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# Running of the heavy quark production current and 1/|𝐤| potential in QCD

## I Introduction

For systems involving a heavy quark-antiquark pair near threshold it is useful to combine the QCD coupling constant expansion with an expansion in powers of the relative velocity $`v`$. This expansion is facilitated by using non-relativistic QCD formulated as an effective field theory with an explicit power counting in $`v`$ . For the potential between a heavy quark and antiquark this double expansion takes the form

$`V(𝐩,𝐩^{})={\displaystyle \underset{n=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}V^{(n)},V^{(n)}={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}V^{(n,j)},`$ (1)
$`\text{where}V^{(n)}v^n,V^{(n,j)}v^n\alpha _s^j.`$ (2)
The even terms $`V^{(2k)}`$ are first generated at tree-level (order $`\alpha _s`$), and the odd terms $`V^{(2k+1)}`$ are first generated at one loop (order $`\alpha _s^2`$).

Matrix elements for non-relativistic QCD systems typically depend on logarithms of the velocity $`v`$. For small $`v`$ it is convenient to sum large logarithms of the form $`\alpha _s(mv)\mathrm{ln}(v)`$ and $`\alpha _s(mv^2)\mathrm{ln}(v)`$ by using renormalization group equations in the effective theory. This reorganizes the series in $`j`$ in Eq. (1) so that:

$`V^{(n)}={\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\stackrel{~}{V}^{(n,j)},\text{where}\stackrel{~}{V}^{(n,j)}v^n\alpha _s(m)^j{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[\alpha _s(m)\mathrm{ln}(v)]^k.`$ (3)
The simplest example of such a summation is the use of a running coupling constant, $`\alpha _s(\mu )`$, instead of the coupling at the matching scale $`\alpha _s(m)`$. For $`\mu <m`$ the running coupling includes a series of $`\alpha _s(m)\mathrm{ln}(\mu /m)`$ terms. However, it should be emphasized that the complete set of renormalization group logarithms are not determined by the simple replacement $`\alpha _s(m)\alpha _s(\mu )`$.

A complication in summing the logarithms is the presence of two low energy scales: the typical momenta of the heavy quark $`mv`$ (soft scale), and typical energy $`mv^2`$ (ultrasoft scale). Two approaches have been proposed for dealing with the presence of two scales, one stage and two stage running. With two stage running, one matches QCD onto an effective theory at the scale $`\mu =m`$ and then runs to the scale $`\mu =mv`$. At $`\mu =mv`$ one matches onto an effective theory called pNRQCD  which has composite $`q\overline{q}`$ fields, and then considers the running to $`\mu =mv^2`$. In vNRQCD , the running occurs in a single stage using a velocity renormalization group. The velocity renormalization group takes into account that the scales $`mv`$ and $`mv^2`$ are tied together by the heavy quark equation of motion for all $`\mu <m`$. We use dimensional regularization and the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme with both the ultrasoft scale $`\mu _Umv^2`$ and the soft scale $`\mu _Smv`$ given in terms of a single subtraction point velocity $`\nu `$: $`\mu _U=m\nu ^2`$ and $`\mu _S=m\nu `$. The renormalization group equations are written for the variable $`\nu `$. It is an interesting question as to whether both the one and two stage methods of running will sum the full set of $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}(v)`$ terms. In this paper only the single stage running will be considered.

The running of the Coulomb potential at one and two loops, $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,1)}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,2)}`$, is determined by the running coupling constant $`\alpha _s(\mu )`$ At three loops ultrasoft gluons can contribute to the running of the static potential.. The summation of the leading logarithms for the the $`v^0`$ potential was carried out in Refs. . In this paper we extend this analysis to the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential by calculating its two loop anomalous dimension.

If $`mv^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, the $`v`$ expansion can be applied to non-relativistic QCD systems in a perturbative manner. This is the case for $`t\overline{t}`$ production near threshold where $`mv^24\mathrm{GeV}`$, and is the situation that will be analyzed in this paper. Of particular interest is the Coulombic regime where $`v\alpha _s`$. In this regime the expansion in Eq. (1) has the form

$`V`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,1)}\right]+\left[\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,2)}\right]+\left[\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,3)}+\stackrel{~}{V}^{(1,2)}+\stackrel{~}{V}^{(0,1)}\right]+\mathrm{}`$ (4)
$``$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{v^2}}\right]+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^2}{v^2}}\right]+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^3}{v^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^2}{v}}+\alpha _sv^0\right]+\mathrm{}.`$ (5)
If the $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}(v)`$ dependence is treated perturbatively these terms are referred to as the leading order (LO), next-to-leading order (NLO), and next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) potentials. Note that since the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential first occurs at one loop, it only contributes at NNLO. When the series in $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}v`$ are summed, the terms in Eq. (4) will be referred to as leading-log (LL), next-to-leading log (NLL) and next-to-next-to-leading log (NNLL), respectively. In the Coulomb regime, the Coulomb potential must be kept to all orders. Each additional Coulomb insertion gives a $`\alpha _s/v^2`$ plus a factor of $`v`$ (from the potential loop), so each new Coulomb interaction costs a factor of $`\alpha _s/v1`$.

To study the threshold production of $`t\overline{t}`$, a non-relativistic expansion must also be made for the electromagnetic production current§§§We will ignore effects associated with the top quark width.

$`\overline{t}\gamma ^it`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩}{}}c_1\left(\psi _𝐩^{}𝝈^i\chi _𝐩^{}\right){\displaystyle \frac{c_2}{2m^2}}\left(\psi _𝐩^{}𝐩𝝈𝐩^𝐢\chi _𝐩^{}\right){\displaystyle \frac{c_3}{m^2}}\left(\psi _𝐩^{}𝐩^\mathrm{𝟐}𝝈^𝐢\chi _𝐩^{}\right)+\mathrm{}.`$ (6)
The fields $`\psi ^{}`$ and $`\chi ^{}`$ create non-relativistic top quarks and antiquarks respectively. The $`c_1`$ term contributes at order $`v^0`$, and the $`c_2`$ and $`c_3`$ terms contribute at order $`v^2`$. The current on the LHS of Eq. (6) is conserved, and has no anomalous dimension in QCD. However the non-relativistic current operators on the RHS are scale dependent in the effective theory, and the coefficients $`c_j`$ therefore depend on logarithms of $`\mu `$. The coefficients $`c_j`$ each have an expansion in $`\alpha _s`$. The matching at $`\mu m`$ is known to order $`\alpha _s^2`$ for $`c_1`$, and to order $`\alpha _s`$ for $`c_2`$ and $`c_3`$, so the production current is known to NNLO with partial N3LO results. At LL order, one needs the tree-level matching $`c_1=1`$ at $`\mu =m`$, and the $`v^2`$ coefficients $`c_2`$ and $`c_3`$ can be set to zero. There is no one loop anomalous dimension for the operator $`\psi _𝐩^{}\sigma ^i\chi _𝐩^{}`$, so the LL result is that $`c_1=1`$ at all $`\nu `$.

At NLL order, we need the one loop matching for $`c_1`$ at $`\mu =m`$, and the two loop running for $`c_1`$. The coefficients $`c_{2,3}`$ first enter at NNLL, at which order one would also need the three-loop anomalous dimension for $`c_1`$. At two loops, the anomalous dimension for $`c_1`$ was computed at the matching scale $`\mu =m`$

$`\mu {\displaystyle \frac{}{\mu }}c_1(\mu )|_{\mu =m}=C_F\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}C_F+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}C_A\right)\alpha _s^2(m),`$ (7)
by studying the two loop matching condition for $`c_1`$. For $`\mu <m`$ the anomalous dimension no longer has the simple form Eq. (7), but depends on the running of the quark potential. This anomalous dimension was computed in Ref. , and depends on the running values $`[\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,1)}]^2`$, $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,1)}\times \stackrel{~}{V}^{(0,1)}`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(1,2)}`$ (see Eq. (74) below). It is interesting that the structure of this result implies that determining the RHS of Eq. (7) for $`\mu <m`$ requires the LL values of $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,1)}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(0,1)}`$, but the NLL value of $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(1,2)}`$. The one loop running of $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,1)}`$ is well known, and the running of $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(2,2)}`$ was computed in Refs. . The two loop running of $`\stackrel{~}{V}^{(1,2)}`$ is computed in this paper. Using the running of these terms in the potential, we arrive at a complete NLL expression for $`c_1`$. The running of the non-relativistic scalar current is also briefly discussed.

In section II the effective theory is reviewed. We explain how reparameterization invariance fixes the value of the lowest order coupling of an ultrasoft gluon to the Coulomb potential. The details of the computation of the two loop anomalous dimension for the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential are given in section III, and in the appendices. In section III we give a derivation of the anomalous dimension using on-shell potentials, while in appendix B we repeat the derivation in the presence of off-shell potentials. Readers not interested in the technical details can skip to section IV, where our results are discussed. In section IV we expand our renormalization group improved results in powers of $`\alpha _s`$ to compare to finite order calculations in the literature. For the color singlet $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential the first $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}(v)`$ term in the series was computed in Ref. , and our result for this term agrees with theirs. In Ref. , Kniehl and Penin computed the $`\alpha _s^3\mathrm{ln}^2(\alpha _s)`$ terms in the wavefunction at the origin which they refer to as “non-renormalization group logarithms”, since they do not involve factors of the $`\beta `$-function for $`\alpha _s`$. We show that the second term in the series generated by our NLL production current agrees with the result in Ref. . Thus, the solution of the renormalization group equations in the velocity renormalization group method does include these logarithms. Finally, we discuss our result for the NLL $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential and production current.

## II The vNRQCD Lagrangian

The vNRQCD effective Lagrangian has the form

$`=_u+_p+_s.`$ (8)
The ultrasoft Lagrangian $`_u`$ involves the fields $`\psi _𝐩`$ which annihilate a quark, $`\chi _𝐩`$ which annihilate an antiquark, and $`A^\mu `$ which annihilate and create ultrasoft gluons. The potential Lagrangian $`_p`$ contains operators with four or more quark fields including the quark-antiquark potential. Finally, the soft Lagrangian $`_s`$ contains all terms that involve soft particles which have energy and momenta of order $`mv`$. The terms we need in the ultrasoft Lagrangian include

$`_u`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F^{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩}{}}\psi _𝐩^{}\left\{iD^0{\displaystyle \frac{\left(𝐩i𝐃\right)^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩^4}{8m^3}}\right\}\psi _𝐩`$ (10)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩}{}}\chi _𝐩^{}\left\{iD^0{\displaystyle \frac{\left(𝐩i𝐃\right)^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩^4}{8m^3}}\right\}\chi _𝐩.`$
The covariant derivative is $`D^\mu =^\mu +ig\mu _U^ϵA^\mu =(D^0,𝐃)`$, so that $`D^0=^0+ig\mu _U^ϵA^0`$, $`𝐃=ig\mu _U^ϵ𝐀`$, and involves only the ultrasoft gluon fields. The ultrasoft scale parameter $`\mu _U=m\nu ^2`$, where $`\nu v`$ is the subtraction velocity. This $`v`$ scaling for $`\mu _U`$ is required for a consistent power counting in $`d`$ dimensions . The covariant derivative on $`\psi _𝐩`$ and $`\chi _𝐩`$ contain the color matrices $`T^A`$ and $`\overline{T}^A`$ for the $`\mathrm{𝟑}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟑}}`$ representations, respectively.

The Lagrangian $`_p`$ includes both the traditional quark potential and ultrasoft corrections to this potential which we will denote by $`_{pu}`$:

$`_p={\displaystyle \underset{𝐩,p^{}}{}}V_{\alpha \beta \lambda \tau }(𝐩,𝐩^{})\mu _S^{2ϵ}\psi _{𝐩^{}}^{}{}_{\alpha }{}^{}\psi _{𝐩}^{}{}_{\beta }{}^{}\chi _{𝐩^{}}^{}{}_{\lambda }{}^{}\chi _𝐩{}_{\tau }{}^{}+_{pu}.`$ (11)
The terms we need in $`_{pu}`$ are fixed by reparameterization invariance  and will be described below. The on-shell potential $`V(𝐩,𝐩^{})_{\alpha \beta \lambda \tau }`$ has an expansion in $`\alpha _s`$ and $`v`$, and $`\alpha ,\beta ,\lambda ,\tau `$ denote color and spin indices. We will use the color basis in which the potential $`V`$ is written as a linear combination of $`11`$ and $`T\overline{T}`$. The tree level diagrams in Fig. 1 generate terms of $`𝒪(v^{2k}\alpha _s)`$ in the QCD potential. The order $`v^2`$ Coulomb potential is

$`V^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`(T^A\overline{T}^A){\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_c^{(T)}}{𝐤^2}}+(11){\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_c^{(1)}}{𝐤^2}},`$ (12)
where the coefficients $`𝒱_c^{(T,1)}`$ have an expansion in $`\alpha _s`$. The order $`v^0`$ potential includes

$`V^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`(T^A\overline{T}^A)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_2^{(T)}}{m^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_r^{(T)}(𝐩^2+p^2)}{2m^2𝐤^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_s^{(T)}}{m^2}}𝐒^2+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(T)}}{m^2}}\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝐩^{},p)+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_t^{(T)}}{m^2}}T(𝐤)\right]`$ (14)
$`+(11)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_2^{(1)}}{m^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_s^{(1)}}{m^2}}𝐒^2\right],`$
where $`𝐤=𝐩^{}𝐩`$ and

$`𝐒`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝝈_1+𝝈_2}{2}},\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝐩^{},p)=i{\displaystyle \frac{𝐒(p^{}\times p)}{𝐤^2}},T(𝐤)=𝝈_1𝝈_2{\displaystyle \frac{3𝐤𝝈_1𝐤𝝈_2}{𝐤^2}}.`$ (15)
Matching the two diagrams in Fig. 1 to the $`v^2`$ and $`v^0`$ potentials at $`\mu =m`$ gives

$`𝒱_c^{(T)}`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi \alpha _s(m),𝒱_r^{(T)}=4\pi \alpha _s(m),𝒱_s^{(T)}={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \alpha _s(m)}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\pi \alpha _s(m),`$ (16)
$`𝒱_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(T)}`$ $`=`$ $`6\pi \alpha _s(m),𝒱_t^{(T)}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _s(m)}{3}},𝒱_s^{(1)}={\displaystyle \frac{(N_c^21)}{2N_c^2}}\pi \alpha _s(m),`$ (17)
$`𝒱_c^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`0,𝒱_2^{(T)}=0,𝒱_2^{(1)}=0.`$ (18)
The LL values for the coefficients of the $`V^{(2)}`$ and $`V^{(0)}`$ potentials will be needed below and are summarized in Appendix A. They are obtained by using the tree-level matching values in Eq. (16) and running using the one loop anomalous dimensions computed in Ref. .

