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# Combined Error Correction Techniques for Quantum Computing Architectures

## I Quantum Error Correction Strategies

The main obstacle to building a quantum computing device is noise and decoherence in the quantum system due to the inevitable interaction with the environment. There are several error correction/avoidance strategies for treating this problem. They can be divided into three broad categories Quantum error correction codes (QECCs) P.W. Shor (1995); A.M. Steane (1996); D. Gottesman (1996); E. Knill and R. Laflamme (1997), (for a review see A.M. Steane (1999)) use redundancy and an active measurement and recovery scheme to correct errors that occur during a computation (we include topological quantum codes in this category; see J. Preskill (1999) and references therein). Decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs) and noiseless subsystems P. Zanardi and M. Rasetti (1997); L.-M Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998a); D.A. Lidar, I.L. Chuang and K.B. Whaley (1998); E. Knill, R. Laflamme and L. Viola (2000); J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001); D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, and K.B. Whaley (2001a), rely on symmetric system-bath interactions to find encodings that are immune to decoherence effects. Dynamical decoupling, or “bang-bang” (BB) operations Viola and Lloyd (1998); Duan and Guo (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999); Zanardi (1999a); Vitali and Tombesi (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill, and S. Lloyd (1999, 2000); D. Vitali and P. Tombesi (2002); M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001); D.G. Cory, R. Laflamme, E. Knill, L. Viola, T.F. Havel, N. Boulant, G. Boutis, E. Fortunato, S. Lloyd, R. Martinez, C. Negrevergne, M. Pravia, Y. Sharf, G. Teklemariam, Y.S. Weinstein, W.H. Zurek (2000); G.S. Agarwal, M.O. Scully, and H. Walther (2001); Uchiyama and Aihara (2002) are strong and fast pulses which suppress errors by averaging them away. QECCs use extra qubits, which, at this time are a scarce resource. They require at least a 5 physical qubit to 1 logical qubit encoding E. Knill and R. Laflamme (1997); R. Laflamme, C. Miquel, J.P. Paz and W.H. Zurek (1996) (neglecting ancillas required for fault-tolerant recovery) in order to correct a general single qubit error D. Gottesman (1996). DFSs also require extra qubits and are most effective for collective errors, or errors where multiple qubits are coupled to the same bath mode D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, and K.B. Whaley (2001a). The minimal encoding for a single qubit undergoing collective decoherence is 3 physical qubits to one logical qubit E. Knill, R. Laflamme and L. Viola (2000). Finally, the BB control method requires a complete set of pulses to be implemented within the correlation time of the bath Viola and Lloyd (1998). It does not, however, necessarily require extra qubits.

In this article we discuss the combination of BB operations with other encoding techniques to conserve qubit resources while making quantum computing devices more robust. An experiment combining BB with quantum error correction has recently been reported N. Boulant, M.A. Pravia, E.M. Fortunato, T.F. Havel and D.G. Cory (2002). We begin with a brief review of the BB control formalism before presenting an empirical formula for the determination of BB operations from a set of quantum process tomography measurements M.A. Nielsen and I.L. Chuang (2000). We then give a general theorem which provides sufficient conditions for the elimination of errors via BB controls on logically encoded subspaces. This is used to discuss the application of the BB controls in conjuction with QECCs. Our results are then used to determine a combined effective encoding, recoupling D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002), and decoupling (BB) strategy for quantum computing devices which rely on exchange-type interactions M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2002). We give estimates for the number of BB operations that can be performed in experiments using spin-coupled quantum dots in GaAs. The estimates are based upon models of the underlying mechanisms of decoherence in these systems. However, the empirical method for determining BB operations, proposed in M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2002); M.S. Byrd, D.A. Lidar (2002), circumvents the need for a detailed understanding of the underlying decoherence processes.

### I.1 Bang Bang Operations

Let us briefly review some important aspects of the method of BB controls. BB controls are strong and fast pulses, applied cyclically, which average out the environment-induced noise Viola and Lloyd (1998). In the limit of infinitely fast pulsing, BB controls have been shown to completely remove decoherence. The simplest example of BB is the “parity-kick” sequence Viola and Lloyd (1998); Vitali and Tombesi (1999). Suppose that an error $`E`$ (an operator in the system-bath Hamiltonian) acts on the system, and that we can find a pulse $`U`$ (unitary operator) that anticommutes with $`E`$, and therefore changes the sign of this error:

$$\{E,U\}=0,U^{}EU=E.$$
(1)
Allowing the system to repeatedly undergo the sequence: $`\{`$free evolution under $`E`$ (for time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$), application of $`U`$, free evolution, application of $`U^1\}`$, will cause the error to be averaged out (“symmetrized” Zanardi (1999a); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999)), thus *decoupling* system and bath. The parity kick (whose origins can be traced to the well-known Carr-Purcell sequence of NMR H.Y. Carr and E.M. Purcell (1954)) and its generalizations have been the subject of several recent publications Viola and Lloyd (1998); Duan and Guo (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999); Zanardi (1999a); Vitali and Tombesi (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill, and S. Lloyd (1999, 2000); D. Vitali and P. Tombesi (2002); M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001); D.G. Cory, R. Laflamme, E. Knill, L. Viola, T.F. Havel, N. Boulant, G. Boutis, E. Fortunato, S. Lloyd, R. Martinez, C. Negrevergne, M. Pravia, Y. Sharf, G. Teklemariam, Y.S. Weinstein, W.H. Zurek (2000); G.S. Agarwal, M.O. Scully, and H. Walther (2001); Uchiyama and Aihara (2002). In reality, for decoupling to work the time taken for a complete cycle of pulses, $`T_c`$, must be significantly shorter than the fastest bath correlation time $`\tau _c`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }tT_c\tau _c.$$
(2)
Even in the case that the time scales are close, one can achieve some noise reduction Viola and Lloyd (1998); L.-M Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998b); Vitali and Tombesi (1999); D. Vitali and P. Tombesi (2002); Uchiyama and Aihara (2002). Knowledge of $`\tau _c`$, the inverse of the bath spectral density high frequency cut-off, is clearly desirable for determining the success of the BB procedure, and will be discussed in detail below for quantum dots. Given that pulses have finite durations, the ratio $`\tau _c/T_c`$ imposes further constraints on the length of the experimentally implementable pulse sequences. However the empirical method for the determination of the BB operations, outlined below, takes these constraints into account.

### I.2 Empirically Determined BB Controls

Previous analyses of BB controls have typically assumed model system-bath Hamiltonians Viola and Lloyd (1998); Duan and Guo (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999); Zanardi (1999a); Vitali and Tombesi (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill, and S. Lloyd (1999, 2000); D. Vitali and P. Tombesi (2002); M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001); D.G. Cory, R. Laflamme, E. Knill, L. Viola, T.F. Havel, N. Boulant, G. Boutis, E. Fortunato, S. Lloyd, R. Martinez, C. Negrevergne, M. Pravia, Y. Sharf, G. Teklemariam, Y.S. Weinstein, W.H. Zurek (2000); G.S. Agarwal, M.O. Scully, and H. Walther (2001); Uchiyama and Aihara (2002). However, the total system-bath Hamiltonian is often not known. As an alternative to this model-based approach we review here a procedure we have previously proposed for finding BB operations from experimental data M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2002); M.S. Byrd, D.A. Lidar (2002). This empirical determination requires neither a detailed understanding of the fundamental processes nor a detailed experimental analysis of each of the decoherence processes in the system. It requires only a set of quantum process tomography measurements M.A. Nielsen and I.L. Chuang (2000) on the logical qubits to determine the *types* of errors that occur. With this, one may empirically determine the set of required corrective pulses and the efficacy of the experimentally available pulse set M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001).

Empirical BB is based on the following set of observations. Very generally, the evolution of an open quantum system, described by a density matrix $`\rho `$, satisfies the (completely positive K. Kraus (1983)) map

$$\rho (t)=\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}\chi _{\alpha \beta }(t)K_\alpha \rho (0)K_\beta ^{},$$
(3)
where the matrix $`\chi _{\alpha \beta }(t)`$ is hermitian and $`\{K_\alpha \}`$ is a system operator basis I.L. Chuang and M.A. Nielsen (1997); D.A. Lidar, Z. Bihary, and K.B. Whaley (2001). The $`\chi `$ matrix can be determined from a quantum process tomography measurement I.L. Chuang and M.A. Nielsen (1997). It can be shown that Eq. (3) can be transformed into D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar and K.B. Whaley (1999) (using $`\mathrm{}=1`$)

$$\rho (t)=i[S(t),\rho (0)]+\frac{1}{2}\underset{\alpha ,\beta =1}{}\chi _{\alpha \beta }(t)\left([K_\alpha ,\rho (0)K_\beta ^{}]+[K_\alpha \rho (0),K_\beta ^{}]\right),$$
(4)
where

$$S(t)=\frac{i}{2}\underset{\alpha =1}{}[\chi _{\alpha 0}(t)K_\alpha \chi _{0\alpha }(t)K_\alpha ^{}].$$
(5)
For BB operations, a short-time expansion of Eq. (4) is relevant. Choosing a hermitian operator basis $`\{K_\alpha \}`$, to first order in $`\tau `$

$$\rho (\tau )i[S(\tau ),\rho (0)],$$
(6)
where $`S(\tau )=_{\alpha 1}\mathrm{Im}(\chi _{\alpha 0}^{(1)}(\tau ))K_\alpha `$, $`\chi _{\alpha 0}^{(1)}(\tau )=\tau (d(\chi _{\alpha 0})/dt)_{t=0}`$ and $`K_01\mathrm{l}`$ D.A. Lidar, Z. Bihary, and K.B. Whaley (2001). Note that $`S(\tau )`$ behaves as a Hamiltonian. Thus, using the abbreviation $`\overline{\chi }_\alpha \mathrm{Im}(\chi _{\alpha 0}^{(1)}(\tau ))`$, under the action of a group $`𝒢=\{U_k\}_{k=1}^N`$ of unitary BB controls $`S(\tau )`$ transforms as

$$S(\tau )\underset{k}{}U_kS(\tau )U_k^{}.$$
(7)
Therefore the operator basis transforms as

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}\overline{\chi }_\alpha K_\alpha `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}\overline{\chi }_\alpha {\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}U_k^{}K_\alpha U_k`$ (8)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha \beta }{}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\overline{\chi }_\alpha R_{\alpha \beta }^{(k)}K_\beta .`$
The last expression implies that $`S`$ and therefore $`\chi `$ transform according to the adjoint representation of $`𝒢`$, defined by $`_\beta R_{\alpha \beta }^{(k)}K_\beta =U_k^{}K_\alpha U_k`$. For example $`RSO(3)`$ for $`USU(2)`$, which leads to a geometric description of the result M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001). Specifically, we have under BB that $`_{\alpha 1}\overline{\chi }_\alpha K_\alpha _{\beta 1}\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\beta K_\beta `$, where

$$\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\beta =\frac{1}{N}\underset{k}{}\underset{\alpha 1}{}\overline{\chi }_\alpha R_{\alpha \beta }^{(k)}.$$
(9)
Define $`\widehat{\chi }_\beta `$ as the expansion coefficients of a ‘desired’ Hamiltonian and the coefficients $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\beta `$, the BB-modified evolution. E.g., for *storage* the target evolution would be one for which all $`\widehat{\chi }_\beta `$ vanish. For *computation* we would have a set of non-vanishing $`\widehat{\chi }_\beta `$ describing the Hamiltonian we would wish to implement M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001). The key idea of empirical BB is to use the experimentally determined $`\overline{\chi }_\alpha `$, together with a specified set of $`\widehat{\chi }_\beta `$ (corresponding to a desired evolution), to solve Eq. (9) for the rotation matrices $`R_{\alpha \beta }^{(k)}`$ such that $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\beta =\widehat{\chi }_\beta `$. These, in turn, determine a set of BB operations M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001). Thus, using the empirical BB method, *one may determine the required BB operations directly from experimental data*. In practice one would wish to minimize the difference between the target and BB-modified evolutions. This difference can be described by any of the standard measures of distance including the Euclidean distance between the corresponding vector fields M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001). Repeatedly performing the BB procedure determines the optimal BB process, given the available controls and accounting for constraints, through a control loop R.S. Judson and H. Rabitz (1992). In this manner only the experimentally relevant errors are ever addressed, thus potentially reducing the size of the set of BB operations.

