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# Improved two-party and multi-party purification protocols

## 1. Introduction

Entanglement is a fundamental resource in quantum information. It can be used for secure quantum cryptography  and is an essential part of known algorithms for quantum computation  (strangely, it is not known that all quantum algorithms which outperform their classical counterparts require entanglement. See  for a situation in which quantum states display a form of nonlocality, but which involves no entanglement).

Early studies of entanglement purification  focused mainly on bipartite entanglement, attempting to distill pure EPR pairs  from bipartite mixed states. More recently, Murao, Plenio, Popescu, Vedral and Knight  have studied the generalization of such schemes to distilling three-party (GHZ ) and multi-party states of the form (sometimes called “cat” states )

(1)
$$|\mathrm{\Phi }^+=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|00\mathrm{}0+|11\mathrm{}1)$$

from three-party and multi-party entangled mixed states. However, they do not study generalizations of the hashing method of . The hashing scheme has the major advantage over the recurrence style scheme of  that it achieves a finite yield of pure cat states for any arbitrarily high fidelity, whereas the yield for any recurrence method goes to zero.

In this paper we study an improved purification protocol for two parties, and a generalization of hashing to multiple parties.

First, we define some notation: All of our studies will apply to entangled mixed qubit states of $`N`$ parties (conventionally known as Alice, Bob, etc.), diagonal in the following basis:

(2)
$$|\psi _{p,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{N1}}=\frac{|0i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{N1}+(1)^p|1\overline{i}_1\overline{i}_2\mathrm{}\overline{i}_{N1}}{\sqrt{2}}$$

where $`p`$ and the $`i`$’s are zero or one, and a bar over a bit value indicates its logical negation. This gives $`2^N`$ orthogonal states.

These states correspond to the simultaneous eigenvectors of the following operators (There are $`N`$ operators in all, one special one of the $`X`$ form, and $`N1`$ involving $`Z`$ and $`I`$):

(3)
$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}& & & & & & & & & \\ \hfill S_0=& X& & X& & X& & X& \mathrm{}& X\\ \hfill S_1=& Z& & Z& & I& & I& \mathrm{}& I\\ \hfill S_2=& Z& & I& & Z& & I& \mathrm{}& I\\ \hfill S_3=& Z& & I& & I& & Z& \mathrm{}& I\\ & & & & & .& & & & \\ & & & & & .& & & & \\ & & & & & .& & & & \\ \hfill S_{N1}=& Z& & I& & I& & I& \mathrm{}& Z\end{array}$$

The $`X`$, $`Z`$, and $`I`$ operators, along with the $`Y`$ operator which we don’t use here, are members of the Pauli group (for more details, see ). The $`p`$ from Equation (2) corresponds to whether a state is a $`+1`$ or $`1`$ eigenvector of $`S_0`$ ($`p=0`$ for a $`+1`$ eigenvector and $`p=1`$ for a $`1`$ eigenvector). This is called the “phase” bit of the cat state. The $`i_j`$s correspond to whether a state is a $`+1`$ or $`1`$ eigenvector of $`S_j`$ for $`j=1,\mathrm{},(N1)`$, which we call the amplitude bits. Thus, the following is the set of generators of the stabilizer group of $`|\psi _{p,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{N1}}`$:

(4)
$$\{(1)^pS_0,(1)^{i_1}S_1,\mathrm{},(1)^{i_{N1}}S_{N1}\}$$

It is important to realize at this point that since these operators are all tensor products of operators on the subsystems $`1\mathrm{}N`$ each with eigenvalue $`\pm 1`$, they can be measured using only local quantum operations plus classical communication. If an unknown one of the $`\psi `$’s is shared among $`N`$ parties and they wish to determine the eigenvalue corresponding to one of the $`S_i`$, each party just measures his or her operator and reports the result to everyone else. The eigenvalue of the whole operator is the product of their individual results. Furthermore, since $`Z`$ and $`I`$ commute, it is possible to measure the eigenvalues of all the $`S_{i>0}`$. On the other hand, $`X`$ and $`Z`$ do not commute and therefore if $`S_0`$ is measured, none of the $`S_{i>0}`$ can be measured (a random result would occur) and similarly if any of the $`S_{i>0}`$ are measured the result of an $`S_0`$ measurement will be randomized. In other words, the parties can locally measure either all the amplitude bits or the phase bit for an unknown cat state.

The other tool we will need is the multilateral quantum XOR gate, in which each party’s bits are XORed together in a quantum-coherent way (see Fig. 1). Following Gottesman  we can work out how a tensor product of two cat states behaves under the multilateral XOR. The generators of the stabilizer group behave as follows under the quantum XOR operation:

(5)
$$\begin{array}{c}XIXX\\ IXIX\\ ZIZI\\ IZZZ\end{array}$$

We work out here the case of three parties, the generalization to $`n`$-partite cat states will be apparent. Given $`|\psi _{p,i_1i_2}`$ and $`|\psi _{q,j_1j_2}`$ with stabilizers as in Eq. (3) the generators of the stabilizers of the tensor product of these are given by:

(6)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \{(1)^pXXXIII,& \hfill (1)^{i_1}ZZIIII,& \hfill (1)^{i_2}ZIZIII,\\ \hfill (1)^qIIIXXX,& \hfill (1)^{j_1}IIIZZI,& \hfill (1)^{j_2}IIIZIZ\}\end{array}$$

(We have omitted the $``$ symbol for brevity.) Now, applying the rule for the XOR operation (5) to corresponding operators (the first and fourth positions correspond to the first party’s piece of $`|\psi _{p,i_1i_2}`$ and $`|\psi _{q,j_1j_2}`$ respectively, etc.) we get:

(7)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \{(1)^pXXXXXX,& \hfill (1)^{i_1}ZZIIII,& \hfill (1)^{i_2}ZIZIII,\\ \hfill (1)^qIIIXXX,& \hfill (1)^{j_1}ZZIZZI,& \hfill (1)^{j_2}ZIZZIZ\}\end{array}$$

We can easily find another set of generators for the same stabilizer group which is again the tensor form of (6):

(8)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \{(1)^{p+q}XXXIII,& \hfill (1)^{i_1}ZZIIII,& \hfill (1)^{i_2}ZIZIII,\\ \hfill (1)^qIIIXXX,& \hfill (1)^{i_1+j_1}IIIZZI,& \hfill (1)^{i_2+j_2}IIIZIZ\}\end{array}$$

This is simply the set of generators corresponding to $`|\psi _{pq,i_1i_2}|\psi _{q,i_1j_1i_2j_2}`$. What has happened is that the phase bits have been XORed together with the result put into the phase bit of the source state and the amplitudes are each XORed together and stored in the target state’s amplitude bits. This suggests that the action of the multilateral quantum XOR gate (MXOR) can be characterized by its action on the purely classical representation of states as a set of bits, $`(p,i_1,i_2,\mathrm{},i_{N1})`$:

$`\mathrm{MXOR}[(p,i_1,i_2,\mathrm{},i_{N1}),(q,j_1,j_2,\mathrm{},j_{N1})]=`$
$`(pq,i_1,i_2,\mathrm{},i_{N1}),(q,i_1j_1,i_2j_2,\mathrm{},i_{N1}j_{N1})`$
Due to its linearity quantum mechanics allows us to think of mixed states as if they are really one of the pure states in the mixture but that we are simply lacking the knowledge of which one (if the states in the mixture come with unequal probability, we are not completely lacking knowledge of which state is in the mixture, but we only know the probabilities, not which state we actually have). Since all the cat states (2) are interconvertible by local operations  if we had a mixture of cat states and could determine which one we actually had, we would be able to convert it to a $`|\mathrm{\Phi }^+`$ and would have purified the mixture.

