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# Universal state inversion and concurrence in arbitrary dimensions

## I Introduction

Entanglement plays a central role in quantum information theory . Perhaps the most important measure of entanglement for bipartite systems is the entanglement of formation . For a bipartite pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }^{AB}`$, the entanglement of formation is given by the entropy of the marginal density operators, $`\rho _A`$ and $`\rho _B`$, of systems $`A`$ and $`B`$. For a bipartite mixed state $`\rho _{AB}`$, the entanglement of formation is given by the minimum average marginal entropy of ensemble decompositions of $`\rho _{AB}`$.

Hill and Wootters  introduced another measure of entanglement, called the concurrence, for pairs of qubits. The concurrence is defined with the help of a superoperator $`𝒮_2`$, whose action on a qubit density operator $`\rho =\frac{1}{2}(I+\stackrel{}{P}\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$ is to flip the spin of the qubit:

$$𝒮_2(\rho )=\sigma _y\rho ^{}\sigma _y=\frac{1}{2}(I\stackrel{}{P}\stackrel{}{\sigma }).$$
(1)
Here $`\rho ^{}`$ is the complex conjugate (or transpose) of $`\rho `$ relative to the eigenbasis of $`\sigma _z`$. The concurrence of a pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}`$ of two qubits is defined to be

$$C_2(\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB})\sqrt{\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}\left|𝒮_2𝒮_2(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}|)\right|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}}=|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}|\sigma _y\sigma _y|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}^{}|.$$
(2)
Wootters  showed that the entanglement of formation of an arbitrary two-qubit mixed state $`\rho _{AB}`$ can be written in terms of the minimum average pure-state concurrence, where the minimum is taken over all ensemble decompositions of $`\rho _{AB}`$, and he derived an explicit expression for this minimum average pure-state concurrence. Wootters called this minimum the concurrence of the mixed state. Uhlmann  introduced a generalization of Wootters’s concurrence to higher dimensions, which we discuss further in Sec. II B.

In this paper we generalize the notion of concurrence to pairs of quantum systems of arbitrary dimension, in a way different from Uhlmann’s. We show in Sec. II that if the concurrence is to be generated by a product superoperator, as in the expression (2), then the only suitable superoperator to go into the tensor product is what we call the “universal inverter.” For a $`D`$-dimensional quantum system, which we call a “qudit,” we denote the universal inverter by $`𝒮_D`$. The action of the universal inverter on a qudit state $`\rho `$ is given by

$$𝒮_D(\rho )=\nu _D(I\rho ),$$
(3)
where $`\nu _D`$ is a positive constant. Acting on a pure qudit state $`|\psi `$, the universal inverter maps $`|\psi `$ to a multiple of the maximally mixed state in the subspace orthogonal to $`|\psi `$. The universal inverter has been used previously in studies of the separability of mixed states by Horodecki and Horodecki .

The corresponding generalized concurrence for a joint pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}`$ of a $`D_1\times D_2`$ system, in analogy to Eq. (2) for qubits, is given by

$$C(\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB})\sqrt{\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}\left|𝒮_{D_1}𝒮_{D_2}(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}|)\right|\mathrm{\Psi }_{AB}}=2\nu _{D_1}\nu _{D_2}[1\mathrm{tr}(\rho _A^2)].$$
(4)
Thus, for pure states, this generalized concurrence is simply related to the purity of the marginal density operators. A sensible choice for the constant $`\nu _D`$, consistent with the concurrence for qubits, is $`\nu _D=1`$. We call the generalized concurrence (4) the I-concurrence to emphasize its relation to the universal inverter and also to distinguish it from a generalized concurrence introduced by Uhlmann .

The universal inverter is a natural generalization to higher dimensions of the qubit spin flip. Only for $`D=2`$, the spin flip, does the universal inverter map pure states to pure states. The universal inverter cannot be realized as a quantum dynamics, because though it is a positive superoperator, it is not completely positive. In Sec. II D we explore a one-parameter family of trace-preserving superoperators that are closely related to the universal inverter, and we show that the completely positive member of this family that is closest to the universal inverter is the universal-NOT superoperator . The universal-NOT is thus a physically realizable quantum analogue of the classical NOT gate. The action of the universal-NOT, denoted $`𝒢_{\mathrm{NOT}}`$, on a qudit state is given by

$$𝒢_{\mathrm{NOT}}(\rho )=\frac{1}{D^21}(DI\rho )\rho ^{\mathrm{NOT}}.$$
(5)
In Sec. III we give two physical realizations of the universal-NOT, one in terms of the quantum information distributor introduced by Braunstein, Bužek, and Hillery  and the other in terms of a measurement of the isotropic POVM followed by state inversion.

The paper concludes in Sec. IV with a brief discussion that includes the natural extension of I-concurrence to mixed states.

## II Universal Inverter

In this section we first review, in Sec. II A, Wootters’s spin-flip operation for a qubit and how it leads to an entanglement measure called the concurrence for an arbitrary pure state of two qubits . The main result of this paper is to generalize the spin flip to a superoperator that we call the universal inverter. The universal inverter is defined in all Hilbert-space dimensions, and it leads to a generalized concurrence for joint pure states of two quantum systems of arbitrary dimension. In Sec. II B we formulate the requirements for the universal inverter and explore some of its properties, in Sec. II C we show that these requirements pick out a unique universal inverter up to a constant multiple, and in Sec. II D we consider trace-preserving superoperators that are closely related to the universal inverter.

The formalism we use for superoperators has been used extensively in open-systems theory . The particular notation we use can be found in Ref.  and is summarized briefly in Appendix A, along with a description of several superoperators that play key roles in our discussion. In contrast to Ref. , we use $``$, instead of $``$, to denote the slot into which one inserts the operator on which a superoperator acts, reserving $``$ to denote tensor products between quantum systems. This superoperator formalism has been used to analyze entanglement in Ref. .

We refer to the two subsystems of a bipartite system as systems $`A`$ and $`B`$. Where necessary for clarity, we use subscripts $`A`$, $`B`$, and $`AB`$ to distinguish quantities belonging to the subsystems and to the joint system. To reduce notational clutter, however, we omit these subscripts on pure states, denoting pure states of a single system by a lower-case Greek letter, e.g., $`|\psi `$, and joint pure states of a bipartite system by an upper-case Greek letter, e.g., $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$.

### A Spin flip and qubit concurrence

A spin flip for a single qubit is effected by the anti-unitary operator $`\sigma _y𝒞=𝒞\sigma _y`$, where $`𝒞`$ denotes complex conjugation in the eigenbasis of $`\sigma _z`$. Acting on a state vector $`|\psi `$ or an operator $`A`$, the anti-unitary complex conjugation operator gives $`𝒞|\psi =|\psi ^{}`$ or $`𝒞A=A^{}𝒞`$, where $`|\psi ^{}`$ and $`A^{}`$ denote complex conjugation of the state or operator in the eigenbasis of $`\sigma _z`$. An anti-unitary operator that satisfies $`\mathrm{\Theta }^2=\pm 1`$, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{}=\pm \mathrm{\Theta }`$, is called a conjugation; conjugations are ordinarily introduced in quantum mechanics to represent time reversal. Complex conjugation in some orthornormal basis is a conjugation because $`𝒞^2=1`$, and spin flip is a conjugation because $`(\sigma _y𝒞)^{}=𝒞^{}\sigma _y^{}=𝒞\sigma _y=\sigma _y𝒞`$. For a description of other properties and uses of anti-linear operators, see Ref. .

Promoted to an operator on operators, the spin flip becomes an anti-linear superoperator $`\sigma _y𝒞𝒞\sigma _y`$, which acts on operators according to $`\sigma _y𝒞A𝒞\sigma _y=\sigma _yA^{}\sigma _y`$. Since we are only interested in the operation of the spin flip on Hermitian operators, where complex conjugation is equivalent to transposition, we can replace this anti-linear superoperator with the corresponding linear superoperator

$$𝒮_2=\sigma _y\sigma _y𝒯_2,$$
(6)
where $`𝒯_2`$ denotes transposition in the eigenbasis of $`\sigma _z`$ (see Appendix A). The subscript 2 distinguishes the spin flip and transposition in two dimensions from the similar quantities for arbitrary dimensions that we introduce later in this section.

The action of the spin-flip superoperator on an arbitrary qubit density operator, $`\rho =\frac{1}{2}(I+\stackrel{}{P}\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$, is to invert the Bloch vector $`\stackrel{}{P}`$ through the origin, as in Eq. (1). Since inversion commutes with rotations, representing unitary operators, we have immediately that $`𝒮_2`$ commutes with all unitary operators $`U`$, i.e., $`𝒮_2UU^{}=UU^{}𝒮_2`$.

For a quantum state $`\rho `$ of a two-qubit system, the spin-flipped density operator, distinguished by a tilde, is

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }=𝒮_2𝒮_2(\rho )=\sigma _y\sigma _y\rho ^{}\sigma _y\sigma _y.$$
(7)
Hill and Wootters  defined the concurrence of a two-qubit pure state, $`\rho =|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|`$, to be

$$C_2(\mathrm{\Psi })\sqrt{\mathrm{tr}(\rho \stackrel{~}{\rho })}=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Psi }\left|𝒮_2𝒮_2(|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|)\right|\mathrm{\Psi }}=|\mathrm{\Psi }|\sigma _y\sigma _y|\mathrm{\Psi }^{}|.$$
(8)
The joint pure state can be written in terms of a Schmidt decomposition,

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=a_1|e_1|f_1+a_2|e_2|f_2,$$
(9)
where $`|e_j`$ and $`|f_j`$ are the orthonormal eigenvectors of the marginal density operators for the two qubits and $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ are the (positive) square roots of the corresponding eigenvalues. Since $`𝒮_2`$ commutes with all unitary operators, the concurrence $`C_2(\mathrm{\Psi })`$ is unchanged by local unitary transformations. This means that $`C_2(\mathrm{\Psi })`$ is a function only of $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$; it is easy to verify that $`C_2(\mathrm{\Psi })=2a_1a_2`$. As noted by Wootters, the concurrence can serve as a measurement of entanglement: it is invariant under local unitary transformations, as any good measure of entanglement should be, and it varies smoothly from $`0`$ for pure product states to $`1`$ for maximally entangled pure states.

Wootters  went on to show that the concurrence can also be used to measure the entanglement of mixed states of two qubits. He showed that the entanglement of formation of an arbitrary two-qubit mixed state $`\rho `$ can be written in terms of the minimum average pure-state concurrence of ensemble decompositions of $`\rho `$, and he derived an explicit expression for this minimum in terms of the eigenvalues of $`\rho \stackrel{~}{\rho }`$. Wootters called the minimum the concurrence of the mixed state.

Uhlmann  based his generalization of concurrence on the fact that the spin flip is a conjugation, defining concurrence in arbitrary dimensions in terms of a conjugation $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$. Following Uhlmann, we call his concurrence the $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$-concurrence, and we discuss it further in the next subsection.

### B Universal inverter and I-concurrence

Our goal in this paper is to generalize the spin-flip superoperator $`𝒮_2`$ for a qubit to a superoperator $`𝒮_D`$ that acts on qudit states and generates a generalized concurrence for $`D_1\times D_2`$ bipartite quantum systems. The spin-flip superoperator has several important properties that we might wish its generalization to retain:

1. $`𝒮_2`$ maps Hermitian operators to Hermitian operators.
2. $`𝒮_2`$ commutes with all unitary operators.
3. $`\mathrm{\Psi }|𝒮_2𝒮_2(|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|)|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is nonnegative for all joint pure states $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and goes to zero if and only if $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a product state.
4. $`𝒮_2`$ is a positive superoperator; i.e., it maps positive operators to positive operators.
5. $`𝒮_2`$ is trace preserving.
6. $`𝒮_2`$ maps any pure state $`|\psi \psi |`$ to the orthogonal pure state $`|\psi ^{}\psi ^{}|`$.
7. $`𝒮_2`$ is derived from a conjugation $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, i.e., an antiunitary operator satisfying $`\mathrm{\Theta }^2=\pm 1`$.

Property 1 guarantees that $`𝒮_2𝒮_2`$ maps Hermitian operators to Hermitian operators (see Appendix B) and thus that the quantity $`\mathrm{\Psi }|𝒮_2𝒮_2(|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|)|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of property 3 is real. Property 2 ensures that $`C_2(\mathrm{\Psi })`$ is unchanged by local unitary transformations, as an entanglement measure should be. Property 3 makes $`C_2(\mathrm{\Psi })`$ well defined, by ensuring that the quantity inside the square root is nonnegative, and it sets the zero so that pure product states, but no other pure states, have vanishing concurrence.