### I.3 Bang-Bang Operations on Encoded Spaces

Since the introduction of QECC P.W. Shor (1995), encoding techniques have become extremely important. They have been used for DFSs P. Zanardi and M. Rasetti (1997); L.-M Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998a); D.A. Lidar, I.L. Chuang and K.B. Whaley (1998) and universality considerations D. Bacon, J. Kempe, D.A. Lidar and K.B. Whaley (2000); J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001); D. Bacon, J. Kempe, D.P. DiVincenzo, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001); D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, G. Burkard, and K.B. Whaley (2000); J. Levy (2002); S.C. Benjamin (2001); L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar (2002a); D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002); J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.P. DiVincenzo and K.B. Whaley (2001); J. Kempe and K.B. Whaley (2001); D.A. Lidar, L.-A. Wu, and A. Blais (2002), in some case combining DFS and QECC ideas D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon and K.B. Whaley (1999); D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, and K.B. Whaley (2001b); K. Khodjasteh and D.A. Lidar (2002). Here we wish to take advantage of the benefits of encoding techniques while reducing noise in quantum systems using BB operations (see also E.M. Fortunato, L. Viola, J. Hodges, G. Teklemariam, and D.G. Cory (2002); L. Viola (2002); N. Boulant, M.A. Pravia, E.M. Fortunato, T.F. Havel and D.G. Cory (2002) for related results and ideas). Indeed, it will be shown that BB operations on encoded operations can be very advantageous for the BB requirements as well. We believe that the methods for universal quantum computation and BB controls using the $`\{|01,|10\}`$ code (below) are of immediate value to solid-state QC implementations. Let us first present a generally applicable result which gives sufficient conditions for the elimination of errors on encoded spaces using BB operations. Let $`\overline{𝒢}`$ denote the generators of the group of logical operations (e.g., $`\overline{𝒢}=\{\overline{X},\overline{Y},\overline{Z}\}`$, acting as gates on a single encoded qubit). In analogy to standard BB theory Viola and Lloyd (1998); Duan and Guo (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999); Zanardi (1999a); Vitali and Tombesi (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill, and S. Lloyd (1999, 2000); D. Vitali and P. Tombesi (2002); M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001); D.G. Cory, R. Laflamme, E. Knill, L. Viola, T.F. Havel, N. Boulant, G. Boutis, E. Fortunato, S. Lloyd, R. Martinez, C. Negrevergne, M. Pravia, Y. Sharf, G. Teklemariam, Y.S. Weinstein, W.H. Zurek (2000); G.S. Agarwal, M.O. Scully, and H. Walther (2001); Uchiyama and Aihara (2002) we define “symmetrization of a Hamiltonian $`H`$ with respect to $`\overline{𝒢}`$” as: $`H_{U\overline{𝒢}}U^{}HU`$. We then have the following result, which is a straightforward generalization of the BB condition for unencoded qubits Zanardi (1999b); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999):

*Theorem 1*: Symmetrization with respect to $`\overline{𝒢}`$ suffices to completely decouple the dynamics of the encoded subspace.

*Proof*: Symmetrization takes any system-bath Hamiltonian and projects it onto the centralizer of the group generated by $`\overline{𝒢}`$ (i.e., the set of elements that commutes with all elements of this group). By irreducibility of the representation of $`\overline{𝒢}`$, it follows, from Shur’s Lemma, that the BB-modified system-bath Hamiltonian is proportional to identity on the code space. I.e., the code space dynamics will be decoupled.

This theorem shows that encoded BB operations may be combined with *any encoding*. Of particular interest are DFSs and QECCs. In addition, the sufficiency of the logical operations is important since they are assumed to be available in experiments. Later in this article we will discuss in detail a physically applicable case in which BB operations may be combined with a DFS. Here we briefly comment on how they may be combined with a QECC (see also the experiment N. Boulant, M.A. Pravia, E.M. Fortunato, T.F. Havel and D.G. Cory (2002)).

An obvious way in which BB operations may be used in conjunction with QECCs is the following: one may simply apply BB operations to each individual qubit. This may well reduce the error rate and thus make an error correction code feasible when it would not be otherwise. However, there are less obvious, but still beneficial techniques for combining these methods.

QECCs can often be described by a stabilizer $`𝒮=\{S_i\}`$ D. Gottesman (1996), which is a group that has all codewords as eigenstates with eigenvalue 1. The errors $`=\{E_j\}`$ that a stabilizer code can detect are exactly the operators that *anticommute* with at least one element of $`𝒮`$ D. Gottesman (1996). To every stabilizer QECC there also corresponds a set of logical operations (the normalizer), that is composed of operators that commute with the stabilizer, and thus preserve the code space. Every error $`E_j`$ also anticommutes with at least one of element of the normalizer: $`\{\overline{g}_i,E_l\}=0`$. This immediately implies that the logical operations can be used as elements of an encoded BB control scheme. The same is true for the elements of the stabilizer. Thus, *to suppress* $``$, *apply the generators of* $`𝒮`$ *or of the normalizer as a set of BB operations*. Furthermore, since syndrome measurement for a stabilizer code corresponds to measuring the elements of the stabilizer, BB operations can be applied during the measurement procedure. The final component of a QECC loop are recovery operations, which typically correspond to applying the inverse of the error operators. It is clear that therefore BB operations cannot be applied during recovery, as they anticommute with the recovery operations. Thus BB operations can be applied during the entire QECC procedure, with the exception of the recovery operations, without loss of the desired interaction. (See M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001) for a geometric explanation of this.)

For a demonstration of these considerations consider the following simple, but important example of trying to protect against all single qubit errors. The smallest QECC uses 5 physical qubits per logical qubit R. Laflamme, C. Miquel, J.P. Paz and W.H. Zurek (1996). Instead, we could start by encoding 1 logical qubit into 3: $`|0_L=|000`$, $`|1_L=|111`$, in order to protect just against independent bit flip errors $`_X=\{X_1,X_2,X_3\}`$ M.A. Nielsen and I.L. Chuang (2000) ($`X_i`$ represent the Pauli matrix $`\sigma _x`$ acting on the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ qubit, etc.). Given the conditions above, the logical operations come from the set $`\{\overline{X}=X_1X_2X_3,\overline{Y}=Y_1Y_2Y_3,\overline{Z}=Z_1Z_2Z_3\}`$. The three qubit code leaves independent phase flip errors $`_Z=\{Z_1,Z_2,Z_3\}`$. We can suppress these using the following BB operations on the encoded qubits. The stabilizer for the 3 qubit code for phase flips is $`𝒮_X=\{X_1X_2,X_2X_3,X_1X_3\}`$, which clearly anticommutes with $`_Z`$. Note that here $`X_iX_j`$ are gates, not Hamiltonians, and are therefore implemented using simultaneous application of the single-body Hamiltonians $`X_i`$ and $`X_j`$. Thus, frequent application of the stabilizer elements as parity kick operators will suppress the $`_Z`$ errors. Since they are elements of the stabilizer, they will commute with the logical operations and thus, in principle, can be simultaneously applied. These stabilizer operations will leave no component of error in the $`Y_i`$ or $`Z_i`$ directions when implemented as BB. When one measures for $`X_i`$ errors, they will be projected onto the eigenbasis in which the measurement is performed. This will not affect the $`Y_i`$ or $`Z_i`$ directions. The advantage of these schemes, compared to the 5-qubit code R. Laflamme, C. Miquel, J.P. Paz and W.H. Zurek (1996), is in the conservation of qubit resources. Of course, this comes at the expense of additional gate operations which must be included in the QECC circuitry, but this may well be a worthwhile trade-off in situations where qubits are scarce. We now turn to an explicit demonstration of combining DFS and BB to QC proposals based on exchange-type interactions.

## II QC in Solid State Devices

We now wish to discuss the application of the aforementioned techniques to quantum computing (QC) devices which use a form of the exchange interaction with particular emphasis on solid state proposals. Essentially all promising solid-state QC proposals For  are based on either direct or effective exchange interactions between qubits, with a Hamiltonian of the form

