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# The Influence of Quantum Field Fluctuations on Chaotic Dynamics of Yang–Mills System

## Abstract

On example of the model field system we demonstrate that quantum fluctuations of non-abelian gauge fields leading to radiative corrections to Higgs potential and spontaneous symmetry breaking can generate order region in phase space of inherently chaotic classical field system. We demonstrate on the example of another model field system that quantum fluctuations do not influence on the chaotic dynamics of non-abelian Yang–Mills fields if the ratio of bare coupling constants of Yang–Mills and Higgs fields is larger then some critical value. This critical value is estimated.

A steady interest to chaos in gauge field theories (GFT)  is connected with the facts that all four fundamental particle interactions have chaotic solutions . There are a lot of footprints on chaos in HEP , nuclear physics (energy spacing distributions) , quantum mechanics (QM) .

Originally phenomenon of chaos was associated with problems of classical mechanics and statistical physics. Substantiation of statistical mechanics initiated intensive study of chaos and uncovered its basic properties mainly in classical mechanics . One of the main results in this direction was a creation of KAM theory and understanding of phase space structure of Hamiltonian systems. It was clarified that the root of chaos is local instability of dynamical system. Local instability leads to mixing of trajectories in phase space and thus to non-regular behavior of system and chaos (for review see ).

Large progress is achieved in understanding of chaos in semi-classical regime of quantum mechanics .

Investigation of stability of classical field solutions faces difficulties caused by infinite number of degrees of freedom. That is why authors often restrict their consideration by the investigation of some model field configurations .

There are papers devoted to chaos in quantum field theory . Nevertheless there is no generally recognized definition of chaos for quantum systems in QM (beyond semiclassical approximation) and QFT . This fact restricts use of chaos theory in the field of elementary particle physics.

It was analytically  and numerically  shown that classical gauge Yang–Mills theories (GYMT) are inherently chaotic theories. Particulary, it was shown for spatially homogeneous field configurations  that spontaneous symmetry breakdown leads to appearance of order-chaos transition with rise of density of energy of classical gauge fields , whereas dynamics of gauge fields in the absence of spontaneous symmetry breakdown is chaotic at any density of energy . This conclusion was supported by studying the stability of topological solutions . Study of chaos in classical GYMTs revealed several new problems. One of them is to understand the role of Higgs fields from the viewpoint of their influence on chaotic dynamics of classical gauge fields. It was demonstrated that classical Higgs fields regularize chaotic dynamics of classical gauge fields at low densities of energy and lead to appearance of order-chaos transition . The most of the results concerning chaos in GYMTs are obtained in classical theories. The question about chaotic properties of quantum GYMTs remains open. However, it was demonstrated that quantum fluctuations of abelian gauge field leading to spontaneous symmetry breaking via Coleman–Weinberg effect  regularize chaotic dynamics of spatially homogeneous system of Yang–Mills and Higgs fields at small densities of energy .

In this Letter we demonstrate that the same effect takes place in the case of non-abelian gauge field theory such as the theory of electroweak interactions. Namely, the “switching on” of quantum fluctuations of vector gauge fields leads to ordering at low densities of energy, order-to-chaos transition with the rise of density of energy of gauge fields occurs (compare with ). This phenomenon escapes one’s notion under classical consideration and thus we make the step to understanding the role of chaos in GYMTs. Also we note that if the ratio of the coupling constants of Yang–Mills and Higgs fields is larger than some critical value then quantum corrections do not affect the chaotic dynamics of gauge and Higgs fields.

Consider $`SU(2)U(1)`$ gauge field theory with real massless scalar field $`\rho `$ with the Lagrangian

$$L=\frac{1}{4}G_{\mu \nu }^aG^a{}_{}{}^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}H_{\mu \nu }H^{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{8}g^2\rho ^2(W_1^2+W_2^2+\frac{Z^2}{\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _w})$$

$$+\frac{1}{2}_\mu \rho ^\mu \rho \frac{1}{4!}\lambda \rho ^4.$$
(1)
Here $`\lambda `$ denotes a self-coupling constant of scalar field, $`g`$ — self-coupling constant of non-abelian gauge fields, $`\theta _w`$ is Weinberg angle, $`A_\mu `$ corresponds electro-magnetic field, $`W_\mu ^1`$, $`W_\mu ^2`$ describe W-bosons and $`Z_\mu `$ — neutral Z-boson.

We used the following denotations

$$G_{\mu \nu }^a=_\mu W_\nu ^a_\nu W_\mu ^a+g\epsilon ^{abc}W_\mu ^bW_\nu ^c,a=1,2,3;$$

$$H_{\mu \nu }=_\mu W_\nu ^0_\nu W_\mu ^0.$$

To study the dynamics of classical gauge fields from the viewpoint of chaos we use spatially homogeneous solutions . Their dynamics in the classical vacuum of scalar field $`\rho =0`$ is chaotic at any densities of energy .

Situation qualitatively changes if we take into account quantum fluctuations of vector fields. It is caused by the known fact that the state $`\rho =0`$ is not a vacuum state in this case. Here $`\rho `$ denotes vacuum quantum expectation value of scalar field related with its classical vacuum value $`\rho `$ as follows $`\rho =\rho +\text{quantum corrections}`$. To find a true vacuum of scalar field in this case we use the method of the effective potential .

One loop effective potential generated by the Lagrangian (1) has the form (see also )

$$U\left(\rho \right)=\frac{1}{4!}\lambda \rho ^4+\frac{3g^4\rho ^4}{128\pi ^2}\left(\frac{1}{2}+\mathrm{ln}\frac{g^2\rho ^2}{2\mu ^2}\right)$$

$$+\frac{3g^4\rho ^4}{256\pi ^2\mathrm{cos}^4\theta _w}\left(\frac{1}{2}+\mathrm{ln}\frac{g^2\rho ^2}{2\mu ^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _w}\right).$$
(2)
Where $`\mu ^2`$ is a renormalization constant. Here we took into account contributions of all Feynman diagrams with one loop of any ($`W_1`$, $`W_2`$, $`Z`$ or $`A`$) gauge field and external lines of Higgs field. This potential leads to spontaneous symmetry breaking and non-zero vacuum expectation value of scalar $`\rho `$-field appears. Classical vacuum of scalar field is $`\rho =0`$, but it is not so in quantum case, because of Coleman–Weinberg effect .

In the case of the Lagrangian (1) it is known that vacuum state of the scalar field becomes degenerated and $`\rho 0`$ if we take into account quantum properties of gauge fields .

It is easy to calculate that the squared vacuum expectation value equals

$$\rho _v^2=\frac{2\mu ^2}{g^2}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\left(18g^4\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{cos}\theta _w32\pi ^2\lambda \mathrm{cos}^4\theta _w\right)}{9g^4\left(1+2\mathrm{cos}^4\theta _w\right)}\right].$$

Its existence qualitatively changes chaotic behavior of spatially homogeneous solutions in the quantum vacuum of scalar field compared to pure classical consideration. Order-to-chaos transition occurs with the rise of density of energy of non-abelian gauge fields (see also ).

To demonstrate this in more evident form let us consider a simplified model system. Full consideration does not add any new physical content.

We will investigate fields of the following form

$$W_i^a=e_i^aq^a\left(\tau \right),a=1,2,i=1,2,3;\left(\stackrel{}{e^a}\right)^2=1,\stackrel{}{e^1}\stackrel{}{e^2}=\mathrm{cos}\xi .$$
(3)
Here $`e_i^a`$ are constant vectors. Other classical gauge fields for simplicity are put to be equal to zero, but their quantum fluctuations are included and give contribution to the potential (2).

Lagrangian describing dynamics of the model field system has the following form

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\left(p_1^2+p_2^2\right)+\frac{1}{8}g^2\rho _v^2\left(q_1^2+q_2^2\right)+\frac{1}{2}g^2q_1^2q_2^2\mathrm{sin}^2\xi .$$
(4)
Here $`p_1`$, $`p_2`$ are momenta of gauge fields, $`0<\mathrm{sin}^2\xi <1`$ is a free parameter. Influence of quantum fluctuations on the classical model field configuration (3) is taken into account in (4). Lagrangian of the classical (no quantum corrections) model system follows from (4) if one puts $`\rho _v=0`$.

To analyze dynamics of the system from the viewpoint of chaos we use well known technique . Particulary, we reduce equations of motion expressed in action-angle variables (for instance see ) to discrete mapping by angle variable $`\overline{\psi }`$ and calculate parameter of local instability $`K=|\delta \overline{\psi }_{n+1}/\delta \overline{\psi }_n1|`$ defined in  ($`K>1`$ — motion is locally unstable and chaotic, $`K1`$ — motion is stable). Here $`\overline{\psi }_{n+1}`$ and $`\overline{\psi }_n`$ denote values of angle variable at $`(n+1)`$-th and $`n`$-th time step respectively. Form of the map and detailed calculations can be found in  where model system (4) was considered in different physical context.

Let us put $`\rho _v=0`$ (that corresponds to absence of gauge fields quantum fluctuations). In this case, as it was clarified in , dynamics of spatially homogeneous field configurations in the classical vacuum of real scalar field is always chaotic, at any, even small densities of energy. This conclusion agrees with the results of .

If vector gauge fields quantum fluctuations are “switched on”, and therefore $`\rho _v0`$, then parameter $`K`$ can be calculated (see ) and equals

$$K=\frac{8E\mathrm{sin}^2\xi }{g^2\rho _v^4}.$$
(5)
Here $`E`$ is the density of energy of the spatially homogeneous model field system (4). From (5) it follows that at small densities of energy motion is stable ($`K<1`$). At large enough densities of energy motion becomes unstable and non-regular ($`K>1`$). Thus if the density of energy of the model field system increases, we obtain order-to-chaos transition. Critical density of energy $`E_c`$ corresponding to this transition is given by the following expression

$$E_c=\frac{1}{8}\frac{g^2\rho _v^4}{\mathrm{sin}^2\xi }.$$

Thus at the densities of energy less than $`E_c`$ dynamics of the field system is regular and at the densities of energy larger than $`E_c`$ we obtain regions of unstable motion and chaos in the phase space of the system.

We can conclude that quantum properties of gauge fields are essential since they qualitatively change chaotic dynamics of classical gauge field configurations. Quantum gauge field fluctuations generated by the Lagrangian (1) lead classical non-abelian Yang–Mills fields to order at low densities of energy due to the same mechanism as it was demonstrated for abelian one . Thus order-to-chaos transition missed under the classical consideration can be obtained if one includes quantum effects.

Similar analysis can be made for boson sector of electro-weak theory including Higgs potential. In this case quantum corrections are considered against the background of the classical vacuum value of Higgs fields. Thus quantum fluctuations of fields lead only to quantitative changes.

Now in contrary we demonstrate that under the certain conditions quantum corrections to the Higgs potential leading to spontaneous symmetry breaking practically do not change chaotic behavior of classical Yang–Mills and Higgs fields. In order to affect essentially their dynamics the ratio $`\lambda /g^4`$ has to be less then some critical value which is calculated.

