasar accreting at the Eddington limit. Indeed it seems probable that the quasars remain active only whilst the host galaxies are merging, in which case most of the binaries should exist in very distorted hosts, and not in a relaxed merger. The observation that the host galaxies of MGC 2214+3550 A and B \[Kochanek et al. 1999b\] are undisturbed then suggests that this is a very young binary.

Whilst it is clear that the physics of merging galaxies and active galactic nuclei are far from solved, there are also a number of questions that can be answered observationally. Further spectroscopy and radio observations of a number of the quasar pairs should reveal whether they are binaries999During the preparation of this paper, Q 1216+5032 \[Kochanek et al. 1999a\] was confirmed as a binary, and RXJ 0911+0551 \[Bade et al. 1997\] was found to be a lens., although there are also several which are still not classified despite major observational efforts. The nature of the ‘turn on’ radius will be more strongly constrained by the 2 degree Field quasar survey \[Boyle et al. 1998\], which will include analysis of the nearby companions of $`3\times 10^4`$ quasars. On a longer time-scale, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey \[Gunn & Weinberg 1995\] will observe $`10^5`$ quasars, and is expected to find several hundred lenses and pairs, an order of magnitude increase on the number known presently. Both the lower limits on mass of the quasars’ host galaxies and the constraints on the activation radius could be determined to within $`10`$ per cent from such a sample.

## Acknowledgments

Paul Hewett and Craig Foltz kindly supplied the spectra of the LBQS quasar pairs. The discussion of the evolution and fate of the binary quasars was enhanced by stimulating discussions with Chris Kochanek (who also suggested a number of improvements as the referee), John Kormendy, Paul Nulsen and Matthew O’Dowd. Extensive use was made of the Center for Astrophysics-Arizona Space Telescope Lens (CASTLe) survey world-wide web site (http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/glensdata), maintained by Chris Kochanek, Emilio Falco, Chris Impey, Joseph Lehár, Brian McLeod and Hans-Walter Rix. DJM was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award.


text:
# The Asymptotic Entanglement Cost of Preparing a Quantum State

## I Introduction

One of the central issues in quantum entanglement theory is to determine how to optimally convert between different entangled states shared by distant observers Alice and Bob. More precisely, one is interested in the conversion of $`m`$ pairs of particles, with each pair in a state $`\rho `$, into $`n`$ pairs, each in another state $`\rho ^{}`$, by means of local quantum operations and classical communication (LOCC) , so that the asymptotic ratio $`m/n`$ is minimal. Of course, the perfect transformation by LOCC

$`\rho ^m\rho ^n`$

is usually impossible. Therefore, one permits imperfections and requires only asymptotically perfect transformations: the state $`\rho ^m`$ is transformed into some state $`\rho _n^{}`$, which for large $`n`$ approaches $`\rho ^n`$ with a chosen distance measure $`D`$:

$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}D(\rho _n^{},\rho ^n)=0.`$

If the final state $`\rho `$ is a two-qubit singlet state $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|01|10\right)`$(which we will denote by $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}`$), then the process of conversion is called distillation . If, instead, it is the initial state that is in the form of singlets, then one refers to formation . In this paper we are interested in the latter process. We will call the optimal asymptotic yield the entanglement cost, and denote it by $`E_c`$. In Ref.  it was shown that for a pure state $`\rho =|\psi \psi |`$, $`E_c`$ is equal to the entropy of either of its reductions, e.g. $`\rho _A=\mathrm{Tr}_B(\rho )`$. Thus, to produce $`|\psi ^n`$ one needs $`mnS(\rho _A)`$ singlets, i.e. the initial state has to be $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}^{nS(\rho _A)}`$.

That result suggested the following stochastic method for the production of $`\rho `$ out of singlets . One decomposes $`\rho `$ into an ensemble $`\rho =_ip_i|\psi _i\psi _i|`$ of pure states. Then one picks a state $`|\psi _i`$ according to the probability distribution $`\{p_i\}`$, makes the state $`|\psi _i`$ from initially shared singlets, and finally forgets the identity of the state. Therefore, one needs on average $`_ip_iS(\rho _i^A)`$ singlets (where $`\rho _i^A`$ is the reduction of $`|\psi _i`$). One can choose the ensemble which minimizes the above average, with the corresponding minimal cost being called the entanglement of formation of $`\rho `$ , which we will denote by $`E_f(\rho )`$.

