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# ITP Budapest 585 Lattice study of the Coleman–Weinberg mass in the SU(2)-Higgs model Presented by F. Csikor

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Symmetry breaking is a fundamental concept in particle physics. The most popular mechanism is the Higgs mechanism. Also radiative symmetry breaking (Coleman-Weinberg (CW) mechanism ) is well known. The CW mass is obtained when the tree level mass parameter is zero, i.e. the Higgs mass is induced by radiative corrections. The value of the CW mass is near to the smallest possible Higgs mass.

Connected to the CW mechanism is the problem of vacuum stability, i.e. the value of the minimal Higgs mass e.g. in the Standard Model. Clearly the latter problem would be more interesting to study in a non-perturbative framework. However, putting a chiral top quark on the lattice is difficult, therefore in this contribution we study symmetry breaking on the lattice only in the bosonic sector of the SU(2)-Higgs model. Still this is a difficult two scale problem, since the CW mass is an order of magnitude smaller than the W mass.

## 2 LATTICE FORMULATION

The lattice action in standard notation is:

$`S[U,\phi ]=\beta {\displaystyle \underset{pl}{}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}U_{pl}\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{x}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}(\phi _x^+\phi _x)+\lambda [{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}(\phi _x^+\phi _x)1]^2`$
$`\kappa {\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1}{\overset{4}{}}}\mathrm{Tr}(\phi _{x+\widehat{\mu }}^+U_{x,\mu }\phi _x)\},`$ (1)
where $`U_{x,\mu }`$ denotes the SU(2) gauge link variable, $`U_{pl}`$ the path-ordered product of the four $`U_{x,\mu }`$ around a plaquette; $`\phi _x`$ stands for the Higgs field. The continuum bare parameters are given: $`g^2=4/\beta `$, $`\lambda _c=\lambda /4/\kappa ^2`$, $`\phi _c=\sqrt{2\kappa /a}\phi `$ and $`a^2m_0^2=(12\lambda )/\kappa 8`$. We choose $`g^2=`$0.5, which gives renormalized gauge couplings close to the Standard Model value.

The CW mechanism is an inherently perturbative notion. Therefore, on the lattice we want to determine the smallest Higgs mass possible (which is not far from the CW mass). The lattice action is bounded from below for positive $`\lambda `$, while it is not for $`\lambda <0`$. Thus $`\lambda `$=0 is the interesting point relevant to the minimal and CW masses. Since the Higgs mass is a monotonous function of $`\lambda /\kappa ^2`$, the limit $`\lambda 0`$ gives the smallest Higgs mass possible. Our aim is to determine the Higgs mass in this region and try to interpret the results in terms of the CW mechanism.

## 3 SIMULATIONS

The lattice simulation goes in the standard way as described e.g. in . It is essential to simulate along a line of constant physics (LCP). For CW we define the LCP with $`\lambda `$=0, $`g_R^2`$=fixed ($`g_R`$ is the renormalized gauge coupling, determined from a fit to the static potential) and the hopping parameter $`\kappa `$ tuned to the finite temperature phase transition point.

We simulate on $`L_t`$ $``$ $`L_s^3`$ hot lattices ($`L_t<<L_s`$) and perform an $`L_s\mathrm{}`$ extrapolation. Next we extrapolate to the continuum limit ($`L_t\mathrm{}`$). The physical lattice sizes for the various $`L_t`$’s are kept constant by choosing appropriate lattice extensions. The extrapolations to $`L_s=\mathrm{}`$ were carefully performed in order to eliminate finite size effects.

In practice we take $`\lambda `$ very small ($`510^6`$, $`2.87510^5`$, $`5.2510^5`$) and fix $`\beta =8`$. We found $`\kappa _{cr}`$ by constrained simulation, which is an appropriate method for strong phase transitions.

The physical scale is found for each $`\lambda `$, $`\beta `$, $`\kappa _{cr}`$ by performing simulations at $`T`$=0 and fixing $`M_W`$=80 GeV. The quantity we extrapolate is $`R_{HW}=M_H/M_W`$.

Note that our LCP is not necessarily close to an LCP defined by the perturbative renormalization group running of $`\lambda `$ and $`\beta `$. In particular this is the case for the smallest $`\lambda `$ value given above.

## 4 RESULTS

In one loop perturbation theory one gets

$$M_H^2=v^2(8\lambda _c+12B),B=\frac{9g^4}{1024\pi ^2}$$
(2)
The CW case corresponds to $`\lambda _c=B/2`$. The minimal Higgs mass is for $`\lambda _c=B`$.

Our results for the Higgs mass squared as a function of $`\lambda /\kappa _{cr}^2`$ are given in Fig. 1. It is convenient to plot the Higgs mass squared as a function of $`\lambda /\kappa _{cr}^2`$, since (at tree level) this is proportional to the continuuum quartic coupling. Similar plots for higher Higges masses have been presented in . The straight line part of the curve on the right hand side of the figure obviously corresponds to the perturbative result. Even the slope is in reasonable aggreement with the perturbative prediction. Clearly, for small values of $`\lambda /\kappa _{cr}^2`$ the straight line has to flatten out, since otherwise we would obtain negative Higgs mass squares. This is what is seen on the figure. It is easy to extrapolate to $`\lambda /\kappa _{cr}^2`$=0. We get $`M_{H,min}^2=115.78\pm 4.95`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ to be compared to the perturbative value: 45.60 $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ (91.20 $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$) corresponding to the minimal Higgs mass (CW) cases. The lattice result is clearly much larger than the perturbative value.

One would expect that the perturbative and nonperturbative results are close to each other, since the quartic coupling is small in this region. However, it is clear that the LCP choosen brings in a true nonperturbative feature in the lattice calculation. The CW LCP is namely very far from the renormalization group LCP for small $`\lambda `$. Still, the large value of the smallest nonperturbative Higgs mass is a surprising result. We have carefully studied the finite size effects and believe that the discrepancy is caused most probably by the fact that our simulations are still far from the continuum limit.

## 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work was partially supported by Hungarian Science Foundation Grants No. OTKA-T34980/T29803/-M37071/OM-MU-708


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# Improved Light Absorption by Quantum Confinement and Band Folding: Enhanced Efficiency in Silicon Based Solar Cells

## I Introduction

Silicon is the principal material for integrated circuits. Not only is the band gap (1.12 eV) ideal for room temperature operation, but also the oxide (SiO$`{}_{2}{}^{})`$ provides the necessary flexibility to fabricate millions of devices on a single chip. High integration implies high-speed operation that is limited by the interconnect propagation delay of the signal between devices. This constraint suggests that the integration of Si micro-electronics might be aided by optical interconnection. Unfortunately, silicon does not respond strongly to optical exitations because it is an indirect band gap semiconductor: the band extrema for electrons and holes are located at different points in the Brillouin zone (Fig. 1). Therefore, intrinsic formation or recombination of electron-hole pairs becomes a three-particle event, which is weaker than a two-body process.

There has been a tremendous effort in exploring ways of breaking the silicon lattice symmetry and mixing different momentum states in order to induce optical gain Iyer and Xie (1993); Tsu (1993). The radiative efficiency depends on the competition between non-radiative fast processes and relatively slow radiative processes. To optimize the efficiency we have to eliminate non-radiative channels by having high purity materials and increase the oscillator strength of radiative channels. The above criteria also apply to photovoltaics.

One modality for improving the optical response is quantum confinement. Confinement of the charge density in quantum wells (QWs) permits the relaxation of the optical selection rules for interband transition. In addition, the band folding in superlattice (SL) structures will enhance the absorption. Consequently a Si based SL will reduce the symmetry which translates into band folding toward the zone center; and as a result vertical transitions will be available at energies closer to the indirect band gap.

Beryllium-chalcogenides are good candidates for Si-based heterostructures. They are wide-band gap zinc blende semiconductors with lattice constants close to that of Si. Thus BeTe and Be Se have the lattice constants of 5.6269 and 5.1477 Å, respectively, 3.6 % larger and 5.2 % smaller than Si. Vegard’s law indicates that the lattice matched composition with Si is BeSe0.41Te0.59. Recent developments Clark et al. (2000); Kirk et al. (2000) in the growth of silicon lattice-matched BeSe0.41Te0.59 open the opportunity for a new class of Si based devices.

We analyze quantum confinement and band folding in silicon based heterostructures (Si/BeSeTe heterostructures) as ways of enhancing light absorption and, therefore, improving the efficiency of solar cells. In this study we use a semiempirical tight-binding (TB) method Slater and Koster (1954). In section II we present the tight binding parameters of BeTe and BeSe, fitted to first principles calculations. The model is that of Vogl et al. Vogl et al. (1983) modified according to Chadi Chadi (1977) as to include the spin-orbit interaction. The bulk TB parameters of BeSe0.41Te0.59 are considered as virtual-crystal approximation of constituent materials. The TB parameters of silicon are those of Vogl et al. Vogl et al. (1983) adapted to include the spin–orbit coupling. In section III we discuss some methods to improve the light absorption in Si based heterostructures such as quantum confinement in a single (uncoupled) QW and band folding in SL structures. A significant increase in direct absorption is obtained for a narrow uncoupled silicon QW. However, thin barriers are also required in order for carriers to move across the structure. In this spirit, we calculate the electronic and optical properties of Si/BeSeTe SLs using the mentioned TB method. In the last section the conclusions are outlined.