Starting from the Lagrangian (1) we build new model field system including Yang–Mills and Higgs fields. We consider spatially homogeneous fields. For non-abelian gauge fields we use the same assumptions and denotations as in (4). In order to simplify the problem we put $`\xi =0`$ which means that the fields of $`W^+`$ and $`W^{}`$ gauge bosons have the same linear polarization. Therefore the Hamiltonian of the model field system has the form

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\left(p_1^2+p_2^2+p^2\right)+\frac{1}{8}g^2\rho ^2\left(q_1^2+q_2^2\right)+U(\rho ).$$
(6)
Here $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ are momenta of gauge fields and $`p`$ is a momentum of Higgs field. Now we make the substitution $`q_1=r\mathrm{cos}\phi `$ and $`q_2=r\mathrm{sin}\phi `$. It is easy to see that $`\phi `$ is a cyclical variable and therefore its conjugate momentum $`p_\phi =r^2\dot{\phi }`$ is a constant of motion. Hamiltonian (6) can be written is the form

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\left(p_r^2+p^2\right)+\frac{1}{8}g^2\rho ^2r^2+U(\rho ).$$
(7)
Here $`p_r`$ is a conjugate momentum of $`r`$. We neglected by the term $`p_\phi ^2/r^2`$ compared to the term proportional to $`r^2`$ considering further classical Yang–Mills fields with high intensity. Using well known technique based on Toda criterion of local instability  one can obtain that there is an order to chaos transition with the rise of the density of energy of the system. Critical density of energy (minus vacuum density of energy which is non-zero) is given by the following relation

$$E_c=\frac{3\mu ^4}{64\pi ^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(2\alpha _w\frac{2\lambda }{g^4}\beta _w\right)\left(1+\frac{1}{2\mathrm{cos}^4\theta _w}\right)\left[17e^{48\mathrm{\Lambda }_w\beta _w}\right].$$
(8)
Here the following denotations are used

$$\alpha _w=\frac{2\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{cos}\theta _w}{1+2\mathrm{cos}^4\theta _w},\beta _w=\frac{32\pi ^2\mathrm{cos}^4\theta _w}{9\left(1+2\mathrm{cos}^4\theta _w\right)},$$

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_w=\frac{3}{128\pi ^2}\left(1+\frac{1}{2\mathrm{cos}^4\theta _w}\right).$$

If one does not take into account quantum corrections to Higgs potential it can be shown that the behavior of the system (7) is chaotic at any density of energy. From the expression (8) it is seen that $`E_c`$ can be exponentially suppressed if the ratio of bare coupling constants of Higgs and gauge fields is larger then some critical value. If this ratio is large enough $`E_c`$ exponentially close to zero and one does not observe any order to chaos transition. Otherwise, if the ratio of coupling constants is small enough, the critical density of energy given by the expression (8) have detectible value. Thus the magnitude of the critical density of energy strongly depends on the value of the ratio $`\lambda /g^4`$. Namely, if the following condition is true

$$\frac{\lambda }{g^4}<\frac{2}{\beta _w},$$

then quantum radiative corrections to Higgs potential affect the chaotic dynamics of the model system. Otherwise, at least one-loop effective potential can not essentially regularize chaotic dynamics.

In conclusion, we demonstrated that quantum fluctuations of non-abelian gauge fields leading to effective potential of Higgs field can regularize chaotic dynamics of Yang–Mills fields at low densities of energy. We showed also that if Higgs field is considered as a dynamical variable then under the conditions stated above quantum corrections do not affect classical dynamics of gauge and Higgs fields.

Quantum corrections are known to be important in the framework of QCD, where spontaneous symmetry breakdown is suggested to appear via Coleman–Weinberg effect. Therefore we can expect that there is order-to-chaos transition in QCD at low densities of energy as it is described above.

It is known that classical chaos influences on quantum properties of the system, for instance, on the rate of quantum tunnelling (chaos assisted tunnelling), see  and references therein. Here we have demonstrated that inverse effect exists also. Quantum fluctuations of the system can change its classical chaotic behavior.


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# Unconditionally Secure Key Distribution Based on Two Nonorthogonal States

## Abstract

We prove the unconditional security of the Bennett 1992 protocol, by using a reduction to an entanglement distillation protocol initiated by a local filtering process. The bit errors and the phase errors are correlated after the filtering, and we can bound the amount of phase errors from the observed bit errors by an estimation method involving nonorthogonal measurements. The angle between the two states shows a trade-off between accuracy of the estimation and robustness to noises.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides a way to share a secret key between two parties (Alice and Bob) with very small leak of information to an eavesdropper (Eve). One of the simplest of such protocols is called B92 B92 , which is based on the transmission of only two nonorthogonal states. For a qubit channel between Alice and Bob, this protocol proceeds as follows. Alice randomly chooses a bit value $`j`$, and prepare a qubit in state $`|\phi _j\beta |0_x+(1)^j\alpha |1_x`$, where $`0<\alpha <1/\sqrt{2}`$, $`\beta \sqrt{1\alpha ^2}`$, and $`\{|0_x,|1_x\}`$ is a basis ($`X`$-basis) of the qubit. She sends the qubit through the channel to Bob, who performs a measurement $`_{\mathrm{B92}}`$ with three outcomes $`j^{}=0,1,\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}\mathrm{null}\mathrm{"}`$. The measurement $`_{\mathrm{B92}}`$ is defined by the POVM $`F_0=|\overline{\phi }_1\overline{\phi }_1|/2`$, $`F_1=|\overline{\phi }_0\overline{\phi }_0|/2`$, and $`F_{\mathrm{null}}=1F_0F_1`$, where $`|\overline{\phi }_j\alpha |0_x(1)^j\beta |1_x`$ is the state orthogonal to $`|\phi _j`$. When the outcome is $`j^{}=\mathrm{null}`$, Bob announces that to Alice and they discard the event. Otherwise, they take notes of their bit values $`j`$ and $`j^{}`$, which should coincide in the absence of channel noises and Eve’s intervention. Repeating this procedure many times, each of Alice and Bob obtains a sequence of bits. Then they converts the sequences into a shared secret key through public discussions.

Although the QKD protocols themselves are simple, proving the unconditional security is quite hard, since Eve may make a very complicated attack such as interacting all of the transmitted qubits jointly to a big probe system. This task has been accomplished m98  for the BB84 protocol BB84 , which involves four states forming two conjugate bases. Subsequent proofs others ; lc98 ; sp00  have provided us more than a basic claim of security, including a beautiful interplay lc98 ; sp00  between QKD and other important protocols in quantum information, such as the entanglement distillation protocol (EDP) EPP  and the Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) quantum error correcting codes CSS . It is natural to ask about the unconditional security of the B92 protocol, which is conceptually the simplest of the QKD protocols. In contrast to BB84, it involves a free parameter $`\alpha `$ representing the nonorthogonality. The analyses of the B92 protocol is hence expected to give us an idea about how the nonorthogonality is related to the ability to convey secret information. Since the security proofs of BB84 rely on the symmetry of the protocol which is not shared in B92, it is not a trivial task to modify it for B92, except for the limiting case of $`|\phi _0|\phi _1|^2=1/2`$ qc02 .

In this Letter, we give a proof of the unconditional security of the B92 protocol for qubit channels, applicable to any amount of nonorthogonality $`\alpha `$. We show that the B92 protocol is related to an EDP initiated by a local filtering Gisin96 . We also develop a method to estimate an error rate by measuring randomly chosen samples on a different basis, which plays an important role in the proof.

We first introduce a protocol involving EDP, which is then shown to be reduced to the B92 protocol. We assume that Alice initially prepares a pair of qubits AB in the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{AB}}=\left(|0_z_\mathrm{A}|\phi _0_\mathrm{B}+|1_z_\mathrm{A}|\phi _1_\mathrm{B}\right)/\sqrt{2}`$, which is nonmaximally entangled. Here $`Z`$-basis $`\{|0_z,|1_z\}`$ of a qubit is related to the $`X`$-basis by $`|j_z=[|0_x+(1)^j|1_x]/\sqrt{2}`$. Alice sends Bob the qubit B through a quantum channel. Suppose that Bob performs a “local filtering operation” on qubit B, described by the Hermitian operator $`F_{\mathrm{fil}}\alpha |0_x_\mathrm{B}0_x|+\beta |1_x_\mathrm{B}1_x|`$. When the state of AB was $`\rho `$, the qubit B passes the filtering with probability $`p=\mathrm{Tr}[\rho (\mathrm{𝟏}_\mathrm{A}F_{\mathrm{fil}})^2]`$, resulting in the filtered state $`[(\mathrm{𝟏}_\mathrm{A}F_{\mathrm{fil}})\rho (\mathrm{𝟏}_\mathrm{A}F_{\mathrm{fil}})]/p`$. When the channel is noiseless and Eve does nothing, this process is just the Procrustean method mentioned in bbps96 : the filtered state should be the maximally entangled state (EPR state) $`|\mathrm{\Phi }^+=(|0_x_\mathrm{A}|0_x_\mathrm{B}+|1_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B})/\sqrt{2}`$, since the initial state is also written as $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{AB}}=\beta |0_x_\mathrm{A}|0_x_\mathrm{B}+\alpha |1_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B}`$. When noises are present, the filtered state may include a bit error, represented by the subspace spanned by $`\{|0_z_\mathrm{A}|1_z_\mathrm{B},|1_z_\mathrm{A}|0_z_\mathrm{B}\}`$, and a phase error, represented by the subspace spanned by $`\{|0_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B},|1_x_\mathrm{A}|0_x_\mathrm{B}\}`$. In parallel to the protocols for BB84 lc98 ; sp00 , we can consider the following protocol that will work under the presence of noises.

Protocol 1: (1) Alice creates $`2N`$ pairs in the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{AB}}^{2N}`$, and she sends the second half of each pair to Bob over a quantum channel. (2) By public discussion, Alice and Bob randomly permute the position of $`2N`$ pairs of qubits. (3) For the first $`N`$ pairs (check pairs), Alice measures her halves on $`Z`$-basis, and Bob performs measurement $`_{\mathrm{B92}}`$ on his halves. By public discussion, they determine the number $`n_{\mathrm{err}}`$ of errors in which Alice found $`|0_z`$ and Bob’s outcome was $`1`$, or Alice found $`|1_z`$ with Bob’s outcome $`0`$. (4) For the second $`N`$ pairs (data pairs), Bob performs the filtering $`F_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ on each of his qubits, and announces the total number $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ and the positions of the qubits that have passed the filtering. (5) From $`n_{\mathrm{err}}`$ and $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$, they estimate an upper bound for the number of bit errors $`n_{\mathrm{bit}}`$, and an upper bound for the number of phase errors $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}`$, in the $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ pairs. If these bounds are too large, they abort the protocol. (6) They run an EDP that can produce $`n_{\mathrm{key}}`$ nearly perfect EPR pairs if the estimation is correct. (7) Alice and Bob each measures the EPR pairs in $`Z`$-basis to obtain a shared secret key.

For the same reason as in the proofs of BB84 lc98 ; sp00 , if the estimation in step (5) is correct except for a probability that becomes exponentially small as $`N`$ increases, the final shared key is essentially secure. Intuitively, this comes from the fact that Eve has no clue on the outcomes of a measurement performed on an EPR pair, since it is in a pure state by definition. We will soon show how to estimate the upper bounds for the errors in step (5). Before that, we will show that Protocol 1 can be reduced to the B92 protocol.