The above scenario can be improved if we realize that it might be more economical to produce the state $`\rho ^n`$ all at once than it is to produce its $`n`$ constituents one by one (see e.g. ). Thus, the proposed optimal cost should be revised to

$$E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{E_f(\rho ^n)}{n}.$$
(1)
(In the following we will argue that the limit on the right-hand-side of this equation exists.) This quantity is believed to be equal to the entanglement cost of preparing the state $`\rho `$, $`E_c(\rho )`$. The definition of the entanglement cost, however, refers to a deterministic number of input singlets, while in the stochastic method the number of input singlets is a random variable. Furthermore it is not clear that the stochastic method is really the optimal way to produce the state $`\rho `$. In this paper we resolve these issues by proving that $`E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )`$ is equal to the entanglement cost $`E_c(\rho )`$. Our result is in a sense dual to that of Rains  concerning the entanglement of distillation. He showed that the entanglement of distillation, if defined in a way analogous to our definition of the entanglement cost, is equal to the expected yield of a stochastic protocol for generating output singlets.

To begin, let us sketch our approach. In our proof, we will first show that $`E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )E_c(\rho )`$, i.e. that there exists a formation protocol that achieves the asymptotic rate $`\frac{m}{n}E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )`$, by explicitly constructing such a protocol based on the law of large numbers in both its classical and quantum  forms. Next, we will show that $`E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )E_c(\rho )`$. The latter inequality will be derived using only some general properties of the entanglement of formation, such as its monotonicity under LOCC operations and its quite strong continuity properties, proved by Nielsen . Such an approach, focussing on abstract features of quantum information-theoretic quantities, has already proven to be fruitful in the domain of quantifying entanglement as well as in the study of quantum channel capacities , providing a simple view of intrincate topics. To illustrate its power we will now sketch the proof of the inequality $`E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )E_c(\rho )`$.

As mentioned before, the entanglement of formation is monotonically decreasing under LOCC operations , i.e.

$$E_f(\rho )E_f((\rho )),$$
(2)
for any state $`\rho `$ and LOCC operation $``$. Moreover, the entanglement of formation is continuous  in the sense that for states $`\rho `$ and $`\rho ^{}`$ we have

$$\left|E_f(\rho )E_f(\rho ^{})\right|5D(\rho ,\rho ^{})\mathrm{log}_2dim+2\eta (D(\rho ,\rho ^{})),$$
(3)
where $`\rho `$ and $`\rho ^{}`$ are supported on the Hilbert space $``$ and $`\eta (x)=x\mathrm{log}_2x`$, under the assumption that $`D(\rho ,\rho ^{})`$ is sufficiently small. $`D`$ is the Bures distance, given by $`D(\rho ,\rho ^{})=2\sqrt{1F(\rho ,\rho ^{})}`$ with $`F(\rho ,\rho ^{})=\mathrm{Tr}\sqrt{\rho ^{1/2}\rho ^{}\rho ^{1/2}}`$ (Note that the normalization factor for $`D`$ is not completely standardized. We have made our choice to agree with Ref. ). The function $`F`$ is called the Uhlmann fidelity or square-root-fidelity . Inequality (3) implies that if two states are close to one another, then so are their densities of entanglement. A similar continuity result has been proved in Ref.  for the relative entropy of entanglement .

Now, in order to prove $`E_f^{\mathrm{}}E_c`$, consider the optimal formation protocol, i.e. the sequence of LOCC operations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_n`$ producing states $`\rho _n\rho ^n`$ out of $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}^m`$, so that $`m/n`$ tends to $`E_c`$. If we take large $`n`$, so that $`D(\rho ^n,\rho _n)`$ is small, then by continuity (3) we have

$$\frac{E_f(\rho ^n)}{n}\frac{E_f(\rho _n)}{n}$$
(4)
Since $`\rho _n=\mathrm{\Lambda }_n(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}^m)`$, then from the monotonicity of $`E_f`$ we obtain

$$\frac{E_f(\rho _n)}{n}\frac{E_f(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m)}{n}=\frac{m}{n}.$$
(5)
Now, by defnition, the left-hand-side of the equation (4) tends to $`E_f^{\mathrm{}}`$ while the last term of estimate (5) tends to $`E_c`$, hence we obtained the required inequality.