The order $`1/v`$ potential includes

$`V^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{m|𝐤|}}\left[𝒱_k^{(T)}(T^A\overline{T}^A)+𝒱_k^{(1)}(11)\right].`$ (19)
Tree level matching gives $`V^{(1)}=0`$, and $`V^{(1)}`$ has zero one loop anomalous dimension, so $`V^{(1)}=0`$ at LL order as well. At one loop in QCD, order $`1/v`$ potentials of the form in Eq. (19) are generated. The one loop matching of the on-shell potential at $`\mu =m`$ gives

$`𝒱_k^{(T)}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _s^2(m)\left({\displaystyle \frac{7C_A}{8}}{\displaystyle \frac{C_d}{8}}\right),𝒱_k^{(1)}=\alpha _s^2(m){\displaystyle \frac{C_1}{2}}.`$ (20)
The color group theory factors are $`C_F=(N_c^21)/(2N_c)`$, $`C_A=N_c`$, $`C_1=(N_c^21)/(4N_c^2)`$, and $`C_d=N_c4/N_c`$. For the color singlet channel Eq. (20) agrees with Refs. . In the language of the threshold expansion the value of the coefficients in Eqs. (16) and (20) are from integrating out off-shell potential gluons at the hard scale $`\mu m`$ where $`\nu =1`$ . In the next section we will compute the two loop anomalous dimension for $`V^{(1)}`$, and determine the NLL value of the coefficients in Eq. (19).

In addition we need ultrasoft corrections to the potential which are contained in $`_{pu}`$. Reparameterization invariance restricts the form of some of these terms by requiring that only the linear combination $`𝐩i𝐃`$ can appear. Here the covariant derivative acts on a quark or antiquark field with label $`𝐩`$. The reparameterization invariant form of the $`T\overline{T}`$ Coulomb potential operator is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\left[\psi _𝐩^{}^{}T^A\psi _𝐩\right]\left[\chi _𝐩^{}^{}\overline{T}^A\chi _𝐩\right]}{(𝐩^{}𝐩)^2}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\psi _𝐩^{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{T^A}{(𝐩^{}𝐩+𝐢\stackrel{}{𝐃})^2}}\psi _𝐩\right]\left[\chi _𝐩^{}^{}\overline{T}^A\chi _𝐩\right]`$ (22)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\psi _𝐩^{}^{}T^A\psi _𝐩\right]\left[\chi _𝐩^{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{T}^A}{(𝐩^{}+𝐩+𝐢\stackrel{}{𝐃})^2}}\chi _𝐩\right],`$
where $`\stackrel{}{𝐃}=\stackrel{}{𝐃}+\stackrel{}{𝐃}`$. Terms in the $`v`$ expansion are then generated by expanding Eq. (22) with $`𝐃𝐩^{}𝐩`$. As written the ordering of color generators in Eq. (22) is ambiguous. The correct ordering in the expansion is to write factors of $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ to the right of the $`T^A`$, and factors of $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ to the left of the $`T^A`$. Expanding Eq. (22) and keeping only the terms that we will need gives

$`_{pu}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2i𝒱_c^{(T)}f^{ABC}}{𝐤^4}}\mu _S^{2ϵ}\mu _U^ϵ𝐤(g𝐀^C)\psi _𝐩^{}^{}T^A\psi _𝐩\chi _𝐩^{}^{}\overline{T}^B\chi _𝐩`$ (25)
$`+𝒱_c^{(T)}\mu _S^{2ϵ}\psi _𝐩^{}^{}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{i𝐤\stackrel{}{}}{𝐤^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{}^2}{2𝐤^4}}+2{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐤\stackrel{}{})^2}{𝐤^6}}\right]T^A\psi _𝐩\chi _𝐩^{}^{}\overline{T}^A\chi _𝐩`$
$`+𝒱_c^{(T)}\mu _S^{2ϵ}\psi _𝐩^{}^{}T^A\psi _𝐩\chi _𝐩^{}^{}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{i𝐤\stackrel{}{}}{𝐤^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{}^2}{2𝐤^4}}+2{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐤\stackrel{}{})^2}{𝐤^6}}\right]\overline{T}^A\chi _𝐩,`$
where $`\stackrel{}{}=\stackrel{}{}+\stackrel{}{}`$. The first term couples an ultrasoft gluon to a four quark operator.

The terms in the second and third lines in Eq. (25) contain order $`1/v`$ and $`v^0`$ terms from the multipole expansion of the Coulomb potential. The first term could also have been determined from the on-shell matching calculation shown in Fig. 2. However, by determining the terms in Eq. (25) using reparameterization invariance rather than matching we know that the coefficients remain equal to $`𝒱_c`$ to all orders in perturbation theory. This saves us from the extra work that would be involved in computing the anomalous dimensions for these terms in $`_{pu}`$.

The terms in the soft Lagrangian include

$`_s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\left\{\left|q^\mu A_q^\nu q^\nu A_q^\mu \right|^2+\overline{\phi }_qq/\phi _q+\overline{c}_qq^2c_q\right\}`$ (28)
$`g^2\mu _S^{2ϵ}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩,p^{},q,q^{}}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\psi _{𝐩^{}}^{}{}_{}{}^{}[A_q^{}^\mu ,A_q^\nu ]U_{\mu \nu }^{(\sigma )}\psi _𝐩+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\psi _{𝐩^{}}^{}{}_{}{}^{}\{A_q^{}^\mu ,A_q^\nu \}W_{\mu \nu }^{(\sigma )}\psi _𝐩`$
$`+\psi _{𝐩^{}}^{}{}_{}{}^{}[\overline{c}_q^{},c_q]Y^{(\sigma )}\psi _𝐩+(\psi _{𝐩^{}}^{}{}_{}{}^{}T^BZ_\mu ^{(\sigma )}\psi _𝐩)(\overline{\phi }_q^{}\gamma ^\mu T^B\phi _q)\}+(\psi \chi ,T\overline{T}).`$
The fields $`A_q^\mu `$ and $`c_q`$ are the soft gluon and ghost fields, and $`\phi _q`$ is a massless soft quark field with $`n_f`$ flavor components. $`U`$, $`W`$, $`Y`$, and $`Z`$ are functions of $`(𝐩,𝐩^{},q,q^{})`$ and matrices in spin and the index $`\sigma `$ denotes the relative order in the $`v`$ expansion. For Feynman gauge and the case $`𝐩^2=𝐩_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ these functions were derived in Ref. . Beyond one loop terms proportional to $`(𝐩^2𝐩_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})`$ will be needed in $`_s`$, since besides its soft energy $`q^0mv`$ the $`A_q`$ gluons can carry away a residual energy of order $`mv^2`$. The LL values for the functions $`U`$, $`W`$, $`Y`$, and $`Z`$ can be found in Appendix A of Ref. . In addition, some NLL contributions to $`_s`$ will be needed and will be discussed in section III A. These additional contributions are obtained from one loop matching with two-loop renormalization group improvement.

As an aside, note that it is not necessary to consider the ultrasoft renormalization of the vertices given in the soft Lagrangian in Eq. (28). One might think that diagrams such as

(29)
would effect the running of the coefficients in the soft Lagrangian. Diagrams analogous to the one in Eq. (29), but with only soft gluons and quarks generate the running of the coefficient functions in the soft LagrangianIn Ref.  the running of $`_s`$ was calculated by examining loops with soft gluons that contribute to the Compton scattering process prior to integrating out the soft quarks. There it was noted that all ultraviolet divergent diagrams are in one-to-one correspondence with graphs in HQET, so that the running of this Lagrangian could be obtained from the known running in HQET . in Ref. . However, the graph in Eq. (29) has only one heavy quark, so a distinction between soft and ultrasoft gluons is unnecessary at this point. Noting that the soft vertices will always occur in pairs, it is in fact consistent to only dress pairs of the soft vertices by ultrasoft gluons:

(30)
Since these diagrams involve two heavy quarks, both types of gluons can occur. Since in the end it is only graphs such as Eq. (30) with two soft vertices that are relevant for constructing the theory, it is consistent to include the ultrasoft renormalization of soft vertices as a contribution to the four-quark operator in Eq. (30), rather than treating the subgraph as a contribution to the soft vertex, as in Eq. (29). Along with the diagrams in Eq. (30) there are graphs in which the ultrasoft gluon is exchanged between the two heavy quarks.

## III Two loop anomalous dimension for $`V^{(1)}`$

To calculate the NLL anomalous dimension for the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potentials we need to consider graphs in the effective theory of orderThis is the size (in $`v`$) of the amputated diagrams, so in contrast to the general power counting formula in Ref.  we are not including the powers of $`v`$ generated by external lines. $`\alpha _s^3/v`$. These diagrams come in two classes, those with soft gluons, and those with a single ultrasoft gluon. The total anomalous dimension for the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential is $`\gamma ^{(1,T)}=\nu d/d\nu 𝒱_k^{(1,T)}`$. Since $`\mu _S=m\nu `$ and $`\mu _U=m\nu ^2`$, $`\gamma ^{(1,T)}`$ can be written as the sum of a soft and ultrasoft anomalous dimension

$`\gamma ^{(1,T)}=\gamma _S^{(1,T)}+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\gamma _U^{(1,T)},`$ (32)
where $`\gamma _S^{(1,T)}=\mu _S/\mu _S𝒱_k^{(1,T)}`$ and $`\gamma _U^{(1,T)}=\mu _U/\mu _U𝒱_k^{(1,T)}`$. In the remainder of this section we discuss the computation of these two loop anomalous dimensions in detail. The calculation is split into two parts, graphs with soft vertices and graphs with ultrasoft vertices. Graphs with soft gluons only contribute to $`\gamma _S`$, while those with an ultrasoft gluon contribute to both $`\gamma _S`$ and $`\gamma _U`$.

### A Soft contributions

The order $`\alpha _s^3/v`$ diagrams containing soft gluons that contribute to the anomalous dimension are shown in Fig. 3. The sum of diagrams forms a gauge invariant set.

The two loop graphs in Figs. 3a and 3b involve an iteration of a potential and a soft loop. The vertices in these graphs are of LL order (tree level matching with one loop running) and are given in Ref. . In Figs. 3a and 3b, counting powers of $`v`$ from the propagators and from the loop measures gives a $`v^1`$, so the sum of powers of $`v`$ for the three (amputated) vertices must give an overall $`1/v^2`$. The $`v`$ scaling for the two soft vertices is $`\sigma +\sigma ^{}2`$. In Fig. 3 we show two possibilities: a) has one $`V^{(2)}`$ insertion and two soft vertices from Eq. (28) such that $`\sigma ^{}+\sigma =2`$, and b) has one insertion of a $`V^{(0)}`$ potential from Eq. (14) and two soft vertices such that $`\sigma ^{}=\sigma =0`$. We could also have a $`V^{(1)}`$ potential plus two soft vertices where $`\sigma +\sigma ^{}=1`$; however this diagram is identically zero. The graphs where the potential and soft loop are exchanged simply give a factor of 2.

The one loop graphs in Fig. 3c, 3d, and 3e involve additional vertices in $`_s`$, denoted $``$, which are of NLL order (from one loop matching with two loop running). The one loop matching calculation for these vertices is sketched in Fig. 4.

There are a large number of diagrams in the full theory (graphs on the left hand side), so only a few representative examples have been shown. To obtain the values for the operators on the right hand side we subtract purely soft effective theory diagrams from those in the full theory. To see how these operators arise, it is useful to recall that in the threshold expansion soft heavy quarks have a propagator

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_0+iϵ}}=\mathrm{P}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_0}}i\pi \delta (q_0),`$ (33)
where $`\mathrm{P}`$ stands for the principal value. In our approach, off-shell potential gluons and soft quarks are integrated out at the scale $`m`$ when constructing the effective theory. When integrating out the soft heavy quarks the principal value term in Eq. (33) goes directly into a coefficient in the soft Lagrangian since this term is consistent with the scaling in the soft regime, $`q_0mv`$. For instance, in Eq. (28), $`U_{00}^{(0)}=1/q_0`$. The delta function contribution in Eq. (33) is associated with the potential regime since $`q_00`$. When the delta function appears in a loop in the full theory (or threshold expansion) it forces gluons in the loop to have zero energy, or in other words to become potential gluons. It is these contributions which do not appear in the soft effective theory diagrams and must be made up by the operators shown on the right hand side of Fig. 4.