According to the discussion by Shor and Preskill sp00 , we can use a one-way EDP based on CSS codes in step (6). Then, they have further shown that the whole extraction process of the $`n_{\mathrm{key}}`$-bit final secret key from the noisy $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ pairs in steps (6) and (7) can be equivalently accomplished by $`Z`$-basis measurements directly performed on Alice’s and Bob’s qubits of the $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ noisy pairs, followed by a public discussion. Hence, without affecting the security, we can assume that Alice performs $`Z`$-basis measurements immediately after she has prepared the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{AB}}`$, and that Bob performs $`Z`$-basis measurements immediately after he has performed the filtering. Protocol 1 is thus reduced to a prepare-and-measure protocol. Now, note the following relation for $`j^{}=0,1`$, which is easily confirmed:

$$F_{\mathrm{fil}}|j_z^{}_\mathrm{B}j_z^{}|F_{\mathrm{fil}}=F_j^{}.$$
(1)
This implies that the filtering followed by the $`Z`$-basis measurement is, as a whole, equivalent to the measurement $`_{\mathrm{B92}}`$. Hence in the reduced protocol Alice simply sends $`|\phi _0`$ and $`|\phi _1`$ randomly, and Bob performs $`_{\mathrm{B92}}`$ on all of the received qubits, which completes the reduction to B92.

The estimation in step (5) can be done as follows. The number of bit errors $`n_{\mathrm{bit}}`$ could be determined if Alice and Bob exchange their measurement results in $`Z`$-basis. But this is the same process as the one performed on the first $`N`$ pairs to obtain $`n_{\mathrm{err}}`$, due to the relation (1). Thanks to the random permutation in step (2), the check pairs are regarded as a classical random sample from the $`2N`$ pairs. Then, from a classical probability estimate, we may assume

$$|n_{\mathrm{bit}}n_{\mathrm{err}}|Nϵ_1.$$
(2)
For any strategy by Eve, the probability of violating this inequality is asymptotically less than $`\mathrm{exp}(Nϵ_1^2)`$.

The estimation of the phase errors is far more complicated. To do this, we derive several inequalities by assuming gedanken measurements that are not really done in the Protocol 1. The number of phase errors $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ could be determined if Alice and Bob measure the $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ pairs in $`X`$-basis just after step (4). Since the filtering operator $`F_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ is also diagonal in $`X`$-basis, $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ and $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ could also be determined by another measurement scheme, in which Alice and Bob perform $`X`$-basis measurements first, and then Bob applies the filtering $`F_{\mathrm{fil}}`$. Note that this filtering can be done classically by Bernoulli trials since the outcomes of the $`X`$-basis measurements are available. This new scheme also produces the numbers $`n_{ij}(i,j=0,1)`$ of pairs found in state $`|i_x_\mathrm{A}|j_x_\mathrm{B}`$. Since $`n_{ij}`$ and $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$ ($`n_{\mathrm{ph}}`$) are related by Bernoulli trials, we have

$`|\alpha ^2(n_{00}+n_{10})+\beta ^2(n_{01}+n_{11})n_{\mathrm{fil}}|Nϵ_2`$ (3)
$`|\alpha ^2n_{10}+\beta ^2n_{01}n_{\mathrm{ph}}|Nϵ_3,`$ (4)
which are violated with probability asymptotically less than $`\mathrm{exp}(2Nϵ_2^2)`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}(2Nϵ_3^2)`$, respectively.

Next, recall the fact that neither the noisy channel nor Eve can touch the qubits held by Alice. This implies that the marginal state of Alice’s data qubits before the measurements should be $`\rho _\mathrm{A}^N`$, where $`\rho _\mathrm{A}\mathrm{Tr}_\mathrm{B}(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{AB}}\mathrm{\Psi }|)=\beta ^2|0_x_\mathrm{A}0_x|+\alpha ^2|1_x_\mathrm{A}1_x|`$. We can thus regard $`n_{10}+n_{11}`$ as a result of a Bernoulli trial, obtaining

$$|\alpha ^2N(n_{10}+n_{11})|Nϵ_4$$
(5)
with probability of violation asymptotically less than $`\mathrm{exp}(2Nϵ_4^2)`$.

Let us switch to the measurement on the check pairs (the first $`N`$ pairs). The element of POVM corresponding to the error in step (3) is given by $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{err}}=(|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{11}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{11}|+|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{01}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{01}|)/2`$, where $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{11}\alpha |0_x_\mathrm{A}|0_x_\mathrm{B}\beta |1_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{01}\beta |0_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B}\alpha |1_x_\mathrm{A}|0_x_\mathrm{B}`$. This is readily derived from the relation $`|j_z_\mathrm{A}|\overline{\phi }_j_\mathrm{B}=|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{11}(1)^j|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{01}`$. Let us add two more states, $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{00}\beta |0_x_\mathrm{A}|0_x_\mathrm{B}+\alpha |1_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{10}\alpha |0_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B}+\beta |1_x_\mathrm{A}|0_x_\mathrm{B}`$, to form a basis. While $`n_{\mathrm{err}}`$ is determined from local measurements in step 3, the same outcome could be obtained by performing globally the complete measurement on basis $`\{|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}\}`$, followed by a Bernoulli trial with probability $`1/2`$. Let $`m_{ij}`$ be the number of pairs found in $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}`$. Then we have

$$|(m_{11}+m_{01})/2n_{\mathrm{err}}|Nϵ_5,$$
(6)
which is violated with probability asymptotically less than $`\mathrm{exp}(2Nϵ_5^2)`$.

Since $`\{|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{01},|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{10}\}`$ and $`\{|0_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B},|1_x_\mathrm{A}|0_x_\mathrm{B}\}`$ span the same subspace, we can relate $`m_{10}+m_{01}`$ and $`n_{10}+n_{01}`$ by the classical probability estimate as in Eq. (2):

$$|(m_{10}+m_{01})(n_{10}+n_{01})|Nϵ_6,$$
(7)
which is violated with probability asymptotically less than $`\mathrm{exp}(Nϵ_6^2)`$. We would like further to relate $`m_{01}/(m_{01}+m_{10})`$ to $`n_{01}/(n_{01}+n_{10})`$, but we can no longer apply classical arguments here, since $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{01}`$ and $`|0_x_\mathrm{A}|1_x_\mathrm{B}`$ are nonorthogonal. We will thus extend the classical probability estimate to the quantum case in the following.

The problem to be considered is as follows. $`M=M_0+M_1`$ qubits are prepared in a state, and the position of qubits are then randomly permuted. Then, each of the first $`M_0`$ qubits is measured on an orthogonal basis $`\{|0,0,|0,1\}`$, and the rest of $`M_1`$ qubits are measured on another basis $`\{|1,0,|1,1\}`$. What we ask is the bound for the probability $`p(\delta _0,\delta _1)`$, with which $`M_0\delta _0`$ qubits are found to be in $`|0,1`$ and $`M_1\delta _1`$ qubits are found to be in $`|1,1`$. Let $`\rho `$ be the state after the permutation, and $`|\chi _{b,j}|b,j^{n_{b,j}}`$, where $`n_{b,1}=M_b\delta _b`$ and $`n_{b,0}=M_b(1\delta _b)`$. Then, the probability is given by

$$p(\delta _0,\delta _1)=\chi |\rho |\chi \underset{b=0,1}{}\frac{M_b!}{n_{b,0}!n_{b,1}!}$$
(8)
The technique used KW-HM  for problems involving i.i.d. quantum sources is also useful here, although in our case the state $`\rho `$ may be highly correlated. The Hilbert space for the $`M`$ qubits, $`^M`$, can be decomposed as $`^M_\lambda 𝒰_\lambda 𝒱_\lambda `$ such that any operator of form $`U^M`$ with $`USU(2)`$ is decomposed as $`U^M_\lambda \pi _\lambda (U)\mathrm{𝟏}`$, and any unitary operator $`S_p`$ corresponding to permutation $`pS_M`$ is decomposed as $`S_p_\lambda \mathrm{𝟏}\stackrel{~}{\pi }_\lambda (p)`$. Here the maps $`\pi _\lambda `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }_\lambda `$ are irreducible representations of $`SU(2)`$ and $`S_M`$, respectively. The index $`\lambda `$ runs over all Young diagrams with two rows and $`M`$ boxes, namely, $`\lambda =(Mk,k)`$ with $`k=0,1,\mathrm{},M/2`$. We will thus use $`k`$ instead of $`\lambda `$ below. For later use, we derive a convenient form of the projection $`P_k`$ onto $`𝒰_k𝒱_k`$. Let us parameterize the pure states of a qubit as $`|𝐧`$, using the unit vector $`𝐧`$ in the Bloch sphere. Define a state on $`^M`$ as $`|k,𝐧|\mathrm{\Psi }^k|𝐧^{M2k}`$, where $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the singlet state $`(|0|1|1|0)/\sqrt{2}`$ of two qubits. The state $`|k,𝐧`$ is contained in subspace $`𝒰_k𝒱_k`$. Consider the operator with unit trace

$$\frac{1}{4\pi M!}\underset{p}{}𝑑𝐧S_p|k,𝐧k,𝐧|S_p^{}.$$
(9)
Since it commutes with any $`S_p`$ and any $`USU(2)`$, it should be equal to $`(d_k^𝒰d_k^𝒱)^1P_k`$, where $`d_k^𝒰\mathrm{dim}𝒰_k`$ and $`d_k^𝒱\mathrm{dim}𝒱_k`$.

Since $`\rho `$ commutes with any $`S_p`$, it can be decomposed as $`\rho _k(p_k/d_k^𝒱)\rho _k\mathrm{𝟏}`$, where $`p_k=1`$ and $`\mathrm{Tr}\rho _k=1`$. Then, $`\chi |\rho |\chi _k(p_k/d_k^𝒱)\chi |P_k|\chi `$. Substituting the form of (9) to $`P_k`$, we have

$$\chi |\rho |\chi \underset{k,𝐧}{\mathrm{max}}\frac{d_k^𝒰}{M!}\underset{p}{}|\chi |S_p|k,𝐧|^2$$
(10)
Recall that $`|\chi `$ takes the form of $`|\chi =_\nu |\nu ^{n_\nu }`$, where $`\nu `$ represents the double index $`(b,j)`$. Then, $`|\chi |S_p|k,𝐧|^2`$ becomes the product of $`(S_{\nu \nu ^{}})^{s_{\nu \nu ^{}}}`$ and $`(T_\nu )^{t_\nu }`$, where $`S_{\nu \nu ^{}}|\nu |\nu ^{}||\mathrm{\Psi }|^2`$ and $`T_\nu |\nu |𝐧|^2`$. The numbers $`s_{\nu \nu ^{}}`$ and $`t_\nu `$ depend on the permutation $`p`$. Let $`\mu (\{s_{\nu \nu ^{}}\},\{t_\nu \})`$ be the number of different permutations that give the same values of $`\{s_{\nu \nu ^{}}\},\{t_\nu \}`$. Explicitly, this degeneracy factor is given by

$$\mu =\left(\underset{\nu }{}n_\nu !\right)\frac{k!}{_{\nu ,\nu ^{}}s_{\nu \nu ^{}}!}\frac{(M2k)!}{_\nu t_\nu !}$$
(11)
Using this factor, the summation over $`p`$ can be replaced by the summation over $`\{s_{\nu \nu ^{}}\},\{t_\nu \}`$, which take at most $`poly(M)`$ values. Since $`d_k^𝒰=M2k+1`$ is also $`poly(M)`$, we obtain

$$\chi |\rho |\chi poly(M)\underset{k,𝐧,\{s_{\nu \nu ^{}}\},\{t_\nu \}}{\mathrm{max}}\frac{\mu }{M!}\underset{\nu ,\nu ^{}}{}(S_{\nu \nu ^{}})^{s_{\nu \nu ^{}}}\underset{\nu }{}(T_\nu )^{t_\nu }$$
(12)
Combining the Eqs. (8), (11), and (12), and replacing the factorials by the entropy function $`H(p_i)_ip_i\mathrm{log}p_i`$ using the formula $`poly(N)^1\mathrm{exp}[NH(p_i)]N!/(Np_i)!1`$, we can cast the upper bound into the form $`p(\delta _0,\delta _1)poly(M)\mathrm{exp}[M\mathrm{min}R]`$, where the exponent $`R`$ is given by