## II Nearest neighbor Tight-Binding parameters of beryllium chalcogenides

Since both Si and BeSe0.41Te0.59 are indirect band materials, full band calculations are required for the theoretical understanding of electron transport and optical properties in such heterostructures. For this purpose we use the empirical tight-binding (ETB) method as one of the most used tools in research of complex molecular and solid-state systems Harrison (1980). Despite the fact that ETB is based on physical approximations such as a one-particle picture, short-range interactions, etc. (aposteriori justified, however), it gives fast and satisfactory results. In terms of accuracy, it lies between the very accurate, very expensive ab-initio and the fast but limited-accuracy empirical methods. TB techniques are increasingly employed in structures like resonant tunneling diodes, QWs, and SLs. They are more complete than envelope-function or k$``$p methods because they incorporate the entire band structure of the constituent bulk materials in a transparent manner. Also the short-range nature of the model is suitable for modeling heterointerfaces which are present in such quantum structures. In ETB models the electronic wave functions are expanded as a linear combination of atomic orbitals. The real attractiveness resides in the great versatility of the method that can be used for a variety of physical situations like: (i) molecular models based on linear combination of atomic orbitals with strong directional properties; (ii) calculation of electronic states in unknown systems based on transferability of the Hamiltonian matrix elements as determined in known cases (i.e. transferability of the Hamiltonian matrix elements from bulk semiconductors to low dimensional systems like QWs, quantum dots, etc.); (iii) quantitative predictions of physical properties (like fitting the band structure of a semiconductor to ab-initio and experimental data and using those parameters to calculate optical properties of the same semiconductor). The last two points will be used in this paper.

One of the most popular TB models is the sp$`{}_{}{}^{3}s_{}^{}`$ model Vogl et al. (1983). This is a twenty-band model if spin-orbit coupling is included Chadi (1977). The presence of additional $`s^{}`$ orbital is able to reproduce the band gap in indirect semiconductors like silicon. The TB parameters of silicon are those from Vogl et al. Vogl et al. (1983) augmented with spin-orbit coupling according to Chadi Chadi (1977).

BeTe and BeSe are quite new materials in the sense that there are few experimental facts about these semiconductors. The bulk TB parameters of BeTe and BeSe are determined by fitting the ab-initio calculations of Fleszar and Hanke Fleszar and Hanke (2000). Virtual-crystal approximation (VCA) is used to determine the TB parameters of BeSe0.41Te0.59 . The approximation is expected to work well because BeTe and BeSe crystallize in zinc-blende structures and have similar band structures. The nearest neighbor parametrization in the sp$`{}_{}{}^{3}s_{}^{}`$ model requires 15 parameters including spin-orbit interaction. The spin-orbit coupling was included due to the large spin-orbit splitting of the valence band, of about 0.45 eV for BeSe and 0.96 eV for BeTe. To find the nearest neighbor parametrization we used a similar procedure to Ref. Yamaguchi, 1987. The procedure is more consistent than that presented in Ref. Vogl et al., 1983. We adapted the procedure in order to consider spin-orbit coupling. The results are shown in Table 1.

The focus of these calculations was to find the best parameters that reproduce the valence band edges ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7`$ and conduction band edge at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6`$ and X$`{}_{1}{}^{})`$. The reproduction of band edges at the zone center of the valence and conduction bands and the band gap between valence band and conduction band is within 3% error. The spin-orbit coupling for Be was chosen to vanish, because Be is a light element and its spin-orbit coupling is negligible. This is also consistent with the spin-orbit splitting of 0.1 eV for another Be-chalcogenide, BeS with the sulfur atom, lighter than selenium and tellurium atoms. The energy band diagram for BeSe0.41Te0.59 is shown in Fig. 2. The material appears to be indirect band gap with the conduction band minimum at the $`X`$ point. The predicted band gap is 2.97 eV. Previous measurements Clark et al. (2000) indicate a conduction band offset of 1.2 eV for the Si/BeSe0.41Te0.59 heterostructure. This leaves a valence band offset of about 0.65 eV for the Si/BeSe0.41Te0.59 heterostructure. The TB parameters and the valence band offset will be used in the next section in order to calculate electronic and optical properties of the Si/BeSe0.41Te0.59 SL.

## III Improved Optical Absorption by Quantum Confinement and Band Folding

### III.1 A Single Quantum Well

The absorption edges in bulk silicon are indirect and the jumping of the electron from valence band (VB) to conduction band (CB) is assisted by a phonon (in electron transitions from VB to CB the k momentum must be conserved). The band structure of Si is shown schematically in the Fig. 1. The indirect band gap is $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_{25\text{}}`$. The absorption process involves two steps, one is electron-photon interaction and the other is electron-phonon interaction. Basically we have two processes denoted by 1 and 2. In process 1 an electron is first excited to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{15}`$ state and then by an emission of a phonon the electron arrives in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ CB state. Similarly for process 2, however, in this process it starts with an emission of a phonon. Mathematically, the transition probability is given by Fermi’s Golden Rule for second order perturbation

$$R_{ind}=\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{}}\underset{k_C,k_V}{}\left|\underset{i}{}\frac{f\left|H_{ep}\right|ii\left|H_{eR}\right|0}{E_{i0}\mathrm{}\omega }\right|^2\delta \left(E_C\left(k_C\right)E_V\left(k_V\right)\mathrm{}\omega \pm \mathrm{}\omega _p\right),$$
(1)
where $`|0`$ represents the initial state, $`|i`$ the intermediate state and$`|f`$ the final state. $`H_{ep}`$ and $`H_{eR}`$ are the Hamiltonians for electron-phonon and electron-photon interaction, respectively. The energies $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ and $`\mathrm{}\omega _p`$are the energies for photons and phonons, respectively. The second sum on the right-side hand is the oscillator strength of the transition. For this reason, there is a long absorption tail between 1.12 eV and and about 3 eV that reflects the indirect nature of the band gap. The sharp rise in absorption with increasing photon energy starting around 3.2 eV (380 nm) is associated with the direct transition at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{25\text{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{15})`$ whose energy is 3.4 eV (365 nm).

In direct band gap materials light absorption in 2D systems is formally similar to 3D systems. Although the light absorption in indirect band gap 2D systems looks to be similar to 3D systems, this is not the case. The absorption coefficient for an uncoupled Si/ BeSe0.41Te0.59 QW has basically three components Hybertsen (1994)

$`\alpha \left(\omega \right)=A[{\displaystyle \underset{eh,\lambda _q}{}}p_{eh}^d\delta (E_g+E_e+E_h\mathrm{}\omega )+{\displaystyle \underset{eh,\lambda _q}{}}p_{eh}^an_{\lambda _q}\delta (E_g+E_e+E_h\mathrm{}\omega \mathrm{}\omega _{\lambda _q})`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{eh,\lambda _q}{}}p_{eh}^e(n_{\lambda q}+1)\delta (E_g+E_e+E_h\mathrm{}\omega +\mathrm{}\omega _{\lambda q})],`$ (2)
where $`A`$ is a constant, $`p_{eh}^d`$ gives the direct bandgap contribution and $`p_{eh}^a`$ gives the phonon assisted contribution with 1-phonon absorption, and $`p_{eh}^e`$ is the phonon assisted contribution with 1-phonon emission. Basically,

$$p_{eh}^d=p_{cv}I_{eh}\left(\text{k}_0\right),$$
(3)
$$p_{eh,\lambda 𝒒}^e=p_{eh,\lambda 𝒒}^a=p_{cv}I_{eh}\left(\text{q}\text{k}_0\right)R_\lambda ,$$
(4)
$`p_{cv}`$ is the bulk dipole matrix element between bands, $`R_\lambda `$ is the matrix element contribution from electron-phonon interaction, and $`I_{eh}`$ is the overlap between the envelope-functions at different Brillouin points:

$$I_{eh}\left(\text{q}\right)=𝑑\text{r}\psi _e^{}\left(\text{r}\right)\psi _h\left(\text{r}\right)e^{i\text{k}_0\text{r}},$$
(5)
where k0 is the location in $`k`$space of each conduction valley. For silicon, if $`z`$ is the growth direction, then the 2 valleys along z-directions (with $`k_y=k_x=0)`$ are responsible for direct transitions. The other four valleys contribute to phonon-assisted absorption. For infinite wells the overlap integral $`I_{eh}`$ has the behavior depicted in Fig. 3. For very narrow QW’s the overlap integral tends to one, which means that in a genuine 2D system only the transverse momentum has to be conserved. For the other asymptotic limit, i.e. very wide well, the overlap integral vanishes. In physical terms, this says that the system became genuinely 3D and any electromagnetic transition has to be vertical in the absence of phonons. Moreover, from Fig. 3 we may expect to have a strong direct transition (with an overlap integral no less than 0.1) for a QW with a width up to 20 Å, i.e. an ultrathin QW. In the following we will discuss the possibility of improving the oscillator strength in Si/ BeSe0.41Te0.59 based SLs.

