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# Control of Decoherence: Dynamical Decoupling versus Quantum Zeno Effect - a case study for trapped ions -

## I INTRODUCTION

The theory of quantum information and computation has provided various promising ideas such as substantially faster algorithms than their classical counterparts and very secure cryptography. Examples are Shor’s factorizing algorithm and Grover’s search algorithm, where several computational states are simultaneously described by a single wave function and parallel information processing is carried out by unitary operations. Moreover, some of the basic steps have already been experimentally realized: Basic operations for quantum computation were realized with trapped ions and with the nuclear spins of organic molecules. Shor’s algorithm for factorizing $`Z=15`$ was investigated with the nuclear spins of organic molecules.

The essential ingredient for the efficiency of quantum algorithms and cryptography is the principle of superposition of states. As pointed out e.g., by Unruh, the loss of purity (i.e., decoherence) of states would deteriorate the performance, particularly in the case of large scale computations or of long-distance communications. Thus, the information carried by a quantum system has to be protected from decoherence. So far, several schemes have been proposed, such as the use of quantum error-correcting codes, the use of decoherence free subspaces and/or noiseless subsystems and the quantum dynamical decoupling.

The quantum dynamical decoupling was proposed by Viola and Lloyd, where the system is periodically driven with period $`T_c`$ in an appropriate manner so that the target subsystem is decoupled from the environment. It was shown that a complete decoupling is achieved in the $`T_c0`$ limit, or the limit of infinitely fast control. The procedure is simpler than the other methods because one only has to periodically drive the system. However, as it is not possible to achieve the $`T_c0`$ limit, its performance for nonvanishing $`T_c`$ should be investigated. Such studies were carried out for a two-level system in an environment via a system-energy-preserving interaction and for a harmonic oscillator coupled with an environment. Here, we will provide one more example, namely a model of a trapped ion used in Ref.. This model explicitly involves a unitary operation for the quantum-state manipulation, which was not included in the previous models.

The key ingredient of dynamical decoupling is the continuous disturbance of the system, which suppresses the system-environment interaction. As already pointed out by Viola and Lloyd, the situation is similar to the so-called quantum Zeno effect, where frequent measurements of a system suppress quantum transitions (for recent reviews, see ). This phenomenon is more general than originally thought: a nontrivial time evolution may occur in the case of frequent measurements under an appropriate setting. Namely, when the measurement process is described by a multidimensional projection operator, frequent measurements restrict the evolution within each subspace specified by the projection operator and a superselection rule dynamically arises. Therefore, if one can design the measurement process so that different superselection sectors (defined by the given measurements) are coupled by the interaction between a target system and the environment, the system-environment interaction can be suppressed by frequent measurements. We refer to such a decoherence control as a quantum Zeno control. Since, in case of the quantum Zeno experiment by Itano et al., the measurement process was realized as a dynamical process, namely the optical pulse irradiation, it is interesting to compare the two procedures (the quantum Zeno control and the quantum dynamical decoupling) for a model of trapped ion. This is one of the objectives of this article.

This article will be organized as follows. In Sec. II, the quantum dynamical decoupling and the quantum Zeno control are briefly reviewed. In Sec. III, we introduce a model of the trapped ion, which takes into account the unitary Rabi oscillation and thermal decoherence. The dynamical decoupling and Zeno controls of this model are discussed, respectively, in Secs. IV and V. After discussing the cases of infinitely fast controls, the effects of the finiteness of the control period are investigated. It is shown that both controls may accelerate decoherence if they are not sufficiently fast. This implies the necessity of a careful design of the control and a careful study of the timescales involved. The last section is devoted to the summary and discussion.

## II Quantum Dynamical Decoupling and Quantum Zeno Control

### A System

The total system consists of a target system and a reservoir and its Hilbert space $`_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ is the tensor product of the system Hilbert space, $`_S`$, and the reservoir Hilbert space, $`_B`$: $`_{\mathrm{tot}}=_S_B`$. The total Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ is the sum of the system part $`H_S\mathrm{𝟏}_B`$, the reservoir part $`\mathrm{𝟏}_SH_B`$ and their interaction $`H_{SB}`$, which is responsible for decoherence:

$$H_{\mathrm{tot}}=H_S\mathrm{𝟏}_B+\mathrm{𝟏}_SH_B+H_{SB}(t).$$
(1)
The operators $`\mathrm{𝟏}_S`$ and $`\mathrm{𝟏}_B`$ are the identity operators, respectively, in the Hilbert spaces $`_S`$ and $`_B`$, and the operators $`H_S`$ and $`H_B`$ act, respectively, on $`_S`$ and $`_B`$. Here, in order to discuss controls in an interaction picture, a time-dependent interaction is considered.

Since, in general, the reservoir state is mixed, it is convenient to describe the time evolution in terms of density matrices. In the case of a quantum state manipulation, the initial state $`\rho (0)`$ is set to be a tensor product of a system initial state $`\sigma (0)`$ and a reservoir (usually equilibrium) state $`\rho _B`$: $`\rho (0)=\sigma (0)\rho _B`$. The system state $`\sigma (t)`$ at time $`t`$ is given by the partial trace of the state $`\rho (t)`$ of the whole system with respect to the reservoir degrees of freedom: $`\sigma (t)\mathrm{tr}_B\rho (t)`$. When $`\sigma (t)`$ is not unitarily equivalent to $`\sigma (0)`$ for a given class of initial states, decoherence is said to appear. The purpose of the control is to suppress such decoherence. For the decoherence control, it is sufficient to consider only those initial states which are relevant to the quantum state manipulation in question, but not all states.

### B Quantum Dynamical Decoupling

Here we slightly generalize the arguments of Ref. (see also ). This control is carried out via a time dependent system Hamiltonian $`H_c(t)`$:

$$H(t)=H_{\mathrm{tot}}+H_c(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B,$$
(2)
where $`H_c(t)`$ is designed so that $`U_c(t)𝒯\mathrm{exp}\left\{i_0^tH_c(s)𝑑s\right\}`$ satisfies

(A) $`U_c(t)`$ is periodic with period $`T_c`$; $`U_c(t+T_c)=U_c(t)`$.

(B) $`_0^{T_c}dt(U_c^{}(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B)H_{SB}(t+s)(U_c(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B)=\mathrm{O}(T_c^{1+ϵ}),(0<ϵ1,T_c:\mathrm{small},s)`$.

Going to the interaction picture where $`H_c(t)`$ is unperturbed, the density matrix at time $`T=NT_c`$ with an initial state $`\rho (0)`$ is given by $`\rho (T)=U_{\mathrm{tot}}(NT_c)\rho (0)U_{\mathrm{tot}}^{}(NT_c)`$ where

$$U_{\mathrm{tot}}(NT_c)=𝒯\mathrm{exp}\left\{i_0^{NT_c}\stackrel{~}{H}_{\mathrm{tot}}(s)𝑑s\right\}=\underset{m=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[𝒯\mathrm{exp}\left\{i_{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}\stackrel{~}{H}_{\mathrm{tot}}(s)𝑑s\right\}\right]$$
(3)
and $`\stackrel{~}{H}_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)=\left(U_c^{}(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)H_{\mathrm{tot}}\left(U_c(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)`$. A standard Magnus expansion of the time ordered exponential leads to

$$𝒯\mathrm{exp}\left\{i_{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}\stackrel{~}{H}_{\mathrm{tot}}(s)𝑑s\right\}=e^{i[\overline{H}_m^{(0)}+\overline{H}_m^{(1)}+\mathrm{}]T_c}$$
(4)
where $`\overline{H}_m^{(0)}\frac{1}{T_c}_{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}\stackrel{~}{H}_{\mathrm{tot}}(s)𝑑s`$ and the rest terms $`\overline{H}_m^{(j)}`$ are of order of $`T_c^j`$ ($`j=1,2,\mathrm{}`$). By assumption (B), one has $`\overline{H}_m^{(0)}=\overline{H}^{(0)}+\mathrm{O}(T_c^ϵ)`$ where

$$\overline{H}^{(0)}=\overline{H}_S\mathrm{𝟏}_B+\mathrm{𝟏}_SH_B,$$
(5)
$`\overline{H}_S\frac{1}{T_c}_0^{T_c}𝑑tU_c^{}(t)H_SU_c(t)`$ and they are independent of $`T_c`$ because $`U_c(t)`$ is $`T_c`$-periodic. Therefore, in the limit $`T_c0`$ while keeping $`T=NT_c`$ constant, one obtains

$$U_{\mathrm{tot}}(T)\left[1i\overline{H}^{(0)}\frac{T}{N}+\mathrm{O}\left(\frac{1}{N^{1+ϵ}}\right)\right]^N\stackrel{N\mathrm{}}{}e^{i\overline{H}_ST}e^{iH_BT}.$$
(6)
In short, as a result of the infinitely fast control, the system-reservoir coupling is eliminated and, thus, decoherence is suppressed. Note that if one designs $`H_c`$ so that

$$U_c(t)g_j(\frac{j1}{M}T_ct<\frac{j}{M}T_c;j=1,\mathrm{},M),$$
(7)
where $`\{g_j\}`$ is a set of unitary operators acting on $`_S`$, $`\overline{H}_S`$ becomes

$$\overline{H}_S=\frac{1}{M}\underset{j=1}{\overset{M}{}}g_j^{}H_Sg_j$$
(8)
The relation between the dynamical decoupling with the prescription (7) and a symmetry group was discussed in Ref..

### C Quantum Zeno control

Now we turn to the Zeno control by adapting the argument of Ref.. This control is performed by frequent measurements of the system. The most general measurement is described by a projection operator acting on the density matrix:

$$\rho \widehat{P}\rho \underset{n}{}\left(P_n\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)\rho \left(P_n\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right).$$
(9)
where $`\{P_n\}`$ is a set of orthogonal Hermitian projection operators acting on $`_S`$. In the following, we restrict ourselves to the case where the measuring apparatus does not “select” different outcomes (nonselective measurement) and the projection operators are complete; $`_nP_n=\mathrm{𝟏}_S`$. As in the dynamical decoupling, the measurement is designed so that

(C) $`\widehat{P}H_{SB}(t)=_n\left(P_n\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)H_{SB}(t)\left(P_n\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)=0`$.

The Zeno control consists in performing repeated nonselective measurements at times $`t=nT_c`$ ($`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$). Between successive measurements, the system evolves via $`H_{\mathrm{tot}}`$. In terms of the Liouville operator $`_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ defined by $`_{\mathrm{tot}}\rho [H_{\mathrm{tot}},\rho ]=H_{\mathrm{tot}}\rho \rho H_{\mathrm{tot}}`$, the density matrix $`\rho (NT_c)`$ after $`N+1`$ measurements with an initial state $`\rho (0)`$ is given by

$$\rho (NT_c)=\underset{m=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left\{\widehat{P}𝒯e^{i_{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)𝑑t}\widehat{P}\right\}\rho (0).$$
(10)
Assumption (C) yields

$`\widehat{P}{\displaystyle _{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}}_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)𝑑t\widehat{P}\rho `$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{P}{\displaystyle _{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}}[\widehat{P}(H_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)),\rho ]𝑑t`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`T_c\widehat{P}[\overline{H}_S^{}\mathrm{𝟏}_B+\mathrm{𝟏}_SH_B,\rho ]T_c\overline{}^{(0)}\rho ,`$ (12)
and, thus, in the limit $`T_c0`$ while keeping $`T=NT_c`$ constant, we get

$`\rho (NT_c)`$ $``$ $`\widehat{P}{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\left\{\left(\mathrm{𝟏}i\widehat{P}{\displaystyle _{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}}_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)\widehat{P}𝑑t\right)\right\}\rho (0)\widehat{P}\left\{\left(1i\overline{}^{(0)}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{N}}\right)\right\}^N\rho (0)`$ (13)
$``$ $`\widehat{P}e^{i\overline{}^{(0)}T}\rho (0)=\widehat{P}\left(e^{i\overline{H}_S^{}T}e^{iH_BT}\rho (0)e^{i\overline{H}_S^{}T}e^{iH_BT}\right),`$ (14)
where the controlled system Hamiltonian $`\overline{H}_S^{}`$ is given by

$$\overline{H}_S^{}\underset{n}{}P_nH_SP_n.$$
(15)
Hence, as a result of infinitely frequent measurements, the system-reservoir coupling is eliminated and, thus, decoherence is suppressed. Note the similarity between the controlled system Hamiltonians for a particular dynamical decoupling, (8), and for the Zeno control, (15). This is not a mere coincidence. Indeed, one can show that, by enlarging the Hilbert space so that the original measurement process is expressed by a dynamical process in the larger space, the two controls are equivalent. This will be discussed in detail elsewhere. However, throughout this article, the dynamical decoupling refers to a situation where the evolution is coherent (unitary) and the Zeno control to a situation where the evolution involves incoherent processes such as measurements.

## III A Two-level System with Thermal Decoherence

### A Model

We consider the model of a trapped Be ion used in Ref. (see also ). Here we assume that the ion is at rest and consider only the dynamics of the hyperfine states. Then, the main mechanism of decoherence can be attributed to the emission and absorption of thermal photons associated with transitions to nearby excited states. For the sake of simplicity, one of the hyperfine states is assumed to couple electromagnetically with a nearby excited state (see Fig. 1), the polarization of the photon is neglected and only the rotating terms (i.e., the slowly varying terms in the interaction picture) are taken into account (rotating wave approximation) for the driven parts.