$`R`$ $`=`$ $`H(M_b/M)+(k/M)[D(s_{\nu \nu ^{}}/k|S_{\nu \nu ^{}}/4)2]`$ (13)
$`+(12k/M)[D(t_\nu /(M2k)|T_\nu /2)1],`$
where $`D`$ is the relative entropy defined by $`D(p_i|q_i)=_ip_i\mathrm{log}_2(p_i/q_i)`$. The empirical probability $`p_{bj}t_\nu /(M2k)`$ appearing here can be regarded as a joint probability over the two variables $`b`$ and $`j`$, and we can consider its marginal probability $`p_jp_{0j}+p_{1j}`$ and the conditional probability $`p_{b|j}p_{bj}/p_j`$. We use similar notations for other joint probabilities $`q_{bb^{}jj^{}}s_{\nu \nu ^{}}/k`$, $`\alpha _{bj}T_\nu /2`$, and $`\beta _{bb^{}jj^{}}S_{\nu \nu ^{}}/4`$. We further introduce a variable $`a`$, which takes three values $`\{1,2,3\}`$, define a probability $`\xi _a`$ by $`\xi _1=12k/M`$ and $`\xi _2=\xi _3=k/M`$, and define a joint probability $`\gamma _{ab}`$ over $`a`$ and $`b`$, defined by $`\gamma _{1b}=\xi _1p_b`$, $`\gamma _{2b}=\xi _2q_b`$, and $`\gamma _{3b^{}}=\xi _3q_b^{}`$. Then, it is a bit tedious but straightforward to rewrite Eq. (13) as

$`R=(k/M)[D(q_{bb^{}}|q_bq_b^{})+{\displaystyle \underset{bb^{}}{}}q_{bb^{}}D(q_{jj^{}|bb^{}}|\beta _{jj^{}|bb^{}})]`$
$`+(12k/M){\displaystyle \underset{b}{}}p_bD(p_{j|b}|\alpha _{j|b})+D(\gamma _{ab}|\gamma _a\gamma _b)`$ (14)
where we have used $`\gamma _b=M_b/M`$, $`\alpha _b=1/2`$ and $`\beta _{bb^{}}=1/4`$. Since all terms are nonnegative, $`R`$ is zero only if each pair of probabilities in $`D`$ are identical. This implies $`p_{bj}=|b,j|𝐧|^2(M_b/M)`$, $`q_{bj}=(1/2)(M_b/M)`$, and $`q_{b^{}j^{}}=(1/2)(M_b^{}/M)`$. From the relation $`n_{b,j}=M(\xi _1p_{bj}+\xi _2q_{bj}+\xi _3q_{b^{}j^{}}|_{b^{}=b,j^{}=j})`$ we conclude that, for $`\mathrm{min}R`$ to be zero, it is necessary that

$$\delta _b=\xi _1|b,1|𝐧|^2+(1\xi _1)/2$$
(15)
for a choice of $`|𝐧`$ and $`0\xi _11`$, or equivalently, $`\delta _b=b,1|\sigma |b,1`$ for a state $`\sigma `$ of a single qubit. Otherwise, $`p(\delta _0,\delta _1)`$ is as exponentially small as $`\mathrm{exp}[M\mathrm{min}R]`$. Note that in the limit of $`M\mathrm{}`$, the result is consistent with what is expected from the quantum de Finetti theorem cfs01 .

Now applying this general result to our case, we have

$$\mathrm{sin}^2(\theta _l\theta )ϵ_7\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi _l\mathrm{sin}^2(\theta _l+\theta )+ϵ_8$$
(16)
for $`l=0,1`$, where all the angles are defined in $`[0,\pi /2]`$ by the relations $`n_{11}/(n_{11}+n_{00})=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _0`$, $`n_{01}/(n_{01}+n_{10})=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _1`$, $`m_{11}/(m_{11}+m_{00})=\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi _0`$, $`m_{01}/(m_{01}+m_{10})=\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi _1`$, and $`\alpha ^2=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$. Together with Eqs. (3)–(7), an exponentially-reliable upper bound of $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ can be found.

In the following, we calculate the final key length in the limit of large $`N`$, by setting all $`ϵ_j`$ to be zero. From Eq. (2), $`n_{\mathrm{bit}}`$ is found to be equal to $`n_{\mathrm{err}}`$. Eqs. (3)–(7) are now linear equations, and together with the relation $`n_{ij}=m_{ij}=N`$, they can be used to eliminate $`n_{ij}`$ and $`m_{ij}`$. Then, the inequalities (16) for $`l=0,1`$ are combined to give

$$|n_{\mathrm{fil}}2n_{\mathrm{err}}|N\alpha \beta f(x),$$
(17)
where $`f(x)\sqrt{x^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}+\sqrt{(1x)^2(\beta ^2\alpha ^2\mathrm{\Delta })^2}`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }(n_{\mathrm{fil}}/N2\alpha ^2\beta ^2)/(\beta ^2\alpha ^2)`$ and $`x2n_{\mathrm{ph}}/N(\beta ^2\alpha ^2)\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The positivity of $`n_{ij}`$ requires that $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|x1|\beta ^2\alpha ^2\mathrm{\Delta }|`$. Solving Eq. (17) gives an upper bound $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ of the number of phase errors $`n_{\mathrm{ph}}`$, as a function of the observed values $`n_{\mathrm{err}}`$ and $`n_{\mathrm{fil}}`$.

The achievable length of the final key is given CSS ; GLLP02  by $`n_{\mathrm{key}}=n_{\mathrm{fil}}[1h(n_{\mathrm{bit}}/n_{\mathrm{fil}})h(\overline{n}_{\mathrm{ph}}/n_{\mathrm{fil}})]`$, when $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{ph}}/n_{\mathrm{fil}}1/2`$ \[note that positions of errors are randomized in step (2)\]. Here $`h(p)H(p,1p)`$. In order to show a quantitative example of the security, we assume that the channel is the depolarizing channel where the state $`\rho `$ evolves as $`\rho (1p)\rho +p/3_{a=x,y,z}\sigma _a\rho \sigma _a`$, where $`\sigma _a`$ is the Pauli operator of $`a`$ component. In Fig. 1(a), we plot the key generation rate $`G=n_{\mathrm{key}}/N`$ optimized over the nonorthogonality $`|\phi _0|\phi _1|^2`$. It is seen that our protocol is secure up to $`p0.034`$, which is smaller than in BB84 with one-way EDP ($`p0.165`$) sp00 . In Fig. 1(b), it can be seen that when $`|\phi _0|\phi _1|^2`$ becomes smaller, the estimation of the phase errors becomes poorer. On the other hand, larger values of $`|\phi _0|\phi _1|^2`$ make the signal more vulnerable to the noises, resulting in larger errors. This trade-off is in contrast to BB84, in which a good estimation and small errors are achieved at the same time by adding two more states in the protocol.

In summary, the B92 protocol can be regarded as an EDP with a filtering process, and the filtering makes the phase and bit errors related to each other, which enables us to estimate the phase errors from the amount of the bit errors. The estimation scheme involving nonorthogonal measurements developed here will also be useful in practical QKD schemes having lower symmetries due to imperfections in the apparatus.

We thank Hoi-Kwong Lo, John Preskill, and Takashi Yamamoto for helpful discussions.


text:
# Measurements of the Decay 𝐾_𝐿→𝑒⁺𝑒⁻𝜇⁺𝜇⁻

To whom correspondence should be addressed.\]

Permanent address \]C.P.P. Marseille/C.N.R.S., France

## Abstract

The KTeV experiment at Fermilab has isolated a total of 132 events from the rare decay $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, with an estimated background of 0.8 events. The branching ratio of this mode is determined to be $`(2.69\pm 0.24_{stat}\pm 0.12_{syst})\times 10^9`$, with a radiative cutoff of $`M_{ee\mu \mu }^2/M_K^2>0.95`$. The first measurement using this mode of the parameter $`\alpha `$ from the D’Ambrosio, Isidori, and Portolès model of the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ vertex yields a result of $`1.59\pm 0.37`$, consistent with values obtained from other decay modes. Because of the limited statistics, no sensitivity is found to the DIP parameter $`\beta `$. The magnitude of the angular distribution asymmetry between the $`e^+e^{}`$ and $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ planes, indicative of a $`CP`$violating contribution to the decay, is found to be consistent with zero. We set a 90% C.L. upper limit of $`4.12\times 10^{11}`$ on the branching ratio of the lepton flavor–violating mode $`K_Le^\pm e^\pm \mu ^{}\mu ^{}`$, a factor of three improvement over the current limit from the KTeV experiment.

The rare decay $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ offers the most direct means for studying the dynamics of the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ vertex. This information is useful for models that relate the $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ branching ratio to $`\rho `$, the real part of the CKM matrix element $`V_{td}`$ Wolfenstein (1983); Belanger and Geng (1991); Buras and Fleischer (1998). This decay mode can also be used to determine the presence of any $`CP`$violating contributions to the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ interaction Uy (1991). Additionally, a search for the lepton flavor–violating counterpart $`K_Le^\pm e^\pm \mu ^{}\mu ^{}`$ provides a constraint on physics beyond the Standard Model.

In the model of D’Ambrosio, Isidori, and Portolès (DIP) D’Ambrosio et al. (1998), the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ form factor can be written as

$`f(q_1^2,q_2^2)=1`$ $`+`$ $`\alpha \left({\displaystyle \frac{q_1^2}{q_1^2M_\rho ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{q_2^2}{q_2^2M_\rho ^2}}\right)`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`\beta {\displaystyle \frac{q_1^2q_2^2}{\left(q_1^2M_\rho ^2\right)\left(q_2^2M_\rho ^2\right)}}.`$
Here, $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$ are the momenta of the two virtual photons, and $`M_\rho `$ is the mass of the $`\rho `$ vector meson. In this model, $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are two arbitrary real parameters and are expected to be of order one. The determination of both $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ is possible through the decay $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ by examining the dilepton invariant masses and the integrated decay rate. Knowledge of the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ form factor is important for understanding the long distance contributions to $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and extracting the value of $`\rho `$ D’Ambrosio et al. (1998).

