text:
# 1 1

THES-TP 2002/03

PM/02-55

hep-ph/0212110

Revised version,

November 2003

The flavor distribution of Cosmic NeutrinosPartially supported by EU contract HPRN-CT-2000-00149, and the PLATON French-Greek Collaboration project, 2002..

G.J. Gounarisa and G. Moultakab
aDepartment of Theoretical Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,

Gr-541 24, Thessaloniki, Greece.

bPhysique Mathématique et Théorique, UMR 5825

Université Montpellier II, F-34095 Montpellier, France.

Abstract

Simple approximate expressions for the relative flavor fluxes of energetic cosmic neutrinos detected on Earth, are presented in terms of their initial fluxes at the surface of the producing cosmic sites, assuming the neutrino mixing angles to lie in the experimentally favored region. These expressions highlight the main sensitivities to the initial production fluxes as well as to small variations of the mixing angles within the experimentally preferred region, thus providing simple methods to disentangle these physical quantities from cosmic neutrino data. This is more so, due to some striking mathematical properties of the relative neutrino flavors at $`(s_{23}=1/\sqrt{2},s_{13}=0)`$, which somehow characterize the whole experimentally preferred region. We also assess the quality of our approximate expressions through a numerical comparison with the exact results.

PACS number(s): 14.60.Lm, 95.85.Ry, 96.40.Tv, 98.70.Sa.

The relative flavors of energetic Neutrinos reaching the Earth, after they have been emitted at various cosmic sites, provide useful information on the physical conditions there. Such very energetic neutrinos, approaching the $`10^3`$TeV , or even the $`10^6`$TeV scale , may be generated in extra-galactic sites like Gamma Ray Bursts and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Galactic candidates that may emit neutrinos of up to 100 TeV have also been identified at distances of at least $`2.6\mathrm{kpc}`$ . \[Exploding galactic Supernovae may also induce observable neutrino fluxes with energies in the few MeV range .\]

It is commonly believed that these neutrinos are produced mainly through the decay of high energy $`\pi ^\pm `$ and K (and may be also some D) mesons, which implies that the initial relative neutrino flavors at the cosmic sites satisfy

$$F_e^0=1/3,F_\mu ^0=2/3,F_\tau ^0=0,$$
(1)
. This case is referred to below, as the canonical case. It may be useful to remember though, that our present understanding of the mechanisms for generating high energy neutrinos is rather primitive, and sites may exist in the Universe where the produced neutrinos have a different initial structure . Therefore, the measurement of the relative intensities of the various neutrino flavors on Earth, may provide useful direct information on the mechanism responsible for their generation in the Cosmos and may possibly lead to the discovery of some kind of New Physics .

Once the various neutrino flavors produced inside some cosmic object reach its surface, they propagate oscillating through space, as dictated by the vacuum oscillation formalism111For a review see e.g. .. Some of the intrinsic properties of the flavor oscillations are, however, not very easy to readout from the general vacuum oscillation formulae, especially when relying only on numerical scans. These properties can be of importance in the perspective of disentangling, through the measurement of relative fluxes on earth, the astrophysical uncertainties encoded in the initial flavor fluxes on the cosmic sites, from the particle physics features in the neutrino sector. It will therefore be useful to have simple formulae giving the observable relative neutrino flavors $`F_e,F_\mu ,F_\tau `$ on Earth, in terms of the initially produced ones $`F_e^0,F_\mu ^0,F_\tau ^0`$ at the surface of the cosmic object.

The aim of the present paper is to give such simple analytical expressions, assuming only three active neutrino flavors which propagate oscillating among themselves ; (in particular no cosmic neutrino decay is assumed ). These expressions have the advantage of identifying specific sensitivities and degeneracies in the mixing angles, and of encoding some essential qualitative and quantitative properties of the full formalism. Some of these properties turn out to be highly non-generic consequences of the concomitance of the physically favored values for the mixing angles $`s_{23},s_{13}`$, and the initial fluxes.

To derive the aforementioned formulae, we take into account the basic experimental characteristics of the neutrino masses and mixings. These are summarized as follows: The recent SNO  data combined with those of Super-Kamiokande  strongly favor the LMA MSW  solar solution with three active neutrinos and $`\theta _{12}\pi /5.1`$ and $`|m_2^2m_1^2|5\times 10^5eV^2`$ . The atmospheric neutrino  data imply $`\theta _{23}\pi /4`$ and $`|m_3^2m_2^2|2.5\times 10^3eV^2`$; while the CHOOZ experiment constrains $`\theta _{13}0.1`$, . Defining $`s_{ij}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{ij}`$ and choosing the “central values”

$$s_{12}^c=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}},s_{23}^c=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}},s_{13}^c=0$$
(2)
one has

$$s_{12}s_{12}^c+\delta s_{12},s_{23}s_{23}^c+\delta s_{23},s_{13}s_{13}^c+\delta s_{13}$$
(3)
where ,

$`0.11\delta s_{12}0.04`$ $`,0.12\delta s_{23}0.10,`$ (4)
$`0\delta s_{13}0.1`$ $`,`$ (5)
For realistic neutrino mass differences, and neutrino energies in the range $`E10^6\mathrm{TeV}`$, the vacuum oscillation lengths $`\lambda _{ij}=4\pi E/|m_i^2m_j^2|`$, always satisfy $`\lambda _{ij}1\mathrm{pc}`$, which is much smaller than the distances to all cosmic neutrino emitting sites, beyond our solar system . Consequently, the number of oscillations performed by the cosmic neutrinos before arriving at the Earth, is so large, that $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi L/\lambda _{ij})`$ averages to $`1/2`$, and the CP-violating contributions vanish.

Studying the properties of the relative neutrino fluxes in the $`s_{23}s_{13}`$-plane, for any fixed values of $`s_{12}`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$, we remark that the point $`(s_{23}^c,s_{13}^c)=(1/\sqrt{2},0)`$, (lying within the experimental range of Eqs.(3, 4, 5)), presents the striking property of being the unique point of this $`s_{23}s_{13}`$-plane222At least for $`s_{23}<0.5`$., where a common ($`s_{12}`$\- and $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$-dependent) direction exists, along which all three fluxes $`F_e,F_\mu ,F_\tau `$ are stationary.

As an example, we expand the standard vacuum oscillation formulae to first order in $`s_{13}`$ and $`(\delta s_{12},\delta s_{23})`$ defined in (3), getting the relative neutrino fluxes on Earth,

$`F_e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(12\sqrt{3}\delta s_{12})}{9}}(3F_e^01)+\delta s_{123}(F_\tau ^0F_\mu ^0),`$
$`F_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(2\sqrt{3}\delta s_{12}1)}{18}}(3F_e^01)+\delta s_{123}(F_\mu ^0F_e^0),`$
$`F_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(2\sqrt{3}\delta s_{12}1)}{18}}(3F_e^01)+\delta s_{123}(F_e^0F_\tau ^0),`$ (6)
where

$$\delta s_{123}\frac{\sqrt{2}}{9}(\kappa \delta s_{23}\delta s_{13}\mathrm{cos}\delta ),$$
(7)
with $`\kappa =4`$, and $`(F_e^0,F_\mu ^0,F_\tau ^0)`$ being the initial neutrino relative flavors at the cosmic site. The experimental constraints (4, 5) then imply

$$0.09\delta s_{123}+0.07.$$
(8)
In writing Eq.(6) we took into account the unitarity relation

$$F_e+F_\mu +F_\tau =F_e^0+F_\mu ^0+F_\tau ^0=1,$$
(9)
where the right hand side is just a normalization.

The set of equations (6) clearly indicates that for $`s_{12}^c1/\sqrt{3}`$, all three relative fluxes on Earth are stationary along the direction $`\kappa [s_{23}1/\sqrt{2}]s_{13}\mathrm{cos}\delta =0`$ passing through the point $`(s_{23},s_{13})=(1/\sqrt{2},0)`$ of the $`s_{23}s_{13}`$-plane333For a given central value $`s_{12}^c`$, the stationary direction is determined by $`\kappa =(2\sqrt{2}s_{12}^c\sqrt{1(s_{12}^c)^2})/(12(s_{12}^c)^2)`$, which indeed leads to $`\kappa =4`$ for $`s_{12}^c=1/\sqrt{3}`$.. An alternative way of expressing this ”stationary along a direction”  property is to observe that $`\delta s_{23}`$ and $`s_{13}`$ enter Eqs.(6) only through one specific combination, like $`\delta s_{123}`$ of (7). This signals an approximate degeneracy in the sensitivity to these mixing angles, which would affect their reconstruction from experimental data.