Let $`|1`$, $`|2`$ and $`|3`$ be the lower hyperfine, upper hyperfine and excited states, respectively, and $`a_𝐤`$ the annihilation operator of a photon with wave vector $`𝐤`$ and energy $`\omega _k=c|𝐤|`$ ($`c`$: speed of light). Then, the Hamiltonian is given by

$`H_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`H_S(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B+\mathrm{𝟏}_SH_B+\lambda H_{SB},`$ (16)
$`H_S(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _2|22|+\omega _3|33|+\lambda ^2\{\mathrm{\Delta }e^{i\omega _2^{}t}|12|+(h.c.)\},`$ (17)
$`H_B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3𝐤\omega _ka_𝐤^{}a_𝐤},`$ (18)
$`H_{SB}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3𝐤V_k\left(|13|+|31|\right)\left(a_𝐤^{}+a_𝐤\right)}.`$ (19)
The bare energies $`\omega _2`$ and $`\omega _3`$ of states $`|2`$ and $`|3`$ are measured from that of the lower hyperfine state $`|1`$ ($`\omega _1=0`$). The third term of (17) represents the rf-control of the Rabi oscillation and the amplitude $`\lambda ^2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ corresponds to the Rabi frequency. Because of the Lamb shift, the energy difference between the two hyperfine states $`\omega _2^{}`$ is different from $`\omega _2`$ and the frequency of the irradiated field should be so tuned that it resonates with $`\omega _2^{}`$. The function $`V_k`$ is assumed to behave like

$$V_k=\sqrt{\frac{v_0^2c^3}{8\pi ^2\omega _k}}e^{\frac{\omega _k}{2\omega _c}},$$
(20)
with a cut-off frequency $`\omega _c`$ and a dimensionless strength $`v_0`$. The dimensionless coupling constant $`\lambda `$ measures the relative order of magnitude of each term and is of order $`\sqrt{\gamma _e/\omega _3}`$, where $`\gamma _e`$ is the inverse lifetime of the excited state. For the system in , typical order of magnitudes of the frequencies are $`\gamma _e/\omega _310^8`$ and (Rabi frequency)$`/\omega _310^{10}`$, which imply that $`\lambda 10^4`$ and the Rabi frequency is of order $`\lambda ^2`$. Also it is reported that the decoherence time is longer than the Rabi period by two orders of magnitude .

It is convenient to move to a rotating frame with the aid of the unitary operator

$$U_R(t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\left(\lambda ^2\delta |11|+\omega _2|22|+\omega _3|33|\right)t\right\}\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\omega _3^{}td^3𝐤a_𝐤^{}a_𝐤\right\},$$

where $`\lambda ^2\delta =\omega _2\omega _2^{}`$ and $`\omega _3^{}=\omega _3\lambda ^2\delta `$. Then the transformed Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{tot}}^R`$ is

$$H_{\mathrm{tot}}^Ri\frac{U_R(t)}{t}U_R^{}(t)+U_R(t)H_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)U_R^{}(t)=\lambda ^2H_S^R\mathrm{𝟏}_B+\mathrm{𝟏}_SH_B^R+\lambda H_{SB}^R(t),$$
(21)
$`H_S^R`$ $`=`$ $`\delta |11|+\{\mathrm{\Delta }|12|+(h.c.)\},`$ (22)
$`H_B^R`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^3𝐤(\omega _k\omega _3^{})a_𝐤^{}a_𝐤},`$ (23)
$`H_{SB}^R(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^3𝐤V_k|13|(a_𝐤^{}+e^{2i\omega _3^{}t}a_𝐤)+(h.c.)`$ (24)
This is our starting point.

### B Decoherence

We consider the time evolution starting from an initial state given by the tensor product of a system initial state and the reservoir equilibrium state with inverse temperature $`\beta `$:

$`i{\displaystyle \frac{\rho (t)}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{_B+\lambda _{SB}(t)+\lambda ^2_S\right\}\rho (t)`$ (25)
$`\rho (0)`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma (0)\rho _B`$ (26)
$`\rho _B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z}}\mathrm{exp}(\beta H_B)`$ (27)
where $`Z`$ is the normalization constant and the operators $`_B`$, $`_{SB}`$ and $`_S`$ are defined by

$`_B\rho `$ $``$ $`[\mathrm{𝟏}_SH_B^R,\rho ],_{SB}(t)\rho [H_{SB}^R(t),\rho ],_S\rho [H_S^R\mathrm{𝟏}_B,\rho ].`$ (28)
Since the time scale of the quantum state manipulation is of the same order of magnitude as the Rabi period ($`\lambda ^2`$) and is very long compared with $`1/\omega _3`$ ($`\lambda ^0`$), the process is well described by the van Hove limit approximation. The starting point is the decomposition of the Liouville equation (25) with the aid of a projection operator

$`𝒫\rho \left(\mathrm{tr}_B\rho \right)\rho _B`$ (29)
where $`\mathrm{tr}_B`$ stands for the partial trace over the reservoir degrees of freedom and $`\rho _B`$ is the equilibrium reservoir state (27). Then, in the limit $`\lambda 0`$ while keeping $`\tau =\lambda ^2t`$ constant, the reduced density matrix $`\sigma \mathrm{tr}_B\rho `$ is found to satisfy

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{\tau }}=i\mathrm{\Lambda }\sigma ,`$ (30)
where we have used $`𝒫_B𝒫=0`$ and

$`i\mathrm{\Lambda }\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`i[H_S^R,\sigma ]{\displaystyle _0^+\mathrm{}}𝑑t\underset{\lambda 0}{lim}\mathrm{tr}_B\left\{_{SB}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\lambda ^2}}\right)e^{i_Bt}_{SB}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\lambda ^2}}t\right)e^{i_Bt}\sigma (\tau )\rho _B\right\}`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`i[\delta ^{}|33|+\mathrm{\Delta }(|12|+(h.c)),\sigma ]`$ (33)
$`+\gamma _e|13|\sigma |31|+\gamma _d|31|\sigma |13|\{{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _d}{2}}|11|+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _e}{2}}|33|,\sigma \},`$
with $`\{,\}`$ the anti-commutator. In the above, the limit $`\lambda 0`$ should be understood to drop terms which oscillate with frequencies $`\lambda ^2`$ (cf. ). The parameter $`\delta `$ is chosen as

$`\delta =p.v.{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega {\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _d(\omega )}{\omega \omega _3^{}}}`$ (34)
and $`\delta ^{}`$, $`\gamma _d`$ and $`\gamma _e`$ are given by

$`\delta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`p.v.{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega {\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _e(\omega )}{\omega \omega _3^{}}}`$ (35)
$`\gamma _d`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi \kappa _d(\omega _3^{}),\gamma _e=2\pi \kappa _e(\omega _3^{}),`$ (36)
where

$$\kappa _d(\omega )=\kappa _e(\omega )e^{\beta \omega }=d^3𝐤V_k^2\frac{\delta (\omega _k\omega )+e^{\beta \omega _k}\delta (\omega _k+\omega )}{e^{\beta \omega _k}1}=\frac{v_0^2}{2\pi }\frac{\omega e^{|\omega |/\omega _c}}{e^{\beta \omega }1}$$
(37)
are the thermal spectral density functions (form factors). The symbol $`p.v.`$ in front of the integrals indicates Cauchy’s principal value.

In terms of the matrix elements $`\sigma _{ij}i|\sigma |j`$, one has $`\sigma _{21}=\overline{\sigma }_{12}`$ and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{11}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{21}\sigma _{12}\}\gamma _d\sigma _{11}+\gamma _e\sigma _{33}`$ (38)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{12}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{22}\sigma _{11}\}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _d}{2}}\sigma _{12}`$ (39)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{22}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{21}\sigma _{12}\}`$ (40)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{33}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma _d\sigma _{11}\gamma _e\sigma _{33}.`$ (41)
The purity of the target states is measured by $`\eta \sigma _{11}^2+\sigma _{22}^2+2|\sigma _{12}|^2`$, as $`\eta =1`$ for pure superpositions of $`|1`$ and $`|2`$, and $`\eta <1`$ for states involving the irrelevant state $`|3`$ or mixed states. In Fig. 2, the evolution of the quantity $`\eta (t)`$ starting from $`\sigma (0)=|11|`$ is shown for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100\gamma _d,\gamma _e=1000\gamma _d`$. As time goes on, the purity $`\eta `$ of the target states is lost, or decoherence takes place. One clearly sees that the decoherence time scales as $`1/\gamma _d`$.

## IV Control of Thermal Decoherence via Dynamical Decoupling

We consider a dynamical decoupling control of the thermal decoherence discussed in the previous section. Since decoherence arises from the transition between the states $`|1`$ and $`|3`$ associated with absorption and emission of photons, it is expected to be suppressed if $`|3`$ does not contribute to the $`|1`$-$`|2`$ dynamics. So we consider a control via the Rabi oscillation between the state $`|3`$ and a higher excited state $`|4`$ (cf. Fig. 3),

which is described by

$`H_c(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }e^{i(\omega _4+\xi )t}|34|+(h.c.),`$ (42)
where $`\omega _4`$ is the energy of the state $`|4`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\xi `$ are real parameters. Since there exists one more state, a term $`\omega _4|44|\mathrm{𝟏}_B`$ should be added to the Hamiltonian $`H_S`$. As a result, the following Liouvillian should be added

$`\left\{\mathrm{\Delta }_S+_c(t)\right\}\rho [\left(\omega _4|44|+H_c(t)\right)\mathrm{𝟏}_B,\rho ],`$ (43)
and the evolution equation reads

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{_B+\mathrm{\Delta }_S+_c(t)+\lambda _{SB}(t)+\lambda ^2_S\right\}\rho (t).`$ (44)
### A Ideal dynamical decoupling

The evolution operator $`U_c(t)`$ generated by the control Hamiltonian $`H_c(t)`$ is given by

$`U_c(t)`$ $`=`$ $`𝒯\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t^{}H_c(t^{})\right)`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`e^{i(\omega _4+\xi )|44|t}\mathrm{exp}[i\{(\omega _4+\xi )|44|+\mathrm{\Omega }(|34|+(h.c))\}t].`$ (46)
When restricting to a subspace spanned by $`|3`$ and $`|4`$, the second factor is a sum of two oscillating projection operators with frequencies

$`\stackrel{~}{\omega }_\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\omega _4\xi \pm \sqrt{(\omega _4+\xi )^2+4\mathrm{\Omega }^2}\right)`$ (47)
and the first factor is a sum of a time-independent and an oscillating projection operators, the frequency of the latter being $`\omega _4+\xi `$. Thus, $`U_c(t)`$ is a sum of four oscillating terms with frequencies $`\pm \stackrel{~}{\omega }_+,\pm \stackrel{~}{\omega }_{}`$ and is $`T_c`$-periodic provided both $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }_+T_c`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }_{}T_c`$ are integer multiples of $`2\pi `$.

Under this prescription, $`\left(U_c^{}(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)H_{SB}\left(U_c(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)`$ is a sum of terms proportional to $`e^{\pm i\stackrel{~}{\omega }_+t},e^{\pm i\stackrel{~}{\omega }_{}t},e^{\pm 2i\omega _3^{}t}e^{\pm i\stackrel{~}{\omega }_+t},e^{\pm 2i\omega _3^{}t}e^{\pm i\stackrel{~}{\omega }_{}t},`$ and its average vanishes in the $`T_c0`$ limit:

$`\underset{T_c0}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_c}}{\displaystyle _0^{T_c}}𝑑t\left(U_c^{}(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)H_{SB}\left(U_c(t)\mathrm{𝟏}_B\right)=0.`$ (48)
Therefore, the general argument of Sec.II shows that the coupling between the system and the reservoir is suppressed in the limit $`T_c0`$ (that is $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }_\pm \mathrm{}`$) while keeping $`T=NT_c`$ constant. Moreover, the system obeys the Hamiltonian

$`\overline{H}_s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_c}}{\displaystyle _0^{T_c}}𝑑tU_c^{}(t)\left\{\omega _4|44|+\lambda ^2H_S^R\right\}U_c(t)`$ (49)
$`=`$ $`\omega _4{\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm }{}}\stackrel{~}{\omega }_s^2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\mathrm{\Omega }|3+\stackrel{~}{\omega }_s|4\right)\left(\mathrm{\Omega }3|+\stackrel{~}{\omega }_s4|\right)}{(\mathrm{\Omega }^2+\stackrel{~}{\omega }_s^2)^2}}+\lambda ^2H_S^R.`$ (50)
Therefore, the target system spanned by $`|1`$ and $`|2`$ is free from decoherence and performs ideal Rabi oscillations.