Two measurements have been made of the linear DIP parameter $`\alpha `$ to date, both by the KTeV collaboration. From the mode $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}\gamma `$, the shape of the dimuon invariant mass distribution ($`M_{\mu \mu }`$) and the measured branching ratio have been used to determine $`\alpha =1.54\pm 0.10`$ Alavi-Harati et al. (2001a). A fit to the dielectron mass distribution ($`M_{ee}`$) from $`K_Le^+e^{}e^+e^{}`$ determines $`\alpha =1.1\pm 0.6`$ Alavi-Harati et al. (2001b), where the larger error results from the smaller $`q^2`$ of the dielectron distribution. No measurements have yet been made of the quadratic DIP parameter $`\beta `$. Because the effects of the $`\beta `$ parameter are most significant in the region where both $`q_1^2`$ and $`q_2^2`$ are large, the decay $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ represents the best means for determining $`\beta `$.

KTeV, a fixed target experiment located at Fermilab, collected rare decay data during run periods in 1997 and 1999. Forty three $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ events were observed in the 1997 data, leading to a published branching ratio of $`(2.62\pm 0.40_{stat}\pm 0.17_{syst})\times 10^9`$ Alavi-Harati et al. (2001c). However, no attempt has been made to extract form factor information from this limited dataset. The results presented in this Letter are based on a reanalysis of the 1997 KTeV dataset, combined with the analysis of new data collected during the 1999 run.

The two parallel $`K_L`$ beams used by KTeV are created by focusing 800 GeV/c protons from the Tevatron onto a BeO target. A 65 m long vacuum region, starting 94 m downstream from the target, defines the fiducial region for kaon decays. Charged particles are detected with a spectrometer system consisting of four drift chambers and an analysis magnet. The hit position resolution in the chambers is approximately 100 $`\mu m`$, while the overall momentum resolution is just over 1% in the range of interest. The transverse momentum kick from the magnet was lowered by 25% for the 1999 run for the purpose of increasing acceptance for four–track decay modes.

Downstream of the spectrometer system are two trigger hodoscope planes, followed by an electromagnetic (EM) calorimeter. This $`1.9\times 1.9`$ m2 array of 3100 pure CsI crystals has a resolution of under 1% in the energy range of interest. Photon vetos are located along the decay region to reject decays from particles that would miss the CsI calorimeter.

Behind the calorimeter are a 10 cm thick lead wall and 4 m of steel, the last 3 m of which serve as the neutral beam dump. A muon hodoscope (MU2) consisting of 56 overlapping scintillator paddles is located behind the dump. Following MU2 is another 1 m thick steel filter, behind which are two scintillator planes, one oriented horizontally and the other vertically. Known as MU3Y and MU3X, these planes are used for muon identification and have 15 cm segmentation. The momentum threshold for muons to reach the MU3 bank has been measured to be 7 GeV/c. The lead and steel filters add up to a total of 31 hadronic interaction lengths. A more detailed description of the KTeV detector can be found elsewhere Alavi-Harati et al. (1999, 2000).

The trigger requires hits in the upstream drift chambers and the trigger hodoscope planes consistent with at least two charged tracks. During the 1997 run, at least two hits were required in both MU3X and MU3Y. This condition was loosened during the 1999 run to allow for one missing hit. This change accepts events in which the muons are well separated in one view but happen to strike the same paddle in the other view. To counter the increased trigger rate from this change, the minimum number of calorimeter clusters with at least 1 GeV of energy was raised from one in 1997 to two in 1999 Bown et al. (1996). If at least 0.5 GeV of energy is found in any of the photon vetos, the event is discarded. Events in which at least three tracks form a loosely defined vertex are tagged as candidate signal events.

During the analysis stage, the ratio $`E/P`$ is used for particle identification, where $`E`$ is the energy deposited by the track in the EM calorimeter, and $`P`$ is the track momentum as measured by the spectrometer. Tracks with $`0.95<E/P<1.05`$ are identified as electrons. Tracks are identified as muons if they have $`E/P<0.8`$, deposit less than 1.5 GeV in the calorimeter, have momentum greater than 7 GeV/c, and hit at least 2 out of the 3 muon identification planes (MU2, MU3X, and MU3Y). Events are accepted if they contain exactly four tracks, with oppositely charged electron and muon pairs.

Additional requirements imposed on the dataset include cuts on the reconstructed kaon momentum (20 GeV/c $`<P_K<`$ 220 GeV/c) and the $`z`$ position of the reconstructed vertex (90 m $`<z_{vtx}<`$ 158 m). Because the detector acceptance for $`K_L`$ decays falls off quickly outside of these ranges, any events observed outside of the boundaries are most likely misreconstructed $`K_L`$, $`K_S`$, or hyperon decays. To further reduce the number of misreconstructed and background events, a cut is made at $`P_t^2<250`$ MeV2/c2, where $`P_t`$ is the transverse component of the reconstructed kaon momentum relative to the kaon line of flight. The signal mass region is defined to be 482 MeV/c$`{}_{}{}^{2}<M_{ee\mu \mu }<`$ 512 MeV/c2.

Three sources of background are considered. The decay $`K_L\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi _D^0`$ (where $`\pi _D^0`$ signifies the Dalitz decay $`\pi ^0e^+e^{}\gamma `$) could appear as signal if the charged pions decay to muons in flight, or punch through the muon filter and fire MU3. These events are removed from the dataset by cutting on an extra EM cluster in the calorimeter, indicative of the photon from the Dalitz decay of the $`\pi ^0`$. Two simultaneous $`K_L\pi ^\pm \mu ^{}\nu `$ ($`K_{\mu 3}`$) decays could also simulate signal if both pions hadronically interact and shower in the calorimeter, mimicking electrons. As two separate two–track decays are unlikely to form a good four–track vertex, a cut on four–track vertex quality is successful in removing this background.

The most significant source of background comes from $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}\gamma `$ events in which the photon converts to an $`e^+e^{}`$ pair in the material upstream of the first drift chamber. Monte Carlo simulations predict almost 50 of these events in the signal mass region at this stage of cuts. Requiring that the $`e^+e^{}`$ hit separation at the first drift chamber is greater than 2 mm or that $`M_{ee}>2.75`$ MeV/c2 eliminates 99% of these conversion events, while retaining approximately 85% of the signal (Fig. 1).

After all cuts, 132 signal events remain (Fig. 2) with an estimated background of 0.8 events, dominated by $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}\gamma `$ conversions. The background estimate is determined from Monte Carlo simulations.

We extract the branching ratio by normalizing to $`K_L\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi _D^0`$ events, which are collected in a similar trigger. In addition to the cuts described, for the normalization mode the charged pions are required to strike the calorimeter away from the edges of the array (7 cm from the outer perimeter, 5 cm from either beam hole), the energy deposited in the calorimeter by the Dalitz photon is required to be greater than 2 GeV, and the mass of the reconstructed $`\pi ^0`$ is required to be between 125 and 145 MeV/c2. Using these normalization events, and an acceptance of approximately 1.7% determined from Monte Carlo, the total yield of kaon decays within the detector from the 1997 and 1999 runs is calculated to be $`(6.39\pm 0.04)\times 10^{11}`$, the error being purely statistical.

Because muons are present in the signal mode but not in the normalization mode, accurate simulation of the efficiency and threshold of the muon system, and a good understanding of multiple scattering through the muon filters, are crucial. These effects are studied using a combination of GEANT simulations and calibration muons collected with special magnet and absorber configurations. The single muon detection efficiency is measured to be over 99%, determined to within 0.5% of itself Quinn (2000).

Systematic errors in the determination of the number of kaon decays and the signal acceptance are dominated by the 3.1% uncertainty in the branching ratio of the normalization mode. Other significant effects include a disagreement between data and Monte Carlo in the decay position distribution of normalization events from the 1999 run (1.9%), the rate of accidental activity in the detector (1.7%), and limited Monte Carlo statistics (1.1%). Other effects include sensitivity to the vertex quality (1.1%), the trigger (1.0%), and the fitting procedure (0.8%). The remaining effects result from uncertainties in the background and the calibration (0.7%). The total systematic error on the branching ratio is 4.6%.

Because the branching ratio and $`\alpha `$ are linked through the form factor, the following method is used to determine both of these parameters. The measured branching ratio is determined as a function of $`\alpha `$, where the $`\alpha `$ dependence results from the Monte Carlo acceptance correction. Theoretical predictions for the branching ratio are also calculated as a function of $`\alpha `$. Full single–loop QED radiative corrections are included Barker et al. (2002) with a cutoff at $`M_{ee\mu \mu }^2/M_K^2>0.95`$, and the quadratic DIP parameter $`\beta `$ is assumed to be zero. The intersection of these two curves, shown in Fig. 3, determines $`(K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{})=(2.69\pm 0.24_{stat}\pm 0.12_{syst})\times 10^9`$ and $`\alpha =1.51\pm 0.34_{stat}\pm 0.17_{syst}`$. Varying the value of $`\beta `$ over a reasonable range has a negligible effect on the results.

Because $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are connected to $`q_1^2`$ and $`q_2^2`$ (Eqn. 1), independent measurements of the form factor parameters can be made by studying the shape of the $`M_{\mu \mu }`$ and $`M_{ee}`$ distributions of the 132 signal events. With $`\beta `$ fixed at 0, the signal Monte Carlo is reweighted over a range of values for $`\alpha `$. Comparison to the data for each value of $`\alpha `$ leads to a log–likelihood distribution that is maximized when $`\alpha =4.53_{2.70}^{+1.81}`$. A comparison between data and Monte Carlo at this value of $`\alpha `$ is shown in Fig. 4.

Due to the limited statistics, we find that this analysis is insensitive to the value of the quadratic form factor parameter $`\beta `$.

A weighted average of the two $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ measurements of $`\alpha `$ leads to the final result $`\alpha =1.59\pm 0.37`$, consistent with the two previously published values. Combining the results from $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}\gamma `$, $`K_Le^+e^{}e^+e^{}`$, and $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ gives a world average of $`\alpha =1.53\pm 0.10`$, a result that is dominated by the measurement from $`K_L\mu ^+\mu ^{}\gamma `$.

The Bergström, Massó, and Singer (BMS) model for the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma `$ vertex can be generalized to the two–virtual photon case Bergström et al. (1983). The BMS form factor contains only one unknown parameter, $`\alpha _K^{}`$, which can be algebraically related to the DIP parameter $`\alpha `$ D’Ambrosio et al. (1998). Using this relation, along with the measured value of $`\alpha `$, we find that $`\alpha _K^{}=0.19\pm 0.11`$ from $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$. This is consistent with other KTeV measurements Alavi-Harati et al. (2001a, b) as well as those from the NA48 experiment at CERN Fanti et al. (1999).

Some models of the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ vertex allow for $`CP`$violating contributions to the interaction, the presence of which would lead to an asymmetry in the angular distribution of the decay products Uy (1991). The distribution of events in $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\varphi `$ is shown in Fig. 5. $`\varphi `$ is the angle between the normals to the electron and muon decay planes in the kaon rest frame.

The asymmetry $`𝒜`$ is defined by the ratio $`(N_+N_{})/(N_++N_{})`$, where $`N_+(N_{})`$ is the acceptance corrected number of signal events in the positive (negative) region of Fig. 5. It is found that $`𝒜=5.3\pm 12.3\%`$, which translates to a 90% confidence limit of $`|𝒜|<25.5\%`$. We conclude that no evidence currently exists for a $`CP`$violating component of the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ interaction.