Since we used only two properties of the entanglement of formation, we can rephrase the result in a more general setting. Consider any function $`f`$, which can be regularized, i.e. for which the limit $`f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )=lim_n\mathrm{}\frac{f(\rho ^n)}{n}`$ exists. Now, if $`f`$ is monotonic and continuous in the sense of equation (3), then $`f^{\mathrm{}}`$ is a lower bound for $`E_c`$. This supports the view, according to which the dual measures of entanglement, entanglement of distillation $`E_D`$ and entanglement cost $`E_c`$ are in a sense extreme ones .

## II Entanglement cost and entanglement of formation

Let us now pass to the fully rigorous part of the paper. Analogous to the definition of asymptotic reducibility in Ref.  (cf. ), we define the asymptotic entanglement cost for the preparation of a bipartite state to be

$$E_c(\rho )=inf\left\{E\right|ϵ>0,\delta >0,m,n,,|E\frac{m}{n}|\delta \text{ and }D((|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m),\rho ^n)ϵ\},$$
(6)
where $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}`$ is the singlet state in $`𝐂_2𝐂_2`$, $``$ is an LOCC superoperator and $`D`$ is again the Bures distance.

Our main result is the following:

###### Theorem 1

The asymptotic entanglement cost of preparing a state $`\rho `$ is given by

$$E_c(\rho )=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{E_f(\rho ^n)}{n},$$
(7)
where $`E_c(\rho )`$ is defined in Eq. (6) and $`E_f(\rho )`$ is the entanglement of formation of $`\rho `$, defined as

$$E_f(\rho )=\underset{=\{p_i,|\psi _i\}}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{i}{}p_iE(|\psi _i\psi _i|),$$
(8)
and $`E(|\psi \psi |)`$ is the von Neumann entropy of the reduced density matrix of $`|\psi `$.

To make sense of the above claim, we note that the sequence $`\left(\frac{E_f(\rho ^n)}{n}\right)`$ has a well-defined limit. This is a consequence of the fact that if a sequence $`(a_n)`$ satisfies $`a_ncn`$ for some constant $`c`$ and $`a_n+a_ma_{n+m}`$ for any $`m,n`$, then $`(a_n/n)`$ is convergent . It is easy to see that our sequence satisfies the conditions.

We begin by proving that $`E_c`$ obeys a form of additivity that is highly desirable for an asymptotic cost function, and that will be useful in what follows.

###### Lemma 1

$`E_c(\rho ^k)=kE_c(\rho )`$ for all $`k=1,2,\mathrm{}`$.

Proof One direction is simple: since a protocol to approximate $`\rho ^k`$ is just a protocol to approximate $`k`$ copies of $`\rho `$, $`E_c(\rho ^k)kE_c(\rho )`$. The first step in demonstrating that the inequality holds in the opposite direction will be to show that in the definition of $`E_c`$, $`n`$ can be taken to be arbitrarily large. Suppose not, in other words, that for fixed $`ϵ,\delta >0`$, it is impossible to choose $`nN`$, $`m`$, and $``$ such that $`|E_c(\rho )m/n|\delta `$ and $`D((|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m),\rho ^n)ϵ`$. By the definition of $`E_c(\rho )`$ and the fact that the set of LOCC operations is closed, this implies, however, that there exist $`n<N`$, $`m`$, and $``$ such that $`E_c(\rho )=m/n`$ and $`(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m)=\rho ^n`$. Setting $`r=N/n`$ and applying $`^r`$ to $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^{mr}`$ then violates the assumption that $`n`$ could not be taken arbitrarily large.

Now, to complete the proof, we will pick $`nk`$ in order to efficiently approximate some number of copies of $`\rho ^k`$. Formally, we write $`n=rk+s`$, where $`r`$ and $`s`$ are non-negative integers and $`s<k`$. If we produce an approximation to within $`ϵ`$ of $`\rho ^n`$ starting from $`m`$ singlets and then throw away the extra $`s`$ copies of $`\rho `$, we are left with an approximation to within $`ϵ`$ of $`\rho ^{rk}`$ that still required $`m`$ singlets. The waste, however, becomes insignicant since $`|Em/n||Em/rk|`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

Note that full additivity of $`E_c(\rho )`$, i.e. $`E_c(\rho \sigma )=E_c(\rho )+E_c(\sigma )`$ would be a stronger statement, possibly requiring additivity of $`E_f`$. With that technical lemma concluded, Theorem 1 becomes a consequence of the following two lemmas.