The total contribution to the anomalous dimensions from the soft diagrams in Fig. 3 is

$`\gamma _S^{(T)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0(7C_AC_d)}{8\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m\nu ){\displaystyle \frac{8C_A(C_A+C_d)}{3\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m\nu ),`$ (34)
$`\gamma _S^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0C_1}{2\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m\nu )+{\displaystyle \frac{16C_AC_1}{\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m\nu ),`$ (35)
where $`\beta _0=11C_A/34T_Fn_f/3`$, $`n_f`$ is the number of massless soft quarks, and $`𝒱_c(\nu )=4\pi \alpha _s(m\nu )`$ was used. In Eq. (34) the terms proportional to $`\beta _0`$ can be inferred from Eq. (20). They simply turn the $`\alpha _s(m)`$’s in the matching result into running $`\alpha _s`$’s. At one and two loops terms proportional to the $`\beta `$-function for $`\alpha _s`$ completely determine the soft anomalous dimension for the Coulomb potential. However, the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potentials have additional contributions because the soft diagrams in Fig. 3c, 3d, and 3e have infrared divergences. The IR divergences from purely soft diagrams are not true IR divergences in the effective theory. For instance, in general they do not match up with IR divergences in QCD. The true IR divergences are from momenta $`<mv^2`$, and the desired ultraviolet divergences are from momenta $`m`$. Instead, the soft IR divergences are from momenta $`<mv`$, and match up with ultrasoft UV divergences that are from momenta $`mv`$ to carry these UV divergences up to the hard scale. Writing the soft IR divergence

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ_{IR}}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ_{UV}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ_{UV}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ_{IR}}}\right),`$ (36)
the first term contributes to the anomalous dimension in Eq. (34). The $`1/ϵ_{\mathrm{UV}}1/ϵ_{\mathrm{IR}}`$ term can be ignored since it simply takes the corresponding ultrasoft UV divergence up to the hard scale $`m`$.\**\**\**This result, that there are no true IR divergences in the soft regime has not been proven to all orders in perturbation theory. However, its is likely that all IR divergences can be attributed to ultrasoft and collinear gluons in the spirit of the Coleman-Norton theorem , plus IR divergences associated with the Coulomb regime that are reproduced by iterations of the potential. Thus, to compute $`\gamma _S`$, all divergences from soft loops should be treated as UV divergences. The terms not proportional to $`\beta _0`$ in Eq. (34) can be inferred from the result of the ultrasoft calculation in Eq. (49) of the next section.

Despite the fact that Eq. (34) can be inferred without a direct calculation it is worthwhile to examine the diagrams in Fig. 3. Consider the graphs in Figs. 3a and 3b in Feynman gauge. The sub-loop with soft gluons is divergent, while the remaining potential loop is convergent. There is also a set of one loop diagrams (not shown) where the soft sub-loop is replaced by the one loop counterterms for $`V`$ derived in Ref. . We find that these counterterm graphs exactly cancel against a set of divergences in Fig. 3a and 3b. For Fig. 3b there is an exact cancellation, and so there is no operator mixing between $`V^{(0)}`$ and $`V^{(1)}`$. However, there are divergences that appear in Fig. 3a that have no corresponding counterterm graphs. Consider the soft gluon case (the ghost and soft quark cases are similar). After performing the $`k^0`$ integration the loop integral for Fig. 3a is

$`{\displaystyle d^{d1}𝐪\frac{1}{(E𝐪^2/m)(𝐩q)^2}\left[d^dt\frac{U_{\mu \nu }^{(\sigma )}U^{\mu \nu (\sigma ^{})}}{t^2[(t^0)^2(𝐭+qp^{})^2]}\right]},`$ (37)
where $`𝐩`$ and $`𝐩^{}`$ are the momenta of the incoming and outgoing quarks, $`E=𝐩^\mathrm{𝟐}/m`$ and in Eq. (37) the $`U`$’s depend on $`𝐪`$, $`𝐭`$, $`𝐩^{}`$ and $`t^0`$. For the divergences of interest performing the $`t`$ integral (the soft loop) in $`d=42ϵ`$ dimensions gives a factor of

$`{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐩^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝐪^\mathrm{𝟐})^2}{m^2(𝐩^{}𝐪)^{4+2ϵ}ϵ}}+\mathrm{},`$ (38)
where the ellipsis denote order $`ϵ^0`$ terms. The remaining loop integration is finite. For the one loop graph that corresponds to the soft sub-loop, the loop momenta $`𝐪`$ in Eq. (38) is replaced by $`𝐩^{}`$, and this diagram vanishes on-shell by energy conservation so no counterterm is generated. Performing the final integration and including the factor of $`2`$ from the left-right symmetric graph gives

$`\text{Fig.}\text{3}a=i𝒱_c^{(T)}(\mu _S)\alpha _s^2(\mu _S){\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0\mu _S^{2ϵ}}{32m|𝐤|}}(T^AT^B\overline{T}^A\overline{T}^B)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ}}+2\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _S^2}{|𝐤|^2}}\right)+\mathrm{}\right].`$ (39)
The divergence in Eq. (39) contributes to the anomalous dimension for $`𝒱_k`$. This seems slightly unusual because it was generated by a sub-divergence, whereas usually only the overall divergence in a diagram is relevant. In this diagram the loop integral with soft gluons generates a $`1/ϵ`$ pole, and the remaining potential loop integral generates the $`1/|𝐤|`$ factor. The corresponding diagrams in QCD include graphs such as the vacuum polarization of one of the gluons in the box diagram. In this full theory graph the subdivergence due to the vacuum polarization insertion would be canceled by a counterterm. However, in the effective theory this divergence is instead absorbed into the coefficients of terms in the quark potential because the potential gluon components have been integrated out. Since matching the full theory box diagram gives a contribution to the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential, it is not surprising that gluon vacuum polarization in the box graph contributes to the anomalous dimension of this potential. An alternative to the approach used to derive Eq. (39) is to use off-shell matching and running. In this case the soft anomalous dimension analysis will be different (since, for instance, the off-shell potential is gauge dependent). This approach is discussed in Appendix B, where it is shown that the final answer for physical observables is unchanged.

The diagrams in Figs. 3c, 3d, and 3e are tedious to evaluate due to the large number of diagrams necessary for the matching calculation in Fig. 4.††††††In fact once a contribution to $``$ has been identified it is simpler to directly evaluate the two-loop diagram obtained by combining the steps in Fig. 4 and Fig. 3. Since the graphs in Figs. 3c, 3d, and 3e are one-loop diagrams there is no cancellation from counterterms. In Feynman gauge

$`\text{Fig.}\text{3}c,d,e`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2\mu _S^{2ϵ}}{m|𝐤|}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^3(\mu _S)}{4\pi ϵ}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}C_1T_Fn_f(11)+(C_AT_Fn_f{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}C_dT_Fn_f)(T^A\overline{T}^A)`$ (41)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{37}{3}}C_AC_1(11)({\displaystyle \frac{7}{4}}C_AC_d+{\displaystyle \frac{65}{12}}C_A^2)(T^A\overline{T}^A)\}.`$
Only the terms proportional to $`n_f`$ in Eq. (41) have been checked by direct calculation. Also, in Eq. (41) we have assumed that the $``$ operators simply run with the strong coupling constant, $`\alpha _s(m\nu )`$. To motivate this, recall that a theory of propagating soft quarks and gluons has the same singularity structure as Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET). The operators that are generated in Fig. 4 correspond to diagrams in HQET with insertions of $`^2/(m)`$ or a $`𝐩𝐀/m`$ vertex. Since these operators do not run in HQET the operators that are constructed in Fig. 4 should also simply run with the strong coupling constant.

### B Ultrasoft contributions

Next consider the order $`\alpha _s^3/v`$ diagrams with ultrasoft gluons. At one loop we have a single insertion of the $`V^{(1)}`$ potential dressed by an ultrasoft gluon with $`gA^0`$ couplings. These diagrams are obviously zero in Coulomb gauge and in Feynman gauge it was shown in Ref.  that, with any potential, the sum of this set of one loop diagrams is also identically zero. At two loops in an arbitrary gauge there are many possible contributions. There are diagrams with two $`V^{(2)}`$ vertices, and an ultrasoft tadpole generated by the seagull $`𝐀^\mathrm{𝟐}`$ operator attached to one of the quark lines. These graphs do not have logarithmic divergences and therefore do not contribute to the anomalous dimension. There are also diagrams that are zero because they are odd in an ultrasoft momenta which we can omit. Next consider the topologies shown in Fig. 5. Several classes of diagrams are generated depending on the vertices used:

1. vertex $`1`$ and $`2`$ are $`V^{(2)}`$, and the ultrasoft gluon couples with $`𝐩𝐀/m`$,
2. vertex $`1`$ and $`2`$ are $`V^{(2)}`$, the ultrasoft gluon couples with $`gA^0`$, and there are two insertions of $`𝐩/m`$ on quark lines,
3. vertex $`1`$ and $`2`$ are $`V^{(2)}`$, the ultrasoft gluon couples with $`gA^0`$, and there is one insertion of $`^\mathrm{𝟐}/m`$ on a quark line,
4. vertex $`1`$ and $`2`$ are $`V^{(2)}`$, the ultrasoft gluon couples with $`gA^0`$, and there is one insertion of $`𝐩^\mathrm{𝟒}/m^3`$ on a quark line (together with the expansion of factors of the energy that appear in lower order diagrams which should be viewed as corrections to the effective theory states, see Refs. ),
5. vertex $`1`$ is $`V^{(2)}`$, vertex $`2`$ is $`V^{(0)}`$ and the ultrasoft gluon couples with $`gA^0`$,
6. vertex $`1`$ is the order $`1/v`$ potential from the multipole expansion of the Coulomb potential given in Eq. (25), vertex $`2`$ is $`V^{(2)}`$, and the ultrasoft gluon couples with $`gA^0`$ vertices.
7. vertex $`1`$ is the order $`v^0`$ potential in Eq. (25), vertex $`2`$ is $`V^{(2)}`$, there is one insertion of $`𝐩/m`$ on a quark line, and the ultrasoft gluon couples with $`gA^0`$ vertices.
8. vertex $`1`$ and $`2`$ are $`v^0`$ potentials from Eq. (25), and the ultrasoft gluon couples with $`gA^0`$ vertices.

Insertions of operators with $``$’s only need to be considered on quark propagators where the multipole expansion was used; together with the graphs in cases 6, 7, and 8 they build up the sub-leading terms in the multipole expansion.

The graphs in cases 1, 2, and 5 do not give any contribution to the two loop anomalous dimension. The reason is that all ultraviolet divergences are exactly canceled by one loop counterterm graphs (these counterterms are generated by one loop graphs having one potential insertion dressed by an ultrasoft gluon, and in Feynman gauge were calculated in Refs. ). The graphs with the topology in Fig. 5c,d are ultraviolet finite. For the remaining diagrams we can identify the corresponding counterterm graph by simply shrinking the smallest loop containing the ultrasoft gluon to a point. The only subtlety occurs in Fig. 5h which has overlapping potential and ultrasoft loop integrals. For heavy scalars this graph was analyzed in Ref.  with the threshold expansion, while in an effective theory for heavy fermions this diagram was analyzed in Ref.  for the case where the ultrasoft gluon is massive and couples with derivatives at the vertices. Since the nature of the overlapping integrals does not depend on the structure of the numerator or on having a massive gluon, this analysis will not be repeated here. In the effective theory this diagram comes with the appropriate factor of $`2`$, so that it is canceled by the two one loop counterterm graphs that correspond to either making the loop integral on the right large or making the loop integral on the left large. Note that for a $`\varphi ^3`$ relativistic theory in $`d=6`$ , the sub-divergences for this diagram are also canceled in this way, but leave an overall divergence. For the non-relativistic effective theory diagram this overall divergence is not present.

For the graphs in case 4, the sum of insertions on quark lines inside the loop shared by the ultrasoft gluon are finite. The graphs with insertions on quark lines outside this loop are ultraviolet divergent, but are exactly canceled by the counterterm diagrams that correspond to shrinking the ultrasoft loop to a point. Therefore, the graphs in case 4 also do not contribute to the anomalous dimension.