### III.2 Electronic Structures of (Si2)n/(BeSe0.41Te0.59)m  Superlattices

The use of SL structures relaxes the condition of ultrathin QW. However, the SL has to have thin barriers. Thin barriers allow photo-generated carriers to be swept away by the built in electric field without recombination. Thicker barriers induce localization of carriers and implicitly higher recombination rate. The alternation of QWs and barriers along  growth axis will generate a band folding in the SL and band mixing of zone-center and zone edge states Gell et al. (1986); Schulman and Chang (1985). The band mixing will inherently enhance the oscillator strength for direct transition in Si structures. On the other hand, band folding will induce states to which vertical transitions are possible at energies by far lower than 3.4 eV, the lowest energy for vertical transitions in bulk Si.

We consider a Si/BeSe0.41Te0.59 SL whose layers are perpendicular to  direction. We employ the nearest neighbor sp$`{}_{}{}^{3}s_{}^{}`$ TB Hamiltonian including spin-orbit interaction. We denote this SL as a (Si$`{}_{2}{}^{})_n`$/(BeSe0.41Te$`{}_{0.59}{}^{})_m`$ SL with $`n`$ two-atom thick layers of Si and $`m`$ two-atom thick layers of BeSe0.41Te0.59 repeated periodically. The defined supercell consists of 2 ($`n+m)`$ adjacently bonded atoms Si, Si, …..Si, Be, Te/Se, Be, Te/Se, …..Be, Te/Se. The TB matrix elements of the Si/BeSe0.41Te0.59 SL are taken over directly from those bulk values. The on-site energies of the BeSe0.41Te0.59 are accordingly changed to match the valence band offset at the interface. Simple averages were used to supply the parameters connecting different materials at the interface. Since the spin orbit must be included the SL Hamiltonian will be represented as having $`20\left(n+m\right)`$ functions. Once the TB matrix elements have been established the SL band structure reduces to the diagonalization of the $`20\left(n+m\right)\times 20\left(n+m\right)`$ matrix Hamiltonian. The band structure of (Si$`{}_{2}{}^{})_n`$/(BeSe0.41Te$`{}_{0.59}{}^{})_m`$ SL for $`m=n=2`$, $`m=n=4`$, $`m=n=6`$, and $`m=n=8`$ are displayed in Fig. 4. The zero of energy corresponds to the top of the valence band in bulk Si. The band folding effect can be seen as many crowded subbands. Two interface bands ($`I_v`$ and $`I_c)`$, one empty and one occupied, were found. They lie in the lower and upper parts of the band gap of bulk silicon, respectively. The origin of these interface bands rests on the polar nature of the interface as was also found in GaAs/Ge SL Saito and Ikoma (1992). The polarity of the interface originates from the large differences in the on-site energies for the constituent atoms (Si and Be or Se/Te). Even if a (110) non-polar interface is used, one interface band is still found in II-VI/IV SLs Wang and Ting (1995); Wang (1996). We calculated the planar charge density of some of the occupied and empty band edge states of the SL with $`\text{m}=\text{n}=\text{8}`$ at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point in the Brillouin zone. The planar charge density of some of the band edge states and interface states are depicted in Fig. 5 for the SL with $`\text{m}=\text{n}=\text{8}`$. By interface states we mean states which die away within few layers from the interface. We denote by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{Iv}`$, the interface states of the $`I_v`$ band and by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{Ic}`$, the interface states of the $`I_c`$ band at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point. The charge density of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{Iv}`$ interface state has a maximum at the Be-Si interface, while the next occupied state is confined, but still is localized toward the Si-Se/Te interface. Only the third occupied state is genuinely confined in silicon slab. The charge density of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{Ic}`$ interface state has a maximum at the Si-Se/Te interface, while the next empty state is confined, but still is localized toward the Si-Be interface. Again, only the third empty state is genuinely confined in silicon slab. We believe that this is associated with acceptor behavior of Be and donor behavior of Se and Te with respect to Si Sze (1980).

### III.3  Optical Properties of (Si2)n/(BeSe0.41Te0.59)m  Superlattices

The electronic contribution to absorption spectrum is given by $`\sigma _{abs}\left(\omega \right)\omega \epsilon _2\left(\omega \right)`$, where$`\sigma _{abs}\left(\omega \right)`$ is the absorption coefficient and Harrison (1980)

$$\epsilon _2\left(\omega \right)=\frac{2\pi ^2\mathrm{}e^2}{m\omega \mathrm{\Omega }}\underset{c,v,k}{}f_{cv,k}\delta \left(E_{c,k}E_{v,k}\mathrm{}\omega \right)$$
(6)
is the imaginary part of dielectric function. Here $`m`$ is the electron mass, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the volume, $`e`$ is the electron charge, $`\mathrm{}`$ is the Planck constant and $`f_{cv,k}`$is the oscillator strength for the direct transition from the state $`|v,\text{k}`$ to $`|c,\text{k}`$, with the photon momentum neglected. The oscillator strength is defined as

$$f_{cv,k}=\frac{2}{m}\frac{\left|c,\text{k}\left|𝜺\text{p}\right|v,\text{k}\right|^2}{E_{c,k}E_{v,k}}$$
(7)
In Eq. (7) $`|v,\text{k}`$ and $`|c,\text{k}`$ are the valence and conduction band, eigenstates, $`E_{v,k}`$ and $`E_{c,k}`$ are their corresponding energies, $`𝜺`$ is the polarization of light, and p is the momentum operator. In the empirical tight-binding approach the momentum matrix element is defined as Graf and Vogl (1995)

$$c,\text{k}\left|\text{p}\right|c,\text{k}=\frac{m}{\mathrm{}}c,\text{k}\left|_\text{k}H\left(\text{k}\right)\right|v,\text{k}$$
(8)
Because the variation of the oscillator strength over the Brillouin zone is small Schulman and Chang (1985), we first calculate the joint densities of states (JDOS). We assume that light is propagating along the SL growth direction. The JDOS represents the number of states that can undergo energy and k-conserving transitions for photon frequencies between $`\omega `$ and $`\omega +d\omega `$. The JDOS associated with Eq. (6) are shown in Fig. 6 for SLs with $`m=n=2`$, $`m=n=4`$, $`m=n=6`$, and $`m=n=8`$. A 0.05 eV broadening was considered for each electronic energy. The summation over Brillouin zone was replaced by the summation over special points in the Brillouin zone Chadi and Cohen (1973); Ren and Dow (1988).

Due to band folding the absorption edges for vertical transitions are lowered toward the indirect band gap of bulk Si. Moreover, the curves rise slowly and, with increasing $`m\left(=n\right)`$, the absorption edges extend to lower energies. Similar results were found in the calculations for porous Si with periodic boundary conditions Cruz (1999). Eq. (6) tells us that the strength of the optical absorption is also determined by the oscillator strength. We denote by V1, V2, and V3 the first three top valence subbands, and by C1, C2, and C3 the first three conduction subbands. We calculated the oscillator strengths of several interband transitions relative to the oscillator strength of the direct transition in bulk Si. The results are shown in Fig. 7 for $`m=n=4`$. The oscillator strengths of interband transitions are at least 10 times smaller than their bulk counterpart and basically range from 10 $`^\text{}3`$ to 10 -1 relative to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{25\text{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{15}`$ transition in bulk Si. The strongest transitions are those coming from the third confined hole level to the second and third confined electron levels.

## IV Conclusions

We studied light absorption of silicon-based heterostructures (Si/BeSe0.41Te$`{}_{0.59}{}^{})`$ that might be used in solar cell applications. We found that significant absorption occurs for thin uncoupled quantum wells with their width up to 20 Å. We also studied the (Si)n/(BeSe0.41Te$`{}_{0.59}{}^{})_m`$ superlattice structures with a semiempirical tight-binding method. In order to perform the superlattice calculations, we determined the tight-binding parameters for BeSe and BeTe in the sp$`{}_{}{}^{3}s_{}^{}`$ nearest neighbor model including spin-orbit interaction. Electronic structure and optical properties were calculated for various superlattice structures. Two interface bands were found to exist in the band gap of bulk silicon. We found that band folding induces vertical transitions near the indirect band gap of bulk Si. In addition, calculated oscillator strengths for vertical transitions near the optical band edge show the mixing of the zone-center and zone edge states of bulk Si for conduction subbands. Therefore, the transitions are optically allowed and the response of silicon based heterostructures to illumination is enhanced.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by NASA grant NCC3-516 and by the Texas Advanced Technology program under grant No. 003594-00326-1999.


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# Quantum nonlocality test for continuous-variable states with dichotomic observables

## I introduction

The paradox suggested by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen aroused controversy about nonlocality of quantum states . Bell proposed a remarkable inequality imposed by a local hidden variable theory , which enables a quantitative test on quantum nonlocality. Numerous theoretical studies and experimental demonstrations have been performed to understand nonlocal properties of quantum states. Various versions of Bell’s inequality  followed the original one .

Gisin and Peres found pairs of observables whose correlations violate Bell’s inequality for a discrete $`N`$-dimensional entangled state . Banaszek and Wódkiewicz (BW) studied Bell’s inequality for continuous-variable states, in terms of Wigner representation in phase space based upon parity measurement and displacement operation . This is useful because of its experimental relevance but does not lead to maximal violation for the original Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state . Recently, Chen et al. studied Bell’s inequality of continuous-variable states  using their newly defined Bell operator . In contrast to the operators in BW formalism, the pseudo-spin operators are not experimentally easy to realize but the EPR state can maximally violate Bell’s inequality in their framework .