Putting everything we have said up to now together lets us find purification schemes that are essentially classical; only the rules of what we can do are given by quantum mechanics:

* Mixed states diagonal in the cat basis can be thought of as being simply unknown members of the set of cat states.
* The cat states (2) are all interconvertible by local operations, so determining which cat state one has is sufficient to have purified it.
* Either the $`p`$ or all the $`i`$’s of an unknown cat state may be measured by local operations plus classical communication.
* The multilateral XOR operation operates classically on the $`p`$s and $`i`$’s of pairs of cat states according to Eq. (1).

Our purification schemes will thus work by treating a set of many mixed states (which are diagonal in the cat basis) as a set of unknown cat states, and attempting to determine the unknown states, discarding them if we cannot.

We are now prepared to analyze the efficiencies of various entanglement purification protocols applied to mixed states. In particular, we concentrate on the generalization of the Werner state :

(10)
$$\rho _W=\alpha |\mathrm{\Phi }^+\mathrm{\Phi }^+|+\frac{1\alpha }{2^N}\text{1}\text{1},0\alpha 1$$

The fidelity of $`\rho _W`$ relative to the desired pure state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }^+`$ is $`F=\mathrm{\Phi }^+|\rho _W|\mathrm{\Phi }^+=\alpha +\frac{1\alpha }{2^N}`$. We rewrite $`\rho _W`$ in the cat basis (2) as

$`\rho _W=(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{1\alpha }{2^N}})|\psi _{0,00\mathrm{}0}\psi _{0,00\mathrm{}0}|`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1\alpha }{2^N}}{\displaystyle \underset{p,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{N1}0,00\mathrm{}0}{}}|\psi _{p,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{N1}}\psi _{p,i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{N1}}|.`$
Thus, the Werner state is diagonal in the cat basis and we can think of it as really being one of the cat states. We write the unknown cat states as $`N`$ unknown strings of bits: $`b_0,b_1,b_2,\mathrm{},b_{N1}`$, where $`b_0`$ is formed by concatenating the (unknown) phase bits of all the cat states, and the $`b_j`$ for $`j>0`$ are formed by concatenating the $`j`$th amplitude bits. Together the $`b_j`$ make up the total bitstring $`B`$.

## 2. Bipartite Protocol

The case of two parties has been studied . The protocols can distill pure entanglement from any Werner state with fidelity $`F>1/2`$. The recurrence methods that work on Werner states near $`F=1/2`$ involve local quantum operations on two mixed states at a time. For high fidelities, the best known strategy (the hashing method) obtains high yields in the limit of arbitrarily large numbers of states. It seemed that operations on an intermediate number of mixed states might give better yield for intermediate fidelities, and this turns out to be the case.

Our new strategy is to choose a block size $`m`$ and to take $`m1`$ Werner states and do a bipartite XOR between each one and an $`m`$th Werner state, and then to measure the amplitude bits of that target state. The sequence of XORs is illustrated in Fig. 2 for the $`m=4`$ case. This is a natural generalization of the recurrence method whose single step is just this method for $`m=2`$. If any amplitude bit is nonzero, the two measurements disagree, the source states are discarded. If all amplitude bits are zero the states are said to have “passed” and the hashing method is performed on the $`m1`$ source states along with other source states that passed. The advantage over the $`m=2`$ recurrence is that fewer than half the mixed states are used up inherently just by being measured targets.

In  the hashing method was used only on states whose mixture probabilities were independent. We note that hashing is a quite general method for extracting entropy from strings of bits, even if there are correlations among the bits. One merely needs to take as many hash bits as there is entropy in the bitstring. Thus, the yield of our method is:

(12)
$$p_{\mathrm{pass}}\frac{m1}{m}\left(1\frac{H(\mathrm{passed}\mathrm{source}\mathrm{states})}{m1}\right)$$

The calculation of the entropy of a block of passed states and of $`p_{\mathrm{pass}}`$ is straightforward. One simply keeps track of the probability of each possible string $`B`$ (of $`2mN`$ bits corresponding to a block of $`m`$ Werner states) given the probabilities in the Werner mixture (1), applies the MXOR rule (1) to $`B`$ to yield a $`B^{}`$ and groups the like $`B^{}`$s which have passed to yield a final distribution $`P_i`$ (of the $`2(m1)N`$ bits corresponding $`m1`$ states left after the MXOR operation). We then have $`p_{\mathrm{pass}}=_iP_i`$ and the normalized distribution $`P_i^{}=P_i/p_{\mathrm{pass}}`$ and the entropy $`H(\mathrm{passed}\mathrm{source}\mathrm{states})`$ given by $`_iP_i^{}\mathrm{log}_2P_i^{}`$.

Figure 3 compares the yield for our new method for various values of $`m`$ with the previous recurrence continued by hashing protocol. We have not found a simple way to analyze what happens if our multi-bit step is iterated, rather than passing on immediately to hashing. For the $`m=2`$ recurrence only one passed source state remains and it is identical in all respects to every other passed source state. For $`m>2`$ there are multiple correlated passed states and it is not clear just how to treat them. For instance, at $`m=3`$ there are two passed states from each operation and there is no way to combine the 4 passed states from two operations into another $`m=3`$ step.

## 3. Multipartite Hashing

In  multi-party recurrence methods are studied, but not multi-party hashing which is needed to achieve finite yields. Here we present a multi-party hashing method.

In the case of two parties it is known  how to extract the parity of any random subset of all the bits in $`B`$. For more than two parties it is not known now to do this. Instead, we can choose to extract any random subset parity on either the parity bitstring $`b_0`$ or on all the amplitude bitstrings $`b_j`$, $`j>0`$ in parallel. This follows immediately from Eq. (1): This is done multilaterally XORing together all the states in the desired subset choosing one of them to be the target. See Fig. 4. Depending on the direction of the XOR gates either the phase bits or all the amplitude bits accumulate in the target state, which can then be measured.

Our multilateral hashing protocol will be to choose a large block size $`m`$ and then to extract $`m\mathrm{max}_{j>0}[\{H(b_j)\}]`$ random subsets of each amplitude bitstring in parallel (as shown in Figure 4a), where $`H(b_j)`$ is the entropy per bit in string $`b_j`$. This is sufficient to determine all the bits of all the $`b_{j>0}`$ as it is just doing the same random hash on each bitstring. Even though the random hashes are all the same, since they are uncorrelated with the bitstrings being determined this many hash bits will be enough to determine all bits of the $`b_{j>0}`$ . This procedure actually extracts too much information (and thereby uses up too many states as measured targets), so perhaps a more efficient protocol exists, but this has the virtue of using only the multilateral XOR operation which maps cat states to cat states. After determining the amplitude bits, to find $`b_0`$ we use multilateral XORs arranged as in Fig. 4b, and find the hash of the string by measuring another $`H(b_0)`$ of the states. The yield of this hashing protocol $`D_h`$ is given by

(13)
$$D_h=(1\underset{j>0}{\mathrm{max}}[\{H(b_j)\}]H(b_0))$$

For the case of Werner states all the $`b`$’s have the same entropy and Eq. (13) reduces to

(14)
$$D_W=12H_2\left(\frac{(1f)2^{N1}}{2^N1}\right)$$

or in the limit as the number of parties goes to infinity

(15)
$$D_W^{\mathrm{}}=12H_2\left(\frac{1f}{2}\right).$$

where $`H_2(x)=x\mathrm{log}_2x(1x)\mathrm{log}_2(1x)`$. Eq. 14 is graphed for several values of $`N`$ in Figure 5. By using the recurrence method and switching to hashing as soon as it gives better yield, one can obtain positive final yield to arbitrarily high fidelity for any initial fidelity for which the recurrence method of  improves the fidelity.