It is interesting to see the relation between the dynamical decoupling and a dynamical quantum Zeno effect due to a “continuous” measurement. For the particular choice (42), it is possible to eliminate the explicit time dependence of the control Hamiltonian $`H_c`$, by going to another rotating frame with the aid of the unitary operator

$`U_R^b(t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i(\omega _4+\xi )|44|t\right\}\mathrm{𝟏}_B,`$ (51)
and, then, the transformed density matrix $`\overline{\rho }=U_R^b(t)\rho U_R^b(t)`$ obeys

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\rho }}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{_B+\mathrm{\Delta }_S^{}+_c^{}+\lambda _{SB}+\lambda ^2_S\right\}\overline{\rho }`$ (52)
where the transformed control Liouvillian is

$`\{\mathrm{\Delta }_S^{}+_c^{}\}\rho =[(\xi |44|+\mathrm{\Omega }\{|34|+(h.c.)\})\mathrm{𝟏}_B,\rho ].`$ (53)
In this picture, state $`|4`$ of energy $`\xi `$ is coupled by a constant coupling $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to state $`|3`$. The short-period limit $`T_c0`$ corresponds to the strong coupling limit $`\mathrm{\Omega },\xi \mathrm{}`$, because $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }_\pm T_c`$ must be integer multiples of $`2\pi `$. But this is just the case of a dynamical quantum Zeno effect due to a continuous measurement, where $`H_{\mathrm{meas}}=\xi |44|+\mathrm{\Omega }\{|34|+(h.c.)\}`$ plays the role of a measurement Hamiltonian. One can show that, in the limit of strong coupling, a dynamical superselection rule arises, the Hilbert space is split into Zeno subspaces and the system Hamiltonian is given again by (15), where the projections $`P_n`$s, defining the Zeno subspaces, are the eigenprojections of $`H_{\mathrm{meas}}`$ . This is a consequence of an interesting relation between strong-coupling regime and adiabatic evolution .

The eigenprojections of $`H_{\mathrm{meas}}`$ are given by $`P_\pm =|\pm \pm |`$, where

$$|\pm =\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }|3+\omega _\pm |4}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }^2+\omega _\pm ^2}},$$
(54)
with eigenvalues

$`\omega _\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\xi \pm \sqrt{\xi ^2+4\mathrm{\Omega }^2}\right).`$ (55)
Therefore from (15) one gets

$`\overline{H}_s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm }{}}P_s\left(\xi |44|+\lambda ^2H_S^R\right)P_s=\xi {\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm }{}}\omega _s^2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\mathrm{\Omega }|3+\omega _s|4\right)\left(\mathrm{\Omega }3|+\omega _s4|\right)}{(\mathrm{\Omega }^2+\omega _s^2)^2}}+\lambda ^2H_S^R,`$ (56)
which is nothing but the Hamiltonian (50) under the transformation (51). We therefore see that, in this particular case, dynamical decoupling is completely equivalent to the dynamical Zeno effect.

### B Nonideal dynamical decoupling

Here we consider the case of nonvanishing $`T_c`$ and solve the evolution equation (44). As pointed out in , the ideal dynamical decoupling is achieved when the control frequency $`2\pi /T_c`$ is higher than the threshold frequency $`\omega _c`$ in the system-reservoir interaction $`H_{SB}`$ and, thus, we consider the case where $`2\pi /T_c=\mathrm{O}(\lambda ^0)`$. Then, the slow process which is relevant to the quantum state manipulation is well described by the van Hove limit approximation.

We consider the evolution in the rotated frame (52). Note that, since the transformation $`U_R^b`$ in (51) does not affect the evolution of the states $`|j`$ ($`j=1,2`$) and the field variable, one has $`i|\mathrm{tr}_B\rho |j=i|\mathrm{tr}_B\overline{\rho }|j`$ ($`i,j=1,2`$). By the standard procedure of the van Hove limit approximation, in the limit $`\lambda 0`$ while keeping $`\tau =\lambda ^2t`$ constant, one obtains

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{\tau }}=i\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{B}\sigma `$ (57)
where $`\sigma (\tau )\mathrm{tr}_B\overline{\rho }`$ and

$`i\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{B}\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`i[{\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm }{}}\delta _s|ss|+\mathrm{\Delta }(|12|+(h.c)),\sigma ]`$ (59)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm }{}}\left(\gamma _e^s|1s|\sigma |s1|+\gamma _d^s|s1|\sigma |1s|\right)\{{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _d^B}{2}}|11|+{\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _e^s}{2}}|ss|,\sigma \}.`$
The states $`|\pm `$ are the normalized linear combinations of the states $`|3`$ and $`|4`$ given by (54) and the decay rates $`\gamma _e^s`$ and $`\gamma _d^s`$ ($`s=\pm `$) and $`\gamma _d^B`$ are given by

$`\gamma _d^B=\gamma _d^++\gamma _d^{},\gamma _{d/e}^\pm =2\pi {\displaystyle \frac{|\omega _{}|}{\omega _+\omega _{}}}\kappa _{d/e}(\omega _3^{}+\omega _\pm ),`$ (60)
where $`\omega _\pm `$ are the frequencies (55) and $`\kappa _{d/e}(\omega )`$ are the thermal form factors (37), extended to the whole real axis due to the counter-rotating terms. (Incidentally, notice the exchange symmetry $`\kappa _e(\omega )=\kappa _d(\omega )`$ of the extended form factors.)

The prefactors in the second equation in (60) are nothing but the squares of the matrix elements between the undressed state $`|3`$ and the dressed states $`|\pm `$ (54):

$$\frac{|\omega _{}|}{\omega _+\omega _{}}=\left|3|\pm \right|^2.$$
(61)
The explicit expressions of the Lamb shifts $`\delta _s`$ ($`s=\pm `$) of the excited states are omitted since the relevant sector of the evolution equation does not depend on them. Note that the parameter $`\delta `$ is chosen so that the operator $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{B}`$ does not contain a commutator with $`|11|`$.

In terms of the matrix elements $`\sigma _{ij}i|\sigma |j`$, one has

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{11}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{21}\sigma _{12}\}\gamma _d^B\sigma _{11}+{\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm }{}}\gamma _e^s\sigma _{ss}`$ (62)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{12}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{22}\sigma _{11}\}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _d^B}{2}}\sigma _{12}`$ (63)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{22}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{21}\sigma _{12}\}`$ (64)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{ss}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma _d^s\sigma _{11}\gamma _e^s\sigma _{ss}.(s=\pm )`$ (65)
The evolution of the purity $`\eta =\sigma _{11}^2+\sigma _{22}^2+2|\sigma _{12}|^2`$ of the target states is shown in Fig. 4 for different values of control parameters, where the parameters in the control Hamiltonian are set to $`\xi =24\mathrm{\Omega }/5`$ (which gives $`\omega _+=\mathrm{\Omega }/5`$ and $`\omega _{}=5\mathrm{\Omega }`$), the frequency-cutoff to $`\omega _c=10\omega _3^{}`$, and the other parameters are chosen so that one has $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100\gamma _d`$ and $`\gamma _e=1000\gamma _d`$ for the uncontrolled case. As in the previous section, the initial state is $`\sigma (0)=|11|`$. Fig. 4 shows that the dynamical decoupling control may accelerate decoherence if the parameters are not appropriately tuned.

In Fig. 5, the control-frequency dependence of the decoherence rate $`\gamma _d^B`$ is shown. As can be seen in the figure, decoherence is first enhanced, for small values of $`|\omega _{}|=5\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and then suppressed for much larger values of $`|\omega _{}|`$. Since the decoherence rate $`\gamma _d^+`$ due to $`|+`$ is a monotonically decreasing function of $`|\omega _{}|`$, this can be understood as follows: In the rotating frame where the $`|3`$-$`|4`$ oscillation is eliminated, when $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$, state $`|3`$ is separated from the decay product state $`|1`$ by an energy $`\omega _3^{}`$. When $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is turned on, state $`|3`$ splits into two dressed states $`|\pm `$ which are separated from $`|1`$ by the energies $`\omega _3^{}+\omega _+\omega _3^{}+|\omega _{}|/25`$ and $`\omega _3^{}|\omega _{}|`$, respectively. The latter state is closer to state $`|1`$ than in the uncontrolled case and leads to a shorter decoherence time provided $`\omega _3^{}|\omega _{}|>0`$. This is the deterioration observed in Fig. 4, case (b). On the other hand, if $`|\omega _{}|`$ exceeds a threshold energy $`\omega _{th}\omega _3^{}`$, the energy of state $`|`$ becomes lower than that of state $`|1`$. In such a case, the counter-rotating term (which are now “rotating”) does contribute to the decoherence rate. Notice that now, being $`\omega _3^{}|\omega _{}|<0`$, $`\gamma _e^{}`$ is smaller than $`\gamma _d^{}`$, as it should. Even after $`|\omega _{}|`$ has exceeded the threshold $`\omega _{th}`$, $`\gamma _d^{}`$ still increases with $`|\omega _{}|`$, since the state $`|1`$ is now unstable. And, finally, when the two dressed states are sufficiently far apart from level $`|1`$, the decay rates (and therefore decoherence) are suppressed because of the high energy cut-off of the form factor (20). Such values of $`|\omega _{}|80\omega _3^{}`$ is extremely higher than the threshold $`\omega _{th}=\omega _3^{}`$ (Fig.5) and involve extremely short timescales .

## V Quantum Zeno Control of Thermal Decoherence

For the same reason as in the dynamical decoupling, we disturb the evolution of $`|3`$ by repeated measurements (Fig. 6). The nonselective measurement of $`|3`$ causes the following change of the density matrix:

$`\rho \widehat{P}\rho `$ $``$ $`\pi _3\rho \pi _3+(\mathrm{𝟏}\pi _3)\rho (\mathrm{𝟏}\pi _3)`$ (66)
where $`\pi _3`$ is a projection operator acting on the whole Hilbert space $`\pi _3|33|\mathrm{𝟏}_B`$ and $`\mathrm{𝟏}=\mathrm{𝟏}_S\mathrm{𝟏}_B`$. Then, the density matrix under the Zeno control is given by

$$\rho (NT_c)=\underset{m=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left\{\widehat{P}𝒯e^{i_{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)𝑑t}\widehat{P}\right\}\rho (0),$$
(67)
where $`T_c`$ stands for the time interval between successive measurements.

### A Ideal Zeno control

First we consider the case where $`T_c0`$ while keeping $`T=NT_c`$ constant. Then, as discussed in Sec.II and because $`\widehat{P}H_{SB}=\pi _3H_{SB}\pi _3+(\mathrm{𝟏}\pi _3)H_{SB}(\mathrm{𝟏}\pi _3)=0`$, the state at time $`T`$ is given by

$`\rho (T)`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{P}\left(e^{i\overline{H}_S^{}T}e^{iH_BT}\rho (0)e^{i\overline{H}_S^{}T}e^{iH_BT}\right),`$ (68)
where the controlled system Hamiltonian $`\overline{H}_S^{}`$ is given by

$`\overline{H}_S^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\left\{P_3H_S^RP_3+(\mathrm{𝟏}_SP_3)H_S^R(\mathrm{𝟏}_SP_3)\right\}`$ (69)
$`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\{\delta |11|+(\mathrm{\Delta }|12|+(h.c.))\},`$ (70)
with $`P_3=|33|`$. Hence, as a result of infinitely frequent measurements of state $`|3`$, the system-reservoir coupling is eliminated and, thus, decoherence is suppressed.

### B Nonideal Zeno control

As in the dynamical decoupling, we consider the case where $`T_c1/\omega _3^{}\lambda ^0`$, so that the time evolution is well described by the van Hove limit where $`\lambda 0`$ while keeping $`\tau =\lambda ^2NT_c`$ and $`T_c`$ constant. We are here looking at the subtle effects on the decay rate arising from the presence of a short-time quadratic (Zeno) region. Therefore, it is important to notice that the standard method is not applicable to the present situation and the limit is evaluated as follows:

(1) Second order perturbation, up to $`\lambda ^2`$, and $`\widehat{P}H_{SB}=0`$ lead to

$`\widehat{P}𝒯e^{i_{mT_c}^{(m+1)T_c}_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)𝑑t}\widehat{P}`$ $``$ $`\widehat{P}e^{i_BT_c}\{\mathrm{𝟏}i\lambda ^2_ST_c`$ (72)
$`\lambda ^2{\displaystyle _{mT_c}^{(m+1)T_c}}dt{\displaystyle _{mT_c}^t}dse^{i_Bt}_{SB}(t)e^{i_B(ts)}_{SB}(s)e^{i_Bs}\widehat{P}\}.`$
(2) In terms of the operator $`𝒦_m`$, defined as a solution of the operator equation

$`\widehat{P}{\displaystyle _{mT_c}^{(m+1)T_c}}𝑑t{\displaystyle _{mT_c}^t}𝑑se^{i_Bt}_{SB}(t)e^{i_B(ts)}_{SB}(s)e^{i_Bs}\widehat{P}=\widehat{P}{\displaystyle _{mT_c}^{(m+1)T_c}}𝑑te^{i_Bt}𝒦_me^{i_Bt},`$ (73)
one has

$`\widehat{P}𝒯e^{i_{mT_c}^{(m+1)T_c}_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)𝑑t}\widehat{P}\widehat{P}𝒯e^{i_{mT_c}^{(m+1)T_c}(_B+\lambda ^2_Si\lambda ^2𝒦(t))𝑑t}+\mathrm{O}(\lambda ^3),`$ (74)
where $`𝒦(t)=𝒦_m`$ for $`mT_ct<(m+1)T_c`$.

(3) With the aid of (74) and $`\widehat{p}\sigma P_3\sigma P_3+(\mathrm{𝟏}_SP_3)\sigma (\mathrm{𝟏}_SP_3)`$, the final reduced state

$`\sigma (\tau )`$ is given by

$`\sigma (\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\lambda 0}{\tau =\lambda ^2NT_c:\mathrm{finite}}}{lim}\mathrm{tr}_B\left({\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\left\{\widehat{P}𝒯e^{i_{(m1)T_c}^{mT_c}_{\mathrm{tot}}(t)𝑑t}\widehat{P}\right\}\sigma (0)\rho _B\right)`$ (75)
$`=`$ $`\widehat{p}\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\lambda 0}{\tau =\lambda ^2NT_c:\mathrm{finite}}}{lim}\mathrm{tr}_B\rho ^{}(NT_c).`$ (76)
where $`\rho ^{}(NT_c)=\widehat{P}𝒯e^{i_0^{NT_c}(_B+\lambda ^2_Si\lambda ^2𝒦(t))𝑑t}\sigma (0)\rho _B`$.