$$H_{\mathrm{ex}}=\underset{i<j}{}J_{ij}^xX_iX_j+J_{ij}^yY_iY_j+J_{ij}^zZ_iZ_j.$$
(10)
Representative examples are quantum dots D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1998); G. Burkard, D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1999); X. Hu and S. Das Sarma (2000); A. Imamo$`\overline{\mathrm{g}}`$lu, D.D. Awschalom, G. Burkard, D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Loss, M. Sherwin and A. Small (1999); E. Pazy, E. Biolatti, T. Calarco, I. D’Amico, P. Zanardi, F. Rossi and P. Zoller ; J. Levy (2001), nuclear B.E. Kane (1998) or electron R. Vrijen, E. Yablonovitch, K. Wang, H.W. Jiang, A. Balandin, V. Roychowdhury, T. Mor, and D. DiVincenzo (2000) spins of donor atoms in silicon, quantum Hall systems D. Mozyrsky, V. Privman, and M.L. Glasser (2001), and electrons on helium P.M. Platzman and M.I. Dykman (1999). These implementations combine scalability with a clear route to controllability of qubit interactions via tunable exchange couplings $`J_{ij}^\alpha `$. At the same time two major problems arise in these proposals. Problem I: This, inherent problem, is shared by all other QC proposals, and concerns the inevitable coupling to the environment (lattice, impurities, and other degrees of freedom). This coupling leads to decoherence, which introduces computational errors that must either be prevented in the first place P. Zanardi and M. Rasetti (1997); L.-M Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998a); D.A. Lidar, I.L. Chuang and K.B. Whaley (1998), frequently corrected P.W. Shor (1995); A.M. Steane (1996); D. Gottesman (1996), or suppressed Viola and Lloyd (1998); Duan and Guo (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999); Zanardi (1999a); Vitali and Tombesi (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill, and S. Lloyd (1999, 2000); D. Vitali and P. Tombesi (2002); M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001); D.G. Cory, R. Laflamme, E. Knill, L. Viola, T.F. Havel, N. Boulant, G. Boutis, E. Fortunato, S. Lloyd, R. Martinez, C. Negrevergne, M. Pravia, Y. Sharf, G. Teklemariam, Y.S. Weinstein, W.H. Zurek (2000); G.S. Agarwal, M.O. Scully, and H. Walther (2001); Uchiyama and Aihara (2002). Problem II: This, technological problem, is to some extent unique to solid-state QC architectures, and concerns the fact that different constraints are involved in implementing single-qubit versus two-qubit operations, for a variety of reasons detailed, e.g., in L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar (2002a). In fact the single-qubit operations often involve significantly more demanding constraints. A large body of literature has been devoted to overcoming the decoherence problem (for a review see M.A. Nielsen and I.L. Chuang (2000)), some pertaining directly to quantum dots G. Burkard, D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Loss, and J.A. Smolin (1999). A number of recent papers have proposed solutions to the different constraints imposed by single and two qubit operations D. Bacon, J. Kempe, D.A. Lidar and K.B. Whaley (2000); J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001); D. Bacon, J. Kempe, D.P. DiVincenzo, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001); D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, G. Burkard, and K.B. Whaley (2000); J. Levy (2002); S.C. Benjamin (2001); L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar (2002a); D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002); J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.P. DiVincenzo and K.B. Whaley (2001); J. Kempe and K.B. Whaley (2001); D.A. Lidar, L.-A. Wu, and A. Blais (2002). Here, we propose a comprehensive and realistic solution to both problems.

### II.1 Encoding

We use a well-known code, first proposed in a quantum information context in G.M. Palma, K.-A. Suominen and A.K. Ekert (1996). Blocks of two qubits encode single logical qubits as follows:

$$|0_L_i|0_{2i1}|1_{2i},|1_L|1_{2i1}|0_{2i}.$$
(11)
Here $`i=1,\mathrm{},N/2`$ indexes logical qubits, and $`N`$ is the total number of physical qubits. It is simple to see how logic operations can be performed on this code. Let us denote encoded logical operations by a bar; they act on the encoded qubits in the same manner as the unencoded operations act on physical qubits. E.g., $`\overline{X}|0_L=|1_L`$ and $`\overline{X}|1_L=|0_L`$. Then, the single-encoded-qubit logic operations, defined by $`\overline{X}_i=(X_{2i1}X_{2i}+Y_{2i1}Y_{2i})/2`$ and $`\overline{Z}_i=(Z_{2i1}Z_{2i})/2`$, viewed as controllable Hamiltonians, can be used to generate all encoded-qubit $`SU(2)`$ transformations. Together with the two-encoded-qubits operation $`\overline{Z_iZ}_{i+1}=Z_{2i}Z_{2i+1}`$ that couples qubits in two neighboring blocks, and which can be used to implement a controlled-phase transformation M.A. Nielsen and I.L. Chuang (2000) between encoded qubits $`i,i+1`$, they form a *universal set of Hamiltonians* on the space of encoded qubits L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar (2002a). Universality means that by selectively turning the Hamiltonians $`\{\overline{X}_i,\overline{Z}_i,\overline{Z_iZ}_{i+1}\}`$ on/off it is possible to generate the Lie group $`U(2^{N/2})`$ of all possible transformations on the encoded qubits. Let us assume that the single-qubit spectrum is non-degenerate, but not necessarily controllable, i.e. the free Hamiltonian of the qubit system is $`_iϵ_i\sigma _i^z`$, with $`ϵ_iϵ_j`$, but the $`ϵ_i`$ are not separately tunable. As shown in D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002) it is then in fact sufficient to actively control *only* $`\overline{X}_i`$ in order to achieve (encoded) universality, in the Heisenberg ($`J_{ij}^x=J_{ij}^y=J_{ij}^z`$), XXZ ($`J_{ij}^x=J_{ij}^yJ_{ij}^z`$), and XY ($`J_{ij}^x=J_{ij}^y`$, $`J_{ij}^z=0`$) instances of the general exchange Hamiltonian, Eq. (10). The “encoded recoupling” method introduced to this end in D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002) generalizes the standard NMR selective recoupling method by applying pulses not to “bare” (physical) qubits, but instead to encoded (logical) qubits. Encoded recoupling eliminates the need for single-qubit control in exchange-based quantum computer architectures and thus solves Problem II.

The second advantage of the above encoding is that it is a DFS with regard to collective phase errors G.M. Palma, K.-A. Suominen and A.K. Ekert (1996); L.-M Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998a); D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon and K.B. Whaley (1999); J. Kempe, D. Bacon, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley (2001); P.G. Kwiat, A.J. Berglund, J.B. Altepeter, and A.G. White (2000); D. Kielpinski, V. Meyer, M.A. Rowe, C.A. Sackett, W.M. Itano, C. Monroe, and D.J. Wineland (2001). Suppose the system is affected by a system-bath interaction Hamiltonian $`H_I=S_zB_z`$, where $`S_z=_iZ_i`$ is the collective dephasing operator. For logical qubit states $`|\psi _L=a|0_L+b|1_L`$, it is simple to check that $`S_z|\psi _L=0`$, so that $`H_I`$ does not affect the code. The collective errors are expected to be particularly relevant for solid-state systems at low temperatures and dephasing is one of the main problems in this class of quantum computing devices. The DFS property of the above encoding is therefore a partial solution to Problem I. However, collective dephasing is by necessity an approximation. In realistic solid-state devices there are other types of errors arising from a variety of sources. It is our goal in this paper to show how the methods reviewed thus far can be extended in a simple and realistic manner, to deal with these other sources of decoherence. In particular, we now turn to the combination of these techniques with the method of BB controls, except that, in the spirit of encoded recoupling D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002), we apply these controls on the space of encoded qubits (see also E.M. Fortunato, L. Viola, J. Hodges, G. Teklemariam, and D.G. Cory (2002); L. Viola (2002)). The DFS encoding together with BB operations on the encoded qubits will serve to counter decoherence, while the method of encoded recoupling will allow for universal quantum computation on the encoded qubits. The result of combining these three techniques is the basis for our claim of a comprehensive solution to problems of noise and design in solid-state quantum computing.

### II.2 Applying Bang Bang Operations on a Decoherence-Free Subspace

As noted above, the logical qubits of Eq. (11) are immune to collective dephasing errors $`Z_{2i1}+Z_{2i}`$. Let us focus on the first encoded qubit ($`i=1`$), and consider which other errors can act on it. A basis for all possible errors are the $`2^4`$ different tensor products of all Pauli matrices (including the identity $`I`$) acting on two qubits. Now, in general, four types of operations that affect a DFS can be identified D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon and K.B. Whaley (1999): (i) The set of 2 operations to which the DFS is invariant – ($`I,Z_1+Z_2`$); (ii) The set of 3 operations that take states outside of the DFS to other states which are also outside of the DFS. Both (i) and (ii) have no effect on the DFS. (iii) The set of 3 logical operations – \[$`\overline{X}=(X_1X_2+Y_1Y_2)/2,\overline{Y}=(X_1Y_2Y_1X_2)/2,\overline{Z}=(Z_1Z_2)/2`$\]. When acting uncontrollably, these operations can cause *logical* errors. (iv) The set of 8 operations which mix DFS states with states out of the DFS – see Eq. (12). These operations are responsible for leakage from and into the DFS. Sets (iii) and (iv) are those that damage the encoding. Both can cause decoherence by entangling the encoded information with uncontrollable bath degrees of freedom. Let us now apply this classification to our code. A basis for the leakage errors (iv) is represented by the following set of operators:

$$\{X_1,X_2,Y_1,Y_2,X_1Z_2,Z_1X_2,Y_1Z_2,Z_1Y_2\}.$$
(12)
This error set can clearly be seen to take the encoded states of Eq. (11) out of the DFS (and vice versa) since it involves single bit flips, or bit and phase flips on individual physical qubits.

We now come to a crucial observation first made in M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2002). Let $`U_{\overline{X}}(\varphi )\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi \overline{X})`$. Then, *a single BB pulse of the form*

$$U_{\overline{X}}(\pi )=\mathrm{exp}(i\pi (X_1X_2+Y_1Y_2)/2)=Z_1Z_2,$$
(13)
*can eliminate all type (iv) leakage errors*. That this is so follows since $`U_{\overline{X}}(\pi )`$ anticommutes with all of the errors in Eq. (12). As noted above \[Eq. (1)\], this is the condition for the parity kick version of BB controls. Thus, all type (iv) leakage errors can be eliminated by a *single* pair of BB pulses per cycle. This single pulse pair aspect is extremely important given the severe time constraints under which BB must operate.

In order to implement the BB operation $`U_{\overline{X}}(\pi )`$ it is necessary to be able to switch on the Hamiltonian $`J(X_1X_2+Y_1Y_2)`$ for a time $`t=\pi /2J`$. This (XY) Hamiltonian is directly available in a number of QC proposals (quantum dots/atoms in cavities A. Imamo$`\overline{\mathrm{g}}`$lu, D.D. Awschalom, G. Burkard, D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Loss, M. Sherwin and A. Small (1999); S.-B. Zheng and G.-C Guo (2000), quantum Hall systems D. Mozyrsky, V. Privman, and M.L. Glasser (2001)). In dealing with systems that are governed by the Heisenberg or XXZ Hamiltonians, the encoded selective recoupling method can be used make these Hamiltonians simulate the XY type D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002). The Heisenberg case applies to the spin-coupled quantum dots and donor-spin proposals of D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1998); B.E. Kane (1998). The XXZ case applies directly to the electrons on helium proposal P.M. Platzman and M.I. Dykman (1999), and to the XY and Heisenberg proposals if symmetry breaking mechanisms are taken into account L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar (2002a); D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002). We note that spin-orbit coupling induces anisotropic terms that appear as corrections to Eq. (10) K.V. Kavokin (2001). Methods for treating these have recently been suggested N.E. Bonesteel, D. Stepanenko, and D.P. DiVincenzo (2001); G. Burkard and D. Loss (2002); L.-A. Wu and D.A. Lidar (2002b). Thus the method using $`U_{\overline{X}}(\pi )`$ for eliminating leakage is applicable to a wide range of solid state QC proposals.