## 4. Conclusions and Comments

We have found improved bipartite recurrence protocols for the purification of entanglement from mixed quantum states. We have also demonstrated the first finite-yield method for purification of cat states in a multi-party setting. It is worthwhile to note that both of these new procedures were analyzed for mixed state diagonal in the cat basis, but that in fact they will work for any mixed state just as well, by considering the state’s cat-basis diagonal elements. This is unlikely to be the optimally efficient strategy for non-diagonal states however. In  there is an example of a state for which the conventional bipartite recurrence and hashing cannot distill any pure entanglement, but which can nevertheless simply be distilled. One expects such examples to exist for our new methods as well (indeed, the example in  is an example for the bipartite case of new methods which will similarly fail to distill it.

For our bipartite protocol, while clearly not optimal it is not so bad to have passed over to hashing instead of recurring the protocol. Recurrence methods have vanishing yield if one desires arbitrarily high fidelity of the purified states, so hashing needs to be used eventually in any case. Additionally it would likely be best to produce a variable block size protocol that begins as the recurrence method for low fidelity, switches to a larger block size at some higher fidelity and finally is continued by hashing. A calculation of the yield of such a method is cumbersome, and seemingly provides little insight. We hope that our having pointed out that block size $`m>2`$ methods can improve over recurrence will stimulate further work in this area to develop a deeper understanding, rather than just a brute-force analysis. Much progress has been made on purification involving only one-way classical communication. Such protocols directly correspond to quantum error-correcting codes (cf. ) but recurrence protocols inherently involve two-way classical communication so all parties know which states to discard. So far little of the coding theory has been applied to this case. There does appear to be some relation between these two-way purification protocols and quantum error-detecting codes, and some progress is being made in this area .


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# Φ-measure of pions in high energy heavy-ion collisions

## I Introduction

One of the main goals of relativistic heavy-ion physics is the discovery of the new state of strongly interacting matter that is called the quark-gluon plasma(QGP). As one can not detect QGP directly, lots of indirect signals are suggested. It has been pointed out that the study of event-by-event fluctuations in high energy heavy-ion collisions may provide us more information about the experiment. For examples, event-by-event fluctuations may provide us information about the heat capacity , possible equilibration of the system  or about the phase transition. Experimental group NA49 has already studied the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure in Pb+Pb collisions at SPS energy. Recently Bialas, Koch and Belkacem et. al. have found a relationship between the moments of event-by-event fluctuations and the inclusive correlations. In this paper we will extend the derivation given in, and connect the result of Ref. with Ref.. It has been suggested in Ref. that if there is no special dynamics involved in nuclei and nuclei $`(AA)`$ collisions, then the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure for $`AA`$ should be the same as the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure for proton and proton $`(pp)`$ collisions. So by comparing $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measures for pp and AA, one can get information on the dynamics that is involved in $`AA`$ collisions. However, the derivation in Ref. has neglected the multi-particles Bose-Einstein symmetrization effects among the identical particles. The difference between $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure for $`AA`$ and that for $`pp`$ collisions may be due to the multi-particles Bose-Einstein correlation so that the statement of Ref. given above is no longer valid anymore. In Ref., the author has assumed that the pions produced from $`AA`$ collisions has a Bose-Einstein distribution form in momentum space and has used this spectrum distribution to calculate $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure and found that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure of Bose-Einstein symmetrization is around the prediction of the experiment. But it has been shown in Ref. that only when the volume goes to infinity, the spectrum distribution of pions can be of the function form of Bose-Einstein. In this paper, we will calculate the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure of pions in heavy-ion collisions by using a pion distribution function in both coordinate and momentum space. As has been shown in Ref. that when coordinate space volume goes to infinity, multi-particle Bose-Einstein correlation will make the pion spectrum distribution change to Bose-Einstein form in momentum space. So the calculation in Ref. can be achieved in our calculation by letting the volume goes to infinity. On the other side, the effects of the finite size of $`AA`$ system on $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure can be studied in our calculation. This paper is arranged in the following way: In section II, the relationship between $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure and particles inclusive distributions are derived. In section III, we first derive the formulas which will be used for the calculation of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure of pions, then we calculate the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure for different system size and temperature. For comparison, the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure of pions based on the method given in Ref. are also calculated. In section IV, a simple model is given which demonstrates explicitly that the derivation given in Ref. has neglected multi-particles Bose-Einstein symmetrization effects and conclusions given in Ref. only holds when the multi-particles symmetrization effects are smaller. Finally, Conclusions are given in Section V.

## II The relationship between $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure and particles inclusive distribution

The quantity $`Z(y)`$ for an arbitrary event is defined as:

$$Z(y)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}y(𝐩_𝐢),$$
(1)
here $`N`$ is the multiplicity of the event and $`y(𝐩_𝐢)`$ is the function of momentum $`𝐩_𝐢`$ in the event ***If $`y(𝐩_𝐢)`$ is total momentum, $`y(𝐩_𝐢)=|p_i|`$. If $`y(𝐩_𝐢)`$ is transverse momentum, $`y(𝐩_𝐢)=\sqrt{p_1^2+p_2^2}`$. If $`y(𝐩_𝐢)`$ is the rapidity, then we need to know the energy of particles $`i`$. If $`y(𝐩_𝐢)`$ is electric charge of the particles, we also need to know the electrical charge of particles $`i`$. So Eq.(1) can be generalized to
$$Z(y)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}y(𝐩_𝐢,s_i),$$
(2)  Here $`s_i`$ represents other property of particles $`i`$, like mass and charge. One can simply write Eq.(2) as
$$Z(y)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}y_i$$
(3)  Here $`y_i`$ is the function of $`i`$-th particle.

Then the k-th order moments of $`Z`$ can be written down as

$$Z(y)^k=\frac{1}{M}\underset{j=1}{\overset{M}{}}\left[\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}y(𝐩_𝐢)\right]^k,$$
(4)
where $`M`$ is the total number of events and $`N_j`$ is the multiplicity of the $`j`$-th event.

In the following we will use $`N`$-body distribution function $`f(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)`$ which is normalized as

$$𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_𝐍f(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)=P(N).$$
(5)
Here $`P(N)`$ is the normalized multiplicity distribution.

Following Ref., we define the reduced s-body distribution functions for a system of indistinguishable $`N`$particles as:

$$f_s(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{N!}{(Ns)!}𝑑𝐩_{𝐬+\mathrm{𝟏}}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_𝐍f(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)\hfill & s<N\hfill \\ N!f(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)\hfill & s=N\hfill \\ 0\hfill & s>N\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
But we should point out that this definition is different from that in Ref.In Ref.,the authors have defined a function $`f_s(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)`$ as
$$f_s(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)=\frac{N!}{(Ns)!}𝑑𝐩_{𝐬+\mathrm{𝟏}}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_𝐍f_N(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{}𝐩_𝐍).$$
(7)  It is clear that when $`s=N`$, the above formula is ”bad” defined while this situation does not exist in our definition (see Eq.(6)). On the other hand, one can derive from Eq.(6) of this paper that
$$f_s(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)=\frac{1}{(Ns)!}𝑑𝐩_{𝐬+\mathrm{𝟏}}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_𝐍f_N(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{}𝐩_𝐍).$$
(8)  From Eq.(7) and Eq.(8), we know that this two definitions (Ref. and here) are different.