###### Lemma 2

Let the entanglement of formation of a (finite dimensional) density matrix $`\rho `$ be $`E_f(\rho )=_ip_iE_f(|\psi _i\psi _i|)`$ where the optimal ensemble is given by $`\{p_i,|\psi _i\}_{i=1}^k`$. We have $`E_f(\rho )E_c(\rho )`$.

Proof In the limit of large $`n`$, we will approximate $`\rho ^n`$ by

$$\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}=\underset{sT_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}{}|\psi _s\psi _s|,$$
(9)
where $`T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}`$ is the (strongly) typical set defined as follows. All states $`|\psi _s`$ (unnormalized) in this set are tensor products of states $`\sqrt{p_i}|\psi _i`$ and they are such that every state $`\sqrt{p_i}|\psi _i`$ occurs $`p_in\pm \delta _1n\mathrm{log}_{p_i}(2)/k`$ times in the tensor product. (We assume that $`p_i<1`$ for all $`i`$. Otherwise, $`\rho `$ is a pure state.) This implies that the total probability $`p_s=\psi _s|\psi _s`$ for a state $`|\psi _s`$ is bounded as

$$2^{n(H(\stackrel{}{p}))+\delta _1)}p_s2^{n(H(\stackrel{}{p}))\delta _1)},$$
(10)
where $`H(\stackrel{}{p})`$ is the Shannon entropy of $`\stackrel{}{p}=(p_i)`$. The density matrix $`\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}`$ is basically the state $`\rho ^n`$ constructed by cutting off the unlikely sequences of states and then renormalizing . In order to bound the fidelity for this approximation, we add these unlikely sequences of states with probability 0 in the sum. For any $`\delta _1>0`$, $`ϵ_1>0`$ and $`n`$ sufficiently large we have by the asymptotic equipartition theorem  that the total probability $`p_{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}`$ for the typical set is larger than $`1ϵ_1`$, where $`ϵ_10`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. Thus, using the joint concavity of $`F`$ , we can bound

$$F(\rho ^n,\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}})\sqrt{1ϵ_1}.$$
(11)
Consider the density matrix $`\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}`$ and its decomposition in terms of the states $`|\psi _s`$. Each state $`|\psi _s`$ can be obtained from a set of EPR pairs by entanglement dilution . In particular, let $`|\psi _s`$ be a state in which every state $`|\psi _i`$ occurs $`p_in\pm \delta _1n\mathrm{log}_{p_i}(2)/k`$ times. Starting from a set of maximally entangled EPR pairs, we do entanglement dilution for each state $`|\psi _i^{p_in\pm \delta _1n\mathrm{log}_{p_i}(2)/k}`$. For any $`\delta _2`$ and $`ϵ_2`$ greater than zero there exists an $`n`$ such that starting from $`(p_in+\delta _1n\mathrm{log}_{p_i}(2)/k)[E_f(|\psi _i\psi _i|)+\delta _2]`$ EPR pairs we can obtain an approximation to $`|\psi _i^{p_in\pm \delta _1n\mathrm{log}_{p_i}(2)/k}`$ which has square-root-fidelity larger than $`1ϵ_2`$. Since there are $`k`$ states in the optimal ensemble (and $`k`$ is finite), we can therefore approximate the state $`|\psi _s`$ with square-root-fidelity $`|\psi |\psi ^{}|>(1ϵ_2)^k`$, starting from $`n_ip_iE_f(|\psi _i\psi _i|)+n(O(\delta _1)+O(\delta _2))`$ EPR pairs, with $`ϵ_20`$, $`\delta _10`$, and $`\delta _20`$ for $`n\mathrm{}`$.

The approximation of $`\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}`$ by $`\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}^{}=_{sT_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}|\psi _s^{}\psi _s^{}|`$, where $`|\psi _s^{}`$ is the approximation of $`|\psi _s`$ which we obtain by entanglement dilution starting from the set of EPR pairs, has the property that

$$F(\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}},\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}^{})\underset{sT_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}{}|\psi _s|\psi _s^{}|(1ϵ_2)^k1ϵ_3,$$
(12)
where $`ϵ_30`$ for $`n\mathrm{}`$, since $`k`$ is finite. Furthermore, since we can make every state $`|\psi _s^{}`$ starting from a given set of EPR pairs, we can make any convex combination, for example $`\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}^{}`$, of the states $`|\psi _s^{}`$ (see  and also ), starting from this same set of EPR pairs.