In generalizing the spin flip to higher dimensions, we want the generalized concurrence of a pure state $`\rho =|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|`$ of a $`D_1\times D_2`$ bipartite system to be defined as for qubits, i.e.,

$$C(\mathrm{\Psi })\sqrt{\mathrm{\Psi }\left|𝒮_{D_1}𝒮_{D_2}(|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|)\right|\mathrm{\Psi }}.$$
(10)
It is clear that the analogues of properties 1–3 are desirable properties of $`𝒮_D`$, for the same reasons as for qubits, and it turns out that they are sufficient to pick out a unique superoperator $`𝒮_D`$ up to a constant multiple.

The upshot of this discussion is that we require $`𝒮_D`$ to have the following properties:

* $`𝒮_D`$ maps Hermitian operators to Hermitian operators.
* $`𝒮_D`$ commutes with all unitary operators.
* $`\mathrm{\Psi }|𝒮_{D_1}𝒮_{D_2}(|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|)|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is nonnegative for all joint pure states $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and goes to zero if and only if $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a product state.

The only superoperator that has these three properties is

$$𝒮_D=\nu _D(𝐈),$$
(11)
where $`𝐈`$ is the unit superoperator relative to the left-right action, $``$ is the unit superoperator relative to the ordinary action, and $`\nu _D`$ is an arbitrary real constant. For the considerations in Sec. II D, we allow $`\nu _D`$ to have a dependence on $`D`$. For purposes of defining a generalized concurrence, however, $`\nu _D`$ should be independent of $`D`$; otherwise the generalized concurrence of joint pure state could be changed simply by adding extra, unused dimensions to one or both systems.

We show that $`𝒮_D`$ is the only superoperator allowed by properties $`1^{}`$$`3^{}`$ in Sec. II C. For the remainder of this subsection, we show that $`𝒮_D`$ does satisfy properties $`1^{}`$$`3^{}`$, and we spell out some of its other properties and properties of the corresponding concurrence. Notice first that $`𝒮_D`$ takes an operator $`A`$ to

$$𝒮_D(A)=\nu _D[𝐈(A)(A)]=\nu _D[\mathrm{tr}(A)IA],$$
(12)
from which it is clear that $`𝒮_D`$ satisfies properties $`1^{}`$ and $`2^{}`$. If $`A`$ is a density operator $`\rho `$, we get

$$𝒮_D(\rho )=\nu _D(I\rho ).$$
(13)
Since $`I\rho `$ is a positive operator for any $`\rho `$, we have immediately that $`𝒮_D`$ is a positive superoperator provided that $`\nu _D`$ is positive. The generalized concurrence is indifferent to a change in the sign of $`\nu _D`$, so we are free to choose $`\nu _D`$ to be positive, which we do henceforth, thus making $`𝒮_D`$ positive. If $`\nu _D=1/(D1)`$, $`𝒮_D`$ is trace preserving; this trace-preserving normalization is useful for the considerations of Sec. II D, but we see below that $`\nu _D=1`$ is a more reasonable normalization to use for the generalized concurrence $`C(\mathrm{\Psi })`$. Finally, $`𝒮_D`$ maps a pure state $`\rho =|\psi \psi |`$ to a positive multiple of the projector orthogonal to $`\rho `$:

$$𝒮_D(|\psi \psi |)=\nu _D(I|\psi \psi |).$$
(14)
It is this property that prompts us to call $`𝒮_D`$ the universal inverter. We call the corresponding generalized concurrence (10) the I-concurrence to emphasize its connection with inversion. Other properties of $`𝒮_D`$, which follow directly from the corresponding properties of $`𝐈`$ and $``$ (see Appendix A), are that $`𝒮_D`$ is Hermitian relative to the ordinary action, i.e., $`𝒮_D^\times =𝒮_D`$, and that it changes sign under sharping, i.e., $`𝒮_D^\mathrm{\#}=𝒮_D`$. The universal inverter has been used previously by Horodecki and Horodecki  to provide a criterion for the separability of mixed states.

We now see that properties 4–6 of the qubit spin flip survive, in amended form, in its generalization:

* $`𝒮_D`$ is a positive superoperator.
* $`𝒮_D`$ is a positive multiple of a trace-preserving superoperator, i.e., $`𝒮_D^\times (I)=\nu _D(D1)I`$.
* $`𝒮_D`$ maps any pure state $`|\psi \psi |`$ to a positive multiple of the projector onto the subspace orthogonal to $`|\psi `$.

It is worth pointing out that if we added to properties $`1^{}`$$`3^{}`$ the additional requirement that $`𝒮_D`$ map each pure state to a multiple of some orthogonal state, then the superoperator of Eq. (11) would trivially be the only possibility for the universal inverter.

We still have to deal with property $`3^{}`$. For that purpose we need the tensor-product superoperator

$$𝒮_{D_1}𝒮_{D_2}=\nu _{D_1}\nu _{D_2}(𝐈𝐈𝐈𝐈+).$$
(15)
Applied to an arbitrary joint density operator $`\rho _{AB}`$, this tensor-product superoperator gives

$$𝒮_{D_1}𝒮_{D_2}(\rho _{AB})=\nu _{D_1}\nu _{D_2}(II\rho _AII\rho _B+\rho _{AB}).$$
(16)
Projecting back onto $`\rho _{AB}`$ gives

$$\mathrm{tr}\left(\rho _{AB}𝒮_{D_1}𝒮_{D_2}(\rho _{AB})\right)=\nu _{D_1}\nu _{D_2}[1\mathrm{tr}(\rho _A^2)\mathrm{tr}(\rho _B^2)+\mathrm{tr}(\rho _{AB}^2)]0.$$
(17)
The inequality here, which shows that the quantity in property $`3^{}`$ is nonnegative, is proved in Appendix C, where it is also shown that the inequality is saturated if and only if $`\rho _{AB}=\rho _A\rho _B`$ is a product state, with $`\rho _A`$ or $`\rho _B`$ a pure state. For a joint pure state $`\rho _{AB}`$, this establishes property $`3^{}`$.

It is useful to specialize Eq. (17) to a joint pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, in which case it becomes the square of the pure-state I-concurrence:

$$C^2(\mathrm{\Psi })=\mathrm{\Psi }\left|𝒮_{D_1}𝒮_{D_2}(|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|)\right|\mathrm{\Psi }=2\nu _{D_1}\nu _{D_2}[1\mathrm{tr}(\rho _A^2)].$$
(18)
Thus the I-concurrence measures the entanglement of a pure state in terms of the purity, $`\mathrm{tr}(\rho _A^2)=\mathrm{tr}(\rho _B^2)`$, of the marginal density operators. A joint pure state has a Schmidt decomposition,

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\underset{j}{}a_j|e_j|f_j,a_j>0,$$
(19)
in terms of which the squared I-concurrence becomes

$$C^2(\mathrm{\Psi })=2\nu _{D_1}\nu _{D_2}\left(1\underset{j}{}a_j^4\right)=4\nu _{D_1}\nu _{D_2}\underset{j<k}{}a_j^2a_k^2.$$
(20)
For defining a concurrence, one should choose the scaling factor $`\nu _D`$ to be independent of $`D`$—otherwise, as noted above, the pure state I-concurrence could be changed simply by adding extra, unused dimensions to one of the subsystems—and to be consistent with the qubit concurrence, one should choose $`\nu _D=1`$. With this choice the pure-state I-concurrence runs from zero for product states to $`\sqrt{2(M1)/M}`$, where $`M=\mathrm{min}(D_1,D_2)`$, for a maximally entangled state.

Of the seven properties of the spin flip listed above, the first six survive, some in amended form, in the universal inverter. The seventh, that $`𝒮_2`$ is derived from a conjugation, is not a property of $`𝒮_D`$, because except in two dimensions, a conjugation cannot commute with all unitaries and thus cannot serve as the basis for a measure of entanglement. Uhlmann’s work on conjugations  is valuable in that it generalizes to all conjugations the expression that Wootters gives for the minimum average pure-state concurrence of a bipartite density operator $`\rho `$ in terms of the eigenvalues of $`\rho \stackrel{~}{\rho }`$. Our results show, however, that Uhlmann’s $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$-concurrence , founded as it is on the use of conjugations, cannot serve as the basis for a general measure of entanglement.

There is another interesting form of the universal inverter, which makes a direct connection to the form (7) of the spin flip. Choosing an orthonormal basis $`|e_j`$, let $`𝒯`$ be the superoperator that transposes matrix representations in this basis, and let $`𝒫_A`$ be the superoperator projector, relative to the left-right action, which projects onto the subspace of operators that are antisymmetric in this basis. We show in Appendix A that

$$𝒮_D/\nu _D=2𝒫_A𝒯.$$
(21)
This form of the universal inverter has been given previously by Horodecki and Horodecki . For qubits, if we use the eigenstates of $`\sigma _z`$ as the chosen basis, then the antisymmetric operator subspace is spanned by the normalized operator $`\sigma _y/\sqrt{2}`$, so the projector onto this subspace is $`𝒫_A=|\sigma _y)(\sigma _y|/2=\sigma _y\sigma _y/2`$. Thus in the two dimensions the universal inverter becomes $`𝒮_2=\nu _2\sigma _y\sigma _y𝒯_2`$, which agrees with the spin flip if $`\nu _2=1`$.

### C Derivation of universal inverter

We now show that the only superoperator that satisfies properties $`1^{}`$$`3^{}`$ of the preceding subsection is the universal inverter (11). As we proceed through the proof, we use $`𝒢_D`$ to denote the operator under consideration.

As we show in Appendix B, property $`1^{}`$ implies that $`𝒢_D`$ is left-right Hermitian, i.e., $`𝒢_D=𝒢_D^{}`$, and thus has an eigendecomposition

$$𝒢_D=\underset{\alpha }{}\mu _\alpha |\tau _\alpha )(\tau _\alpha |=\underset{\alpha }{}\mu _\alpha \tau _\alpha \tau _\alpha ^{},$$
(22)
where the $`\mu _\alpha `$ are real (left-right) eigenvalues and the operators $`\tau _\alpha `$ are the corresponding orthonormal eigenoperators.

Property $`2^{}`$ implies that

$$𝒢_D=U^{}U𝒢_DUU^{}=\underset{\alpha }{}\mu _\alpha U^{}\tau _\alpha UU^{}\tau _\alpha ^{}U,$$
(23)
which means that $`U^{}\tau _\alpha U`$ is an eigenoperator of $`𝒢_D`$, with eigenvalue $`\mu _\alpha `$, for any unitary operator $`U`$. This result can be restated as saying that the degenerate eigensubspaces of $`𝒢_D`$ are invariant under all unitary transformations. We show in Appendix D that the only operator subspaces that are invariant under all unitary transformations are the one-dimensional subspace spanned by the unit operator and the ($`D^21`$)-dimensional subspace of tracefree operators. As a consequence, $`𝒢_D`$ must have the form

$$𝒢_D=\mu _D/D+\nu _D.$$
(24)
Here $`=II`$ is the unit superoperator relative to the ordinary action, $``$ is the superoperator that projects onto the subspace of tracefree operators when acting to the right (see Appendix A), $`\mu _D`$ is the eigenvalue of $`𝒢_D`$ corresponding to the normalized eigenoperator $`I/\sqrt{D}`$, and $`\nu _D`$ is the eigenvalue corresponding to all of the tracefree operators. Notice that $`𝒢_D`$ is Hermitian relative to the ordinary action, i.e., $`𝒢_D=𝒢_D^\times `$.