According to Eq.(4), One can write out the $`k`$-order moments of $`Z`$ as:

$$Z(y)^k=\underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_𝐍\left[\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}y(𝐩_𝐢)\right]^kf(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍).$$
(9)
To be clear, the first to fifth order moments of Z can be expressed as:

$$Z(y)=\underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})f_1(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}),$$
(10)
$$Z(y)^2=\underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}y^2(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})f_1(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})+𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})f_2(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})\right],$$
(11)
$`Z(y)^3={\displaystyle \underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[{\displaystyle }d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}y^3(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})f_1(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})+3{\displaystyle }d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}y^2(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})f_2(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})`$ (12)
$`+{\displaystyle }d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑}y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})f_3(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})],`$ (13)
$`Z(y)^4={\displaystyle \underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[{\displaystyle }d𝐩_1y^4(𝐩_1)f_1(N,𝐩_1)+4{\displaystyle }d𝐩_1d𝐩_2y^3(𝐩_1)y(𝐩_2)f_2(N,𝐩_1,𝐩_2)`$ (14)
$`+3{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_1𝑑𝐩_2y^2(𝐩_1)y^2(𝐩_2)f_2(N,𝐩_1,𝐩_2)}`$ (15)
$`+6{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_1𝑑𝐩_2𝑑𝐩_3y^2(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})f_3(N,𝐩_1,𝐩_2,𝐩_3)}`$ (16)
$`+{\displaystyle }d𝐩_1d𝐩_2d𝐩_3d𝐩_4y(𝐩_1)y(𝐩_2)y(𝐩_3)y(𝐩_4)f_4(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟒})],`$ (17)
$`Z(y)^5={\displaystyle \underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[{\displaystyle }d𝐩_1y^5(𝐩_1)f_1(N,𝐩_1)+5{\displaystyle }d𝐩_1d𝐩_2y^4(𝐩_1)y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})f_2(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})`$ (18)
$`+10{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_1𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}y^3(𝐩_1)y^2(𝐩_2)f_2(N,𝐩_1,𝐩_2)}`$ (19)
$`+10{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_1𝑑𝐩_2𝑑𝐩_3y^3(𝐩_1)y(𝐩_2)y(𝐩_3)f_3(N,𝐩_1,𝐩_2,𝐩_3)}`$ (20)
$`+15{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_1𝑑𝐩_2𝑑𝐩_3y^2(𝐩_1)y^2(𝐩_2)y(𝐩_3)f_3(N,𝐩_1,𝐩_2,𝐩_3)}`$ (21)
$`+10{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_1𝑑𝐩_2𝑑𝐩_3y^2(𝐩_1)y(𝐩_2)y(𝐩_3)y(𝐩_4)f_4(N,𝐩_1,𝐩_2,𝐩_3,𝐩_4)}`$ (22)
$`+{\displaystyle }d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑}d𝐩_4d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟓}y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})y(𝐩_4)y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟓})f_5(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑},𝐩_4,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟓})].`$ (23)
The $`s`$ particles inclusive distribution can be written down as

$`\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)={\displaystyle \underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}f_s(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)`$ (24)
with

$$𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_𝐬\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)=\underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}P(N)\frac{N!}{(Ns)!}=N(N1)\mathrm{}(Ns+1).$$
(25)
Then we have:

$`Z(y)={\displaystyle y(𝐩)\rho (𝐩)𝑑𝐩},`$ (26)
$`Z(y)^2={\displaystyle y^2(𝐩)\rho (𝐩)𝑑𝐩}+{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})},`$ (27)
$`Z(y)^3={\displaystyle y^3(𝐩)\rho (𝐩)𝑑𝐩}`$ (28)
$`+3{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}y^2(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})}`$ (29)
$`+{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑}y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})},`$ (30)
$`Z(y)^4={\displaystyle y^4(𝐩)\rho (𝐩)𝑑𝐩}+4{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}y^3(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})}`$ (31)
$`+3{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}y^2(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y^2(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})}`$ (32)
$`+6{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑}y^2(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})}`$ (33)
$`+{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟒}y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑})y(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟒})\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟑},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟒})},`$ (34)
and so on. One can use Eq.(4) or Eqs(27,30,34) to calculate $`Z(y)^K`$ separately to examine the consistency between those equations. The discussions about the consistency between those equations can be found in Ref..

## III $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure of pions with multi-particles Bose-Einstein symmetrization correlations

In the following we will only consider pions($`\pi ^+`$ or $`\pi ^{}`$), the abundant particles produced in high energy collisions. The $`N`$ pions distribution function can be written down as

$`f(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)=P(N){\displaystyle \frac{P_N(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)}{𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_𝐍P_N(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)}}`$ (35)
with

$`P_N(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)={\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_{\sigma (\mathrm{𝟏})})\mathrm{}\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩_𝐍,𝐩_{\sigma (𝐍)}).`$ (36)
Here $`\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩_𝐢,𝐩_𝐣)`$ is the Fourier transformation of the pion source distribution function $`g^{(N)}(𝐱,𝐊)`$, and $`g^{(N)}(𝐱,𝐊)`$ is the probability of finding a pion at point $`𝐱`$ with momentum $`𝐊`$. The superscript $`N`$ denotes those quantities are calculated for a system with pion multiplicity $`N`$. $`\sigma (i)`$ denotes the $`i`$-th element of a permutations of the sequence $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},s\}`$, and the sum over $`\sigma `$ denotes the sum over all $`s!`$ permutations of this sequence.

Using Eqs.(6,35,36), we have:

$`f_s(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{}𝐩_𝐬)={\displaystyle \frac{P(N)}{\omega ^{(N)}(N)}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=s}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_1=1}{\overset{i(s1)}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_2=1}{\overset{im_1(s2)}{}}}\mathrm{}`$ (37)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{m_{s1}=1}{\overset{im_1m_2\mathrm{}m_{s2}1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}G_{m_1}^{(N)}(𝐩_1,𝐩_{\sigma (1)})G_{m_2}^{(N)}(𝐩_2,𝐩_{\sigma (2)})`$ (38)
$`\mathrm{}G_{m_{s1}}^{(N)}(𝐩_{s1},𝐩_{\sigma (s1)})G_{im_1\mathrm{}m_{s1}}^{(N)}(𝐩_s,𝐩_{\sigma (s)})\omega ^{(N)}(Ni)`$ (39)
with

$`\omega ^{(N)}(N)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N!}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_𝐍P_N(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐍)}`$ (40)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\omega ^{(N)}(Ni){\displaystyle 𝑑𝐩G_i^{(N)}(𝐩,𝐩)},`$ (41)
$`\omega ^{(N)}(0)=1,G_1^N=\rho ^N(𝐩,𝐩)`$ (42)
and

$$G_i^{(N)}(𝐩,𝐪)=\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})\mathrm{}𝑑𝐩_{𝐢\mathrm{𝟏}}\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩_{𝐢\mathrm{𝟏}},𝐪).$$
(43)
The superscript $`N`$ of $`\omega ^{(N)}`$ and $`G_i^{(N)}(𝐩,𝐪)`$ denote $`\omega ^{(N)}`$ and $`G_i^{(N)}(𝐩,𝐪)`$ are calculated using the quantities $`\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩_𝐢,𝐩_𝐣)`$.