In this paper, we relate Chen et al.’s “pseudo-spin” Bell operator to one of Gisin and Peres for a finite-dimensional state to bridge the gap between the discussions for the nonlocality of finite and infinite dimensional (or continuous-variable) systems. The origin of the pseudospin operator is attributed to the limiting case of Gisin-Peres observable . We investigate various versions of Clauser, Horne, Shimony and Holt (CHSH)’s inequality for continuous-variable states. It is pointed out that the BW formalism can be generalized to obtain a larger Bell violation , but it cannot give the maximal violation for the EPR state even in the generalized version. We analyze the reason why the EPR state cannot maximally violate Bell’s inequality in the generalized BW formalism. We compare the EPR state with an entangled state of two coherent states . In contrast to the EPR state, the entangled coherent state shows the maximal Bell violation for certain limit both for the generalized BW and Chen et al.’s formalism. We also investigate Clauser and Horne (CH)’s version of Bell’s inequality. We find the upper and lower bounds for the Bell-CH inequality and test whether the values for continuous-variable states reach these bounds.

## II origin of pseudospin operator

Chen et al. introduced a pseudospin operator $`𝐬=(s_x,s_y,s_z)`$ for a nonlocality test of continuous variables as a direct analogy of a spin-1/2 system :

$`s_z={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(|2n+12n+1||2n2n|\right),`$ (1)
$`s_x\pm s_y=2s_\pm ,`$ (2)
$`𝐚𝐬=s_z\mathrm{cos}\theta +\mathrm{sin}\theta (e^{i\phi }s_{}+e^{i\phi }s_+),`$ (3)
where $`s_{}=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}|2n2n+1|=(s_+)^{}`$ and $`𝐚`$ is a unit vector. The Bell-CHSH operator based upon the pseudospin operator is then defined as

$`=(𝐚𝐬_1)(𝐛𝐬_2)+(𝐚𝐬_1)(𝐛^{}𝐬_2)`$ (4)
$`+(𝐚^{}𝐬_1)(𝐛𝐬_2)(𝐚^{}𝐬_1)(𝐛^{}𝐬_2),`$ (5)
where 1 and 2 denote two different modes and $`𝐚^{}`$, $`𝐛`$ and $`𝐛^{}`$ are unit vectors.

Bell’s inequality imposed by local hidden variable theory is then $`||2`$. In this formalism, the violation of the inequality is limited by Cirel’son bound $`||2\sqrt{2}`$ . It was found that a two-mode squeezed state

$$|\mathrm{TMSS}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(\mathrm{tanh}r)^n}{\mathrm{cosh}r}|n|n,$$
(6)
where $`|n`$ is a number state and $`r`$ is the squeezing parameter, maximally violates Bell’s inequality, i.e. $`||_{max}2\sqrt{2}`$ when $`r`$ becomes infinity . Note that the two-mode squeezed state (6) becomes the original EPR state when $`r\mathrm{}`$ .

Gisin and Peres found pairs of observables whose correlations violate Bell’s inequality for an $`N`$-dimensional entangled state

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}c_n|\varphi _n|\psi _n,$$
(7)
where $`\{|\varphi _n\}`$ and $`\{|\psi _n\}`$ are any orthonormal bases. Further they showed that the violation of Bell’s inequality is maximal in the case of a spin-$`j`$ singlet state for an even $`j`$. The Gisin-Peres observable is

$$A(\theta )=\mathrm{\Gamma }_x\mathrm{sin}\theta +\mathrm{\Gamma }_z\mathrm{cos}\theta +,$$
(8)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_z`$ are block-diagonal matrices in which each block is an ordinary Pauli matrix, $`\sigma _x`$ and $`\sigma _z`$, respectively. $``$ is a matrix whose only non-vanishing element is $`_{N1,N1}=1`$ when $`N`$ is odd and $``$ is zero when $`N`$ is even. The Bell operator is then defined as

$`_{GP}=(𝐚A_1)(𝐛A_2)+(𝐚A_1)(𝐛^{}A_2)`$ (9)
$`+(𝐚^{}A_1)(𝐛A_2)(𝐚^{}A_1)(𝐛^{}A_2),`$ (10)
where $`A`$ represents the Gisin-Peres observable $`A(\theta )`$. It was Gisin  who showed any entangled pure state violates a Bell’s inequality. Later, Gisin and Peres  found the observable (8) to give the violation of Bell’s inequality for any $`N`$-dimensional entangled pure state.

In the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$, we find that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_z`$ become pseudospin operators $`s_x`$ and $`s_z`$ in Eq. (2) and $`A(\theta )`$ becomes $`𝐚𝐬`$ (with $`\phi =0`$) in Eq. (3). Note that the effect of $``$ vanishes for $`N\mathrm{}`$. Understanding Chen et al.’s observables as a limiting case of Gisin-Peres observable defined for a finite discrete system, it is now straightforward to show that the EPR state maximally violates Bell’s inequality as the EPR state $`_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}|n|n`$ is the infinite-dimensional singlet state. Extending the Gisin and Peres’ argument, we can make a remark: Any bipartite pure infinite-dimensional entangled state violates Bell’s inequality for observables based on the pseudospin observables.

## III The Bell-CHSH inequalities for continuous variables

### A The two-mode squeezed state

Banaszek and Wódkiewicz studied Bell’s inequality for continuous-variable systems based upon parity measurement and displacement operation :

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(\alpha )=\mathrm{\Pi }^+(\alpha )\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(\alpha )`$ (11)
$`=D(\alpha ){\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(|2n2n||2n+12n+1|\right)D^{}(\alpha )`$ (12)
where $`D(\alpha )`$ is the displacement operator $`D(\alpha )=\mathrm{exp}[\alpha \widehat{a}^{}\alpha ^{}\widehat{a}]`$ for bosonic operators $`\widehat{a}`$ and $`\widehat{a}^{}`$. It should be pointed out that in order to maximize the violation of Bell’s inequality, the BW formalism needs to be generalized to write the Bell operator as

$`_{BW}=\mathrm{\Pi }_1(\alpha )\mathrm{\Pi }_2(\beta )+\mathrm{\Pi }_1(\alpha ^{})\mathrm{\Pi }_2(\beta )`$ (13)
$`+\mathrm{\Pi }_1(\alpha )\mathrm{\Pi }_2(\beta ^{})\mathrm{\Pi }_1(\alpha ^{})\mathrm{\Pi }_2(\beta ^{}).`$ (14)
BW assumed two of the four parameters equal to zero as $`\alpha =\beta =0`$. The Bell-CHSH inequality can then be represented by the Wigner function as

$`|_{BW}|={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{4}}|W(\alpha ,\beta )+W(\alpha ,\beta ^{})`$ (15)
$`+W(\alpha ^{},\beta )W(\alpha ^{},\beta ^{})|2,`$ (16)
where $`W(\alpha ,\beta )`$ represents the Wigner function of a given state. Using $`\mathrm{\Pi }_1(\alpha )\mathrm{\Pi }_1(\alpha )=\mathrm{\Pi }_2(\alpha )\mathrm{\Pi }_2(\alpha )=𝟙`$, it is straightforward to check the Cirel’son bound $`|_{BW}|2\sqrt{2}`$ in the generalized BW formalism.

The Wigner function of the two-mode squeezed state is

$`W_{TMSS}(\alpha ,\beta )={\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi ^2}}\mathrm{exp}[2\mathrm{cosh}2r(|\alpha |^2+|\beta |^2)`$ (17)
$`+2\mathrm{sinh}2r(\alpha \beta +\alpha ^{}\beta ^{})],`$ (18)
with which the Bell function $`B_{BW}_{BW}`$ can be calculated. In the infinite squeezing limit, the absolute Bell function maximizes as $`|B_{BW}|_{max}8/3^{9/8}2.32`$ at $`\alpha =\alpha ^{}=\beta ^{}/2=\sqrt{(\mathrm{ln}3)/16\mathrm{cosh}2r}`$ and $`\beta =0`$. This shows that the EPR state does not maximally violate Bell’s inequality in the generalized BW formalism. In Fig. 1(a), using the generalized BW formalism, the maximized value $`|B_{BW}|_{max}`$ is plotted for the two-mode squeezed state and compared with the violation of Bell’s inequality based on other formalisms. (The method of steepest descent  is used in Fig. 1(a) and other figures in the paper to get the maximized value of violation within the formalism.)