If second order effects are retained, then dependencies on all four mixing angle combinations $`\delta s_{12},\delta s_{23},\delta s_{123}`$ and $`s_{13}`$ appear, leading to

$`F_e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}+(12\sqrt{3}\delta s_{12}+9\delta s_{12}^25s_{13}^2){\displaystyle \frac{(3F_e^01)}{9}}`$
$`+`$ $`\left[(1{\displaystyle \frac{7}{2}}\sqrt{3}\delta s_{12})\delta s_{123}+\delta s_{23}(2\sqrt{6}\delta s_{12}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{9}}\delta s_{23})\right](F_\tau ^0F_\mu ^0),`$
$`F_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1+\mathrm{\Delta }F_{\mu \tau }F_e),`$
$`F_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1\mathrm{\Delta }F_{\mu \tau }F_e),`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }F_{\mu \tau }`$ $``$ $`F_\mu F_\tau =`$ (10)
$`\left[12\delta s_{123}^2+\delta s_{23}({\displaystyle \frac{68}{9}}\delta s_{23}2\sqrt{6}\delta s_{12})+\delta s_{123}({\displaystyle \frac{7}{2}}\sqrt{3}\delta s_{12}12\sqrt{2}\delta s_{23}1)\right](3F_e^01)`$
$`+`$ $`8(3\delta s_{123}^23\sqrt{2}\delta s_{123}\delta s_{23}+2\delta s_{23}^2)(3F_\mu ^01).`$
We next turn to the discussion of three interesting specific cases.

Equipartition condition for fluxes on Earth. There is in fact still another reason that makes the specific point $`(s_{23},s_{13})=(1/\sqrt{2},0)`$ unique in the $`s_{23}s_{13}`$-plane. To explain this, we study in general terms the conditions required for the initial fluxes and the mixing angles, in order that flavor fluxes on Earth become equal; i.e. $`F_e=F_\mu =F_\tau `$, a property referred to as flux equipartition. It is indeed noteworthy that, \[besides the Supernovae case where flux equipartition on Earth is an immediate consequence of the (approximate) initial flux equipartition444This case is discussed in more detail below.\], the canonical case also leads to equal neutrino fluxes on Earth, provided the neutrino mixing angles are appropriate.

Using the exact results for large distance oscillations, one finds that

$$s_{23}^2=\frac{1F_\mu ^02F_\tau ^0}{F_\mu ^0F_\tau ^0}+\frac{2/3(F_\mu ^0+F_\tau ^0)}{(F_\tau ^0F_\mu ^0)(1s_{13}^2)},$$
(11)
is a necessary condition555 Barring some special cases which we have also identified, where $`(s_{12}=0,1/\sqrt{2},1)`$ or $`(s_{23}=0,1)`$ or $`(s_{13}=1)`$. Such cases are clearly excluded by experiment. In particular, the case $`s_{12}=1/\sqrt{2}`$ studied in this equipartition context in , has been recently reported to be excluded at the $`5\sigma `$ level .  for equipartition of the neutrino fluxes on Earth. This condition shows clearly that equipartition requires a specific correlation between two sets of physically independent quantities, namely the mixing angles $`s_{23},s_{13}`$ and the initial flavor fluxes. It is noteworthy that since (11) is independent of $`s_{12}`$, the latter does not have any influence on equipartition, in agreement with the findings of  for the canonical case.

If $`F_\mu ^0+F_\tau ^0=2/3`$ is now assumed, then Eq.(11) implies $`s_{23}^2=(1F_\mu ^02F_\tau ^0)/(F_\mu ^0F_\tau ^0)=1/2`$, which has been first observed by . If, on top of this, we impose the canonical initial fluxes satisfying Eqs.(1), then $`s_{13}=0`$ is also uniquely required for equipartition. Thus, the requirement of exact equipartition of the fluxes on Earth, combined with the assumption that the initial fluxes are canonical, uniquely determines $`s_{23}=1/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`s_{13}=0`$.

The fact that the initial fluxes resulting from the astrophysical mechanism, and the experimentally favored neutrino mixing angles fall in the vicinity of the unique equipartition solution for the fluxes on Earth, is a striking coincidence! This is even more so, if we also remember the ”stationary” property of these fluxes described above.

We next turn to the fluxes as determined by the actual ranges of the mixing angles appearing in (4, 5, 8). Using the first order expression (6), together with (1), we get

$`F_e={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(12\delta s_{123}),`$
$`F_\mu =F_\tau ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(1+\delta s_{123}),`$ (12)
which agrees with the conclusion of  that for bimaximal neutrino mixing with very small $`s_{13}`$, the relative neutrino flavor fluxes are $`F_eF_\mu F_\tau 1/3`$.

Our formalism goes beyond this though, since it also considers in detail the small deviations from the mixing angle-values $`(\theta _{12}\pi /5.1,\theta _{23}\pi /4,\theta _{13}0)`$. To linear order in these deviations, we find that the arriving neutrino fluxes are independent of $`\delta s_{12}`$, and only depend on the specific combination of $`\delta s_{23}`$ and $`s_{13}\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ given in Eq.(7). Moreover, $`F_\mu `$ and $`F_\tau `$ are always equal and described by the ”green” line along the diagonal of the triangle in Fig.1.

As seen from Eqs.(10) though, to second order in $`(\delta s_{12},\delta s_{23},s_{13})`$, a weak intrinsic dependence on all four parameters $`(\delta s_{12},\delta s_{23},s_{13})`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$ appears. To study this in somewhat more detail, we have reproduced in Fig.1, the implications of the constraints (4, 5). The second order formulae in Eq.(10) describes these constraints by the ”blue-plus-red” region within the triangle in Fig.1, which almost completely overlaps with the ”red” region resulted from the numerical analysis of the exact expressions . As seen there, $`F_\mu F_\tau `$ in the whole allowed region. This property can actually be shown analytically, both from the exact formalism or from the approximation Eq.(10) which leads to

$`F_\mu F_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8}{27}}(13\delta s_{23}^2+s_{13}^2\mathrm{cos}^2\delta +(\delta s_{23}+s_{13}\mathrm{cos}\delta )^2)0.`$ (13)
On the basis of this analysis, we find that in the canonical case

$`0.28F_e0.39,`$
$`0.30F_\mu 0.36,`$
$`0<\mathrm{\Delta }F_{\mu \tau }0.073,`$ (14)
and

$$0.73\frac{F_\mu }{F_e}(1+3\delta s_{123})1.21,$$
(15)
which, as already said, are consistent with the results of .

A virtue of the present derivation, is that the effect of a future reduction of the experimental uncertainties on the mixing angles, can be straightforwardly read analytically from Eq.(10) or even Eq.(6). As an example we note that if it turns out that e.g. $`\delta s_{123}=0.1`$ (compare Eq.(8)) and that $`F_\mu F_\tau `$, then the linear formulae (12) should be adequate, leading to $`F_e0.27`$ and $`F_\mu F_\tau 0.37`$. In a future sufficiently large neutrino detector such as IceCube , it might be possible to discriminate this case from the ideal prediction $`F_eF_\mu =F_\tau 1/3`$, in the TeV-PeV energy range.

Equal initial neutrino fluxes. Because of unitarity, if the initial relative flavors satisfy $`F_e^0=F_\mu ^0=F_\tau ^0`$, then the final ones also obey $`F_e=F_\mu =F_\tau =1/3`$, irrespective of the neutrino mixing angles. This is e.g. the situation roughly half a second or so after a supernova collapse and explosion, as suggested by typical simulations . However, since such configurations can be simulation dependent, and keeping in mind the uncertainties related to supernova physics, we may parameterize a deviation in the electron flavor from the initial flux equipartition in the form

$`F_e^0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{12ϵ}{3}}`$
$`F_\mu ^0`$ $`=`$ $`F_\tau ^0={\displaystyle \frac{1+ϵ}{3}}`$ (16)
The expected flux differences on Earth are then easily obtained from Eq.(6) as

$`F_\tau F_e`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{7}{16}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\delta s_{12}\delta s_{123})ϵ`$
$`F_\mu F_e`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{7}{16}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\delta s_{12}+\delta s_{123})ϵ`$
$`F_\mu F_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`2\delta s_{123}ϵ`$ (17)
We call Eqs(16, 17) the ”Supernova-type case”, allowing it to cover also the possibility of TeV neutrino sources, which somehow produce roughly equal neutrino fluxes for all neutrino and antineutrino flavors.

It is interesting to note that even in the linear approximation in this case, an initial $`\mu /\tau `$ flavor equipartition tends to be removed by neutrino oscillation effects, as can be seen from the third equation in Eq.(17). Moreover, a simultaneous measurement of the three flux differences in Eq.(17), provided it is sufficiently accurate, would allow the reconstruction of the three quantities $`ϵ,\delta s_{123}`$ and $`\delta s_{12}`$. It should be clear, though, that our analysis is valid only if matter effects on the observed fluxes can be neglected. Obviously, this would not be the case for neutrinos which cross the Earth before detection. Furthermore, star matter effects can be important in some regions of the supernova .