(4) As $`\rho ^{}(t)`$ is a solution of

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^{}(t)}{t}}=i(_B+\lambda ^2_Si\lambda ^2𝒦(t))\rho ^{}(t),\rho ^{}(0)=\sigma (0)\rho _B,`$ (77)
the standard van Hove limit arguments show that $`\sigma (\tau )=\widehat{p}\sigma ^{}(\tau )`$ and $`\sigma ^{}`$ satisfies

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^{}(\tau )}{\tau }}=i\mathrm{tr}_B\left\{\left(_Si𝒦\right)\sigma ^{}(\tau )\rho _B\right\},\sigma ^{}(0)=\sigma (0),`$ (78)
where the time-dependence of $`𝒦`$ is lost as a result of the partial trace.

As in the previous sections, the parameter $`\delta `$ is chosen so that the $`|11|`$-term does not appear in the evolution operator of $`\sigma ^{}`$. In terms of the matrix elements $`\sigma _{ij}^{}i|\sigma ^{}|j`$, (78) reads

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{11}^{}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{21}^{}\sigma _{12}^{}\}\gamma _d^Z\sigma _{11}^{}+\gamma _e^Z\sigma _{33}^{}`$ (79)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{12}^{}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{22}^{}\sigma _{11}^{}\}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _d^Z}{2}}\sigma _{12}^{}`$ (80)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{22}^{}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Delta }\{\sigma _{21}^{}\sigma _{12}^{}\}`$ (81)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{33}^{}}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma _d^Z\sigma _{11}^{}\gamma _e^Z\sigma _{33}^{},`$ (82)
where the decoherence rate $`\gamma _d^Z`$ and the inverse lifetime $`\gamma _e^Z`$ of $`|3`$ are given by

$`\gamma _d^Z`$ $`=`$ $`T_c{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega \kappa _d(\omega )\mathrm{sinc}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega \omega _3^{}}{2}}T_c\right)`$ (83)
$`\gamma _e^Z`$ $`=`$ $`T_c{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega \kappa _e(\omega )\mathrm{sinc}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega \omega _3^{}}{2}}T_c\right),`$ (84)
where $`\kappa _{d/e}(\omega )`$ are again the (extended) thermal form factors (37) and $`\mathrm{sinc}(x)=(\mathrm{sin}x)/x`$. The decay rate $`\gamma _d^Z`$ in (83) should be compared to $`\gamma _d^B`$ in (60). They express the (inverse) quantum Zeno effect, given by pulsed or continuous measurement, respectively .

Since the projection operator $`\widehat{p}`$ does not affect the $`|1`$-$`|2`$ sector, one has $`\sigma _{ij}^{}(\tau )=i|\sigma (\tau )|j`$ for a class of initial states where only the matrix elements $`i|\sigma (0)|j`$ ($`i,j=1,2`$) are nonvanishing. Hence, $`\eta =\sigma _{11}^2+\sigma _{22}^2+2|\sigma _{12}^{}|^2`$ measures the purity of the target states. Its evolution is shown in Fig. 7 for different values of $`2\pi /T_c`$, where $`\omega _c=10\omega _3^{}`$ and the other parameters are chosen so that one has $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100\gamma _d`$ and $`\gamma _e=1000\gamma _d`$ for the uncontrolled case. As in the previous sections, the initial state is $`\sigma (0)=|11|`$. Fig. 7 shows that the Zeno control may accelerate decoherence if the parameters are not appropriately chosen. This can be seen more clearly in the control-frequency dependence of the decoherence rate $`\gamma _d^Z`$, which is shown in Fig. 8. When the control frequency $`2\pi /T_c`$ belongs to a certain range, decoherence is enhanced.

The enhancement of decoherence is qualitatively similar to the case of the dynamical decoupling. However, the high frequency behavior of the decoherence rate and its peak values are quite different. The high-frequency decoherence rates $`\gamma _d^B`$ and $`\gamma _d^Z`$, respectively, for the dynamical decoupling and Zeno control, are approximated by

$`\gamma _d^B{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _+\gamma _e\omega _c}{\omega _3^{}(\omega _+\omega _{})}}{\displaystyle \frac{|\omega _{}|}{\omega _c}}e^{\frac{|\omega _{}|}{\omega _c}},\gamma _d^Z{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _e}{\left(\frac{2\pi }{\omega _3^{}T_c}\right)}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _c}{\omega _3^{}}}\right)^2.`$ (85)
Therefore, $`\gamma _d^B`$ decays exponentially for large $`|\omega _{}|`$ because of the exponential cut-off of the form factor and may take a maximum of order $`\omega _+\gamma _e\omega _c/\{e(\omega _+\omega _{})\omega _3^{}\}140`$. On the other hand, $`\gamma _d^Z`$ decays polynomially for large $`2\pi /T_c`$ and $`\gamma _d^Z`$ could be much larger than $`\gamma _d^B`$ because $`\gamma _e\omega _c^2/\omega _3^210^5`$ is very large.

## VI CONCLUSIONS

In this article, we have studied the dynamical decoupling and Zeno controls for a model of trapped ions, where decoherence appears in the dynamics of the hyperfine states due to emission and absorption of thermal photons associated with the transition between the lower hyperfine and an excited state. By very rapidly driving or very frequently measuring the excited state, decoherence is shown to be suppressed. However, if the frequency of the controls are not high enough, the controls may accelerate the decoherence process and may deteriorate the performance of the quantum state manipulation.

The acceleration of decoherence is analogous to the inverse Zeno effect, namely the acceleration of the decay of an unstable state due to frequent measurements. In the original discussion of the Zeno effect, very frequently repeated measurements of an unstable state is shown to slow down its decay. But, if the duration between two successive measurements is not short enough, the frequent measurements may accelerate the decay. This is the inverse Zeno effect. Obviously, this situation precisely corresponds to the increase of decoherence observed in this article. Moreover, since a very intense field is used for the dynamical decoupling control, the decrease of the decoherence time is also a consequence of the decrease of the lifetime of the unstable states due to the intense field.

There is room for improvement and further analysis: a number of neglected effects can be considered, such as the role of counter-rotating terms and Fano states, the influence of the other atomic states, the primary importance of the relevant timescales, and so on. These aspects will be discussed elsewhere.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to Professors I. Antoniou, B. Misra, A. Takeuchi, I. Ohba, H. Nakazato, L. Accardi, T. Hida, M. Ohya, K. Yuasa, and N. Watanabe for fruitful discussions and comments. This work is supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) from JSPS and by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of Priority Areas “Control of Molecules in Intense Laser Fields” from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.


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# Riemann Existence Theorems of Mumford Type

## 1. Introduction

The classical Riemann Existence Theorem (RET) states that a finite group $`G`$ can be realised as a deck transformation group of a $`G`$-cover of the Riemannian sphere by a compact Riemann surface, if and only if $`G`$ is generated by some elements whose product is one. This amounts to finding a $``$-rational point of a Hurwitz space.

If in the situation of $`p`$-adic geometry we consider Mumford curves to be the analogue of Riemann surfaces, the translation ad literam of the RET is no longer valid. The purpose of this article is to find a correct translation of the RET in the characteristic zero case. This means that we relate the non-emptiness of Mumford-Hurwitz spaces constructed in  to certain generating systems with the right properties, i.e. it is exactly these properties we will explain in this article.

For this, the notion of Mumford orbifold becomes crucial. These are Mumford curves covered by Mumford curves, and to such a cover $`\phi `$ belongs a certain graph of groups encoding the ramification behaviour of $`\phi `$ which in the tree-case was called $``$-tree by F. Kato who studied them first. In the general case, we call it a $``$-graph. Exploiting its structure gives the translation we seek. We call the result virtual RET, because of the interpretation of the stabilisers of vertices in $``$-graphs as ’virtual’ ramification—something that the orbifold itself does not ’see’.

In the special case that all edge groups are trivial, we recover the so-called Harbater-Mumford components of Hurwitz spaces considered by Fried in . This leads to another proof of Harbater’s result that every finite group can be realised as the Galois group of a cover $`X__p^1`$ of the complex $`p`$-adic projective line in characteristic zero by a Mumford curve $`X`$ . He does the job with ’mock covers’ which are totally degenerate covers over the residue field, i.e. they lift to covers by Mumford curves.

Until now, it was an open question, if every finite group can be realised as the full automorphism group of a Mumford curve in characteristic zero. Our techniques yield a positive answer.

The setup for this paper is $`p`$-adic geometry of characteristic zero, that is we are working over the field $`_p`$ obtained by completing an algebraic closure of the field $`_p`$ of rational $`p`$-adic numbers.

## 2. Hurwitz spaces

### 2.1. Covers of projective curves

Let $`G`$ be a finite group of order $`n`$ and $`\phi :X\stackrel{G}{}Y`$ a cover of a non-singular projective irreducible algebraic curve $`Y`$ of genus $`g`$ over a field $`K`$ of characteristic zero, ramified above $`r`$ distinct $`K`$-rational points $`\eta _1,\mathrm{},\eta _r`$ with orders $`e_1,\mathrm{},e_r`$. It is given by a surjective map of topological groups $`\psi :\pi _1^{\mathrm{alg}}(Y\{\eta _1,\mathrm{},\eta _r\},y)\mathrm{Aut}\phi G`$.

Taking topological generators $`\alpha _1,\beta _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _g,\beta _g,\gamma _1,\gamma _r`$ of $`\pi _1^{\mathrm{alg}}(Y\{\eta _1,\mathrm{},\eta _r\},y)`$ with the relation

$$\underset{j}{}[\alpha _j,\beta _j]\underset{i}{}\gamma _i=1,$$

where $`[\alpha ,\beta ]=\alpha ^1\beta ^1\alpha \beta `$, we obtain a generating system

$$a_j:=\psi (\alpha _j),b_j:=\psi (\beta _j),g_i:=\psi (\gamma _i)$$

of $`G`$ with the same relation, called genus $`g`$ generating system. The conjugacy classes $`C_i`$ of the $`g_i`$ define the ramification type $`𝐂:=(C_1,\mathrm{},C_r)`$ of the cover $`\phi `$.

If $`K=`$, then $`\gamma _i`$ can be viewed as a closed topological path in $`Y\{\eta _1,\mathrm{},\eta _r\}`$ separating $`\eta _i`$ from the other branch points, and lifting the path to $`X`$ gives a deck transformation $`g_i\mathrm{Aut}\phi `$ which permutes the fibre $`\phi ^1(y)`$ ($`y`$ is not assumed to be a branch point). Conjugation means changing the genus $`g`$ generating system of $`G`$.

Let $`_{g,r}`$ be the moduli stack of smooth $`r`$-pointed curves of genus $`g`$, and $`𝒳_{g,r}`$ the universal object. For a finite group $`G`$ of order $`n`$ with its regular representation $`GS_n`$ into the symmetric group, there is, by \[22, Remark 4.1.3\], a smooth algebraic stack $`_𝒳^G(G)`$ whose coarse moduli scheme $`H_g(G,r)`$ is finitely étale over the moduli scheme $`M_{g,r}`$ of $`_{g,r}`$. This moduli space parametrises equivalence classes of Galois covers $`YX`$ of smooth curves of genus $`g`$ ramified above $`r`$ points together with an isomorphism $`\sigma :G\mathrm{Aut}(Y/X)`$. Two pairs $`(Y\stackrel{G}{}X,\sigma )`$ and $`(Y\stackrel{G}{}X,\sigma )`$ are equivalent, if there is a commutative diagram

with horizontal isomorphisms, and such that $`f\sigma (g)f^1=\sigma ^{}(g)`$ for all $`gG`$.

Define $`_𝒳(G,𝐂)`$ to be the algebraic substack of $`_𝒳^G(G)`$ of covers with ramification type $`𝐂`$ over any irreducible scheme whose function field is of characteristic zero, and let $`H_g(G,𝐂)`$ be its coarse moduli scheme. It is a quasi-projective scheme over $`\left[\frac{1}{n}\right]`$ . The space of $``$-rational points $`H_g(G,𝐂)()`$ is non-empty if and only if $`G`$ has a genus $`g`$ generating system. This is in the genus zero case nothing but the Riemann Existence Theorem, the staring point of our observations from Section 3 on.

###### Definition 2.1.

The spaces

$$𝐇_g(G,𝐂):=(H_g(G,𝐂)_{\left[\frac{1}{n}\right]}_p)^{\mathrm{an}}\text{and}𝐇_g(G,r):=(H_g(G,r)_{\left[\frac{1}{n}\right]}_p)^{\mathrm{an}},$$

where the superscript an means analytification of schemes, are called $`p`$-adic Hurwitz spaces.

We will also consider the intermediate Hurwitz spaces $`𝐇_g(G,𝐞)`$ of covers with fixed list of ramification orders $`𝐞=(e_1,\mathrm{},e_r)`$ which we call the signature of the covers parametrised by the Hurwitz space.

