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# Extended molecules and geometric scattering resonances in optical lattices

## Abstract

We develop a theory describing neutral atoms scattering at low energies in an optical lattice. We show that for a repulsive interaction, as the microscopic scattering length increases, the effective scattering amplitude approaches a limiting value which depends only on the lattice parameters. In the case of attractive interaction a geometric resonance occurs before reaching this limit. Close to the resonance, the effective interaction becomes repulsive and supports a weakly bound state, which can extend over several lattice sites.

Recent advances in cooling and trapping of cold atomic gases (see BEC  for a review) have led to the experimental realization of optically trapped lattices gases Greiner et al. (2002); Jaksch . For a dilute gas and at low energies all physical properties of such gases can be expressed in terms of the two-body scattering amplitude Lifshitz and Pitaevskii (1980). It is well established that confinement of a gas in one or more spatial dimensions can strongly modify the collisional properties of atoms, and can even induce geometric resonances Olshanii (1998); Petrov et al. (2000a, b); Petrov and Shlyapnikov (2001). In an optical lattice related phenomenona should occur when, (i) the microscopic free-space scattering length becomes comparable to the size of a single lattice well, a situation readily obtained by combining Feshbach or shape resonances with optical trapping techniques Julienne1 ; Loftus et al. (2002); Dieckmann et al. (2002); Jochim et al. (2002); Bourdel et al. ; and (ii) the tunneling between the neighboring lattice sites is sufficiently small. Below we give a theoretical analysis of the modification of neutral atoms scattering at low energies in an optical lattice. This serves as the basis of writing down an effective (long wavelength) field theory of a dilute optical lattice gas with an effective atomic mass and effective atomic scattering length, modified and tunable by the lattice parameters.

Let us consider neutral atoms confined in a 3D optical lattice and interacting through a short range potential. Our goal is the derivation of the low energy limit of the effective scattering amplitude, and in particular the effective scattering length $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ in a tight binding model (TBM) as a function of the free space scattering length $`a`$ and lattice parameters, adapting techniques developed in Petrov et al. (2000b); Petrov and Shlyapnikov (2001). We will show that the wavefunction $`\psi _p`$ of the pair of atoms averaged over many lattice sites satisfies the effective Schrdinger equation for the relative motion,

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{m_s}+\frac{4\pi \mathrm{}^2}{m_s}a_{\mathrm{eff}}\delta (r)\frac{}{|r|}|r|\right)\psi _p(r)=ϵ_p\psi _p(r),$$
(1)
where $`ϵ_p`$ is the relative energy, and $`m_s`$ is the band mass. The main results are: (i) For repulsive interaction, when the microscopic scattering length $`a`$ increases, the effective scattering amplitude remains finite and continuously approaches a universal limit, which only depends on the optical lattice parameters. (ii) In the case of an attractive interaction a geometric resonance in the effective scattering amplitude, similar to the resonances found in Petrov et al. (2000b); Petrov and Shlyapnikov (2001), occurs before the universal limit is reached. In addition, after crossing the resonance the effective interaction becomes repulsive and weakly bound states result close to the resonance. This predicts the existence of large lattice induced molecules which can extend over several lattice sites, which - by analogy with the Wannier-Mott excitons in semiconductors Yu and Cardona (2001) \- will be referred to below as Wannier-Mott molecules. The parameters effective mass $`m_s`$ and scattering length $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ appearing in (1) are the relevant parameters for the long wavelength effective field theory describing the dilute lattice gas.

We turn now to a discussion of two-body scattering in an optical lattice. The particles interact via a short range interatomic potential $`U(r)`$ depending only on the relative coordinate $`r`$. The range $`r_0`$ of this potential is assumed to be small compared to the lattice spacing and to the size $`l_0`$ of the ground state wavefunction in an individual well. In addition, the lattice spacing is assumed to be small relative to the de Broglie wavelength of the incoming particle. The particles move in an 3D optical lattice created by counterpropagating laser beams. The resulting periodic potential is characterized by a depth $`V_0`$ and lattice spacing $`d`$, which are assumed to be equal for all spatial direction. Close to these minima, the potential can expanded as

$$V=\frac{M\omega ^2}{2}\delta R^2+\frac{\mu \omega ^2}{2}\delta r^2,$$
(2)
where $`\delta R`$ and $`\delta r`$ are the deviation of the center-of-mass and the relative coordinates $`R=(x_1+x_2)/2`$ and $`r=x_2x_1`$ from their potential minimum positions. Here, $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$ are the positions of the particles and $`\mu =m/2`$ and $`M=2m`$ are the reduced and the total mass, respectively. Moreover, the curvature within a single lattice site is given by $`\omega ^2=V_0/md^2`$. From here on we will use units such that $`\mathrm{}=m=1`$.

In such a periodic potential, the two-body wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x_1,x_2)`$ is characterized by certain quasimomenta $`Q`$ and $`q`$ of the center of mass and the relative motion, as well as by band indices $`S`$ and $`s`$. Using the fact that the lattice potential is approximately separable (compare Eq. (2)), we can expand the two-body wavefunction in a set of basis functions Lifshitz and Pitaevskii (1980); Yu and Cardona (2001),

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{Qq}^{(Ss)}=\underset{N,n}{}e^{i(Q,R_N)+i(q,r_n)}W_S(RR_N)w_s(rr_n),$$
(3)
where $`W`$ and $`w`$ are Wannier functions. Within the TBM the functions $`W`$ and $`w`$ coincide with the stationary states of the Hamiltonian (2).

The wavefunctions of the relative motion (Bloch waves) are characterized by the quasimomentum $`q`$, the band index $`s`$ and the energy $`ϵ_{sq}=ϵ_st_s\mathrm{cos}(qd)`$, where $`t_s=\sqrt{D_s}\omega /\pi `$, and $`D_s1`$ is the WKB tunneling exponent between the neighboring wells, and $`ϵ_s`$ are the energies of states $`s`$ in isolated wells Lifshitz and Pitaevskii (1980). For sufficiently small momenta the dispersion relation can be approximated as $`ϵ_{sq}ϵ_s+q^2/m_s`$, where $`m_s=2/t_sd^2`$ is the effective mass. In the TBM, $`l_0d`$, the tunneling coefficient is small and hence $`m_s1`$. The asymptotic form of the relative part of the two-body wavefunction far from the region around $`r=0`$ where the interaction potential acts, can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(r)=\underset{n}{}w_s(rr_n)e^{i(p,r_n)}+$$

$$\underset{s^{}n}{}\frac{m_sf_{ss^{}}}{4\pi r_n}e^{iq_s^{}r_n}w_s^{}(rr_n),$$
(4)
where $`f_{ss^{}}`$ is the $`s`$wave scattering amplitude, and $`q_s^{}=\sqrt{m_s^{}(ϵ_{sp}ϵ_{s^{}0})}`$. This definition ensures that in the continuum case $`f=4\pi a/m_s`$, where $`a`$ is the free space two-body scattering length and $`m_s=m`$.

Since the interparticle interaction $`U(r)`$ is very short-range, we can use free (Bloch) solutions for the relative motion everywhere apart from the immediate vicinity of $`r=0`$. To calculate the effective scattering amplitude we closely follow the method suggested in Petrov et al. (2000b); Petrov and Shlyapnikov (2001). The most general solution of the free Schroedinger equation for $`r0`$ for a given energy $`ϵ`$, which also contains the incoming wave is

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(r)=\underset{n}{}w_s(rr_n)e^{i(p,r_n)}+AG(r,0),$$
(5)
where $`A`$ is an arbitrary constant. Here the first term describes the incoming wave, whereas the second term gives the scattered waves. The Green function is given by its usual expression

$$G(r,r^{})=\underset{s^{},q,n,n^{}}{}\frac{w_s^{}(rr_n)w_s^{}(r^{}r_n^{})}{ϵ_{sp}ϵ_{s^{}q}+i0}e^{i(q,r_nr_n^{})}.$$
(6)
For sufficiently large $`r`$ we can expand $`ϵ_{sq}`$ up to second order around $`q=0`$ and integrate over $`q`$

$$G(r,0)=\frac{m_sV}{4\pi }\underset{s^{},n}{}\frac{\mathrm{exp}i(q_s^{},r_n)}{r_n}w_s^{}(rr_n)w_s^{}(0).$$
(7)
where $`V`$ is the volume of the system. If $`ϵ_{s^{}0}>ϵ_{sp}`$ then the corresponding partial wave does not propagate to $`r\mathrm{}`$, $`q_s^{}`$ is imaginary, and the channel $`s^{}`$ is closed. Comparing Eqs. (4),(5) and (7) we identify the scattering amplitude

$$f_{ss^{}}(p,q^{})=A(ϵ_{sp})Vw_s(0)\delta _{ss^{}},$$

The coefficient $`A`$ can be found by considering the short distance assymptotics of the solution (5). Indeed, at small distances $`rl_0`$ the wavefunction of the relative motion should match the solution of the two-body scattering problem in 3D Landau and Lifshitz (1977):

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(r)B(1\frac{a}{r}),$$
(8)
where $`B`$ is a constant. The scattering length $`a`$ takes into account all the processes occurring at distances of order $`r_0l_0,d`$. In particular $`a`$ may contain the effect of Feshbach Kokkelmans et al. (2002) or shape resonances Stock et al. , provided that the size of the molecular bound state is sufficiently small.

We consider incoming particles at low energies so that the scattering occurs in the lowest Bloch band $`s=0`$. Taking the limit both $`r,r^{}0`$ in the Eq.(6) we find

$$G(r,r^{}0)=\underset{s,q}{}\frac{w_s(r)w_s(r^{})}{ϵ_{op}ϵ_{sq}+i0}.$$
(9)
As it is well known the Green function is singular when $`r^{}r`$ and can be represented as Gutzwiller (1991)

$$G(r,r^{}0)\frac{1}{4\pi |rr^{}|}+(ϵ),$$
(10)
where $``$ is the regular part of the Green function. The singular part comes from the direct classical trajectory connecting the points $`r,r^{}`$, which has a universal character. The regular part consists of the contribution of recurrent trajectories and depends strongly on the details of the confining potential.

The only resonance in the denominator of Eq.(9) occurs for the $`s=0`$ contribution. We should therefore study this term separately by writing $`G=G_0+G^{}`$, where the function $`G_0`$ is not singular, and

$$G_0=\underset{q}{}\frac{w_0(0)w_0(0)}{ϵ_{0p}ϵ_{0q}+i0}.$$
(11)
The TBM wavefunctions can be represented as $`w_s=Z_s\psi _s(r)`$ where $`\psi _s`$ is the wave function of the oscillator in a state $`s`$, and $`Z_s`$ is a normalization factor ($`Z_s^2=N^1`$, where $`N`$ is the number of the lattice sites). Substituting the wavefunctions in Eq.(11) we find for the imaginary part of $`G_0`$:

$$\mathrm{Im}G_0(p)=i\frac{m_s}{4\pi }d^3|\psi _0(0)|^2p.$$
(12)
The real part is given by the principle value

$$\mathrm{Re}G_0(p0)=\frac{2\mathrm{ln}2|\psi _0(0)|^2}{\pi t_0}.$$
(13)
The remaining terms in Eq.(9) can be analyzed in the WKB approximation. In a spherically symmetric harmonic trap the spectrum of the excitations is $`ϵ_s=\omega (n_x+n_y+n_z+3/2).`$ The WKB wavefunctions in each direction look like

$$w_n(x)=(\frac{\omega }{\pi })^{1/2}\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Phi }_n(x))}{(4ϵ_n\omega ^2x^2)^{1/4}},$$

where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n(x0)\pi n/2+qx`$ with $`q=\sqrt{\omega (n+1/2)}`$. Then

$$G^{}=\frac{\omega ^{1/2}}{8\pi ^3}\underset{n_x,n_y,n_z}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_{i=x,y,z}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Phi }_{n_i}(x))\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Phi }_{n_i}(x^{}))}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Pi }_{i=x,y,z}(n_i+1/2)}(n_x+n_y+n_z)},$$

where the summation occurs over even values of $`n`$. Note that the term with $`n_x=n_y=n_z=0`$ is absorbed in $`G_0`$ and hence is excluded from the sum. This sum diverges when $`x=x^{}`$. Changing from summation to integration and separating out the singular contribution we find:

$$G^{}(r0,0)=\frac{1}{4\pi r}+\underset{p}{}(\frac{1}{p^2}\frac{1}{p^23\omega /2}).$$

The sum over $`p`$ can be estimated to give a contribution $`1/l_0`$ to $``$. Within the TBM ($`D_01`$) this is much smaller than the contribution given by $`\mathrm{R}eG_0`$ and can therefore be neglected:

$$=\frac{2\mathrm{ln}2}{\pi tl_0^3}i\frac{m_sd^3}{4\pi l_0^3}p.$$

Substituting Eq. (9) in Eq. (5) and comparing the result with the boundary condition (8) we can compute the coefficients $`A`$ and $`B`$ to find the expression for the scattering amplitude:

$$f_{00}(p)=\frac{4\pi /m_s}{a_{\mathrm{eff}}^1+ip},$$
(14)
where $`\beta =(d/l_0)^3`$, and the effective scattering length is defined as

$$a_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{a\beta m_s}{1+a/l_{}},$$
(15)
with $`l_{}=l_0D_0^{1/2}/4\mathrm{ln}2`$.