The $`s`$-pion inclusive distribution can be expressed as

$`\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)={\displaystyle \underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}f_s(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)`$ (44)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{N=s}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=s}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_1=1}{\overset{i(s1)}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_2=1}{\overset{im_1(s2)}{}}}\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \underset{m_{s1}=1}{\overset{im_1m_2\mathrm{}m_{s2}1}{}}}P(N){\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^N(Ni)}{\omega ^N(N)}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}`$ (45)
$`G_{m_1}^{(N)}(𝐩_1,𝐩_{\sigma (1)})G_{m_2}^{(N)}(𝐩_2,𝐩_{\sigma (2)})\mathrm{}G_{m_{s1}}^{(N)}(𝐩_{s1},𝐩_{\sigma (s1)})G_{im_1\mathrm{}m_{s1}}^{(N)}(𝐩_s,𝐩_{\sigma (s)})`$ (46)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{m_1=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \underset{m_s=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{N=m_1+m_2+\mathrm{}+m_s}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}P(N){\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^{(N)}(Nm_1m_2\mathrm{}m_s)}{\omega ^{(N)}(N)}}`$ (47)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}G_{m_1}^{(N)}(𝐩_1,𝐩_{\sigma (1)})\mathrm{}G_{m_s}^{(N)}(𝐩_s,𝐩_{\sigma (s)}).`$ (48)
Neglecting symmetrization effects, that is $`\rho ^{(N)}(p_i,p_j)=0`$, we have

$$\omega ^{(N)}(N)=\frac{1}{N!}$$
(49)
and

$$G_k^{(N)}(𝐩_𝐢,𝐩_𝐣)=0,k1𝐩_𝐢𝐩_𝐣.$$
(50)
Thus Eq.(39) reads

$`f_s(N,𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{P(N)}{\omega ^{(N)}(N)}}G_1^N(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})\mathrm{}G_1^N(𝐩_𝐬,𝐩_𝐬)\omega ^{(N)}(Ns)`$ (51)
$`=`$ $`P(N){\displaystyle \frac{N!}{(Ns)!}}\rho ^N(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})\mathrm{}\rho ^N(𝐩_𝐬,𝐩_𝐬).`$ (52)
From Eq.(24) or Eq.(48) we have

$`\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)={\displaystyle \underset{N=s}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}N(N1)\mathrm{}(Ns+1)P(N)\rho ^N(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})\mathrm{}\rho ^N(𝐩_𝐬,𝐩_𝐬).`$ (53)
If we neglect multi-particle symmetrization(or antisymmetrization) effects and the correlation between particle spectrum distribution and multiplicity, we immediately come to the conclusion that $`\rho ^N(𝐩,𝐩)=\rho (𝐩)/N`$. Of course this conclusion is based on the fact that we have neglected the dynamical correlation and kinematic correlation.

In calculation, one normally choose the variable $`y(𝐩)`$ as

$$y(𝐩)=x(𝐩)\overline{x},\overline{x}=𝑑𝐩x(𝐩)\frac{\rho (𝐩)}{N}.$$
(54)
If we neglect all kinds of correlations in the system, the first three moments of $`Z`$ read:

$$Z^k=𝑑𝐩y^k(𝐩)\rho (𝐩)(1k3).$$
(55)
For high-order moments, Eq.(55) does not hold anymore. This can be easily seen from Eqs.(17,23,34). This result is different from Ref. where Eq.(55) have been thought to be valid for all-order moments. Mrowczynski has also noticed this fact in Ref.. So $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_k=(\frac{Z^k}{N})^{1/k}(\overline{y^k})^{1/k}(2k3)$$
(56)
with

$$\overline{y^k}=\frac{1}{N}\rho (𝐩)y^k(𝐩)𝑑𝐩,$$
(57)
is related to the quantum many-body correlations, the correlation between the multiplicity and momentum distribution, and the dynamical correlations, the last one has already been discussed in Ref..

As we have no interest in the first two kinds of correlations, we will eliminate those correlations from the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure. One may get rid of multiplicity and momentum correlation by redefining the variable $`y(𝐩)`$ as

$$y^{(N)}(𝐩)=x(𝐩)\overline{x^{(N)}}$$
(58)
with

$$\overline{x^{(N)}}=𝑑𝐩x(𝐩)\frac{f_1(N,𝐩)}{N}.$$
(59)
Here $`\frac{f_1(N,𝐩)}{N}`$ is the normalized particle spectrum distribution of pions with multiplicity $`N`$. After this definition one may get rid of the possible correlation between the multiplicity and momentum. In the actual calculation, one may calculate the average value of $`x(𝐩)`$ for each event(denotes as $`x^e`$), then uses the redefined $`y(𝐩)=x(𝐩)x^e`$ and Eq.(4) to calculate $`Z^k`$. For the $`\overline{y^k}`$, one may calculate it using following equation

$$\overline{y^k}=\frac{1}{M}\underset{j=1}{\overset{M}{}}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}y_j(𝐩_𝐢)^k.$$
(60)
Here $`M`$ is the total number of events and $`N_j`$ is the multiplicity of the $`j`$-th event. $`y_j(𝐩)=x(𝐩)x_j^e`$ is the quantity defined for the $`j`$-th event, and $`x_j^e`$ is mean value of $`x(𝐩)`$ for the $`j`$-th event. Using this method, one can calculate the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure.

In the following we will calculate the quantum correlation effects on $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure. Assuming $`g^{(N)}(𝐱,𝐊)`$ as a Gaussian function in both coordinate space and momentum space, $`\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩_𝐢,𝐩_𝐣)`$ can be expressed as