By changing the charge requirement on the lepton pairs, a search can be performed for the lepton flavor–violating decay $`K_Le^\pm e^\pm \mu ^{}\mu ^{}`$. After imposing a set of analysis cuts otherwise identical to those described earlier, no events remain in the signal region. Four–body phase space Monte Carlo was generated to calculate an overall acceptance for this mode of approximately 9%. This leads to a 90% C.L. limit of $`(K_Le^\pm e^\pm \mu ^{}\mu ^{})<4.12\times 10^{11}`$, a factor of three improvement over the previously published limit Alavi-Harati et al. (2001c).

In conclusion, 132 $`K_Le^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ events have been observed from the 1997 and 1999 runs of the KTeV experiment, with an estimated background of 0.8 events. This signal leads to a measured branching ratio of $`(2.69\pm 0.24_{stat}\pm 0.12_{syst})\times 10^9`$, consistent with previously published results. In the first measurement of the DIP form factor parameter $`\alpha `$ using this decay mode, we find that $`\alpha =1.59\pm 0.37`$, in agreement with measurements from other modes. Because of the limited statistices, no sensitivity is found to the quadratic DIP parameter $`\beta `$. In order to reduce the error on $`\beta `$ to be on the order of one, we estimate that approximately 1,000 times more data would be required. Furthermore, no evidence is found for $`CP`$violating contributions to the $`K_L\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ interaction. Finally, we constrain the branching ratio of the lepton flavor–violating mode $`K_Le^\pm e^\pm \mu ^{}\mu ^{}`$ to $`<4.12\times 10^{11}`$, at 90% confidence.


text:
# A characterization of Dynkin elements

## 1. Introduction

Let $`G`$ be a connected simple algebraic group over the complex numbers and $`𝔤`$ its Lie algebra. We begin by recalling the Dynkin-Kostant classification of nilpotent $`G`$-orbits in $`𝔤`$ (see ).

Let $`H=[\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}]`$ and $`E=[\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 0& 0\end{array}]`$ be elements of $`𝔰l_2(𝐂)`$. Let $`𝒜_{hom}`$ denote the $`G`$-conjugacy classes of Lie algebra homomorphisms from $`𝔰l_2(𝐂)`$ to $`𝔤`$. Then the map $`\mathrm{\Omega }:𝒜_{hom}\{\text{nilpotent }G\text{-orbits in }𝔤\}`$ given by $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\varphi )=\mathrm{Ad}(G)\varphi (E)`$ is a bijection: surjectivity is just the Jacobson-Morozov theorem and injectivity follows from a theorem of Kostant. Let $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:𝒜_{hom}\{\text{semi-simple }G\text{-orbits in }𝔤\}`$ be the map $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\varphi )=\mathrm{Ad}(G)\varphi (H)`$. A theorem of Mal’cev shows that $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ is injective. Hence nilpotent orbits in $`𝔤`$ are parametrized by the image of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$. This finite set was completely determined by Dynkin .

If $`𝒪`$ is a nilpotent orbit, then an element in the conjugacy class $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\mathrm{\Omega }^1(𝒪))`$ is called a  *Dynkin element* for $`𝒪`$ (or for any element $`e𝒪`$). If we fix a Cartan subalgebra $`𝔥`$ of $`𝔤`$ and a set of simple roots $`\mathrm{\Pi }𝔥^{}`$, then there is a unique Dynkin element $`h`$ for $`𝒪`$ which lies in $`𝔥`$ and such that $`\alpha (h)0`$ for all $`\alpha \mathrm{\Pi }`$. We often refer to this element as the Dynkin element for $`𝒪`$; the numbers $`\alpha (h)`$ are assigned to the Dynkin diagram of $`G`$ and yield the weighted Dynkin diagram of $`𝒪`$. To summarize, this diagram completely determines the Dynkin elements for $`𝒪`$ and hence $`𝒪`$ itself.

The aim of this paper is to give a new characterization of the Dynkin elements. We begin by partitioning the dominant Weyl chamber into regions indexed by nilpotent orbits (which we call $`N`$-regions). These regions arise by generalizing in the most straight-forward fashion the notion of $`S`$-cells (also called geometric cells) from the finite Weyl group to the affine Weyl group; they are closely related to Lusztig’s $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-cells . Our main theorem states that the point of minimal length in the closure of the $`N`$-region corresponding to an orbit $`𝒪`$ is one-half the Dynkin element for $`𝒪`$. In type $`A_n`$, the closure of an $`N`$-region coincides with the region determined by a canonical left Kazhdan-Lusztig cell, so our theorem becomes a statement about Kazhdan-Lusztig cells.

The Dynkin elements for $`G`$ are important for the representation theory of an algebraic group of type dual to $`G`$ over a local field. This is a part of conjectures by Arthur as explained in Vogan . Arthur’s conjectures posit that one-half of a Dynkin element for a group of type dual to the type of $`G`$ gives rise to a spherical representation of $`G`$ which is unitary. This has been proved in some cases: see  for references. In particular, when the local field is the complex numbers, the central role played by one-half of a Dynkin element in the unitarity question for complex Lie groups is one of the key ideas in the work of Barbasch and Vogan . It leads them to introduce the notion of special unipotent representations for these groups. On the algebraic side, McGovern has shown in the classical groups that these elements yield completely prime primitive ideals in the universal enveloping algebra of the Lie algebra of type dual to $`𝔤`$ (see the last section for a precise statement) . The main theorem of this paper suggests a generalization about where to look for other semi-simple conjugacy classes in $`𝔤`$ which may have this property. We suspect these elements will be important in representation theory and may in particular be useful for defining unipotent representations for complex Lie groups.

Here is a brief outline of the paper. In section 2, we introduce definitions and state the main theorem, Theorem 2.1. In section 3, we give a proof. In section 4, we make a definition of a property relating Dynkin elements to $`B`$-stable ideals in the nilradical of a Borel subalgebra. We use this definition to explore further properties of the Dynkin elements as minimal points of certain convex regions. In the final section, we speculate on how generalizing the idea of the main theorem to Kazhdan-Lusztig cells and $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-cells for $`G`$ of general type may lead to an important new class of infinitesimal characters.

We thank J. Humphreys, G. Lusztig, W. McGovern, I. Mirkovic, A. Ram, D. A. Vogan, Jr., and the referee for helpful discussions and/or suggestions. We gratefully acknowledge the support of NSF grants DMS-0245580 (P.G.) and NSF grants DMS-0201826 and DMS-9729992 (E.S.).

## 2. Main Theorem

Let $`(\mathrm{\Phi },X,\mathrm{\Phi }^{},Y)`$ be the root datum of a connected simple algebraic group $`G`$ defined over the complex numbers with respect to a maximal torus $`T`$. Let $`W`$ be the Weyl group. Fix a Borel subgroup $`B`$ containing $`T`$ and let $`\mathrm{\Phi }^+`$ be the determined positive roots and $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ the simple roots. Let $`𝔤,𝔟,𝔥`$ be the Lie algebras of $`G`$, $`B`$, $`T`$, respectively. Let $`V=Y𝐑`$. We make $`V`$ into a Euclidean space by fixing a $`W`$-invariant positive-definite inner product $`(,)`$, with the induced norm denoted $``$. The inner product is unique up to a non-zero scalar, since $`V`$ is an irreducible representation of $`W`$. The closure of the dominant Weyl chamber in $`V`$ is

$$:=\{xV|\alpha ,x0\text{ for all }\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }^+\},$$

where $`,`$ is the extension of the pairing of weights and coweights.

Inspired by the work of Shi , , we partition $`V`$ into regions, called $`ST`$-regions ($`ST`$ stands for sign type), as follows. Let $`xV`$. For each positive root $`\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }^+`$ , let $`X_\alpha `$ equal $`+,0,`$ or $`,`$ according to whether $`\alpha ,x1`$, $`0\alpha ,x<1`$, or $`\alpha ,x<0,`$ respectively. The set of values $`\{X_\alpha |\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }^+\}`$ which arise in this fashion is called an admissible sign type. Now $`V`$ can be partitioned according to sign type (we drop the word admissible): two elements $`x,yV`$ belong to the same $`ST`$-region if they determine the same sign type. It is clear that the interior of an $`ST`$-region coincides with a connected component of the hyperplane arrangement studied by Shi .

In this note we are interested in the dominant sign types (and corresponding $`ST`$-regions). These are the sign types with no minus signs; the corresponding regions lie in $``$. The dominant sign types have an important interpretation in terms of the Lie algebra $`𝔤`$ of $`G`$. Namely, let $`𝔤_\alpha 𝔤`$ be the root space for $`\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }`$. Then for each dominant sign type $`𝒮=\{X_\alpha \}`$ the subspace

$$𝔫_𝒮:=\underset{X_\alpha =+}{}𝔤_\alpha $$

is a $`B`$-stable ideal in the nilradical $`𝔫`$ of $`𝔟`$; and every such ideal arises in this way. The fact that every ideal arises in this way can be traced back to Shi’s characterization of admissible sign types ; more recently, it was proved in a different manner by Cellini-Papi .

We now define a partition of $``$ into regions called $`N`$-regions indexed by the nilpotent orbits in $`𝔤`$; these are closely related to Lusztig’s $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-cells in the affine Weyl group (see the last section). Each $`N`$-region will be a union of certain $`ST`$-regions. Let $`𝒮`$ be a dominant sign type and let $`𝔫_𝒮`$ be the corresponding $`B`$-stable ideal. Let $`𝒪_𝒮`$ denote the unique nilpotent orbit of $`𝔤`$ such that $`𝒪_𝒮𝔫_𝒮`$ is dense in $`𝔫_𝒮`$. Given a nilpotent orbit $`𝒪`$ we define the $`N`$-region indexed by $`𝒪`$ to be

$$N_𝒪:=\{x|𝒪_{𝒮_x}=𝒪\}$$

where $`𝒮_x`$ is the sign type determined by $`x`$.

We now recall the definition of the Dynkin elements of $`G`$ (with respect to $`T`$ and $`B`$). Given a nilpotent orbit $`𝒪`$, let $`e𝒪`$ and let $`\{e,h,f\}`$ be an $`𝔰𝔩_2`$-triple in $`𝔤`$ with $`h𝔥=\text{Lie}(T)`$. Identifying $`V`$ with the real subspace of $`𝔥`$ spanned by the coroots $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{}`$, we always have $`hV`$ ($`h`$, in fact, lies in the integral lattice generated by the coroots; this follows from the representation theory of $`𝔤`$ and of $`𝔰𝔩_2`$). By altering our choice of $`e`$, we can ensure that $`h`$. Then as noted in the introduction, $`h`$ depends only on $`𝒪`$ and is called the Dynkin element for $`𝒪`$.

Our main result is

###### Theorem 2.1.

Let $`𝒪`$ be a nilpotent orbit in $`𝔤`$. Let $`N_𝒪`$ be the corresponding $`N`$-region in $``$. Let $`x`$ be a point of minimal Euclidean length in the closure of $`N_𝒪`$. Then $`2x`$ is the Dynkin element for $`𝒪`$. In particular, $`N_𝒪`$ is non-empty and $`x`$ is unique.