The dependence of the effective scattering length $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ on the microscopic scattering length $`a`$ is depicted in Fig. 1. First, according to Eq. (15) in the limit of small $`a<<l_{}`$, we have $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}/a=\beta m_s>>1`$, i.e. the effective interaction in the lattice in comparison with free space is strongly enhanced by both the strong confinement of atoms in the lattice sites $`\beta (d/l_0)^3>>1`$ and the large effective mass $`m_s`$. In the case of repulsive interaction, $`a>0`$, $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ continuously grows as $`a`$ increases and approaches the universal value $`a_{\mathrm{}}=m_s\beta l_{}dl_0`$. In the case of attractive interaction, $`a<0`$, the effective scattering length exhibits resonant behavior and diverges at $`|a|=l_{}`$. This is the same type of geometric resonance suggested for quasi-1D Petrov et al. (2000a) and quasi-2D gases Petrov et al. (2000b); Petrov and Shlyapnikov (2001) at low energies. At larger values of $`|a|`$ the effective scattering becomes repulsive and reaches the universal limit $`a_{\mathrm{}}`$.

The imaginary part in Eq.(14) is required by the optical theorem Landau and Lifshitz (1977) and does not imply any inelastic process (apart from those possibly contained in $`\mathrm{Im}a`$). Depending on the sign $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ the poles of the scattering amplitude give rise either to bound or to virtual states in the effective potential as a result of the interplay of the interparticle interaction and the lattice potential. An interesting possibility arises when the microscopic scattering length $`a`$ is negative and its absolute value is slightly larger than the resonance value $`l_{}`$. In this case the effective interaction is repulsive and is characterized by a very large and positive scattering length

$$a_{\mathrm{eff}}^+=\frac{l_{}\beta m_s}{|a|l_{}}.$$

Accordingly, the scattering amplitude (14) has a pole at $`|p|=p_{}`$ corresponding to a bound state with a binding energy

$$|ϵ_{}|=\frac{p_{}^2}{m_s}=\frac{1}{m_s(a_{\mathrm{eff}}^+)^2}.$$

The size of such a dimer is $`\xi a_{\mathrm{eff}}^+`$ and must be very large: $`\xi d`$ so that the bound state of the two particles can extend over many lattice sites, and thus should be referred to as “Wannier-Mott” molecules in analogy to the Wannier-Mott excitons in semiconductors Yu and Cardona (2001), where bound states of electron and holes can very large compared with the lattice constant.

Note that in the TBM $`l_{}l_0`$ and, therefore, the geometric resonance $`|a|l_{}`$ can occur at realistic values of the microscopic scattering length $`a`$. Because the rate of 3-body recombination scales as $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}^4`$ Fedichev et al. (1996) the spontaneous formation of these molecules should be facilitated in the limit that the effective scattering length becomes large. However, at the same time, in this limit the binding energy is very small and a reasonable fraction of bound atoms can only be expected at temperatures $`T|ϵ_{}|`$. A possible way of detecting these extended and weakly bound Wannier-Mott molecules arises if they are composed of fermionic atoms in different internal states. When the trapping potentials for the separate states are tilted in opposite directions, the unbound atoms experience a force and will move in one or the other direction, depending on their internal state, whereas the molecules experience zero net force. If the potential gradient difference exceeds a certain critical value related to the binding energy, the molecules dissociate and the remaining atoms are released.

The limiting value of the 2-body scattering amplitude $`f_{00}(0)`$ is of particular importance for condensed matter calculations

$$f_{00}(0)=\frac{4\pi a_{\mathrm{eff}}}{m_s}=\frac{4\pi \beta }{a^1+l_{}^1}.$$

and determines the effective interaction strength $`\stackrel{~}{U}f_{00}(0)`$ for a dilute lattice gas. For example, in the case of a Bose-condensed lattice gas the chemical potential is given by $`\stackrel{~}{U}n`$, where $`n`$ is the density of the condensed particles Beliaev (1958). Similarly, in a system of interacting fermions with an attractive interaction ($`\stackrel{~}{U}<0`$) the critical temperature of the BCS transition is Gor’kov and Melik-Barkhudarov (1961)

$$T_c=\frac{8\mathrm{exp}(\gamma 2)}{\pi }ϵ_F\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ^2/p_F\stackrel{~}{|U}|),$$
(16)
where $`ϵ_F=p_F^2/2m_s`$ is the Fermi energy. An increase of the absolute value of the scattering length leads to a resonance in the effective interaction potential and causes the latter to change from an attractive to a repulsive interaction at $`|a|=l_{}`$. Note however, that close to the resonance the imaginary and energy dependent part of the scattering amplitude cannot be neglected and Eq.(16) loses its validity. A further increase of $`|a|`$ leads to a repulsive interaction which destroys the BCS ground state and results in the formation of dimers. Since the latter are bosons, at sufficiently small temperatures a BEC of dimers can be created. This possibility is related to the ongoing discussion of the BCS-to-BEC crossover in strongly interacting Fermi-gases with attractive interaction Nozieres and Schmitt-Rink (1985). We note that the BEC of large molecules provides an example of a superfluid ground state for a system of interacting fermions with effective repulsion. This possibility is related to the reported BEC of excitons in semiconductors Lin and Wolfe (1993).

In summary, we have derived an analytical expression for the scattering amplitude as a function of the free space scattering length and the parameters of the confining optical potential for small energies. For a repulsive interaction, as the microscopic scattering length increases, the effective scattering amplitude grows and continuously approaches a universal limit. In the case of attractive interaction, increasing the scattering length leads to a geometric resonance occurring before the universal limit is reached. Close to the resonance, when the effective interaction becomes repulsive, it supports a weakly bound Wannier-Mott molecule which can extend over several lattice sites.

Discussions with G.V. Shlyapnikov, A. Daley, A. Recati, U. R. Fischer are gratefully acknowledged. Work at Innsbruck supported in part by the Austrian Science Foundation, EU Networks, and the Institute for Quantum Information. P.F. thanks RFBR for support.


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# About Covariant Quartit Cloning Machines

## I Introduction

Quantum cryptography aims at distributing a random key in such a way that the presence of an eavesdropper (traditionally called Eve) who monitors the quantum communication is revealed by the errors she introduces in the transmission (for a review, see e.g. Gisin et al. (2002)). To realize a quantum cryptographic protocol, it suffices that the key signal is encoded into quantum states that belong to incompatible bases, as in the original qubit protocol of Bennett and Brassard known as BB84 Bennet and Brassard (1984). In past years, several qutrit-based cryptographic protocols were shown to be more secure than their qubit-based counterparts Bechmann-Pasquinucci and Peres (2000); Bourennane et al. (2001); Cerf et al. (2002a); Bourennane et al. (2002); Bruss and Macchiavello (2002); Kaszlikowski et al. (2002); Durt et al. (2003a). This justifies the interest for studying the security of quartit protocols (see also Ref. Bechmann-Pasquinucci and Tittel (1999)). In order to evaluate the security of such protocols against individual attacks (where Eve monitors the quartits separately or incoherently) we will consider a fairly general class of eavesdropping attacks that are based on (state-dependent) quantum cloning machines Cerf (1998, 2000a, 2000b). This will yield an upper bound on the acceptable error rate. Higher error rates do not allow secure communication, since in accordance with C-K theorem Csiszár and Körner (1978), a spy could in theory acquire all the information, if Alice and Bob restrict themselves to one way communication on the classical channel.

Quantum cloning is a concept that was first introduced in a seminal paper by Buzek and Hillery Buzek and Hillery (1996), where a universal (or state-independent) and symmetric cloning transformation was introduced for qubits. This transformation was later extended to higher-dimensional systems by Werner Werner (1998) but only in the special case of a universal (state-independent) cloner. In contrast, we will focus on non-universal (or state-dependent) cloners. Our starting point, summarized in Sec. II is a general characterization of asymmetric and state-dependent cloning transformations for $`N`$-level systems, as described in Refs. Cerf (2000a, b). In Sec. III we will establish the generality of this formalism. We adapt the formalism in Sec. IV such that it is invariant under certain unitary transformations. We propose in Sec. V an optical implementation for quantum key distribution that generalizes BB84 protocol Bennet and Brassard (1984). In this new protocol, the signal is encoded in four-dimensional basis states, in two mutually unbiased bases111By assumption, two orthonormal bases of an N-dimensional Hilbert space are said to be mutually unbiased if the norm of the scalar product between any two vectors belonging each to one of the bases is equal to $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}`$.. The covariant cloning formalism developed in the previous sections will be applied in Sec. VI to clone these two mutually unbiased bases that are actually related by a double Hadamard transformation Bechmann-Pasquinucci and Tittel (1999). We will show that the optimal cloner requires a generalization of the Bell states well adapted to the particular problem under study, before we conclude in Sec. VII.

## II State dependent cloning formalism

To explain the general cloning formalism it is convenient to look at the exchange of a quantum key in a different way. Suppose Alice and Bob exchange the maximally entangled state:

$$|B_{00}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}\underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}|k|k$$
(1)
The states $`|k`$ form a basis ($`\{|0,|1,\mathrm{},|N\}`$) (called the computational basis) in the N-dimensional Hilbertspace. Alice has access to the first quantum, while Bob has access to the second. If Alice now projects her part of the state on $`|\psi ^{}`$, the resulting state is:

$`(|\psi ^{}\psi ^{}|\widehat{I}){\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|k|k=|\psi ^{}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\psi ^{}|k|k`$
$`=|\psi ^{}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}k|\psi |k=|\psi ^{}|\psi `$ (2)
The result is a product state, and Bob has access to $`|\psi `$. We see that it makes no difference whether Alice creates and sends the state $`|\psi `$ to Bob, or whether Alice projects her part of a shared maximally entangled state on $`|\psi ^{}`$. Therefore, we will use this representation of the exchange of $`|\psi `$, as it makes the mathematical description of cloners more elegant. A spy’s attack would now consist of modifying the maximally entangled state when it was created or exchanged.

In the cloning formalism of N. Cerf Cerf (2000a, b, 1998), the maximally entangled state is modified into the $`N^4`$ dimensional state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{\text{R,A,B,C}}`$. The index ‘R’ denotes the reference state accessible to Alice. She will project it onto $`|\psi ^{}`$ to communicate with Bob (as she doesn’t know Eve has tampered with the maximally entangled state, she thinks that Bob will receive $`|\psi `$). The index ‘A’ denotes the state that is accessible to Bob, and it will contain the first (imperfect) clone of $`|\psi `$. The index ‘B’ denotes the state of Eve that will contain the second clone. And finally ‘C’ is the state of the Cloning machine, and is also accessible by Eve. In the formalism of N. Cerf, $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}`$ has the form:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}=\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}a_{m,n}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}|B_{m,n}_{B,C}=\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}b_{m,n}|B_{m,n}_{R,B}|B_{m,n}_{A,C}$$
(3)
The states $`|B_{m,n}`$ are generalized (Fourier) Bell states defined as 222The sum operator inside the kets is always defined modulo N:

$$|B_{m,n}_{R,A}=N^{1/2}\underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}e^{2\pi i(kn/N)}|k_R|k+m_A$$
(4)
In (3), $`a_{m,n}`$ and $`b_{m,n}`$ are normalized complex amplitudes:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|a_{m,n}|^2={\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|b_{m,n}|^2=1`$ (5)
We can easily calculate the inproducts of the basis states:

$`\left(B_{m,n}|_{R,A}B_{m,n}|_{B,C}\right)\left(|B_{x,y}_{R,B}|B_{x,y}_{A,C}\right)=N^1\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2\pi i}{N}(nxmy)\right)`$ (6)
Using (6) and (3), we can easily show that $`a_{m,n}`$ and $`b_{m,n}`$ are dual under a Fourier transform:

$`a_{m,n}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,y=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}e^{2\pi i(nxmy)/N}b_{x,y}`$ (7)
$`b_{m,n}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,y=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}e^{2\pi i(nxmy)/N}a_{x,y}`$ (8)
Projecting the reference system of $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}`$ onto $`\psi ^{}|`$ yields (using (3):

$$\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}a_{m,n}U_{m,n}|\psi _A|B_{m,n}_{B,C}=\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}b_{m,n}U_{m,n}|\psi _B|B_{m,n}_{A,C}$$
(9)
with:

$$U_{m,n}=\underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}e^{2\pi i(kn/N)}|k+mk|$$
(10)
The error operators $`U_{m,n}`$ shifts the state by $`m`$ units (modulo $`N`$) in the computational basis, and multiplies it by a phase to shift its Fourier transform by $`n`$ units (modulo $`N`$). Of course, $`U_{0,0}=I`$, which corresponds to no error. Note that:

$$(IU_{m,n})|B_{0,0}=|B_{m,n}$$
(11)
The state (9) completely characterizes the cloning transformation333This is actually the state that Eve would prepare if she intercepted a state $`|\psi `$ sent by Alice. This indeed shows that sending $`|\psi `$ to Bob, or using the maximally entangled state, is equivalent for what concerns cloning.. To evaluate the quality of the clone A (B), we take the partial trace of over ‘B’ and ‘C’ (‘A’ and ‘C’) of the density operator associated with state (9). The resulting reduced density operator $`\rho _A`$ and $`\rho _B`$ of respectively the first and the second clone are:

$`\rho _A`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|a_{m,n}|^2|\psi _{m,n}\psi _{m,n}|`$ (12)
$`\rho _B`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}|b_{m,n}|^2|\psi _{m,n}\psi _{m,n}|`$ (13)
where

$$|\psi _{m,n}=U_{m,n}|\psi $$
(14)
The fidelity of the first clone when copying $`|\psi `$ (i.e the probability that there is a collapse onto this state) is equal to

$$F_A=\psi |\rho _A|\psi =\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}|a_{m,n}|^2|\psi |\psi _{m,n}|^2$$
(15)
Focusing on the computational basis, we see that the fidelity of any state $`|k`$ is equal to:

$$F_A=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}|a_{0,n}|^2$$
(16)
We also define $`N1`$ disturbances: we call $`D_i`$ the probability that there is a collapse on $`|k+i`$ if state $`|k`$ was sent. The disturbances are (in the computational basis):

$$D_i=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}|a_{i,n}|^2\text{with }i\{1,2,\mathrm{}N1\}$$
(17)
The fidelities and the disturbances of the second clone are obtained by replacing $`a_{m,n}`$ with $`b_{m,n}`$ in (15) – (17). It is clear that the quality of the two clones depends on the amplitudes $`a_{m,n}`$ and $`b_{m,n}`$. Furthermore, there is a trade-off between the quality of the two clones. Suppose $`a_{m,n}`$ is a peaked function (i.e $`a_{m,n}`$ is large for one value of $`\{m,n\}`$ and small for the other values) leading to a high-fidelity of the first clone. As $`b_{m,n}`$ is the Fourier transform of $`a_{m,n}`$ it will be a rather flat function (i.e. all $`b_{m,n}`$ will be almost equally large), leading to a rather low fidelity for the second clone.444Consider the extreme case that $`a_{0,0}=1`$ and the other $`a_{m,n}=0`$. The first clone would in this case be perfect, with a fidelity of 1 and no disturbances ($`D_i=0`$). The second clone would, however, be characterized by $`b_{m,n}=\frac{1}{N}`$ for all values of $`m`$ and $`n`$, leading to fidelities and disturbances $`F=D_i=\frac{1}{N}`$. This basically means that all values have an equal probability to be measured, independent of the value that was sent, making the clone worthless, as the transinformation between Alice and Bob is indeed 0. The balance between the quality of clones $`A`$ and $`B`$ can be expressed, in full generality, by an entropic no-cloning uncertainty relation that relates the probability distributions $`p_{m,n}`$ and $`q_{m,n}`$ Cerf (2000b):

$$H[p]+H[q]\mathrm{log}_2(N^2)$$
(18)
where $`H[p]`$ and $`H[q]`$ denote the Shannon entropy of the discrete probability distributions $`p`$ and $`q`$ defined as

$`p(m,n)=|a_{m,n}|^2`$ (19)
$`q(m,n)=|b_{m,n}|^2`$ (20)
This inequality is actually a special case of a no-cloning uncertainty relation involving the losses of the channels that yield the two clones Cerf (1999). More refined uncertainty relations can be found that express the fact that the index $`m`$ of output $`A`$ is dual to the index $`n`$ of output $`B`$, and vice versa Cerf (2000b).

## III About the generality of Cerf’s formalism

One could object that the class of cloning machines considered in this paper is not the most general one. Indeed, we postulate from the beginning that the joint state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}`$ has the form of Eq. (3) implying that the reduced density matrices of Alice and Bob ($`R,A`$) and Eve ($`B,C`$) are diagonal in the Bell basis. Although Eve is free to choose the basis that diagonalises her reduced density matrix, the most general state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}`$ will not possess the property that $`Tr_{B,C}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}\mathrm{\Psi }|_{R,A,B,C}`$ is diagonal in the Bell basis $`|B_{m,n}_{R,A}`$. We will call the states that have this property “Cerf”-states. Nearly all the (optimal) cloning machines that appeared in the literature can be unambiguously represented by a Cerf-state Bechmann-Pasquinucci and Gisin (1999); Fuchs et al. (1997); Bruss et al. (2000); Kaszlikowski et al. (2002); Cerf et al. (2002b); Durt et al. (2003a). We can guess the underlying physical reason if we note that the Bell states are invariant (up to a global phase) under a cyclic relabeling of the basis states. Indeed, let us consider the generator $`C`$ of cyclic permutations of the indices $`l`$ of the computational basis:

$$C.|l=|(l+1)\text{ mod }4$$
(21)
It is easy to check that the Bell states defined in Eq. (4) are mapped onto themselves under such a permutation (up to a global phase), and under all its powers. So, when cyclic permutations are a natural symmetry of the protocol, it is also natural that the Bell states defined in Eq. (4) play a privileged role in Eve’s attack: the symmetries of the effects reflect the symmetries of the causes as is well known in physics.

Now, we could ask the inverse question: “What is the most general state that is invariant under any cyclic relabeling of the basis states?” We shall show that when optimal qubit cloning machines are described by a $`2^4`$ dimensional pure state which is invariant under any cyclic relabeling of the basis states, such a state is a Cerf state. This shows (at least for qubits) that Cerf’s formalism for optimal cloning machines is more general than it could seem at first sight.

In two dimensions, only two permutations exist: the identity and the generator $`C`$ that switches the labels 0 and 1 (which is a parity operator: $`C^2`$ = $`1`$). We shall now prove the following theorem:

Theorem:

Let us consider any qubit protocol. Let us consider the corresponding 16 dimensional pure state that is assumed to be optimal and to be invariant under any cyclic relabeling of the basis states. Such a state is a Cerf-state so to say $`Tr_{B,C}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}\mathrm{\Psi }|_{R,A,B,C}`$ is diagonal in the Bell basis $`|B_{m,n}_{R,A}`$.

Proof:

The four Bell states, when $`N`$ = 2, are defined as follows:

$`|B_{0,0}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|00+|11)|B_{1,0}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|01+|10)`$ (22)
$`|B_{0,1}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|00|11)|B_{1,1}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(|01|10)`$ (23)
It is easy to check that the Bell states are eigenstates of the permutation operator $`C`$ with the eigenvalues $`\pm 1`$. If we impose that the joint state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}`$ is invariant under the action of the permutation operator ($`C|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}`$ = $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}`$ ), then it belongs necessarily to the 8 dimensional eigenspace associated to the eigenvalue +1 of $`C`$:

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}=`$ $`\alpha _+|B_{0,0}_{R,A}|B_{0,0}_{B,C}+\alpha _{}|B_{0,1}_{R,A}|B_{0,1}_{B,C}`$
$`+`$ $`\beta _+|B_{1,0}_{R,A}|B_{1,0}_{B,C}+\beta _{}|B_{1,1}_{R,A}|B_{1,1}_{B,C}`$
$`+`$ $`\gamma _+|B_{1,0}_{R,A}|B_{0,0}_{B,C}+\gamma _{}|B_{1,1}_{R,A}|B_{0,1}_{B,C}`$
$`+`$ $`\delta _+|B_{0,0}_{R,A}|B_{1,0}_{B,C}+\delta _{}|B_{0,1}_{R,A}|B_{1,1}_{B,C}`$ (24)
We see that the requirement that the full state is invariant under a permutation of the basis states reduces the generality of the joint state (which is usually described by 16 amplitudes). Here the amplitudes associated to states that are antisymmetric under the action of the permutation operator $`C`$ are assumed to be equal to zero. Although Eq. (24) does not yet describe a Cerf-state, we shall proof that in the optimal case it does. In order to do so, let us first consider the reduced state shared by Alice and Bob:

$`\rho _{R,A}=`$ $`Tr_{B,C}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}\mathrm{\Psi }|_{R,A,B,C}`$
$`=`$ $`(\alpha _+|B_{0,0}_{R,A}+\gamma _+|B_{1,0}_{R,A})(\alpha _+^{}B_{0,0}|_{R,A}+\gamma _+^{}B_{1,0}|_{R,A})`$
$`+`$ $`(\beta _+|B_{1,0}_{R,A}+\delta _+|B_{0,0}_{R,A})(\beta _+^{}B_{1,0}|_{R,A}+\delta _+^{}B_{0,0}|_{R,A})`$
$`+`$ $`(\alpha _{}|B_{0,1}_{R,A}+\gamma _{}|B_{1,1}_{R,A})(\alpha _{}^{}B_{0,1}|_{R,A}+\gamma _{}^{}B_{1,1}|_{R,A})`$
$`+`$ $`(\beta _{}|B_{1,1}_{R,A}+\delta _{}|B_{0,1}_{R,A})(\beta _{}^{}B_{1,1}|_{R,A}+\delta _{}^{}B_{0,1}|_{R,A})`$ (25)
It is worth noting that the non-diagonal components of the reduced density matrix $`\rho _{R,A}`$ of the type $`|B_{i,j}B_{m,n}|`$ (for $`im`$) do not contribute to the statistics of the measurements performed by Alice and Bob in the computational basis. Indeed:

$`pq|B_{i,j}B_{m,n}|pq`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,l}{}}(1)^{kj+ln}p|kq|k+il|pl+m|q`$ (26)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,l}{}}(1)^{kj+ln}\delta _{p,k}\delta _{q,k+i}\delta _{l,p}\delta _{l+m,q}`$ (27)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1)^{p(j+n)}\delta _{q,p+i}\delta _{q,p+m}`$ (28)
which is $`0`$ if $`mi`$. This means that everything happened, from the point of view of Alice and Bob, as if $`\rho _{R,A}`$ was equal to the effective density operator $`\rho _{R,A}^{eff}`$ defined as:

$`\rho _{R,A}^{eff}=`$ $`(|\alpha _+|^2+|\delta _+|^2)|B_{0,0}B_{0,0}|+(|\beta _+|^2+|\gamma _+|^2)|B_{1,0}B_{1,0}|`$
$`+(|\alpha _{}|^2+|\delta _{}|^2)|B_{0,1}B_{0,1}|+(|\beta _{}|^2+|\gamma _{}|^2)|B_{1,1}B_{1,1}|`$ (29)
Let us evaluate the information possessed by Eve relatively to Alice. We denote $`P_{i,j}^E`$ the probability that Eve simultaneously observes the output clone $`B`$ to be in the $`i^{\text{th}}`$ detector and the cloning machine $`C`$ in the $`j^{\text{th}}`$ detector and $`P_{k;i,j}^{A|E}`$ the probability that Alice’s $`k^{\text{th}}`$ detector fires while Eve simultaneously observes the output clone $`B`$ in the $`i^{\text{th}}`$ detector and the cloning machine $`C`$ in the $`j^{\text{th}}`$ detector. By direct computation, we obtain that:

$`P_{0,0}^E=`$ $`P_{1,1}^E={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|\alpha _+|^2+|\alpha _{}|^2+|\gamma _+|^2+|\gamma _{}|^2)`$ (30)
$`P_{0,1}^E=`$ $`P_{1,0}^E={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|\beta _+|^2+|\beta _{}|^2+|\delta _+|^2+|\delta _{}|^2)`$ (31)
$`P_{0;0,0}^{A;E}=`$ $`1P_{1;0,0}^{A;E}=1P_{0;1,1}^{A;E}=P_{1;1,1}^{A;E}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}P_{0,0}^E+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{Re}(\alpha _+\alpha _{}^{})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{Re}(\gamma _+\gamma _{}^{})`$ (32)
$`P_{0;0,1}^{A;E}=`$ $`1P_{1;0,1}^{A;E}=1P_{0;1,0}^{A;E}=P_{1;1,0}^{A;E}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}P_{0,1}^E+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{Re}(\beta _+\beta _{}^{})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{Re}(\delta _+\delta _{}^{})`$ (33)
Equations (3033) show that the information gained by Eve during such an attack is certainly not superior to the information gained during an attack in which Eve chooses the Cerf state

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{P_1}}}`$ $`(\alpha _+|B_{0,0}_{R,A}|B_{0,0}_{B,C}+\alpha _{}|B_{0,1}_{R,A}|B_{0,1}_{B,C}`$
$`+\beta _+|B_{1,0}_{R,A}|B_{1,0}_{B,C}+\beta _{}|B_{1,1}_{R,A}|B_{1,1}_{B,C})`$ (34)
with probability $`P_1=|\alpha _+|^2+|\alpha _{}|^2+|\beta _+|^2+|\beta _{}|^2`$ and the Cerf state

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{P_2}}}`$ $`\left(\gamma _+|B_{0,0}_{R,A}|B_{0,0}_{B,C}+\gamma _{}|B_{0,1}_{R,A}|B_{0,1}_{B,C}\right)`$
$`+\delta _+|B_{1,0}_{R,A}|B_{1,0}_{B,C}+\delta _{}|B_{1,1}_{R,A}|B_{1,1}_{B,C})`$ (35)
with probability $`P_2=|\gamma _+|^2+|\gamma _{}|^2+|\delta _+|^2+|\delta _{}|^2`$ . Furthermore, the two attacks lead to the same distribution of statistical results, as the effective density operator (29) equals the density operator of the attack using (34) and (35). By assumption, the optimal (pure) Cerf state is superior to this second attack (which uses a mixture of Cerf states), which ends the proof. The generalization of this proof to arbitrary dimensions is given in Durt et al. (2003b).

## IV The covariant cloning machine

The formalism defined in the previous section is valid when Alice and Bob respectively encode and measure the signal in the computational basis $`(|0,|1,|2\mathrm{}|N)`$. Quantum cryptographic protocols impose that Alice must use at least another basis $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ $`(|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_0,|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1,|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_2,\mathrm{}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_N)`$, with

$$i|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_j=A_{ij}$$
(36)
If Alice and Bob share the joint state $`|B_{0,0}`$ and that Alice wishes to encode the signal in the $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ basis, she must project her component of $`|B_{0,0}`$ into the conjugate basis (that we shall from now on denote the $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}`$ basis) defined as follows: $`i|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_j^{}`$ = $`A_{ij}^{}`$. This property is a direct consequence of Eq. (2). We now require that the computational basis is not privileged, and that the cloning machine clones the states of the computational and the $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ basis in the same manner. This implies that after projecting the reference (Alice’s) system onto the state $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}`$ (which would result in an input state $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ of Bob, in the absence of an eavesdropper), the reduced density operators of Bob and Eve must be of the form:

$`\rho _A={\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}p_{m,n}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m,n}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m,n}|`$ (37)
$`\rho _B={\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}q_{m,n}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m,n}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m,n}|`$ (38)
where
$`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m,n}=\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ (39)
and
$`\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n}={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}e^{2\pi i(kn/N)}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{k+m}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k|.`$ (40)
A possible corresponding joint state of the two clones and the cloning machine is (see also Durt et al. (2003a)):

$$\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}a_{m,n}\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_A|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}=\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}b_{m,n}\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_B|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}^{}_{A,C}$$
(41)
where

$$|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}=N^{1/2}\underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}e^{2\pi i(kn/N)}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k^{}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{k+m}=(I\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n})|B_{0,0}$$
(42)
Equation (42) is a generalization of the Bell States defined in (4). Indeed, if $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ is the computational basis, (42) and (4) are equal, because the computational basis is real and $`|B_{m,n}^{}=|B_{m,n}`$. The joint state of the reference $`R`$, the two output clones ($`A`$ and $`B`$), and the ($`N`$-dimensional) cloning machine $`C`$ that corresponds with (41) is:

$$\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}a_{m,n}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}_{R,A}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}=\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}b_{m,n}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}_{R,B}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}^{}_{A,C}$$
(43)
With this choice555This choice is unique up to arbitrary unitary transformations in the $`N^2`$ dimensional Hilbert space assigned to Eve ($`B`$ and $`C`$), the requirement of covariance in the computational and the $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ bases imposes the extra-constraint:

$$\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}a_{m,n}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}|B_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}=\underset{i,j=0}{\overset{N1}{}}a_{i,j}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{i,j}_{R,A}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{i,j}^{}_{B,C}$$
(44)
As the $`B_{m,n}`$ states form an orthonormal basis, we can write:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}a_{m,n}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}|B_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}a_{i,j}\left({\displaystyle \underset{m,n}{}}|B_{m,n}B_{m,n}|\right)|\stackrel{~}{B}_{i,j}_{R,A}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k,l}{}}|B_{k,l}^{}B_{k,l}^{}|\right)|\stackrel{~}{B}_{i,j}^{}_{B,C}`$ (45)
Defining:

$`V_{i,j,k,l}B_{i,j}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{k,l}`$ (46)
we get:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}m,n\\ k,l\end{array}}{}}a_{m,n}\delta _{(m,n),(k,l)}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}|B_{k,l}^{}_{B,C}`$ (47)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}i,j,k\\ l,m,n\end{array}}{}}a_{i,j}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}V_{m,n,i,j}|B_{k,l}^{}_{B,C}V_{k,l,i,j}^{}`$ (48)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}m,n,i,p\\ j,k,l,q\end{array}}{}}a_{i,j}\delta _{(i,j),(p,q)}V_{m,n,i,j}V_{k,l,p,q}^{}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}|B_{k,l}^{}_{B,C}`$ (49)
Formally, this constraint can be expressed as a matrix relation:

$$𝒱𝒜=𝒜𝒱$$
(50)
where $`𝒱`$ and $`𝒜`$ are $`N^2`$x$`N^2`$ matrices defined as follows:

$`𝒱_{m,n;i,j}=V_{m,n,i,j}`$ (51)
and $`𝒜`$ the diagonal matrix defined as
$`𝒜_{i,j;p,q}=a_{i,j}\delta _{(i,j),(p,q)}`$ (52)
As $`𝒜`$ is diagonal, (50) is extremely simple to solve:

$$\text{if }𝒱_{i,j;p,q}0\text{ then }a_{i,j}=a_{p,q}$$
(53)
Therefore, to build a cloning machine that is invariant in two bases (the computational basis and the $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ basis) we only need to compute the $`N^4`$ inproducts $`𝒱_{i,j;k,l}=B_{i,j}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{k,l}`$. The solutions $`a_{m,n}`$ of Eq. (53) define the most general cloning machine that is invariant in the two bases.

The generalization in the case where none of the bases is the computational basis is straightforward. The condition (53) remains valid, as long as we construct the Bell states using (42) for the two bases.

## V  Quantum cryptography with two complementary quartit bases: A protocol based on interferometric complementarity.

A quantum protocol for key distribution that implements quartit states can be conceived using the lateral shape of electromagnetic pulses. Consider figure 1.

Each $`\varphi _{ij}`$ represents the same (lateral) field distribution, shifted in its own square, and coherent with respect to the others. In theory any distribution could be used, as long as two neighboring distributions do not overlap. In practice, these can be easily produced by a fan-out of a single laser source. In combination with an external modulator, that can switch off or switch on each channel, and a controllable $`\pi `$-phase retarder, we can easily realize the following two mutually unbiased bases:

$`|0`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|\varphi _{11}+|\varphi _{12}\right)`$ $`|1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|\varphi _{11}|\varphi _{12}\right)`$
$`|2`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|\varphi _{21}+|\varphi _{22}\right)`$ $`|3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|\varphi _{21}|\varphi _{22}\right)`$ (54)
and

$`|0^{}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|\varphi _{11}+|\varphi _{21}\right)`$ $`|1^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|\varphi _{11}|\varphi _{21}\right)`$
$`|2^{}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|\varphi _{12}+|\varphi _{22}\right)`$ $`|3^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(|\varphi _{12}|\varphi _{22}\right)`$ (55)
so we have :

$$|i|j^{}|^2=\frac{1}{4}$$
(56)
If we represent the in-products between the first basis and the second one in a matrix form, we get:

$$H_{ij}=(i|j^{})=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}+1& +1& +1& +1\\ +1& +1& 1& 1\\ +1& 1& +1& 1\\ +1& 1& 1& +1\end{array}\right)$$
(57)
Actually, this is (up to a permutation of the second and the third primed basis states) a double Hadamard transform Bechmann-Pasquinucci and Tittel (1999); Brainis et al. (2003). The simple Hadamard transform is well-known in quantum information Nielsen and Chuang (2000): it sends the qubit $`|i`$ ($`i`$=0, 1) onto $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+()^i|1)`$. It is easy to check that if we identify the computational quartit basis with the product basis as follows: $`|0^{quart}=|00,|1^{quart}=|10,|2^{quart}=|01,`$ and $`|3^{quart}=|11`$, then, when the qubits undergo a simple Hadamard transformation, quartits change according to Eq. (57) (up to a permutation of the labels 2 and 3 of the primed basis).

Therefore we shall from now on call it a Hadamard transform, and denote its elements $`H_{ij}`$ in accordance with Eq. (57). Figure 2 shows a relatively simple setup, consisting of a mirror, a 50/50 beam splitter and two photon counters, which can distinguish between the states.

The mirror’s position is tuned to ensure that if two distributions enter the device, their fields are added in the horizontal branch and subtracted in the vertical one. So if we position the two input lines of this interferometer in the $`\varphi _{11}`$ and $`\varphi _{12}`$ channel, the photon counter in the horizontal(vertical) branch corresponds to a projective measurement on $`|0`$($`|1`$). In a similar way, and by rotating the setup (or the incoming channels) projections on the $`|i^{}`$-basis can be made.

## VI Estimation of the safety threshold.

### VI.1 Applying the covariant formalism to Fourier complementary bases

We will now apply the covariant formalism to find a cloner that clones equally well two quartit bases, that are Fourier transforms of each other. Cloning between such bases has been studied in the past Cerf et al. (2002c, a). We would like to compare the results of our covariant cloner with the optimal cloners of the literature. We have the computational basis$`\{|0`$, $`|1`$, $`|2`$, $`|3\}`$ and its Fourier transform $`|k^{}=\frac{1}{2}_{j=0}^3e^{2\pi i(kj/4)}|j`$:

$`|0^{}`$ $`=\frac{1}{2}(|0+|1+|2+|3)`$
$`|1^{}`$ $`=\frac{1}{2}(|0+i|1|2i|3)`$
$`|2^{}`$ $`=\frac{1}{2}(|0|1+|2|3)`$
$`|3^{}`$ $`=\frac{1}{2}(|0i|1|2+i|3)`$ (58)
The $`|k^{}`$ basis plays the role of $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ in Sec. IV. We denote the unitary transformation that connects the two bases as $`F`$:

$`F_{k,l}`$ $`=k|l^{}=\frac{1}{2}e^{2\pi i(kj/4)}=\frac{1}{2}i^{kl}`$ (59)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 1\\ \hfill 1& \hfill i& \hfill 1& \hfill i\\ \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 1\\ \hfill 1& \hfill i& \hfill 1& \hfill i\end{array}\right)`$ (64)
Calculating the $`16\times 16`$ matrix $`𝒱_{i,j;k,l}`$(we write $`|\stackrel{~}{k}|k^{}`$):

$`𝒱_{m,n;k,l}`$ $`=B_{m,n}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{k^{},l}`$ (65)
$`=\frac{1}{4}{\displaystyle \underset{p,q=0}{\overset{3}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2\pi i}{2}(qlpn)\right)p|\stackrel{~}{q}^{}p+m|\stackrel{~}{q+k}`$ (66)
$`=\frac{1}{16}{\displaystyle \underset{p,q=0}{\overset{3}{}}}i^{(qlpn)}i^{pq}i^{(p+m)(q+k)}`$ (67)
$`=\frac{1}{16}i^{mk}{\displaystyle \underset{p=0}{\overset{3}{}}}i^{(kn)p}{\displaystyle \underset{q=0}{\overset{3}{}}}i^{(l+m)q}`$ (68)
$`=i^{mk}\delta _{l+m,4}\delta _{k,n}`$ (69)
Remember that all additions are modulo 4. Applying (53) we get the condition:

$`a_{m,n}=a_{k,l}\text{ if }l+m=0\text{ and }k=n`$ (70)
leading to:

$`a_{01}=a_{03}=a_{10}=a_{30}`$ $`a_{02}=a_{20}`$ (71)
$`a_{21}=a_{12}=a_{23}=a_{32}`$ $`a_{11}=a_{13}=a_{33}=a_{31}`$ (72)
This corresponds to the following $`a_{mn}`$ matrix:

$$(a_{m,n})=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}a& b& c& b\\ b& d& f& d\\ c& f& e& f\\ b& d& f& d\end{array}\right)$$
(73)
If we desire to optimize the information of Eve, conditioned on Alice and Bob’s observations, this means that certain conditions of constructive interference must be fulfilled. Moreover, the disturbances must be the same because the transmission line is assumed to be isotropic. This leads eventually Durt et al. (2003b) to the condition that $`b=c`$ and $`e=f`$. So the $`a_{mn}`$ matrix that is covariant in the two Fourier bases becomes:

$$(a_{m,n})=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}x& y& y& y\\ y& z& z& z\\ y& z& z& z\\ y& z& z& z\end{array}\right)$$
(74)
which leads to the cloning state:

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n=0}{\overset{3}{}}}a_{m,n}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}|B_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}`$
$`=`$ $`(v2x+y)|B_{0,0}_{R,A}|B_{0,0}_{B,C}+(xy){\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|B_{0,n}_{R,A}|B_{0,n}^{}_{B,C}`$
$`+(xy){\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|B_{m,0}_{R,A}|B_{m,0}_{B,C}+y{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}|B_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}`$ (75)
Actually, it is easy to checkDurt et al. (2003a) that, according to Eq. (42),

$`|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}_{R,A}=i^{nm}|B_{n,m}_{R,A}`$ (76)
$`|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}=i^{+nm}|B_{n,m}^{}_{B,C}`$ (77)
There exists thus a bijective relation between the Bell states expressed in the computational basis and those expressed in the Fourier basis. It helps to understand the invariance of the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}^F`$ in both bases. Thanks to this bijective relation, it is easy to show that:

$`|B_{0,0}_{R,A}|B_{0,0}_{B,C}=|\stackrel{~}{B}_{0,0}_{R,A}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{0,0}^{}_{B,C}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|B_{0,n}_{R,A}|B_{0,n}^{}_{B,C}={\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,0}_{R,A}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,0}^{}_{B,C}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|B_{m,0}_{R,A}|B_{m,0}^{}_{B,C}={\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{0,m}^{}_{R,A}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{0,m}^{}_{B,C}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|B_{m,n}_{R,A}|B_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}={\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}_{R,A}|\stackrel{~}{B}_{m,n}^{}_{B,C}`$
A cloning machine with such a matrix was already studied in Cerf et al. (2002a), although in that case the authors proposed the matrix without the covariant demand.666Of course this choice was not random. It was shown Cerf et al. (2002c, a) that such a matrix clones all the states that belong to the two Fourier bases with the same fidelity. However there is no guarantee that there are no other matrices which have this property. If we demand covariance of the cloner state, we have the assurance that (74) is the only solution. The optimum of this cloner (in four dimensions) and in the symmetric case (i.e. the cloner produces two clones of the same quality) is characterized by Cerf et al. (2002c, a):

$$(a_{m,n})=\frac{1}{4}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}3& 1& 1& 1\\ 1& \frac{1}{3}& \frac{1}{3}& \frac{1}{3}\\ 1& \frac{1}{3}& \frac{1}{3}& \frac{1}{3}\\ 1& \frac{1}{3}& \frac{1}{3}& \frac{1}{3}\end{array}\right)$$
(78)
The two clones have a fidelity of

$$F=\frac{3}{4}$$
(79)
and the three disturbances (error rates)

$$D_1=D_2=D_3=\frac{1}{12}$$
(80)
As the three Disturbances are always equal with the matrix (74), the maximum fidelity will also be the maximum of the mutual information between Alice and Bob (or between Alice and Eve for the second clone):

$$I_{AB}=I_{AE}=0.792$$
(81)
A theorem of Csiszár and Körner Csiszár and Körner (1978) shows that a secret key with $`R`$ bits can be generated through privacy amplification if:

$$RI_{AB}I_{AE}$$
(82)
It is therefore sufficient that $`I_{AB}>I_{AE}`$ in order to establish a secret key. If we restrict ourselves to one-way communication on the classical channel, (82) is also a necessary condition. Therefore, an error rate of 25% is the maximum that can be allowed between Alice and Bob.

As we noted in section III, the Cerf states are invariant under any cyclic permutation of the labels of the basis states. Actually, the invariance under cyclic permutations of the indices of the computational (Fourier) basis plays a fundamental role in this approach. For instance, it is easy to check that the Bell state $`|B_{m,n}_{X,Y}`$ is obtained by projecting the state $`|0,m`$ onto the eigenspace of $`C`$ associated with the eigenvalue $`i^n`$ ($`C`$ is defined in Eq. (21)). This projector is equal to

$$\underset{k=0}{\overset{41}{}}|B_{kn}B_{kn}|=\frac{1}{4}\underset{k=0}{\overset{41}{}}i^{nk}C^k$$
(83)
where we made use of the fact that $`C^4=C^0=1`$. Beside, one can check that the same Bell state, when it is expressed in the product bases $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k^{}`$ (and $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k^{}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k^{}`$ ) is invariant under cyclic relabeling of the indices $`k,k^{}`$ of the type $`k,k^{}k+1,k^{}+1`$ (let us call these permutations $`\stackrel{~}{C}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{C}^{}`$), for the eigenvalues $`i^m`$ and $`i^m`$ respectively. We shall generalize this property in a forthcoming section.

### VI.2 Estimation of the safety threshold in the usual formalism.

Let us now study the security of the protocol based on interferometric complementarity using the covariant cloning machines described in the previous section. The condition ($`𝒱_{i,j;k,l}0`$, then $`a_{i,j}`$ = $`a_{k,l}`$) yields the $`a_{mn}`$ matrix:

$$(a_{m,n})=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}a& b& c& b\\ b& d& b& d\\ c& b& e& b\\ b& d& b& d\end{array}\right)$$
(84)
The associated matrix $`b_{mn}`$ that we obtain according to Eq. (8) is:

$$(b_{m,n})=\frac{1}{4}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}a+8b+2c+2d+e& ae& ae& ae\\ ae& a2c+e& ae& a2c+e\\ a+2c4d+e& ae& a4b+2c+e& ae\\ ae& a2c+e& ae& a2c+e\end{array}\right)$$
(85)
According to Eq. (16), one can check that the fidelity associated to such a cloning state is equal to $`F_A=|a|^2+2|b|^2+|c|^2`$. Let us define the disturbance $`D_A^i`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$ ) as the probability that when Alice measures the state $`|j`$ , Bob measures the state $`|j+i`$. It is easy to check that

$$D_A^i=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}|a_{i,n}|^2$$
(86)
As the transmission line is usually considered to be isotropic, we have $`D_A^1=D_A^2=D_A^3`$, yielding the condition that $`2|d|^2=|c|^2+|e|^2`$. The cloning state defined by the following matrix $`a_{mn}^{iso}`$ obviously fulfills these constraints:

$$(a_{m,n}^{iso})=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}a& b& c& b\\ b& c& b& c\\ c& b& c& b\\ b& c& b& c\end{array}\right)$$
(87)
The fidelity and disturbances are:

$`F_A^{iso}=|a|^2+2|b|^2+|c|^2`$ (88)
$`D_A^{iso1}=D_A^{iso2}=D_A^{iso3}=2|b|^2+2|c|^2`$ (89)
The associated matrix $`b_{mn}^{iso}`$ that we obtain according to Eq. (8) is:

$$(b_{m,n}^{iso})=\frac{1}{4}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}a+8b+7c& ac& ac& ac\\ ac& ac& ac& ac\\ ac& ac& a8b+7c& ac\\ ac& ac& ac& ac\end{array}\right)$$
(90)
with a fidelity:

$$F_B^{iso}=|a|^2+2|b|^2+|c|^2$$
(91)
We can now maximize $`F_B^{iso}`$ for a given $`F_A^{iso}`$. This is shown in Fig. 3.

For a “symmetric” cloner a fidelity of $`F_A^{iso}=F_B^{iso}=0,7018`$ is obtained. This is significantly less than the limit threshold of 0,75 that was obtained by the optimal cloner that clones equally well two Fourier complementary bases in Ref. Cerf et al. (2002a); Bourennane et al. (2002). The difference is that we are now looking at the cloning machine that clones equally well (and optimally) two Hadamard complementary bases. In order to convince ourselves that they are different cloning machines, it is useful to recall that the optimal cloner that was found in Ref. Cerf et al. (2002a); Bourennane et al. (2002) is symmetric. If we impose this symmetry, $`a_{m,n}=b_{m,n}`$ , at the present level, we get the universal or isotropic cloning machine Cerf (2000b):

$$(a_{m,n})=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}a& b& b& b\\ b& b& b& b\\ b& b& b& b\\ b& b& b& b\end{array}\right)$$
(92)
The fidelity and disturbances are:

$`F=|a|^2+3|b|^2`$ (93)
$`D_1=D_2=D_3=4|b|^2`$ (94)
The second clone then has a $`b_{mn}`$ matrix defined as follows

$$(b_{m,n})=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\frac{a+15b}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}\\ \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}\\ \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}\\ \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}& \frac{ab}{4}\end{array}\right)$$
(95)
with a fidelity of $`F^{}=\frac{3}{16}|ab|^2+\frac{1}{16}|a+15b|^2`$. Due to symmetry and normalization, we have

$`a={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{10}}{4}}`$ (96)
$`b={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{10}}{20}}`$ (97)
Note that the fidelity of the optimal symmetric universal (or isotropic) cloner in N dimensions Buzek and Hillery (1996); Werner (1998); Cerf (2000b) is $`F=\frac{3+N}{2(1+N)}`$, which in 4 dimensions yields a fidelity of $`70\%`$. The optimal isotropic quartit cloner of Cerf et al. (2002a); Bourennane et al. (2002), which is slightly asymmetric, is characterized by a fidelity of $`73.33\%`$ according to Ref. Bourennane et al. (2002), and not $`75\%`$ as in Eq. (79).

It is extremely puzzling that two mutually unbiased bases that are related by a Hadamard transformation cannot be cloned with the same fidelity as bases that are related trough a Fourier transformation. We found a way to escape this paradox: it consists of a redefinition of the Bell states.

### VI.3 Definition of the Hadamard Bell states

It is worth noting that the optimal Fourier cloning state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}^F`$ of Eq. (75) is not invariant under arbitrary permutations. For instance $`x._{m=0}^{41}|B_{m,0}_{R,A}|B_{m,0}^{}_{B,C}=x._{k,i,l=0}^{41}|k_R|k+i_A|l_B|l+i_C`$ contains the component $`x.|0_R|1_A|2_B|3_C`$ but not $`x.|0_R|1_A|3_B|2_C`$. Therefore it is not invariant under permutations of the labels 2 and 3 of the basis states of the computational basis (note that in dimensions two and three, the corresponding state is invariant under such a relabeling).

Beside, it is easy to check by direct computation that the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}^F`$ is not invariant in the bases described in Eqs. (54,55). Among others, the bijective relations described in Eqs. (76,77) are not valid when the bases are related through a Hadamard transformation. This is a novelty that only appears in 4 dimensions (or in higher dimensions), because for lower dimensions one can show that, up to a convenient redefinition of the phases of the basis vectors, two mutually unbiased bases are always the (discrete) Fourier transform of each other. Essentially this is due to the fact that when the sum of two (three) phases cancel out, these phases are unambiguously defined (up to a global phase). This is no longer true when four phases or more are considered.

If we want to apply the formalism for cloning machines developed throughout this paper in order to deal with the case of two mutually unbiased bases that are not a Fourier but a Hadamard transformation of each other, it is necessary to generalize the definition of a Bell state. In analogy with the “Fourier” cloning state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}^F`$ defined in Eq. (75), we are now looking for a “Hadamard” cloning state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}^H`$ state that is invariant in the two Hadamard bases, but that is not necessarily invariant under any permutation of the labels of the basis states. Moreover, we would be pleased if a bijective relation similar to those described in Eqs. (76,77) would relate the Bell states.