The elimination of all leakage errors by a single pair of BB operations per cycle is a rather drastic alternative to the severe, factor of 5, qubit overhead incurred by attempting to do the same using a concatenation of DFS and QECC encoding D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon and K.B. Whaley (1999). The advantage is somewhat diminished if one is also worried about the type (iii), logical, errors, which the DFS-QECC concatenation method is capable of correcting at no extra cost D.A. Lidar, D. Bacon and K.B. Whaley (1999). Note first that $`U_X(\pi /2)=i\overline{X}`$ anticommutes with both $`\overline{Y}`$ and $`\overline{Z}`$. Thus in fact *all but one error* ($`\overline{X}`$ itself) *can be eliminated using just the single BB control Hamiltonian* $`\overline{X}`$. In order to eliminate $`\overline{X}`$ as a logical error we must introduce other BB controls, $`\overline{Z}=(Z_1Z_2)/2`$, and $`\overline{Y}=i[\overline{Z},\overline{X}]`$ which, by the theorem above, can then be used to eliminate other errors. To the extent that these operations are available, this is a reasonable proposition. However, since one of our goals was to avoid needing to directly control single qubits, it is reassuring that the encoded recoupling method D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002) can be used here again, in order to switch on/off the Hamiltonian term $`\overline{Z}`$ by controlling $`\overline{X}`$ alone.

To summarize thus far, we have shown that the DFS encoding $`|0_L=|01`$, $`|1_L=|10`$, which is immune to collective dephasing errors, can be made robust against all leakage errors in conjunction with the *single* BB pulse $`\mathrm{exp}(i\pi \overline{X})`$. To further eliminate all logical errors it is necessary to introduce two more BB pulses, which can also be obtained from pulsing the XY Hamiltonian $`\overline{X}=(X_1X_2+Y_1Y_2)/2`$. This seems like a modest set of requirements for the elimination of *all* decoherence errors on a single logical qubit, provided that the BB cycle time can indeed be made much smaller than the bath timescale, as in Eq. (2). We turn to an evaluation of this issue next, in the context of quantum dots.

### II.3 Estimation of Bath Cutoff Frequency in Quantum Dots

Here we are primarily concerned with the spin-based GaAs quantum dots QC proposals D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1998); G. Burkard, D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1999); X. Hu and S. Das Sarma (2000); A. Imamo$`\overline{\mathrm{g}}`$lu, D.D. Awschalom, G. Burkard, D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Loss, M. Sherwin and A. Small (1999). The main spin relaxation and dephasing channels for electron-spin qubits in GaAs have been recently thoroughly reviewed in X. Hu, R. de Sousa and S. Das Sarma . The dominant low temperature mechanisms are related to spin-orbit coupling, which couples spins to impurities and the lattice. Nevertheless, a lack of detailed understanding of the various decoherence mechanisms persists. It is noteworthy that our approach to error suppression does not rely on a detailed microscopic understanding of these mechanisms. In the case of GaAs quantum dots, experimental estimates for the spin dephasing time $`T_2`$ are $`100ns`$ J.M. Kikkawa and D.D. Awschalom (1998). We are not aware of direct measurements or theoretical calculations of the bath cutoff frequency $`1/\tau _c`$ in these systems. Nevertheless, we can provide positive evidence for the ability to achieve the required BB pulse rates.

We consider the spin-bath and spin-boson models, which are rather general models of low energy effective Hamiltonians, adaptable to a surprisingly wide range of problems, including ours. The spin-boson model describes dephasing due to coupling to delocalized modes (lattice vibrations), while the spin-bath model captures the coupling to localized modes, such as nuclear and paramagnetic spins, and defects N.V. Prokof’ev and P.C.E. Stamp (2000). In both models it can be shown that the characteristic decay time of coherence, $`T_2=f(\tau _c,T)`$ ($`\tau _c`$ is the inverse of the bath spectral density high-frequency cutoff, $`T`$ is the temperature), and the function $`f`$ can be analytically determined in various cases Viola and Lloyd (1998); U. Weiss (1993); G.M. Palma, K.-A. Suominen and A.K. Ekert (1996); D.A. Lidar, Z. Bihary, and K.B. Whaley (2001); N.V. Prokof’ev and P.C.E. Stamp (2000). Note that exponential coherence decay is rigorously valid only in the Markovian limit: e.g., in the spin-boson model at $`T=0`$ with Ohmic damping, coherence decays polynomially as $`1/(1+(t/\tau _c)^2)`$ U. Weiss (1993), in which case one can identify $`T_2=\tau _c`$. In fact, since $`\tau _c`$ is the primary timescale describing the bath, it is not unreasonable to quite generally identify $`T_2=c(T)\tau _c`$, where $`c`$ is a function that depends only on $`T`$. This is supported by a variety of instances of the spin-boson and spin-bath models, differing by the specific form of the bath spectral density. Furthermore, at low temperature $`c(T)1`$. Given $`T_2100ns`$ J.M. Kikkawa and D.D. Awschalom (1998), we thus conservatively estimate $`\tau _c1100ns`$ for spin-coupled GaAs quantum dots. The gate operation time in these systems is of the order of $`50ps`$ X. Hu, R. de Sousa and S. Das Sarma , and cannot be made much shorter because of induced spin-orbit excitations G. Burkard, D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo (1999). Thus a range of $`202000`$ BB parity-kick pulses seems attainable. The first order correction to the ideal limit of infinitely fast and strong BB operations is $`O((T_c/\tau _c)^2)`$ Viola and Lloyd (1998), which, for parity kicks, in our case therefore translates to a correction of $`O(10^2)`$-$`O(10^6)`$.

## III Conclusions

To reduce noise and improve the reliability of quantum computing devices, new methods will have to be employed which take into account the constraints on current experiments. In particular, qubits are scarce resources today and will be in the near future. In order to reduce qubit overhead in different error correction/avoidance encodings, we have presented two results for making the recently introduced BB operations more practical in present-day experiments. The first is the theorem which gives necessary conditions for the removal of all errors on encoded spaces using logical operations alone. The importance of this result lies in its generality; Theorem 1 gives sufficient conditions, in terms of logical operations, for the removal of all errors on an encoded subspaces via bang-bang controls using logical operations only. Particularly important is the potential for combining the error suppression methods of BB operations Viola and Lloyd (1998); Duan and Guo (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999); Zanardi (1999a); Vitali and Tombesi (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill, and S. Lloyd (1999, 2000); D. Vitali and P. Tombesi (2002); M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001), with DFSs P. Zanardi and M. Rasetti (1997); L.-M Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998a); D.A. Lidar, I.L. Chuang and K.B. Whaley (1998) and QECCs P.W. Shor (1995); A.M. Steane (1996); D. Gottesman (1996),. The second result emphasizes the practical concerns of the experimentalist. Without relying on a particular model Hamiltonian we may, using quantum process tomography M.A. Nielsen and I.L. Chuang (2000), determine an appropriate and efficient set of BB controls for physical and/or logical quantum computational states.

Application of our methods results in a rather comprehensive solution to problems of decoherence and gate implementation in quantum computer proposals governed by exchange Hamiltonians. Our solution combines ideas from the theory of decoherence-free subspaces P. Zanardi and M. Rasetti (1997); L.-M Duan and G.-C. Guo (1998a); D.A. Lidar, I.L. Chuang and K.B. Whaley (1998) and bang-bang (BB) controls Viola and Lloyd (1998); Duan and Guo (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill and S. Lloyd (1999); Zanardi (1999a); Vitali and Tombesi (1999); L. Viola, E. Knill, and S. Lloyd (1999, 2000); D. Vitali and P. Tombesi (2002); M.S. Byrd and D.A. Lidar (2001), and the recently proposed method of encoded selective recoupling D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002). By encoding logical qubits into pairs of physical qubits a first level of protection against collective decoherence is obtained, which can be further significantly enhanced using a *single* type of BB operation, that can eliminate all leakage errors from the DFS. Two more BB operations are required to suppress *all* other decoherence errors. We have estimated that $`101000`$ parity-kick cycles can realistically be implemented in the case of GaAs spin-coupled quantum dots within the bath correlation time. In conjunction with the elimination of the need for difficult-to-implement single qubit operations enabled by the encoded recoupling method D.A. Lidar and L.-A. Wu (2002), we believe that our methods offer a realistic and comprehensive solution to some of the major difficulties associated with the design of quantum dot, and other exchange-based solid state quantum computers.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Dr. L-A. Wu and Dr. K. Shiokawa for helpful discussions. This material is based on research sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under the QuIST program and managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFOSR), under agreement F49620-01-1-0468 (to D.A.L.). The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the Air Force Research Laboratory or the U.S. Government.


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# Pair distribution function in a two-dimensional electron gas

## I Introduction

There has recently been a growth of interest in studying the pair distribution function, $`g(r)`$, in electron gas models,davoudi02 ; capurro02 ; gori01 ; Polini01  caused mainly by its relevance in non-local density functional theories. perdew96 ; chacon88 ; Gunnar79  The zero inter-electronic distance value, $`g(r=0)`$, also appears in the large wavevector and the high frequency limits of the electronic charge and spin response functions. niklasson ; zhu84  The importance of $`g(r)`$ lies in its connection with the electronic exchange and correlation of the electron gas model. Moreover, theoretical calculations of the pair distribution function can be directly compared with material properties since $`g(r)`$ is the Fourier transform of the static structure factor.

The pair-distribution function is the probability of finding a pair of electrons at a distance $`r`$ from each other. Therefore, the average number of electrons in a spherical shell centered on an given electron is $`ng(r)\mathrm{\Omega }_Dr^{D1}dr`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Dr^{D1}dr`$ is the volume of the D-dimensional shell and $`n=N/V`$ is the uniform electron density. At large distances, $`g(r)`$ approaches $`1`$, whereas near the origin, where the electron charge is depleted, it is small on account of the Pauli exclusion principle and the exchange and correlation effects associated with the Coulomb interaction.

The subject of this paper is an analysis of the pair correlation function dependence on the inter-electronic distance and electron density in a two dimensional, interacting, spin polarized electron system. Calculations of $`g(r)`$ in the two-dimensional paramagnetic electron gas have been reported by Freeman Freeman83  and Nagano et al.Nagano84  within the ladder approximation, by Tanatar and CeperleyTan89  using the diffusion quantum Monte Carlo method (QMC) and, more recently, by Bulutay and TanatarBulu02  using the hypernetted-chain approximation (CHNC). Moreover, an analytical expression of $`g(0)`$ has previously been derived by Polini et al.Polini01

In order to calculate $`g(r)`$, we follow the approach developed in three dimensional systems by Overhauser Over71  and further refined in Ref. Over95,  and gori01, . This method is based on the relation between $`g(r)`$ and the two-electron scattering problem in an appropriately chosen effective potential which will be discussed in detail in the following sections. In addition to obtaining the variation of the pair distribution function as a function of the coupling-strength, $`r_s`$, and of the spin polarization, we also derive an analytic expression for $`g(0)`$:

$$g(0)=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{[1+0.6032r_s+0.07263r_s^2]^2}.$$
(1)
This expression is found to agree very well with the results of the most recent numerical calculations.Tan89 ; Bulu02  We also compare our results with the expression derived in Ref. Polini01, .