In a general gauge the graphs in cases 3, 6, 7, and 8 will contribute to the anomalous dimension. There are also additional graphs with the vertex in Eq. (22) which involves the coupling of an ultrasoft $`𝐀^i`$ gluon to a potential vertex. Together this set of graphs gives a gauge invariant contribution to the anomalous dimension, so we can simplify their computation by choosing the most convenient gauge. We will choose Coulomb gauge since the graphs in cases 3, 6, 7, and 8 involve ultrasoft $`A^0`$ gluons and vanish in this gauge. The result for the infinite part of the the remaining diagrams in Coulomb gauge is:

$`=`$ $`0,`$ (43)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\alpha _s(\mu _U)\mu _S^{2ϵ}[𝒱_c^{(T)}]^2}{8\pi m|𝐤|ϵ}}\left[C_AC_1\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}C_A(C_A+C_d)T^A\overline{T}^A\right],`$ (44)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\alpha _s(\mu _U)\mu _S^{2ϵ}[𝒱_c^{(T)}]^2}{8\pi m|𝐤|ϵ}}{\displaystyle \frac{C_AC_1}{3}}11,`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\alpha _s(\mu _U)\mu _S^{2ϵ}[𝒱_c^{(T)}]^2}{8\pi m|𝐤|ϵ}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}C_AC_1\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}C_A(C_A+C_d)T^A\overline{T}^A\right].`$ (46)
Equations (5b,c) include the factor of four from their left-right and up-down mirror graphs. In the graphs in Eq. (5) the factor

$$\frac{\mu _U^{2ϵ}\mu _S^{4ϵ}}{ϵ\left|𝐤\right|^{1+2ϵ}E^{2ϵ}}=\frac{\mu _S^{2ϵ}}{|𝐤|}\left[\frac{1}{ϵ}+\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mu _S^2}{\left|𝐤\right|^2}\right)+\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mu _U^2}{E^2}\right)\right]$$
(48)
occurs, where $`E=𝐩^\mathrm{𝟐}/m`$. The first term is included in the result displayed in Eq. (5), and the remaining terms are not shown. For $`\nu v`$, we have $`\mu _S\left|k\right|mv`$, $`\mu _UEmv^2`$, so the soft and ultrasoft scale factors correctly minimize possible large logarithms in the effective theory.

From the sum of diagrams in Eq. (5) we have the following result for the soft and ultrasoft anomalous dimensions of the order $`1/|𝐤|`$ potentials:

$`\gamma _S^{(T)}=\gamma _U^{(T)}`$ $`=`$ $`C_A(C_A+C_d){\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)[𝒱_c^{(T)}(\nu )]^2}{12\pi ^3}},`$ (49)
$`\gamma _S^{(1)}=\gamma _U^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`C_AC_1{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)[𝒱_c^{(T)}(\nu )]^2}{2\pi ^3}}.`$ (50)
Recall that the soft and ultrasoft anomalous dimensions are given by differentiating with respect to $`\mathrm{ln}\mu _S`$ and $`\mathrm{ln}\mu _U`$ respectively.

It is interesting to ask how the result in Eq. (49) would be reproduced if terms that vanish by the equations of motion were included in our effective Lagrangian. It is possible to include a term in our effective Lagrangian which makes the graph in Eq. (5b) give no contribution to the anomalous dimension, but the final result for observables remains invariant. This example is discussed in Appendix B.

## IV Results

In this section the NLL heavy quark $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential and production current are discussed. After presenting the renormalization group improved results, we re-expand to compare to the finite order results in Refs.  and . We also discuss the behavior of the NLL $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential and the NLL production current as we run down from $`\nu =1`$ to $`\nu =v`$, where $`v`$ is the Coulombic velocity.

### A The NLL $`1/|𝐤|`$ potentials

The total soft and ultrasoft anomalous dimensions for the on-shell $`1/|𝐤|`$ potentials are obtained by adding Eqs. (34) and (49). Using the LL coefficient for the Coulomb potential, $`𝒱_c(\nu )=4\pi \alpha _s(m\nu )`$, we find

$`\gamma _S^{(T)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}\beta _0(7C_AC_d)[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^3{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3\pi }}C_A(C_A+C_d)[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^3`$ (52)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3\pi }}C_A(C_A+C_d)\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)[\alpha (m\nu )]^2,`$
$`\gamma _S^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}\beta _0C_1[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^3+{\displaystyle \frac{16}{\pi }}C_AC_1[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^3{\displaystyle \frac{8}{\pi }}C_AC_1\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^2,`$ (53)
$`\gamma _U^{(T)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3\pi }}C_A(C_A+C_d)\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^2,`$ (54)
$`\gamma _U^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8}{\pi }}C_AC_1\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^2.`$ (55)
In full QCD (taking the QCD scale parameter $`\mu =m`$), the first logarithm generated by the ultrasoft anomalous dimension corresponds to a $`\mathrm{ln}(E/m)`$, while the first logarithm generated by the soft anomalous dimension corresponds to a $`\mathrm{ln}(|𝐤|/m)`$. For the velocity renormalization group, the total anomalous dimension is simply $`\gamma _S+2\gamma _U`$:

$`\nu {\displaystyle \frac{}{\nu }}𝒱_k^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}\beta _0(7C_AC_d)[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^3{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3\pi }}C_A(C_A+C_d)[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^3`$ (57)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}C_A(C_A+C_d)\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)[\alpha (m\nu )]^2,`$
$`\nu {\displaystyle \frac{}{\nu }}𝒱_k^{(1)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}\beta _0C_1[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^3+{\displaystyle \frac{16}{\pi }}C_AC_1[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^3{\displaystyle \frac{24}{\pi }}C_AC_1\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)[\alpha _s(m\nu )]^2.`$ (58)
Note that no other $`1/v`$ potentials are generated for $`\nu <1`$ by operator mixing. Integrating Eq. (57) using the one loop $`\beta `$-function for $`\alpha _s`$ and the one loop boundary condition in Eq. (20) gives

$`𝒱_k^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(7C_AC_d)}{8}}\alpha _s^2(m)+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(7C_AC_d)}{8}}+{\displaystyle \frac{8C_A(C_A+C_d)}{3\beta _0}}\right](z^21)\alpha _s^2(m)`$ (60)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{8C_A(C_A+C_d)}{\beta _0}}\left[z12\mathrm{ln}(w)\right]\alpha _s^2(m),`$
$`𝒱_k^{(1)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C_1}{2}}\alpha _s^2(m)+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{C_1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{16C_AC_1}{\beta _0}}\right](z^21)\alpha _s^2(m){\displaystyle \frac{48C_AC_1}{\beta _0}}\alpha _s^2(m)\left[z12\mathrm{ln}(w)\right],`$ (61)
where

$`z={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(m\nu )}{\alpha _s(m)}},w={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)}{\alpha _s(m\nu )}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2z}}.`$ (62)
Projecting onto the color singlet channel, $`𝒱^{(s)}=𝒱^{(1)}C_F𝒱^{(T)}`$, and setting $`C_d=8C_F3C_A`$ and $`C_1=C_AC_F/2C_F^2`$ gives

$`𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{C_F^2}{2}}C_FC_A\right)\alpha _s^2(m)+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{C_F^2}{2}}C_FC_A{\displaystyle \frac{8C_AC_F(C_A+2C_F)}{3\beta _0}}\right](z^21)\alpha _s^2(m)`$ (64)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{8C_AC_F(C_A+2C_F)}{\beta _0}}\left[z12\mathrm{ln}(w)\right]\alpha _s^2(m).`$
The projection onto the color octet channel is $`𝒱_k^{(o)}=𝒱_k^{(1)}+(C_A/2C_F)𝒱_k^{(T)}`$.

Logarithmic corrections to the color singlet $`V^{(1)}`$ potential were also considered by Brambilla et al.  using pNRQCD, but were not resummed. Brambilla et al. have

$`𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`C_FC_A\alpha _s^2(r){\displaystyle \frac{4C_AC_F(C_A+2C_F)}{3\pi }}\alpha _s(\mu )\alpha _s(r)^2\mathrm{ln}(\mu r).`$ (65)
To compare this expression to ours: $`\alpha (r)\alpha (m\nu )`$, $`r1/(m\nu )`$ and $`\mu =\mu _U=m\nu ^2`$ since $`r`$ corresponds to the soft scale and $`\mu `$ corresponds to the ultrasoft scale. Expanding Eq. (65) in $`\alpha _s(m)`$ gives

$`𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`C_FC_A\alpha _s^2(m)+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0C_FC_A}{\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m)\mathrm{ln}[1/(mr)]`$ (67)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4C_AC_F(C_A+2C_F)}{3\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m)\mathrm{ln}(\mu r)+\mathrm{}.`$
To compare this to our result we expand the resummed logarithms in Eq. (64):

$`𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{C_F^2}{2}}C_FC_A\right)\alpha _s^2(m)+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0C_FC_A}{\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m)\mathrm{ln}(\nu ){\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0C_F^2}{2\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m)\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ (69)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4C_AC_F(C_A+2C_F)}{3\pi }}\alpha _s(m)^3\mathrm{ln}(\nu )+\mathrm{}.`$
In Eq. (69), the first and second $`\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ terms are entirely from the soft anomalous dimension in Eq. (52), while the third $`\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ term is from a combination of the ultrasoft and soft anomalous dimensions. The first $`\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ term in Eq. (69) agrees with the $`\mathrm{ln}[1/(mr)]=\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ term in Eq. (67), and the third $`\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ term in Eq. (69) agrees with the $`\mathrm{ln}(\mu r)=\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ term in Eq. (67).

The second term in Eq. (69) does not appear in Brambilla et al.’s expression in Eq. (67). This is because it depends on whether an on-shell or off-shell potential is used for the matching and running‡‡‡‡‡‡The issue of on-shell versus off-shell potential was discussed in Ref. , and in the context of the leading log summation is discussed further in Appendix B.. We have used an on-shell potential, while Ref.  uses off-shell Coulomb gauge which includes a $`𝒱_{\mathrm{\Delta }2}^{(T)}=4\pi \alpha _s(r)`$ potential as defined in Eq. (B1) of Appendix B. The second logarithm in Eq. (69) should appear from the coefficient of this potential. Transforming Brambilla et al.’s $`𝒱_{\mathrm{\Delta }2}^{(T)}`$ potential to a $`𝒱_k^{(s)}`$ potential using Eq. (B7) gives

$`𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C_F^2}{2}}\alpha _s(r)^2`$ (70)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C_F^2}{2}}\alpha _s^2(m){\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0C_F^2}{2\pi }}\alpha _s^3(m)\mathrm{ln}[1/(mr)]+\mathrm{}.`$ (71)
The term with a $`\mathrm{ln}[1/(mr)]=\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ agrees with the second $`\mathrm{ln}(\nu )`$ term in Eq. (69). The sum of terms without logarithms in Eqs. (67) and (70) also agrees with Eq. (69). Note that the next term in the series in Eq. (69) does not give agreement with Eqs. (67) and (70) since Brambilla et al. did not attempt to systematically sum all the logarithms.

To see the effect of the running on the value of the $`V^{(1)}`$ potential, consider the case of top quark production near threshold. Using $`\alpha _s(m_t)=0.108`$ and Eq. (64), the one loop matching value is:

$`𝒱_k^{(s)}(1)=0.0362.`$ (72)
For a Coulombic system we determine the velocity $`v`$ by solving $`\alpha _s(mv)=v`$. Using $`m_t=175\mathrm{GeV}`$ and the one loop running of $`\alpha _s(\mu )`$ with $`n_f=5`$ gives $`v=0.145`$. The NLL color singlet and octet coefficients for the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential are plotted in Fig. 6. At $`\nu =v`$ the running coupling is

$`𝒱_k^{(s)}(v)=0.0027,`$ (73)
which is a substantial change from Eq. (72). In comparison, the terms shown in Eq. (69) where the combination $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}(v)`$ is treated perturbatively give $`𝒱_k^{(s)}(v)=0.0313`$. Thus, the summation of logarithms for the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential is quite important; it decreases the coefficient by an order of magnitude. Using the unexpanded results in Eqs. (65) and (70) gives $`𝒱_k^{(s)}(v)=0.0201`$, so our resummed result is also quite different from the fixed order result in Ref. .