$`\rho ^{(N)}(𝐩_𝐢,𝐩_𝐣)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle g(𝐱,\frac{𝐩_𝐢+𝐩_𝐣}{2})\mathrm{exp}(i(𝐩_𝐢𝐩_𝐣)x)𝑑𝐱}`$ (61)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi \mathrm{\Delta }^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}}\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{(𝐩_𝐢𝐩_𝐣)^2R(N)^2}{2}})\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{(𝐩_𝐢+𝐩_𝐣)^2}{8\mathrm{\Delta }(N)^2}}).`$ (62)
Here $`R(N)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)`$ are the source radius and temperature for the events with multiplicity $`N`$. Of course the source radius and temperature may be different for different event, even though those events have the same multiplicity. But at this calculation we will neglect this fluctuation. In Fig.1, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2(p_t)`$ vs. mean pion multiplicity are shown  Here, we will explain how to calculate the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure given in Fig.1. According to Eq.(56,57), we have
$$\mathrm{\Phi }_2(p_t)=(\frac{Z^2}{N})^{1/2}(\frac{1}{N}\rho (𝐩)\stackrel{~}{p}_t^2𝑑𝐩)^{1/2},$$
(63)  with
$$\stackrel{~}{p}_t=p_tp_t,p_t=\frac{1}{N}\rho (𝐩)p_t.$$
(64)  Here $`p_t`$ is transverse momentum ($`p_t=\sqrt{p_1^2+p_2^2}`$), $`N`$ is the mean multiplicity. According to Eq.(27), we have
$$Z^2(p_t)=\stackrel{~}{p}_t^2\rho (p)𝑑𝐩+𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}\stackrel{~}{p}_{1t}\stackrel{~}{p}_{2t}\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐}).$$
(65)  According to Eq.(48), the single and two-particles inclusive distribution can be written down as
$$\rho (𝐩)=\underset{m_1=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{N=m_1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}P(N)\frac{\omega (Nm_1)}{\omega (N)}G_{m_1}(𝐩,𝐩),$$
(66)     $`\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m_1=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_1=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{N=m_1+m_2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}P(N){\displaystyle \frac{\omega (Nm_1m_2)}{\omega (N)}}`$  (68)     $`[G_{m_1}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})G_{m_2}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})+G_{m_1}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})G_{m_2}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})].`$   In the calculation we assume that $`R`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are the same for all multiplicity, so we neglect the superscript $`N`$ in Eq.(48). From the function $`\rho ^{(N)}(p_i,p_j)`$ given in Eq.(62), one can calculate $`G_{m_1}(p_1,p_2)`$ according to Eq.(43) and $`\omega (N)`$ according to Eq.(42). Choosing $`P(N)`$ as Poisson form, that is $`P(N)=\mathrm{exp}(N)\frac{N^N}{N!}`$, we can calculate $`\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐})`$ and $`\rho (𝐩)`$. Bring all those formulas in eq.(63), we get $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2(p_t)`$.. It is interesting to note that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ value will increase as the pion multiplicity goes up. For the same multiplicity, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ value will decrease as the volume or temperature drops. All these can be understood in the following way: $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2(p_t)`$ will become bigger as the phase space density ($`<N>/(R\mathrm{\Delta })^3`$) becomes higher. Of course, the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ value should also depend on the pion multiplicity distribution, but this effect will be neglected at present calculation. Here we would like to point out that many authors have noticed that Bose-Einstein symmetrization may affect the value of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure. For example, In Ref., similar formulas as Eqs(10,11,13) of the paper have been derived, but the functional form of $`\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)`$ have never been presented. On the other hand, Mrowczynski has studied Bose-Einstein correlation effects on the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure by assuming the particle spectrum distribution is Bose-Einstein form which corresponds to $`R`$ is infinity for our calculation. However Neither Belkacem et. al. nor Mrowczynski has calculated multi-body Bose-Einstein symmetrization effects on $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$measure as done in this paper. For comparison the results of Ref. are also shown in Fig.1§§§Here we will explain how to calculate the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure using the method given in Ref.. According to Ref., we can infer that
$$\rho (𝐩)=\frac{V}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}(\beta (E\mu ))1}.$$
(69)  Here $`V=L^3`$ is the volume, $`\beta =T^1`$ is the inverse temperature, $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential. $`E=\sqrt{m^2+p^2}`$ with $`m`$ being the particles mass and $`𝐩`$ its momentum. The mean multiplicity $`N`$ can be expressed as
$$N=𝑑𝐩\rho (𝐩).$$
(70)  The mean $`p_t`$ reads
$$p_t=\frac{\rho (𝐩)p_t𝑑𝐩}{N}.$$
(71)  It is easily checked that
$$\frac{Z^2(p_t)}{N}=\frac{𝑑𝐩(p_tp_t)^2\frac{\mathrm{exp}(\beta (E\mu ))}{(\mathrm{exp}(\beta (E\mu ))1)^2}}{𝑑𝐩\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}(E\mu )1}}.$$
(72)  Bring those formulas in Eq.(63), we can get $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2(p_t)`$.. The specific volume ($`V=L^3=1000fm^3`$) and temperature ($`T=150MeV`$) are chosen for the formulas of Ref. so that $`r^2=x^2+y^2+z^2_{box,L=10fm}r^2_{Gaussian,R=3fm}`$ and $`p^2_{T=150MeV}p^2_{\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0.2GeV}`$. It is interesting to notice that our results is larger than the results of Ref. when the phase space ($`(r^2p^2)^{3/2}`$) are the same. $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2(p_t)`$ for Ref. will also become bigger if the phase space density becomes higher. Here we should point out that for $`N100`$, which is the mean multiplicity of $`\pi ^+`$ or $`\pi ^{}`$ measured in SPS energy, our $`\mathrm{\Phi }(p_t)`$ is much larger than the experimental value of $`4.6\pm 1.5`$. However for large volume ($`R=5.3fm`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.2GeV`$) or high temperature($`R=3fm`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.355GeV`$), we find that $`\mathrm{\Phi }7MeV`$ for $`<N>100`$ which is consistent with the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ value calculated by two-particles correlation ($`5\pm 1.5MeV`$) for Pb+Pb at SPS. Taking $`V=L^3=(16)^3fm^3`$ and $`T=150MeV`$, we find that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ value of Ref. is around $`6MeV`$ which is consistent with our results and data. This suggests that for large volume ($`R=5.1fm`$ or $`L=16fm`$ which is around the HBT radius of NA49), high-order Bose-Einstein symmetrization effects are not significant for SPS energy. So our calculation is consistent with the results of Ref..

## IV The shortcoming of previous derivation of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure

In the following we show that the previous derivation of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure is based on a model which has no quantum correlation among particles. We assume that in AA collisions, particles are produced by each nucleon nucleon ($`NN`$) collisions and the number of collisions of NN has a distribution function $`P(M)`$. Here $`M`$ is the number of collisions in each event and the collision center has a distribution of $`\rho (𝐱)`$. The probability amplitude of finding a pion at point $`𝐱`$ can be written down as

$$J(𝐱)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}J_i(𝐱)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}J(𝐱𝐱_𝐢)$$
(73)
Here $`𝐱_𝐢`$ is the collision center coordinate. In the last step of Eq.(73) we assume that $`J_i(𝐱)`$ is only the function of $`𝐱𝐱_𝐢`$. The probability amplitude in the momentum space can be expressed as

$$\stackrel{~}{J}(𝐩)=𝑑𝐱J(𝐱)\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩𝐱)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}exp(i𝐩𝐱)J(𝐱𝐱_𝐢)𝑑𝐱=\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}\stackrel{~}{J}(𝐩)\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩𝐱_𝐢)$$
(74)
with

$$\stackrel{~}{J}(𝐩)=J(𝐱)\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩𝐱)𝑑𝐱.$$
(75)
Then the $`s`$-pion inclusive distribution reads

$`\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)={\displaystyle \underset{M=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}P(M){\displaystyle 𝑑𝐱_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{}𝑑𝐱_𝐌g(𝐱_\mathrm{𝟏})\mathrm{}g(𝐱_𝐌)|\stackrel{~}{J}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})|^2\mathrm{}|\stackrel{~}{J}(𝐩_𝐬)|^2}`$ (76)
$`|{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝐱_𝐢)|^2\mathrm{}|{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩_𝐬𝐱_𝐢)|^2`$ (77)
the second line of Eq.(77) comes from Eq.(74) which is due to quantum effect. So the distribution $`P(X)`$ in Ref. does not hold anymore. However if we consider classical particles, we immediately can get an equation similar to the expression of $`P(X)`$ in Ref.. As the terms in the second line of Eq.(77) change to

$`|{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩_𝐣𝐱_𝐢)|^2{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}}|\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩_𝐣𝐱_𝐢)|^2=M`$ (78)
we have

$$\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐩_\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)=\underset{M=0}{\overset{M=\mathrm{}}{}}P(M)M^s|\stackrel{~}{J}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})|^2\mathrm{}|\stackrel{~}{J}(𝐩_𝐬)|^2.$$
(79)
Then the derivation in Ref can be applied here. In passing, we would like to note that the $`P(X)`$ distribution in Ref. is the source distribution, while, $`\rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝐩_𝐬)`$ in our work represents particle inclusive distribution. For illustration, we will write out the mean multiplicity $`N`$ as:

$`N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \rho (𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}}`$ (80)
$`=`$ $`M{\displaystyle }d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}|J(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})|^2+M(M1){\displaystyle }d𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}|J(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}|^2|\stackrel{~}{g}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})|^2`$ (81)
with

$$\stackrel{~}{g}(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})=𝑑𝐱g(𝐱)\mathrm{exp}(i𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}𝐱).$$
(82)
Here $`𝑑𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏}|J(𝐩_\mathrm{𝟏})|^2=n_0`$ is the mean number of pions that are emitted from each NN collisions. The previous relation like $`N=Mn_0`$ does not hold anymore as the quantum effect has extra contribution to the average value of $`N`$. Of course the last term of Eq. (81) depends on the distribution function of the source, $`g(𝐱)`$, and it will become smaller if the collision region is larger. This can be explained in quantum mechanical context: If the source of AA collisions is very larger and dilute pion gas exists, quantum effect will become smaller.

## V Discussions and Conclusions

It has been proved that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure will be significantly influenced by the multiparticle correlations effects if the particle phase space density is very high. However one may exclude the quantum symmetrization or antisymmetrization effects by cuts. One may do HBT analysis and determine the HBT momentum region first, then throw away the identical particle pairs which are affected greatly by particles symmetrization effects from each event. After this is done one may use the remaining particles to re-calculate the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ measure. It is interesting to mention the following fact: In Ref., the authors have already calculated the average phase space density for pions at SPS energy, and have found that the pion phase space density is $`0.2`$, which is much less than $`1`$. Therefore multipion symmetrization effect may not be significant at SPS energy. For RHIC energy, it is estimated that the pion phase space density will become higher, so one should be careful when using $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure in RHIC energy.