## II Effective model for the pair distribution function

A spin-polarized electron gas is characterized, in equilibrium, by two parameters: the electronic density, or its equivalent $`r_s`$, and the polarization, $`\zeta =(n_{}n_{})/(n_{}+n_{})`$, where $`n_{}`$ and $`n_{}`$ are the spin-up and -down electron densities. For this system, the pair distribution function is given by

$$g(\rho )=\frac{1}{4}[(1+\zeta )^2g_{}(\rho )+2(1\zeta ^2)g_{}(\rho )+(1\zeta )^2g_{}(\rho )],$$
(2)
where $`g_{\sigma \sigma ^{^{}}}`$ are the spin resolved pair distribution functions. Following Overhauser,Over95  $`g_{\sigma \sigma ^{^{}}}`$ can be related with the two-electron wave functions as:gori01

$`g_{}(\rho )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{singlet}}(\rho )|^2_{p_{}(k)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{triplet}}(\rho )|^2_{p_{}(k)},`$ (3)
$`g_{}(\rho )=|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{triplet}}(\rho )|^2_{p_{}(k)},`$ (4)
$`g_{}(\rho )=|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{triplet}}(\rho )|^2_{p_{}(k)},`$ (5)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{singlet}}(\rho )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{triplet}}(\rho )`$ are, respectively, the two-electron wave function for the singlet and triplet states and $`\mathrm{}_{p_{\sigma \sigma ^{^{}}}(k)}`$ denotes the average over the probability of finding two electrons with relative momentum $`k`$ and spins $`\sigma `$ and $`\sigma ^{^{}}`$.gori01

The wave function of an electron pair, $`𝚿(\rho )`$, verifies an effective Schrödinger equation:

$$\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}\left(\frac{^2𝚿}{\rho ^2}+\frac{1}{\rho }\frac{𝚿}{\rho }+\frac{1}{\rho ^2}\frac{^2𝚿}{\varphi ^2}\right)+V(\rho )𝚿=E𝚿,$$
(6)
where $`V(\rho )`$ is the effective potential, $`m^{}=m/2`$ is the reduced mass and $`E`$ is the energy of the electron pair, which is approximated by $`\mathrm{}^2k^2/(2m^{})`$. Since the solution to this equation can be written as $`𝚿={\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}\mathrm{cos}(m\varphi )\mathrm{\Psi }_m(\rho )`$, the spin resolved pair distribution functions become

$`g_{}(\rho )=|\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\rho )|^2_{p_{}(k)}+2{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_m(\rho )|^2_{p_{}(k)},`$ (7)
$`g_{}(\rho )=4{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{m}\mathrm{odd}}{}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_m(\rho )|^2_{p_{}(k)}.`$ (8)
Overhauser’s method relies on the appropriate selection of an effective potential capturing the short range correlation effects of the Coulomb interaction. In three dimensions, Overhauser chose the electrical potential created by an electron and a neutralizing sphere of uniform charge with radius $`r_s`$ surrounding it.Over71 ; Over95  The effective potential is expected to mimic the true one when the relative distance between electrons verifies $`r<r_s`$. When $`r>r_s`$ the potential vanishes and is not expected to be close to the true potential felt by an electron moving in a uniform electron gas. This approach is equivalent to assume that the probability of finding three electrons in a sphere of radius $`r_s`$ is exactly zero.gori01  Numerical estimates of this probability for a three-dimensional interacting electron gasZiesche00  have shown that is indeed small and we expect the same result holds in two dimensions.

Following this procedure, in two dimensions, we might approximate the screened Coulomb potential by the potential of an electron surrounded by a circle of radius $`r_s`$ uniformly filled with screening charge density $`ne=e/(\pi r_s^2)`$. For convenience, we introduce dimensionless variables, $`x=\rho /r_s`$ and $`V(x)=V(\rho )/(e^2/r_s)`$, where $`r_s`$ is measured in units of Bohr radius ($`a_B=\mathrm{}^2/me^2`$),

$`V(x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}E(x),x1`$ (9)
$`V(x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}x\left[E\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}\right)\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2}}\right)K\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}\right)\right],x1`$
where $`K(x)`$ and $`E(x)`$ are, respectively, the complete elliptic integral of first and second kind. The screened potential of a uniformly charged disk of radius $`r_s`$ with an electron at its center does not vanish, but it has an attractive long-range tail, $`V(x\mathrm{}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{8x^3}}`$. Since we are interested on obtaining an analytical expression for $`g(0)`$, a further simplification of the effective potential is needed. Since Overhauser’s effective potential is not reliable outside the disk of radius $`r_s`$, the most reasonable simplification is to make it zero outside this disk. To avoid a discontinuity in the effective potential and considering that $`V(x)`$ is arbitrary to the extent that a constant can be added to it, we subtract from the potential in the region where $`x1`$ its value at $`x=1`$, $`V_0=1(4/\pi )`$. Thus, our effective potential is:

$`V(x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}E(x)+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}1,x1`$ (10)
$`V(x)=0,x1.`$
Figure 1 displays the initial effective potential from Eq. (9) together with our election of effective potential, Eq. (10), and Polini et al. choice Polini01 , which was based on a previous variational calculation. Nagy99  The main difference between the effective potential used in Ref. Polini01,  and ours is that the former one has a discontinuity at $`\rho =\sqrt{\pi }r_s/2`$ while ours is always continuous.

Using Eq. (10) for the electronic potential, the Schrödinger equation becomes:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\mathrm{\Psi }_m}{dx^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Psi }_m}{dx}}+\left(q^2{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{x^2}}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)=0,x1,`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\mathrm{\Psi }_m}{dx^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Psi }_m}{dx}}+\left(q^2{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{x^2}}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)`$
$`r_s\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}E(x)+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}1\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)=0,x1,`$ (11)
where the relative momentum is also renormalized, $`q=kr_s`$. The general solution for $`x1`$ is given by $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)=J_m(qx)+B_m(q,r_s)N_m(qx)`$, where $`J_m`$ is the Bessel function of order $`m`$ and $`N_m`$ is the corresponding Neumann’s function. The coefficient $`B_m(q,r_s)`$ can be written as $`B_m(q,r_s)=cot(\delta _m(q,r_s))`$, where $`\delta _m(q,r_s)`$ is the wave function phase shift due to the presence of the scattering potential.phaseshift

To find the solution inside the circle of radius unity we make a Taylor expansion of the pair wave function: $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)={\displaystyle \underset{n=m}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\alpha _{m,n}x^n`$. We arrive to the following recurrent relation between the coefficients:

$`(n^2m^2)\alpha _{m,n}=r_s\{\alpha _{m,n1}+({\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}3)\alpha _{m,n2}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}𝒜(r)\alpha _{m,n2r2}\}q^2\alpha _{m,n2},`$ (12)
where $`𝒜(r)=2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(2r1)!!}{2^rr!}}\right]^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2r1}}`$. As a consequence of this recurrent relation, every $`\alpha _{m,n}`$ is proportional to $`\alpha _{m,m}`$ and a function of $`r_s`$ and $`q`$, $`\alpha _{m,n}=\alpha _{m,m}F_n(r_s,q)`$.

In order to solve Eq. (11) we match $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)`$ and its derivative at $`x=1`$:

$`\alpha _{m,m}G_m(r_s,q)=J_m(q)+B_m(q,r_s)N_m(q)`$ (13)
$`\alpha _{m,m}\stackrel{~}{F}_m(r_s,q)=qJ_m^{^{}}(q)+B_m(q,r_s)qN_m^{^{}}(q)`$ (14)
where $`G_m(r_s,q)={\displaystyle \underset{n=m}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}F_n(r_s,q)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{F}_m(r_s,q)={\displaystyle \underset{n=m}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}nF_n(r_s,q)`$. For a given momentum transfer and coupling strength the parameters $`\alpha _{m,m}`$ and $`\delta _m(q,r_s)`$ become

$$\alpha _{m,m}(q,r_s)=\frac{J_m(q)+\mathrm{cot}(\delta _m(q,r_s))N_m(q)}{G_m(r_s,q)},\mathrm{and}$$
(15)
$$\mathrm{cot}(\delta _m(q,r_s))=\frac{\stackrel{~}{F}_m(r_s,q)J_m(q)G_m(r_s,q)qJ_m^{^{}}(q)}{G_m(r_s,q)qN_m^{^{}}(q)\stackrel{~}{F}_m(r_s,q)N_m(q)}.$$
(16)
The pair wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)`$ are computed for any value of $`q`$ and $`r_s`$ using Eqs. (15) and (16) and the spin resolved pair distribution functions are calculated using Eqs. (7) and (8) and an appropriate choice for the distribution of the relative momentum of an electron pair. For simplicity, we use the probability distribution of a free Fermi gas. For the unpolarized electron system, the probability of a pair with momentum $`q`$ is independent of the spin orientation and proportional to the overlap between two circles of radius $`k_F`$ displaced by $`2q`$,Ziesche00

$$p_{\sigma \sigma ^{^{}}}(q)=\frac{16q}{\pi k_F^2}\left[\mathrm{arccos}\left(\frac{q}{k_F}\right)\left(\frac{q}{k_F}\right)\sqrt{1\left(\frac{q}{k_F}\right)^2}\right].$$
(17)
Figures 2 and 3 display our results for the pair distribution function of the unpolarized system at $`r_s=1`$ and $`r_s=5`$, respectively. We have used seven ($`m_{max}=7`$) partial waves and up to $`n=50`$ terms for the expansion of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_m(x)`$ in the internal disk. Our results at moderate coupling strengths agree quite well with the QMC data.Tan89  However, at larger values of $`r_s`$ our method is unable to reproduce the strong quantum oscillations of the numerical results. This discrepancy is expected and shared by previous calculations using a self-consistent Hartree scheme.davoudi02  With decreasing dimensionality the role of exchange and correlations becomes more important and a screened Coulomb potential is insufficient to completely capture this physics. The introduction of self-consistent spin-dependent effective potentials have probed able to reproduce more closely the numerical results in this range of densities.capurro02

## III Pair distribution function at the origin

At zero distance, $`g_{}(\rho =0)`$ vanishes on account of the Pauli exclusion principle, while $`g_{}(\rho =0)`$ is determined by the $`m=0`$ component of the two-body wave function,

$$g_{}(\rho =0)=|\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\rho =0)|^2_{p_{}(k)}=|\alpha _{0,0}|^2_{p_{}(k)}.$$
(18)
Since the distribution of the relative momentum of an electron pair is a smooth function, a good estimate of $`|\alpha _{0,0}|^2_{p_{}(k)}`$ is obtained by making an expansion around the momentum where the distribution reach its maximum as:

$$\alpha _{0,0}\frac{1}{G(r_s)},$$
(19)
where the momentum dependence of $`G`$ have been dropped. Using the recurrent relation (12), we obtain a series expansion of $`G(r_s)`$:

$`G(r_s)=1+r_s\left\{a_1+{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝒜(m)}{(2m+2)^2}}\right\}+`$
$`+r_s^2\{a_2+{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝒜(m)[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2m+3)^2}}(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2m+2)^2}})+`$
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2m+4)^2}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{(2m+2)^2}}\right)+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝒜(n){\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2n+2)^2(2n+2m+4)^2}}]\}+O(r_s^3)`$
$`(1+0.6032r_s+0.07263r_s^2)`$ (20)
where $`a_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}`$ and $`a_2={\displaystyle \frac{5}{9\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\right)^2`$.