The reason why the generalized BW formalism does not give the maximum violation for the EPR state can be explained as follows. The operator $`s_z`$ in Eq. (1) is equivalent to BW’s observable $`\mathrm{\Pi }(\alpha )`$ when $`\alpha =0`$ except a trivial sign change. The main difference is that BW use the displacement operator while Chen et al. use the direct analogy of the rotation of spin operators. When the Gisin-Peres observable $`A(\theta )`$ (or equivalently pseudospin observable $`𝐚𝐬`$ with $`\phi =0`$) is applied on an arbitrary state $`_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}f(n)|n`$, where $`f(n)`$ is an arbitrary function, we obtain

$`A(\theta ){\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}f(n)|n=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{cos}(\theta \pi /4){\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}f(2n)|2n`$ (19)
$`+\sqrt{2}\mathrm{sin}(\theta \pi /4){\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}f(2n+1)|2n+1.`$ (20)
The operator $`A(\theta )`$ rotates $`f(n)|n`$ into even and odd parity states; the pseudospin observable (3) can completely flip the parity of any given state by changing the angle. Note that the only measurement applied to the nonlocality test here is the parity measurement. Differently from the pseudospin operator, BW’s observable $`\mathrm{\Pi }(\alpha )`$ does not assure the complete parity change, which makes it impossible to find the maximal Bell violation of the two-mode squeezed state. In the two-mode squeezed state, orthogonal number states, which have well defined parity, are the entangled elements. The expectation value of BW’s observable for a number state is obtained as

$`P(n,|\alpha |)=n|\mathrm{\Pi }(\alpha )|n`$ (21)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{e^{|\alpha |^2}|\alpha |^{2n}}{n!}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{(2k)!}{|\alpha |^{4k}}}\left(L_{2k}^{(n2k)}(|\alpha |^2)\right)^2`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{(2k+1)!}{|\alpha |^{4k+2}}}\left(L_{2k+2}^{(n2k1)}(|\alpha |^2)\right)^2\},`$ (23)
where $`L_q^{(p)}(x)`$ is an associated Laguerre polynomial. We numerically assess $`P(n,|\alpha |)`$ for some different numbers and check that the parity of the number states cannot be perfectly flipped by changing the parameter $`\alpha `$ of the displacement operator $`D(\alpha )`$ as shown in Fig. 1(b).

### B The entangled coherent state

The entangled coherent state  is another important continuous-variable entangled state. Many possible applications to quantum information processing have been studied utilizing entangled coherent states . The entangled coherent state $`|\mathrm{ECS}`$ can be defined as

$`|\mathrm{ECS}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒩(|\gamma |\gamma |\gamma |\gamma ),`$ (24)
$`|\gamma `$ $`=`$ $`e^{|\gamma |^2/2}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^n}{\sqrt{n!}}}|n,`$ (25)
where $`𝒩`$ is a normalization factor and $`|\gamma `$ is a coherent state with $`\gamma 0`$. For the case of the entangled coherent state, the Bell function in the generalized BW formalism (16) can be calculated from its Wigner function:

$`W_{ECS}(\alpha ,\beta )=4𝒩^2\{\mathrm{exp}[2|\alpha \gamma |^22|\beta +\gamma |^2]`$ (26)
$`+\mathrm{exp}[2|\alpha +\gamma |^22|\beta \gamma |^2]`$ (27)
$`\mathrm{exp}[2(\alpha \gamma )(\alpha ^{}+\gamma )2(\beta +\gamma )(\beta ^{}\gamma )4\gamma ^2]`$ (28)
$`\mathrm{exp}[2(\alpha ^{}\gamma )(\alpha +\gamma )2(\beta ^{}+\gamma )(\beta \gamma )4\gamma ^2]\},`$ (29)
where $`\gamma `$ is assumed to be real for simplicity. We find that the Bell function approaches to $`2\sqrt{2}`$ for $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$  at $`\alpha =0`$, $`\beta =5\pi /16\gamma `$, $`\alpha ^{}=\pi /8\gamma `$ and $`\beta ^{}=3\pi /16\gamma `$ as shown in Fig. 2(a).

The entangled coherent state can be represented in the $`2\times 2`$-Hilbert space as

$$|\mathrm{ECS}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|e|d|d|e),$$
(31)
where $`|e=𝒩_+(|\gamma +|\gamma )`$ and $`|d=𝒩_{}(|\gamma |\gamma )`$ are even and odd cat states with normalization factors $`𝒩_+`$ and $`𝒩_{}`$. Note that these states form an orthogonal basis, regardless of the value of $`\gamma `$, which span the two-dimensional Hilbert space. Suppose that an ideal rotation $`R_x(\theta )`$ around the $`x`$ axis,

$`R_x(\theta )|e`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta |e+i\mathrm{sin}\theta |d,`$ (32)
$`R_x(\theta )|d`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{sin}\theta |e+\mathrm{cos}\theta |d,`$ (33)
can be performed on the both sides of the entangled coherent state (31). Because the state (31) is the same as the EPR-Bohm state of a two-qubit system, it can be easily proved that it maximally violates the Bell’s inequality, i.e., the maximized Bell function is $`2\sqrt{2}`$. Remarkably, it is known that the displacement operator acts like the rotation $`R_x(\theta )`$ on the even and odd cat states for $`\gamma 1`$ . The fidelity can be checked that $`|e|D^{}(i\alpha _i)R_x(\theta )|e|^2=|d|D^{}(i\alpha _i)R_x(\theta )|d|^21`$ for $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$, where $`\theta =2\gamma \alpha _i`$ and $`\alpha _i`$ is real. As a result, the parity of the even and odd cat states, which are the orthogonal entangled elements in the entangled coherent state, can be perfectly flipped by the displacement operator for $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$ as is implied in Fig. 2(b) . This property enables the maximal Bell violation of the entangled coherent state for a large coherent amplitude.

In the pseudospin formalism, the correlation function $`E(\theta _1,\phi _1,\theta _2,\phi _2)=\mathrm{ECS}|s_1(\theta _1,\phi _1)s_2(\theta _2,\phi _2)|\mathrm{ECS}`$ of the entangled coherent state is

$`E(\theta _1,\phi _1,\theta _2,\phi _2)=\mathrm{cos}\theta _1\mathrm{cos}\theta _2`$ (34)
$`K(\gamma )\mathrm{cos}(\phi _1\phi _2)\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta _2,`$ (35)
$`K(\gamma )={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cosh}\gamma ^2\mathrm{sinh}\gamma ^2}{(_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\gamma ^{4n+1}}{\sqrt{(2n)!(2n+1)!}})^2}},`$ (36)
where $`0<K(\gamma )<1`$, and $`K(\gamma )`$ approaches to 1 when $`\gamma 0`$ (but $`\gamma 0`$) and $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$. The maximized value of the Bell function $`B=`$ is obtained from Eq. (36) as

$$|B|_{max}=2\sqrt{1+K(\gamma )^2}$$
(37)
by setting $`\theta _1=0`$, $`\theta _1^{}=\pi /2`$, $`\theta _2=\theta _2^{}`$ and $`\phi _1=\phi _2=0`$. Then, the maximal violation is found for the two extreme cases, $`\gamma 0`$ and $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$. When $`\gamma `$ is small, the entangled coherent state is not maximally entangled in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space as tracing the state over one mode variables the von Neumann entropy is not infinite. It is interesting to note that the non-maximally entangled state maximally violates Bell’s inequality. We attribute this mismatch to the dichotomic nature of the test of quantum nonlocality for an infinite-dimensional system. However, the entangled coherent state is maximally entangled in the $`2\times 2`$ Hilbert space but it does not always maximally violate the Bell-CHSH inequality as shown in Fig. 2(a). This shows that the pseudospin formalism is not a ‘perfect’ analogy of a two-qubit system when a qubit is composed of two orthogonal even and odd cat states. The pseudospin operator $`𝐚𝐬`$ (with $`\phi =0`$) in Eq. (3) can be written as $`𝐚𝐬=U(\theta )s_z`$ where a unitary rotation $`U(\theta )`$ is

$`U(\theta )|2n+1=\mathrm{cos}\theta |2n+1+\mathrm{sin}\theta |2n,`$ (38)
$`U(\theta )|2n=\mathrm{sin}\theta |2n+1+\mathrm{cos}\theta |2n.`$ (39)
The even (odd) cat state does not flip into the odd (even) cat state by $`U(\theta )`$; it is only the parity of the given state which changes. The fidelity between the ‘rotated’ odd cat state and the even cat state is obtained as

$$|d|U(\pi /2)|e|^2=K(\gamma )$$
(40)
which is smaller than 1. It is clear that $`|e`$ and $`|d`$ are well flipped to each other only for the limiting cases of $`\gamma 0`$ and $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$. In other word, the rotation may get the given states out of the $`2\times 2`$ space spanned by $`|e`$ and $`|d`$. Note, for example, that $`U(\pi /2)|e`$ cannot be represented by a linear superposition of $`|e`$ and $`|d`$.

## IV The Clauser-Horne inequality

We have studied quantum nonlocality of continuous-variable states using the Bell-CHSH inequality  and all the arguments have been based upon the parity measurement. The Clauser and Horne’s version of the Bell’s inequality  can also be considered to test the nonlocality of continuous-variable states with photon number measurement . We will investigate the Bell-CH inequality in this section.