## 3. Proof

The theorem follows easily from the next two propositions. If $`h`$ is the Dynkin element for the orbit $`𝒪`$, we call

$$𝔫_h=_{i2}𝔤_i$$

the Dynkin ideal of $`𝒪`$, where $`𝔤_i`$ is the $`i`$-eigenspace for the action of $`\text{ad}(h)`$ on $`𝔤`$. This is a $`B`$-stable ideal in $`𝔫`$.

###### Proposition 3.1.

Let $`h`$ be the Dynkin element for the orbit $`𝒪`$. Then $`\frac{1}{2}h`$ lies in $`N_𝒪`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`𝒮`$ be the sign type for $`\frac{1}{2}h`$. Then clearly $`𝔫_𝒮=𝔫_h`$ from the definitions. The result follows from the well-known fact that $`𝒪𝔫_h`$ is dense in $`𝔫_h`$ .∎

Fix a dominant sign type $`𝒮`$ and let $`𝔫_𝒮`$ be the corresponding ideal.

###### Proposition 3.2.

Let $`e𝔫_𝒮`$ and let $`h`$ be the Dynkin element of the $`G`$-orbit through $`e`$. Then $`\frac{1}{2}hx`$ for any $`x`$ in the closure of the $`ST`$-region corresponding to $`𝒮`$. If equality holds, then $`x=\frac{1}{2}h`$.

###### Proof.

The proof will be a slight modification of an argument due to Barbasch and Vogan ( Lemma 5.7). Since all $`W`$-invariant positive-definite inner products $`(,)`$ on $`V`$ agree up to a non-zero scalar, we may as well assume that $`(h,\alpha ^{})`$ is an integer for all $`\alpha ^{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{}`$; this is possible since $`h`$ lies in the coroot lattice. Let $`\lambda 𝔥^{}`$ be the unique element such that $`\lambda (x)=(h,x)`$ for all $`xV`$. Then $`\lambda `$ is integral and it is also dominant since $`h`$.

Let $`(F_\lambda ,\pi _\lambda )`$ be the irreducible finite-dimensional representation of $`𝔤`$ of highest weight $`\lambda `$. The lowest weight of $`F_\lambda `$ is $`w_0(\lambda )`$ where $`w_0`$ is the longest element of $`W`$ (with respect to the simple reflections defined by $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$). Let $`𝔰=\{e^{},h,f\}`$ be an $`𝔰𝔩_2(𝐂)`$-triple with $`e^{}𝒪_e`$. Restricting $`F_\lambda `$ to $`𝔰`$, we see that the irreducible subrepresentation of $`𝔰`$ of largest dimension has dimension $`m+1`$ where $`m=\lambda (h)`$ (as $`h`$). This us allows to determine the index of nilpotency of $`\pi _\lambda (e^{})`$ on $`F_\lambda `$: we have

$$\pi _\lambda (e^{})^m0,\text{ but }\pi _\lambda (e^{})^{m+1}=0.$$

Because $`e`$ and $`e^{}`$ are $`G`$-conjugate, the same holds for $`\pi _\lambda (e)`$. The key point, to be exploited shortly, is that $`m=\lambda (h)=h^2`$.

On the other hand, let $`x`$ be in the $`ST`$-region for $`𝒮`$ (or in fact, its closure). Viewing $`x𝔥`$, we can filter $`F_\lambda `$ by the eigenspaces of the semisimple operator $`\pi _\lambda (x)`$ with corresponding eigenvalues greater than a fixed eigenvalue. The length of this filtration is $`\lambda (x)w_0\lambda (x)`$, as $`x`$.

Now if $`\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }^+`$ satisfies $`\alpha (x)1`$, then any non-zero $`e_\alpha `$ in $`𝔤_\alpha `$ acts on $`F_\lambda `$ by raising degrees by at least $`1`$. Write $`e=e_\alpha `$ where $`e_\alpha 𝔤_\alpha `$. The fact that $`e𝔫_𝒮`$ and $`x`$ belongs to the closure of the $`ST`$-region for $`𝒮`$ means that $`\alpha (x)1`$ for all $`\alpha `$ appearing in the sum for $`e`$. Consequently $`e`$ acts by raising degrees by at least $`1`$. It follows that $`\pi _\lambda (e)^{M+1}=0`$ where $`M\lambda (x)w_0\lambda (x)`$. The latter quantity is bounded by $`2hx`$ by Cauchy-Schwartz and the fact that $`w_0(h)=h`$.

Hence $`mM2hx`$. It follows that $`h^22hx`$ or $`\frac{1}{2}hx`$.

If equality holds, then $`(h,x)=hx`$ and so $`x`$ must be a positive multiple of $`h`$. Hence, $`x=\frac{1}{2}h`$. ∎

The proof of the theorem follows: every element in the closure of $`N_𝒪`$ has size at least the size of one-half the Dynkin element of $`𝒪`$ and this minimum is achieved at one-half the Dynkin element. Uniqueness is a consequence of the last statement of the proposition.

We have the following corollary:

###### Corollary 3.3.

If $`𝒪^{}`$ lies in the closure of the nilpotent orbit $`𝒪`$ and $`𝒪^{}𝒪`$, then the size of the Dynkin element of $`𝒪^{}`$ is strictly smaller than the size of the Dynkin element of $`𝒪`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`𝔫_h=_{i2}𝔤_i`$ be the Dynkin ideal for the Dynkin element $`h`$ of $`𝒪`$. The $`G`$-saturation of $`𝔫_h`$ is by definition the set of elements $`\mathrm{Ad}(g)e`$ where $`gG`$ and $`e𝔫_h`$; this is exactly the closure of $`𝒪`$. Hence $`𝒪^{}`$ intersects $`𝔫_h`$ and the result follows from the previous proposition applied to the sign type determined by $`\frac{1}{2}h`$. ∎

## 4. Property D

In this section, we define a property for $`B`$-stable ideals that, if it holds in general, leads to a further understanding of the Dynkin elements. Furthermore, it should also be of interest in the study of $`B`$-stable ideals and their associated orbits.

Let $`𝔫_𝒮`$ be the ideal corresponding to the dominant sign-type $`𝒮`$. Let $`𝒪_𝒮`$ be the associated nilpotent orbit; that is, the one for which $`𝒪_𝒮𝔫_𝒮`$ is dense in $`𝔫_𝒮`$.

###### Definition 4.1.

We say $`𝔫_𝒮`$ has property D if there exists $`e𝒪_𝒮𝔫_𝒮`$ and $`h𝔟`$ such that $`e`$ and $`h`$ can be extended to an $`𝔰l_2(𝐂)`$-triple $`\{e,h,f\}`$. We say $`𝔫_𝒮`$ has strong property D if the above holds for any orbit $`𝒪`$ which intersects $`𝔫_𝒮`$.

We suspect that every $`B`$-stable ideal in $`𝔫`$ possesses strong property D for all $`G`$. Note that it is not true in general that for every element $`e𝔫_𝒮`$ there exists $`h𝔟`$ such that $`e`$ and $`h`$ can be extended to an $`𝔰l_2(𝐂)`$-triple.

###### Lemma 4.2.

Property D holds for every Dynkin ideal.

###### Proof.

Let $`h𝔥`$ be the Dynkin element for the orbit $`𝒪`$ and let $`\{e,h,f\}`$ be an $`𝔰l_2(𝐂)`$-triple. In particular, $`e𝒪`$. Then the equation $`[h,e]=2e`$ implies $`e𝔫_h`$, and thus $`e`$ and $`h`$ satisfy the conditions for property D. ∎

Let $`I`$ and $`I^{}`$ be two $`B`$-stable ideals in $`𝔫`$. Suppose that $`I=I^{}𝔤_\beta `$ for some $`\beta \mathrm{\Phi }^+`$. For $`\alpha \mathrm{\Pi }`$, let $`P_\alpha `$ denote the minimal parabolic subgroup containing $`B`$ whose Lie algebra contains $`𝔤_\alpha `$. Assume that $`I`$ is invariant under the action of $`P_\alpha `$. It is not hard to see that $`\beta ,\alpha ^{}0`$.

###### Lemma 4.3.

Assume that $`\beta ,\alpha ^{}<0`$ above. Then if property D (or the strong version) holds for $`I`$, it also holds $`I^{}`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`eI`$ and $`h𝔟`$ satisfy the conditions for strong property D for the orbit $`𝒪_e`$. Since $`h`$ lies in some Cartan subalgebra of $`𝔟`$, we may assume $`h𝔥`$ since all Cartan subalgebras of $`𝔟`$ are conjugate under $`B`$ and $`I`$ is $`B`$-stable.

Let $`L_\alpha `$ be the Levi subgroup of $`P_\alpha `$ containing $`T`$. Consider the representation of $`L_\alpha `$ on $`I`$ and let $`M`$ be the irreducible constituent containing $`𝔤_\beta `$: it has lowest weight $`\beta `$ and highest weight $`\beta \beta ,\alpha ^{}\alpha `$, and these are distinct by the hypothesis.

Write $`e=e_\gamma `$, a sum of non-zero root vectors. If $`\gamma =\beta `$ does not appear in the sum, we are done (since then $`eI^{}`$). If $`\gamma =\beta \beta ,\alpha ^{}\alpha `$ does not appear in the sum, we proceed by letting $`nN_G(T)`$ represent the simple reflection $`s_\alpha W`$. Then $`\mathrm{Ad}(n)eI^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{Ad}(n)h𝔥`$ and we are done. Finally if both the highest weight and lowest weight for $`M`$ appear in the sum for $`e`$, we must have $`\alpha (h)=0`$ (as $`[h,e]=2e`$) and thus $`h`$ lies in the center of the Lie algebra of $`L_\alpha `$. From the representation theory of $`SL_2(𝐂)`$ with respect to the representation $`M`$, there exists $`gL_\alpha `$ such that $`\mathrm{Ad}(g)eI^{}`$. In this case, $`\mathrm{Ad}(g)h=h`$ and the proof is complete. ∎

The proof, in particular, implies that $`I`$ and $`I^{}`$ have the same associated orbit. The idea for considering two ideals related in the above fashion is closely connected to an equivalence relation on ideals defined in .

###### Proposition 4.4.

When $`G`$ is of type $`A_n`$, strong property D holds for every $`B`$-stable ideal in $`𝔫`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`P`$ be a parabolic subgroup containing $`B`$ and $`𝔫_P`$ the nilradical of its Lie algebra. It is not difficult ($`G`$ is of type $`A`$) to show that $`𝔫_P`$ has strong property D by exhibiting explicit elements $`e𝒪`$ in a standard form for each orbit $`𝒪`$ in the closure of the Richardson orbit for $`P`$. Of course, this uses the classification of nilpotent orbits in type $`A`$ and knowledge of the closure relations.

Then the first theorem in  and the previous lemma imply that strong property D holds for every $`B`$-stable ideal in $`𝔫`$. If we wanted only property D, Lemma 4.2 would allow us to avoid the classification of nilpotent orbits. ∎

We have also checked that strong property D holds for all $`B`$-stable ideals in $`𝔫`$ for many $`𝔤`$, including $`G_2`$, $`F_4`$, $`E_6`$, and $`E_7`$. We suspect that strong property D always holds. One application of property $`D`$ is the following:

###### Proposition 4.5.

Let $`𝒮`$ be a dominant sign type. If $`𝔫_𝒮`$ possesses property D, then there is a convex region containing the closure of the $`ST`$-region of $`𝒮`$ whose unique minimal point is one-half a Dynkin element for $`𝒪_𝒮`$ (here and only here, we do not assume that the Dynkin element lies in the closed dominant Weyl chamber).