We can obtain $`g(0)`$ at any order in the expansion on the parameter $`r_s`$ since that $`g(\rho =0)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{}(0)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{G(r_s)^2}}`$. To first order in the expansion of $`G(r_s)`$ the pair distribution is:

$$g(\rho =0)=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{[1+0.6032r_s]^2}.$$
(21)
To second order we recover Eq. (1). Our approximation procedure also allows us to sum all the orders as:

$$g(\rho =0)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\alpha _{0,n}}{\alpha _{0,0}}\right)^2.$$
(22)
Finally, we also calculate $`g(0)`$ performing the average over the distribution of relative momenta:

$$g(0)=\frac{1}{2}g_{}(0)=\frac{1}{2}_0^{k_F}p(q)|\alpha _{0,0}(q,r_s)|^2𝑑q$$
(23)
where $`\alpha _{0,0}(q,r_s)`$ is given by Eq. (15) and (16) and $`p(q)`$ by Eq. (17).

Fig. 4 displays the pair distribution function of a two-dimensional unpolarized electron gas at the origin as a function of the coupling-strength $`r_s`$. Results of the first order in the analytic expansion on $`r_s`$, Eq. (21), the second order, Eq. (1), and the infinite order solution, Eq. (22), together with the momentum average results, Eq. (23), are displayed. In addition, the results of the numerical calculation of Bulutay and Tanatar Bulu02  and the recent estimate by Polini et al.Polini01  are also included for comparison. Several conclusions can be gathered. By adding additional terms in the analytical expansion on $`r_s`$ we are able to closely approach the numerical resultsBulu02  in the low-density regime. Note that Eq. (1) is already a reliable analytical expression for $`g(0)`$. Fig. 4 also shows that the results of the momentum average approach, Eq. (23), are slightly below Bulutay and Tanatar results for small $`r_s`$, but become even closer to the numerical curve in the low-density regime. In this regime, the analytical expression obtained on Ref. Polini01,  displays much larger values of $`g(0)`$ than the available numerical data.Tan89 ; Bulu02

The contact value of the pair distribution function changes when the electron gas is polarized. The spin polarization directly appears on the expression for $`g(0)`$, $`g(0)={\displaystyle \frac{1\zeta ^2}{2}}g_{}(0)`$. In addition, the polarization modifies the distribution of momenta of the electron pair and, as consequence, the value of $`g_{}(0)`$. We calculate the spin resolved pair distribution function as:

$$g_{}(\zeta ,\rho =0)=_0^{k_+}p_\zeta (q)|\alpha _{0,0}(q,r_s)|^2𝑑q.$$
(24)
where $`p_\zeta (q)`$ is the distribution of relative momentum in the polarized electron gas:

$`p_\zeta (q)={\displaystyle \frac{8q}{\mathrm{max}(k_F^2,k_F^2)}}(\mathrm{for}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}qk_{})`$
$`p_\zeta (q)={\displaystyle \frac{8q}{\pi k_F^2k_F^2}}[k_F^2(\mathrm{arccos}(x)x\sqrt{1x^2})`$
$`+k_F^2(\mathrm{arccos}(y)y\sqrt{1y^2})]`$
$`(\mathrm{for}k_{}qk_+)`$ (25)
where $`x=\left(q+{\displaystyle \frac{k_F^2k_F^2}{4q}}\right)/k_F`$, $`y=\left(q{\displaystyle \frac{k_F^2k_F^2}{4q}}\right)/k_F`$ and $`k_{}=|k_Fk_F|/2`$, $`k_+=(k_F+k_F)/2`$. The Fermi momentum for the spin up (down) population is related with the polarization and the Fermi momentum of the unpolarized gas ($`k_F`$) by $`k_F=k_F\sqrt{1+\zeta }`$ and $`k_F=k_F\sqrt{1\zeta }`$.

Our results show that $`g_{}(\zeta ,\rho =0)`$ is largely unaffected by the degree of spin polarization. The difference between $`g_{}(\zeta =1,0)`$ and its unpolarized counterpart $`g_{}(\zeta =0,0)`$ is, at most, a few percents for any given value of $`r_s`$. The absence of a significant dependence with the spin polarization was also found in previous calculations.Polini01  Moreover, given that the momentum dependence of our results is rather weak, we do not expect important changes if the free Fermi momentum distributions, Eq. (17) and (25), are replaced by the interacting ones.

## IV Conclusions

We have calculated the pair distribution function in a two dimensional interacting electron gas, following an approach originally developed in three dimensions by Overhauser.Over95  Within this framework, the short range correlations of the Coulomb interaction are replaced by an effective potential, and the calculation of $`g(\rho )`$ is reduced to solving the corresponding two-electron scattering problem and averaging over the probability distribution of the momentum of the electron pair. Our results for $`g(r)`$ at moderate coupling strengths agree well with the numerical data.Tan89  At larger values of $`r_s`$, however, this approximation is unable to reproduce the strong quantum oscillations of the numerical results.

The analytic expression for $`g(0)`$ as a function of $`r_s`$, Eq. (1), derived in this context compares very favorably with the complete solution of the effective potential, Eq. (23), and with recent numerical calculations.Tan89 ; Bulu02  We believe that the discrepancy between the present results and the analytical expression obtained in Ref. Polini01,  is essentially due to the different choice of effective potential (see Fig. 1). Besides, while we have used the same approach for all values of the electronic density and polarization, Polini et al. use an interpolating scheme between the results of a perturbative expansion at high-density and the Overhauser’s treatment of scattering processes in the low-density limit.

We have also studied the dependence of $`g(0)`$ with the spin polarization of the electron gas. We have found that the spin-up spin-down correlation function, $`g_{}(0)`$, is basically independent of the degree of polarization. Therefore, the polarization modifies $`g(0)`$ only through its dependence on the density, $`g(0)={\displaystyle \frac{2n_{}n_{}}{n^2}}g_{}(0)`$.

Within this approach, further study of how the choice of the effective potential modifies the pair distribution function can provide valuable insight into the short range electronic correlations in real materials.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Bulutay and Dr. Tanatar for providing us with the results of their numerical calculation. We acknowledge the financial support provided by the Department of Energy, grant no. DE-FG02-01ER45897.


text:
# QCD corrections to associated 𝑡𝑡̄ℎ production at hadron colliders

## 1 Introduction

The search for the Higgs boson of the Standard Model (SM) is one of the major tasks of the next generation of high-energy collider experiments. The direct limit on the SM Higgs boson mass, $`M_h`$, from LEP2 searches  and the indirect limit from electroweak precision data  strongly suggest the existence of a light Higgs boson, that may well be within the reach of a high-luminosity phase of the Fermilab Tevatron $`p\overline{p}`$ collider ($`M_h\stackrel{<}{}180`$ GeV) . However, since the dominant SM Higgs production channels are plagued with low event rates and large backgrounds, the Higgs boson search requires the highest possible luminosity, and all possible production channels should be considered. The production of a SM Higgs boson in association with a top-quark pair, $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}H`$, can play a role for almost the entire Tevatron discovery range . Although the $`t\overline{t}h`$ event rate is small, the signature of such events is quite spectacular ($`W^+W^{}b\overline{b}b\overline{b}`$). At the CERN LHC $`pp`$ collider, associated $`t\overline{t}h`$ production is one of the most promising processes for studying both the Higgs boson and the top quark. This process will provide a direct measurement of the top-Yukawa coupling . As for any other hadronic cross section, the next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD corrections are expected to be numerically important and are crucial in reducing the (arbitrary) dependence of the cross sections on the factorization and renormalization scales. In the following we briefly describe the status of NLO QCD predictions for associated $`t\overline{t}h`$ production at the Tevatron and the LHC.

## 2 QCD corrections to $`t\overline{t}h`$ production

The inclusive total cross section for $`pp{}_{}{}^{^{()}}t\overline{t}h`$ at $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3)`$ can be written as:

$`\sigma _{NLO}(pp{}_{}{}^{^{()}}t\overline{t}h)={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}{\displaystyle }dx_1dx_2`$ (1)
$`_i^p(x_1,\mu )_j^{p(\overline{p})}(x_2,\mu )\widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2,\mu ),`$
where $`_i^{p,\overline{p}}`$ are the NLO parton distribution functions for parton $`i`$ in a proton/antiproton, defined at a generic factorization scale $`\mu _f=\mu `$, and $`\widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}`$ is the $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3)`$ parton-level total cross section for incoming partons $`i`$ and $`j`$, renormalized at an arbitrary scale $`\mu _r`$, that we choose $`\mu _r=\mu _f=\mu `$. The NLO parton-level total cross section $`\widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}`$ consists of the $`𝒪(\alpha _s^2)`$ Born cross section and the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ corrections to the Born cross section, including the effects of mass factorization. It comprises virtual and real corrections to the parton-level $`t\overline{t}h`$ production processes, $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}h`$ and $`ggt\overline{t}h`$, and the tree-level $`qg`$ initiated processes, $`qgt\overline{t}hq`$, which are of the same order in perturbation theory. The main challenges in the calculation of the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ corrections come from the presence of pentagon diagrams in the virtual part with several massive external and internal particles, and from the computation of the real part in the presence of infrared (IR) singularities.

### 2.1 $`t\overline{t}h`$ production at the Tevatron

The NLO inclusive total cross section for $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h`$ at the Tevatron center-of-mass energy $`\sqrt{s_H}=2`$ TeV has been calculated independently by two groups . The numerical results of both calculations have been compared and they are found to be in very good agreement. For $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s_H}=2`$ TeV, more than $`95\%`$ of the tree-level cross section comes from the sub-process $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}h`$ and the $`gg`$ initial state is numerically irrelevant. Therefore, in  when calculating $`\sigma _{NLO}(p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h)`$ of Eq. 1, we only included the $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}h`$ channel, summed over all light quark flavors. In  the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ corrections to both $`t\overline{t}h`$ production channels have been considered.

In  we have calculated the pentagon scalar integrals as linear combinations of scalar box integrals using the method of . The real corrections are computed using the phase space slicing method, in both the double  and single  cutoff approach. This is the first application of the single cutoff phase space slicing approach to a cross section involving more than one massive particle in the final state. As discussed in detail in , the numerical results of both methods agree within the statistical errors. In  the dipole subtraction formalism has been used to extract the IR singularities of the real part. To find agreement between calculations based on either of the three very different treatments of the real IR singularities represents a powerful check of the NLO calculations.