### B The NLL $`t\overline{t}`$ production current

In terms of the running color singlet potentials the anomalous dimension for the production current in Eq. (6) is:

$`\gamma _{c_1}(\nu )=\nu {\displaystyle \frac{}{\nu }}\mathrm{ln}[c_1(\nu )]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_c^{(s)}(\nu )}{16\pi ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_c^{(s)}(\nu )}{4}}+𝒱_2^{(s)}(\nu )+𝒱_r^{(s)}(\nu )+𝐒^2𝒱_s^{(s)}(\nu )\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu )}{2}}.`$ (74)
For the vector production current in Eq. (6) only spin-1 states are produced, and we can set $`𝐒^2=S(S+1)=2`$. However, our analysis also applies to the scalar production current

$`c(\nu ){\displaystyle \underset{𝐩}{}}\psi _{𝐩}^{}{}_{}{}^{}\chi _𝐩^{},`$ (76)
which, for example, contributes to the process $`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}`$ . Therefore, we will keep the factors of $`𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}`$ explicit in our results. The boundary condition is given by the matching condition at $`\nu =1`$ ($`\mu =m`$) which is known to two loops . For the NLL approximation only the one loop matching condition should be used. For the vector current

$`c_1(1)=1{\displaystyle \frac{2C_F\alpha _s(m)}{\pi }}.`$ (77)
Integrating Eq. (74) with the running potentials in Appendix A, Eq. (A1) and in Eq. (60) we find

$`\mathrm{ln}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{c_1(\nu )}{c_1(1)}}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`a_1\pi \alpha _s(m)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{z}}1\right)+a_2\pi \alpha _s(m)(1z)+a_3\pi \alpha _s(m)\mathrm{ln}(z)`$ (81)
$`+a_4\pi \alpha _s(m)\left[1z^{113C_A/(6\beta _0)}\right]+a_5\pi \alpha _s(m)\left[1z^{12C_A/\beta _0}\right]`$
$`+a_6\pi \alpha _s(m)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{12}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}^2(2)\mathrm{ln}(w)\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2w}{2w1}}\right)\mathrm{Li}_2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2w}}\right)\right]`$
$`+a_7\pi \alpha _s(m)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{w}{2w1}}\mathrm{ln}(w){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}(2w1)\right],`$
where $`z=\alpha _s(m\nu )/\alpha _s(m)`$ and $`w=\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)/\alpha _s(m\nu )`$. The coefficients $`a_i`$ in Eq. (81) are

$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{32C_AC_F(C_A+2C_F)}{3\beta _0^2}},`$ (82)
$`a_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C_F[3\beta _0(26C_A^2+19C_AC_F32C_F^2)+C_A(208C_A^2+597C_AC_F+716C_F^2)]}{78\beta _0^2C_A}},`$ (83)
$`a_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C_F}{3\beta _0^2(6\beta _013C_A)(\beta _02C_A)}}\{2C_F^2(66\beta _0179C_A)(\beta _02C_A)`$ (86)
$`C_AC_F\left[6(493𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐})\beta _0^2(112639𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐})\beta _0C_A+1067C_A^2\right]`$
$`24C_A^2(6\beta _013C_A)(\beta _02C_A)\},`$
$`a_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{24C_F^2(3\beta _011C_A)(5C_A+8C_F)}{13C_A(6\beta _013C_A)^2}},a_5={\displaystyle \frac{C_F^2\left[(4𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}3)\beta _0+(1514𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐})C_A\right]}{6(\beta _02C_A)^2}},`$ (87)
$`a_6`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{16C_F^2(C_A+2C_F)}{3\beta _0^2}},a_7={\displaystyle \frac{16C_AC_F(C_A+2C_F)}{\beta _0^2}}.`$ (88)
A further check on our result can be made by comparing it to the $`\alpha _s^3\mathrm{ln}^2(\alpha _s)`$ corrections calculated by Kniehl and Penin in Ref. . Near threshold the $`t\overline{t}`$ cross section depends on the product :

$`\sigma |c_1|^2G_C(0,0,E)|\psi _n^C(0)|^2,`$ (89)
where $`\psi ^C`$ is the leading order Coulomb wavefunction, and $`G_C`$ is the Coulomb Green’s function. In the approach used in Ref. , $`G_C`$ embodies corrections to the wavefunction at the origin, $`|\psi (0)|^2|\psi _n^C(0)|^2[1+\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^2(0)]`$, and includes the large logarithms. They calculate the $`\alpha _s^2\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _s)`$ and $`\alpha _s^3\mathrm{ln}^2(\alpha _s)`$ terms and find:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^2(0)`$ $`=`$ $`C_F\alpha _s^2\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _s)\left\{\left[2{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}\right]C_F+C_A\right\}`$ (91)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{C_F}{\pi }}\alpha _s^3\mathrm{ln}^2(\alpha _s)\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}C_F^2+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{41}{12}}{\displaystyle \frac{7}{12}}𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}\right]C_FC_A+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}C_A^2\right\},`$
for the terms not involving $`\beta _0`$. In our approach the large logarithms in the cross section all appear in the running coefficient $`c_1(\nu )`$, so we expect that the logarithms of Kniehl and Penin will be reproduced by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^2(0)`$ $`=`$ $`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{c_1(\nu )}{c_1(1)}}\right|^21=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _s)\gamma _{c_1}(1)+\mathrm{ln}^2(\alpha _s)\left\{\gamma _{c_1}^{}(1)+2[\gamma _{c_1}(1)]^2\right\}+\mathrm{},`$ (92)
where we have expanded to second order in $`\mathrm{ln}(\nu )=\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _s)`$. The $`[\gamma _{c_1}(1)]^2`$ term does not contribute at order $`\alpha _s^3\mathrm{ln}^2\alpha _s`$, and can be dropped. The remaining terms in Eq. (92) give:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^2(0)`$ $`=`$ $`C_F\alpha _s^2\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _s)\left\{\left[2{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}\right]C_F+C_A\right\}`$ (93)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C_F}{\pi }}\alpha _s^3\mathrm{ln}^2(\alpha _s)\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}C_F^2+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{41}{12}}{\displaystyle \frac{7}{12}}𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}\right]C_FC_A+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}C_A^2{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0}{2}}\left[\left(2{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}\right)C_F+C_A\right]\right\},`$ (94)
which agrees exactly with the result from Ref.  in Eq. (91) after setting $`\beta _0=0`$. Thus, we have shown that the logarithms of Kniehl and Penin can indeed be associated with renormalization group logarithms. Expanding Eq. (81) to higher orders gives the $`\alpha _s^4\mathrm{ln}^3(\alpha _s)`$, $`\alpha _s^5\mathrm{ln}^4(\alpha _s)`$, etc. terms.

For QCD with $`n_f=5`$, the coefficients in Eq. (82) are

$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`4.113,a_2=2.173,a_3=4.3080.417𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐},a_4=5.731,`$ (95)
$`a_5`$ $`=`$ $`2.3471.209𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐},a_6=0.914,a_7=6.170.`$ (96)
The running coefficient $`c_1(\nu )`$ is shown in Fig. 7 for $`𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}=2`$. For comparison we have also shown by a dotted line the value of the running coefficient obtained in Ref.  by an approach based on simply taking $`\alpha _s\alpha _s(m\nu )`$ to approximate the NLL value for the coupling. This approximation misses many of the $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}(v)`$ terms, and does not provide a good estimate of the NLL result, as seen in Fig. 7. Some of the more important logarithms in our NLL result include the large $`\mathrm{ln}(m\nu ^2/m)`$ terms that enter through the mixing generated by ultrasoft gluon diagrams in the potential.

We have also shown the NNLO value for $`c_1`$ in Fig. 7. As pointed out in Ref.  the NNLO value of $`c_1(1)`$ is fairly large. From Fig. 7 we see that summing the logarithms reduced the size of the NLO matching correction by a factor of two. It would be interesting to see if the running induced at NNLL continues to improve the convergence of the expansion. A consistent calculation at this order requires the three-loop anomalous dimension of $`c_1`$, as well as one loop running of the $`v^2`$ coefficients $`c_2`$ and $`c_3`$. This computation appears quite involved since running of the current at this order will likely depend on the running of higher order terms in the potential.

Several groups have analyzed the $`t\overline{t}`$ cross section predictions at NNLO using effective field theory techniques . It should be straightforward to incorporate the renormalization group improved current and potentials into their analysis by simply choosing a value of $`\nu `$ appropriate to the threshold region. The value of $`\nu `$ only needs to be of order the velocities in this region for the large logarithms to be minimized. Additional logarithms that appear in evaluating matrix elements with the potential will not involve large ratios of scales since they are of the form $`\mathrm{ln}(E/\mu _U)`$ and $`\mathrm{ln}(|𝐤|/\mu _S)`$ where $`\mu _U=m\nu ^2`$ and $`\mu _S=m\nu `$. In a more precise analysis one might wish to use $`\alpha _s(mv)C_F=v`$ to determine the value $`\nu `$ to use.

We would like to thank I. Rothstein and J. Soto for discussions. This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy under grant DOE-FG03-97ER40546, and by the National Science Foundation under NYI award PHY-9457911.

## A LL values for the order $`v^2`$ and $`v^0`$ potentials

The leading log values for the coefficients of the $`V^{(2)}`$ and $`V^{(0)}`$ potentials are :

$`𝒱_c^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi \alpha _s(m)z,`$ (A1)
$`𝒱_c^{(1)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (A2)
$`𝒱_r^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi \alpha _s(m)z{\displaystyle \frac{32\pi C_A}{3\beta _0}}\alpha _s(m)\left[1z\right]{\displaystyle \frac{64\pi C_A}{3\beta _0}}\alpha _s(m)\mathrm{ln}\left(w\right),`$ (A3)
$`𝒱_2^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \left[C_A(352C_F+91C_d144C_A)3\beta _0(33C_A+32C_F)\right]}{39\beta _0C_A}}\alpha _s(m)\left[z1\right]`$ (A4)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi (3\beta _011C_A)(5C_A+8C_F)\alpha _s(m)}{13C_A(6\beta _013C_A)}}\left[z^{(113C_A/(6\beta _0))}1\right]`$ (A5)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi (\beta _05C_A)\alpha _s(m)}{(\beta _02C_A)}}\left[z^{(12C_A/\beta _0)}1\right]{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi (4C_F+C_d3C_A)}{3\beta _0}}\alpha _s(m)\mathrm{ln}\left(w\right),`$ (A6)
$`𝒱_2^{(1)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{28\pi C_1}{3\beta _0}}\alpha _s(m)\left(1z\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{32\pi C_1}{3\beta _0}}\alpha _s(m)\mathrm{ln}\left(w\right),`$ (A7)
$`𝒱_s^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \alpha _s(m)}{(2C_A\beta _0)}}\left[C_A+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(2\beta _07C_A)z^{(12C_A/\beta _0)}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\pi \alpha _s(m),`$ (A8)
$`𝒱_s^{(1)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(N_c^21)}{2N_c^2}}\pi \alpha _s(m),`$ (A9)
$`𝒱_t^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _s(m)}{3}}z^{(12C_A/\beta _0)},`$ (A10)
$`𝒱_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi \alpha _s(m)\left[z4z^{(1C_A/\beta _0)}\right],`$ (A11)
where $`z=\alpha _s(m\nu )/\alpha (m)`$, $`w=\alpha _s(m\nu ^2)/\alpha (m\nu )`$, and we have included the $`N_c`$ dependent terms that come from matching the tree level annihilation diagrams. In the color singlet channel, $`𝒱_t(\nu )`$ and $`𝒱_\mathrm{\Lambda }(\nu )`$ were first calculated in Ref.  and agree with Eq. (A1).

## B Potential operators that vanish on-shell

It is interesting to consider how the soft and ultrasoft anomalous dimensions for $`V^{(1)}`$ are affected when operators that vanish on-shell are included in the potential Lagrangian, $`_p`$. These new operators can have non-trivial anomalous dimensions. In this Appendix we consider two examples of how including these operators affects intermediate results, but in the end yield the same result as the on-shell potential for observables. Equivalently, it is shown that running the Lagrangian with the new operators from $`\nu =1`$ to $`\nu =v`$ and then removing them by field redefinitions or operator identities reproduces the on-shell running value of $`V^{(1)}`$.

Consider the scattering $`Q(p_1^0,𝐩)+\overline{Q}(p_2^0,𝐩)Q(p_3^0,𝐩^{})+\overline{Q}(p_4^0,𝐩^{})`$. As our first example, consider including in the $`v^0`$ potential in Eq. (14) terms of the form:

$`V^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[𝒱_{\mathrm{\Delta }1}^{(T)}(T^A\overline{T}^A)+𝒱_{\mathrm{\Delta }1}^{(1)}(11)\right]{\displaystyle \frac{(p_3^0p_1^0)^2}{𝐤^4}}`$ (B1)
$`+`$ $`\left[𝒱_{\mathrm{\Delta }2}^{(T)}(T^A\overline{T}^A)+𝒱_{\mathrm{\Delta }2}^{(1)}(11)\right]{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐩^2p^2)^2}{4m^2𝐤^4}}.`$ (B2)
We will refer to this potential as an off-shell potential, since on-shell it vanishes by energy conservation, where $`p_3^0=p_1^0`$, $`𝐩_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=𝐩^2`$. Define $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T,1)}=V_{\mathrm{\Delta }1}^{(T,1)}+V_{\mathrm{\Delta }2}^{(T,1)}`$. In Ref.  it was shown that there is an operator identity whereby the time ordered product of a $`𝒱_c`$ and a $`𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ potential gives $`𝒱_k`$ potentials:

$`\text{}+\text{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i𝒱_c^{(T)}𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}}{32mk}}T^AT^B\overline{T}^A\overline{T}^B+{\displaystyle \frac{i𝒱_c^{(T)}𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}}{32mk}}T^A\overline{T}^A+\mathrm{},`$ (B3)
where the ellipses denote additional terms which vanish on-shell. The identity in Eq. (B3) allows us to remove the potential in Eq. (B1) at an arbitrary velocity scale $`\nu `$ in favor of a purely on-shell potential. Transforming $`𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T,1)}(\nu )0`$ gives

$`𝒱_k^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $``$ $`𝒱_k^{(T)}(\nu )+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}𝒱_c^{(T)}(\nu )\left[𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}(\nu )+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(C_A+C_d)𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}(\nu )\right],`$ (B5)
$`𝒱_k^{(1)}(\nu )`$ $``$ $`𝒱_k^{(1)}(\nu ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}𝒱_c^{(T)}(\nu )C_1𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}(\nu ).`$ (B6)
In a situation where $`𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}(\nu )=0`$ transforming $`𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}(\nu )0`$ induces a color singlet $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential of the form

$`𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu )`$ $``$ $`𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu ){\displaystyle \frac{C_F^2}{32\pi ^2}}𝒱_c^{(T)}(\nu )𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}(\nu ).`$ (B7)
(Transformations between order $`1/v`$ and $`v^0`$ potentials were also considered in Refs. .)