If we add $`I/\sqrt{D}`$ to a complete, orthonormal set of tracefree operators, we obtain a complete, orthonormal set of operators, so the unit superoperator in the left-right sense is given by

$$𝐈=/D+,$$
(25)
from which we get

$$𝒢_D=\eta _D+\nu _D𝐈,$$
(26)
where

$$\eta _D=(\mu _D\nu _D)/D.$$
(27)
Now we impose property $`3^{}`$. In doing so, it is sufficient to consider the requirements of property $`3^{}`$ in the case where the two subsystems have the the same dimension $`D`$. In this case the tensor-product superoperator takes the form

$$𝒢_D𝒢_D=\eta _D^2+\eta _D\nu _D(𝐈+𝐈)+\nu _D^2𝐈𝐈.$$
(28)
Applying this superoperator to a joint density operator $`\rho _{AB}`$ gives

$$𝒢_D𝒢_D(\rho _{AB})=\eta _D^2\rho _{AB}+\eta _D\nu _D(\rho _AI+I\rho _B)+\nu _D^2II,$$
(29)
and projecting this back onto $`\rho _{AB}`$ yields

$$\mathrm{tr}\left(\rho _{AB}𝒢_D𝒢_D(\rho _{AB})\right)=\eta _D^2\mathrm{tr}(\rho _{AB}^2)+\eta _D\nu _D[\mathrm{tr}(\rho _A^2)+\mathrm{tr}(\rho _B^2)]+\nu _D^2.$$
(30)
Specializing to a joint pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, we get

$$\mathrm{\Psi }\left|𝒢_D𝒢_D(|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|)\right|\mathrm{\Psi }=\eta _D^2+\nu _D^2+2\eta _D\nu _D\mathrm{tr}(\rho _A^2)=(\eta _D\nu _D)^2\pm 2\eta _D\nu _D[1\pm \mathrm{tr}(\rho _A^2)].$$
(31)
If $`\eta _D\nu _D0`$, the top sign in Eq. (31) shows that the quantity in property $`3^{}`$ is strictly positive, unless $`\eta _D=\nu _D=0`$, a case of no interest. If $`\eta _D\nu _D<0`$, the bottom sign in Eq. (31) shows that the quantity is nonnegative and goes to zero if and only if $`\eta _D=\nu _D`$ and $`\rho _A`$ is pure, i.e., the joint pure state is a product state. Thus it turns out that the quantity in property $`3^{}`$ is nonnegative for all superoperators of the form (26), but the only way to set the zero properly is to choose $`\eta _D=\nu _D`$, thus giving the universal inverter of Eq. (11). The left-right eigenvalues of the universal inverter are $`\nu _D`$ and $`\mu _D=D\eta _D+\nu _D=(D1)\nu _D`$.

### D Trace-preserving superoperators

All superoperators of the form (26) are proportional to a trace-preserving superoperator, since

$$𝒢_D^\times (I)=𝒢_D(I)=(\eta _D+D\nu _D)I.$$
(32)
Requiring $`𝒢_D`$ to be trace preserving gives the condition

$$\eta _D=1D\nu _D$$
(33)
\[$`\mu _D=D\nu _D(D^21)`$\], which allows us to eliminate one parameter and to write the trace-preserving version of $`𝒢_D`$ as

$$𝒢_{DT}=(1D\nu _D)+\nu _D𝐈.$$
(34)
Acting on an arbitrary input state $`\rho `$, this superoperator gives

$$𝒢_{DT}(\rho )=(1D\nu _D)\rho +\nu _DI.$$
(35)
It is instructive to investigate this one-parameter family of trace-preserving operators.

We first ask which of the trace-preserving operators (34) are completely positive. The condition that a superoperator be completely positive is that its left-right eigenvalues be nonnegative (see Appendix A). Thus the condition for the complete positivity of $`𝒢_{DT}`$ is that $`\mu _D0`$ and $`\nu _D0`$, which is equivalent to

$$0\nu _D\frac{D}{D^21}.$$
(36)
When $`\nu _D=0`$, $`𝒢_{DT}=`$ is the unit superoperator, and when $`\nu _D=D/(D^21)`$,

$$𝒢_{DT}=\frac{D}{D^21}=\frac{1}{D^21}(D𝐈)𝒢_{\mathrm{NOT}}$$
(37)
is the universal-NOT superoperator . Notice that the universal-NOT is a multiple of $``$, the superoperator whose right action projects onto the subspace of tracefree operators. Since the dynamics of a quantum system must be completely positive, the universal-NOT is the closest physical approximation to the universal inverter in the one-parameter family (35); it is the quantum analogue of the classical NOT gate. We present a realization of the universal-NOT in Sec. III.

Another interesting completely positive superoperator occurs for $`\nu _D=1/(D+1)`$:

$$𝒢_{DT}=\frac{1}{D+1}(𝐈+)=\frac{1}{D}+\frac{1}{D+1}𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}.$$
(38)
This superoperator was used to generate operator expansions in Ref. , where it was shown that it is the unique trace-preserving superoperator that satisfies $`𝒢=𝒢^{}=𝒢^\times =𝒢^\mathrm{\#}`$ and commutes with all unitaries. In contrast, the universal inverter is the unique superoperator that satisfies $`𝒢=𝒢^{}=𝒢^\times =𝒢^\mathrm{\#}`$ and commutes with all unitaries.

As shown in Ref. , the superoperator $`𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}`$ is the trace-preserving version of the superoperator that describes projection onto a random pure state,

$$𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}=D\frac{d𝒱}{𝒱}|\psi \psi ||\psi \psi |,$$
(39)
where $`d𝒱`$ is the unitarily invariant integration measure on projective Hilbert space and $`𝒱`$ is the corresponding total volume. Projection onto a random pure state is the measurement that results in the optimal estimation of the state of the qudit . This estimated state is given by the density operator

$$𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}(\rho )=\frac{1}{D+1}(I+\rho ).$$
(40)
The superoperator $`𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}`$ returns in Sec. III as an ingredient in one of the physical realizations of the universal-NOT.

We now consider which of the trace-preserving operators (34) are positive. Letting $`p_j`$ be the eigenvalues of the input density operator $`\rho `$, one sees that the eigenvalues of $`𝒢_{DT}(\rho )`$ \[Eq. 35)\] are $`(1D\nu _D)p_j+\nu _D`$. The condition that $`𝒢_{DT}`$ be positive is that these eigenvalues be nonnegative for all input eigenvalues $`p_j`$, which is equivalent to

$$0\nu _D\frac{1}{D1}.$$
(41)
When $`\nu _D=1/(D1)`$, $`𝒢_{DT}`$ becomes the trace-preserving version of the universal inverter,

$$𝒮_{DT}=\frac{1}{D1}(𝐈).$$
(42)
The positive superoperators are convex combinations of $``$ and $`𝒮_{DT}`$:

$$𝒢_{DT}=[1\nu _D(D1)]+\nu _D(D1)𝒮_{DT}.$$
(43)
Notice that the universal-NOT can be written as

$$𝒢_{\mathrm{NOT}}=\frac{1}{2}(𝒮_{DT}+𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}).$$
(44)
## III Physical realizations of the universal-NOT

In this section we give two physical realization of the universal-NOT superoperator $`𝒢_{\mathrm{NOT}}`$ of Eq. (37), the first in terms of the quantum information distributor introduced by Braunstein, Bužek, and Hillery  and the second in terms of a measurement of the isotropic POVM followed by state inversion.

For the first, consider a qudit in a pure state $`\rho =|\psi \psi |`$. As shown in Sec. II, the ideal inversion of this state is given by

$$𝒮_{DT}(\rho )=\frac{1}{D1}(I\rho )\rho ^{},$$
(45)
where $`𝒮_{DT}`$ is the trace preserving version of the universal inverter \[see Eq. (42)\]. The inverted state $`\rho ^{}`$ is the maximally mixed state in the $`(D1)`$-dimensional subspace orthogonal to the input state $`\rho =|\psi \psi |`$. Notice that by construction, $`\mathrm{tr}(\rho \rho ^{})=0`$ for pure input states.

As shown in Sec. II D, the trace-preserving universal inverter $`𝒮_{\mathrm{DT}}`$ is a positive, but not completely positive superoperator and as such cannot be realized physically. In the one-parameter family of trace-preserving inverters considered in Sec. II D, the universal-NOT superoperator $`𝒢_{\mathrm{NOT}}`$ of Eq. (37) is the closest completely positive superoperator to the universal inverter. We denote the physically possible inversion of the state $`\rho `$ obtained using the universal-NOT as

$$\rho ^{\mathrm{NOT}}𝒢_{\mathrm{NOT}}(\rho )=\frac{1}{D^21}(DI\rho ).$$
(46)
In order to realize the universal-NOT, we couple the qudit to be inverted, denoted by $`A`$, to the quantum information distributor (QID) introduced in Ref. . The QID is composed of two ancilla qudits, $`B`$ and $`C`$, each of which has the same dimension $`D`$ as qudit $`A`$. To describe the universal inverter, we introduce several operators and states for qudits.

First we need the conjugate “position” and “momentum” operators, $`x`$ and $`p`$. The eigenvectors of $`x`$ are denoted by $`|x_k`$,

$$x|x_k=x_k|x_k,$$
(47)
with the eigenvalues given by $`x_k=k\sqrt{2\pi /D}`$; analogously, the eigenstates of $`p`$ are denoted by $`|p_k`$,

$$p|p_k=p_k|p_k,$$
(48)
with the eigenvalues given by $`p_k=k\sqrt{2\pi /D}`$. We use units such that the two operators are dimensionless. The two sets of eigenvectors, $`\{|x_k\}`$ and $`\{|p_k\}`$, form bases in the qudit Hilbert space and are related by a discrete Fourier transform,

$`|x_k`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{D}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{D1}{}}}e^{2\pi ikl/D}|p_l,`$ (49)
$`|p_l`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{D}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{D1}{}}}e^{2\pi ikl/D}|x_k.`$ (50)
The translation (shift) operators, defined by

$$R_x(n)=e^{ix_np},R_p(m)=e^{ip_mx},$$
(51)
cyclically permute the basis vectors according to

$`R_x(n)|x_k`$ $`=`$ $`|x_{(k+n)\mathrm{mod}D},`$ (52)
$`R_p(m)|p_l`$ $`=`$ $`|p_{(l+m)\mathrm{mod}D},`$ (53)
where the sums of indices are taken modulo $`D`$.

An orthonormal basis of $`D^2`$ two-qudit maximally entangled states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}`$ is given by

$$|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{D}}\underset{k=0}{\overset{D1}{}}e^{2\pi imk/D}|x_k|x_{(k+n)\mathrm{mod}D},$$
(54)
where $`m,n=0,\mathrm{},D1`$. Using Eq. (49), we can rewrite the states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}`$ in the joint momentum basis:

$$|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{D}}\underset{l=0}{\overset{D1}{}}e^{2\pi inl/D}|p_{(ml)\mathrm{mod}D}|p_l.$$
(55)
The state $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}`$ can be written as

$$|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{D}}\underset{k=0}{\overset{D1}{}}|x_k|x_k=\frac{1}{\sqrt{D}}\underset{l=0}{\overset{D1}{}}|p_{l\mathrm{mod}D}|p_l.$$
(56)
It is interesting to note that the whole set of $`D^2`$ maximally entangled states $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}`$ can be generated from $`|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}`$ by the action of local unitary operations (shifts):

$$|\mathrm{\Xi }_{mn}=R_p(m)R_x(n)|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}.$$
(57)
Now we are ready to describe the QID. The ancilla qudits, $`B`$ and $`C`$, are initially prepared in the state

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_{BC}=\xi _1|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{BC}+\xi _2|x_0_B|p_0_C.$$
(58)
The phase freedom in $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{BC}`$ can be used to make $`\xi _1`$ real and nonnegative, but then $`\xi _2`$ is in general complex. We do not use the freedom to make $`\xi _1`$ nonnegative, thereby retaining for use below the ability to multiply both $`\xi _1`$ and $`\xi _2`$ by $`1`$.