### A The bound values for Bell-CH inequality

The bound values for the Bell-CHSH inequality $`\pm 2\sqrt{2}`$ are well known as Cirel’son bound . The upper bound $`(1+\sqrt{2})/2`$ of the Bell-CH inequality was proved by comparing the CH and CHSH inequalities . The bound values for the Bell-CH inequality can also be simply found as follows. The Bell-CH operator for a two-qubit system is defined as

$`_{CH}=\xi _1(\theta _1)\xi _2(\theta _2)+\xi _1(\theta _1)\xi _2(\theta _2^{})+\xi _1(\theta _1^{})\xi _2(\theta _2)`$ (41)
$`\xi _1(\theta _1^{})\xi _2(\theta _2^{})\xi _1(\theta _1)𝟙_\mathrm{𝟚}𝟙_\mathrm{𝟙}\xi _\mathrm{𝟚}(\theta _\mathrm{𝟚}),`$ (42)
where

$`\xi (\theta )=|\theta \theta |,`$ (43)
$`|\theta =\mathrm{cos}\theta |0+\mathrm{sin}\theta |1.`$ (44)
then the local theory imposes the inequality $`1_{CH}0`$. Note here that we investigate a simple $`2\times 2`$ system without loss of generality. One can prove by direct calculation

$$_{CH}^2=_{CH}\mathrm{\Delta },$$
(45)
where

$`\mathrm{\Delta }=\theta _1|\theta _1^{}(|\theta _1\theta _1^{}||\theta _1^{}\theta _1|)_1`$ (46)
$`\theta _2|\theta _2^{}(|\theta _2\theta _2^{}||\theta _2^{}\theta _2|)_2.`$ (47)
Using $`_{CH}^2_{CH}^2`$, the average of Eq. (45) becomes

$$_{CH}^2+_{CH}+\mathrm{\Delta }0,$$
(48)
and the Bell-CH function $`B_{CH}_{CH}`$ is

$$\frac{1\sqrt{14\mathrm{\Delta }}}{2}B_{CH}\frac{1+\sqrt{14\mathrm{\Delta }}}{2}.$$
(49)
The maximal and minimal values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ can be obtained from the eigenvalues of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ , which are $`\pm \mathrm{sin}[2(\theta _1\theta _1^{})]\mathrm{sin}[2(\theta _2\theta _2^{})]/4`$. The inequality $`1/4\mathrm{\Delta }1/4`$ is then obtained. Finally, the maximum and minimum of the Bell-CH function are found at $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/4`$ as

$$\frac{1\sqrt{2}}{2}B_{CH}\frac{1+\sqrt{2}}{2}$$
(50)
in which the upper and lower bounds of the Bell-CH function are given. For example, the Bell-CH function for a single-photon entangled state

$$|\psi =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0|1|1|0)$$
(51)
is calculated to be

$`B_{CH}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\{\mathrm{cos}[2(\theta _1^{}\theta _2^{})\mathrm{cos}[2(\theta _1\theta _2^{})`$ (52)
$`\mathrm{cos}[2(\theta _1^{}\theta _2)\mathrm{cos}[2(\theta _1\theta _2)]2\}.`$ (53)
This maximizes to $`(\sqrt{2}1)/20.21`$ at $`\theta _1=0`$, $`\theta _2=3\pi /8`$, $`\theta _1^{}=\pi /4`$ and $`\theta _2^{}=5\pi /8`$  and minimizes to $`(\sqrt{2}+1)/21.21`$ at $`\theta _1=0`$, $`\theta _1^{}=\pi /4`$ and $`\theta _2=\theta _2^{}=\pi /8`$.

### B Bell-CH inequalities for continuous variables

BW used the $`Q`$ function for the test of the Bell-CH inequality violation of the simple single-photon entangled state $`(\text{51})`$ . The $`Q`$ function for a two-mode state $`\rho _{12}`$ is defined as

$$Q_{12}(\alpha ,\beta )=\frac{{}_{2}{}^{}\beta |{}_{1}{}^{}\alpha |\rho _{12}|\alpha _{1}^{}|\beta _{2}^{}}{\pi ^2},$$
(54)
where $`|\alpha `$ and $`|\beta `$ are coherent states. The Bell-CH function in terms of $`Q`$ representation is

$`B_{CHBW}=\zeta _1(\alpha )\zeta _2(\beta )+\zeta _1(\alpha )\zeta _2(\beta ^{})`$ (55)
$`+\zeta _1(\alpha ^{})\zeta _2(\beta )\zeta _1(\alpha ^{})\zeta _2(\beta ^{})`$ (56)
$`\zeta _1(\alpha )𝟙_\mathrm{𝟚}𝟙_\mathrm{𝟙}\zeta _\mathrm{𝟚}(\beta )`$ (57)
$`=\pi ^2[Q_{12}(\alpha ,\beta )+Q_{12}(\alpha ,\beta ^{})+Q_{12}(\alpha ^{},\beta )`$ (58)
$`Q_{12}(\alpha ^{},\beta ^{})]\pi [Q_1(\alpha )+Q_2(\beta )],`$ (59)
where $`Q_1(\alpha )`$ and $`Q_2(\beta )`$ are the marginal $`Q`$ functions of modes 1 and 2, and $`\zeta (\alpha )=D(\alpha )|00|D^{}(\alpha )`$. Eq. (59) is a generalized version of the BW’s formalism as BW considered $`\alpha =\beta =0`$ . In this case the measurement results are distinguished according to the presence of photons, in other words, the dichotomic outcomes are no photon and the presence of photons. This is more realistic because the parity of photon numbers is difficult to measure with currently developed photodetectors.

The $`Q`$ function for the two-mode squeezed state is

$`Q_{TMSS}(\alpha ,\beta )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^2\mathrm{cosh}^2r}}\mathrm{exp}[|\alpha |^2|\beta |^2`$ (60)
$`+\mathrm{tanh}r(\alpha \beta +\alpha ^{}\beta ^{})]`$ (61)
and the $`Q`$ function for the entangled coherent state

$`Q_{ECS}(\alpha ,\beta )=𝒩^2\{\mathrm{exp}[|\alpha \gamma |^2|\beta +\gamma |^2]`$ (62)
$`+\mathrm{exp}[|\alpha +\gamma |^2|\beta \gamma |^2]`$ (63)
$`\mathrm{exp}[(\alpha \gamma )(\alpha ^{}+\gamma )(\beta +\gamma )(\beta ^{}\gamma )4\gamma ^2]`$ (64)
$`\mathrm{exp}[(\alpha ^{}\gamma )(\alpha +\gamma )(\beta ^{}+\gamma )(\beta \gamma )4\gamma ^2]\}.`$ (65)
(66)
The marginal $`Q`$ function of each state can also be simply obtained from Eqs. (61) and (66). One can investigate the violation of the Bell-CH inequality for the two different states from Eqs. (59), (61) and (66). The results are plotted in Figs. 3(a) and (b).

For the two-mode squeezed state, the degree of the violation of the Bell-CH inequality increases as generalizing the BW formalism. However, it increases up to a peak and decreases as increasing the squeezing $`r`$, which is shown in Fig. 3(a). The two-mode squeezed state is a separable pure state when $`r`$ is zero, where no violation of the Bell’s inequality is found. As $`r`$ increases, entanglement becomes to exist, which causes the violation of the Bell’s inequality. However, as $`r`$ increases, the average photon number increases and the weight of $`|0|0`$ decreases as seen in Eq. (6). As the BW formalism of the Bell-CH violation is based on the nonlocality of no photon and presence of photons, its violation diminishes when $`r`$ is large.

The even and odd cat states become the no-photon and single-photon number states respectively, i.e. $`|e|0`$ and $`|d|1`$, when $`\gamma 0`$. Therefore, the entangled coherent state approaches to the single-photon entangled state (51) in this limit. It can be simply shown that the degree of the Bell-CH violation in the generalized BW formalism for the entangled coherent state for $`\gamma 0`$ ($`B_{CHBW}1.17`$) is the same as the one for the single photon entangled state (51). It is larger than the maximized value found by BW ($`B_{CHBW}1.11`$)  which is also shown in Fig. 3(b). However, it does not still reach the maximal violation $`(1+\sqrt{2})/21.21`$, which the single-photon entangled state (51) shows with perfect rotations. It does not maximally violate the Bell-CH inequality because of the imperfect rotations by the displacement operator used in the BW formalism (59). Note that the displacement operator does not flip $`|0`$ to $`|1`$ and vise versa (see Fig. 1(b)). As $`\gamma `$ becomes large, one can observe qualitatively the same phenomenon as for the two-mode squeezed state. The Bell violation approaches to zero as $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$ because of the decrease of the weight of the term $`|0|0`$.

Instead of the measurement of the presence of photons, the parity measurement can be used with the unitary rotation $`U(\theta )`$ to investigate the Bell-CH inequality. The Bell-CH function is defined as

$`B_{CH}^{(\mathrm{\Pi })}=\chi _1(\theta _1)\chi _2(\theta _2)+\chi _1(\theta _1)\chi _2(\theta _2^{})`$ (67)
$`+\chi _1(\theta _1^{})\chi _2(\theta _2)\chi _1(\theta _1^{})\chi _2(\theta _2^{})`$ (68)
$`\chi _1(\theta _1)𝟙_\mathrm{𝟚}𝟙_\mathrm{𝟙}\chi _\mathrm{𝟚}(\theta _\mathrm{𝟚}),`$ (69)
$`\chi (\theta )={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}U(\theta )|2n2n|U^{}(\theta ).`$ (70)
For the two-mode squeezed state,

$`\chi _1(\theta _1)\chi _2(\theta _2)=\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{cos}\theta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta _2\mathrm{cos}\theta _2\mathrm{tanh}2r,`$ (71)
$`\chi _1(\theta _1)𝟙={\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{cos}^\mathrm{𝟚}\theta _\mathrm{𝟙}\mathrm{cosh}^\mathrm{𝟚}𝕣+\mathrm{sin}^\mathrm{𝟚}\theta _\mathrm{𝟙}^\mathrm{𝟚}\mathrm{sinh}^\mathrm{𝟚}𝕣)}{\mathrm{cosh}\mathrm{𝟚}𝕣}},`$ (72)
and for the entangled coherent state,