To make the implications of Eq. (B5) more clear, we will consider an example and show that including the $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T,1)}`$ potential will not effect predictions for observables when running below $`m`$. Consider matching offshell in Feynman gauge where the matching coefficients at $`\nu =1`$ are $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}=4\pi \alpha _s(m)`$ and $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}=0`$, and the one loop anomalous dimensions for the potentials in Eq. (B1) are :

$`\nu {\displaystyle \frac{}{\nu }}𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}`$ $`=`$ $`2\beta _0\alpha _s(m\nu )^2,`$ (B8)
$`\nu {\displaystyle \frac{}{\nu }}𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (B9)
This anomalous dimension has contributions from the one loop graphs with two soft gluons, ghosts or quarks where: the two factors of $`(𝐩^2p^2)`$ are from the soft vertices, or these factors are from two insertions on the soft propagators, or where one factor is from the propagator and one from the vertex (for the ghost loop). The solution of Eq. (B8) is $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}(\nu )=4\pi \alpha _s(m\nu )`$ and $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}(\nu )=0`$. The one loop counterterm which generates this running affects our soft anomalous dimension computation since now there are counterterms of the form

$`{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐩^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝐩^\mathrm{𝟐})^2}{m^2(𝐩^{}𝐩)^\mathrm{𝟒}ϵ}}.`$ (B10)
These counterterm give rise to one loop diagrams which exactly cancel the divergences in Eq. (39) for the two loop graph in Fig. 3a. Recalling that the one loop matching values for the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potentials are also different , we find that the running $`𝒱_k^{(T,1)}(\nu )`$ coefficients in Eq. (60) become

$`𝒱_k^{(T)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(3C_AC_d)}{4}}\alpha _s^2(m)+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(3C_AC_d)}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{8C_A(C_A+C_d)}{3\beta _0}}\right](z^21)\alpha _s^2(m)`$ (B12)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{8C_A(C_A+C_d)}{\beta _0}}\left[z12\mathrm{ln}(w)\right]\alpha _s^2(m),`$
$`𝒱_k^{(1)}(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`C_1\alpha _s^2(m)+\left[C_1{\displaystyle \frac{16C_AC_1}{\beta _0}}\right](z^21)\alpha _s^2(m){\displaystyle \frac{48C_AC_1}{\beta _0}}\alpha _s^2(m)\left[z12\mathrm{ln}(w)\right],`$ (B13)
This Feynman gauge off-shell potential is consistent with the transformation in Eq. (B5) which transforms the off-shell case, $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}=4\pi \alpha _s(m\nu )`$ and Eq. (B12), into the on-shell case, $`V_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T,1)}=0`$ and Eq. (60). The comparison in section IV A with Ref.  shows that our on-shell analysis is also consistent with an off-shell Coulomb gauge potential.

With the off-shell potential in Eq. (B1) there are two new graphs which contribute to the anomalous dimension for the production current:

(B14)
and the anomalous dimension is therefore

$`\nu {\displaystyle \frac{}{\nu }}\mathrm{ln}[c_1(\nu )]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_c^{(s)}(\nu )}{16\pi ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_c^{(s)}(\nu )}{4}}+𝒱_2^{(s)}(\nu )+𝒱_r^{(s)}(\nu )+𝐒^\mathrm{𝟐}𝒱_s^{(s)}(\nu )\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_k^{(s)}(\nu )}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_c^{(s)}𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(s)}}{64\pi ^2}},`$ (B15)
where $`𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(s)}(\nu )=𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(1)}(\nu )C_F𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}(\nu )`$. Since the last two terms in Eq. (B15) are invariant under the transformation in Eq. (B7) the off-shell potential gives the same prediction for the running of the production current. In calculating observables the operator identity in Eq. (B3) guarantees that the time ordered product of the running $`𝒱_\mathrm{\Delta }^{(T)}`$ and $`𝒱_c^{(T)}`$ produces the same effect as the soft contribution to the running of the on-shell $`𝒱_k^{(T)}`$ in Eq. (39).

As our second example, consider including an operator which would vanish by the lowest order free equations of motion:

$`_{\mathrm{eom}}={\displaystyle \underset{𝐩,𝐩^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_F}{(𝐩^{}p)^2}}\left[\psi _𝐩^{}^{}T^A\left(i_0{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩^\mathrm{𝟐}}{2m}}\right)\psi _𝐩\right]\chi _𝐩^{}^{}\overline{T}^A\chi _𝐩+\chi \psi .`$ (B17)
The only feature of the operator in Eq. (B17) that is different from typical operators that vanish by the equations of motion (for example, in HQET) is its non-local nature relative to the scales $`𝐩𝐩^{}mv`$. At one loop there are ultrasoft gluon graphs which mix into the operator in Eq. (B17), for instance from the diagrams:

(B18)
In the first graph the vertex is the first term in Eq. (25) and the ultrasoft gluon is $`𝐀`$, while in the second diagram the cross is a insertion of the ultrasoft $`^2/m`$ operator in Eq. (10) and the gluon is an $`A^0`$. In Feynman gauge both graphs produce a divergence of the form

$`{\displaystyle \frac{(E𝐩^\mathrm{𝟐}/m)}{ϵ(𝐩^{}𝐩)^2}},`$ (B19)
which vanishes by the equations of motion, but off-shell renormalizes the coefficient of the operator in Eq. (B17). To see how this effects the calculation of our ultrasoft anomalous dimension, consider Coulomb gauge, where only Eq. (B18a) is non-zero. In this case there is a one loop counterterm diagram which exactly cancels the divergence in Fig. (5b). After running down to the low scale the value of $`𝒱_k^{(T,1)}(\nu )`$ are different, but our potential also includes the operator in Eq. (B17) with coefficient $`𝒱_F(\nu )`$. If we wish to remove the operator in Eq. (B17) we can do so with a field redefinition

$`\psi _𝐩^{}\psi _𝐩^{}+{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_F}{(𝐩^{}𝐩)^2}}\psi _{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}^{}T^A\chi _{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}^{}\overline{T}^A\chi _𝐩,`$ (B20)
which induces a term from the $`\psi _𝐩^{}[i_0𝐩^\mathrm{𝟐}/(2m)]\psi _𝐩`$ Lagrangian which cancels Eq. (B17). This field redefinition also gives other new contributions. For us the important point is that the Coulomb potential induces a six-quark operator of the form:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩,𝐩^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}{}}\psi _{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}^{}\chi _{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}^{}\chi _𝐩^{}\psi _𝐩\chi _𝐩^{}^{}\chi _𝐩{\displaystyle \frac{𝒱_F𝒱_c}{(𝐩^{\prime \prime }𝐩^{})^2(𝐩^{}𝐩)^2}}.`$ (B21)
(The contraction of color indices and factors of $`T^A`$ have been suppressed.) Usually a six quark operator could not possibly effect the running of a four quark operator such as the $`1/|𝐤|`$ potential. However, because of the momentum dependence in the denominator of Eq. (B21) it induces a non-zero tadpole diagram where the fields $`\chi _𝐩^{}`$ and $`\chi _𝐩^{}^{}`$ are contracted. This tadpole graph produces a $`1/|𝐤|`$ and makes up for the running in $`𝒱_k`$ that was removed when the contribution from Eq. (5b) was canceled by a $`𝒱_F`$ counterterm.


format: text

text:
# Some remarks on separability of states

## I Introduction

In the analysis of quantum mechanical properties of composite systems there is a strong demand for a characterization of various subsets of states. Among properties of states, perhaps the most intriguing phenomenon is that of entanglement. We recall that, in physical terms, this notion reflects inability of local preparation of the state. Probably, the most famous example of states with entanglement is that with violation of Bell inequalities (cf. ). Other nice applications can be found in the theory of decoherence or in quantum information theory. This makes clear why one of the problems in foundations of quantum theory is a classification and characterization of the entangled quantum states. In this context it has been shown (cf. , , ) that there should be a strong connection between classification of entanglement of quantum states and the structure of positive maps. The problem is complicated since it is necessary to take into account some basic facts concerning specific properties of tensor product of algebras. Unfortunately, such approach involves mathematically advanced concepts and therefore it is not easily accessible to most physicists working on applications of Quantum Mechanics to Quantum Information or Quantum Optics. Moreover, the theory of positive linear maps of $`C^{}`$ algebras appears in the physical literature in a rather scattered and usually special form, the best known examples are states, dynamical maps, and -representations.

The purpose of this paper is to present, in plain words, state-of-the-art of the relevant parts of theory of positive maps as well as to clarify the present day characterization of entanglement. The structure of the paper is the following: in Section II we review some results in the theory of positive maps and show how these facts can be applied to a characterization of some singled out subsets of states. Section III is devoted to indicate that the family of separable states is really very small. Finally, in Section IV, some remarks concerning recent results on positive maps will be given. Moreover, we argue that the problems associated to the separability follow directly from the rule saying that a composite system is described by tensor product.

Finally, we want to emphasize that we address this paper to physicists working on application of Quantum Mechanics. Therefore, the presented material does not include neither general results nor can be considered as a full account of all mathematical aspects of the theory. However, all results are rigorous.

## II Application of positive maps to the description of separability

We consider a composite system $`𝒜+`$ consisting of two subsystems $`𝒜`$ and $``$ respectively. The algebra of all observables is given by $`(_{𝒜+})`$, $`(_𝒜)`$, and $`(_{})`$, for $`𝒜+`$, $`𝒜`$, and $``$ respectively where $`()`$ stands for the set of all linear bounded operators on a Hilbert space $``$. Moreover, $`_{𝒜+}`$ will be identified with $`_𝒜_{}`$. We note that the particular case $`dim_𝒜=n<\mathrm{}`$, $`dim_{}=m<\mathrm{}`$ (dim stands for dimension) is the standard assumption in an analysis of entanglement states in Quantum Information. Recall that a state (see ) of a system, say $`𝒜`$, is defined as a linear, complex-valued map $`\varphi :(_𝒜)\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C}`$ such that $`\varphi (A^{}A)0`$, $`A(_𝒜)`$, and $`\varphi (\widehat{1\mathrm{l}})=1`$ ($`\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}`$ is the identity operator in $`()`$). Usually, in physical literature, a state $`\varphi `$ is assumed to be of the form $`\varphi (A)=\mathrm{Tr}\varrho A`$ where $`\mathrm{Tr}`$ stands for the trace, $`\varrho `$ for a density matrix. This fact is used frequently as a legitimacy for identification of a state with a density matrix. We denote the family of all states of $`𝒜`$ ( $``$, $`𝒜+`$) by $`𝒮_𝒜`$ ($`𝒮_{}`$, $`𝒮_{𝒜+}`$ respectively). Finally, we will need two definitions of positivity. Let $`\mathrm{\Psi }:(_1)(_2)`$ be a linear map ($`_i`$ is a Hilbert space). $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is positive when $`\mathrm{\Psi }:(_1)^+(_2)^+`$ where $`(_i)^+`$ denotes all positive operators in $`(_i)`$, $`i=1,2`$. Now let $`id_k`$ be the identity map on $`M_k(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})`$ (set of all $`k\times k`$ matrices). We define the map $`id_k\mathrm{\Psi }:M_k(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})()M_k(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})()`$, for $`k=1,2,..`$ by

$$(id_k\mathrm{\Psi })(\underset{i}{}\sigma _iA_i)=\underset{i}{}\sigma _i\mathrm{\Psi }(A_i),$$
(1)
where $`\sigma _iM_k(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})`$ and $`A_i()`$. The map $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is $`k`$-positive when $`id_k\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is positive. The map $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is completely positive when $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is $`k`$-positive for all $`k=1,2,\mathrm{}`$

Having the defined notion of state we can ask how $`𝒮_{𝒜+}`$ is related to $`𝒮_𝒜`$ and $`𝒮_{}`$. This is rather deep question and we start its analysis with the following simple exercise (cf.  , 11.5.11): let $`dim_𝒜=2=dim_{}`$. Define the state $`\phi `$ in $`𝒮_{𝒜+}`$ as $`\phi (AB)=\frac{1}{2}((AB)(e_1f_1+e_2f_2),e_1f_1+e_2f_2)`$ where $`\{e_i\}_{i=1}^2`$ is a basis in $`_𝒜`$, $`\{f_i\}_{i=1}^2`$ a basis in $`_{}`$. In other words, $`\phi ()`$ is a state determined by the vector $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(e_1f_1+e_2f_2)_{𝒜+}`$. We denote by $`\phi _0`$ a convex combination of product states, i.e.

$$\phi _0=a_n\omega _n^𝒜\omega _n^{}$$
(2)
where $`\omega _n^𝒜(A)=(Ax_n,x_n)`$ for $`A(_𝒜)`$, $`x_n_𝒜`$ and analogously for $`\omega _n^{}`$. $`\{a_n\}`$ are non-negative numbers such that $`_na_n=1`$. Then one can show (see () that

$$\phi \phi _0\frac{1}{4}.$$
(3)
This clearly shows that the state $`\phi `$ of $`(_𝒜)(_{})`$ lies at norm distance at least $`\frac{1}{4}`$ from the convex hull of the set of product states. Consequently, the family of convex combinations of product states is a proper subset of the set of all states on $`(_𝒜)(_{})`$ and moreover this family is not a norm dense subset in $`𝒮_{𝒜+}`$, i.e. , in general, arbitrary state can not be approximated in norm by convex combination of product states. This result shows the crucial property of the space of states of the composite system. Therefore we define

###### Definition 1

A state $`\phi `$ defined on $`(_𝒜)(_{})`$ is said to be separable if it can be written as

$$\phi =\underset{n}{}a_n\phi _n=\underset{n}{}a_n\phi _n^𝒜\phi _n^{}$$
(4)
where $`\phi _n=\phi _n^𝒜\phi _n^{}`$ with $`\phi _n^𝒜`$ ($`\phi _n^{}`$) a state on $`(_𝒜)`$ ($`(_{})`$), and $`a_n`$ are positive numbers that sum to one. The set of all separable states , for the system $`𝒜+`$ will be denoted by $`𝒮_{𝒜+}^{sep}`$. A state which can not be written as in (4) is called entangled or equivalently non-separable.