### 2.2. $``$-graphs

If not stated otherwise, $`K`$ will always denote a finite extension field of the $`p`$-adic field $`_p`$ which is supposed to contain all ramification points of covers. This is justifiable, as all equivalence classes of covers of curves defined over $`_p`$ contain in fact a representative defined over some finite extension field of $`_p`$.

In the non-Archimedean setting one faces the problem that there are not enough topological coverings, e.g. it is a well known fact that all analytic subsets of $`^1`$ or all curves with tree-like reduction are topologically simply connected. For this reason, more general covers are often taken into consideration.

###### Definition 2.2 (De Jong).

An analytic map $`f:S^{}S`$, with $`S`$ a connected $`p`$-adic manifold, is an étale covering, if $`S`$ is covered by open subsets $`U`$ such that $`f^1(U)=V_j`$ and $`f|_{V_j}`$ is a finite étale morphism.

By a $`p`$-adic manifold we mean a smooth paracompact strictly $`_p`$-analytic space in the sense of . Finite étale morphisms are examples of étale covers. If the $`f|_{V_j}`$ in Definition 2.2 are all isomorphisms, then we have topological covers. These correspond to locally constant sheaves of sets on $`S`$. In \[8, Lemma 2.2\] it is shown that étale covers $`f:S^{}S`$ are étale and separated morphisms of analytic spaces; if $`S`$ is paracompact then also is $`S^{}`$. Thus if $`f`$ is an étale cover of a $`p`$-adic manifold, then $`S^{}`$ is also a $`p`$-adic manifold. According to , such spaces are locally compact, locally arcwise connected and locally contractible. This means that the usual theory of universal coverings and topological fundamental groups applies.

For an étale cover $`S^{}S`$, the étale quotient sheaf $`S^{}/R`$ on $`S`$ by an equivalence relation $`RS^{}\times _SS^{}`$ is representable by an étale cover $`S^{\prime \prime }S`$, if $`R`$ is a union of connected components . In this case, we call $`S^{\prime \prime }S`$ a quotient of $`S^{}S`$. This leads to André’s notion of tempered étale covers.

###### Definition 2.3 (André).

A tempered cover $`S^{}S`$ is a quotient of a composite étale cover $`T^{}TS`$, where $`T^{}T`$ is a topological covering and $`TS`$ a finite étale cover.

Fixing the ramification orders in covers yields the notion of orbifold which can quickly be defined as follows: a (one-dimensional uniformisable) orbifold $`𝒮=(S,(\zeta _i,e_i))`$ consists of a $`p`$-adic manifold $`S`$ of dimension one and finitely many points $`\zeta _i`$ allowing a Galois cover $`\mathrm{\Omega }S`$ (a global chart) which is tempered outside $`\{\zeta _i\}`$ and of ramification orders $`e_i`$ above $`\zeta _i`$.

###### Definition 2.4.

A Mumford orbifold is a one-dimensional orbifold $`𝒮`$ having a global chart $`\phi :XS`$ with a Mumford curve $`X`$ (where the projective line and Tate curves are also considered as Mumford curves). If $`𝒮=(^1,(0,e_0),(1,e_1),(\mathrm{},e_{\mathrm{}}))`$, then $`𝒮`$ will be called a Mumford-Schwarz orbifold.

Let $`𝔐_g`$ be the moduli space defined over $`_p`$ of Mumford curves of genus $`g`$. It is an analytic subspace of the moduli space $`M_g_p`$ of all genus $`g`$ curves.

###### Definition 2.5.

The analytic space defined by the pullback via the cartesian diagram

where the vertical arrows map a cover to the upper curve, and $`h`$ is given by the Riemann-Hurwitz formula, is called a Mumford-Hurwitz space.

Mumford-Hurwitz spaces parametrise $`G`$-covers of Mumford orbifolds of genus $`g`$ with fixed lists of ramification orders $`𝐞=(e_1,\mathrm{},e_r)`$. In  we constructed them using Herrlich’s non-archimedean Teichmüller spaces from , and also André’s orbifold fundamental group $`\pi _1^{\mathrm{orb}}(𝒮,\overline{s})`$ from .

###### Lemma 2.6.

The Mumford-Hurwitz space $`_g(G,𝐞)`$ is open in $`𝐇_g(G,𝐞)`$.

###### Proof.

This follows from the well known fact that $`𝔐_h`$ is open in $`M_h_p`$ ($`h`$ as in Definition 2.5), which in turn holds because the fibres of the reduction map into the boundary of the moduli space of curves over $`\overline{𝔽}_p`$ are open in $`𝐇_g(G,𝐞)`$. ∎

From Definition 2.4 it follows that if $`𝒮`$ is a Mumford orbifold, then $`S`$ is a Mumford curve (e.g. \[6, Lemma 4.2\]). Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }X`$ be the topological universal cover of $`X`$. The space $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is an analytic subdomain of the $`p`$-adic projective line, and it fits into a commuting diagram

where $`G`$ is a finite group and $`F_g`$ is the free group on $`g=\text{genus}(X)`$ generators. In fact, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the complement in $`^1`$ of the limit points of $`N`$ acting discontinuously as a subgroup of $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(_p)`$. According to \[2, 4.1.7\], there is an induced action of the discrete group $`N`$ on the skeleton $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Omega })`$, a tree whose ends correspond bijectively to the set $``$ of limit points of $`N`$, and there is a pure affinoid covering $`𝔘`$ of $`S`$ such that the quotient $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Omega })/N`$ is isomorphic to the intersection graph of the analytic reduction $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝔘(S)`$ of $`S`$ with respect to $`𝔘`$. The graph of groups $`𝔊(N):=(\mathrm{\Delta }_𝔘(S),N_{})`$ contains some information on the cover $`X\stackrel{G}{}𝒮`$: since the topological fundamental group of $`X`$ is a free group, all vertex groups of $`𝔊(N)`$ are contained in $`G`$. They coincide with the stabilisers under the action of $`G`$ on the reduction graph $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\phi ^1(𝔘)}(X)`$ of $`X`$. But there is no direct information on the ramification of the cover $`\phi `$ itself. As, according to \[11, Satz 5\], the ramification points of $`\phi `$ are exactly the $`F_g`$-orbits of fixed points in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of elliptic transformations of $`N`$, Kato remedies this problem by considering the complement $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ of the set $`^{}`$ which is the union of $``$ and the set of fixed points of elements of finite order in $`N`$. As $`N`$ acts also on $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the graph of groups $`𝔊^{}:=(\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Omega }^{})/N,N_{})`$ is well-defined. Whereas $`𝔊`$ is a finite graph of groups, $`𝔊^{}`$ is an infinite graph with finitely many cusps which correspond bijectively to the branch points of $`\phi `$ and whose stabilisers coincide with the decomposition groups \[16, Proposition 2.2\]. However, both $`𝔊`$ and $`𝔊^{}`$ have fundamental groups isomorphic to $`N`$. As all vertex groups are finite, this means by  that there is a finite number of admissible edge contractions or slides which turns the finite part $`𝔊^{}`$ of $`𝔊^{}`$ (obtained by contracting the cusps) to $`𝔊`$. Here, we say that a contraction of an edge $`e`$ in a graph of groups $`(𝔊,N_{})`$ is admissible, if $`N_e`$ is isomorphic to either $`N_{o(e)}`$ or $`N_{t(e)}`$, where $`o(e)`$ is the origin vertex of $`e`$ and $`t(e)`$ the terminal vertex of $`e`$ and $`o(e)t(e)`$. A slide means replacing an embedding $`\alpha :N_eN_v`$ (with $`v=o(e)`$ or $`v=t(e)`$) by $`c_g\alpha `$, where $`c_g`$ is conjugation by $`gN_v`$, but leaving the underlying graph $`𝔊`$ unchanged.

###### Definition 2.7.

$`𝔊^{}`$ is called the $``$-graph of $`\phi `$.

If $`𝔊^{}`$ is a tree, then we call it a $``$-tree, of course. If $`X\stackrel{G}{}𝒮`$ is a finite global chart of a Mumford orbifold with at most three branch points, then the corresponding $``$-tree is called an elementary $``$-tree. $`G`$ is then a finite group of projective linear transformations.

### 2.3. The dimension of Mumford-Hurwitz spaces

By Lemma 2.6, the dimensionality of the Mumford-Hurwitz space $`_g(G,𝐞)`$ is already settled: it is $`3g3+m`$, where $`m`$ is the number of branch points of covers belonging to $`_g(G,𝐞)`$. The goal of this subsection is to relate the number of branch points to the structure of the graph of groups associated to such a cover.

In fact, the number of branch points does not depend on the particular choice of the discrete embedding of a finitely generated group into $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$:

###### Proposition 2.8 (with H. Voskuil).

Let $`\tau :N\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$ be a discrete embedding of a finite tree of finite groups which are amalgamated along non-trivial finite groups. Then the number $`m=\mathrm{\#}\mathrm{Ends}(T_N^{})`$ does not depend on the particular choice of $`\tau `$. Moreover, the stabilisers of ends of $`T_N^{}`$ (as abstract groups) do not depend on $`\tau `$.

###### Proof.

Consider an end $``$ of the tree $`𝒯:=𝒯_{\tau (N)}`$ which is contained in the $``$-tree $`𝒯_{\tau (N)}^{}`$. We first prove that stabilisers of vertices along $``$ do not form a descending chain. More precisely, if we take any half line beginning at vertex $`v_0`$ and whose equivalence class is $``$, then the stabilisers $`N_0`$, $`N_1`$, …of the consecutive vertices $`v_0`$, $`v_1`$, …does not descend. Otherwise, the sequence $`N_0N_1\mathrm{}`$ would become stationary from a vertex $`v_i`$ on with smallest group $`N_{v_i}=C_{\mathrm{}}`$ cyclic. By assumption, $`N_{v_i}`$ must be non-trivial. This means that there is an element $`\alpha N\{1\}`$ of finite order fixing infinitely many vertices of $`𝒯`$. By \[11, Satz 6\], $`\alpha `$ commutes with an hyperbolic element $`\gamma \tau (N)\{1\}`$. But then the quotient graph $`𝒯/N`$ contains a loop, which is impossible.

It follows from the above that if one takes a contraction $`\stackrel{~}{𝒯}`$ of $`𝒯`$ such that for all maximal finite subgroups $`HN`$ there is a vertex $`v`$ in $`\stackrel{~}{𝒯}`$ stabilised by $`H`$, then to each end of $`\stackrel{~}{𝒯}`$ there corresponds a unique end of $`𝒯`$. Moreover, stabilisers of ends do not change under this correspondence. Since for any discrete embedding $`\tau ^{}:N\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$ the tree $`𝒯^{}=𝒯_{\tau ^{}(N)}`$ can be contracted to $`\stackrel{~}{𝒯}`$, one concludes (using again \[11, Satz 6\]) that for any finite-order element $`\alpha N\{1\}`$ the assertion

$$\text{fixed points of }\tau (\alpha )\text{ are regular}\text{fixed points of }\tau ^{}(\alpha )\text{ are regular}$$

holds. This proves the proposition, as the ends of $`T_{\tau (N)}^{}`$ are the $`N`$-orbits of regular fixed points in $`_K^1`$ of elements of $`N\{1\}`$ of finite order. ∎

###### Definition 2.9.

A graph of groups $`(𝔊,N_{})`$ with finite vertex groups is called stable, if for each vertex $`v`$ of valency $`2`$ and each edge $`e`$ with origin $`v`$ the inclusion $`N_eN_v`$ maps $`N_e`$ to a proper subgroup of $`N_v`$.

Amalgamification

Let $`N`$ be a finitely generated group, and $`K`$ a complete non-archimedean valued field. Denote further $`T(N)`$ the space of representations $`\tau :N\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$ such that $`\tau `$ is injective, and $`\tau (N)`$ acts discontinuously and does not contain parabolic elements. $`T(N)`$ is invariant under action of $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$, and the quotient $`\overline{T}(N)`$ is called the Teichmüller space for $`N`$ over $`K`$. It is a fine moduli space, and the quotient $`𝔐(N):=\overline{T}(N)/\mathrm{Out}(N)`$, where the outer automorphism group $`\mathrm{Out}(N)`$ acts discontinuously, parametrises $`N`$-uniformisable Mumford curves .

Mumford curves uniformised by groups of a certain type allow some control over the branch locus of the corresponding covers, as the following will reveal.

###### Definition 2.10.

We say that a group which is a free product of a free group of finite rank with a free amalgamated product of finitely many finite groups is of type Am.

Let $`N=G_1_HG_2`$ be an amalgam of finitely generated groups, $`\tau T(N)`$, $`\tau _i:=\tau |_{G_i}`$ and $`\tau _H:=\tau |_H`$. Denote the corresponding sets of ordinary points in $`^1`$ as $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_H`$. We clearly have $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i\mathrm{\Omega }_H`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }_1\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$, where in general equalities do not hold. We are interested in the branch loci of the covers

$$f:\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }/N,f_i:\mathrm{\Omega }_i\mathrm{\Omega }_i/G_i,f_H:\mathrm{\Omega }_H\mathrm{\Omega }_H/H$$

induced by $`\tau `$. Denote the branch loci of the above covers with $`br(f)`$, $`br(f_i)`$ and $`br(f_H)`$.