Normalization of $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{BC}`$ imposes the constraint

$$1=\xi _1^2+|\xi _2|^2+\frac{\xi _1(\xi _2+\xi _2^{})}{D}=\xi _1^2+a^2+b^2+\frac{2a\xi _1}{D},$$
(59)
where $`\xi _2=a+ib`$. Solving for $`\xi _1`$, we get

$$\xi _1=\frac{a}{D}+\sqrt{1b^2a^2\frac{D^21}{D^2}}.$$
(60)
We discard the other solution of the quadratic equation, because it can be converted to this solution by multiplying both $`\xi _1`$ and $`\xi _2`$ by $`1`$. Since $`\xi _1`$ is real, we must have

$$\frac{D^21}{D^2}a^2+b^21,$$
(61)
which means that $`\xi _2`$ lies on or within an ellipse that has principal radius $`D/\sqrt{D^21}1`$ along the real axis and principal radius 1 along the imaginary axis. Therefore, we conclude that

$$0|\xi _2|^2\frac{D^2}{D^21}.$$
(62)
It is easy to see that the minimum value of $`\xi _1`$ occurs when $`\xi _2=D/\sqrt{D^21}`$, this minimum value being $`\xi _1=1/\sqrt{D^21}`$. It is also easy to see that the maximum value of $`\xi _1`$ occurs when $`\xi _2`$ is real; the maximum occurs at $`\xi _2=1/\sqrt{D^21}`$ and is given by $`\xi _1=D/\sqrt{D^21}`$. The upshot is that $`\xi _1`$ is bounded by

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{D^21}}\xi _1\frac{D}{\sqrt{D^21}}.$$
(63)
The negative values of $`\xi _1`$ are unimportant, because they can be converted to positive values by multiplying both $`\xi _1`$ and $`\xi _2`$ by $`1`$. What is important is that $`|\xi _1|^2`$ has the same range of possible values as $`|\xi _2|^2`$.

We now allow qudit $`A`$ to interact with the two ancilla qudits, the resulting dynamics described by the unitary operator

$$U_{ABC}=\mathrm{exp}[i(x_Cx_B)p_A]\mathrm{exp}[ix_A(p_B+p_C)]$$
(64)
(for more details, see Ref. ). For an initial pure state $`|\psi `$ of qudit $`A`$, the joint state after the interaction is

$$U_{ABC}|\psi _A|\mathrm{\Phi }_{BC}=\xi _1|\psi _A|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{BC}+\xi _2|\psi _B|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{AC}.$$
(65)
The output states of the individual qudits after tracing out the other two qudits are

$`\rho _A^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`(\xi _1^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\xi _1(\xi _2+\xi _2^{})}{D}})\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{|\xi _2|^2}{D}}I,`$ (66)
$`\rho _B^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`(|\xi _2|^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\xi _1(\xi _2+\xi _2^{})}{D}})\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{\xi _1^2}{D}}I,`$ (67)
$`\rho _C^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\xi _1(\xi _2+\xi _2^{})}{D}}\rho ^T+{\displaystyle \frac{\xi _1^2+|\xi _2|^2}{D}}I,`$ (68)
where $`\rho `$ is an arbitrary initial state of qudit $`A`$ and $`\rho ^T`$ is its transpose. Taking into account the constraint (59), we can rewrite the output states of qudits $`A`$ and $`B`$ as

$`\rho _A^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`(1|\xi _2|^2)\rho +|\xi _2|^2I/D,`$ (69)
$`\rho _B^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ $`=`$ $`(1\xi _1^2)\rho +\xi _1^2I/D.`$ (70)
As far as qudit $`A`$ is concerned, the QID acts like the superoperator $`𝒢_{DT}`$ of Eqs. (34) and (35) with $`D\nu _D=|\xi _2|^2`$. As far as qudit $`B`$ is concerned, the QID first swaps the states of $`A`$ and $`B`$ and then acts like $`𝒢_{DT}`$ with $`D\nu _D=\xi _1^2`$.

Rewriting the output state of qudit $`A`$ in terms of the ideal inverted state $`\rho ^{}=(I\rho )/(D1)`$, we get

$$\rho _A^{(\mathrm{out})}=(|\xi _2|^21)(D1)\rho ^{}+[D|\xi _2|^2(D1)]I/D.$$
(71)
To make $`\rho _A^{(\mathrm{out})}`$ as close as possible to $`\rho ^{}`$, we need to maximize $`|\xi _2|^2`$; i.e., we need to choose

$$D\nu _D=|\xi _2|^2=\frac{D^2}{D^21},$$
(72)
thus making the action of the QID on qudit $`A`$ the same as the action of the universal-NOT given in Eq. (46). Notice that the QID gives the superoperator $`𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}`$ of Eq. (38) when $`D\nu _D=|\xi _2|^2=D/(D+1)`$.

When $`|\xi _2|^2`$ has its maximum value, $`\xi _1^2=1/(D^21)`$, so the output state (70) of qudit $`B`$ becomes

$$\rho _B^{(\mathrm{out})}=\left(1\frac{1}{D^21}\right)\rho +\frac{1}{(D^21)}\frac{I}{D}.$$
(73)
Notice that in the limit of large $`D`$, we have $`|\xi _2|1`$ and $`\xi _10`$. The output state of qudit $`B`$ reduces to the input state of qudit $`A`$, and the output states of $`A`$ and $`C`$ reduce to the maximally mixed state $`I/D`$. All this is a consequence of the fact that the initial state of qudits $`B`$ and $`C`$ limits to $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{BC}|x_0_B|p_0_C`$, and the QID swaps the states of $`A`$ and $`B`$:

$$U_{ABC}|\psi _A|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{BC}=|\psi _B|\mathrm{\Xi }_{00}_{AC}.$$
(74)
Our second realization of the universal-NOT starts with a measurement of the isotropic POVM

$$dE(|\psi )=D\frac{d𝒱}{𝒱}|\psi \psi |,$$
(75)
where

$$𝑑E(|\psi )=D\frac{d𝒱}{𝒱}|\psi \psi |=I.$$
(76)
We assume that the measurement projects the system onto the measured state, so the operation that describes a measurement whose result is the state $`|\psi `$ is

$$d𝒜(|\psi )=D\frac{d𝒱}{𝒱}|\psi \psi ||\psi \psi |.$$
(77)
Knowing that the system is in the state $`|\psi `$, we can invert the state. The operation that describes the measurent followed by inversion is $`𝒮_{DT}d𝒜(|\psi )`$, where $`𝒮_{DT}`$ is the trace-preserving version of the universal inverter. If we now throw away the result of the measurement of the isotropic POVM, the resulting trace-preserving operation is

$$𝒮_{DT}𝑑𝒜(|\psi )=𝒮_{DT}𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}},$$
(78)
where $`𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}`$ is the superoperator that describes projection onto a random pure state \[see Eq. (39)\].

Using the forms (42) and (38), we can write the overall operation as

$$𝒮_{DT}𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}}=\frac{1}{D^21}(𝐈)(𝐈+)=\frac{1}{D^21}(D𝐈)=𝒢_{\mathrm{NOT}},$$
(79)
where we use the fact that $`𝐈𝐈=D𝐈`$. This demonstrates that the universal-NOT results from a measurement of the isotropic POVM followed by state inversion.

## IV Conclusion

The concurrence introduced by Hill and Wootters  and by Wootters  provides a good measure of the entanglement of any state of two qubits, pure or mixed. The Hill-Wootters concurrence is generated with the help of the superoperator that flips the spin of a qubit. In this paper we have identified the crucial properties of the spin-flip superoperator, which allow it to generate a good entanglement measure for pure states of two qubits. By generalizing these properties to systems of arbitrary dimension, we have singled out a unique superoperator, which we call the universal inverter. In the same way that the spin flip generates a concurrence for pairs of qubits, the universal inverter generates a concurrence, which we call the I-concurrence, for joint pure states of pairs of quantum systems of arbitrary dimension. This pure-state I-concurrence measures entanglement in terms of the purity of the marginal density operators of the joint pure state.

It is natural to define the I-concurrence of mixed states of $`D_1\times D_2`$ quantum systems as the minimum average I-concurrence of ensemble decompositions of the joint density operator. Property $`3^{}`$ of the I-concurrence—that the I-concurrence of a pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is zero if and only if $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a product state—implies immediately that the mixed-stated concurrence just defined is zero if and only if the mixed state is separable. We are investigating further properties of this mixed-state I-concurrence and how it is related to other measures of mixed-state entanglement.

The universal inverter turns out to be the ideal inverter of pure states, since it takes a pure state to the maximally mixed state in the subspace orthogonal to the pure state. Because the universal inverter is a positive, but not completely superoperator, it cannot be realized as the dynamics of a quantum system coupled to an ancilla. We have shown that among a one-parameter family of inverting superoperators, the completely positive superoperator that comes closest to achieving an ideal state inversion is a superoperator called the universal-NOT, and we have presented a physical realization of the universal-NOT.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research (Grant No. N00014-00-1-0578), the EQUIP project of the European Union 5th Framework research program, Information Society Technologies (Contract No. IST-1999-11053), and the National Science Foundation (Grant No. PHY-9970507).

## A Superoperator formalism and special superoperators

The formalism we use for superoperators has been used extensively in open-systems theory . In this Appendix, we summarize our notation, which follows that of Ref. , and we introduce and describe key properties of several superoperators that are important for our analysis.

The space of linear operators acting on a Hilbert space $``$ is a $`D^2`$-dimensional complex vector space. We introduce operator “kets” $`|A)=A`$ and “bras” $`(A|=A^{}`$, distinguished from vector kets and bras by the use of smooth brackets. The natural operator inner product can be written as $`(A|B)=\mathrm{tr}(A^{}B)`$. An orthonormal basis $`|e_j`$ induces an orthonormal operator basis

$$|e_je_k|=\tau _{jk}\tau _\alpha ,$$
(A1)
where the Greek index is an abbreviation for two Roman indices. Not all orthonormal operator bases are of this outer-product form. In the following, $`\tau _\alpha `$ can be a general orthonormal operator basis, or it can be specialized to an outer-product basis.

The space of superoperators on $``$, i.e., linear maps on operators, is a $`D^4`$-dimensional complex vector space. A superoperator $`𝒜`$ is specified by its “matrix elements”

$$𝒜_{lj,mk}e_l\left|𝒜(|e_je_k|)\right|e_m,$$
(A2)
for the superoperator can be written in terms of its matrix elements as

$$𝒜=\underset{lj,mk}{}𝒜_{lj,mk}|e_le_j||e_ke_m|=\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}𝒜_{\alpha \beta }\tau _\alpha \tau _\beta ^{}=\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}𝒜_{\alpha \beta }|\tau _\alpha )(\tau _\beta |.$$
(A3)
The ordinary action of $`𝒜`$ on an operator $`A`$, used above to generate the matrix elements, is obtained by dropping an operator $`A`$ into the center of the representation of $`𝒜`$, in place of the $``$ sign, i.e.,

$$𝒜(A)=\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}𝒜_{\alpha \beta }\tau _\alpha A\tau _\beta ^{}.$$
(A4)
There is clearly another way that $`𝒜`$ can act on $`A`$, the left-right action,

$$𝒜|A)\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}𝒜_{\alpha \beta }|\tau _\alpha )(\tau _\beta |A),$$
(A5)
in terms of which the matrix elements are

$$𝒜_{\alpha \beta }=(\tau _\alpha |𝒜|\tau _\beta )=\left(|e_le_j|\left|𝒜\right||e_me_k|\right)=e_l\left|𝒜(|e_je_k|)\right|e_m=𝒜_{lj,mk}.$$
(A6)
This expression provides the fundamental connection between the two actions of a superoperator.