$`F_e^0=1`$ case. As a last illustration we consider the rather exotic case where $`F_e^0=1`$, $`F_\mu ^0=F_\tau ^0=0`$. In the context of the linear approximation formulae Eqs.(6), we get in this case

$`F_e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{8}}\delta s_{12},`$
$`F_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{16}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta s_{12}}{2}}\delta s_{123},`$
$`F_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{16}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta s_{12}}{2}}+\delta s_{123},`$ (18)
where, in contrast to the previous situation, the relative neutrino fluxes have some sensitivity to $`\delta s_{12}`$ also. Using Eqs.(4, 8) we then find

$`0.44F_e0.67,`$
$`0.24F_\mu F_\tau 0.24,`$ (19)
where the uncertainties induced by $`\delta s_{12}`$ and $`\delta s_{123}`$ are separated.

To summarize, we have studied in this paper some useful analytical properties of the neutrino flavor fluxes, assuming just three active neutrino flavors propagating in the vacuum space (from the surface of the cosmic sites where they are produced, to Earth) oscillating among themselves with no neutrino decay processes666 The above formulae can of course be straightforwardly extended to cases including sterile neutrinos.. We have first emphasized that for any given $`s_{12}`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$, the point $`(s_{23}=1/\sqrt{2},s_{13}=0)`$ is essentially the unique point where (a) all three relative fluxes $`(F_e,F_\mu ,F_\tau )`$ on Earth are equal, when the initial fluxes are canonical, and (b) a common ($`s_{12}`$\- and $`\mathrm{cos}\delta `$-dependent) direction exists in the $`s_{23}s_{13}`$-plane, \[irrespectively of the values of the initial fluxes\], along which all three relative fluxes $`(F_e,F_\mu ,F_\tau )`$ on Earth are stationary. These features have immediate consequences on the sensitivity to the mixing angles and flavor fluxes. Assuming then that the deviations of the neutrino mixing angles from their favored experimental values $`s_{12}=1/\sqrt{3}`$, $`s_{23}=1/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`s_{13}=0`$ are small, we have expressed the observable neutrino fluxes on Earth in terms of the original ones at the cosmic sites, keeping either linear or quadratic terms in the above angle-deviations, and assessed the validity of this approximation through a numerical comparison with the exact formalism. These expressions allow to extract information from Neutrino Astronomy data in a fairly simple way.

Acknowledgement
One of us (GJG) would like to thank C. Quigg for inspiring discussions. GM is grateful to G. Sigl for an instructive correspondence.


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# Quantum information processing with trapped ions

## 1 Introduction

Efforts to realize experimentally the elements of quantum computation (QC) using trapped atomic ions have been stimulated in large part by a proposal by Cirac and Zoller (1995). In this scheme, ions confined in a linear RF (Paul) trap are cooled and form a stable spatial array whose motion is described by normal modes. Two internal levels in each ion form a qubit (referred to below as a spin qubit). The spacing between ions is typically large enough ($`>1\mu m`$) that the direct coupling of internal states of ions is negligible, thereby precluding logic gates based on internal-state interactions. (An exception to this might be “Dipole blockade” gates based on Rydberg transitions as envisioned for neutral atoms (Jaksch et al. 2000), but these gates are experimentally more challenging for ions because of the higher energies between ground and Rydberg levels.) To overcome this limitation, Cirac and Zoller suggested cooling the ions to their motional ground state and using the ground and first excited state of a particular collective motional mode as a qubit (motion qubit). The motional mode can act as a data bus to transfer information between ions by mapping the spin qubit state of a particular ion onto the selected motion qubit with a laser beam focused onto that ion. The ability to construct a logic gate between the motion qubit and another selected spin qubit, coupled with the ability to perform single-spin qubit rotations provides the basis for universal quantum computation (DiVincenzo 1995, Barenco et al. 1995).

The ion-trap scheme satisfies the main requirements for a quantum computer as outlined by DiVincenzo (2001): (1) a scalable system of well-defined qubits, (2) a method to reliably initialize the quantum system, (3) long coherence times, (4) existence of universal gates, and (5) an efficient measurement scheme. Most of these requirements have been demonstrated experimentally; consequently, ion trap quantum processors are studied in several laboratories. Here, we focus on experiments carried out at NIST but note that similar work is being pursued at Aarhus, Almaden (IBM), Hamburg, Hamilton (McMaster Univ., Ontario), Innsbruck, Los Alamos (LANL), University of Michigan, Garching (MPI), Oxford, and Teddington (NPL, U.K.).

## 2 Coherent control and entanglement

The key entangling operation in the 1995 Cirac/Zoller scheme for QC, and other schemes that rely on the ions’ motion, is an operation that couples a spin qubit with the motion in a spin-state-dependent way. Assume that the spin qubit has a ground state labeled $`|`$ and a higher metastable state labeled $`|`$ that are separated in energy by $`\mathrm{}\omega _0`$. First assume that single-photon transitions between these levels can be excited with a focused laser beam. For simplicity, we will assume electric dipole transitions, but this is easily adapted to other cases such as electric quadrupole transitions as in the Innsbruck experiments (Roos et al. 1999). The interaction between an ion and the electric field of the laser beam can be written as

$$H_I(t)=\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{E}=\stackrel{}{d}E_0\widehat{ϵ}_L\mathrm{cos}(k\stackrel{~}{z}\omega _Lt+\varphi ),$$
(1)
where $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ is the electric dipole operator, $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$ is the ion position operator for displacements from the ion’s equilibrium position (expanded in terms of normal mode operators), $`\widehat{ϵ}_L`$ is the laser beam polarization, $`k`$ is the laser beam’s $`k`$-vector (taken to be parallel to $`\widehat{z}`$, the axis of the trap), $`\omega _L`$ is the laser frequency, and $`\varphi `$ is the phase of the laser field at the mean position of the ion. $`E_0`$ is the laser beam electric field amplitude at the ion, which is assumed to be classical. We characterize the laser field’s polarization with respect to a magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}_0`$ that sets the quantization axis for the ions. The polarization is expressed in terms of left circular ($`\widehat{\sigma }_{}`$), linear ($`\widehat{\pi }`$), and right circular ($`\widehat{\sigma }_+`$) polarizations so that $`\widehat{ϵ}_L=e_{}\widehat{\sigma }_{}+e_0\widehat{\pi }+e_+\widehat{\sigma }_+`$ with $`|e_{}|^2+|e_0|^2+|e_+|^2=1`$. The dipole operator $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ is proportional to $`\sigma ^++\sigma ^{}`$, where $`\sigma ^+||,\sigma ^{}||`$, and we take $`\stackrel{~}{z}=z_0(a+a^{})`$, where $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$ are the lowering and raising operators for the harmonic oscillator associated with the selected motional mode (frequency $`\omega _z`$) and $`z_0`$ is the extension of the ground-state wavefunction for the particular ion (and mode) being addressed. We assume all other $`z`$ modes are cooled to and remain in their ground states and for simplicity have neglected them in $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$. In the Lamb-Dicke limit, where the extent of the ion’s motion is much less than $`\lambda /2\pi =1/k`$, we can write Eq. (1) (in the interaction frame, and making the rotating wave approximation (see for example, Wineland et al. 1998)) as

$$H_I\mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Omega }e^{i\varphi })\sigma ^+e^{i(\omega _L\omega _0)t}[1+i\eta (ae^{i\omega _zt}+a^{}e^{i\omega _zt})]+h.c.$$
(2)
Here, $`\mathrm{\Omega }E_0|\stackrel{}{d}\widehat{ϵ}_L|/(2\mathrm{})`$ and $`\eta kz_0`$ is the Lamb-Dicke parameter ($`1`$ in the Lamb-Dicke limit).

For certain choices of $`\omega _L`$$`H_I`$ is resonant and the spin and motion can be coupled efficiently. For example, when $`\omega _L=\omega _0\omega _z,H_Ii\eta \mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Omega }e^{i\varphi })\sigma ^+a+h.c.`$. This is usually called the “red-sideband” coupling and is formally equivalent to the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian from quantum optics (see, for example, Raimond et al. 2001) . Here, $`||`$ transitions are accompanied by $`|n|n1`$ motional mode transitions. When $`\omega _L=\omega _0+\omega _z`$ (the blue sideband frequency), $`H_Ii\eta \mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Omega }e^{i\varphi })\sigma ^+a^{}+h.c.`$, and $`||`$ transitions are accompanied by $`|n|n+1`$ transitions. When $`\omega _L=\omega _0`$, $`H_I\mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Omega }e^{i\varphi })\sigma ^++h.c.`$ and $`||`$ transitions do not change $`n`$. These “carrier” transitions are used to perform the single spin qubit rotations.