###### Proof.

Let $`e𝔫_𝒮`$ and $`h𝔟`$ satisfy the conditions of property D for the orbit $`𝒪_e`$; let $`f𝔤`$ be such that $`\{e,h,f\}`$ is an $`𝔰l_2(𝐂)`$-triple. We may assume $`h𝔥`$ as in Lemma 4.3 (note that $`h`$ need not lie in $``$).

Write $`e=e_\alpha `$ where $`e_\alpha 𝔤_\alpha `$ and denote by $`\text{supp}(e)`$ the set of $`\alpha `$ which appear in this sum. Clearly, $`\alpha (\frac{1}{2}h)=1`$ for all $`\alpha \text{supp}(e)`$.

Define the following convex region in $`V`$:

$$R_e=\{vV|\alpha (v)1\text{ for all }\alpha \text{supp}(e)\}.$$

Since $`e𝔫_𝒮`$, $`R_e`$ contains the closure of the $`ST`$-region for $`𝒮`$. Then the proof of Proposition 3.2 yields that every point in $`R_e`$ has length at least the length of $`\frac{1}{2}h`$. Moreover, $`\frac{1}{2}h`$ actually belongs to $`R_e`$. Uniqueness also follows from Proposition 3.2 (or the convexity of $`R_e`$). ∎

## 5. Relation to cells and representation theory

Let $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$ be the Lie algebra which is of type dual to $`𝔤`$. Let $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔥{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$ be a Cartan subalgebra. We identify $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔥_{}^{}𝔥`$. Let $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔟{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$ be the Borel subalgebra determined by $`𝔟`$.

As noted in the introduction, if $`\lambda 𝔥`$ is one-half a Dynkin element, then the weight $`\lambda {}_{}{}^{L}𝔥_{}^{}𝔥`$ is important in representation theory. For example, let $`L(\mu )`$ be the irreducible representation of $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$ of highest weight $`\mu \rho `$, where $`\rho `$ is one-half the sum of the positive roots in $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$ determined by $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔟`$. Then if $`\lambda `$ is one-half a Dynkin element, the annihilator $`J(\lambda )`$ of $`L(\lambda )`$ is a maximal ideal in $`𝐔({}_{}{}^{L}𝔤)`$, the universal enveloping algebra of $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$, and this ideal is known to be completely prime in the classical groups by the work of McGovern ( Corollary 6.21). The idea for studying these particular weights arises in the work of Barbasch and Vogan on the unitary dual for complex Lie groups; they are known to yield (in many cases, see ) unitary representations. These representations are called special unipotent representations. In what follows, we locate other weights by varying the type of cell under consideration; we hope that these weights might be useful for the unitarity question for complex Lie groups (and more generally for Arthur’s conjectures for groups over local fields). As a first step, one might hope that the purely algebraic work of McGovern extends to these weights.

We begin by re-phrasing our main result in type $`A_n`$. Let $`\theta `$ be the highest root of $`\mathrm{\Phi }^+`$ and let $`s_0`$ be the affine reflection in the hyperplane $`H_{\theta ,1}`$ in $`V`$ where $`\theta `$ takes the value $`1`$. Let $`s_1,\mathrm{},s_n`$ denote the reflections in the hyperplanes $`H_{\alpha ,0}`$ where $`\alpha `$ takes the value $`0`$, as $`\alpha `$ runs through the simple roots in $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$. Let $`\stackrel{~}{S}=\{s_0,s_1,\mathrm{},s_n\}`$. Then the affine Weyl group of $`G`$ is the group generated by the elements in $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$; this is a Coxeter group with length function denoted $`l()`$. For $`wW_a`$, let $`R(w)=\{s\stackrel{~}{S}|l(ws)<l(w)\}`$.

Following , we call $`𝒞W_a`$ a canonical left Kazhdan-Lusztig cell if it is the intersection of a two-sided Kazhdan-Lusztig cell and the set of elements $`wW_a`$ such that $`R(w)\{s_0\}`$. The canonical left cells are indexed by nilpotent orbits for the group dual to $`G`$; this is Lusztig’s parametrization of two-sided cells . For example, the cell consisting solely of the identity element in $`W_a`$ corresponds to the regular nilpotent orbit in $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$.

Let $`A`$ be the fundamental alcove for $`W_a`$ defined by

$$A:=\{xV|\alpha (x)>0\text{ for }\alpha \mathrm{\Pi },\theta (x)<1\}$$

and let $`𝒞`$ be a canonical left Kazhdan-Lusztig cell in $`W_a`$. Define $`\overline{𝒞}`$ to be the closure of

$$\{w(A)|w𝒞\}$$

where the action of $`W_a`$ on alcoves is the one in . In particular, $`\overline{𝒞}`$.

By the classification of left Kazhdan-Lusztig cells in type $`A_n`$ (due to Shi  and Lusztig ) and by a comment of Lusztig in  (proved by Lawton in ), $`\overline{𝒞}`$ exactly coincides with the closure of $`N_𝒪`$ where $`𝒪`$ is the orbit dual to the one parametrizing $`𝒞`$. We remark that the Lawton-Lusztig result is closely related to property D.

Our main theorem now becomes:

###### Theorem 5.1.

Let $`𝒪`$ be a nilpotent orbit in $`𝔰𝔩_n(𝐂)`$ and let $`𝒞`$ be the canonical left cell attached to the orbit which is dual to $`𝒪`$. Then the element of minimal length in $`\overline{𝒞}`$ is exactly one-half the Dynkin element for $`𝒪`$.

Already in $`B_2`$ and $`G_2`$ when $`𝒞`$ is a canonical left cell, it is no longer true that $`\overline{𝒞}`$ is a union of the closures of $`ST`$-regions. Nevertheless, the element $`\lambda `$ of minimal length in $`\overline{𝒞}`$ is interesting: the maximal ideal $`J(\lambda )`$ turns out to be completely prime. We can find these weights explicitly in rank $`2`$ by looking at the pictures in .

###### Example 5.2.

In type $`B_2`$, the elements are (written as a weighted diagram– see the introduction – with the first simple root being long): $`(0,0)`$, $`(0,\frac{1}{2})`$, $`(1,\frac{1}{2})`$, $`(1,1)`$, coming from the cell attached by Lusztig to the regular, the subregular, the minimal, and the zero orbit, respectively. Only the third element is not one-half a Dynkin element; the corresponding maximal ideal $`J(\lambda )`$ is the Joseph ideal, the unique completely prime primitive ideal in $`B_2`$ whose associated variety is the minimal orbit .

###### Example 5.3.

In type $`G_2`$, the elements are (written as a weighted diagram, with the first simple root being long): $`(0,0)`$, $`(\frac{1}{2},0)`$, $`(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$, $`(1,\frac{1}{3})`$, $`(1,1)`$, coming from the cell attached to the regular, the subregular, the eight-dimensional, the minimal, and the zero orbit respectively. The third and fourth elements are not one-half of a Dynkin element. The fourth element yields the Joseph ideal  and the third element yields a maximal ideal which Joseph showed is completely prime and whose associated variety is the eight-dimensional nilpotent orbit .

In the rest of the paper, $`G`$ returns to being of general type. The above examples suggest

###### Conjecture 5.4.

Let $`𝒞`$ be a canonical left Kazhdan-Lusztig cell in $`W_a`$. Let $`\lambda {}_{}{}^{L}𝔥_{}^{}𝔥`$ be an element of minimal length in $`\overline{𝒞}`$ (which we conjecture is unique). Then $`J(\lambda )`$ is a completely prime, maximal ideal of $`𝐔({}_{}{}^{L}𝔤)`$ whose associated variety is the orbit which indexes $`𝒞`$.

When $`G`$ is not of type $`A_n`$, Joseph has shown that there is a unique completely prime, primitive ideal whose associated variety is the minimal orbit. Hence the conjecture predicts that when $`G`$ is not of type $`A_n`$, the point of minimal length in the canonical left cell region attached to the minimal orbit is the infinitesimal character of the Joseph ideal.

We also note that it seems likely that the element of minimal length in $`\overline{𝒞}`$ is one-half a Dynkin element if and only if the orbit $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝒪`$ indexing $`𝒞`$ is special; in which case, the minimal element should be one-half the Dynkin element for the smallest orbit in $`𝔤`$ which maps under Lusztig-Spaltenstein duality to $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝒪`$.

We now investigate another way to get weights which may be of interest in representation theory. They may be especially useful for defining unipotent representations for complex Lie groups. It would be interesting to see if there is any connection between these weights and the weights produced in  in the classical groups.

In , Lusztig defined the notion of $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-cells in $`W_a`$. They are parametrized by pairs $`(𝒪,C)`$ where $`𝒪`$ is a nilpotent orbit in $`𝔤`$ and $`C`$ is a conjugacy class in $`A(𝒪)`$ ( the fundamental group of $`𝒪`$). Let $`𝒟`$ be an $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-cell and let $`\overline{𝒟}V`$ be the closure of

$$\{w(A)|w𝒟\text{ and }w(A)\}.$$

We call $`\overline{𝒟}`$ a (canonical left) $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-region. It is not too hard to see that the closure of an $`N`$-region is a union of $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-regions. More explicitly, if $`𝒪`$ is a nilpotent orbit in $`𝔤`$,

$$\overline{N}_𝒪=\overline{𝒟}_{(𝒪,C)}$$

where the union is over all conjugacy classes $`C`$ in $`A(𝒪)`$. It follows from our main theorem that one-half the Dynkin element of $`𝒪`$ is the minimal element of $`\overline{𝒟}_{(𝒪,C)}`$ for some conjugacy class $`CA(𝒪)`$ (in fact, $`C=1`$ but we omit the proof). This leads us to conjecture

###### Conjecture 5.5.

Let $`\lambda {}_{}{}^{L}𝔥_{}^{}𝔥`$ be an element of minimal length in a canonical left $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-region. Then $`J(\lambda )`$ is completely prime.

In types $`B_2`$ and $`G_2`$ the only elements we obtain by looking at $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-regions which are not one-half a Dynkin element are the elements listed above coming from the Kazhdan-Lusztig cells (we found this from the $`B_2`$-picture in  and calculating the canonical left $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$-cells in $`G_2`$). This leads us to wonder if the elements from the first conjecture are a subset of the elements coming from the second conjecture. This would follow from a conjecture of the second author  which we now describe.

Let $`𝒩_{o,c}`$ denote the set of all pairs $`(𝒪,C)`$ as above. Let $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝒩_{o}^{}`$ denote the nilpotent orbits for the dual group $`{}_{}{}^{L}G`$ in $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$. Let $`d:𝒩_{o,c}{}_{}{}^{L}𝒩_{o}^{}`$ be the map from .

###### Conjecture 5.6.

Let $`𝒞`$ be the canonical left Kazhdan-Lusztig cell indexed by the orbit $`{}_{}{}^{L}𝒪{}_{}{}^{L}𝔤`$. Then

$$\overline{𝒞}=\overline{𝒟}_{(𝒪,C)}$$

where the union is over all pairs $`(𝒪,C)`$ such that $`d_{(𝒪,C)}={}_{}{}^{L}𝒪`$.