With respect to the left-right action, a superoperator works just like an operator. Multiplication of superoperators $``$ and $`𝒜`$ is given by

$$𝒜=\underset{\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma }{}_{\alpha \gamma }𝒜_{\gamma \beta }|\tau _\alpha )(\tau _\beta |,$$
(A7)
and the “left-right” adjoint, defined by

$$(A|𝒜^{}|B)=(B|𝒜|A)^{},$$
(A8)
is given by

$$𝒜^{}=\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}𝒜_{\alpha \beta }^{}\tau _\beta \tau _\alpha ^{}=\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}𝒜_{\beta \alpha }^{}|\tau _\alpha )(\tau _\beta |.$$
(A9)
With respect to the ordinary action, superoperator multiplication, denoted as a composition $`𝒜`$, is given by

$$𝒜=\underset{\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta }{}_{\gamma \delta }𝒜_{\alpha \beta }\tau _\gamma \tau _\alpha \tau _\beta ^{}\tau _\delta ^{}.$$
(A10)
The adjoint with respect to the ordinary action, denoted by $`𝒜^\times `$, is defined by

$$\mathrm{tr}\left([𝒜^\times (B)]^{}A\right)=\mathrm{tr}\left(B^{}𝒜(A)\right).$$
(A11)
In terms of a representation in an operator basis, this “cross” adjoint becomes

$$𝒜^\times =\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}𝒜_{\alpha \beta }^{}\tau _\alpha ^{}\tau _\beta .$$
(A12)
Notice that

$$(𝒜)^{}=^{}𝒜^{}\mathrm{and}(𝒜)^\times =^\times 𝒜^\times .$$
(A13)
We can formalize the connection between the two kinds of action by defining an operation, called “sharp,” which exchanges the two:

$$𝒜^\mathrm{\#}|A)𝒜(A).$$
(A14)
Simple consequences of the definition are that

$`(𝒜^\mathrm{\#})^{}=(𝒜^\times )^\mathrm{\#},`$ (A15)
$`(𝒜)^\mathrm{\#}=^\mathrm{\#}𝒜^\mathrm{\#}.`$ (A16)
The matrix elements of $`𝒜^\mathrm{\#}`$ are given by

$`𝒜_{lj,mk}^\mathrm{\#}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(|e_le_j|\left|𝒜^\mathrm{\#}\right||e_me_k|\right)`$ (A17)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{tr}\left(|e_je_l|𝒜(|e_me_k|)\right)`$ (A18)
$`=`$ $`e_l\left|𝒜(|e_me_k|)\right|e_j`$ (A19)
$`=`$ $`𝒜_{lm,jk},`$ (A20)
which implies that

$$𝒜^\mathrm{\#}=\underset{lj,mk}{}𝒜_{lj,mk}|e_le_m||e_ke_j|.$$
(A21)
A superoperator is left-right Hermitian, i.e., $`𝒜^{}=𝒜`$, if and only if it has an eigendecomposition

$$𝒜=\underset{\alpha }{}\mu _\alpha |\tau _\alpha )(\tau _\alpha |=\underset{\alpha }{}\mu _\alpha \tau _\alpha \tau _\alpha ^{},$$
(A22)
where the $`\mu _\alpha `$ are real (left-right) eigenvalues and the operators $`\tau _\alpha `$ are orthonormal eigenoperators.

A superoperator is trace preserving if, under the ordinary action, it leaves the trace unchanged, i.e., if $`\mathrm{tr}(A)=\mathrm{tr}(𝒜(A))=\mathrm{tr}([𝒜^\times (I)]^{}A)`$ for all operators $`A`$. Thus $`𝒜`$ is trace preserving if and only if $`𝒜^\times (I)=I`$.

A superoperator is said to be positive if it maps positive operators to positive operators under the ordinary action. A superoperator is completely positive if it and all its extensions $`𝒜`$ to tensor-product spaces, where $``$ is the unit superoperator on the appended space, are positive. It can be shown that $`𝒜`$ is completely positive if and only if it is positive relative to the left-right action, i.e., $`(A|𝒜|A)0`$ for all operators $`A`$ (for a proof in the present notation, see Ref. ). This is equivalent to saying that $`𝒜`$ is left-right Hermitian with nonnegative left-right eigenvalues.

In this paper we make use of several special superoperators, whose properties we summarize here. The identity superoperator with respect to the ordinary action is

$$=II=\underset{j,k}{}|e_je_j||e_ke_k|.$$
(A23)
This superoperator is Hermitian in both senses, i.e., $`=^{}=^\times `$. It is the identity superoperator relative to the ordinary action because $`(A)=A`$ for all operators $`A`$, but its left-right action gives $`|A)=\mathrm{tr}(A)I`$.

The identity superoperator with respect to the left-right action is

$$𝐈=\underset{\alpha }{}|\tau _\alpha )(\tau _\alpha |=\underset{j,k}{}|e_je_k||e_ke_j|.$$
(A24)
This superoperator is also Hermitian in both senses, i.e., $`𝐈=𝐈^{}=𝐈^\times `$. It is the identity superoperator relative to the left-right action because $`𝐈|A)=A`$ for all operators $`A`$, but its ordinary action gives $`𝐈(A)=\mathrm{tr}(A)I`$. Since sharping exchanges the two kinds of action, it is clear that $`^\mathrm{\#}=𝐈`$.

To define the remaining superoperators, it is useful to introduce a set of $`D^21`$ tracefree, Hermitian operators , which are the generators of SU($`D`$). We label these operators by a Greek index $`\alpha `$, which runs from 1 to $`D^21`$. The operators are defined by

$`\alpha =1,\mathrm{},D1:`$ (A25)
$`\lambda _\alpha =\mathrm{\Gamma }_j{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{j(j1)}}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{j1}{}}}\tau _{kk}(j1)\tau _{jj}\right),2jD,`$ (A26)
$`\alpha =D,\mathrm{},(D+2)(D1)/2:`$ (A27)
$`\lambda _\alpha =\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^{(+)}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(\tau _{jk}+\tau _{kj}\right),1j<kD,`$ (A28)
$`\alpha =D(D+1)/2,\mathrm{},D^21:`$ (A29)
$`\lambda _\alpha =\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^{()}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(\tau _{jk}\tau _{kj}\right),1j<kD.`$ (A30)
In Eq. (A26), $`\alpha `$ stands for a single Roman index $`j`$, whereas in Eqs. (A28) and (A30), it stands for the pair of Roman indices, $`jk`$. These operators are Hermitian generalizations of the two-dimensional Pauli operators: the operators (A26) are diagonal in the chosen basis, like $`\sigma _z`$; for each pair of dimensions, the operators (A28) are like the Pauli operator $`\sigma _x`$; and for each pair of dimensions, the operators (A30) are like $`\sigma _y`$.

Like the Pauli operators, the operators $`\lambda _\alpha `$ are orthonormal, i.e.,

$$(\lambda _\alpha |\lambda _\beta )=\mathrm{tr}(\lambda _\alpha \lambda _\beta )=\delta _{\alpha \beta }.$$
(A31)
Thus they constitute an operator basis for the subspace of tracefree operators. Indeed, we can define a superoperator projector,

$$\underset{\alpha }{}|\lambda _\alpha )(\lambda _\alpha |=\underset{\alpha }{}\lambda _\alpha \lambda _\alpha ,$$
(A32)
which relative to the left-right action, projects onto the subspace of tracefree operators. Notice that $`=^{}=^\times `$.

If we add to the set of operators $`\lambda _\alpha `$ the normalized unit operator $`I/\sqrt{D}`$, we obtain an orthonormal operator basis. Thus the unit superoperator $`𝐈`$ can be written as

$$𝐈=\frac{|I)(I|}{D}+\underset{\alpha }{}|\lambda _\alpha )(\lambda _\alpha |=/D+.$$
(A33)
Writing $`=𝐈/D`$, we find that

$$^\mathrm{\#}=\frac{𝐈}{D}=\frac{D^21}{D^2}\frac{}{𝒟}.$$
(A34)
In the chosen basis, the operators (A26) and (A28) are real and symmetric. Together with $`I/\sqrt{D}`$, they constitute a set of $`D(D+1)/2`$ orthonormal operators, which span the subspace of operators that are symmetric in the chosen basis. In contrast, the $`D(D1)/2`$ operators in Eq. (A30) are pure imaginary and antisymmetric and span the subspace of operators that are antisymmetric in the chosen basis. We can define superoperator projectors,

$`𝒫_S`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{|I)(I|}{D}}+{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda _\alpha \text{real}}{}}|\lambda _\alpha )(\lambda _\alpha |,`$ (A35)
$`𝒫_A`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda _\alpha \text{imaginary}}{}}|\lambda _\alpha )(\lambda _\alpha |,`$ (A36)
which relative to the left-right action, project onto the symmetric and antisymmetric operator subspaces. Notice that $`𝒫_S=𝒫_S^{}=𝒫_S^\times `$ and $`𝒫_A=𝒫_A^{}=𝒫_A^\times `$. It is clear that

$$𝐈=𝒫_S+𝒫_A.$$
(A37)
The last superoperator we need is the superoperator that transposes operators in the chosen basis. The ordinary action of the transposition superoperator is given by

$$𝒯(A)=\underset{j,k}{}|e_je_k|A|e_je_k|,$$
(A38)
so the superoperator has the form

$$𝒯=\underset{j,k}{}|e_je_k||e_je_k|.$$
(A39)
The transposition superoperator is Hermitian in both senses and is unchanged by sharping, i.e., $`𝒯=𝒯^{}=𝒯^\times =𝒯^\mathrm{\#}`$. In addition to satisfying $`𝒯𝒯=`$, the transposition superoperator has the property that

$$𝐈𝒯=𝐈,$$
(A40)
which in view of Eq. (A16), is equivalent to $`𝒯=`$.

It is easy to see that $`𝒫_S𝒫_A`$, acting to the right, transposes an operator, i.e.,

$$𝒫_S|A)𝒫_A|A)=𝒯(A)=𝒯^\mathrm{\#}|A),$$
(A41)
which gives us, since $`𝒯`$ is invariant under sharping,

$$𝒯=𝒯^\mathrm{\#}=𝒫_S𝒫_A.$$
(A42)
Combined with Eq. (A37), this gives us

$`𝒫_S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(𝐈+𝒯),`$ (A43)
$`𝒫_A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(𝐈𝒯).`$ (A44)
Combining these forms with Eq. (A40) yields

$`2𝒫_S𝒯`$ $`=`$ $`𝐈+=(D+1)𝒢_{\mathrm{AV}},`$ (A45)
$`2𝒫_A𝒯`$ $`=`$ $`𝐈=𝒮_D/\nu _D.`$ (A46)
The form (A46) has been given previously .

## B

In this Appendix we show that a superoperator is Hermitian relative to the left-right action if and only if it maps all Hermitian operators to Hermitian operators.

Let $`𝒜`$ be a superoperator, and let $`|e_j`$ be an orthonormal basis, which induces an orthonormal operator basis $`|e_je_k|`$. Notice that

$`e_l\left|𝒜^{}(|e_je_k|)\right|e_m`$ $`=`$ $`\left(|e_le_j|\left|𝒜^{}\right||e_me_k|\right)`$ (B1)
$`=`$ $`\left(|e_me_k|\left|𝒜\right||e_le_j|\right)^{}`$ (B2)
$`=`$ $`e_m\left|𝒜(|e_ke_j|)\right|e_l^{}`$ (B3)
$`=`$ $`e_l\left|[𝒜(|e_ke_j|)]^{}\right|e_m.`$ (B4)
Here the first and third equalities follow from relating the ordinary action of a superoperator to its left-right action \[Eq. (A6)\], the second equality follows from the definition of the left-right adjoint of $`𝒜`$ \[Eq. (A8)\], and the fourth equality follows from the definition of the operator adjoint. Equation (B4) gives the relation between the operator adjoint and the left-right superoperator adjoint:

$$𝒜^{}(|e_je_k|)=[𝒜(|e_ke_j|)]^{}.$$
(B5)
Thus we have that $`𝒜=𝒜^{}`$, i.e., $`𝒜`$ is left-right Hermitian, if and only if

$$𝒜(|e_je_k|)=[𝒜(|e_ke_j|)]^{}$$
(B6)
for all $`j`$ and $`k`$. This result allows us to prove the desired theorem easily.

Theorem. A superoperator $`𝒜`$ is left-right Hermitian if and only if it maps all Hermitian operators to Hermitian operators.

Proof: First suppose $`𝒜`$ is left-right Hermitian, i.e., $`𝒜=𝒜^{}`$. This implies that $`𝒜`$ has a complete, orthonormal set of eigenoperators $`\tau _\alpha `$, with real eigenvalues $`\mu _\alpha `$. Using the eigendecomposition (A22), we have for any Hermitian operator $`H`$,

$$𝒜(H)=\underset{\alpha }{}\mu _\alpha \tau _\alpha H\tau _\alpha ^{}=𝒜(H)^{}.$$
(B7)
Now suppose $`𝒜`$ maps all Hermitian operators to Hermitian operators. Letting $`\tau _{jk}=|e_je_k|`$, it follows that

$`𝒜(\tau _{jk})`$ $`=`$ $`𝒜\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\tau _{jk}+\tau _{kj})+i{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(\tau _{jk}\tau _{kj})\right)`$ (B8)
$`=`$ $`𝒜\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\tau _{jk}+\tau _{kj})\right)+i𝒜\left({\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(\tau _{jk}\tau _{kj})\right)`$ (B9)
$`=`$ $`\left[𝒜\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\tau _{jk}+\tau _{kj})\right)\right]^{}+i\left[𝒜\left({\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(\tau _{jk}\tau _{kj})\right)\right]^{}`$ (B10)
$`=`$ $`\left[𝒜\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\tau _{jk}+\tau _{kj})\right)i𝒜\left({\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(\tau _{jk}\tau _{kj})\right)\right]^{}`$ (B11)
$`=`$ $`\left[𝒜\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\tau _{jk}+\tau _{kj})i{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(\tau _{jk}\tau _{kj})\right)\right]^{}`$ (B12)
$`=`$ $`[𝒜(\tau _{kj})]^{}.`$ (B13)
Equation (B6) then implies that $`𝒜=𝒜^{}`$.