Finally, we can use the triangle inequality for the Bures metric, and Eqs. (11) and (12) to obtain that

$$D(\rho ^n,\rho _{T_{\delta _1}^{(n)}}^{})2\sqrt{1\sqrt{1ϵ_1}}+2\sqrt{ϵ_3}.$$
(13)
which is the desired result. $`\mathrm{}`$

The lemma can be applied to bound $`E_c(\rho )`$ from above by $`E_f(\rho ^k)/k`$ where $`k`$ is any fixed number of copies of $`\rho `$, using Lemma 1. Consequently, we have that

$$E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )E_c(\rho ).$$
(14)
Let us now prove the converse of this relation.

###### Lemma 3

$`E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )E_c(\rho )`$.

Proof The basic idea of the proof, as sketched in the introduction, is to use the continuity of the entanglement of formation  and its monotonicity under LOCC operations. Throughout the proof we will use the notation $`A_n=\frac{E_f(\rho ^n)}{n}`$. Now suppose that the lemma does not hold, so that $`limA_n>E_c(\rho )`$. It follows that there exists an integer $`N`$, such that for all $`k>N`$,

$$\left|A_klimA_n\right|<\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{limA_nE_c(\rho )}{4}>0.$$
(15)
Let $`\rho _k=(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m)`$ be an approximation to $`\rho ^k`$. Now, supposing that $`\rho `$ is supported on Hilbert space $``$, fix $`ϵ`$ such that $`5ϵ\mathrm{log}dim2ϵ\mathrm{log}ϵ=\mathrm{\Delta }`$. It then follows from Eqs. (3) and our choice of $`ϵ`$ that if $`D(\rho ^k,\rho _k)<ϵ`$ then

$$|E_f(\rho ^k)E_f(\rho _k)|<k\mathrm{\Delta }.$$
(16)
Now we will apply the definition of $`E_c(\rho )`$ to fix $`k`$. From the definition of $`E_c`$, Eq. (6), and the proof of Lemma 1, we have that there exists a $`k>N`$ as well as $`m`$ and $``$ such that

$$|E_c(\rho )\frac{m}{k}|\mathrm{\Delta }$$
(17)
and $`D(\rho ^k,\rho _k)<ϵ`$, where $`\rho _k=(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m)`$.

Next, we can bound

$$\left|limA_n\frac{E_f(\rho _k)}{k}\right|\left|limA_nA_k\right|+\left|A_k\frac{E_f(\rho _k)}{k}\right|<2\mathrm{\Delta },$$
(18)
by using Eqs. (15) and (16).

This gives $`E_f(\rho _k)>k(limA_n2\mathrm{\Delta })`$. On the other hand, by Eq. (17), we have

$$E_f(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m)=m<k(E_c(\rho )+\mathrm{\Delta }),$$
(19)
which finally yields

$$E_f(\rho _k)E_f(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m)>k(limA_nE_c(\rho )3\mathrm{\Delta })=k\mathrm{\Delta },$$
(20)
a contradiction since the entanglement of formation cannot increase under LOCC operations. $`\mathrm{}`$

## III Alternative definitions of the asymptotic cost

While $`E_c(\rho )`$ is perhaps the most natural function to associate with the asymptotic cost of preparing a bipartite state, other definitions would have been consistent with our discussion in the introduction. An example of a different but perhaps useful definition of the asymptotic entanglement cost is the following:

$$E_{alt}(\rho )=inf\{E|ϵ>0,\delta >0,N|(n>Nm,,|E\frac{m}{n}|\delta \text{ and }D((|\mathrm{\Psi }_{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{}|^m),\rho ^n)ϵ)\}.$$
(21)
The difference between $`E_c`$ and $`E_{alt}`$ is that for fixed fidelity and cost the former only requires the existence of a single $`n`$ such that $`\rho ^n`$ can be approximated efficiently while the second requires that there exist a threshold $`N`$ such that for all $`n>N`$ the state $`\rho ^n`$ can be approximated efficiently. One consequence of this difference is that it is immediately clear that $`E_{alt}`$ is additive in this sense of Lemma 1, while some work was required to prove that $`E_c`$ was. Indeed, a priori, one might not expect the two definitions to agree. Suppose, for example, that for fixed $`ϵ`$ there exists a protocol to make an approximation $`\rho _n`$ of $`\rho ^n`$ from $`m`$ singlets, with the approximation satisfying $`D(\rho _n,\rho ^n)=ϵ`$. In order to produce an approximation to $`\rho ^{nk}`$ from $`km`$ singlets, one might think that applying this protocol $`k`$ times would be a good strategy. One finds, however, that for $`ϵ>0`$,