As illustrated in Fig. 1 for $`M_h=120`$ GeV, $`\sigma _{NLO}(p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h)`$ at $`\sqrt{s}_H=2`$ TeV shows a significantly reduced scale dependence as compared to the leading-order (LO) result and leads to increased confidence in predictions based on these results. Over the entire range of $`M_h`$ accessible at the Tevatron, the NLO corrections decrease the LO rate for $`\mu <2m_t+M_h`$.

To determine the potential of the Tevatron to search for the SM Higgs boson, the predictions for all Higgs production processes have to be under good theoretical control. In Fig. 2 we show the scale dependence of the inclusive total cross sections at NLO (next-to-NLO in case of $`ggh`$) for the main SM Higgs production processes, including associated $`t\overline{t}h`$ production, in the $`M_h`$ range accessible at the Tevatron. The $`p\overline{p}b\overline{b}h`$ cross section is only known at LO and thus not shown in Fig. 2. It is comparable in size to the $`t\overline{t}h`$ cross section for $`\mu =m_t`$ and $`M_h=`$120 GeV. As illustrated in Fig. 2, the QCD NLO calculations for the $`q\overline{q}Wh,Zh`$ , $`qqqqh`$  and $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}h`$  processes provide reliable predictions for the inclusive total cross sections at the Tevatron. However, the NLO corrections to the $`ggh`$ cross section  are large (up to $`100\%`$), and $`\sigma _{NLO}`$ still strongly depends on the factorization/renormalization scale. The QCD next-to-NLO (NNLO) $`ggh`$ cross section became available recently . As illustrated in Fig. 2 , the NNLO corrections are crucial to obtain reliable predictions.

### 2.2 $`t\overline{t}h`$ production at the LHC

While the observation of the $`t\overline{t}h`$ process at the Tevatron will be quite challenging, at the LHC the $`t\overline{t}h`$ mode will play a crucial role in the 110 GeV$`M_h`$130 GeV mass region both for discovery and for precision measurements of the Higgs boson couplings. For determining $`\sigma _{NLO}(ppt\overline{t}h)`$ at the LHC, the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ corrections to the sub-process $`ggt\overline{t}h`$ are crucial, since $`pp`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s_H}=14`$ TeV are dominated by the $`gg`$ initial state. Results for $`\sigma _{NLO}(ppt\overline{t}h)`$ at $`\sqrt{s_H}=14`$ TeV have been provided in  and results of an independent calculation will be presented in . A detailed comparison of the numerical results of the two groups is presently under way.

Although the calculation of the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ corrections to $`ggt\overline{t}h`$ is technically similar to the one for the $`q\overline{q}`$ initiated process, new challenges arise, e.g., the occurrence of spurious singularities in the calculation of the pentagon diagrams due to a vanishing Gram determinant at the phase space boundaries. The resulting numerical instabilities can be controlled by applying an extrapolation procedure from the numerically safe to the unsafe region . However, we found that, also in the case of the $`gg`$ initiated subprocess, the occurrence of these singularities can be avoided by cancelling terms in the numerator against the propagators wherever possible, after interfering the pentagon amplitude with the Born-matrix element. We compared the numerical results of both treatments of these spurious singularities and found agreement within the statistical error. Details of the calculation will be presented elsewhere .

As is the case at the Tevatron, the scale dependence of $`\sigma _{NLO}(ppt\overline{t}h)`$ at $`\sqrt{s}_H=14`$ TeV is strongly reduced compared to the LO result. At the LHC, the NLO QCD corrections enhance the LO cross section over the entire range of values for the renormalization/factorization scale shown in Fig. 1, unlike at the Tevatron where they mostly decrease the Born-level cross section.


text:
# Dynamic behavior of anisotropic non-equilibrium driving lattice gases.

## Abstract

It is shown that intrinsically anisotropic non-equilibrium systems relaxing by a dynamic process exhibit universal critical behavior during their evolution toward non-equilibrium stationary states. An anisotropic scaling anzats for the dynamics is proposed and tested numerically. Relevant critical exponents can be evaluated self-consistently using both the short- and long-time dynamics frameworks. The obtained results allow us to clarify a long-standing controversy about the theoretical description, the universality and the origin of the anisotropy of driven diffusive systems, showing that the standard field theory does not hold and supporting a recently proposed alternative theory.

PACS numbers: 64.60.Ht, 05.70.Fh, 05.50.+q

The development of a theoretical framework for the study of non-equilibrium systems is of vital importance for a wide range of disciplines in both science and technology. In order to overcome such a difficult problem, it is useful to study models capable of capturing the essential physical features of the real system. The statistical mechanics of interacting lattice gases, driven into non-equilibrium steady states (NESS) by external fields , has attracted growing attention. Some remarkable characteristics of the NESS observed in driven diffusive systems (DDS) are, among others, their non-Hamiltonian nature, the violation of the fluctuation dissipation theorem and the fact that the steady-state distribution is determined by the dynamics.

The prototypical DDS has early been proposed by Katz, Lebowitz and Spohn (KLS)  as a generalization of the Ising model. Then, the KLS model is a kinetic Ising model with conserved dynamics. Using the lattice gas language, particle hopping in the direction (against the direction) of an externally applied field ($`\stackrel{}{E}`$) is favored (unfavored) , while jumps perpendicular to the field are unaffected by it. For half-filled lattices and high enough temperatures the KLS model exhibits a disordered phase. However, at low temperatures an anisotropic ordered NESS emerges and is characterized by strips of high particle density crossing the lattice in the direction parallel to the applied drive . So, at some critical temperature ($`T_c`$) the KLS model undergoes a second-order non-equilibrium phase transition. The issue of the universality class of the KLS model is of general interest because it will contribute to the rationalization of non-equilibrium critical phenomena. However, this task is elusive and has become the subject of a long-standing debate. A detailed discussion of such conceptually rich debate is beyond the aim of this work. Instead, we will briefly comment their theoretical and numerical aspects.

The theoretical controversy . Aimed to analyze the critical nature of DDS and determine their universality, a Langevin equation has been proposed . This equation describes the stochastic evolution of the local particle density $`\rho (𝐱,t)`$ and in terms of $`\varphi =2\rho 1`$, it reads

$`_t\varphi (𝐫)=`$ $`_{}^4\varphi +\tau _{}_{}^2\varphi +{\displaystyle \frac{g}{6}}\mathrm{\Delta }_{}\varphi ^3`$ (2)
$`+\tau _{}_{}^2\varphi ϵ_{}\varphi ^2+\zeta (𝐫,t),`$
where $`\zeta (𝐫,t)`$ is a conserved noise term that reflects the fast degrees of freedom, $`ϵ`$ denotes the coarse-grained drive, and $`\tau _{}`$, $`\tau _{}`$ and $`g`$ are model parameters. This field theory leads to anisotropic scaling wave vectors in the critical region, with non-trivial correlation length exponents $`\nu _{}`$ and $`\nu _{}`$. The current term ($`ϵ_{}\varphi ^2`$) is the most relevant nonlinearity and source of anisotropy.

Another Langevin equation, which is a coarse-grained version of the master equation, has also been proposed . Although such equation has been criticized , after healing some flaws, the new equation, which is valid in the limit of an infinite driving field, reads

$`_t\varphi (𝐫)=`$ $`_{}^4\varphi +\tau _{}_{}^2\varphi +{\displaystyle \frac{g}{6}}\mathrm{\Delta }_{}\varphi ^3`$ (4)
$`+\tau _{}_{}^2\varphi +\zeta (𝐫,t).`$
Comparing Eqs.(1) and (2) it follows that they only differ in the current term $`ϵ_{}\varphi ^2`$ that vanishes in (Eq.(2)). This difference has deep consequences, including: i) The critical dimension of Eq.(2) is $`d=3`$ instead of $`d=5`$ in Eq.(1). ii) Renormalization group analyses give different critical exponents (see Table I). iii) It has been argued that the most relevant non-equilibrium effect is the anisotropy generated by the driving field  and not the current . iv) In Eq.(2), the current term vanishes in the infinite driving limit, as shown rigorously in .

Another piece of heavy debate is the disagreement in the interpretation and evaluation of numerical data. Valles and Marro , have concluded that $`\beta `$ seemed to be close to $`\beta 0.3`$, as predicted by Eq.(2). In view of the anisotropic nature of the system, Leung  has developed an anisotropic finite-size approach. Extensive computer simulation  results give data collapsing when the shape of the lattice ($`S=L_y^{\nu _{}/\nu _{}}/L_x`$) and $`\beta `$ are taken in accordance with Eq.(1). However, a subsequent analysis of Leung’s data , discussed in , shows that they may also be consistent with $`\beta `$ close to $`0.3`$. Also recent simulations give $`\beta 0.33`$ .

We note that the analysis of numerical data obtained under NESS conditions may be biased by some assumptions such as anisotropic vs isotropic scaling, the shape $`S`$ of the lattice, the method used to estimate $`T_c`$ in the thermodynamic limit, the quality of data collapsing, etc.

The aim of this work is to provide an unambiguous clarification of the existing controversy, based on extensive numerical studies of both the short- and the long-time dynamics of four variants of the KLS model. In their work, Janssen et al.  have shown that a system relaxing by a dynamic process exhibits universal behavior at the early stages of its evolution towards equilibrium states. This idea has been verified in many models exhibiting critical behavior under equilibrium conditions . Since the extension of this concept to the field of non-equilibrium critical behavior and to anisotropic systems has not been performed yet, the present work has additional ingredients of general interest.

The KLS model  is defined on the square lattice assuming a rectangular geometry $`L_x,L_y`$, using periodic boundary conditions. A lattice configuration is specified by the set of occupation numbers $`n_{i,j}=\{0,1\}`$, corresponding to each site of coordinates $`(i,j)`$. Nearest-neighbor (NN) attraction ($`J>0`$) is considered. So, in the absence of a field the Hamiltonian $``$ is given by

$$=4J\underset{<ij,i^{}j^{}>}{}n_{i,j}n_{i^{},j^{}},$$
(5)
where the summation runs over NN sites only. The driving field $`E`$ acts along the $`y`$direction. The coupling to a thermal bath at temperature $`T`$ and the action of the field are considered through Metropolis rates, i.e. $`min[1,exp(\{\mathrm{\Delta }\eta E\}/k_BT)`$, where $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the change in $``$ after the exchange, and $`\eta =(1,0,1)`$ for a particle attempting to hop (against, orthogonally, along) the field, respectively.

Monte Carlo simulations are performed using lattices of different sizes, with $`240L_x960`$ and $`30L_y480`$. $`T`$ is reported in units of $`J/k_B`$ and $`E`$ is given in units of $`J`$. In all cases the density is $`\rho _o=1/2`$. One Monte Carlo time step (mcs) involves $`L_x\times L_y`$ trials.