To understand how to get the Bell-states that are suited to clone the Hadamard states, we have to look at the similarities between $`F`$ (see Eq. (64)) and $`H`$ (see equation (57)). They are both symmetric matrices, and the elements of their columns (rows) form a group with the product operator. Indeed we have

$$2F_{i,j}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}2}F_{i,k}=2F_{i,j+k}$$
(98)
where the sum is (as before) modulo 4. We want to express the group structure of $`H`$ in a similar way. Therefore we introduce a new ‘Hadamard sum’ operator:

$`ij=(i+j)mod4`$ (99)
except when both $`i`$ and $`j`$ are equal to 3 or 1
$`11=33=0`$ $`13=31=2`$ (100)
With this definition we can write as in (98):

$$2H_{i,j}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}2}H_{i,k}=2H_{i,jk}$$
(101)
We have also shown in the section VI.1 that if we permute cyclically the labels of the computational basis, the states of the Fourier basis were mapped onto themselves and vice versa. This leads to the definition the Fourier Bell states:

$$B_{m,n}^F=\underset{k=0}{\overset{3}{}}F_{k,n}C^kC^{k+m}|00=\underset{k=0}{\overset{3}{}}F_{k,n}|k|k+m$$
(102)
with C the operator that performs the cyclic permutation. The Hadamard states do not have this cyclic symmetry. But there are other permutation symmetries in this case. We define three permutations in the computational basis (the same permutations in the primed basis are noted with a prime): $`P_1`$ switches $`01`$ and simultaneously $`23`$, $`P_2`$ switches $`02`$ and simultaneously $`13`$ and $`P_3`$ switches $`03`$ and simultaneously $`12`$. Together with the identity (we will call $`P_0I`$) these permutations form a commutative group. It is obvious that $`P_i`$ ($`P_i^{}`$) maps the basis states of the primed (non-primed) basis onto themselves (up to a global phase). Completely analogous with (102) we define the Hadamard Bell states:

$$B_{m,n}^H=\underset{k=0}{\overset{3}{}}H_{k,n}P_kP_{km}|00=\underset{k=0}{\overset{3}{}}H_{k,n}|k|km$$
(103)
The 16 Hadamard Bell states are contained in the following list. They form a maximally entangled orthonormal basis, and have still all the interesting properties that characterize Fourier Bell states (complementarity between Eve’s and Bob’s reduced density operators, interpretation of the cloning state in terms of error operators, …) as we shall show soon. The parities under the permutations $`P_1`$, $`P_3`$, $`P_1^{}`$, and $`P_3^{}`$ are given in parentheses for each state.

$`|B_{0,0}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|00+|11+|22+|33)(+++^{}+^{}),|B_{0,1}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|00+|11|22|33)(++^{}+^{})`$
$`|B_{0,2}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|00|11+|22|33)(+^{}+^{}),|B_{0,3}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|00|11|22+|33)(++^{}+^{})`$
$`|B_{1,0}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|01+|10+|23+|32)(+++^{}^{}),|B_{1,1}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|01+|10|23|32)(++^{}^{})`$
$`|B_{1,2}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|01|10+|23|32)(+^{}^{}),|B_{1,3}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|01|10|23+|32)(++^{}^{})`$
$`|B_{2,0}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|02+|20+|13+|31)(++^{}^{}),|B_{2,1}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|02|20+|13|31)(+^{}^{})`$
$`|B_{2,2}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|02+|20|13|31)(^{}^{}),|B_{2,3}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|02|20|13+|31)(+^{}^{})`$
$`|B_{3,0}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|03+|30+|12+|21)(++^{}+^{}),|B_{3,1}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|03|30+|12|21)(+^{}+^{})`$
$`|B_{3,2}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|03|30|12+|21)(^{}+^{}),|B_{3,3}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|03+|30|12|21)(+^{}+^{})`$ (104)
We can now easily show that we have a bijective relation similar to (76,77):

$`|B_{i,j}^H`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{l,j}|l,il`$ (105)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{k,l,m,p=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{l,j}H_{l,m}H_{il,p}|m^{},p^{}={\displaystyle \underset{k,l,m,p=0}{\overset{3}{}}}2H_{l,j}H_{l,m}H_{i,p}H_{l,p}|m^{},p^{}`$ (106)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{l,m,p=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{p,l}^1H_{l,jm}H_{i,p}|m^{},p^{}={\displaystyle \underset{m,p=0}{\overset{3}{}}}\delta _{p,jm}H_{i,p}|m^{},p^{}`$ (107)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{i,jm}|m^{},(jm)^{}={\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{3}{}}}2H_{i,j}H_{i,m}|m^{},(jm)^{}`$ (108)
$`|B_{i,j}^H`$ $`=2H_{i,j}|B_{j,i}^H`$ (109)
Similarly, we can evaluate the in-product between $`|B_{i,j}^H_{R,A}|B_{i,j}^H_{B,C}`$ and $`|B_{m,n}^H_{R,B}|B_{m,n}^H_{A,C}`$ as follows:

$`B_{m,nR,B}^H`$ $`.B_{m,nA,C}^H|B_{i,jR,A}^H.B_{i,jB,C}^H`$ (110)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{o,p,l,k=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{o,n}H_{p,n}H_{l,j}H_{k,j}o,om,p,pm|l,k,li,ki`$ (111)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{o,p,l,k=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{o,n}H_{p,n}H_{l,j}H_{k,j}\delta _{o,l}\delta _{om,k}\delta _{p,li}\delta _{pm,ki}`$ (112)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{li,n}H_{l,n}H_{lm,j}H_{l,j}`$ (113)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{41}{}}}4H_{i,n}H_{l,n}H_{l,n}H_{m,j}H_{l,j}H_{l,j}`$ (114)
$`=H_{i,n}.H_{m,j}`$ (115)
Note that this defines a unitary transformation, since the states $`|B_{i,j}^H_{R,A}|B_{i,j}^H_{B,C}`$ and $`|B_{m,n}^H_{R,B}|B_{m,n}^H_{A,C}`$ are bases of the space that is invariant or symmetric (eigenvalues +) under the permutations $`P_i`$ and $`P_j^{}`$ (i,j=0,1,2,3). Now that we know the in-products between these states, it is very easy to derive the following relation:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{R,A,B,C}^H=\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{3}{}}a_{m,n}|B_{m,n}^H_{R,A}|B_{m,n}^H_{B,C}=\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{3}{}}b_{m,n}|B_{m,n}^H_{R,B}|B_{m,n}^H_{A,C}$$
(116)
where $`a_{m,n}`$ and $`b_{m,n}`$ are two (complex) amplitude functions that are dual under a Hadamard transform (which generalizes the dual relation Eq. (8)):

$`b_{m,n}`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{x,y=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{m,y}H_{n,x}a_{x,y}`$ (117)
$`a_{m,n}`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{x,y=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{m,y}H_{n,x}b_{x,y}`$ (118)
Also the error operators, which for the Fourier cloner are defined as:

$`U_{m,n}^F=2{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{3}{}}}F_{k,n}|k+mk|`$ (119)
are redefined as:
$`U_{m,n}^H=2{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{3}{}}}H_{k,n}|kmk|`$ (120)
With these new definitions, the analysis of the cloner is analogous to the treatment of the cloner presented in Sec. VI.1 and in Cerf et al. (2002a); Bourennane et al. (2002); Cerf (2000b). The reduced density operator the two clones are:

$`\rho _A`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{m,n}{}}a_{m,n}|\psi _{m,n}^H\psi _{m,n}^H|`$ (121)
$`\rho _B`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{m,n}{}}b_{m,n}|\psi _{m,n}^H\psi _{m,n}^H|`$ (122)
with

$$|\psi _{m,n}^H=U_{m,n}^H|\psi $$
(123)
The fidelities and disturbances are given by Eq. (16) and Eq. (17). Therefore, the optimal cloner will have the same amplitudes as in Sec. VI.1 and Cerf et al. (2002a); Bourennane et al. (2002); Cerf (2000b): where

$$(a_{m,n})=(b_{m,n})=(a_{m,n}^{})=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}x& y& y& y\\ y& z& z& z\\ y& z& z& z\\ y& z& z& z\end{array}\right)$$
(124)
With these amplitudes, the state of Eq. (116) is the optimal state that clones the computational and the Hadamard bases equally well.

The reduced state obtained after tracing over Eve’s degrees of freedom exhibits no correlations when it is measured by Alice and Bob in non-correlated bases, so that it is impossible for them to establish the difference between this state and an unbiased noise.

The corresponding maximal admissible error rate (when attacks based on state-independent cloners are considered) can be shown as before to be equal to $`E_A=1F_A=\frac{1}{2}(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{4}})=25.00\%`$ (see Ref. Cerf et al. (2002a); Bourennane et al. (2002)). According to Csiszár and Körner theoremCsiszár and Körner (1978), the quantum cryptographic protocol above ceases to generate secret key bits precisely at this point, where Eve’s information matches Bob’s information.

## VII Conclusion and comments

In this paper we investigated state dependent cloners that are suited to clone four-level systems (quartits). We have adapted the cloning formalism of N.Cerf Cerf (2000a, b) in such a way that it is covariant under certain unitary transformations. We have used this protocol to clone the states of two quartit bases that are related through a double Hadamard transform. Our results show that the protocol is not suited to clone such states, since the cloning state uses ‘Fourier’ Bell states which have different symmetries than the Hadamard bases that we want to clone. Therefore, we redefined the Bell states in such a way that they have the same symmetries as the states that we want to clone. The result is a cloner that clones the Hadamard bases equally well as the ’Fourier’ cloner clones Fourier bases. Note that the approach is suited for an attack on all protocols that use Hadamard bases to encode the information as in Ref. Bechmann-Pasquinucci and Tittel (1999); Brainis et al. (2003).

The question remains open whether better cloning machines exist. The safety of quantum cryptographic protocols depends crucially on the answer. It is out of the scope of the present paper to provide a definitive answer to this question, but it is worth mentioning that in the qubit ($`N`$=2) and qutrit ($`N`$=3) cases, the properties (optimal fidelity, upper bound on the error rate and so on) of the cloners derived in the literature following Cerf’s approach Cerf et al. (2002a); Bourennane et al. (2002); Cerf et al. (2002b); Durt et al. (2003a) are equivalent to those obtained following more general approaches Fuchs et al. (1997); Bruss et al. (2000); Bechmann-Pasquinucci and Gisin (1999); Kaszlikowski et al. (2002).

Many constraints have to be fulfilled when Eve replaces the maximally entangled state shared by Alice and Bob by a clone: the clone must mimic the unbiased noise that would be observed by Alice and Bob in the absence of a spy. Therefore it must be independent on the basis of detection and on which state is detected among such a basis. Moreover it must mimic the correlations between different bases that would be observed in the presence of unbiased noise.

It is our belief that the present, constructive, approach, based on the intrinsic symmetries of the protocols under study, provides the most dangerous attack, taking account of all the constraints of the problem.

###### Acknowledgements.

T.D. is a Postdoctoral Fellow and B.N. research assistant of the Fonds voor Wetenschappelijke Onderzoek-Vlaanderen. This research was supported by the Belgian Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs in the framework of the Inter-University Attraction Pole Program of the Belgian governement under grant V-18., the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (FWO-V), the Concerted Research Action “Photonics in Computing” and the research council (OZR) of the VUB. After the completion of this work, we were informed (N. Cerf private communication) that N. Cerf and his coworkers obtained independently certain results similar to ours. Thanks to N. Cerf, S. Iblisdir, L-P Lamoureux, S. Massar and P. Navez for interesting discussions.


text:
# Applications of Orbit Equivalence to Actions of Discrete Amenable Groups

## 1. Definitions and examples of sizes

Our goal in this section is to describe a metric-like notion on the full group of a measure preserving action of an amenable group and show how this leads to various restricted orbit equivalence theories. This work can be found in complete detail in Restricted Orbit Equivalence for Actions of Discrete Amenable Groups by D.J. Rudolph and J. Kammeyer, Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics \# 146.

Let $`(X,,\mu )`$ be a fixed nonatomic Lebesgue probability space. Let $`G`$ be an infinite discrete amenable group. Let $`𝒪X\times X`$ be an ergodic, measure preserving, hyperfinite equivalence relation. For our purposes, this simply means that $`𝒪=\{(x,T_g(x))\}_{gG}`$ where $`T:G\times XG`$ (written of course $`T_g(x)`$) is some ergodic and free, measure preserving action of $`G`$ on $`X`$.