Peres () showed that a necessary condition for a density matrix of a bipartite system to be separable is for its partial transpose to be a density matrix where the partial transpose is just the transposition of the matrix representing the state of either subsystem $`𝒜`$ or subsystem $``$. For $`22`$ and $`23`$ systems this condition is also sufficient (). This is the point where a part of theory of positive maps enters to the problem. To make this point more clear we restrict ourselves, for a moment, to finite dimensional case (so $`dim_𝒜=n<\mathrm{}`$, $`(_𝒜)`$ can be taken as $`M_n(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})M_n`$ and the same for subsystem $``$) and we recall the following scheme which is taken from Choi’s lecture ():

| $`L(M_n,M_k)`$ | $``$ | $`M_nM_k`$ | $``$ | linear functionals on $`M_nM_k`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $``$ |  |  |  | $``$ |
| hermitian preserving linear maps | $``$ | $`(M_nM_k)^\mathrm{h}`$ | $``$ | linear functionals assuming real values on $`(M_nM_k)^\mathrm{h}`$ |
| $``$ |  |  |  | $``$ |
| positive linear maps | $``$ | ? | $``$ | linear functionals assuming positive values on $`M_n^+M_k^+`$ |
| $``$ |  |  |  | $``$ |
| completely positive linear maps | $``$ | $`(M_nM_k)^+`$ | $``$ | linear functionals assuming positive values on $`(M_nM_k)^+`$ |

where $``$ denotes a $`11`$ correspondence, $``$ is an inclusion, $`M_n^h`$ stands for all hermitian matrices in $`M_n`$, $`M_n^+M_k^+=\{A_iB_i,A_iM_n^+,B_i^+M_k^+\}`$, while $`L(M_n,M_k)`$ stands for linear maps from $`M_n`$ to $`M_k`$.

###### Remark 1

Even this finite dimensional case clearly shows strong relations among: states, some singled out subsets of states, positive maps, and finally completely positive maps. This can be taken as a hint that the core of the considered problem is related to some special properties of the order (defined by positive elements) in tensor products. Moreover, one can expect that definition of order in tensor products leads to some serious problems. This is so, and for a general review of that question we refer Wittstock’s lecture in (). Later on, in the next Section, we come back to that point.

Choi’s scheme gives the following simple fact relating separable states with the order in tensor product. Let $`\phi `$ be in $`𝒮_{𝒜+}^{sep}`$, then (we recall that $`M_n^+M_k^+(M_nM_k)^+`$ where $``$ is the proper inclusion)

$$AM_n^+M_k^+implies\phi (A)0.$$
(5)
Also,

$$\phi (\mathrm{\Psi }_n\mathrm{\Psi }_k)|_{M_n^+M_k^+}0$$
(6)
for $`\mathrm{\Psi }_n`$ ($`\mathrm{\Psi }_k`$) positive maps on $`M_n(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})`$ ($`M_k(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})`$ respectively). Obviously, the same holds if one replaces $`M_n`$ by $`(_𝒜)`$ with not necessary $`dim_𝒜<\mathrm{}`$, etc.

Thus Choi’s scheme leads to the origin of Peres-Horodeckis characterization of separable states. Namely, let us recall that the transposition map $`\tau :a_{ik}\tau (a_{ik})=a_{ki}`$ is a positive map but not even two-positive, so not completely positive (cf. ). Take a state $`\phi 𝒮_{𝒜+}`$ and $`\psi 𝒮_{𝒜+}^{sep}`$. Denote by $`\tau ^{}`$ the transposition map acting on the set of observables associated with the subsystem $``$. Then, according to Choi’s scheme $`\phi id^𝒜\tau ^{}`$ is a linear functional taking positive values on $`M_n^+M_k^+`$ but not in general on $`(M_nM_k)^+`$. Therefore, separable states can differentiate positivity from completely positivity. This idea was used in

###### Theorem 1

(Horodecki’s. ) A density matrix $`\varrho `$ on $`_𝒜_{}`$ is entangled iff there exists a positive linear map $`𝒮:_𝒜_{}`$ such that

$$(id_𝒜𝒮)\varrho $$
(7)
is not positive semidefinite. Here $`id_𝒜`$ denotes the identity map on $`(_𝒜)`$.

Let us turn again to Choi’s scheme. To complete partly the scheme we recall that one can endow the set of all matrices, say $`n\times n`$, with the so called Hadamard product (cf. ). Let $`A,BM_n(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})`$, then the matrix $`H=ABM_n(\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{C})`$ is called Hadamard product of $`A`$ and $`B`$ if its $`(i,j)`$ entry is equal to $`a_{ij}b_{ij}`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Psi }:M_nM_n`$ be a positive map, then $`A\mathrm{\Psi }(A)`$ is also positive for all $`AM_n^+`$. Conversely, for a fixed $`AM_n^+`$ the map $`S_A:M_nM_n`$ defined by

$$S_A(B)=AB.$$
(8)
leads (as it will be shown) to a positive map. Thus we get a nice correspondence:

positive maps in $`L(M_n,M_n)`$ $``$ $`M_n^+M_n^+`$.

To see the positivity of $`S_A`$ and to understand this result in the context of separability problem let us reconsider another Kadison-Ringrose exercise (cf.  2.8.41). Namely, let $``$ be a Hilbert space (not necessary of finite dimension) with an orthonormal basis $`\{e_1,e_2,\mathrm{}\}`$. We denote by $`[a_{ij}]`$ and $`[b_{ij}]`$ the matrices of $`A,B()`$ with respect to the basis $`\{e_i\}`$. Next, let us consider the orthonormal system $`\{e_ie_i\}_i`$ in $``$ and we denote by $`𝒦`$ the subspace of $``$ spanned by the system $`\{e_ie_i\}`$. Finally, the projection from $``$ onto $`𝒦`$ will be denoted by $`P`$. Then solving the Kadison-Ringrose exercise 2.8.41 we find that the matrix elements $`\{t_{ij}\}`$ of the operator $`(P(AB)P|_𝒦)T`$ with respect to the basis $`\{e_ie_i\}`$ of $`𝒦`$ are

$$t_{ij}=a_{ij}b_{ij}([a_{ij}][b_{ij}])_{ij}.$$
(9)
Clearly, $`\{t_{ij}\}0`$ provided that $`\{a_{ij}\}0`$ and $`\{b_{ij}\}0`$.

Now, let $`A`$ be a density matrix $`\varrho `$, $`B`$ a density matrix $`\sigma `$, both acting on a Hilbert space $``$. Then, dropping for simplicity the normalizating factor, we got a hint that there are density (nonseparable) matrices satisfying Peres condition (note that $`P`$ is not in $`()^+()^+`$; cf. , exercise 11.5.10).

## III How generic separable states are?

Among questions concerning the separability, great effort has been done to determine degree of largeness of the family of separable states in the set of all states (cf. , ). We have seen, in Section II, that $`𝒮^{sep}`$ is not a norm-dense subset of $`𝒮`$. However, it appear highly desirable to study this question with a concept of convergence which would be more accessible to experimental verifications. Namely, from physical point of view, it would be reasonable to say that a sequence of separable states $`\{\phi _n\}`$ approximates a state $`\phi `$ if, given any observable $`A`$ in $`()`$ and any $`ϵ>0`$ one can find an integer $`N(A,ϵ)`$ such that

$$|\phi _n(A)\phi (A)|<ϵforallnN(A,ϵ).$$
(10)
In mathematical terms, it would mean: is the set $`𝒮^{sep}`$ weakly -dense in $`𝒮`$? In Section II it was shown that a description of $`𝒮^{sep}`$ (as well as of $`𝒮`$) is closely related to distinguished subsets of positive observables in the tensor product $`(_𝒜)(_{})`$. So to solve the just posed question we should have a characterization of positiveness in the tensor products. The desired result follows from old Tomiyama theorem (see ). To quote his result, unfortunately, some additional definitions are necessary. We define (cf. ) n-state of $`()`$ to be a matrix $`[\vartheta _{ij}]`$ of linear functionals on $`()`$ such that the matrix $`[\vartheta _{ij}(A_{ij})]`$ is semi-positive defined when $`[A_{ij}]M_n(())^+`$ (so the matrix $`[A_{ij}]`$ having entries in $`()`$, is also nonnegative) and $`\vartheta _{ii}(\widehat{1\mathrm{l}})=1`$ for $`i=1,2,..`$. If the normalization is omitted we get the notion of n-positive functional.

To get an example of such $`n`$-state let us pick $`\{x_1,x_2,\mathrm{}\}`$ a set of unit vectors in $``$. Denote by $`\omega _{x_i,x_j}`$ the following functional $`\omega _{x_i,x_j}(A)=(Ax_i,x_j)`$, $`A()`$. Then, one can easily check that $`\{\omega _{x_i,x_j}\}`$ is an $`n`$-state on $`()`$.

###### Remark 2

We have seen, in Section II, the great significance of complete positive maps in the analysis of separable states. In that context the following observation seems to be important: a linear map $`\mathrm{\Phi }:(_1)(_2)`$, such that $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\widehat{1\mathrm{l}})=\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}`$, is completely positive if and only if $`\{\vartheta _{ik}\mathrm{\Phi }\}`$ is n-state for each n-state $`\varrho _{ik}`$ of $`(_2)`$.

Let $`\phi `$ be a functional on $`(_1)(_2)`$. $`\phi `$ is called a positive functional of order $`n`$ if $`\phi `$ is expressed as

$$\phi =\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\varphi _{ij}\psi _{ij}$$
(11)
where $`\{\varphi _{ij}\}`$ and $`\{\psi _{ij}\}`$ are $`n`$-positive functionals on $`(_1)`$ and $`(_2)`$ respectively.

Now, in this setting, the Tomiyama theorem asserts that the order in $`(_1)(_2)`$ (so the distinguished family of positive observables of the composite system) is determined by the set of positive functionals of order n where n is equal to $`min\{dim_1,dim_2\}`$.

Now to get the promised estimation of degree of largeness of $`𝒮^{sep}`$ we have to recall another Kadison’s result. Namely, a family of states which determines the order is weak  dense and conversely a weak  dense family of states determines the order in the set of observables. Combining Kadison and Tomiyama results one can see that $`𝒮^{sep}`$ can not be weakly dense subset in $`𝒮`$ unless one of the subsystems is one dimensional (so classical one, cf. also ).

To make more clear the above conclusion let us consider the favorite model in Quantum Information. We assume that, say, $`dim_1=2`$, $`dim_2`$ can be arbitrary. Then the order of $`(_1)(_2)`$ is determined by functionals of the form

$$\phi =\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{2}{}}\varphi _{i,j}\psi _{ij}.$$
(12)
Take for $`\{\varphi _{ij}\}`$ the 2-state with $`\varphi _{ij}`$ being the same state $`\eta _1`$ of $`(_1)`$ and analogously for $`\{\psi _{ij}\}`$. Then, it is clear that the family $`𝒮_0`$ determining the order in the tensor product contains as a proper subset the family of separable states, $`𝒮^{sep}𝒮_0`$ but not $`𝒮^{sep}𝒮_0`$. Therefore, in general, one can not approximate a state $`\phi `$ by separable states in a way which is accessible to experimental verifications. By the way, the same argument leads to similar conclusion for the corresponding property of entangled states.

There is a remarkable relation between $`k`$-functionals and a certain class of states with Schmidt rank k which were considered recently (see for example ). Namely, let $`|\psi >=_{i=1}^k\sqrt{\lambda _i}|x_i>|y_i>`$ where $`\{|x_i>\}`$ and $`\{|y_i>\}`$ are orthonormal systems. We observe

$`Tr(|\psi ><\psi |ab)=<\psi |ab|\psi >={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\sqrt{\lambda _i\lambda _j}\omega _{x_i,x_j}(a)\omega _{y_i,y_j}(b)`$ (13)
$`={\displaystyle \sqrt{\lambda _i\lambda _j}(\omega _{x_i,x_j}\omega _{y_i,y_j})(ab)}.`$ (14)
Clearly, $`Tr\{|\psi ><\psi |\}`$ is a positive functional of order $`k`$ while $`\{\omega _{x_i,x_j}\}`$ and $`\{\omega _{y_i,y_j}\}`$ are $`k`$-states. Let $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ be a positive normalized map and $`\omega _{x_i,x_j}`$ a $`k`$-state. Then it is well known that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is $`k`$-positive iff $`\omega _{x_i,x_j}\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is again $`k`$-state (cf. Remark 2). This implies that

$$Tr(|\psi ><\psi |a\mathrm{\Phi }(b)$$
(15)
is another positive functional of order $`k`$ if $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is $`k`$-positive. Consequently, this remark and Kadison and Tomiyama results provides the general context of the recent characterization of $`k`$-positivity given in ().