Since a superoperator is left-right Hermitian if and only if it has an eigendecomposition as in Eq. (A22), we can conclude, by grouping together positive and negative eigenvalues, that being left-right Hermitian is equivalent to being the difference between two completely positive superoperators. Using the theorem, we have that a superoperator takes all Hermitian operators to Hermitian operators if and only if it is the difference between two completely positive superoperators. This generalizes a result of Yu , who showed that a positive superoperator is the difference between two completely positive superoperators. From our perspective, we can say that since a positive superoperator takes positive operators to positive operators, it also takes Hermitian operators to Hermitian operators and thus is left-right Hermitian. A positive operator that is not completely positive has one or more negative left-right eigenvalues.

We can get one further result relevant to the considerations in this paper: if $`𝒜`$ and $``$ are left-right Hermitian superoperators for two separate quantum systems, then $`𝒜`$ is also left-right Hermitian and thus maps all Hermitian operators of the joint system to Hermitian operators.

## C

Let

$$\rho _A=\underset{j=1}{\overset{D_1}{}}\mu _j|e_je_j|\text{and}\rho _B=\underset{k=1}{\overset{D_2}{}}\nu _k|f_kf_k|$$
(C1)
be the eigendecompositions of $`\rho _A`$ and $`\rho _B`$. In the joint basis $`|e_j|f_k`$, $`\rho _{AB}`$ has the form

$$\rho _{AB}=\underset{j,k,l,m}{}\rho _{jk,lm}|e_je_l||f_kf_m|.$$
(C2)
The diagonal forms of the marginal density operators show that

$$\underset{k=1}{\overset{D_2}{}}\rho _{jk,lk}=\mu _j\delta _{jl}\text{and}\underset{j=1}{\overset{D_1}{}}\rho _{jk,jm}=\nu _k\delta _{km}.$$
(C3)
Thus the diagonal elements of $`\rho _{jk,lm}`$ are a probability distribution $`p_{jk}=\rho _{jk,jk}`$, whose marginals are the eigenvalues of the marginal density operators:

$$\underset{k=1}{\overset{D_2}{}}p_{jk}=\mu _j\text{and}\underset{j=1}{\overset{D_1}{}}p_{jk}=\nu _k.$$
(C4)
We now can write

$`1+\mathrm{tr}(\rho _{AB}^2)`$ $`=`$ $`1+{\displaystyle \underset{j,k,l,m}{}}|\rho _{jk,lm}|^2`$ (C5)
$``$ $`1+{\displaystyle \underset{j,k}{}}p_{jk}^2`$ (C7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j,k,l,m}{}}p_{jk}p_{lm}+{\displaystyle \underset{j,k}{}}p_{jk}^2`$ (C9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j,k,m}{}}p_{jk}p_{jm}+{\displaystyle \underset{jl,k,m}{}}p_{jk}p_{lm}+{\displaystyle \underset{j,k,l}{}}p_{jk}p_{lk}{\displaystyle \underset{jl,k}{}}p_{jk}p_{lk}`$ (C11)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}p_{jk}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}p_{jk}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \underset{jl,km}{}}p_{jk}p_{lm}`$ (C13)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\mu _j^2+{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}\nu _k^2`$ (C14)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{tr}(\rho _A^2)+\mathrm{tr}(\rho _B^2).`$ (C15)
The first inequality here is saturated if and only if $`\rho _{AB}`$ is diagonal in the basis $`|e_j|f_k`$. The second inequality is saturated if and only if $`p_{jk}p_{lm}=0`$ whenever $`jl`$ and $`km`$. This requirement is equivalent to saying that the nonzero entries in $`p_{jk}`$ are restricted to one row or to one column. In view of the first requirement, this means that overall equality is achieved in Eq. (C15) if and only if $`\rho _{AB}=\rho _A\rho _B`$ is a product state, with $`\rho _A`$ or $`\rho _B`$ a pure state.

## D

In this Appendix we show that the vector space of operators acting on a $`D`$-dimensional Hilbert space has only two proper operator subspaces that are invariant under all unitary transformations. These two subspaces are the one-dimensional subspace spanned by the unit operator $`I`$ and the subspace consisting of all tracefree operators.

It is obvious that the subspace consisting of multiples of $`I`$ and the subspace of trace-free operators are unitarily invariant. To show that these are the only unitarily invariant proper subspaces, we consider a unitarily invariant subspace that is not the subspace spanned by $`I`$, and we show that this subspace is either the subspace of tracefree operators or the entire operator space. Let $`A`$ be a nonzero operator in the unitarily invariant subspace, which is not a multiple of $`I`$. There exists an orthonormal basis $`|e_j`$ such that $`A_{11}A_{22}`$. Adopt this basis, in which $`A`$ has the representation

$$A=\underset{j,k=1}{\overset{D}{}}A_{jk}|e_je_k|.$$
(D1)
Consider the unitary operator $`U`$ that changes the sign of $`|e_1`$, i.e., $`U|e_1=|e_1`$ and $`U|e_j=|e_j`$ for $`j=2,\mathrm{},D`$. Also in the unitarily invariant subspace is the operator

$$B=\frac{1}{2}(A+UAU^{})=A_{11}|e_1e_1|+\underset{j,k=2}{\overset{D}{}}A_{jk}|e_je_k|.$$
(D2)
Do the same thing to the second basis vector; i.e., use the unitary operator $`V`$ defined by $`V|e_2=|e_2`$, and $`V|e_j=|e_j`$ for $`j=1`$ and $`j=3,\mathrm{},D`$. Also in the subspace is the operator

$$C=\frac{1}{2}(B+VBV^{})=A_{11}|e_1e_1|+A_{22}|e_2e_2|+\underset{j,k=3}{\overset{D}{}}A_{jk}|e_je_k|.$$
(D3)
Now consider the unitary operator $`W`$ that swaps $`|e_1`$ and $`|e_2`$, i.e., $`W|e_1=|e_2`$, $`W|e_2=|e_1`$, and $`W|e_j=|e_j`$ for $`j=3,\mathrm{},D`$. Also in the subspace is the (nonzero) tracefree operator

$$D=CWCW^{}=(A_{11}A_{22})(|e_1e_1||e_2e_2|).$$
(D4)
We conclude that the subspace contains the tracefree operator $`|e_1e_1||e_2e_2|`$, which is a Pauli $`\sigma _z`$ operator for the first two dimensions. From this operator, we can generate by unitary transformations that interchange basis vectors a $`\sigma _z`$-like operator for every pair of dimensions, and from these $`\sigma _z`$ operators, we can generate by unitary transformations a $`\sigma _x`$ and a $`\sigma _y`$ operator for every pair of dimensions. Since these Pauli-like operators span the space of tracefree operators, we conclude that any unitarily invariant operator subspace that is not the space spanned by $`I`$ contains all tracefree operators.

The unitarily invariant subspace could be the subspace of tracefree operators. Suppose that it is not and thus contains an operator $`E`$ that is not tracefree. Defining a tracefree operator $`F=E\mathrm{tr}(E)I/D`$, we see that $`I`$ can be written as linear combination of $`F`$ and $`E`$ and thus is in the subspace. Since the tracefree operators together with $`I`$ span the entire space of operators, we conclude that in this case the unitarily invariant subspace is the entire operator space. This establishes our result.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The origin of electroweak symmetry breaking is one of the central issues in particle physics. Within the Standard Model (SM), the solution to this problem is associated with the Higgs mechanism, which predicts a fundamental neutral scalar Higgs particle. The Higgs boson is the only SM elementary particle which has not been detected thus far. The precision electroweak measurements suggest the existence of a light Higgs boson in the mass region

$`113.5<m_H<200\text{GeV}.`$ (1)
In this letter we discuss the Higgs-$`\gamma \gamma `$ vertex, which is extremely important for Higgs physics, specially for Higgs boson masses in the range mentioned above. First, it is the main mechanism for Higgs production in photon-photon collisions ; second, it is a relatively background free decay mode for the Higgs at the LHC and the Tevatron and finally, the coupling is sensitive to new physics, and can be considered to be a counter of the number of new heavy particles. Because of these last two observations the Higgs-$`\gamma \gamma `$ coupling should be very well calibrated. Thus, for example, the radiative corrections to this process should be under control.

The coupling of the Higgs boson to two photons is absent at tree level in the Standard Model. The first non-zero contribution arises from fermions and W boson loops. Because the Yukawa coupling of the quark is proportional to the quark mass, the contributions of the light quarks as well as charm and bottom quarks are well suppressed in comparison to the top quark loop contribution. The radiative corrections are well studied in this case: there is some literature devoted to the QCD and electroweak radiative corrections . The only source of QCD corrections at the two loop order is the gluon corrections to the top quark loop. The QCD corrections are small for Higgs masses, $`m_H<2m_t`$, as shown by the explicit calculations in . For heavy Higgs masses, $`m_H>2m_t`$, the corrections are large (about 40%), although this mass range appears to be ruled out by the electroweak data.

It was observed in  that in the limit of large $`\frac{m_H}{m}`$, where $`m`$ is the quark mass, the Higgs-$`\gamma \gamma `$ form factor gives the QCD double logarithmic asymptotic,

$`F=F^{1loop}(1{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{12}}),`$ (2)
with $`\rho =\frac{C_F\alpha _s(\mu ^2)}{2\pi }\mathrm{ln}^2\left(\frac{m_H^2}{m^2}\right)`$. For such a factor to be phenomenologically relevant one must consider the contribution to the form factor from light quark loops which as mentioned above are suppressed in the Standard Model. In fact, the $`b`$ quark contribution is only about $`4\%`$ of that of the top quark at lowest nontrivial order and decreases with radiative corrections. However, the contributions of the bottom quark are enhanced by $`tan\beta `$ in the super-symmetric extensions of the Standard Model, and therefore the limit $`m_H^2/m^21`$, which we consider in this paper may be phenomenologically relevant quite apart from its inherent theoretical interest. Current estimates place allowed values of $`tan\beta `$ in a wide range . For large values of $`tan\beta 30`$, which are allowed, the bottom quark contributions to the Higgs-$`\gamma \gamma `$ form factor can become comparable to that of the top quark in such models.

Super-symmetric extensions of the Standard Model have been extensively discussed in the literature partly because of the possibility of resolving the hierarchy problem. The Minimal Super-symmetric Standard Model (MSSM) stabilizes the mass of the light Higgs bosons in the presence of high energy GUT scales. In the MSSM, spontaneous symmetry breaking is induced by two complex Higgs doublets leading to five Higgs particles, including light and heavy scalar \[CP-even\] particles h and H; a pseudo-scalar \[CP-odd\] particle A, and a pair of charged Higgs particles . The lightest of these is predicted to be below $`m_Z`$, although radiative corrections increase this limit up to 130 GeV due to large top quark contributions . We have such models in mind, wherein as discussed above the $`b`$ quark and $`t`$ quark contributions to the Higgs-$`\gamma \gamma `$ form factor may become comparable. Then in order to understand the radiative corrections to the form factor it is important to better understand these large logarithmic corrections mentioned above and to find a method for resumming them.

The nature of the leading double logarithmic (DL) terms of the form $`\alpha _s^p\mathrm{ln}^{2p}(\frac{m_H}{m})`$ has been clarified in . It was shown that these logarithms are related to Sudakov form factor which enters into the one loop triangle diagram. In this letter we discuss how the resummation of these large logarithms to the next-to-leading-logarithmic (NLL) accuracy may be carried out. As will be seen, the next to leading contribution is moderately small compared to the leading one, implying that the radiative corrections to the Higgs-$`\gamma \gamma `$ form factor are under control for the case (like for example the MSSM for large $`tan\beta `$ ) when the light quark contributions cannot be neglected.

This paper is organized as follows: In section 2 we discuss the resummation procedure of the leading double logarithms, and in section 3 we suggest a method for resumming the next to leading logarithmic contributions as well. Section 4 contains the numerical results and discussions. In section 5 we give our conclusions.