###### Lemma 2.11.

If $`N=G_1_HG_2`$ is of type Am, then

$$br(f_H)=br(f_H|_\mathrm{\Omega })\text{and}br(f_i)=br(f_i|_\mathrm{\Omega }).$$

###### Proof.

Let $`xbr(f_H)`$ resp. $`br(f_i)`$. It is the $`H`$-orbit resp. $`G_i`$-orbit of a point $`z\mathrm{\Omega }_H`$ resp. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ fixed by an element $`\alpha `$ of finite order in $`H\{1\}`$ resp. in $`G_i\{1\}`$. If $`x`$ were not a branch point of the restriction to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, then there would exist a $`z`$ as above, but outside $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. By \[11, Satz 6\], this means that there exists a hyperbolic $`\gamma N`$ which commutes with $`\alpha `$. But then a stable graph $`𝔊`$ of groups with fundamental group $`N`$ contains an edge which is a loop and is stabilised by $`\alpha `$. This implies that $`N`$ cannot be of type Am. ∎

The calculation of the dimension of the spaces $`T(N)`$ is reduced by Herrlich to considering the case of type Am by constructing a finite étale map $`T(N)T(N^{})`$ with $`N^{}`$ of type Am.

###### Lemma 2.12 (Herrlich).

If $`T(N)\mathrm{}`$ then there is a subgroup $`N^{}N`$ which is of type Am and the canonical map $`T(N)T(N^{})`$ is finite and unramified.

###### Proof.

Let $`𝔊`$ be a stable graph of groups with fundamental group $`N`$. Following the proof of \[15, Lemma 14\], we need to consider only the case, where the underlying graph $`Q`$ of $`𝔊`$ is such that for every maximal subtree $`P`$ the complement $`QP`$ contains an edge $`e`$ with nontrivial stabiliser $`N_e`$. There are only two possible cases:

* The edge $`e`$ is a loop, and $`N_e=N_{o(e)}`$ is cyclic. In this case, let $`𝔊^{}`$ be the graph of groups obtained from $`𝔊`$ by replacing $`N(e)`$ and its images under all embeddings of edge groups by the trivial group. Then $`N`$ is generated by the fundamental group $`N^{}`$ of $`𝔊^{}`$ and an element $`\alpha `$ commuting with the element $`\gamma _e`$ belonging to the edge $`e`$. So, any $`\tau T(N^{})`$ can be extended in finitely many ways to an element $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }T(N)`$ such that $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }(\alpha )`$ is non-trivial of finite order. This gives a finite and unramified map $`T(N)T(N^{})`$.
* The vertex group $`N_{o(e)}=:N_1`$ is not cyclic. In this case, $`𝔊`$ is replaced by a graph of groups $`𝔊^{}`$ by giving $`e`$ a new vertex $`v`$ as origin, and setting $`N_v^{}=N_1`$. Viewing the fundamental group $`N^{}`$ of $`𝔊^{}`$ as a subgroup of $`N`$, we have in the bigger group the relation $`N_v^{}=\gamma _eN_1\gamma _e^1`$, which means that the induced map $`T(N)T(N^{})`$ is again finite and unramified.

###### Definition 2.13.

The group $`N^{}`$ of Lemma 2.12 is called an amalgamification of $`N`$.

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`N`$ be a finitely generated group containing a free subgroup of rank $`2`$, and $`𝔊`$ a stable graph of groups whose fundamental group is $`N`$. Let further $`\tau T(N)`$. If $`\mathrm{\Omega }^1`$ is the set of ordinary points of $`\tau (N)`$, then the cover $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }/N`$ of the Mumford curve $`\mathrm{\Omega }/N`$ has exactly

$$n=2(Cc)+3(Dd)$$

branch points, where $`C`$ resp. $`D`$ denotes the number of non-trivial cyclic resp. non-cyclic vertex groups and $`c`$ resp. $`d`$ the number of non-trivial cyclic resp. non-cyclic edge groups of $`𝔊`$.

###### Proof.

We will first show how $`n`$ does change if we replace $`N`$ by an amalgamification $`N^{}`$. We use the notations from the proof of Lemma 2.12

In the case (Am 1), $`\tau (\alpha )`$ has the same fixed points as the hyperbolic $`\tau (\gamma )`$, which means that these are necessarily limit points of $`\tau (N)`$ but not of $`\tau (N^{})`$. Therefore the induced covers

$$f:\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }/N\text{and}f^{}:\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\mathrm{\Omega }^{}/N^{},$$

where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ resp. $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ are the sets of ordinary points in $`^1`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }(N)`$ resp. $`\tau (N^{})`$, have a difference of 2 in the number of branch points.

In the case (Am 2), $`N`$ is generated by $`N^{}`$, $`\gamma _e`$ and $`N_1`$. As the latter group is conjugated to $`N_v^{}`$, the number of branch points goes up by 3.

Let now $`N=G_1_HG_2`$ be of type Am. Let $`f`$ correspond to a representation $`\tau T(N)`$, and $`f_i`$ resp. $`f_H`$ the covers corresponding to $`\tau |_{G_i}`$ resp. $`\tau |_H`$. By Lemma 2.11, the commutative square

induced by $`\tau `$ yields a commutative square of maps between the branch loci

(5)
This yields the inequality

$$n\mathrm{\#}br(f)=:m,\text{i.e.}3g3+n3g3+m,$$

because $`br(f)`$ is the union of the images of $`\phi _1`$ and $`\phi _2`$: a branch point of $`f`$ is the $`N`$-orbit of a fixed point in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of an element $`\alpha N`$ of finite order which lies in a conjugate of $`G_1`$ or $`G_2`$.

Let now $`F_h`$ be a finitely generated free normal subgroup in $`N`$ of finite index and rank $`2`$. The moduli space $`𝔐(N,F_h)=\overline{T}(N)/\mathrm{Out}_{F_h}(N)`$, where $`\mathrm{Out}_{F_h}(N)`$ is the group of $`F_h`$-invariant outer automorphisms of $`N`$, parametrises commuting diagrams

. By Proposition 2.8 it follows that $`𝔐(N,F_h)`$ embeds into $`_g(N/F_h,m)`$. This Mumford-Hurwitz space has dimension $`3g3+m`$ by Lemma 2.6, therefore, we have $`dim𝔐(N,F_h)=3g3+n3g3+m`$, in other words: $`nm`$. ∎

###### Corollary 2.14.

If $`G=G_1_HG_2`$ is of type Am, then

$$br(f)=br(f_1)\mathrm{}_{br(f_H)}br(f_2),$$

where $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes the pushout (here: of sets).

###### Proof.

In the proof of Theorem 1 we have seen that $`br(f)`$ is the union of the images of $`\phi _1`$ and $`\phi _2`$ in Diagram (5), so there is a surjective map from the pushout to $`br(f)`$. The equality of the finite cardinalities of $`br(f)`$ and the pushout show that the two sets are equal. ∎

## 3. The Mumford curve locus

### 3.1. The Harbater-Mumford-components

In , Harbater realises all finite groups $`G`$ as quotients of $`\mathrm{Gal}(\overline{}_p(T)/_p(T))`$ by pasting cyclic covers

$$^l^l,zz^n$$

in a clever way. He thus gets global orbifold charts $`\phi :X\stackrel{/G}{}𝒮`$ for rational orbifolds $`𝒮=(^1,(\zeta _1,e_1),\mathrm{},(\zeta _{2r},e_{2r}))`$ with $`e_i=e_{i+r}`$ for $`i=i,\mathrm{},r`$ and a Mumford curve $`Y`$. He does this with ‘mock’ covers of $`_{𝔽_p}^l`$ lifting to totally degenerated curves ramified above $`2r`$ points of the projective line, if the group $`G`$ is generated by $`r`$ elements. The translation of Harbater’s proof in \[6, Section 6.4\] to $``$-trees shows that the marked points have to be separable into pairs $`\zeta _i,\zeta _{i+r}`$ by a pure affinoid covering of $`^l`$. This means that from each vertex in the $``$-tree for the chart $`\phi `$ either two cusps emanate or none at all. In this special case, all vertex stabilisers are cyclic, and all edge groups are trivial.

The ramification data $`𝐂=(C_1,\mathrm{}C_{2r})`$ for those covers with conjugation classes of the deck group $`G`$ are required to have a representative of the form

$$(g_1,\mathrm{},g_r,g_1^1,\mathrm{},g_r^1).$$

This motivates M. Fried to call it an Harbater-Mumford-representative of $`𝐂`$.

In \[9, 3.21\] M. Fried proves that the following condition on $`G`$ and $`𝐂`$ with a Harbater-Mumford-representative forces the subspace $`_0(G,𝐂)`$ of the Hurwitz space $`_0(G,2r)`$ with ramification type $`𝐂`$ to be a component (we shall call it a Harbater-Mumford-component):

* If any pair of inverse conjugation classes is removed from $`𝐂`$, then the remaining $`2r2`$ classes generate the group $`G`$.

###### Proposition 3.1.

Let $`G`$ be any finite group. Then Harbater-Mumford-components of the Hurwitz space $`𝐇_0(G,2r)`$ contain covers of rational Mumford orbifolds by Mumford curves if and only if $`G`$ is a quotient of a free tree product of cyclic groups.

###### Proof.

If a Harbater-Mumford component contains covers of Mumford orbifolds by Mumford curves, then $`G`$ is a quotient of the fundamental group of a $``$-tree with trivial edge groups, as we have seen in the beginning of this subsection.

Let $`G=\mathrm{\Pi }/\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ be a quotient of a free tree product $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ of cyclic groups. The group $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is the fundamental group of a finite tree with cyclic vertex groups and trivial edge groups which can be made into a discontinuously embeddable tree by subdividing segments of the type as in Figure 1.

The non-trivial edge groups are the intersections of the stabilisers of the edges’ extremities. The tree on the right of Figure 1 is realizable because it is the connected sum of two copies of the $``$-tree for $`C_{p^n}`$ with an allowed segment: Indeed, the segment with the trivial edge group belongs to Herrlich’s list  of segments of groups embeddable into the Bruhat-Tits tree. The geodesics left and right are the $``$-trees of $`C_{p^n}`$, and the paths joining the segment to the other two trees are nothing but a part of the fixed point “strip” of a $`p`$-group in the Bruhat-Tits tree.

More generally, making explicit what Kato proposes in \[16, 8.1\], a segment whose fundamental group is the free product $`C_eC_e^{}`$ with $`e=mp^r`$, $`e^{}=m^{}p^r^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{gcd}(m,p)=\mathrm{gcd}(m^{},p)=1`$ can be made realisable by subdividing in the way as in Figure 2.

The reason is that the two decomposition groups contain $`p`$-groups with thick fixed point strips.

All other segments with vertex groups of order prime to $`p`$ are realisable . Thus, we have made the tree into a $``$-tree whose fundamental group embeds discontinuously into $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(_p)`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }^1`$ be its domain of regularity. It is also the domain of regularity for the normal subgroup $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of finite index. Then we have a commuting diagram

where $`X`$ is a Mumford curve. ∎

### 3.2. $``$-trees with trivial edge groups

First, we consider $``$-trees $`T`$ having only trivial edge groups. As the Bass-Serre fundamental group $`\pi _1^{\mathrm{BS}}(T)`$ of a tree of groups is generated by the vertex groups, this is also the case for all quotients of $`\pi _1^{\mathrm{BS}}(T)`$. In particular, our Galois group $`G`$ is generated by generators of the vertex groups, which we interpret as local monodromies in the following way:

$`T`$ is obtained by pasting together local data: elementary $``$-trees are glued by connecting them with edges at appropriate vertices. Let now $`T^{}`$ be a stable tree of groups obtained from $`T`$ by contracting edges whose stabiliser equals one of its extremities’ groups. Now, by Belyi’s Theorem the Mumford-Schwarz-orbifolds corresponding to those elementary $``$-trees are defined over $`\overline{}`$. This gives us local (complex) monodromies $`\gamma _0,\gamma _{\mathrm{}}`$ resp. $`\gamma _0,\gamma _1,\gamma _{\mathrm{}}`$ around the cusps $`0,\mathrm{}`$ resp. $`0,1,\mathrm{}`$, obeying the relations

$$\gamma _0\gamma _1=1\text{resp. }\gamma _0\gamma _1\gamma _{\mathrm{}}=1.$$

This motivates the following

###### Definition 3.2.

Let $`𝐂=(C_1,\mathrm{},C_r)`$ be a generating system of conjugation classes of $`G`$ having the property that there exist representatives $`\gamma _iC_i`$ and a partition of the set $`\{1,\mathrm{},r\}`$ into pairs and triples in such a way that for each pair $`i,j`$ resp. each triple $`i,j,k`$ the relation

$$\gamma _i\gamma _j=1\text{resp.}\gamma _i\gamma _j\gamma _k=1$$

holds and all $`\gamma _i,\gamma _j\gamma _k`$ are isomorphic to subgroups of $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(_p)`$. This ramification datum $`𝐂`$ is called of Mumford type.

We may now formulate a special case of a Riemann Existence Theorem for Mumford curves:

###### Theorem 2 (RET of Mumford type).

Let $`G`$ be a finite group. Then the Mumford-Hurwitz space $`_0(G,𝐂)`$ is non-empty if $`𝐂`$ is of Mumford type.