### 2.1 Raman transitions

Some experiments use two ground-state hyperfine levels as a qubit. Coherent transitions between these levels can be implemented with two laser beams that drive two-photon stimulated-Raman transitions. In this case, in Eq. (2), $`k`$ must be replaced by the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }k=|\stackrel{}{k}_1\stackrel{}{k}_2|`$ between $`k`$-vectors for the two Raman beams (again assumed to parallel to $`\widehat{z}`$), $`\omega _L`$ and $`\varphi `$ are replaced by $`\omega _1\omega _2`$ and $`\varphi _1\varphi _2`$, the frequency difference and phase difference between the laser beams at the mean position of the ion, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }e^{i\varphi }`$ is replaced by the resonant two-photon Raman Rabi rate

$$\mathrm{\Omega }e^{i\varphi }\frac{e^{i(\varphi _1\varphi _2)}}{4\mathrm{}^2}\underset{i}{}|\stackrel{}{d}E_2\widehat{ϵ}_2|ii|\stackrel{}{d}E_1\widehat{ϵ}_1|/\mathrm{\Delta }_i.$$
(3)
In this expression, the subscripts denote the two laser beams, $`|i`$ are the (virtual, electronically excited) intermediate states of the Raman process, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ are the detunings of the Raman beams as indicated in Fig. 1. We have assumed $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i\gamma _i`$ where $`\gamma _i`$ are the decay rates from the intermediate states. With these substitutions, Eq. (2) applies in the Lamb-Dicke limit where the Lamb-Dicke parameter is now given by $`\eta \mathrm{\Delta }kz_01`$. For brevity, we will specialize to the stimulated-Raman-transition case in what follows.

When the difference frequency of the Raman beams is tuned to resonance with the red or blue sidebands or carrier, the interaction leads to the coherent evolution

$$||n\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}t)||nie^{i\varphi }\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}t)||n^{}$$
(4)
and

$$||nie^{i\varphi }\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}t)||n+\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}t)||n^{}.$$
(5)
When $`n^{}=n\pm 1`$ (blue or red sidebands), $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}\eta \mathrm{\Omega }(n_>)^{1/2}`$, where $`n_>`$ is the greater of $`n`$ or $`n^{}`$. In Fig. 1, we show a red sideband transition for $`n=1`$. When the duration of this operation is adjusted to give a $`\pi `$ pulse, the spin qubit to motion qubit mapping step required in the Cirac/Zoller scheme $`(\alpha |+\beta |)|0|(\alpha |0+\beta |1)`$ is executed. From expressions (4) and (5) the entanglement between the spin and motion is evident since the final state cannot in general be factored into the product of spin and motional wavefunctions. Carrier transitions can also be described by these expressions where $`n=n^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}=\mathrm{\Omega }`$. For each ion we are free to choose $`\varphi =\varphi _1\varphi _2=0`$ but the phase of all operations on this ion must be referenced to this choice.

In order to keep the duration of an entangling operation relatively short, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}`$ for $`nn^{}`$ cannot be too small relative to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n}`$. Therefore $`\eta `$ must be chosen large enough that our interaction does not rigorously satisfy the Lamb-Dicke criterion and correction factors must be added to the expressions for the Rabi frequencies $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}`$. These correction factors, which can be called Debye-Waller factors (Wineland et al. 1998), have been observed by Meekhof et al. (1996) and also form the basis for a controlled-not (CNOT) gate between motion and spin (Monroe et al. 1997, DeMarco et al. 2002).

### 2.2 Rabi frequencies

For convenience of notation, in the case $`\omega _1\omega _2\omega _0`$, we will designate $`\omega _1=\omega _b`$ the “blue” Raman beam frequency and $`\omega _2=\omega _r`$ as the “red” Raman beam frequency. Similarly, we let $`E_1\widehat{ϵ}_1=E_b\widehat{ϵ_b}=E_b(b_{}\widehat{\sigma }_{}+b_0\widehat{\pi }+b_+\widehat{\sigma }_+)`$ and $`E_2\widehat{ϵ}_2=E_r\widehat{ϵ_r}=E_r(r_{}\widehat{\sigma }_{}+r_0\widehat{\pi }+r_+\widehat{\sigma }_+)`$. As an example relevant to the NIST experiments, we consider Raman transitions between the $`2s^2S_{1/2}`$ hyperfine states $`|F=2,m_F=2|`$ and $`|F=1,m_F=1|`$ in 9Be+ where we couple through the ion’s $`2p`$ fine structure levels. (In this example, $`|i2p^2P_{1/2}`$ and $`|i^{}2p^2P_{3/2}`$ in Fig. 1.) Using the appropriate Clebsch-Gordon coefficients to evaluate the terms $`,|\stackrel{}{d}E_j\widehat{ϵ}_j|i`$ in Eq. (3), we find the carrier Rabi frequency to be

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_,=\frac{g_bg_r}{\sqrt{6}}\left[b_0r_++b_{}r_0\right]\frac{\omega _F}{\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F)},$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the detuning of the Raman beams from the $`{}_{}{}^{2}P_{1/2}^{}`$ level ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ in the figure), $`\omega _F/2\pi (198`$ GHz) is the fine structure splitting, $`\omega _0/2\pi 1.25`$ GHz, and $`g_{b,r}E_{b,r}|^2P_{3/2},F=3,m_F=3|\stackrel{}{d}\widehat{\sigma }_+||/2\mathrm{}`$.

In some cases we will also find it useful to adjust the Raman beam difference frequency to a multiple of the mode oscillation frequency. When $`\omega _b\omega _r\omega _z`$, the interaction (in the Lamb-Dicke limit) can be written

$$H_I(m_S)\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }(m_S)e^{i(\omega _b\omega _r)t}[1+i\eta (ae^{i\omega _zt}+a^{}e^{i\omega _zt})]+h.c.$$
(7)
where

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(m_S)\frac{e^{i(\varphi _b\varphi _r)}}{4\mathrm{}^2}\underset{i}{}m_S|\stackrel{}{d}E_r\widehat{ϵ}_r|ii|\stackrel{}{d}E_b\widehat{ϵ}_b|m_S/\mathrm{\Delta }_i$$
(8)
with $`m_S\{,\}`$. Assuming $`\omega _b\omega _r=\omega _z`$, and approximating Eq. (7) with the resonant term, an oscillating, spatially uniform force is created that can act as a displacement operator (Meekhof et al. 1996). It takes the form (Wineland et al. 1998)

$$D(t)=D(\eta \mathrm{\Omega }(m_S)t)=e^{(\eta \mathrm{\Omega }(m_S)t)a^{}(\eta \mathrm{\Omega }(m_S)t)^{}a}.$$
(9)
When $`\mathrm{\Omega }()\mathrm{\Omega }()`$, we can create logic gates as described in the example below.

### 2.3 Stark shifts

In the above discussion we have neglected Stark shifts of the levels caused by the non-resonant laser beam electric fields. In the limit that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i\gamma `$, the Stark shift from the $`j`$th beam on the $`m_S`$ level is given by

$$\delta (m_S,j)=\frac{1}{4\mathrm{}^2}\underset{i}{}|m_S|\stackrel{}{d}E_j\widehat{ϵ}_j|i|^2/\mathrm{\Delta }_i.$$
(10)
In general, both levels $`|`$ and $`|`$ are shifted by both laser beams. For the $`|2,2=||1,1=|`$ 9Be+ Raman transition example, the net Stark shift is

$`\delta ()\delta ()=g_b^2[{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{1}{6}b_{}^2+\frac{1}{3}b_0^2+\frac{1}{2}b_+^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }+\omega _0}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{5}{6}b_{}^2+\frac{2}{3}b_0^2+\frac{1}{2}b_+^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F+\omega _0}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{2}{3}b_{}^2+\frac{1}{3}b_0^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{1}{3}b_{}^2+\frac{2}{3}b_0^2+b_+^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F}}]+g_r^2[{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{1}{6}r_{}^2+\frac{1}{3}r_0^2+\frac{1}{2}r_+^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{5}{6}r_{}^2+\frac{2}{3}r_0^2+\frac{1}{2}r_+^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{2}{3}r_{}^2+\frac{1}{3}r_0^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _0}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{1}{3}r_{}^2+\frac{2}{3}r_0^2+r_+^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _0\omega _F}}].`$ (11)
In Eq. (11) we have assumed that the (quantizing) magnetic field is small enough that Zeeman shifts can be neglected and that the $`{}_{}{}^{2}P_{1/2}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{2}P_{3/2}^{}`$ hyperfine splittings are negligible comparable to $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ (The hyperfine splitting of the $`{}_{}{}^{2}P_{1/2}^{}`$ level is approximately 237 MHz and that of the $`{}_{}{}^{2}P_{3/2}^{}`$ level is less than 1 MHz.). In the limit that we can also assume $`\omega _0\mathrm{\Delta },\omega _F`$, Eq. (11) reduces to

$$\delta ()\delta ()[g_b^2(b_{}^2b_+^2)+g_r^2(r_{}^2r_+^2)]\left[\frac{\omega _F}{2\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F)}\right].$$
(12)
In this approximation, we see that the Stark shifts vanish if we use linearly polarized light for the Raman beams. Moreover, if we use the exact expression for $`\delta ()\delta ()`$, we find that the Stark shift can be tuned to zero by adjusting $`r_{}r_+`$ and/or $`b_{}b_+`$ to small non-zero values.