## 2 The Method

As mentioned earlier the Born coupling H-$`\gamma \gamma `$ is zero in the SM as well as in the MSSM. At the one loop level, we find that the coupling is mediated by any charged heavy particle loop. In the case of the SM, the only contributions come from the quark loops and W-boson loops. The amplitude of the Higgs decay into two photons through quark loop can be presented in the form

$`M(H\gamma \gamma )=(e_1^{})_\mu (e_2^{})_\nu d^{\mu \nu }(G_F\sqrt{2})^{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{4\pi }}N_c{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}e_q^2F_Q(t),`$ (3)
here $`k_1`$ and $`k_2`$ are the momenta of the photons, $`e_1,e_2`$ are the corresponding polarization vectors, and $`s=(k_1+k_2)^2=m_H^2`$, $`k_1^2=k_2^2=0`$. The structure $`d^{\mu \nu }=(k_1k_2)g^{\mu \nu }k_2^\mu k_1^\nu `$ can be constructed using QED gauge invariance and Lorenz invariance of the amplitude. The partial width is

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(H\gamma \gamma )={\displaystyle \frac{G_F\alpha m_H^3}{128\sqrt{2}\pi ^3}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{Q}{}}N_Ce_Q^2g_QF_Q+g_WF_W\right)^2,`$ (4)
with

$`F_Q=2t^1((1t^1)f(t)+1),F_W=t^1\left(3+2t+3(2t^1)f(t)\right)`$ (5)
and,

$`f(t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{t}+\sqrt{t1}}{\sqrt{t}\sqrt{t1}}}i\pi \right)^2\text{at}t=\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_H}{2m}}\right)^2>1.`$ (6)
In this letter we focus on the quark loop contributions only. These contributions will be common to all models considered. We wish to identify the leading and the next to leading logarithmic corrections and to present a procedure for resumming them.

The one loop DL correction arises when the quark line opposite the $`Hq\overline{q}`$ vertex is soft and this can be easily evaluated using the Sudakov parametrization ; namely we decompose the soft quark momenta in terms of those along the hard photon momenta $`k_1,k_2`$ and transverse to it

$`l=\alpha k_1+\beta k_2+l_{},s=(k_1+k_2)^2=m_H^2.`$ (7)
The DL contribution comes only from the region

$`m^2,|l_{}|^2s|\alpha |,s|\beta |s.`$ (8)
The loop integration in terms of the new variables reads

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}d^4l={\displaystyle \frac{s}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑\alpha {\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑\beta {\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\pi 𝑑l_{}^2.`$ (9)
The integration over the transverse momenta of the soft quark is performed by taking half of the residues in the corresponding propagator

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^4l}{l^2m^2+i0}F}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi s}{2}\frac{d\alpha d\beta dl_{}^2}{s\alpha \beta l_{}^2m^2+i0}F}i\pi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{s}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\alpha 𝑑\beta \mathrm{\Theta }(s\alpha \beta m^2)F}.`$ (10)
In this manner the one loop amplitude can be calculated in DL approximation and result is,

$`F^{1loop}=C{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\alpha d\beta }{\alpha \beta }}\mathrm{\Theta }(\alpha \beta {\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{m_H^2}})=C\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{m_H^2}}\right),`$ (11)
with $`C=\frac{4m^2}{m_H^2}.`$ As mentioned earlier, the infrared sensitive contributions come from a region when the fermion line opposite the Higgs-fermion-fermion vertex is soft. This is, of course, also the origin of the term proportional to quark mass in the expression for the Higgs-$`\gamma \gamma `$ form factor. In general, this one loop contribution gets radiative corrections and the additional DL contributions arise from the region of soft gluons. It is well known that to this accuracy they factorize and are independent of spin. Thus, aiming at DL accuracy we can use the eikonal approximation, and easily generalize the above to include all orders in the QCD coupling. Let us briefly consider the resummation of these double logs for the Higgs-$`\gamma \gamma `$ form factor . Some of the diagrams contributing to the next order in $`\alpha _s`$ are shown in Figs.(1). Only the double logarithms arising from Fig.(1a) actually exponentiate – other diagrams like those in Figs.(1b, 1c) do not contribute as discussed below. With Fig.(1a) we note that we may view the inner form factor as an off-shell Sudakov form factor (see Fig.2) with the ”external” quark legs labelled $`p_1,p_2`$ (see Fig.1).

$`p_1^2=(k_1+k)^2=s\beta ,p_2^2=(kk_2)^2=s\alpha .`$ (12)
Here, we are using the Sudakov parametrization for the momenta $`k=\alpha k_1+\beta k_2+k_{}`$.

In order to implement the resummation (see Fig.2) we use the expression for the off-shell quark-anti-quark Sudakov form factor

$`S(p_1,p_2)=\text{Exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{C_F\alpha _s(\nu ^2)}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}({\displaystyle \frac{|p_1|^2}{s}})\mathrm{ln}({\displaystyle \frac{|p_2|^2}{s}})\right).`$ (13)
The kinematical region of interest is restricted by the kinematics of the one loop integral, and can be read off from eq. (8) and eq.(12):

$`m^2|p_1|^2,|p_2|^2s.`$ (14)
We have mentioned that diagrams like Figs.(1b, 1c) do not contribute to the accuracy we are interested in. Indeed all such diagrams are not included in eq.(13). It is important to note that, diagrams, like Figs.(1b, 1c) and their counterparts in higher orders that cannot be included in the off-shell Sudakov form factor are irrelevant not just to leading but also to the next to leading accuracy. To see this consider Fig.(1b): The soft fermion line is labelled with momenta $`p_1+kk_1`$. Using this fact together with $`k_1^2=0`$ and that for the infrared sensitive contribution, the lines should be nearly on-shell, we observe that there are no large scales $`m_H`$ associated with the vertex correction in the Feynman gauge. Similarly self-energy corrections cannot produce any large logarithms of the type $`\mathrm{ln}\frac{m^2}{m_H^2}`$ in the Feynman gauge.

Now using Eq.(13) together with the above discussion, we have first to DL accuracy, the following for the resummation of the diagrams in Fig.(2),

$`F`$ $`=`$ $`C{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\alpha d\beta }{\alpha \beta }}\mathrm{\Theta }(\alpha \beta {\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{s}})\text{Exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{C_F\alpha _s}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}|\alpha |\mathrm{ln}|\beta |\right).`$ (15)
We transform the exponent into the power series and find that the integral of the $`n`$th term will be of the form

$$\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\xi _1\underset{0}{\overset{1\xi _1}{}}𝑑\xi _2\xi _1^{n+a}\xi _2^{n+b}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(n+a+1)\mathrm{\Gamma }(n+b+1)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3+2n+a+b)}.$$
(16)
The final result at DL accuracy reads

$`F_{DL}`$ $`=`$ $`F^{1loop}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Gamma }(n+1)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2n+3)}}\left(\rho \right)^n,`$ (17)
with $`\rho =\frac{C_F\alpha _s(\mu ^2)}{2\pi }L^2,L=\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{m^2}{s}\right)`$. The index $`n`$ shows the order of the amplitude in $`\alpha _s^n`$. We can clearly identify the separate contributions of the fixed orders in $`\alpha _s`$. On the other hand, if $`\rho `$ is large all terms in the series are important, giving altogether some analytic function $`F_{DL}(\rho )`$. This function is identified with a hyper-geometric function $`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{2}^{}(1,1;2,\frac{3}{2};z)`$, namely

$`F_{DL}`$ $`=`$ $`F^{1loop}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Gamma }(n+1)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2n+3)}}\left(\rho \right)^n={}_{2}{}^{}F_{2}^{}(1,1;2,{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{4}})F^{1loop},`$ (18)
we recall here that, in general, the function $`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{2}^{}(a,b;c,d;z)`$ is defined by a series

$`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{2}^{}(a,b;c,d;z)={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(a)_k(b)_k}{(c)_k(d)_k}}{\displaystyle \frac{z^k}{k!}}`$ (19)
Taking into account identities $`(1)_k=k!`$, $`(\frac{3}{2})_k=2^{2k}\frac{(2k+1)!}{k!}`$, and $`(2)_k=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2+k)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2)}`$ , we have

$`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{2}^{}(1,1;2,{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{4}})={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(k!)^2(\rho )^k}{(2k+1)!(k+1)!}}={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Gamma }(k+1)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2k+3)}}\left(\rho \right)^k.`$ (20)
This gives us the final DL result, eq.(18). For large values of the parameter $`\rho `$ the function $`F_{DL}`$ has the following asymptotic,

$`F_{DL}(\rho )={\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{ln}(2\rho )}{\rho }}F^{1loop}.`$ (21)
We see that despite the fact that perturbation theory blows up at large $`\rho `$, the resummed result gives a smooth well defined function.

## 3 Next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy

It is possible to develop this approach to achieve next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy. For this we need an expression for the Sudakov form factor with NLL accuracy. In fact, such an analysis already exists in the literature  for the case when the two external fermion lines are off-shell by the same amount, i.e., $`p_1^2=p_2^2=p^2`$:

$`S_{NLL}(p,p)=\text{Exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{C_F\alpha _s(p^2)}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}^2({\displaystyle \frac{s}{|p|^2}})+{\displaystyle \frac{3C_F\alpha _s(p^2)}{4\pi }}\mathrm{ln}({\displaystyle \frac{s}{|p|^2}})\right).`$ (22)
For our purposes, we need to extend the analysis to take into account that $`p_1^2p_2^2`$. It is easy to see that for the region, eq.(14), the proof of factorization and exponentiation given in  goes through with straightforward changes. The one major change involves the normalization of the coupling. We have studied one and two loop diagrams for the $`Hq\overline{q}`$ vertex with slightly off-shell quarks with the following result:

$`S_{NNL}(p_1,p_2)`$ $`=`$ $`Exp\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\nu ^2)C_F}{2\pi }}\left(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_1|^2}{s}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_2|^2}{s}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_1|^2}{s}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_1|^2}{s}}\right)\right),`$ (23)
with the normalization of the coupling constant determined to be $`\nu ^2=\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}`$. We show only the double and single IR logarithms in eq.(23). In order to understand this normalization, we have to consider the diagram shown in Fig.(3), where we are keeping track of the $`n_f`$ dependent pieces only since they are separately gauge invariant. Such diagrams can be accounted for by considering the following gluon propagator

$`D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}=i\delta ^{ab}(g_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\mathrm{\Pi }(k^2)}},`$ (24)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }(k^2)`$ is the vacuum polarization by the gluon; at the one loop level it is simply $`\mathrm{\Pi }=\frac{\alpha _s\beta _0}{4\pi }\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{k^2}{\mu ^2}e^C\right),\beta _0=11\frac{2}{3}n_f`$, $`C`$ being a scheme-dependent constant ($`\overline{MS}`$ scheme $`C=\frac{5}{3}`$).

The diagram Fig.3 corresponds to the first term in the expansion of the gluon propagator in $`\alpha _s`$. The $`n_f`$–part of this result is, as mentioned earlier, a gauge invariant part of the complete set of two loop diagrams.