###### Proof.

Let $`𝐂`$ be of Mumford type. Taking any connected sum of $``$-trees for the groups generated by the chosen pairs and triples of $`\gamma _iC_i`$ as described above, we get a tree $`T`$ of groups which can be made discontinuously embeddable by subdividing similarly as in the proof of Proposition 3.1. If we denote by $`N`$ the fundamental group of $`T`$, then $`G`$ is obviously a quotient of $`N`$, and the Galois chart $`\phi :X𝒮`$ is constructed in an analogous way as the HM-cover from the proof of Prosposition 3.1. ∎

### 3.3. Virtual ramification in $``$-trees

The motivation for this subsection is the example \[1, III.6.4.6\] of a Mumford-Schwarz-orbifold $`𝒮`$ whose orbifold fundamental group $`\pi _1^{\mathrm{orb}}(𝒮,\overline{s})`$ is not topologically generated by its local monodromies $`\gamma _0,\gamma _1`$ around the points $`0,1`$. Neither does there exist a local monodromy $`\gamma _{\mathrm{}}`$ around $`\mathrm{}`$ such that $`\gamma _0,\gamma _1,\gamma _{\mathrm{}}`$ obey the relation $`\gamma _0\gamma _1\gamma _{\mathrm{}}=1`$. The reason for this is that already a quotient of $`\pi _1^{\mathrm{orb}}(𝒮,\overline{s})`$ isomorphic to a fundamental group of a $``$-tree with three cusps, does not allow this. A discrete quotient of $`\pi _1^{\mathrm{orb}}(𝒮,\overline{s})`$ is called a $`p`$-triangle group (of Mumford type).

In  there is a first attempt towards classifying all discrete $`p`$-adic triangle groups. Refining the methods used there yields a complete classification of all discrete subgroups of $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$ for finite extensions $`K`$ of $`_p`$ . In what follows we will make use of this classification result.

###### Proposition 3.3.

Every indecomposable discrete subgroup $`N`$ of $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$ generated by elements of finite order is an amalgamation which corresponds to a tree of groups $`𝐓(N)`$ with the following properties:

1. The vertex groups $`N_v`$ are finite non-cyclic groups or $`p`$-adic triangle groups.
2. The edges $`e`$ correspond to maximal cyclic subgroups of $`N_{o(e)}`$ resp. $`N_{t(e)}`$.
3. For each branch point $`x`$ of $`N_v`$ there is at most one edge $`e`$ with $`o(e)=v`$, and $`N_e`$ is the stabiliser of $`x`$.

###### Sketch of proof.

(Cf. ). Suppose, that there is an indecomposable discrete subgroup $`N`$ of $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$ not satisfying the properties of the proposition. It is a finite amalgam of $`m_N`$ maximal finite subgroups. Choose $`N`$ such that $`m_N`$ is minimal under all counterexamples.

We claim that no pair of finite groups occurring in the amalgam is amalgamated along a cyclic group unless one of the finite groups is itself cyclic.

One sees that there are no two maximal finite subgroups in this amalgam which are amalgamated along a common maximal cyclic subgroup, otherwise one would easily obtain a counterexample $`N^{}`$ with $`m_N^{}<m_N`$, a contradiction.

It remains the case that two maximal finite non-cyclic subgroups $`G_1`$, $`G_2`$ in the amalgam are amalgamated along a common cyclic subgroup $`G_0`$ which is not maximal in one of them. One can then see that $`G_1_{G_0}G_2`$ is an amalgam of a finite group and a triangle group along a common maximal cyclic subgroup. Again it follows that $`m_N`$ is not minimal, a contradiction.

As a consequence, $`N`$ is isomorphic to an amalgam of finite non-cyclic groups along non-cyclic subgroups amalgamated also with cyclic groups along cyclic groups. Such a group is necessarily a triangle group. ∎

In  there is also a complete classification of all discrete $`p`$-adic triangle groups.

###### Definition 3.4.

The amalgam and the tree of groups from Proposition 3.3 are called regular.

###### Corollary 3.5.

The number of branch points for an indecomposable discrete subgroup $`N`$ of $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$ is the number of vertices in $`𝐓(N)`$ plus two.

###### Proof.

Note that all vertices of the regular tree give a contribution of three branch points. The statement now follows easily from Theorem 1 together with the fact that $`N`$ is the fundamental group of a tree of groups. ∎

###### Proposition 3.6 (F. Kato, F. Herrlich).

There are no infinite discrete $`p`$-adic triangle groups, if $`p>5`$. For $`p5`$ there are infinitely many.

###### Proof.

The first statement is a result of the classification in . The second statement follows from the classification of discontinuously embeddable segments of finite groups . ∎

###### Definition 3.7.

A system of conjugation classes $`𝐂=(C_0,C_1,C_{\mathrm{}})`$ of a finite group $`G`$ is called of Mumford-Schwarz type, if there is a $`G`$-cover $`X\stackrel{G}{}^1`$ with ramification data $`𝐂`$ and with a Mumford curve $`X`$.

Regular amalgams

Let $`𝐓`$ be a regular tree of groups for a regular amalgam $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. For any subtree of groups $`T_0𝐓`$ denote $`c_𝐓(T_0)`$ the number branch points of the cover $`\varpi _\mathrm{\Gamma }:\mathrm{\Omega }^1`$ which are contributed by the subtree $`T_0`$.

###### Lemma 3.8.

Let a regular tree $`𝐓`$ be spanned by disjoint subtrees $`T_1`$ and $`T_2`$ through an edge $`e`$. Then

$$c_𝐓(T_1)=c_T^{}(T_1)$$

for any subtree $`T^{}`$ of $`𝐓`$ containing $`T_1`$ and $`e`$.

###### Proof.

As regular amalgams are of type Am, Corollary 2.14 says that the set of branch points corresponding to $`T^{}`$ is the pushout of the branch loci of $`T_1`$ and $`T_2T^{}`$ along the two branch points corresponding to $`e`$. Hence, the contribution from $`T_1`$ does not depend on the complementary tree $`T_2T^{}`$. ∎

###### Lemma 3.9.

Let $`𝐓`$ be a regular tree of groups, and $`v`$ a vertex of $`𝐓`$ with non-cyclic stabiliser $`N_v`$. Then

$$c_𝐓(v)=3\mathrm{ord}(v).$$

In particular, the order of any vertex in $`𝐓`$ is at most three.

###### Proof.

Let $`\mathrm{ord}(v)=m`$, which is a non-negative number. The vertex $`v`$ is connected by $`m`$ edges to some components $`T_1,\mathrm{},T_m`$. We have

$$c_𝐓(𝐓)=c_𝐓(v)+\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}c_𝐓(T_i)=c_v(v)2m+\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}c_{T_i}(T_i).$$

The equation on the right holds true because of Theorem 1. Now, if $`T^i`$ is the tree spanned by $`T_i`$ and $`v`$, then

$$c_{T_i}(T_i)=c_{T^i}(T_i)+1,$$

because

$$c_{T^i}(T_i)+c_{T^i}(v)=c_{T^i}(T^i)=c_{T_i}(T_i)2+c_v(v)=c_{T_i}(T_i)+1,$$

and $`c_{T^i}(v)=2`$. The latter can be seen by first using Lemma 3.8 in order to see that $`c_{T^i}(v)=c_{[w,v]}(v)`$, where $`w`$ is the vertex in $`𝐓`$ nearest to $`v`$, and then verifying $`c_{[w,v]}(v)=2`$ which follows from the fact that the geodesic in the Bruhat-Tits tree between the two fixed points of the edge stabiliser gets folded under the action of $`N_v`$. Since, by Lemma 3.8, $`c_{T^i}(T_i)=c_𝐓(T_i)`$, we have in fact

$$c_𝐓(𝐓)=3m+\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}c_𝐓(T_i),$$

from which we conclude that

$$c_𝐓(v)=3m.$$

This number is non-negative, if and only if $`m3`$. ∎

###### Definition 3.10.

A Galois cover $`f:X\stackrel{G}{}^1`$ with a Mumford curve $`X`$ is called regular, if the fundamental group $`N`$ of its $``$-tree is indecomposable. In this case the induced cover $`\mathrm{\Omega }\stackrel{N}{}^1`$ factoring over $`f`$ is also called regular.

###### Theorem 3 (Virtual RET).

Let $`G`$ be a finite group and $`𝐂=(C_1,\mathrm{},C_r)`$ some conjugation classes in $`G`$ with $`\gamma _iC_i`$. Then there is a Galois cover $`X\stackrel{G}{}^1`$ with a Mumford curve $`X`$ and ramification type $`𝐂=(C_1,\mathrm{},C_r)`$, if and only if there is a partition

$$\{1,\mathrm{},r\}=\underset{j}{}I_j$$

into sets $`I_j`$ of cardinality at least two such that for each $`I:=I_j`$ the tuple $`C_I=(C_i)_{iI}`$ gives rise to a regular cover $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I\stackrel{\mathrm{\Gamma }_I}{}^1`$.

###### Proof.

The proof of Theorem 2 carries over to this more general situtation. ∎

The structure of regular trees now yields:

###### Theorem 4.

If $`X\stackrel{G}{}^1`$ is a non-cyclic regular cover with ramification type $`𝐂=(C_1,\mathrm{},C_r)`$ and $`\gamma _iC_i`$, then there is a system $`𝐠=(\gamma _1,\mathrm{},\gamma _r,\gamma _{r+1},\mathrm{},\gamma _{3s})`$ of elements in $`G`$ and a partition of $`\{1,\mathrm{},3s\}`$ into triples $`I=\{i_0,i_1,i_{\mathrm{}}\}`$ such that

$$C_I=(C(\gamma _{i_0}),C(\gamma _{i_1}),C(\gamma _i_{\mathrm{}}))$$

is of Mumford-Schwarz type for some $`p`$-adic triangle group $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I\stackrel{\phi _I}{}G`$ mapping to $`G`$. The conjugation classes in $`C_I`$ are to be taken in the image of $`\phi _I`$.

###### Proof.

Let the regular cover be given as

with $`F`$ a finitely generated free group, and let $`𝐓`$ be the corresponding regular tree. For each vertex $`v`$ of $`𝐓`$ we have a $`p`$-adic triangle group $`\mathrm{\Delta }_v`$ and $`c_𝐓(v)`$ cusps with generators $`\gamma G`$ of their stabilisers. This locally defines a cover $`\phi _v:X_v\stackrel{\mathrm{\Delta }_v}{}^1`$ with $`3c_𝐓(v)`$ more branch points. Setting $`F_v:=F\mathrm{\Delta }_v`$, a finitely generated free group, we obtain a commuting diagram with exact rows

As the left and the middle vertical arrows are injective, so is also the right vertical map. Hence, the decomposition groups of $`\phi _v`$ embed into $`G`$, and we can complete the $`c_𝐓(v)`$ conjugacy classes of chosen elements of $`G`$ with further elements of $`G`$ to a system of Mumford-Schwarz type for the local cover $`\phi _v`$. Doing this for all vertices of $`𝐓`$ yields $`s`$ Mumford-Schwarz type systems of conjugacy classes in $`G`$ or, in other words, the required $`𝐠=(g_1,\mathrm{},g_{3s})`$ containing all the $`\gamma _i`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{},r`$) together with a partition of $`\{1,\mathrm{},r\}`$ into triples as in the theorem. ∎

###### Definition 3.11.

The system of conjugacy classes $`𝐂`$ of $`G`$ as in Theorem 4 is called virtually of Mumford type.

The reason for calling Theorem 3 virtual RET lies in the structure of regular trees, which conceal local monodromies in their vertex groups. This can be seen most easily when there are no triangle groups present.

###### Corollary 3.12.

If, in the situation of Theorem 4, all triangle groups $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$ are finite, then the system $`𝐠`$ generates $`G`$ and each triple $`I=\{i_0,i_1,i_{\mathrm{}}\}`$ ($`I=I_j`$ from a partition as in Theorem 4) can be chosen such that the relation

$$\underset{iI}{}\gamma _i=1$$

holds for some order on $`I`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`N`$ be the fundamental group of the tree of groups associated with the regular cover. As all the triangle groups $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$ are finite, the relations

$$\underset{iI}{}\delta _i=1$$

are feasible with elements $`\delta _i\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$, hence in $`G`$. As $`N`$ is generated by all vertex groups of $`𝐓`$, it follows that the set of all $`\gamma _i=\phi _I(\delta _i)`$ generates $`G`$. ∎

###### Definition 3.13.

The $`\gamma _i`$ from Corollary 3.12 are called virtual monodromies.

###### Remark 3.14.

As remarked by Y. André in \[1, Remark III.6.4.7\], infinite $`p`$-adic triangle groups of Mumford type are not generated by their local monodromies (i.e. generators of the decomposition groups of the branch points), there exist finite quotients with the same property. This is why Corollary 3.12 does not hold in the presence of infinite vertex groups. In the general case that $`𝐓`$ has infinite triangle groups as vertex groups, an exact description of virtual local monodromies as generating systems of Galois groups is yet to be found.

### 3.4. From trees to graphs

In order to generalise the preceding to covers $`\phi :X\stackrel{G}{}𝒮`$ with an arbitrary Mumford orbifold $`𝒮`$, it is convenient to use the following setup: let $`𝔊`$ be the $``$-graph corresponding to the global chart $`\phi `$ of $`𝒮`$, where we assume $`X`$ to be a Mumford curve of genus $`g`$. Further, let $`N:=\pi _1^{\mathrm{BS}}(𝔊)`$ be the Bass-Serre fundamental group of the graph of groups $`𝔊`$. Assuming that $`N`$ is of type Am, there is a commuting diagram with exact rows and surjective vertical arrows

(10)
where $`N_{}_N`$ is the normal subgroup of $`N`$ generated by the vertex and edge groups of $`𝔊`$. It is isomorphic to the fundamental group of a $``$-tree obtained by deleting $`g`$ appropriate edges of $`𝔊`$. One sees readily that the top row of (10) splits.