$`\chi _1(\theta _1)\chi _2(\theta _2)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _2)`$ (73)
$`K(\gamma )\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{cos}\theta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta _2\mathrm{cos}\theta _2,`$ (74)
$`\chi _1(\theta _1)𝟙={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{𝟙}}{\mathrm{𝟚}}}(\mathrm{cos}^\mathrm{𝟚}\theta _\mathrm{𝟙}+\mathrm{sin}^\mathrm{𝟚}\theta _\mathrm{𝟙}),`$ (75)
from which the Bell-CH function $`B_{CH}^{(\mathrm{\Pi })}`$ can be obtained. In both cases, we find that the Bell-CH function approaches to the maximal violation $`B_{CH}^{(\mathrm{\Pi })}(1\pm \sqrt{2})/2`$. For the two-mode squeezed state, $`B_{CH}^{(\mathrm{\Pi })}`$ reaches the maximal violation for $`r\mathrm{}`$ as shown in Fig. 3(a). The upper bound is found at $`\theta _1=0`$, $`\theta _2=3\pi /8`$, $`\theta _1^{}=\pi /4`$ and $`\theta _2^{}=5\pi /8`$, and the lower bound at $`\theta _1=0`$, $`\theta _2=\theta _2^{}=\pi /8`$ and $`\theta _1^{}=\pi /4`$. As shown in Fig. 3(b), for the entangled coherent state, $`B_{CH}^{(\mathrm{\Pi })}`$ reaches the maximal violation for $`\gamma 0`$ and $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$ at the same angles.

## V remarks

We have studied the violation of Bell’s inequalities using various formalisms. We have been able to discuss the link between the discussions for the quantum nonlocality of finite and infinite dimensional systems. The pseudospin operator  can be understood as the limiting case of Gisin-Peres observable . The BW formalism  can be generalized to obtain a larger Bell violation . However, the original EPR state cannot maximally violate Bell’s inequality even in the the generalized version of the BW formalism. We discussed the reason compared with the case of the entangled coherent state which shows maximal violation of Bell’s inequality in the generalized BW formalism. Our result is in agreement with the recent study of nonlocality of a two-mode squeezed state in absorbing optical fibers . In , the authors found that nonlocality of the two-mode squeezed state is more robust against a dissipative environment in pseudospin approach than in the previous study  based on the BW formalism. It was shown that the dichotomic measurement for the presence of photons is not so effective in finding the nonlocality of two-mode squeezed states and entangled coherent states.

However, it must be pointed out that the nonlocality based on the Wigner and $`Q`$ functions is extremely useful because we know the measurement of $`W`$ and $`Q`$ functions is experimentally possible while the implementation of other operations which we have discussed here have difficulties in their experimental realization.

Note added in proof. After submitting our paper, we have found that Banaszek et al. studied the Bell-CH inequality for a single-photon entangled state and a two-mode squeezed state in terms of $`Q`$ representation . They took imperfect detection efficiency into consideration. Recently, a paper generalizing the work of Chen et al. where different qubit states are assigned to a continuous variable system has also appeared .

###### Acknowledgements.

HJ thanks J. Lee for discussions. This work has been supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (GR/R 33304) and the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology through the Creative Research Initiative Program under Contract No. M1-0116-00-0008. ČB is supported by the Austrian FWF Project No. F1506 and by the European Commission, Contract No. ERBFMRXCT96-0087.


text:
# Number of points of function fields over finite fields

## Introduction

Let $`k`$ be a field; if $``$ is an adequate equivalence relation on algebraic cycles, we denote by $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}(k)`$ or simply $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}`$ the category of motives modulo $``$ with rational coefficients, and by $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ its full subcategory consisting of effective motives 111With notation as in , an object of $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}`$ is *effective* if it is isomorphic to an triple $`(X,p,n)`$ with $`n0`$; one may then find such a triple with $`n=0`$.. We use the convention that the functor $`Xh(X)`$ from smooth projective $`k`$-varieties to $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is covariant. We shall in fact only consider the two extreme cases: rational equivalence (rat) and numerical equivalence (num).

Using the point of view of birational motives (developed jointly with Sujatha ), we give a proof almost without cohomology (see proof of Lemma 2) of a recent result of Esnault on the existence of rational points for smooth projective varieties with “trivial” Chow group of zero-cycles over a finite field . We also prove that the number of rational points modulo $`q`$ is a stable birational invariant of smooth projective varieties over $`𝐅_q`$: the idea of considering effective motives and their divisibility by the Lefschetz motive was anticipated by Serre . This answers a question of Kollár; the $`3`$-dimensional case had been dealt with by Lachaud and Perret earlier . However, as was pointed out by Chambert-Loir, this birational invariance in fact follows from much earlier work of Ekedahl , who does not use any form of resolution of singularities!

## 1. Birational motives

###### Definition 1.

The category $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}^\mathrm{o}`$ is the Karoubian envelope (or idempotent completion) of the quotient of $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ by the ideal $`J`$ consisting of morphisms factoring through an object of the form $`ML`$, where $`L`$ is the Lefschetz motive. This is a tensor additive category. If $`M\mathrm{Mot}_{}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$, we denote by $`\overline{M}`$ its image in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}^\mathrm{o}`$.

###### Lemma 1 (\[9, Lemmas 5.3 and 5.4\]).

Let $`X,Y`$ be two smooth projective irreducible $`k`$-varieties. Then, in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^\mathrm{o}`$, we have

$$Hom(\overline{h}(X),\overline{h}(Y))=CH_0(Y_{k(X)})𝐐.$$

(Let us briefly recall the proof: for $`X,Y`$ smooth projective, let $`I(X,Y)`$ be the subgroup of $`CH^{dimY}(X\times Y)𝐐`$ formed of those correspondences which vanish on $`U\times Y`$ for some dense open subset $`U`$ of $`X`$. Then $`I`$ is an ideal in the category of rational Chow correspondences: the proof \[9, Lemma 5.3\] is a slight generalisation of the argument in \[5, Ex. 16.1.11\]. It is even monoidal, and extends to a monoidal ideal $`I`$ in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$, which obviously contains $`J`$. Using de Jong’s theorem \[7, Th. 4.1\] and Chow’s moving lemma, one sees that $`I𝐐=J𝐐`$ \[9, Lemma 5.4\]. In characteristic $`0`$, one may remove the coefficients $`𝐐`$ by using Hironaka’s resolution of singularities.)

###### Example 1.

Let $`X`$ be smooth and projective over $`k`$. Then $`\overline{h}(X)\mathrm{𝟏}`$ in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^\mathrm{o}`$ if and only if $`CH_0(X_{k(X)})𝐐𝐐`$ (write $`h(X)\mathrm{𝟏}h(X)_1`$ in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$).

###### Remark 1.

If $`K`$ is the function field of a smooth projective variety $`X`$, we may define a motive $`\overline{h}(K)\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^\mathrm{o}`$ as follows. If $`Y`$ is another smooth projective model of $`K`$, then \[the closure of\] the graph of a birational isomorphism from $`X`$ to $`Y`$ defines an isomorphism $`\overline{h}(X)\stackrel{}{}\overline{h}(Y)`$. If there is a third model $`Z`$, then the system of these isomorphisms is transitive, so defining $`\overline{h}(K)`$ as the direct limit of the $`\overline{h}(X)`$ for this type of isomorphisms makes sense and is (canonically) isomorphic to any of the $`\overline{h}(X)`$. This construction is functorial for inclusions of fields. If $`\mathrm{char}k=0`$, it is even functorial for $`k`$-places by \[9, Lemma 5.6\], although we won’t use this. (Extending it to arbitrary function fields in characteristic $`p`$ would demand more work.)

Note that if $`KL`$, then $`\overline{h}(K)`$ is a direct summand of $`\overline{h}(L)`$: to see this, consider smooth projective models $`X,Y`$ of $`K`$ and $`L`$. Let $`f:UX`$ be a corresponding dominant morphism, where $`U`$ is an open subset of $`Y`$. By Noether’s normalisation theorem, we may find an affine open subset $`VU`$ such that the restriction of $`f`$ to $`V`$ factors through $`X\times 𝐏^n`$, where $`n=dimYdimX`$. Since $`\overline{h}(X\times 𝐏^n)\stackrel{}{}\overline{h}(X)`$, we are reduced to the case where $`L/K`$ is finite, and then it follows from a transfer argument. In particular, $`\overline{h}(X)\mathrm{𝟏}`$ if $`X`$ is unirational, as expected in . The converse is not true: an Enriques surface $`X`$ verifies $`\overline{h}(X)\mathrm{𝟏}`$ by  (see example 1), but is not rational, hence not unirational over a field of characteristic $`0`$ because $`Pic(X)`$ contains a $`𝐙/2`$ summand (this counterexample was explained by Jean-Louis Colliot-Thélène).