$$\underset{k\mathrm{}}{lim}D(\rho ^{nk},\rho _n^k)=\underset{k\mathrm{}}{lim}2\sqrt{1(1ϵ^2)^k}=2.$$
(22)
The protocol, therefore, generally fails to produce a good approximation for large $`k`$. This example suggests that the existence of a threshold $`N`$ beyond which approximations to some given fidelity are always possible is a very difficult condition to satisfy. Nonetheless, by applying the results of the previous section, it is actually easy to see that the definitions $`E_c`$ and $`E_{alt}`$ are equivalent, so that the extra condition can be met without increasing the asymptotic unit cost. First, notice that the argument of Lemma 2 actually also works for $`E_{alt}`$ so that $`E_{alt}(\rho )E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )`$. Next, since the definition of $`E_{alt}`$ is more stringent than that of $`E_c`$, we have that $`E_c(\rho )E_{alt}(\rho )`$. Combining these inequalities with the result of Lemma 3, we get

$$E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )E_c(\rho )E_{alt}(\rho )E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho ),$$
(23)
so that these two definitions of the entanglement cost always agree.

A final pair of alternative definitions for the asymptotic entanglement cost would use the trace distance

$$d(\rho ,\sigma )=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}|\rho \sigma |,$$
(24)
in place of the Bures distance. Lemma 1 is easily seen to hold for $`d`$ since its proof uses only axiomatic properties of all metrics and stability with respect to tensor products but no other properties specific to $`D`$. The status of Lemmas 2 and 3 is slightly more involved. The trace distance and Bures distance are related by the following inequalities

$$\frac{1}{4}D(\rho ,\sigma )^2=1F(\rho ,\sigma )d(\rho ,\sigma )\sqrt{1F(\rho ,\sigma )^2}=\sqrt{\frac{D^2}{2}\frac{D^4}{16}},$$
(25)
which show that $`d`$ and $`D`$ are equivalent metrics and bounds them in terms of each other by functions that are independent of the dimension of the underlying Hilbert space, $``$. In other words, $`d`$ and $`D`$ are equivalent metrics even in the asymptotic regime. To be concrete, applying the right-hand inequality to Eq. (13), for example, is sufficient to show that Lemma 2 also holds for the trace distance. In order to prove Lemma 3, we used the continuity relation, Eq. (3), but effectively only required the weaker inequality

$$|E(\rho )E(\sigma )|BD(\rho ,\sigma )\mathrm{log}dim+C,$$
(26)
where $`B`$ and $`C`$ are constants and $``$ is the supporting Hilbert space. Applying Eq. (25), however, gives an inequality of the form

$$|E(\rho )E(\sigma )|B\sqrt{d(\rho ,\sigma )}\mathrm{log}dim+C,$$
(27)
which again is sufficient to carry through the rest of the proof. Therefore, all our conclusions hold even if the entanglement cost is defined using the trace distance. Indeed, they should hold for any metric equivalent to the Bures metric in which the equivalence is given by a function that is independent of the dimension of $``$.

## IV Conclusions

We have given two rigorous definitions of the asymptotic cost of preparing a bipartite mixed state $`\rho `$ and shown them both to be equal to the regularized entanglement of formation, $`E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )`$, resolving an important conjecture in the theory of quantum entanglement. Furthermore, we have shown that this asymptotic cost is fairly insensitive to the choice of metric on density operators. In particular, the Bures distance and trace distance result in identical asymptotic costs.

An important problem left open by this work is the question of actually evaluating $`E_f^{\mathrm{}}(\rho )`$. Even the non-regularized function $`E_f(\rho )`$ is notoriously difficult to calculate; its value is only known for some very special cases . If it turns out that $`E_f`$ is not additive for tensor products, then, in spite of the results of this paper, determining the asymptotic cost of preparing a state remains quite a formidable problem.

## V Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Paweł Horodecki, Michael Nielsen and John Smolin for helpful discussions. PMH is grateful to the Rhodes Trust and the EU project QAIP, contract No. IST-1999-11234, for support. MH acknowledges support of Polish Committee for Scientific Research, contract No. 2 P03B 103 16 and EU project EQUIP, contract No. IST-1999-11053. BMT acknowledges support of the ARO under contract number DAAG-55-98-C-0041.