###### Definition 3.15.

If for a Mumford curve $`X`$ of genus $`g`$, the group $`N`$ in the diagram

(15)
is of type Am, then we say that the Galois cover $`X\stackrel{G}{}Y`$ is also of type Am.

Here is now a first generalised virtual Riemann Existence Theorem:

###### Theorem 5.

The Mumford-Hurwitz space $`_g(G,𝐂)`$ contains a cover of type Am, if and only if $`G`$ contains a normal subgroup $`H`$ containing representatives of conjugacy classes from $`𝐂`$ such that $`𝐂`$, viewed as a ramification type for $`H`$, is virtually of Mumford type, $`G/H`$ is a quotient of $`F_g`$ and the exact sequence

$$1HGG/H1$$

splits.

###### Proof.

$``$. Let a cover as in (15) be given with $`N`$ of type Am. Then we obtain a commutative diagram with exact rows and columns

(26)
whose lowest row is the second row of (10). We still need to show that the lowest row of (26) splits. As the middle row splits, the images of $`N_0:=N_{}_N`$ and $`F_g`$ under the middle vertical arrow to $`G`$ intersect trivially. So, one sees that there is a map $`FG`$ making the lowest row split.

$``$. We construct the cover of type Am by showing that there is a diagram (26). For this, we need to construct a group $`N`$ of type Am and a free group $`F_g`$ fitting into the diagram. As the cover of $`^1`$ corresponding to $`H`$ is virtually of Mumford type, the left column is exact with a free group $`F_b`$ on $`b`$ generators and with middle group $`N_0=N_0_{N_0}`$. By taking a $``$-tree for for $`N_0`$, and making its finite part into a graph of genus $`g`$ by inserting $`g`$ edges with trivial stabilisers, one obtains a group $`N`$ of type Am fitting into the center of (26). Thus, obviously, the middle row is split. Further, the vertical map from $`F_g`$ is the quotient map from $`GF`$, which implies that the vertical map from $`N`$ is surjective, as the map $`N_0H`$ is also surjective. It remains to show that $`F_h`$ is free, finitely generated. As $`F_c`$ is free in $`c`$ generators, mapping these generators to $`F_h`$ in such a way that the top right square commutes, is possible with a map $`\alpha :F_cF_h`$. Since the two low rows are split, it follows that $`\alpha `$ is injective. Thus, $`F_h`$ is generated by two free groups which intersect trivially, hence free. ∎

If, however, the $`G`$-cover $`\phi :XY`$ is not of type Am, then let $`N^{}`$ be an amalgamification of $`N`$. The inclusion $`N^{}N`$ extends to a commutative diagram with exact rows

(31)
where $`F_g^{}=N^{}F_g`$ is free. Thus, the Galois group $`G^{}`$ of the cover of type Am can be viewed as a subgroup of $`G`$. By the construction of amalgamification, $`G^{}`$ contains the decomposition groups of $`\phi `$ and therefore the corresponding cover $`\phi ^{}`$ contains the ramification datum of $`\phi `$. Since the corresponding graph of groups $`𝔊`$ and $`𝔊^{}`$ are obtained from one another by a finite sequence of steps (Am 1) and (Am 2) as in the proof of Lemma 2.12, we can describe, how to obtain $`G`$ from $`G^{}`$. Namely, if $`𝔊^{}`$ has $`s`$ loops affected by (Am 1) and $`t`$ pairs of non-cyclic isomorphic vertex groups $`N_{i_1}^{}N_{i_2}^{}`$ of two different vertices $`v_{i_1}`$, $`v_{i_2}`$ obtained by (Am 2), then

(32) $`G=G^{},\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _s,\gamma _{e_1},\mathrm{},\gamma _{e_t}`$
subject to relations

(33) $`\gamma _{e_i}N_{i_1}^{}\gamma _{e_i}^1=N_{i_2}^{},i=1,\mathrm{},t`$
(and possibly other relations), where the $`\gamma _{e_i}`$ are images of edges $`e_i`$ affected by the amalgamification.

###### Proposition 3.16.

If the Mumford-Hurwitz space $`_g(G,𝐂)`$, $`𝐂=(C_1,\mathrm{},C_r)`$, is non-empty, then $`G`$ contains a subgroup $`G^{}`$ containing an element $`\gamma _i`$ of each $`C_i`$ such that $`_g^{}(G^{},𝐂^{})`$ contains a cover of type Am with $``$-graph $`𝔊^{}`$ (where $`𝐂^{}=(C_G^{}(\beta _i))_{i=1,\mathrm{},r+2s+3t}`$ are the conjugacy classes of $`\gamma _i`$ and of conjugates of $`\alpha _j`$ in $`G^{}`$), and such that $`G`$ is the quotient of an HNN-extension $`N`$ of $`N^{}=\pi _1^{\mathrm{BS}}(𝔊^{})`$ where (32) and (33) hold with $`s+tg`$.

###### Proof.

It is clear by the discussion above, that amalgamification gives a cover of type Am with the asserted properties. ∎

Let now a $`G`$-cover $`\phi `$ be given which allows for a subgroup $`G^{}`$ a cover $`\phi ^{}`$ of type Am such that (32), (33) and $`s+tg`$ hold true. It is easy to see $`N`$ making the diagram (31) commute with exact rows and injective vertical arrows. By assertion, $`N`$ is a HNN-extension of $`N^{}`$ having $`N^{}`$ as an amalgamification. But often $`N`$ is not discretely embeddable into $`\mathrm{PGL}_2(K)`$.

## 4. Realisation of groups

### 4.1. Mumford curves of genus $`2`$

Harbater’s result follows easily from Proposition 3.1 and can be improved slightly:

###### Theorem 6.

Every finite group $`G`$ is the Galois group of a cover $`X\stackrel{G}{}^1`$ with a Mumford curve $`X`$ of genus $`g2`$.

###### Proof.

The group $`G`$, generated by cyclic subgroups $`G_1,\mathrm{},G_r`$, is a quotient of the free product $`G_1\mathrm{}G_r`$. This solves, by Proposition 3.1, the original inverse Galois problem. Since, as seen in the proof of Proposition 3.1, we may realize every cyclic group $`C_n`$ as a covering group of a tree with four cusps whose stabilisers are all $`C_n`$, the Riemann-Hurwitz-formula tells us that the genus of the corresponding $`C_n`$-cover is at least $`2`$, if $`n>2`$. $`C_2`$-covers are realized as hyperelliptic covers in a similar way: $`6`$ cusps are sufficient for genus $`2`$. ∎

The actual cover can be constructed as in . Translated into the language of $``$-trees, the proof reads:

Let $`G`$ be generated by two already realised subgroups $`H_1`$ and $`H_2`$ (with Mumford curves of genus $`2`$. This means that there are rational Mumford orbifolds $`𝒮_1=(^1,(\zeta _{11},e_{11}),\mathrm{},(\zeta _{1q},e_{1q}))`$ and $`𝒮_2=(^1,(\zeta _{2,q+1},e_{2,q+1}),\mathrm{},(\zeta _{2r},e_{2r}))`$, global charts $`\phi _1:X_1\stackrel{H_1}{}𝒮_1`$, $`\phi _2:X_2\stackrel{H_2}{}𝒮_2`$ with Mumford curves $`X_1`$, $`X_2`$. Let $`T_i`$ be the $``$-tree for $`\phi _i`$. The cover $`\phi _i`$ induces a morphism of graphs of groups such that the following diagram is Cartesian:

where the vertical arrows are induced by Tate reduction maps.

Let $`T_i^+=T_i\mathrm{}v`$ be obtained from $`T_i`$ by adjoining to any vertex of $`T_i`$ an edge $`e`$ (with trivial group) terminating in $`v`$ (not belonging to $`T_i`$). $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i^+`$ is then defined by the Cartesian square

Finally, let

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_i^+:=G/H_i\times \mathrm{\Gamma }_i^+,\mathrm{\Delta }_i:=G/H_i\times \mathrm{\Gamma }_i.$$

Now, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i^+\mathrm{\Delta }_i=G\times e`$ for $`i=1,2`$, and we can paste $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i^+T_i^+`$ along the morphisms $`(\mathrm{\Delta }_i^+\mathrm{\Delta }_iT_i^+T_i)(G\times e\stackrel{\mathrm{triv}}{}e)`$, obtaining

$$\stackrel{~}{\phi }:\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{/G}{}T=T_1^+\mathrm{}_eT_2^+$$

where $`T_1^+\mathrm{}_eT_2^+`$ means the tree obtained by pasting the trees $`T_i^+`$ along the edge $`e`$. We see that $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is connected and $`T`$ a $``$-tree for an $`r`$-punctured orbifold

$$𝒮=(^1,(\zeta _{ij},e_{ij}),i=1,2,j=1,\mathrm{},r)$$

obtained by lifting $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }`$ to a chart fitting into

with a Mumford curve $`X`$ and deck group $`G`$.

The results of Section 3.4 lead to the natural generalisation of Theorem 6 stated in \[20, Corollary 1.2\] without explicit proof111which has been added during the time of refereeing the original version of this article \[21, Theorem 1.2\]:

###### Theorem 7.

For every Mumford curve $`S`$ of genus $`g`$, every finite group $`G`$ is the Galois group of a cover $`X\stackrel{G}{}S`$ with a Mumford curve $`X`$.

###### Proof.

Realise $`G`$ as a cover of the projective line by a Mumford curve by giving an explicit $``$-tree $`T^{}`$ with fundamental group $`N`$. Let $`T`$ be the finite part of $`T^{}`$. Inserting $`g`$ edges between any vertices of the finite part gives a discontinouosly embeddable graph of groups with fundamental group222of type Am $`N_g`$, thus realising $`G`$ over a Mumford curve $`S^{}`$ by exhibiting a point of $`𝔐(N_g)`$. By forgetting the cover and the $`n`$ branch points, one sees that there is a map

$$𝔐(N_g)𝔐_g$$

between the ($`3g3+n`$)-dimensional moduli space $`𝔐(N_g)`$ and the ($`3g3`$)-dimensional space $`𝔐_g`$ of Mumford curves of genus $`g`$. This map is easily seen to be surjective. ∎

### 4.2. The full automorphism group

The extra care taken for realising groups as deck groups in higher genus allows us to prove

###### Theorem 8.

Every finite group is isomorphic to the full automorphism group of a Mumford curve.

###### Proof.

Let $`G`$ be the finite group. Consider the Mumford-Hurwitz space $`_g^h(G,\underset{¯}{e})`$ of covers $`X\stackrel{G}{}Y`$ with signature $`𝐞=(e_1,\mathrm{},e_n)`$ with Mumford curves $`X`$ and $`Y`$ of genera $`h`$ and $`g`$, respectively, where $`h`$ and $`g`$ are related by the Riemann-Hurwitz formula (the notational redundancy is used here for convenience). We have a natural map

$$\mathrm{\Phi }:_g^h(G,𝐞)_h,$$

into the moduli space of all smooth curves of genus $`h`$, whose image $`_h(G,𝐞)`$ is of pure dimension $`3g3+n`$. We take a component $``$ of $`_h(G,\underset{¯}{e})`$. According to \[19, Theorem 5.1\], if

$$()(g,n)\{(2,0),(1,2),(1,1),(0,4),(0,3)\},$$

then $`^{}:=\{X\mathrm{Aut}X=G\}`$ is open and dense in $``$. It follows that $`^{}`$ intersects $`𝔐_h(G,𝐞):=\mathrm{\Phi }(_g^h(G,𝐞))`$, if and only if $``$ does, since $`𝔐_h(G,𝐞)`$ is of the same pure dimension $`3g3+n`$, provided $`_g^h(G,𝐞)\mathrm{}`$ (Lemma 2.6). If the Mumford-Hurwitz space is non-empty, there exist components $``$ which intersect the Mumford locus $`𝔐_h(G,𝐞)`$, however. So, we need only to find for each finite group $`G`$ a non-empty Mumford-Hurwitz space $`_g^h(G,𝐞)`$ fulfilling $`()`$. But this is possible by Theorem 7: just take $`g=3`$. ∎

Let us give an alternative proof using only the realisation over $`^1`$: Theorem 6 allows us to realise $`G`$ as the deck group of a cover $`\phi :X^1`$ with a Mumford curve $`X`$ of genus $`g2`$. If $`G`$ is of order greater than $`5`$, Harbater’s solution to the inverse Galois problem gives more than $`4`$ branch points, and we are done. Otherwise, take the $``$-tree of $`\phi `$ and add two edges in such a way that the resulting graph is of genus two. As it is also a $``$-graph, there is a corresponding Galois cover $`X^{}S^{}`$ fulfilling ($``$), and we have realised $`G`$ as $`\mathrm{Aut}X^{}`$ with a Mumford curve $`X^{}`$ (of genus $`2`$).

### Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Yves André for directing the author’s attention toward the theme of this article. He also expresses thanks to his thesis advisor Frank Herrlich for answering numerous questions. Thanks also to Harm Voskuil and Fumiharu Kato for fruitful discussions as well as the unknown referee for helpful remarks, all of which led to a thoroughly improved rewriting of the original article. This would not have been possible without Prof. Niklaus Kohler generously letting the author take some time off for realising this.

Universität Karlsruhe, Institut für Industrielle Bauproduktion, Englerstr. 7, D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany

e-mail: bradley@math.uni-karlsruhe.de