Four variants of the KLS model are studied, namely: i) the infinite driving limit (IKLS) with $`E=\mathrm{}`$, ii) a finite driving case (FKLS) with $`E=0.5`$, iii) the random field KLS model  in the infinite driving limit (IRKLS) and iv) the oscillatory KLS model  in the infinite driving limit (IOKLS). In the IRKLS (IOKLS), the driven field takes values $`E=\pm \mathrm{}`$ at random (with a period $`\tau _o`$), generating anisotropy but not an overall current. So, the study of the IKLS model is aimed to determine the validity of either Eq.(1) or Eq.(2). Also, the FKLS is studied to check the validity of Eq.(1) in the finite driving case. Finally, the comparison of the results of the IKLS model and those of both the IRKLS and the IOKLS models will help to clarify the role of the current.

In order to observe universality in the dynamics the system has to be initialized with configurations far from the NESS. For this purpose two different initial states have been employed, namely: i) Fully disordered configurations (FDC) as expected for $`T\mathrm{}`$ and ii) The ground state configuration (GSC) as expected at $`T=0`$, which is a single strip parallel to the drive .

The order parameter ($`OP`$) is defined as the excess density in the direction parallel to the applied field, namely

$$OP(RL_x)^1\underset{i=1}{\overset{L_x}{}}|P(i)\rho _o|,$$
(6)
where $`P(i)=(L_y)^1_{j=1}^{L_y}n_{ij}`$ is the density profile along the $`x`$direction (perpendicular to the drive) and $`R=(2\rho _o(1\rho _o))`$ is a normalization constant. For simulations starting from the GSC the OP given by Eq.(4) and that proposed by Leung  give the same results. However, in contrast to Leung’s OP, that given by Eq. (4) is suitable to detect the onset of multi-stripped ordering during the short-time dynamics when simulations start from the FDC. Since $`OP`$ involves the calculation of the absolute value of the excess density, it is not suitable for the observation of the expected critical initial increase in the order parameter . Instead, $`OP`$ can be identified with the square root of the second moment of the excess density. So, using FDC starting configurations, the proposed scaling anzats, which generalizes the standard one , reads:

$`OP(t,\tau ,L_y,L_x)=b^{\beta /\nu _{}}OP^{}(b^zt,b^{1/\nu _{}}\tau ,`$ (7)
$`b^1L_y,b^{\nu _{}/\nu _{}}L_x),`$ (8)
where $`\tau =TT_c/T_c`$, $`OP^{}`$ is a scaling function, $`b`$ is the spatial rescaling factor, $`\beta `$ is the order parameter critical exponent, $`\nu _{}`$ ($`\nu _{}`$) is the correlation length exponent in the direction parallel (perpendicular) to the drive, and $`z`$ is the dynamic critical exponent, respectively. In order to generate the FDC the lattice is filled at random with probability $`p=1/2`$. While a procedure is used to ensure that the whole density of the sample is exactly $`\rho _o=1/2`$, density fluctuations of the order of $`L_y^{1/2}`$ are present along the columns parallel to the drive. These tiny fluctuations add up according to Eq.(4), so that the amplitude of the $`OP`$ depends on $`L_y`$ as $`L_y^{1/2}`$. Taking $`bt^{1/z}`$ in Eq.(5), it follows

$$OP(t,L_y)L_y^{\frac{1}{2}}t^{c_2}OP^{}(t^{1/\nu _{}z}\tau ),L_x,L_y\mathrm{},$$
(9)
with $`c_2=(12\beta /\nu _{})/2z`$ .

Figure 1(a) shows log-log plots of $`OP(t)L_y^{1/2}`$ vs $`t`$ for the IKLS model obtained at $`T=3.20`$. It should be noticed that a tiny downward (upward) deviation from linearity is obtained for $`T=3.21`$ ($`T=3.19`$) (not shown here). So, our estimation of the critical temperature is $`T_c^{IKLS}=3.20\pm 0.01`$. So, $`T_c^{IKLS}1.41T_c^I`$, where $`T_c^I`$ is the Onsager temperature of the $`d=2`$ Ising model. Notice that this value is fully consistent with previous estimations . Data collapsing of the raw data already observed for different lattice sizes supports the anzats of Eq.(6), and this result confirms the assumption, also implicit in Eq.(6), that for the case of FDC the only relevant length of the lattice is that parallel to the drive along which the precursors of the striped patterns start to develop. The best fit of the data shown in Figure 1(a) gives $`c_2=0.114\pm 0.005`$. Notice that all the critical exponents evaluated in this work are listed in Table I.

Figure 1(b) allows the comparison of data obtained for the four different models studied. A perfect overlap of the data corresponding to the IKLS, the IRKLS ($`T_c^{IRKLS}=3.16\pm 0.02`$) and the OKLS ($`T_c^{OKLS}=3.16\pm 0.02`$) is found, leading to almost the same exponent $`c_2`$, as shown in Table I. Data of the FKLS model ($`T_c^{FKLS}=2.78\pm 0.015,E=0.5`$) exhibit a crossover from a very early behavior with appreciable curvature to a latter regime ($`t10^3`$) where the slope of the other cases is recovered (within error bars, see Table I).

Furthermore, taking the logarithmic derivative of $`OP`$ given by Eq. (6) at criticality, one has

$$lnOP(t,\tau )|_{\tau =0}t^c_{},c_{}=\frac{1}{\nu _{}z}.$$
(10)
The best fits of the data give the values of the exponents $`c_{}`$ listed in Table I.

Starting from GSC’s, we propose that the standard scaling behavior of $`OP`$ can be generalized as:

$`OP(t,\tau ,L_x,L_y)=b^{\beta /\nu _{}}OP^{}(b^zt,b^{1/\nu _{}}\tau ,`$ (11)
$`b^{\nu _{}/\nu _{}}L_y,b^1L_x),`$ (12)
where $`OP^{}`$ is a scaling function. Taking $`bt^{1/z}`$ in Eq.(8) at criticality ($`\tau =0`$), it follows that:

$$OP(t)t^{\beta /\nu _{}z}.$$
(13)
Also taking the derivative of Eq.(8) with respect to $`\tau `$ it follows that

$$OP(t,\tau )|_{\tau =0}t^c_{},c_{}=\frac{1}{\nu _{}z}\frac{\beta }{\nu _{}z}.$$
(14)
Figure 2(a) shows log-log plots of $`OP(t)`$ vs $`t`$, for the IKLS model obtained for $`T=3.200`$. Notice that starting from a GSC, the power law decay of the OP as described by Eq.(9) is obtained after a long time, e.g. for $`t10^5`$ in Figure 2(a). A detailed view of this behavior is shown in Figure 2(b) for the four cases studied. Also, fitting these curves using Eq.(9) the slopes given by $`\beta /\nu _{}z`$ can be obtained, as listed in Table I.

It should be noticed that tiny downward and upward deviations from linearity are observed for temperatures slightly out of criticality (not shown here). However, using GSC, this method for the location of $`T_c`$ is roughly twice less sensitive than that used starting with FDC. So, our second (independent) estimation of the critical temperature is $`T_c^{IKLS}=3.20\pm 0.02`$. This value is fully consistent with our previous estimation made starting from FDC, as expected for second-order transitions. The same behavior is observed in the other cases studied. Data collapsing of the raw data as observed in Figure 2(a) supports the assumption, implicit in the proposed scaling anzats (Eqs. (8-9)), that starting from a GSC the only relevant length of the lattice is that perpendicular to the drive along which a diffusion-like process causes relaxation to the NESS. Our results confirm that the dynamics does not reveal the anisotropy of the system through the shape of the lattice $`S=L_y^{\nu _{}/\nu _{}}/L_x`$, in contrast to the scaling treatment of data obtained under NESS conditions . Instead, the anisotropy enters through the different correlation length exponents used in the scaling relationships, i.e., Eqs.(6) and (9).

Log-log plots of the derivative of Eq.(8) (not shown here) support the scaling anzats of Eq.(10) and allow the evaluation of $`c_{}`$, as listed in Table I.

Combining the exponents $`\beta /\nu _{}z`$ and $`c_{}`$ obtained starting with GSC it is possible to evaluate $`\beta `$. Also, using those exponents, as well as $`c_2`$ and $`c_{}`$ as evaluated starting from FDC, it is possible to calculate $`\nu _{}`$, $`\nu _{}`$ and $`z`$ (see Table I). Furthermore, for anisotropic systems such as the KLS model, the following modified hyperscaling relation is expected to hold :

$$\nu _{}+(d1)\nu _{}2\beta =\gamma ,$$
(15)
where $`\gamma `$ is the exponent of the susceptibility. So, using the numerically evaluated exponents, our estimations of $`\gamma `$ made with the aid of Eq.(11) are also listed in Table I.

Based on the results summarized in Table I, it is concluded that: i) All critical exponents can be obtained self-consistently within the dynamics framework. In contrast to previous numerical estimations performed under NESS conditions, the values of the exponents are not-biased  by any assumption on the shape of the lattice used. ii) All the evaluated exponents are consistent with Eq.(2), and the predictions of Eq.(1) are far outside our error bars. iii) Since two models with macroscopic current (IKLS, FKLS) and another two without it (IRKLS, IOKLS), have the same critical exponents, it follows that such current is not relevant neither to determine the universality class nor for the emergence of the anisotropy. iv) The short-time dynamics of the studied non-equilibrium systems exhibits universal critical behavior, as already observed in equilibrium systems.

Acknowledgments: This work was supported by CONICET, UNLP and ANPCyT (Argentina). G.S. acknowledges the CIC for a research fellowship.

| $`MODEL`$ | $`T_c`$ | $`c_2()`$ | $`c_{}()`$ | $`\beta /\nu _{}z(+)`$ | $`c_{}(+)`$ | $`\beta (+)`$ | $`\nu _{}(+)`$ | $`\nu _{}(+)`$ | $`z(+)`$ | $`\gamma `$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| IKLS | 3.200(10) | 0.114(5) | 0.406(10) | 0.254(15) | 0.516(15) | 0.330(30) | 0.644(40) | 1.221(40) | 2.016(40) | 1.21(11) |
| FKLS | 2.780(15) | 0.108(5) | 0.409(10) | 0.245(15) | 0.487(15) | 0.335(30) | 0.668(40) | 1.198(40) | 2.041(40) | 1.20(11) |
| IRKLS | 3.160(20) | 0.115(5) | 0.421(10) | 0.228(15) | 0.506(15) | 0.311(30) | 0.671(40) | 1.168(40) | 2.033(40) | 1.22(11) |
| IOKLS | 3.160(20) | 0.116(5) | 0.424(10) | 0.235(15) | 0.505(15) | 0.281(30) | 0.635(40) | 1.110(40) | 2.126(40) | 1.18(11) |
| Eq. (1) |  | $`1/8`$ | $`1/2`$ | $`3/4`$ | $`3/4`$ | $`1/2`$ | $`1/2`$ | $`3/2`$ | $`4/3`$ | $`1`$ |
| Eq. (2) |  | $`0.114`$ | $`0.410`$ | $`0.262`$ | $`0.532`$ | $`0.33`$ | $`0.63`$ | $`1.22`$ | $`1.998`$ | $`1.17`$ |