To get another approximation procedure as well as another characterization of separable states one can proceed as follows. Let $`\varrho `$ be a density matrix on $`_1_2`$ and let $`\{e_i\}_i`$ be a basis in $`_2`$. Define a linear isometry $`U_i:_1_1_2`$ by $`U_ix=xe_i^i`$ for $`x_1`$ where $`\{^i\}`$ is a family of pairwise orthogonal subspaces in $`_1_2`$. Then $`U_i^{}`$ is a linear map of $`_1_2`$ in $`_1`$ such that $`U_k^{}(_1_2^l)=0`$ for $`kl`$. For $`\varrho (_1_2)`$ we define

$$\widehat{\varrho _{ik}}=U_i^{}\varrho U_k(_1).$$
(16)
In other words, the density matrix $`\varrho `$ can be represented as a semipositive matrix $`\{\widehat{\varrho _{ik}}\}`$ with operator-valued entries.

Assume $`\varrho `$ to be of the form $`\varrho =\varrho _1\varrho _2`$ with $`\varrho _i(_i)`$, $`i=1,2.`$ The the corresponding matrix has the very special form:

$$[\widehat{\varrho _{ik}}]=[\lambda _{ij}\varrho _1]$$
(17)
where $`[\lambda _{ik}][(e_i,\varrho _2e_k)]`$ is semipositive defined matrix with   $`\mathrm{C}`$-valued entries, $`\varrho _1`$ is a density matrix in $`(_1)`$. Therefore, such matrix has commutative entries. Furthermore, any separable density matrix is just a convex combination of matrices of such special form.

Now we in position to study another approximation procedure. Assume $`\varrho `$ can be approximated by separable density matrices. It would mean that, in just described matrix representation, one can find a family of semipositive defined matrices $`[\lambda _{ik}^\alpha ]`$ with   $`\mathrm{C}`$-valued entries, a family of density matrices $`\{\varrho ^\alpha \}`$ (on the Hilbert space associated with the arbitrary but fixed subsystem) such that

$$\widehat{\varrho _{ik}}\underset{\alpha }{}\lambda _{ik}^\alpha \varrho _1^\alpha $$
(18)
is small. Clearly, for high dimension this is a hopeless task. For low dimensions, for some subsets of states and (or) for some finite accuracy one can get such approximation.

## IV General positive maps and concluding remarks

In previous Sections, general positive maps are frequently used for an analysis of separable and non-separable states. On the other hand, completely positive maps are admittedly the ”physical” ones (cf. ). So one can suspect us for using ”non-physical” tools for a description of some singled out subsets of ”physical” states. To argue that this is not the case we again use another Kadison result (cf. ). Namely, let us restrict ourselves to Hamiltonian flows and consider equivalence between Schrödinger and Heisenberg picture. Physical maps sending states into states can be taken to be affine (it takes into account the superposition principle) bijections (this property reflects the reversibility of Hamiltonian dynamics). Their counterparts in Heisenberg picture are linear maps, preserving hermitian conjugation and anticommutators (in mathematical terms they are Jordan morphisms). But any Jordan morphism can be splitted into -homomorphism (so a completely positive map) and -anti-homomorphism (only positive, not even two positive map, e.g. the transposition $`\tau `$ used in Section II is an example of anti-homomorphism). So this result shows that there is a room for physical maps which are not completetely positive.

Having a motivation for positiveness we want to present a general construction of a very general linear, positive map $`S:(_𝒜)(_{})`$ (cf.  and ). For simplicity we assume that $`_𝒜`$ and $`_{}`$ are finite dimensional Hilbert spaces. However, nearly all results can be straightforwardly generalized to infinite dimensional case. Let us take a hermitian operator $`H(_𝒜_{})`$ such that

$$H\{A(_𝒜_{});\varphi (A)0forall\varphi 𝒮_{𝒜+}^{sep}\}𝒮_{sep}^d.$$
(19)
and we assume that $`H(_𝒜_{})^+`$. This is always possible since $`(_𝒜)^+(_{})^+`$ ($`𝒮_{𝒜+}^{sep}`$) is a proper subset of $`(_𝒜_{})^+`$ ($`𝒮_{𝒜+}`$ respectively). For some further explanation an an example of such a choice see (, another example can be found in (). In fact, here, we are partly following Terhal and Takasaki-Tomiyama idea (, ).

Let $`\{e_i\}`$ be an orthonormal basis in $`_𝒜`$, $`z,x`$ arbitrary vectors in $`_𝒜`$, $`v,y`$ arbitrary vectors in $`_{}`$. Let us observe (we take the scalar product to be linear in the second factor)

$`(zv,Hxy)={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\overline{(e_i,z)}(e_j,x)(e_iv,He_jy)={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}(z,E_{ij}x)(v,V_i^{}HV_jy)`$ (20)
$`=(zv,\left({\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}E_{ij}V_i^{}HV_j\right)xy)`$ (21)
where $`E_{ij}|e_i><e_j|`$, $`V_iy=e_iy`$ (so $`V_i`$ is defined analogously to $`U_i`$, see definition given prior to (16)). Define the map $`S`$

$$S(E_{ij})=V_i^{}HV_j.$$
(22)
Let us note

$$S(E_{ij})^{}=(V_i^{}HV_j)^{}=V_j^{}HV_i=S(E_{ji})=S(E_{ij}^{}).$$
(23)
Therefore to prove positivity of the map $`S`$ it is enough to show that $`S`$ maps any projector $`|f><f|`$ ($`f_𝒜`$) into a positive operator. To this end we note

$`(y,S\left(|f><f|\right)y)=(y,{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\overline{\lambda _i}\lambda _jS(E_{ij})y)={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\overline{\lambda _i}\lambda _j(y,V_i^{}HV_jy)`$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}(\lambda _ie_iy,H\lambda _je_jy)=(fy,Hfy)0`$ (25)
where the last inequality follows from (19). Consequently, $`S`$ is a positive map. Further we note that (20) implies

$$H=\underset{ij}{}E_{ij}S(E_{ij})=\underset{ij}{}(\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}_𝒜S)(E_{ij}E_{ij}).$$
(26)
Let us assume additionally that $`_𝒜_{}`$. Then

$`Tr__𝒜_{}(\mu H)={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}Tr__𝒜_{}\left(\mu (\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}_𝒜S)(E_{ij}E_{ij})\right)`$ (27)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}Tr__𝒜_{}\left((\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}_𝒜S^{})(\mu )E_{ij}E_{ij}\right)=Tr__𝒜_{}\left((\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}_𝒜S^{})(\mu )P_{_ie_ie_i}\right)`$ (28)
where $`P_{_ie_ie_i}`$ is the projector onto $`_ie_ie_i`$. Since $`H(_𝒜_{})^+`$ then one can find a density matrix, say, $`\mu `$ such that $`Tr__𝒜_{}(\mu H)<0`$. Thus

$$(\underset{i}{}e_ie_i,(\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}_𝒜S^{})(\mu )\underset{i}{}e_ie_i)<0.$$
(29)
Consequently, $`S^{}`$ so the map $`S`$ is not a completely positive map. We want to emphasize that this result stems from the fact that $`𝒮^{sep}`$ is a proper subset of the set of all states $`𝒮`$; see a remark prior to definition of separable states. Now we want to show that the above construction provides positive maps which are not decomposable ones. We recall that a linear positive map $`S`$ is decomposable if it can be written as

$$S=S_1+S_2\tau $$
(30)
where $`S_1,S_2`$ are completely positive maps while $`\tau `$ is a transposition. To prove the claim let us take $`H𝒮_{sep}^d`$, $`H^{}=H`$ and a state $`\varrho 𝒮`$ such that

$$TrH\varrho <0$$
(31)
and $`(\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}\tau )\varrho `$ is semipositive defined operator. Here we assume that the Hilbert spaces are of dimension larger than 2. Namely, it can be shown that for the case $`dim_1=2`$ and $`dim_2=n`$, $`n2`$, it is impossible to find density matrix $`\varrho `$ such that the assumed conditions are satisfied. For Hilbert spaces of higher dimension such a choice is possible, for an example see ().

Now we want to argue that the condition: for a fixed state $`\varrho `$

$$Tr((\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}\tau )\varrho )B)0foranyB(_𝒜_{})^+$$
(32)
implies

$$Tr\left((\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}\tau T)(\varrho )B\right)0foranycompletelypositivemapTandB(_𝒜_{})^+.$$
(33)
To show this we observe $`B(_𝒜_{})^+`$ if and only if $`B=C^{}C`$ with $`C(_𝒜_{})`$. So $`C=_iE_iF_i`$ and $`B=_{ij}E_i^{}E_jF_i^{}F_j`$. But (32) implies

$$\underset{ij}{}Tr\left(\varrho (\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}\tau ^{})(E_i^{}E_jF_i^{}F_j)\right)0.$$
(34)
Thus

$$\underset{ij}{}Tr\left(\varrho E_i^{}E_j\tau ^{}(F_i^{}F_j)\right)0.$$
(35)
On the other hand (33) can be rewritten as

$`{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}Tr((\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}T)(\varrho )E_i^{}E_j\tau ^{}(F_i^{}F_j)={\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}Tr(\varrho E_i^{}E_jV_m\tau ^{}(F_i^{}F_j)V_m^{})`$ (36)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}Tr\left(\varrho E_i^{}E_j\tau ^{}(\tau ^{}(V_m)F_i^{}F_j\tau ^{}(V_m))\right)`$ (37)
where we used the fact that the transposition $`\tau `$ is antihomomorphism and the fact that any completely positive map $`T(A)`$ can be written as $`_mV_m^{}AV_m`$ (cf. ). But (35) implies

$$\underset{ij}{}Tr\left(\varrho E_i^{}E_j\tau ^{}(V_m^{}F_i^{}F_jV_m)\right)=\underset{ij}{}Tr\left(\varrho E_i^{}E_j\tau ^{}(G_i^{}G_j)\right)0$$
(38)
where we put $`G_iF_i\tau ^{}(V_m)`$ for any $`i`$, and this completes the proof of our statement.

Let us turn to the question of nondecomposable maps. We assume that $`(\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}\tau )\varrho 0`$ and the map $`S`$ defined in (22) is decomposable. So $`S=S_1+S_2\tau `$ where $`S_1,S_2`$ are completely positive maps and $`\tau `$, as usually, is the transposition. We observe

$$0>TrH\varrho =<\underset{i}{}e_ie_i|\widehat{1\mathrm{l}}(S_1^{}+\tau ^{}S_2)(\varrho )|\underset{i}{}e_ie_i>.$$
(39)
But this is a contradiction since the just proved statement implies

$$(S_1^{}+\tau ^{}S_2^{})(\varrho )0$$
(40)
Consequently, $`S`$ can not be a decomposable map.

To close our remarks on positive maps let us mention that there is a nice relationship between such approach to a construction of a class of positive maps and unextedible systems (cf. , ). To do this we have to recall some Woronowicz results. Namely, as the general theory of positive maps is very complicated (cf. Choi’s scheme), the investigation of positive maps based on analysis of extreme positive maps did not provide satisfactory results (cf. ), Woronowicz () proposed to study nonextendible positive maps - a map $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is nonextendible if it can not be written in the form

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(a)=P\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(a)P$$
(41)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ is another positive map, $`P`$ is a projection, in a nontrivial way (see  for a precise definition). Now assume $`dim_𝒜=n<\mathrm{}`$, $`dim_{}=n<\mathrm{}`$. Then the map $`S`$ defined with $`H=_{i=1}^n|\alpha _i><\alpha _i||\beta _i><\beta _i|`$ for a properly chosen orthonormal systems leads to a nonextendible map. To prove this statement it is enough to apply Theorem 3.3 in (). To appreciate the notion of nonextendible positive maps we recall some Woronowicz results: nonextendible normalized positive map is extreme in the cone of all positive maps, and any normalized positive map admits a nonextendible extension. Moreover any Jordan map (normalized positive map $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ such that $`\mathrm{\Phi }(a^2)=(\mathrm{\Phi }(a))^2`$) is nonextendible.

To end this paper, we want to stress that nearly all given results follow, more or less, directly from mathematical features of tensor products. But using the Quantum Mechanics rule saying that composite systems are described by tensor products we should expect that some properties of tensor product have a great impact on a description of composite systems. Therefore, all peculiarities related to the order in tensor products should be taken into account. In particular, we should remember that the order in a $`C^{}`$-algebra (so in $`()`$) is not susceptible to the order of multiplication. The same can be said about the notion of positive map. On the contrary the notion of completely positive map and the notion of $`m`$-positive map ($`m>1`$) are susceptible to the order of multiplication. This explains the role of transposition $`\tau `$, its relation to $`M_n^+M_k^+`$, $`(M_nM_k)^+`$ (in Choi’s scheme), and finally the significance of the proper chosen family of functionals in definition of the order in the tensor product. This concluding “mathematical” remark can be also considered as a partial answer to the question related to some experiments of the Bell type, like those studied in (). Namely, there are problems associated with propagation properties (variables) of photons as well as with corellations between their spins. But such a system is an example of a composite system. Moreover we note that any real experiment involves time evolution. So, a description of such a system deals with dynamical maps preserving an order structure of tensor product. Furthermore, an analysis of such the systems involves spin variables as well as other ones necessary for full description. Consequently, in general, the considered maps should be sensitive to the order properties of various variables. Taking the separability problem as an illustration we have argued that basic features of the problem really follow from such the general theory.

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to M. Zukowski and M. Marciniak for remarks. W.A.M. acknowledges the support from K.B.N. (project PB/0273/PO3/99/16 ).