### 2.4 Spontaneous emission

A fundamental limitation to the coherence of atomic qubits is spontaneous emission. When the qubits are formed from ground-state hyperfine levels, memory is not affected by spontaneous emission since these levels have very long radiative lifetimes. The problem arises from spontaneous emission during Raman transitions (see for example Plenio and Knight 1997, Di Fidio and Vogel 2000, Budini et al. 2002). As an estimate of the decoherence rate due to spontaneous emission we calculate the total spontaneous emission rate $`R_{SE}`$ from the $`2p`$ levels. This rate is equal to the sum of the probabilities $`P_i`$ that each intermediate (excited) state is occupied times its decay rate $`\gamma _i`$:

$$R_{SE}=\underset{i}{}\gamma _iP_i=\frac{1}{4\mathrm{}^2}\underset{i}{}\underset{\{j=r,b\}}{}\underset{\{m_S=,\}}{}P_{m_S}\gamma _i|m_S|\stackrel{}{d}E_j\widehat{ϵ}_j|i|^2/\mathrm{\Delta }_i^2,$$
(13)
where $`P_{m_S}`$ is the probability of being in the $`m_S`$ ground state. For our 9Be+ example, we find

$`R_{SE}=\gamma P_{}[{\displaystyle \frac{g_b^2(\frac{2}{3}b_{}^2+\frac{1}{3}b_0^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{g_b^2(\frac{1}{3}b_{}^2+\frac{2}{3}b_0^2+b_+^2)}{(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{g_r^2(\frac{2}{3}r_{}^2+\frac{1}{3}r_0^2)}{(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _0)^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{g_r^2(\frac{1}{3}r_{}^2+\frac{2}{3}r_0^2+r_+^2)}{(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _0\omega _F)^2}}]+\gamma P_{}[{\displaystyle \frac{g_b^2(\frac{1}{6}b_{}^2+\frac{1}{3}b_0^2+\frac{1}{2}b_+^2)}{(\mathrm{\Delta }+\omega _0)^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{g_b^2(\frac{5}{6}b_{}^2+\frac{2}{3}b_0^2+\frac{1}{2}b_+^2)}{(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F+\omega _0)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{g_r^2(\frac{1}{6}r_{}^2+\frac{1}{3}r_0^2+\frac{1}{2}r_+^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{g_r^2(\frac{5}{6}r_{}^2+\frac{2}{3}r_0^2+\frac{1}{2}r_+^2)}{(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F)^2}}],`$ (14)
where $`\gamma /2\pi =19.4`$ MHz. Of course, we want to minimize the probability of spontaneous emission during qubit operations. As one measure of this, we can calculate the probability of spontaneous emission during the time $`\tau _\pi `$ required to carry out a $`\pi `$ pulse on the carrier transition, given by $`\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _\pi =\pi /2`$ (Eqs. (4) and (5)). Since we also want to suppress Stark shifts, we take $`b_{}b_+`$ and $`r_{}r_+`$. During the $`\pi `$ transition, $`P_{}=P_{}=1/2`$. With these assumptions, Eq. (14) gives the probability of spontaneous emission during a carrier $`\pi `$ pulse as

$$P_{SE}=R_{SE}\tau _\pi \frac{\pi \gamma }{6|\mathrm{\Omega }_,|}\left(g_b^2+g_r^2\right)\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}+\frac{2}{(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F)^2}\right].$$
(15)
This expression is minimized with the choices $`\mathrm{\Delta }=(\sqrt{2}1)\omega _F82`$ GHz, $`g_b=g_r`$, and $`b_0=1,r_+=r_{}=1/\sqrt{2}`$ ($`b_+=b_{}=r_0=0`$) giving the value $`P_{SE}=(8\pi /\sqrt{6})(\gamma /\omega _F)0.001`$. This probability will be increased by $`1/\eta `$ for sideband transitions (in the Lamb-Dicke limit). For this reason, 9Be+ will not be a good choice for the ultimate qubit since probabilities for errors during a gate operation must be on the order of $`10^4`$ or smaller to be able to incorporate error correction into long computations (Steane 2002).

To suppress the effects of spontaneous emission, we want an ion with a small ratio of spontaneous decay rate $`\gamma `$ to fine structure splitting (see for example, Wineland 2002). To make a straightforward comparison between different ions, we calculate the probability of spontaneous emission for various ions with half odd-integer nuclear spin $`I`$ for a $`\pi `$ pulse on the carrier of the $`|F=I1/2,m_F=0|F=I+1/2,m_F=0`$ transition. The Rabi rate for these transitions will be independent of $`I`$. Moreover, the frequencies of these transitions deviate from their values at magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}=0`$ by an amount proportional to $`|\stackrel{}{B}|^2`$ and are therefore first-order independent of field fluctuations as $`|\stackrel{}{B}|0`$. Again making the approximations $`\omega _0,\gamma \omega _F,|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$, we find

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{00}=\frac{g_bg_r\omega _F}{3\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F)}(b_{}r_{}b_+r_+)$$
(16)
and

$$R_{SE}=\gamma \frac{g_b^2+g_r^2}{3}\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}+\frac{2}{(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F)^2}\right].$$
(17)
For simplicity we have taken the value of $`\gamma `$ to be that corresponding to the relevant $`{}_{}{}^{2}P_{1/2}^{}`$ level, we have assumed pure $`{}_{}{}^{2}P_{1/2}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{2}P_{3/2}^{}`$ configurations, and we have included coupling to only this pair of fine-structure levels. These approximations should be most accurate for the lighter ions. We can minimize $`R_{SE}/|\mathrm{\Omega }_{00}|`$ by choosing $`\mathrm{\Delta }=(\sqrt{2}1)\omega _F`$, $`g_b=g_r`$, and the experimentally convenient choice of orthogonal linear polarizations for the Raman beams ($`b_{}=r_{}=b_+=r_+=1/\sqrt{2}`$). This leads to a probability of spontaneous emission during a carrier $`\pi `$ pulse given by $`P_{SE}=2\sqrt{2}\pi \gamma /\omega _F`$. The Stark shift of the transition is equal to

$$\delta _{00}=\frac{(g_b^2+g_r^2)\omega _0}{3}\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}+\frac{2}{(\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F)^2}\right],$$
(18)
which is independent of polarization. For the conditions above, we find $`\delta _{00}=4\sqrt{2}|\mathrm{\Omega }_{00}|\omega _0/\omega _F`$. In Table 1 we tabulate $`|\delta _{00}/\mathrm{\Omega }_{00}|`$ and $`P_{SE}`$ for a few ions of interest.

In the Lamb-Dicke limit, sideband transitions and two-qubit gates will necessarily have a higher probability of spontaneous emission since the Rabi frequencies for these processes scale as the carrier frequency times $`\eta `$, whereas the spontaneous emission rate will remain unchanged. Therefore, from Table 1 we see that, in order to suppress the probability of spontaneous emission during Raman transitions, a heavy ion such as Cd+ (Blinov et al. 2002) will ultimately be required. Moreover, even for heavy ions, there is not much headroom on fidelity to reach fault tolerance. Therefore, for fault-tolerant quantum computation, values of $`\eta `$ should not be too small compared to unity; that is, the Lamb-Dicke limit will not be a good approximation. This implies the need for precise control of the motion (e.g., ground state cooling) since the gate Rabi rates will depend on the motional states. In addition, schemes that incorporate error resistant methods such as adiabatic passage, spin echo, and composite pulses like those used in NMR (Cummings et al. 2002, Jones 2002) will have to be used sparingly, if at all, since these techniques increase the probability of spontaneous emission for each logical operation.