For $`=\mathrm{num}`$, the category $`\mathrm{Mot}_{}^\mathrm{o}`$ is abelian semi-simple . From \[1, Prop. 2.1.7\], we therefore get:

###### Proposition 1.

a) The projection functor $`\pi :\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^\mathrm{o}`$ is essentially surjective (i.e. taking the karoubian envelope is irrelevant in the definition of $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^\mathrm{o}`$).
b) $`\pi `$ has a section $`i`$ which is also a left and right adjoint.
c) The category $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is the coproduct of $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}}L`$ and $`i(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^\mathrm{o})`$, i.e. any object of $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ can be uniquely written as a direct sum of objects of these two subcategories.
d) The sequence

$$0K_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}})\stackrel{L}{}K_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}})K_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^\mathrm{o})0$$

is split exact.∎

(In d), the injectivity on the left corresponds to the fact that the functor $`L`$ is fully faithful.)

###### Remark 2.

a) In $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^\mathrm{o}`$, we can extend the end of Remark 1 as follows: let $`K,L`$ two function fields of smooth projective varieties such that $`KL(t_1,\mathrm{},t_m)`$ and $`LK(t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)`$ for some $`m,n`$. Then $`\overline{h}(K)\overline{h}(L)`$. To get such a result in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^\mathrm{o}`$, one would need to have enough information on the algebra $`End(\overline{h}(K))`$.

b) Proposition 1 b) shows via Remark 1 that to any function field $`K/k`$ one may canonically associate an effective numerical motive $`h(K)\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$, which is a direct summand of $`h(X)`$ for any smooth projective model $`X`$ of $`K`$ (if any).

The following conjecture was suggested by Luca Barbieri-Viale:

###### Conjecture 1 (cf. \[17, Conj. 0.0.11\]).

For any field $`k`$, the projection functor $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^\mathrm{o}`$ has a right adjoint.

## 2. Number of rational points modulo $`q`$

From now on, $`k=𝐅_q`$ is a field with $`q`$ elements. Then, for all $`n1`$, the assignment

$$X|X(𝐅_{q^n})|=\mathrm{deg}(\mathrm{\Delta }_XF_X^n)$$

for a smooth projective variety $`X`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_X`$ is the class of the diagonal and $`F_X`$ is the Frobenius endomorphism viewed as a correspondence, extends to a ring homomorphism

(1)
$$\mathrm{\#}_n:K_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}})𝐐$$

by the rule $`\mathrm{\#}_n(X,p)=\mathrm{deg}({}_{}{}^{t}pF_X^n)`$ if $`p=p^2End(h(X))`$, cf. \[12, p. 80\].

###### Lemma 2.

The homomorphisms $`\mathrm{\#}_n`$ take their values in $`𝐙`$.

Proof. It is enough to prove this for $`n=1`$. More conceptually, we have $`\mathrm{deg}({}_{}{}^{t}pF_X)=Tr(pF_X)`$ in the rigid tensor category $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}`$. We may compute this trace after applying a Weil cohomology $`H`$, e.g. $`l`$-adic cohomology. (We then have to consider $`H(X)`$ as a $`𝐙/2`$-graded vector space and compute a super-trace.) Let $`H(X)=VW`$, with $`V=\mathrm{Ker}(H(p)1)`$ and $`W=\mathrm{Ker}(H(p))`$. Since $`F_X`$ is a central correspondence, it commutes with $`p`$, hence $`H(F_X)`$ respects $`V`$ and $`W`$ and

$$\begin{array}{c}Tr(pF_X)=Tr(H(pF_X))=Tr(H((pF_X)_{|V})+Tr(H((pF_X)_{|W})\hfill \\ \hfill =Tr(H(F_X)_{|V}).\end{array}$$

Since the minimum polynomial of $`H(F_X)`$ kills $`H((F_X)_{|V})`$, the eigenvalues of the latter are algebraic integers. Hence $`Tr(pF_X)`$ is an algebraic integer and therefore is in $`𝐙`$.∎

###### Theorem 1.

The homomorphism (1) induces a ring homomorphism

$$\overline{\mathrm{\#}}_n:K_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^\mathrm{o})𝐙/q^n.$$

This follows from Lemma 2 and Proposition 1 d) (note that $`\mathrm{\#}_n(L)=q^n`$).∎

###### Corollary 1 (Esnault ).

Let $`X`$ be a smooth projective variety over $`𝐅_q`$ such that $`CH_0(X_{𝐅_q(X)})𝐐=𝐐`$. Then $`|X(𝐅_q)|1(modq)`$.

Proof. By Example 1, one has $`\overline{h}(X)\mathrm{𝟏}`$ in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^\mathrm{o}`$, hence a fortiori in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^\mathrm{o}`$.∎

###### Corollary 2 (cf. \[3, Th. 4\], ).

The number of rational points modulo $`q`$ is a stable birational invariant of smooth projective $`𝐅_q`$-varieties.

Indeed, two stably birationally isomorphic varieties have isomorphic motives in $`\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{rat}}^\mathrm{o}`$. ∎

###### Remarks 3.

a) Using Remark 2 a) we could strengthen Corollary 2 as follows: for two smooth projective varieties $`X,Y`$, $`|X(𝐅_q)||Y(𝐅_q)|(modq)`$ provided there exist $`m,n`$ and dominant rational maps $`X\times 𝐏^mY`$, $`Y\times 𝐏^nX`$. However, this also follows from .
b) Using Remark 2 b) we may canonically associate to any function field $`K/𝐅_q`$ a series of integers $`(a_n)_{n1}`$ such that, for all $`n`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{\#}}_n(\overline{h}(K))=a_n(modq^n)`$ (see Remark 1 for the definition of $`\overline{h}(K)`$). Naturally $`a_n`$ is not necessarily positive in general. More conceptually, we may associate to $`K`$ its *zeta function*, defined as the zeta function of the motive $`i(\overline{h}(K))`$.
c) Killing $`L^\kappa `$ instead of $`L`$ would yield congruences modulo $`q^\kappa `$ rather than modulo $`q`$, cf. \[4, §3\]; compare also . But one would lose the fact that function fields have motives as in the previous remarks.
d) Unfortunately the proof of Lemma 2 uses cohomology, hence the proof of Theorem 1 is not completely cohomology-free.

## 3. A conjectural converse

Note that the functions $`\mathrm{\#}_n`$ of (1) extend to ring homomorphisms $`K_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}})𝐙[1/q]`$, still denoted by $`\mathrm{\#}_n`$.

###### Theorem 2.

Assume that the Tate conjecture holds. Let $`MK_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}})`$ be such that $`\mathrm{\#}_n(M)𝐙`$ for all $`n1`$. Then $`MK_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^{\mathrm{eff}})`$. Conversely, if this implication holds for any $`MK_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}})`$, then the Tate conjecture holds.

Proof. Write $`M=m_i[S_i]`$, where $`m_i𝐙\{0\}`$ and the $`S_i`$ are simple pairwise non-isomorphic motives. For each $`i`$, let $`w_i`$ be a Weil number of $`S_i`$, that is, a root of the minimum polynomial of $`F_{S_i}`$, and $`K_i=𝐐(w_i)`$. Then $`\mathrm{\#}_n(M)=m_iTr_{K_i/𝐐}(w_i^n)`$. It follows from the assumption and from \[11, Lemma 2.8\] that $`w_i`$ is an algebraic integer for all $`i`$. (To apply loc. cit., compute in a Galois extension of $`𝐐`$ containing all $`K_i`$ and observe that the Tate conjecture implies that no $`w_i`$ is equal to a conjugate of $`w_j`$ for $`ij`$ \[14, proof of Prop. 2.6\].)

By Honda’s theorem, for each $`i`$ there is an abelian variety $`A_i`$ over $`𝐅_q`$ and a simple direct summand $`T_i`$ of $`h(A_i)`$ whose Weil numbers are the Galois orbit of $`w_i`$ (ibid.). Reapplying Tate’s conjecture, we get that $`S_iT_i`$, hence $`S_i`$ is effective for all $`i`$.

To prove the converse, let $`M\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}`$ be simple and such that $`F_M=1`$. Then $`\mathrm{\#}_n(M)=1`$ for all $`n`$. Therefore $`M`$ is effective. Writing $`M`$ as $`(X,p)`$ for some smooth projective variety $`X`$, we have that $`M`$ is a direct summand of $`h^0(X)`$ for weight reasons. It follows easily that $`M\mathrm{𝟏}`$. By \[6, Th. 2.7\], this implies the Tate conjecture.∎

###### Remark 4.

Unfortunately we have to apply the Tate conjecture to $`S_iT_i^{}`$ in the proof, hence cannot provide a hypothesis only involving $`M`$.

###### Corollary 3.

The ring homomorphism

$$(\overline{\mathrm{\#}}_n)_{n1}:K_0(\mathrm{Mot}_{\mathrm{num}}^\mathrm{o})\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝐙/q^n$$

is injective if and only if the Tate conjecture is true.∎

### Acknowledgements

Part of this work was done during a stay at the Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences in September-October 2002; I thank it for its hospitality. I am grateful to Dan Abramovich, Yves André, Antoine Chambert-Loir, Jean-Louis Colliot-Thélène and Gilles Lachaud for helpful remarks. Especially Colliot-Thélène and Chambert-Loir pointed out the work of Lachaud and Perret , Chambert-Loir pointed out the work of Ekedahl  and Lachaud kindly communicated the letters of Serre . André pointed out that Lemma 2 needed a proof, helped with it and let me discover a mistake in the very first version of this paper. Finally, the idea of this article was of course sparked by Hélène Esnault’s prior article .