Because the effects of the running coupling gives only single logarithmic terms it is enough to consider the remaining integrals to DL accuracy. Namely, we may trace only the terms proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}\frac{|p_1|^2}{s}\mathrm{ln}\frac{|p_2|^2}{s}`$ from Fig.3. At DL accuracy the spin structure of the amplitude is simple, so that one needs to consider the scalar integral only,

$`I=1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu ^2)C_F}{2\pi }}(2p_1p_2){\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{1}{(p_1+k)^2}\frac{1}{(p_2k)^2}\left(1\frac{\alpha _s\beta _0}{4\pi }\mathrm{ln}(\frac{k^2}{\mu ^2})\right)\frac{i}{k^2}}.`$ (25)
To evaluate this, we consider a slightly more general integral

$`J=i{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{1}{(p_1+k)^2}\frac{1}{(p_2k)}\frac{\mu ^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}{(k^2)^{1+\mathrm{\Delta }}}},`$ (26)
which after expanding in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ will give us the desired integral in $`I`$. Using Feynman parameters, this integral is reduced to

$`J={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(4\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{1}{A\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mu ^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}\left[e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ln}(A+B)}e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ln}(B)}\right],`$ (27)
with

$`A(y)=p_2^2y^2+2p_1p_2y+p_1^2,`$ (28)
$`B(y)=2p_1p_2yp_2^2yp_1^2,`$ (29)
$`A(y)+B(y)=p_2^2y(1+y).`$ (30)
The function $`A(y)`$ has two zeros, $`y_\pm `$:

$`A=p_2^2(yy_+)(yy_{}),y_\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{2p_1p_2\pm \sqrt{(2p_1p_2)^24p_1^2p_2^2}}{2p_2^2}}.`$ (31)
For very small virtualities, $`p_1^2,p_2^20`$, the roots are simplified to $`y_+=\frac{p_1^2}{s},y_{}=\frac{s}{p_2^2}`$. Expanding the integrand of $`J`$ in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ up to second order we have

$`J`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(4\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}dy{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_2^2(yy_+)(yy_{})}}\mu ^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}(\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_2^2y(1y)}{(2p_1p_2+p_1^2)y+p_1^2}}\right)`$ (32)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}}[\mathrm{ln}^2(p_2^2y(1y))+\mathrm{ln}^2((2p_1p_2+p_2^2)y+p_1^2)]).`$ (33)
The final integration over $`y`$ is simple, the result is

$`J`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(4\pi )^22p_1p_2}}\left(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_1|^2}{s}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_2|^2}{s}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_1|^2}{s}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_2|^2}{s}}\mathrm{ln}({\displaystyle \frac{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}{\mu ^4}})\right).`$ (34)
We see, that the first term in this equation reproduces the DL result from eq.(13) and eq.(23). It can be checked, that the second term suggests the normalization of the coupling constant to be, $`\nu ^2=\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}`$. Indeed, returning to the integral $`I`$, we find

$`I=1{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu ^2)C_F}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_1|^2}{s}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{|p_2|^2}{s}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu ^2)\beta _0}{4\pi }}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}}{\mu ^2}}\right)\right].`$ (35)
It is clear that the last logarithm, containing the $`\beta _0`$ term, can be absorbed into the running coupling, giving $`\alpha _s(\nu ^2)`$ with the normalization point $`\nu ^2=\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}`$. The exponentiation of the integral $`I`$ will give us the final off-shell Sudakov exponent, eq.(23).

In order to get single logarithms in eq.(23) we have to include the numerator and the spin structure. We do not present the details of these calculations here. Instead we note, that all logarithms we have accounted for are of infrared origin, $`sp_1^2,p_2^20`$. We do not show the UV logarithms which come as a result of the normalization of the quark mass, $`m`$, or the quark Yukawa coupling, $`g_{Hq\overline{q}}`$. These logarithms are of the form $`\gamma \mathrm{ln}\frac{s}{\mu ^2}`$, and are related to the anomalous dimensions of the quark mass and the Yukawa coupling, $`\gamma `$, and can be traced separately from the IR logs. Such terms can be omitted if the Yukawa coupling and related to it the quark mass in the leading order result are normalized at a large scale $`\mu ^2=s`$. The formula eq.(23) reproduces the expression for the Sudakov form factor at non-equal virtualities at DL accuracy derived by Carrazone et. al. in , eq.(13), as well as at NLL with equal virtualities $`p^2=p_1^2=p_2^2`$ derived by Smilga in , eq.(22).

In addition, the normalization point $`\nu ^2=\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}`$ that we find reproduces that of the NLL results with equal virtualities $`p^2=p_1^2=p_2^2`$ derived by Smilga in , eq.(22).

In our opinion, this scale, $`\nu ^2=\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}`$, has a very transparent origin. The vertex of the interaction of a soft gluon with an off-shell quark ($`p_1^2`$) is described by the coupling $`g(p_1^2)`$. In the situation of gluon-exchange between two quarks with different virtualities, we have an effective coupling $`g(p_1^2)g(p_2^2)`$. Using the running of the coupling $`g^2(\mu ^2)=4\pi \alpha _s(\mu ^2)`$, at one loop level, $`\alpha (\mu ^2)=\alpha _s(\nu ^2)/(1+\frac{\alpha _s\beta _0}{4\pi }\mathrm{ln}(\frac{\mu ^2}{\nu ^2}))`$, we will find that the effective coupling $`g(p_1^2)g(p_2^2)`$ is reduced to $`\alpha _s(\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|})`$. This coincides with our previous results.

As a next step, we include this form factor inside the one loop triangle diagram and calculate the last one loop integration with the form factor which now accounts for all large logarithms with NLL accuracy. The final result for the next-to-leading-logarithmic form factor reads

$`F_Q=F_{DL}+F_{NLL},`$ (36)
with $`F_{DL}`$ from eq.(17) and

$`F_{NLL}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{L}}F^{1loop}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(n+1)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2n+2)}}(\rho )^n\left(3{\displaystyle \frac{\rho \beta _0}{C_F}}{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2n+2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n+1}{2n+3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}(s/\mu ^2)}{L}}\right)\right),`$ (37)
with $`\beta _0=11\frac{2n_f}{3}`$, $`n_f`$ is a number of light flavors. Because the typical virtuality is harder than $`(2m_b)^2`$, we take number of light flavors to be $`n_f=5`$. Because the Yukawa coupling and the related quark mass in the leading order result are normalized at a large scale $`\mu ^2=s`$, we have to use

$`F^{1loop}={\displaystyle \frac{2m(m_H^2)m}{m_H^2}}\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{m_H^2}}`$ (38)
in $`F_{DL}`$, where $`m(m_H^2)`$ is the $`\overline{MS}`$ mass and $`m`$ is the pole mass. Note, that the second mass in $`F^{1loop}`$ is the pole one - it comes from the t-channel soft quark propagator of the sub-diagram $`q\overline{q}\gamma \gamma `$. This amplitude does not have any anomalous dimensions and, therefore, $`\mu `$ independent. The difference between the running mass and the pole mass should be accounted only at $`𝒪(\alpha _s^nL^{2n1})`$.

Some comments on the derivation of the eq. (37) are in order. First, we have used eq.(16) in the derivation. Second, the first term, the factor 3, comes from single logarithmic terms (two last terms in eq.(23)), which are not related to the running of $`\alpha _s`$, whereas the last two terms in eq.(37) are related to the running of the coupling constant:

$`\beta _0\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}/\mu ^2)=\beta _0({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}(|\alpha |)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}(|\beta |)+\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{s}{\mu ^2}}).`$ (39)
It is interesting, that if we chose the normalization scale in eq. (23) to be $`k_{}^2`$, we would get a slightly different result. Such a normalization has been used in . Using the fact that $`k_{}^2=\alpha \beta s`$, the normalization scale in the Sudakov form factor for this choice of the normalization becomes $`\mu ^2=\frac{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}{s}`$. Going to $`F(\rho )`$, the only difference in the calculations will enter through the term $`\beta _0\mathrm{ln}(\frac{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}{s\mu ^2})=\beta _0(\mathrm{ln}(|\alpha |)+\mathrm{ln}(|\beta |)+\mathrm{ln}\frac{s}{\mu ^2})`$ (compare with eq.(39)). It would give a factor two larger non-logarithmic contribution proportional to $`\beta _0`$ in the final result for $`F_Q`$, eq.(37). It is worth mentioning, that this scale, $`\mu ^2=\frac{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}{s}`$, does not agree with results of Smilga at $`p_1^2=p_2^2=p^2`$, $`\mu ^2=p^2`$ nor with our scale $`\mu ^2=\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}`$. We stress, that all our results, especially eq.(37) are valid only for very large L, $`|L|1`$.

We may expand the expression for $`F_Q`$ at the two loop level. Redefining all masses through $`m(\mu ^2)`$ by using

$`m=m(\mu ^2)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{2\pi }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{m^2}}+2\right]\right),`$ (40)
we have

$`F_Q={\displaystyle \frac{2m^2(\mu )}{m_H^2}}\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{m_H^2}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{C_F\alpha _s}{2\pi }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{m_H^2}}+\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{m_H^2}}+3\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{m^2}}\right]\right).`$ (41)
This expanded result at two loops is in agreement with that in , and can be viewed as a powerful check of our new resummed result.

## 4 Numerical results and discussions

Having at hand all analytical NLL results for the form factor $`F_Q`$ we turn now to the numerical analysis. In order to get some estimates, we have used $`m_b=4.5`$ GeV and the coupling constant normalized at $`\alpha _s(m_Z)=0.118`$ . First, in Fig.4, we show the ratio of two amplitudes, $`R(m,m_H,\mu )=\frac{F_Q(H\gamma \gamma )}{F_{1loop}}`$, as a function of the Higgs mass. The result of the purely double logarithmic resummation is presented at different normalization scales: at the soft scales $`\mu ^2=m_b^2,9m_b^2`$ by the dashed-dotted and the short-dashed curves, at the hard scale $`\mu ^2=s`$ by the dashed line, and at the intermediate scale $`\mu ^2=sx^{0.4},x=m_b^2/m_H^2`$ by the dotted curve. We see that the DL resummed result depends substantially on $`\mu `$. In order to improve the stability in $`\mu `$ we may include the $`\beta _0`$ term, which has to make the $`\mu `$ dependence of the results smoother. We have checked that this is indeed the case. As an example, we show the DL results plus the $`\beta _0`$–part of the NLL correction, by the solid line in Fig.4, choosing $`\mu ^2=s`$. We note that, omitting the non-$`\beta _0`$ part is not so meaningful and the $`\beta _0`$ term has to be treated in the same way as the other NLL radiative corrections, specially, since as we will see later, its effects are smaller than other NLL corrections.

In the Fig.5, we present $`R=\frac{F_Q(H\gamma \gamma )}{F_{1loop}}`$ as a function of the Higgs mass (in GeV) to DL and NLL accuracy. In this figure the result of the DL–resummation is shown by the dashed line and the result of the resummation to NLL accuracy is shown by the solid line. We see that the correction is moderate and positive. The substantial contribution comes from the non $`\beta _0`$ part as mentioned previously. It is easy to understand the size and the sign of the DL and SL effects. In fact, the typical value for $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}\frac{m^2}{m_H^2}1`$, but the numerical factor $`\frac{1}{2\pi }`$ makes the parameter $`\rho `$ to be $`\rho 0.1`$. That is the size of the DL corrections. The relative size of the SL corrections in comparison to the DL contributions is estimated as $`\frac{1}{L}`$, so that the absolute correction is of order 5%. We assume the range $`m_H=100500`$ GeV for the Higgs mass. The sign of SL and DL corrections in the Sudakov form factor are different, being negative for DL and positive for the SL in the exponent. That in turn implies the positive sign for NLL effects in eq.(37).

The normalization point in the final result for the Sudakov form factor is $`\nu ^2=\sqrt{|p_1^2||p_2^2|}`$, which corresponds to some $`\mu ^2`$, such that $`m_b^2\mu ^2s`$. We see from eq.(37) that the $`\beta _0`$ terms are zero at

$`\mu ^2=s\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_b^2}{s}}\right)^a\text{with}a={\displaystyle \frac{n+1}{3n+2}}.`$ (42)
The function $`a(n)`$ changes with $`n`$ in the interval from $`\frac{1}{3}`$ up to $`\frac{2}{5}`$, so that the typical value of $`a`$ is about $`a=0.4`$. That is why the choice of $`\mu ^2=sx^{0.4}`$ in the DL results, reproduces the DL result plus the $`\beta _0`$ NLL result very well. Finally, we stress that the NLL corrections are only moderate and the substantial part comes from effects which are not related to the running of the coupling constant.

## 5 Conclusion

In this letter we have studied the logarithmic QCD corrections to the Higgs coupling to two photons. We have developed a method for the resummation of large QCD corrections in the form of Sudakov-like logarithms of the type $`\alpha _s^n\mathrm{ln}^{2n,2n1}(\frac{m}{m_H})`$ which can contribute to this process in certain models, such as the MSSM for large $`tan\beta `$, up to next-to-leading-logarithmic (NLL) accuracy. Our main result is eq.(37). The NLL correction to the form factor is moderate, of order 5%, the substantial part of which comes from terms not related to running coupling effects.

The new type of QCD corrections in turn imply that there are additional uncertainties in the QCD correction to $`H\gamma \gamma `$ in the MSSM with large $`tan\beta `$. This QCD correction is important only for the MSSM - it does not show up in the Standard Model where the light quark contributions are suppressed.

Some of the ideas presented here can also be applied to the process $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}`$. The details will be published elsewhere.

## Acknowledgements

We thank G. Kane, G. Korchemsky, M. Melles, K. Melnikov, M. Spira, S. Rigolin, E. Yao for helpful discussions. This work has been supported in part by the US Department of Energy.