In principle, we can relax these restrictions by making $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|\omega _{FS}`$. In the above discussion we have estimated decoherence using the total rate of spontaneous emission (Eqs. (14) and (17)). However, when $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|\omega _{FS}`$, spontaneous emission is dominated by Raleigh scattering and the decoherence rate will be suppressed compared to the total spontaneous emission rate (see, for example, Cline et al. (1994)). The cost for making $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|\omega _{FS}`$ is that the Raman laser beam intensities must increase as $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ to maintain the same Rabi frequency. Moreover, for large values of $`\omega _{FS}`$, we must consider the decohering effects of spontaneous Raman scattering from levels other than the two fine-structure levels considered here.

Finally, we note that the spontaneous emission problem could be essentially eliminated by driving single-photon hyperfine carrier and sideband transitions at frequencies $`\omega _0`$ and $`\omega _0\pm \omega _z`$. However, it appears that in practice, currently attainable field gradients (necessary for sideband transitions) would lead to relatively small values of $`\eta `$ and therefore slow sideband transition Rabi rates (see, for example Wineland et al. 1992 and Mintert and Wunderlich 2001).

### 2.5 State initialization and detection

To initialize the qubits for each experiment, we use a combination of internal-state optical pumping to pump to the $`|`$ state and laser cooling to optically pump the motional modes to their ground states (Monroe et al. 1995a, King et al. 1998, Roos et al. 1999). As in many atomic physics experiments, the observable in the ion trap experiments is the ion’s spin qubit state. We can efficiently distinguish $`|`$ from $`|`$ using a cycling transition to implement “quantum jump” detection (Blatt & Zoller 1988).

## 3 Gates

The previous sections summarize the basic sources of entanglement in ion experiments from which universal logic gates have been constructed. For example, a CNOT and $`\pi `$-phase gate between the motion and spin qubit for a single ion has been realized by Monroe et al. (1995b), Wineland et al. (1998), and DeMarco et al. (2002). Also, using the scheme suggested by Sørensen and Mølmer (1999, 2000) and Solano et al. (1999), the NIST group realized a universal gate between two spin qubits (Sackett et al. 2000, Kielpinski et al. 2001). Compared to the original Cirac and Zoller gate (1995), this last gate has the practical advantages that (1) laser-beam focusing (for individual ion addressing) is not required, (2) it can be carried out in one step, (3) it does not require use of an additional internal state, and (4) it does not require precise control of the motional state (as long as the Lamb-Dicke limit is satisfied). From this gate, a CNOT gate can be constructed (Sørensen and Mølmer (1999)). Below, we discuss a ($`\pi `$) phase gate based on a spin-dependent displacement operator.

### 3.1 Geometrical phase gate

We have recently realized a ($`\pi `$) phase gate between two spin qubits (Leibfried et al. 2002) that carried out the transformations: $`||||`$, $`||||`$, $`||||`$, and $`||||`$. Consider constructing a closed path in phase space (for a particular motional mode) so that the state returns to its original position. We can derive the effects of this transformation by constructing the closed path from a series of successive applications of the displacement operator (see for example, Walls & Milburn 1994) with infinitesimal displacements. The net effect is that the wave function describing the ion (or ions) acquires an overall phase shift that depends on the area enclosed by the path.

The second element required for the gate is to make the area of the path be spin-dependent. This is accomplished by making the displacement in phase space with a spin-dependent optical dipole force. This, at first, seems to be impossible if we require that the net Stark shift between the $`|`$ and $`|`$ states be equal to zero since optical dipole forces and Stark shifts are proportional. However, we can make the time-averaged Stark shift $`\delta ()\delta ()`$ be equal to zero for durations much greater than $`2\pi /\omega _z`$ and still realize a spin dependent displacement operator if we choose the polarizations of the Raman laser beams appropriately. The basic idea is that we make the dipole force (sinusoidally varying at frequency $`\omega _z`$) have a different phase for the $`|`$ and $`|`$ states.

For simplicity, assume both Raman beams are linearly polarized with polarization perpendicular to the quantizing magnetic field. Also assume that the red-Raman beam polarization has an angle $`\kappa `$ with respect to that of the blue-Raman beam. Hence we have $`E_b\widehat{ϵ_b}=E_b(b_{}\widehat{\sigma }_{}+b_+\widehat{\sigma }_+)`$ and $`E_r\widehat{ϵ_r}=E_r(r_{}\widehat{\sigma }_{}+r_+\widehat{\sigma }_+e^{i2\kappa })`$ where, as before, we take $`b_{}b_+b`$ and $`r_{}r_+r`$ to make $`\delta ()\delta ()=0`$. For our 9Be+ example, the interaction Hamiltonian is given by Eqs. (7) and (8), with

$$\mathrm{\Omega }()=g_rg_bbr\left[\frac{2/3}{\mathrm{\Delta }}+\frac{1/3+e^{i2\kappa }}{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F}\right],\mathrm{\Omega }()=g_rg_bbr\left[\frac{1/6+1/2e^{i2\kappa }}{\mathrm{\Delta }}+\frac{5/6+1/2e^{2i\kappa }}{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _F}\right].$$
(19)
By choosing the polarizations orthogonal ($`\kappa =\pi /2`$) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=(\sqrt{2}1)\omega _F`$, we find

$$\mathrm{\Omega }()=\frac{2g_bg_rbr}{3(3\sqrt{2}4)\omega _F}=2\mathrm{\Omega }().$$
(20)
Hence, the dipole force on the $`|`$ state is twice that on the $`|`$ state and in the opposite direction. (This same displacement operator has been used previously to create Schrödinger cat states of a single ion (Myatt et al. 2000).) To implement this gate on two ions, the Raman transition beams were separated in frequency by $`\sqrt{3}\omega _z+\delta `$, where $`\sqrt{3}\omega _z`$ is the stretch mode frequency for two ions aligned along the $`z`$ axis and $`\delta `$ is a small detuning ($`\omega _z`$). The separation of the ions was adjusted to be an integer multiple of $`2\pi /\mathrm{\Delta }k`$ so that the optical-dipole force on each ion was in the same direction if the ions were in the same spin state but in opposite directions if the spin states was different (Eq. (20)). This had the effect that the application of the laser beams to the $`||`$ and $`||`$ states caused excitation on the stretch mode but the motion was not excited when the ions were in the $`||`$ or $`||`$ states. The detuning $`\delta `$ and duration of the displacement pulses ($`2\pi /\delta `$) were chosen to make one complete (circular) path in phase space with an area that gave a phase shift of $`\pi /2`$ on the $`||`$ and $`||`$ states (Fig. 2). Under these conditions, the overall transformation was: $`||||`$, $`||e^{i\pi /2}||`$, $`||e^{i\pi /2}||`$, and$`||||=e^{i\pi }e^{i\pi }||`$. Therefore, this operator acts like the product of an operator that applies a $`\pi /2`$ phase shift to the $`|`$ state on each ion separately (a non-entangling gate) and $`\pi `$ phase gate between the two ions. The $`\pi /2`$ phase shifts can be removed by applying additional single qubit rotations or accounted for in software. (In an algorithm carried out by a series of single-qubit rotations and two-qubit phase gates, the extra phase shifts can be removed by appropriately shifting the phase of subsequent or prior single-qubit rotations.)

This phase gate is a particular case of the more general formalism developed by Milburn et al. (1999), Sørensen and Mølmer (1999), and Wang et al. (2001). Compared to the original Cirac and Zoller gate (1995) this gate shares the same advantages as the Sørensen and Mølmer gate (2000) as well as some additional technical advantages (Leibfried et al. 2002).

## 4 Whither quantum computation?

Although simple operations among a few ion qubits have been demonstrated, a viable quantum computer must look towards scaling to very large numbers of qubits. As the number of ions in a trap increases, several difficulties are encountered. For example, the addition of each ion adds three vibrational modes. It soon becomes nearly impossible to spectrally isolate the desired vibrational mode unless the speed of operations is slowed to undesirable levels (see for example Wineland et al. 1998, Steane and Lucas, 2000). Furthermore, since error correction will most likely be incorporated into any large processor, it will be desirable to measure and reset ancilla qubits without disturbing the coherence of logical qubits. Since ion qubits are typically measured by means of state-dependent laser scattering, the scattered light from ancilla qubits held in a common trap may disturb the coherence of the logical qubits.

For these and other reasons, it appears that a scalable ion-trap system must incorporate arrays of interconnected traps, each holding a small number of ions. The information carriers between traps might be photons (Cirac et al. 1997, Pellizzari 1997, De Voe 1998), or ions that are moved between traps in the array. In the latter case, a “head” ion held in a movable trap could carry the information by moving from site-to-site as in the proposal of Cirac and Zoller (2000). Similarly, as has been proposed at NIST, we could shuttle ions around in an array of interconnected traps (Wineland et al. 1998, Kielpinski et al. 2002). In this last scheme, the idea is to move ions between nodes in the array by applying time-dependent potentials to “control” electrode segments. To perform logic operations between selected ions, these ions are transferred into an “accumulator” trap for the gate operation. Before the gate operation is performed, it may be necessary to sympathetically re-cool the qubit ions with another ion species. Subsequently, these ions are moved to memory locations or other accumulators. This strategy always maintains a relatively small number of motional modes that must be considered and minimizes the problems of ion/laser-beam addressing using focused laser beams. Such arrays also enable highly parallel processing and ancilla qubit readout in separate trapping regions so that the logical ions are shielded from the scattered laser light. Some of the initial steps towards this scheme have been reported by Rowe et al. (2002).