In the paper, we calculate the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure for a specific source distribution function. There is a possibility that the results of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure depends on the function form of the source. As has been stated in the paper that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure also depend on the fluctuation of the source radius and temperature for different multiplicity. All this kind of work has not been studied in detail in the paper as the main interest of present paper is to study the Bose-Einstein correlation effects on the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure. We find that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure is greatly affected by Bose-Einstein symmetrization if the source density of pions is high.

In this paper, we derive the relationship between $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure and particles inclusive distributions. It is shown that besides dynamical correlation, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure is also related to the many-body quantum (anti)symmetrization correlations. Starting from a pion source distribution in coordinate and momentum space, we calculate the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure for pions. It is found that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure is strongly affected by multiparticle symmetrization effects if the phase space density is very high. So the previous statement that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-measure reflects the dynamical mechanism that exists in the AA does not hold anymore if the pion phase space density is high. For a very large system, the density of pions may be smaller, in this case the multiparticles symmetrization effect can be neglected. Finally we argue that one may more or less exclude the quantum symmetrization effect by cutting small momentum pairs of pions from each event.

Acknowledgement

The author thanks Prof. R. C. Hwa for reading the paper and Dr. S. Mrowczynski for helpful communication. This work was supported by US Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG03-96ER40972, NSERC of Canada and FCAR of the Quebec Government.


text:
# Probing superconducting phase fluctuations from the current noise spectrum of pseudogaped metal-superconductor tunnel junctions

## Abstract

We study the current noise spectra of a tunnel junction of a metal with strong pairing phase fluctuation and a superconductor. It is shown that there is a characteristic peak in the noise spectrum at the intrinsic Josephson frequency $`\omega _J=2eV`$ when $`\omega _J`$ is smaller than the pairing gap but larger than the pairing scattering rate. In the presence of an AC voltage, the tunnelling current noise shows a series of characteristic peaks with increasing DC voltage. Experimental observation of these peaks will give direct evidence of the pair fluctuation in the normal state of high-$`T_c`$ superconductors and from the half width of the peaks the pair decay rate can be estimated.

Direct measurements of the pair susceptibility in the normal state of a superconductor are important for understanding the pseudogap phenomenon in high-$`T_c`$ superconductors. For conventional superconductors, the pairing fluctuation exists only in a very narrow temperature range above $`T_c`$. However, in the underdoped high-$`T_c`$ materials, it is believed that the pair fluctuation is important in a substantial temperature range in the normal state . This fluctuation is also important in superconductor thin films, where long ranged phase coherence is strongly suppressed . The pseudogap effect was often interpreted as a precursor to the high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity. It was observed in many different experiments . However, what was really found in experiments is the reduction of the low-lying density of states associated with the opening of an energy gap, which may or may not be a pairing gap, and a direct observation of the pair phase fluctuation is still absent.

The pair susceptibility in the normal state of a underdoped cuprate can be measured from the linear response of the system to an external pair field, like the measurement of the magnetic susceptibility. Such an external pair field can be introduced, for example, by coupling this underdoped cuprate to an optimally doped cuprate with a higher superconducting transition temperature via a tunnelling junction. When the temperature lies between the superconducting transition temperatures of these two materials, the tunnelling process will undoubtedly be strongly affected by the pair fluctuation in the normal side.

The Josephson effect occurs when both sides of the junction are in the superconducting state. A DC voltage across the junction leads to an oscillating Josephson current at frequency $`\omega _J=2eV`$, where $`V`$ is the applied voltage. If one side of the junction is not in the superconducting phase, the Josephson current is zero on average. However, the Josephson effect does not disappear completely. It manifests in the current noise spectrum and, as will be shown later, the current noise is greatly enhanced at the Josephson frequency $`\omega _J`$ if the pairing fluctuation is strong.

In this paper, we present a theoretical analysis of the tunnelling current noise spectrum of the pseudogaped metal-superconductor junction as discussed above. We assume that the pairing on both sides of the junction has $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave symmetry. The extension to other pairing symmetry cases is straightforward. The main results we obtained are: (1) With an applied DC voltage, there is a characteristic Josephson peak in the noise spectrum at the intrinsic Josephson frequency $`\omega _J`$, although the coherent Josephson current is zero. (2) When an AC voltage $`V_s\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega _st\right)`$ is applied in addition to the DC voltage, there are a series of characteristic peaks in the zero frequency noise centred at $`\omega _J=n\omega _s`$ ($`n`$ an integer) with increasing $`\omega _J`$. (3) the half width of the peak is proportional to the pair decay rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of the system, but the peak intensity drops very quickly with increasing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

The Hamiltonian of the junction we study is defined by $`H=H_S+H_N+H_T`$ with

$`H_S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{p\sigma }{}}\epsilon _pd_{p\sigma }^+d_{p\sigma }+{\displaystyle \underset{p}{}}(\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _pd_pd_p+h.c.),`$ (1)
$`H_N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k\sigma }{}}\epsilon _kc_{k\sigma }^+c_{k\sigma }+{\displaystyle \underset{kq}{}}[\mathrm{\Psi }(q,t)c_{k+q/2,}c_{k+q/2,}+h.c.]`$ (3)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\chi _{\mathrm{pair}}^1(q,t,t^{})\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(q,t)\mathrm{\Psi }(q,t^{}),`$
$`H_T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{kp\sigma }{}}V_{kp}e^{i_0^teV_s\mathrm{cos}(\omega _st^{})𝑑t^{}+i\omega _Jt}c_{k\sigma }^+d_{p\sigma }+h.c.,`$ (4)
where $`\phi _p=\mathrm{cos}p_x\mathrm{cos}p_y`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)=\mathrm{\Delta }_n\mathrm{exp}\left[i\varphi (x,t)\right]`$ is the pairing field of the normal lead. $`H_S`$ is the Hamiltonian for a $`d`$-wave superconductor. $`H_N`$ is the effective Hamiltonian of a metal with pairing fluctuations  and $`\chi _{\mathrm{pair}}`$ is the pair propagator (or pair susceptibility) in the normal state. In $`H_T`$, $`V_{kp}`$ is the tunnelling matrix and can be expanded with the crystal harmonics . To the second order approximation, it is given by

$$|V_{pk}|^2=V_0^2+V_1^2\phi _k\phi _p.$$
(5)
The constant term in $`|V_{pk}|^2`$ has contribution to the single particle tunnelling current, but no contribution to the pair tunnelling current because of the $`d`$ -wave pairing symmetry. The integration resulted from the applied AC voltage on the exponent in $`H_T`$ is difficult to handle analytically. In practical calculations, it is often expanded as a sum of a serial of oscillating terms with the Bessel function:

$`e^{i_0^teV_s\mathrm{cos}(\omega _st^{})𝑑t^{}}={\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}J_n\left({\displaystyle \frac{eV_s}{\omega _s}}\right)e^{in\omega _st},`$

where $`J_n(x)`$ is the n’th order Bessel function .