###### Definition 1.1

Let $`G`$ be an infinite countable discrete amenable group. A $`𝐆`$-arrangement $`\alpha `$ is any map from $`𝒪`$ to $`G`$ that satisfies:

* $`\alpha `$ is 1-1 and onto, in that for a.e. $`xX`$, for all $`gG`$, there is a unique $`x^{}X`$ with $`\alpha (x,x^{})=g`$. We write $`x^{}=T_g^\alpha (x)`$;
* $`\alpha `$ is measurable and measure preserving, i.e. for all $`A,gG`$, both $`T_g^\alpha (A)`$ and $`\mu (T_g^\alpha (A))=\mu (A)`$; and
* $`\alpha `$ satisfies the cocycle equation $`\alpha (x_2,x_3)\alpha (x_1,x_2)=\alpha (x_1,x_3)`$.

As $`G`$ will not vary for our considerations we will abbreviate this as an arrangement. Let $`𝒜`$ denote the set of all such arrangements.

###### Lemma 1.2

$`\alpha `$ is a $`G`$-arrangement if and only if there is a measure preserving ergodic free action of $`G`$, $`T`$, whose orbit relation is $`𝒪`$ such that $`\alpha (x,T_g(x))=g`$ for all $`(x,T_g(x))𝒪`$.

Thus the vocabulary of $`G`$-arrangements on $`𝒪`$ is precisely equivalent to the vocabulary of $`G`$-actions whose orbits are $`𝒪`$. For a $`G`$-arrangement $`\alpha `$, we write $`T^\alpha `$ for the corresponding action. For a $`G`$-action $`T`$, we write $`\alpha _T`$ for the corresponding $`G`$-arrangement.

###### Definition 1.3

The full group of $`𝒪`$ is the group (under composition) $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of all measure preserving invertible maps $`\varphi :XX`$ such that for $`\mu `$-a.e. $`xX`$, $`(x,\varphi (x))𝒪`$.

###### Definition 1.4

A $`𝐆`$-rearrangementof $`𝒪`$ is a pair $`(\alpha ,\varphi )`$, where $`\alpha `$ is a $`G`$-arrangement of $`𝒪`$ and $`\varphi \mathrm{\Gamma }`$. As $`G`$ is fixed for our purposes we will abbreviate this as a rearrangement. Let $`𝒬`$ denote the set of all such rearrangements.

Intuitively, a rearrangement is simply a change (i.e. rearrangement) of an orbit from the arrangement $`\alpha `$ to the arrangement $`\alpha \varphi `$, where $`\alpha \varphi (x,x^{})=\alpha (\varphi (x),\varphi (x^{}))`$. One can formalize such a rearrangement in three different ways. Set $``$ to be the set of bijections of $`G`$ and $``$ the subgroup of $`𝒢`$ fixing the identity. Both are topologized via the product topology on $`G^G`$. Notice there is a homomorphism $`\widehat{H}:𝒢`$ given by $`\widehat{H}(q)(g)=q(\mathrm{id})^1q(g)`$. The kernel of $`\widehat{H}`$ consist of the left translation maps.

To a rearrangment we can associate a family of functions $`q_x^{\alpha ,\varphi }`$ where

$$q_x^{\alpha ,\varphi }(g)=\alpha (x,\varphi (T_g^\alpha (x))).$$

Now suppose $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are two arrangements of the orbits $`𝒪`$. Regard the first as an initial arrangement and the second as a terminal arrangement. We can associate to this pair and any point $`x`$ a bijection from $`G`$ fixing the identity that describes how the arrangement of the orbit has changed:

$$h_x^{\alpha ,\beta }(g)=\beta (x,T_g^\alpha (x)).$$

Notice here that $`\widehat{H}(q_x^{\alpha ,\varphi })=h_x^{\alpha ,\alpha \varphi }.`$

Write $`h^{\alpha ,\beta }:X𝒢.`$

The third way to view a rearrangement pair has a symbolic dynamic flavor. For each orbit $`𝒪(x)=\{x^{};(x,x^{})𝒪\}`$, a rearrangement $`(\alpha ,\varphi )`$ also gives rise to a natural map $`GG`$ (not a bijection though), given by

$$f_x^{\alpha ,\varphi }(g)=\alpha (T_g^\alpha (x),\varphi (T_g^\alpha (x)).$$

Visually, regarding $`𝒪(x)`$ laid out by $`\alpha `$ as a copy of $`G`$, $`\varphi `$ translates the point at position $`g`$ to position $`f_x^{\alpha ,\varphi }(g)g`$.

There is a natural link between the three functions $`h^{\alpha ,\alpha \varphi }`$, $`q^{\alpha ,\varphi }`$ and $`f^{\alpha ,\varphi }`$ as follows. For any map $`f:GG`$ we define

$$Q(f)(g)=f(g)g\text{ and}$$

$$H(f)(g)=f(g)gf(\mathrm{id})^1.$$

It is an easy calculation that

$$H(f^{\alpha ,\varphi })=h^{\alpha ,\alpha \varphi }\text{ and }Q(f^{\alpha ,\varphi }=q^{\alpha ,\varphi }.$$

Let $`\{F_i\}`$ be a fixed Følner sequence for $`G`$. We will describe a number of concepts in terms of the $`F_i`$.

We now consider three pseudometrics on the set of rearrangements. These all arise from natural topologies on functions $`GG`$. As $`G`$ is countable the only reasonable topology is the discrete one, using the discrete 0,1 valued metric. This topologizes $`G^G`$ as a metrizable space with the product topology. This is the weakest topology for which the evaluations $`g:ff(g)`$ are continuous functions. Notice that $`H`$ is a continuous map from $`G^G`$ to itself and the map $`hh^1`$ on $`𝒢`$ is continuous.

Define a metric $`d`$ on $`𝒢`$ as follows. List the elements of $`G`$ as $`\{g_1=\mathrm{id},g_2,\mathrm{}\}`$ and let $`d_0`$ be the 0,1 valued metric on $`G`$. Set

$$d(h_1,h_2)=\underset{i}{}[d_0(h_1(g_i),h_2(g_i))+d_0(h_1^1(g_i),h_2^1(g_i)))]2^{(i+1)}.$$

Notice that if $`h_1`$, $`h_2`$, $`h_1^1,`$ and $`h_2^1`$ agree on $`g_1,\mathrm{},g_i`$ then $`d(h_1,h_2)2^i`$. On the other hand if $`d(h_1,h_2)<2^i`$ then $`h_1`$, $`h_2`$ and their inverses agree on this list of $`i`$ terms.

###### Lemma 1.5

The metric $`d`$ on $`𝒢`$ gives the restricted product topology and makes $`𝒢`$ a complete metric space.

We can use this to define a complete $`L^1`$ metric on arrangements:

$$\alpha ,\beta _1=d(h^{\alpha ,\beta },\mathrm{id})𝑑\mu .$$

As $`d(h_1,h_2)=d(h_2^1h_1,\mathrm{id})`$ and $`(h_x^{\alpha ,\beta })^1=h_x^{\beta ,\alpha }`$ we see that this is a metric.

We can also define a metric similar to $`d`$ on $`G^G`$ itself making it a complete metric space by just taking half of the terms in $`d`$:

$$d_1(f_1,f_2)=\underset{i}{}d_0(f_1(g_i),f_2(g_i))2^i.$$

This also leads to an $`L^1`$ metric on $`G^G`$-valued functions on a measure space:

$$f_1,f_2_1=d_1(f_1,f_2)𝑑\mu .$$

These two $`L^1`$ distances now give us two families of $`L^1`$ distances on the full-group, one a metric the other a pseudometric, associated with an arrangement $`\alpha `$:

$$\varphi _1,\varphi _2_\mathrm{w}^\alpha =d(h^{\alpha ,\alpha \varphi _1},h^{\alpha ,\alpha \varphi _2})=\alpha \varphi _1,\alpha \varphi _2_1$$

and

$$\varphi _1,\varphi _2_\mathrm{s}^\alpha =d_1(f^{\alpha ,\varphi _1},f^{\alpha ,\varphi _2})𝑑\mu =f^{\alpha ,\varphi _1},f^{\alpha ,\varphi _2}_1.$$

The weak $`L^1`$ distance, $`,_\mathrm{w}^\alpha `$, is only a pseudometric but the strong $`L^1`$ distance, $`,_\mathrm{s}^\alpha `$, is a metric.

To describe the weak\*-distance between two arrangements let $`G^{}=G\{\}`$ be the one point compactification of $`G`$. Now $`(G^{})^G`$ is a compact metric space and hence the Borel probability measures on $`(G^{})^G`$, which we write as $`_1(G^{})`$, are a compact and convex space in the weak\* topology. Let $`D(\mu _1,\mu _2)`$ be an explicit metric giving this topology.

We define the distribution pseudometric between two rearrangements by

$$(\alpha ,\varphi ),(\beta ,\psi )_{}=D((f^{\alpha ,\varphi })^{}(\mu ),(f^{\beta ,\psi })^{}(\nu )).$$

We can combine the two $`L^1`$-metrics on arrangements and the full group to define a product metric on rearrangements in the form

$$(\alpha _1,\varphi _1),(\alpha _2,\varphi _2)_1=\alpha _1,\alpha _2_1+\mu (\{x:\varphi _1(x)\varphi _2(x)\}).$$

We end this Section by relating this complete $`L^1`$-metric on rearrangements to the distribution pseudometric.

We now define the notion of a size $`m`$ on rearrangements $`(\alpha ,\varphi )`$ as a family of pseudometrics $`m_\alpha `$ on the full-group satisfying some simple relations to the metrics and pseudometrics we just defined.

A size is a function

$$m:𝒬^+$$

such that, if we write

$$m_\alpha (\varphi _1,\varphi _2)\underset{defn}{=}m(\alpha \varphi _1,\varphi _1^1\varphi _2),$$

then $`m`$ satisfies the following three axioms.

###### Axiom 1

For each $`\alpha 𝒜`$, $`m_\alpha `$ is a pseudometric on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

###### Axiom 2

For each $`\alpha 𝒜`$, the identity map

$$(\mathrm{\Gamma },m_\alpha )\stackrel{id}{}(\mathrm{\Gamma },,_\mathrm{w}^\alpha )$$

is uniformly continuous.

In particular this means that if $`m_\alpha (\varphi _1,\varphi _2)=0`$ then the two arrangements $`\alpha \varphi _1`$ and $`\alpha \varphi _2`$ are identical.

###### Axiom 3

$`m`$ is upper semi-continuous with respect to the distribution metric. That is to say, for every $`\epsilon >0`$, there exists $`\delta =\delta (\epsilon ,\alpha ,\varphi )`$, such that if $`(\alpha ,\varphi ),(\beta ,\psi )_{}<\delta `$ then $`m(\beta ,\psi )<m(\alpha ,\varphi )+\epsilon `$.

This last condition implies that if the two measures $`(f^{\alpha ,\varphi })^{}(\mu )`$ and $`(f^{\beta ,\psi })^{}(\nu )`$ are the same, then $`m(\alpha ,\varphi )=m(\beta ,\psi )`$. Hence the value $`m`$ is well defined on those measures on $`G^G`$ which arise as such an image, and we can write

$$m(\alpha ,\varphi )=m((f^{\alpha ,\varphi })^{}(\mu )).$$

We can now define $`m`$-equivalence of two arrangements.

###### Definition 1.6

We say $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are $`m`$-equivalent arrangements if there exist $`\varphi _i`$ which are $`m_\alpha `$-Cauchy, $`\varphi _i^1`$ are $`m_\beta `$-Cauchy and $`\alpha \varphi _i`$ converges in probability to $`\beta `$.

One can now define $`m`$-equivalence of actions on distinct spaces as meaning there are conjugate versions of the actions as arrangments on the same orbit space where the arrangements are $`m`$-equivalent in the sense of the definition.

We now give a list of examples to indicate the range of equivalence relations that can be brought under this perspective.