The obstacles to building a large-scale quantum computer appear to be technical rather than fundamental. However since it will be a long time before a useful processor is constructed, it is helpful to have some intermediate goals upon which projections about scaling can be made. Examples goals might be the demonstration of repetitive error correction (see for example, Nielsen and Chuang 2000) and the realization of gates at the fault-tolerant level of fidelity (Steane 2002).

## 5 Acknowledgements

We thank Marie Jensen and Windell Oskay for helpful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the U. S. National Security Agency (NSA) and Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA) under Contract No. MOD-7171.00, and the U. S. Office of Naval Research (ONR). The article is a contribution of NIST and not subject to U.S. copyright.


text:
# Theta Term in QCD sum rules at Finite Temperature and the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment

## INTRODUCTION

To establish connection between particle physics and cosmology, it is essential to study the behaviour of symmetry breaking in the early universe, i.e. at high temperature. The CP symmetry is, without doubt, one of the most fundamental symmetries in nature. It is intimately related to theories of interactions between elementary particles and represents a cornerstone in constructing grand unified and supersymmetric models. However, its breaking still carries a cloud of mystery in particle physics and cosmology since it is necessary to explain baryogenesis and is required by theories with domain walls.

According to the CPT theorem, CP violation implies T violation. The latter is tested through the measurement of the neutron electric dipole moment (NEDM) $`d_n`$. The upper experimental limit gives confidence that the NEDM can be another manifestation of CP breaking. In the Standard Model, CP violation is originated from two sources: the first source, which appears in the electroweak sector, is parametrized by a single phase in the Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix . The other source is due to the the so called $`\theta `$-term of QCD. In fact, the the QCD effective lagrangian contains an additional CP-odd four dimensional operator embedded in the following topological term:

$$L_\theta =\theta \frac{\alpha _s}{8\pi }G_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{G}^{\mu \nu },$$
(1)
where $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ is the gluonic field strength, $`\stackrel{~}{G}^{\mu \nu }`$ is its dual and $`\alpha _s`$ is the strong coupling constant. The $`G_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{G}^{\mu \nu }`$ quantity is a total derivative, consequently it contribute to the physical observables only through non perturbative effects. The NEDM is related to the $`\overline{\theta }`$-angle by the following relation:

$$d_n\frac{e}{M_n}(\frac{m_q}{M_n})\overline{\theta }\{\begin{array}{c}2.7\times 10^{16}\overline{\theta }\text{[3]}\\ 5.2\times 10^{16}\overline{\theta }\text{[4]}\end{array}$$
(2)
and consequently, according to the experimental measurements $`d_n<1.1\times 10^{25}ecm`$ , the $`\overline{\theta }`$ parameter must be less than $`2\times 10^{10}`$ . The well known strong CP problem consists in explaining the smallness of $`\overline{\theta }`$. In this regard, several scenarios were suggested. The most popular one is the Peccei and Quinn , in which $`\overline{\theta ]}`$ is identified to a very light pseudo goldstone boson called the axion. This particle arises from the spontaneous breakdown of a global $`U_A(1)`$ symmetry and may well be important to explain the puzzle of dark matter providing a peace of information on the missing mass of the universe .

Our aim in this work is to study the thermal behaviour of the CP symmetry breaking and the temperature effects on its restoration. This is motivated by the possibility to restore some broken symmetries by increasing the temperature.

This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 is devoted to the calculations of the NEDM induced by the $`\overline{\theta }`$ using QCD sum rules. In section 3, we show how one introduces temperature in QCD sum rules calculations. The last section is devoted to a discussion and qualitative analysis of the thermal effects on the CP symmetry.

## NEDM from QCD sum rules

Since the NEDM has essaentially a non perturbative nature, one should any how take into account some effects which escape the perturbative treatement. One such approach, dealing with the strong strong coupling regime and based on first principales of the theory is QCD sum rules. Such approach has been applied successfully to the investigation of hadronic properties at low energies, particularly to certain baryonic magnetic form factor. In order to derive the NEDM through through this approach , we consider a lagrangian containing the following P and CP violating operators:

$$L_{P,CP}=\theta _qm_{}\underset{f}{}\overline{q}_fi\gamma _5q_f+\theta \frac{\alpha _s}{8\pi }G_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{G}^{\mu \nu }.$$
(3)
$`\theta _q`$ and $`\theta `$ are respectively two angles coming from the chiral and the topological terms and $`m_{}`$ is the quark reduced mass given by $`m_{}`$=$`\frac{m_um_d}{m_u+m_d}`$. Then, as usual, we start from the two points correlation function in QCD background with a nonvanishing $`\theta `$ and in the presence of a constant external electomagnetic field $`F^{\mu \nu }`$ :

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(q^2)=id^4xe^{iqx}<0|T\{\eta (x)\overline{\eta }(0)\}|0>_{\theta ,F}.$$
(4)
where $`\eta (x)`$ is the neutron interpolating current :

$$\eta =2ϵ_{abc}\{(d_a^TC\gamma _5u_b)d_c+\beta (d_a^TCu_b)\gamma _5d_c\},$$
(5)
and $`\beta `$ is a mixing parameter. To select the appropriate Lorentz stucture, $`\mathrm{\Pi }(q^2)`$ is expanded in terms of the electromagnetic charge as:

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(q^2)=\mathrm{\Pi }^{(0)}(q^2)+e\mathrm{\Pi }^{(1)}(q^2,F^{\mu \nu })+O(e^2).$$
(6)
The first term $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{(0)}(q^2)`$ is the nucleon propagator which includes only the CP-even parameters, while the second term $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{(1)}(q^2,F^{\mu \nu })`$ is the polarization tensor which may be expanded through Wilson OPE as: $`C_n<0|\overline{q}\mathrm{\Gamma }q|0>_{\theta ,F}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is an arbitrary Lorentz structure and $`C_n`$ are the Wilson coefficient functions calculable in perturbation theory . From this expansion, we keep only the CP-odd contribution part. The electromagnetic dependence of these matrix elements is determined in terms of the magnetic susceptibilities $`\kappa `$, $`\chi `$ and $`\xi `$, defined as :

$`<0|\overline{q}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }q|0>_F`$ $`=`$ $`\chi e_qF^{\mu \nu }<0|\overline{q}q|0>`$ (7)
$`g<0|\overline{q}G^{\mu \nu }q|0>_F`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa e_qF^{\mu \nu }<0|\overline{q}q|0>`$ (8)
$`2g<0|\overline{q}\stackrel{~}{G}^{\mu \nu }q|0>_F`$ $`=`$ $`\xi e_qF^{\mu \nu }<0|\overline{q}q|0>`$ (9)
Besides, by considering the anomalous axial current, one obtains the following $`\theta `$ dependence of $`<0|\overline{q}\mathrm{\Gamma }q|0>_\theta `$ matrix elements :

$$m_q<0|\overline{q}\mathrm{\Gamma }q|0>_\theta =im_{}\theta <0|\overline{q}\mathrm{\Gamma }q|0>+O(m_q^2)$$
(10)
where $`m_q`$ and $`m_{}`$ are respectively the quark and reduced masses. $`O(m_q^2)`$ connection is negligible since $`m_\eta >>m_\pi `$.

Putting altogether the above ingredients and after a straightforward calculation , the following expression of $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{(1)}(q^2,F^{\mu \nu })`$ for the neutron is derived:

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\theta }m_{}}{64\pi ^2}}<0|\overline{q}q|0>\{\stackrel{~}{F}\sigma ,\widehat{q}\}[\chi (\beta +1)^2(4e_de_u)\mathrm{ln}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{q^2}})`$ (11)
$`4(\beta 1)^2e_d(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(2\kappa +\xi ))(\mathrm{ln}({\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{\mu _{IR}^2}})1){\displaystyle \frac{1}{q^2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\xi }{2}}((4\beta ^24\beta +2)e_d+(3\beta ^2+2\beta +1)e_u){\displaystyle \frac{1}{q^2}}\mathrm{}],`$
where $`\overline{\theta }=\theta +\theta _q`$ is the physical phase and $`\widehat{q}=q_\mu \gamma ^\mu `$.
The QCD expression (2.7) is confronted to the phenomenological parametrisation $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{Phen}`$$`(q^2)`$ written in terms of the Neutron hadronic properties. The latter is given by:

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{Phen}(q^2)=\{\stackrel{~}{F}\sigma ,\widehat{q}\}(\frac{\lambda ^2d_nm_n}{(q^2m_n^2)^2}+\frac{A}{(q^2m_n^2)}+\mathrm{}),$$
(12)
where $`m_n`$ is the neutron mass, $`e_q`$ is the quark charge. A and $`\lambda ^2`$, which originate from the phenomenological side of the sum rule, represent respectively a constant of dimension 2 and the neutron coupling constant to the interpolating current $`\eta (x)`$. This coupling is defined via a spinor $`v`$ as $`<0|\eta (x)|n>=\lambda ve^{\alpha \gamma _5}`$.