Let us first consider phenomenologically the effect of pairing phase fluctuation on the current noise. We assume that the phase fluctuation follows a diffusion process and the spatial correlation length is very short. In this case, the correlation function of the phase field is given by

$$e^{i\varphi (x,t)}e^{i\varphi (x^{},0)}e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }|t|/2}\delta (xx^{}),$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the pair fluctuation rate. From this equation, it can be shown that

$$\chi _{\mathrm{pair}}(q,\omega )=1/(i\omega +\mathrm{\Gamma }/2).$$
(7)
The current noise spectrum measures the current fluctuation in the junction. It is defined by the symmetrized current-current function:

$$S(\omega )𝑑te^{i\omega t}\{I(t)I(t),I(0)I(0)\},$$
(8)
where $`I(t)`$ is the current across the junction and $`\{A,B\}AB+BA`$. In the case only a DC voltage is applied, the above tunnelling Hamiltonian can be treated semi-classically and the current-current correlation function contributed from the pair tunnelling is simply given by the thermal average of the phase fields:

$`I(t)I(0)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x𝑑x^{}\mathrm{sin}\left[\varphi (x,t)+\omega _Jt\right]\mathrm{sin}\varphi (x^{},0)}`$ (9)
$``$ $`\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega _Jt\right)e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }|t|/2}`$ (10)
Substituting this equation into (8), we then obtain the noise spectrum contributed from the pair tunnelling

$$S_{pair}(\omega )\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{(\omega \omega _J)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4}+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{(\omega +\omega _J)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4}.$$
(11)
This result indicates that the Josephson current cross the junction is coherent if the tunnelling time is much shorter than the fluctuation time $`\tau \mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$ of virtual cooper pairs. In the limit $`\mathrm{\Gamma }0`$, $`S(\omega )`$ becomes two delta-functions centred at $`\pm \omega _J`$. For finite $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, these two delta-functions are broadened and the half width of the broadened peak is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

Eq. (11) is similar as the result obtained by Martin and Balatsky very recently . However, as both sides of the junction in the experimental setup they suggested are in the normal state, the total pair decay rate is larger than the case discussed here. Since the intensity of the peak compared with the average noise drops sharply with increasing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (Figure 2), it may be difficult to observe the characteristic Josephson fluctuation in finite frequency conductance measurement suggested in their paper. While in our paper, to determine the pair decay rate only the zero frequency noise is required which is easier to measure.

In a s-wave pairing system, since no quasiparticle excitations exist within the energy gap, the single particle tunnelling can be ignored when the noise frequency is lower than the gap. For the d-wave pairing case, the contribution of the single particle tunnelling cannot be ignored because of the existence of gap nodes. To find out the contribution from both the quasiparticle and pair tunnelling to the noise, we perform a microscopic calculation the current-current correlation function using the closed time Green’s function technique. The tunnelling Hamiltonian $`H_T`$ is treated as a perturbation. Since the normal Josephson effect is absent in the junction, the second order contribution of $`H_T`$ contains only the quasiparticle tunnelling terms. However, the noise caused by the quasiparticle tunnelling varies very slowly with frequency. When the noise frequency is smaller than $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, it adds only a featureless background to the noise spectra.

The most important contribution of $`H_T`$ to the noise is from the fourth order perturbation, in particular from the virtual pair tunnelling process. When the pairing fluctuation in the normal state is strong, a Cooper pair can tunnel from the superconductor to the normal lead and contributes a significant term to the noise at low frequencies. Figure 1 shows the Feymann diagram for this pair tunnelling term in the current-current correlation function. The solid line is the Green’s function of electrons. The dashed line is the propagator of the pair field in the normal state.

To the leading order approximation in both the quasiparticle and pair tunnelling channels, we find that the noise spectra is given by

$$S(\omega )N_q(\omega )+N_p(\omega )+N_q(\omega )+N_p(\omega ),$$
(12)
where $`N_q`$ and $`N_p`$ are respectively the contributions from the quasiparticle and pair tunnelling:

————————————————————–

$`N_q(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`V_0^2{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}J_n^2(x)\rho _s{\displaystyle 𝑑\nu \rho _d(\nu )\left[n_f(\nu )n_f(\nu +\omega _n^{\prime \prime })\right]\mathrm{coth}\frac{\beta \omega _n^{\prime \prime }}{2}},`$ (13)
$`N_p(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`V_1^4C{\displaystyle \underset{n,n_1,n_2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{J_{n_1}(x)J_{nn_1}(x)J_{n_2}(x)J_{nn_2}(x)}{\omega _n^{}_{}{}^{}2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4}}\mathrm{coth}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta \omega _n^{}}{2}}`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\left\{\omega _n^{}\left[\varphi _2^2(\omega _n^{},q)\varphi _1^2(\omega _n^{},q)\right]+\mathrm{\Gamma }\varphi _2(\omega _n^{})\varphi _1(\omega _n^{},q)\right\}.`$
—————————————————————

In the above equations, $`x=eV_s/\omega _s`$, $`\omega _n^{}=\omega +\omega _J+n\omega _s`$, $`\omega _n^{\prime \prime }=\omega +eV+n\omega _s`$, $`C=_p\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _p^2/\left(\epsilon _p^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\phi _p^2\right)`$, $`\rho _s`$ is the density of states of the superconductor in the normal state, and $`\rho _n(\nu )`$ is the density of states of the normal lead. In Eq. (15),

$`\varphi _1(\nu ,q)`$ $`=`$ $`\pi {\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\phi _k^2\left(1n_kn_{k+q}\right)\delta (\nu \epsilon _k\epsilon _{k+q}),`$
$`\varphi _2(\nu ,q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\phi _k^2{\displaystyle \frac{1n_kn_{k+q}}{\nu \epsilon _k\epsilon _{k+q}}},`$
and $`n_k=1/(1+e^{\beta \epsilon _k})`$ is the Fermi-Dirac function .

Figure 2 shows $`S(\omega )`$ normalised by $`S(0)`$ as a function of $`\omega `$ for the case $`\omega _J=0.4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\omega _s=0`$. The parameters used are $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n=\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`T=0.2\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`V_0=2V_1=2\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and $`\rho _s=1/10\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The band width of the normal lead is assumed to be $`10\mathrm{\Delta }`$. From the figure, it is clear that if the fluctuation rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is sufficiently small, the noise peak centred at $`\omega =\pm \omega _J`$ is very sharp. The half width of the peak is determined by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. When $`\omega _J\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, the thermally excited pair tunnelling current will oscillate a few times before it loses the phase coherence. But with increasing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, the noise peak at $`\omega _J`$ becomes broadened and vanishes eventually.

In the presence of both DC and AC voltages, the pair tunnelling is enhanced at the frequency $`\omega =\omega _J+n\omega _s`$ and the noise spectrum shows a serial of local maxima at these frequencies. If the applied microwave frequency and the Josephson frequency satisfy the condition $`\omega _J+n\omega _s=0`$, a local maximum will appear at the zero frequency. Figure 3 shows the zero frquency normalised current noise spectrum as a function of $`\omega _J`$ for the case $`\omega _s=0.4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (the other parameters are the same as in Figure 2). There are a series of peaks for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.2\mathrm{\Delta }`$. When $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is increased, these peaks becomes broader and weaker.

The above results indicate that the pair fluctuation in the normal lead has strong effects on the noise spectrum of the tunnelling current. The broadened peaks at the characteristic frequencies in the noise spectrum shown in Figures 2 and 3 are unique to the normal-superconductor junction with strong pair fluctuations. Experimentally, it is not easy to measure the finite frequency noise, but when the AC voltage is applied we only need to measure the zero frequency noise which is quite easy to do. Thus experimental measurements of the current noise allow us to judge how strong the pairing fluctuation is in the pseudogap phase. This is apparently important for a direct test of the superconducting precursor scenario.

In summary, we have shown that the noise spectrum of the tunnelling current between a underdoped cuprate in the normal state and an optimally doped cuprate in the superconducting state is a useful probe of the pairing fluctuation in the pseudogap phase. We have calculated the noise spectrum using the closed path Green’s functions and found that the current noise is strongly enhanced at a series of characteristic frequencies determined by the Josephson pair tunnelling processes. Notice that the system is nonequilibrium when the DC voltage is applied, it is proper to use the closed time green’s function technique. Experimental observations of the noise peaks at these characteristic frequencies will help us to establish the correct picture of the pair fluctuation in the pseudogap phase of high-$`T_c`$ cuprates.

TX acknowledges the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and from the special funds for Major State Basic Research Projects of China.