Many examples of sizes have the common feature of being integrals of some pointwise calculation of the distortion of a single orbit. To make this precise we first review some material about bijections of $`G`$. Remember that $``$ is the space of all bijections of the group $`G`$ with the product topology, $`𝒢`$ is the space of bijections fixing $`\mathrm{id}`$ and we metrized both with a complete metric $`d`$. The group $`G`$ can be regarded as a subgroup of $``$ acting by left multiplication, ($`g(g^{})=gg^{}`$). The map $`\widehat{H}:𝒢`$ given by $`\widehat{H}(q)=qq(\mathrm{id})^1`$ is a contraction in $`d`$. Also $`G`$ acting by right multiplication conjugates $``$ to itself giving an action of $`G`$ on $``$. ($`T_g(q)(g^{})=q(g^{}g)g^1.`$) We view this action by representing an element $`q`$ by a map $`f:GG`$, $`f(g)=q(g)g^1`$. Those maps $`fG^G`$ that arise from bijections are a $`G_\delta `$ and hence a Polish space we call $`F`$. The map $`qf`$ is obviously a homeomorphism from $``$ to $`F`$. For $`fF`$ let $`Q(f)`$ be the associated bijection and for $`q`$ let $`F(q)`$ be the associated name in $`G^G`$. The action of $`G`$ on $``$ in its representation as $`F`$ is the shift action $`\sigma _g(f)(g^{})=f(g^{}g).`$ Any rearrangement pair $`(\alpha ,\varphi )`$ then gives rise to an ergodic shift invariant measure on this Polish subset of $`G^G`$ and any ergodic shift invariant measure is an ergodic action of $`G`$ with a canonical rearrangement pair. The probability measures on a Polish space are weak\* Polish and hence the invariant and ergodic measures on this Polish space are weak\* Polish.

We will now define a general class of sizes that arise as integrals of valuations made on the bijections $`q_x^{\alpha ,\varphi }`$.

###### Definition 1.7

A Borel $`D:^+`$ is called a size kernel if it satisfies:

1. $`D(q)0.`$
2. $`D(\mathrm{id})=0.`$
3. $`D(q(\mathrm{id})^1q^1q(\mathrm{id}))=D(q).`$
4. $`D(q_1(\mathrm{id})q_2q_1^1(\mathrm{id})q_1)D(q_1)+D(q_2).`$
5. For every $`\epsilon >0`$ there is a $`\delta >0`$ so that if $`D(q)<\delta `$ then $`d(\mathrm{id},H(q))<\epsilon .`$
6. The function $`\mu D(q(f))𝑑\mu `$ is weak\* continuous on the space of shift invariant measures $`\mu `$ on the Polish space $`F`$.

Note. An element of $`G`$ is regarded as an element of $``$ acts by left multiplication.

For a size kernel $`D`$ we define

$$m^D(\alpha ,\varphi )=D(q_x^{\alpha ,\varphi })𝑑\mu (x).$$

We call such an $`m^D`$ an integral size.

###### Example 1 (Conjugacy and Orbit Equivalence)

These first two examples are the extremes of what is possible. For one the equivalence class will be simply the full group orbit and for the other it will be the entire set of arrangements. Both of the pseudometrics $`d(q,\mathrm{id})`$ and $`d(H(q),\mathrm{id})`$ are easily seen to be size kernels and so both

$`m^1(\alpha ,\varphi )`$ $`=(\alpha ,\varphi ),(\alpha ,\mathrm{id})_\alpha ^s\text{ and}`$
$`m^0(\alpha ,\varphi )`$ $`=(\alpha ,\varphi ),(\alpha ,\mathrm{id})_\alpha ^w`$
are sizes.

As $`d`$ makes $``$ complete, relative to $`m^1`$ sequence $`phi_i`$ is $`m_\alpha ^1`$ Cauchy iff $`\varphi _i\varphi `$ in probability. Thus $`\alpha \stackrel{m^1}{}\beta `$ iff $`\beta =\alpha \varphi `$ i.e. they differ by an element of the full group and the equivalence class of $`\alpha `$ is exactly its full group orbit. As for $`m^0`$, for any $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ one can construct a sequence of $`\varphi _i`$ with $`\alpha \varphi _i\beta `$ in $`L^1`$ with the sequence $`\varphi _i`$ an $`m_\alpha `$ Cauchy sequence. Thus all arrangements are $`m^0`$ equivalent.

###### Example 2 (Kakutani Equivalence)

For this example let $`G=^n`$ and $`B_N=[N,N]^n`$ be the standard Følner sequence of boxes centered at $`\stackrel{}{0}`$. We begin with a metric on $`^n`$ given by

$$\tau (\stackrel{}{u},\stackrel{}{v})=\mathrm{min}((\stackrel{}{u}/\stackrel{}{u})(\stackrel{}{v}/\stackrel{}{v})+\left|\mathrm{ln}(\stackrel{}{v})\mathrm{ln}(\stackrel{}{u})\right|,1)$$

(assuming $`\stackrel{}{0}/\stackrel{}{0}=\stackrel{}{0}`$). What is important about $`\tau `$ are the following two properties:

1. $`\tau `$ is a metric on $`^n`$ bounded by 1 and
2. $`\stackrel{}{u}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ are $`\tau `$ close iff the norm of their difference is small in proportion to both of their norms.

For $`h𝒢`$ set $`B_N(h)=\{\stackrel{}{v}B_N|h(\stackrel{}{v})B_N\}`$ (those elements of $`B_N`$ mapped into $`B_N`$ by $`h`$). Now set

$$k(h)=\underset{N}{sup}\left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{\#}B_N}(\underset{\stackrel{}{v}B_N(h)}{}\tau (\stackrel{}{v},h(\stackrel{}{v}))+\mathrm{\#}\{\stackrel{}{v}B_N|h(\stackrel{}{v})B_N\})\right).$$

Now set $`K(q)=k(H(q).`$

###### Lemma 1.8

The function $`K`$ is a size kernel.

For $`d=1`$ standard arguments imply that this size yields even Kakutani equivalence. For $`d>1`$ it is leads to an analogous equivalence relation among Katok cross-sections of $`^d`$-actions.

Our last example moves beyond size kernels.

###### Example 3 (Entropy as a Size)

We discuss this example only for actions of $``$ although the ideas extend to general countable amenable groups.

The size at its base will simply be the entropy of the rearrangment itself. We make this precise as follows. The function $`g_{(\alpha ,\varphi )}(x)=\alpha (x,\varphi (x))`$ takes on countably many values and hence can be regarded as a countable partition $`g_{(\alpha ,\varphi )}`$ of $`X`$. Set $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^\alpha `$ to be those $`\varphi `$ for which $`g_{(\alpha ,\varphi )}`$ is finite. It is not difficult to see that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^\alpha `$ is a subgroup and moreover $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^{\alpha \psi }=\psi ^1\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^\alpha \psi `$ as $`g_{(\alpha \psi ,\psi ^1\varphi \psi )}(\psi ^1(x))=g_{(\alpha ,\varphi )}(x).`$ It can be shown that the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^\alpha `$ are all $`m_\alpha ^1`$ dense in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. For $`\varphi \mathrm{\Gamma }_0^\alpha `$ one can use the entropy of the process $`h(T^\alpha ,g_{(\alpha ,\varphi )})`$ to start the definition of a size defining

$$e(\alpha ,\varphi )=\underset{\varphi ^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_0^\alpha }{inf}h(T^\alpha ,g_{(\alpha ,\varphi ^{})})+\mu \{x|\varphi (x)\varphi ^{}(x)\}.$$

Now set the size to be

$$m^e(\alpha ,\varphi )=e(\alpha ,\varphi )+m^0(\alpha ,\varphi ).$$

###### Proposition 1.9

Two $``$-actions are $`m^e`$ equivalent iff they have the same entropy.

## 2. Transference via orbit equivalence

A second natural type of restriction can be placed on an orbit equivalence. Here the interest is in two arrangements $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ of perhaps distinct groups. Suppose $`𝒜`$ is an invariant sub $`\sigma `$-algebra for the action $`T^\alpha `$ of $`G_1`$ and $`\beta `$ is a $`G_2`$ arrangement of the same orbit space. We say the orbit equivalence from $`\alpha `$ to $`\beta `$ is $`𝒜`$-measurable if the function $`h^{\alpha ,\beta }(x,g_1)=\beta (x,T_{g_1}^\alpha (x)`$ describing or the orbit is rearranged, is $`𝒜`$ measurable for all choices of $`g_1`$. Up to conjugacy we can regard all ergodic actions of infinite discrete and amenable groups as residing on the same orbit space, so beyond ergodicity no dynamical property will be preserved by orbit equivalence. On the other hand, many dynamical properties have versions “relative to” an invariant sub $`\sigma `$-algebra and many such properties are indeed invariant under orbit equivalences that are measurable with respect to that sub $`\sigma `$-algebra.

This method first arose in work with B. Weiss showing that actions of discrete amenable groups that have completely positive entropy (cpe), commonly called $`K`$-systems, are mixing of all orders. This transference method has been applied to a variety of questions. Here is an outline of the argument to this first result to exhibit the format. The complete argument can be found in Entropy and mixing for amenable group actions by D.J. Rudolph and B. Weiss, Annals of Mathematics, 151, (2000)m pp. 1119-1150.

###### Lemma 2.1

If $`T`$ is an action of a discrete amenable group $`G`$ and $`T\times B`$, its direct product with a Bernoulli action $`B`$ of $`G`$, is relatively cpe with respect to the Bernoulli second coordinate, then $`T`$ must be cpe.

###### Lemma 2.2

If $`\widehat{T}`$ and $`\widehat{S}`$ are ergodic actions on the same orbits of two discrete amenable groups $`G_1`$ and $`G_2`$ and the orbit equivalence between them is $`𝒜`$ measurable where $`𝒜`$ is a $`\widehat{T}`$ invariant sub $`\sigma `$-algebra, then for any partition $`P`$, the conditional entropies $`h(T,P|𝒜)`$ and $`h(S,P|𝒜)`$ are equal.

Let $`S_i`$ be a list of finite subsets of either $`G_i`$. We say the $`S_i`$ spread if any particular $`\gamma \mathrm{i}d`$ belongs to at most finitely many of the sets $`S_iS_i^1`$. If the sets $`S_i(x)`$ are random sequences of finite sets depending on $`x`$, we can again say they are spread if for a.e. $`x`$ they form a spread sequence. A classical characterization of the $`K`$-systems, which we state in a relative form says

###### Theorem 2.3

$`T`$, a $``$-action, is relatively cpe with respect to a sub $`\sigma `$-algebra $`𝒜`$ iff for all partitions $`P`$ and all $`𝒜`$ measurable and spread random sequences of sets $`S_i(x)`$,

$$\frac{1}{\mathrm{\#}S_i}\left[h(\underset{gS_i}{}T_g(P)|𝒜)\underset{gS_i}{}h(T_g(P)|𝒜)\right]\underset{𝑖}{}0$$

in $`L^1`$.

That is to say, the translates of $`P`$ become conditionally ever more independent the more spread they become. Refer to this property as $`𝒜`$-relative uniform mixing if it holds for all $`P`$.

###### Lemma 2.4

If $`T`$ and $`S`$ are $`𝒜`$-measurably orbit equivalent actions of perhaps distinct groups and $`T`$ is $`𝒜`$-relatively uniformly mixing. Then $`S`$ is also.

We now describe the orbit transference proof that cpe actions of discrete amenable groups are always mixing of all orders. Suppose $`T`$ is a cpe action of the group $`G`$. Take $`T\times B`$ where $`B`$ is a Bernoulli action of $`G`$. This direct product will be ergodic and in fact relatively cpe with respect to the Bernoulli coordinate. Now $`B`$ is orbit equivalent to a $``$ action and this orbit equivalence lifts to an orbit equivalence of $`T\times B`$ to some ergodic $``$ action $`S`$. The orbit equivalence will be $`𝒜`$ measurable where $`𝒜`$ is this Bernoulli coordinate algebra. Now $`S`$ will still be $`𝒜`$ relatively cpe and hence $`𝒜`$ relatively uniformly mixing. But now this tells us $`T\times B`$ is also $`𝒜`$ relatively uniformly mixing. Restricting this to partitions that are measurable with respect to the first coordinate tells us $`T`$ itself is uniformly mixing (without any conditioning) and hence mixing of all orders.

A second and quite significant application of this method, due to Dooley and Golodets, is to show that cpe actions have countable Haar spectrum. In as yet unwritten work, again with B. Weiss, one can show that weakly mixing isometric extensions of Bernoulli actions must be Bernoulli.

This remains an area of very active work. We end on an open question. Consider the known result for $``$ actions, that a weakly mixing and isometric extension of a base action that is mixing must itself be mixing. Is this result true for general amenable group actions? To apply the transference method one needs a relativized version of the result for $``$ actions. That is to say, one needs to know that a relatively weakly mixing relatively isometric extension of a relatively mixing action is still relatively mixing. What seems an obstacle here is simply the definition of relative mixing over a sub $`\sigma `$-algebra $`𝒜`$. Certainly it means that for any sets $`A`$ and $`B`$ that

$$\left|E(I_AI_BT^j|𝒜)E(I_A|𝒜)E(I_BT^j|𝒜)\right|0.$$

The question is, in what sense should it tend to zero. Pointwise convergence behaves well for orbit equivalence but the above relativized question seems answerable only for mean convergence.