## Thermal NEDM sum rules

The introduction of finite temperature effects may provide more precision to the phenomenological values of hadronic observables. Within the framework of QCD sum rules, the Temperature evolution of the correlation functions manifests itself in the thermal average of the Wilson operator expansion. Hence, at relatively low temperature, the system can be regarded as a non interacting gas of bosons. In this approximatyion, the Thermal dependance of the vacuum condensates can be written as :

$$<O^i>_T=<O^i>+\frac{d^3p}{2ϵ(2\pi )^3}<\pi (p)|O^i|\pi (p)>n_B(\frac{ϵ}{T})$$
(13)
where $`ϵ=\sqrt{p^2+m_\pi ^2}`$, $`n_B=\frac{1}{e^x1}`$is the Bose-Einstein distribution and $`<O^i>`$ is the standard vacuum condensate (i.e. at T=0). In this approximation, we only kept the pion contributions, since in the low temperature region, the effects of heavier resonances $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }=K,\eta ,..etc)`$ are dumped by their distibution functions $`e^{\frac{m_\mathrm{\Gamma }}{T}}`$. To compute the pion matrix elements, we apply the soft pion theorem given by:

$$<\pi (p)|O^i|\pi (p)>=\frac{1}{f_\pi ^2}<0|[Q_5^a,[Q_5^a,O^i]]|0>+O(\frac{m_\pi ^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}),$$
(14)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is a hadron scale and $`Q_5^a`$ is the isovector axial charge defined by:

$$Q_5^a=d^3x\overline{q}(x)\gamma _0\gamma _5\frac{\tau ^a}{2}q(x).$$
(15)
Direct application of the above formula to the quark and gluon condensates shows the following features:
(i) Only $`<\overline{q}q>`$ is sensitive to temperature. Its behaviour at finite T is given by:

$$<\overline{q}q>_T(1\frac{\phi (T)}{8})<\overline{q}q>,$$
(16)
where $`\phi (T)=\frac{T^2}{f_\pi ^2}B(\frac{m_\pi }{T})`$ with $`B(z)=\frac{6}{\pi ^2}_z^{\mathrm{}}𝑑y\frac{\sqrt{y^2z^2}}{e^y1}`$ and $`f_\pi `$ is the pion decay constant ($`f_\pi 93MeV`$). The variation with temperature of the quark condensate $`<\overline{q}q>_T`$ results in two different asymptotic behaviours, namely:

$$<\overline{q}q>_T(1\frac{T^2}{8f_\pi ^2})<\overline{q}q>for\frac{m_\pi }{T}1$$
(17)
$$<\overline{q}q>_T(1\sqrt{\frac{\pi m_\pi }{2T}}\frac{T^2}{8f_\pi ^2}e^{\frac{m_\pi }{T}})<\overline{q}q>for\frac{m_\pi }{T}1$$
(18)
(ii) The gluon condensate is nearly constant at low temperature and a T dependence occurs only at order $`T^8`$.

The determination of the ratio $`\frac{d_n}{\overline{\theta }}`$ sum rules at non zero temperature is now easily performed by applying Borel operator to both parametrisation of the Neutron correlation function shown in Eqs. (2.7) and (2.8). Then finite temperature effects are introduced via the procedure discussed above. Finally, by invoking the quark-hadron duality, we deduce the final sum rules of the $`\overline{\theta }`$ induced NEDM at finite temperature:

$$\frac{d_n}{\overline{\theta }}(T)=\frac{M^2m_{}}{16\pi ^2}\frac{1}{\lambda _n^2(T)M_n(T)}(1\frac{\phi (T)}{8})<\overline{q}q>[4\chi (4e_ue_d)\frac{\xi }{2M^2}(4e_u+8e_d)]e^{\frac{M_n^2}{M^2}},$$
(19)
where M represents the Borel parameter. The single pole contribution entering the sum rules via the constant A has been neglected, as suggested in .
The value of $`\beta `$ has been set to 1 in (3.5). This choice is more appropriate for us since it suppresses the infrared divergences. The T- evolution of the coupling constant and the mass of the neutron were determined from the thermal nucleon sum rules .

Within the dilute pion gas approximation, Eletsky has shown that the contribution induced the pion-nucleon scattering has to be considered . It enters the nucleon sum rules through the coupling constant $`g_{\pi NN}`$, whose values lie within the range 13.5-14.3 .
Numerical analysis is performed with the following input parameters: the Borel mass has been chosen within the values $`M^2=0.550.7GeV^2`$ which correspond to the optimal range (Borel window) in the $`\frac{d_n}{\overline{\theta }}`$ sum rule at $`T=0`$ . For the $`\chi `$ and $`\xi `$ susceptibilities we take $`\chi =5.7\pm 0.6GeV^2`$  and $`\xi =0.74\pm 0.2`$ . As to the vacuum condensates appearing in (3.5), we use their standard values .

## Analysis and Conclusion

We have established the relation between the NEDM and $`\overline{\theta }`$ angle at non zero temperature from QCD sum rules. We find that the behaviour of the ratio$`\frac{d_n}{\overline{\theta }}`$ is connected to the thermal evolution of the pion parameters $`f_\pi `$, $`m_\pi `$ and of $`g_{\pi NN}`$.
By analysing the ratio as a function of T in the region of validity of thermal sum-rules $`[0,T_c]`$, we learn that $`\frac{d_n}{\overline{\theta }}`$ decreases smoothly with T (about 16$`\%`$ variation for temperature values up to 200 MeV) but survives at finite temperature. This means that either the NEDM value decreases or $`\overline{\theta }`$ increases. Consequently, for a fixed value of $`\overline{\theta }`$ the NEDM decreases but it does not exhibit any critical behaviour. Furthermore, if we start from a non vanishing $`\overline{\theta }`$ value at $`T=0`$, it is not possible to remove it at finite temperature. We also note that $`\frac{d_n}{\overline{\theta }}`$ grows as $`M^2`$ or $`\chi `$ susceptibility increases. It also grows with quark condensate rising. However this ratio is insensitive to both the $`\xi `$ susceptibility and the coupling constant $`g_{\pi NN}`$. We notice that for higher temperatures, the analysis of $`\frac{d_n}{\overline{\theta }}=f(\frac{T}{T_c})`$ exhibits a brutal increase justified by the fact that for temperatures beyond the critical value $`T_c`$, at which the chiral symmetry is restored, the constants $`f_\pi `$ and $`g_{\pi NN}`$ become zero and consequently from Eq(3.5) the ratio $`\frac{d_n}{\overline{\theta }}`$ behaves as a non vanishing constant. The large difference between the values of the ratio for $`T<T_c`$ and $`T>T_c`$ may be a consequence of the fact that other contributions to the the spectral function have ben neglected, like the scattering process $`N+\pi \mathrm{\Delta }`$. These contributions which are of the order $`T^4`$, are negligible in the low temperture region but become substantial for $`TT_c`$. Moreover, this difference may also originate from the use of soft pion approximation which is valid essentially for low $`T`$ ($`T<T_c`$). Therefore it is clear from this qualitative analysis, which is based on the soft pion approximation, that temperature does not play a fundamental role in the suppression of the undesired $`\theta `$-term and hence the broken CP symmetry is not restored . Indeed, some exact symmetries can be broken by increasing temperature . The symmetry non restoration phenomenon, which means that a broken symmetry at T=0 remains broken even at high temperature, is essential for discrete symmetries, CP symmetry in particular. Indeed, the symmetry non restoration allows us to avoid wall domains inherited after the phase transition  and to explain the baryogenesis phenomenon in cosmology . Furthermore, it can be very useful for solving the monopole problem in grand unified theories .

AKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is deeply grateful to Prof. Brigitte Hiller and to the organization Committe for the invitation to the Second International Conference on Hadron Physics. He also wishes to thank Prof. Joao Providencia for his hospitality during the visit to CPT at Coimbra.
This work is supported by the convention de cooperation between CNRST/ICCTI 681.02/CNR.