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# 𝐿-functions of exponential sums over one-dimensional affinoids: Newton over Hodge

## 1. Introduction

Let $`𝔸`$ be the space of rational functions in one variable $`x`$ with $`\mathrm{}`$ distinct poles (say at $`P_1,P_2,\mathrm{},P_{\mathrm{}}`$) of orders $`d_1,\mathrm{},d_{\mathrm{}}1`$ on the projective line. For any field $`K`$, we denote by $`𝔸(K)`$ the set of all rational functions of the form $`_{j=1}^{\mathrm{}}_{i=1}^{d_j}a_{j,i}(xP_j)^i,`$ where coefficients $`a_{j,i}K`$, poles $`P_jK\{\mathrm{}\}`$ and $`_{j=1}^{\mathrm{}}a_{j,d_j}0`$ (we set $`(x\mathrm{})^i=x^i`$ for the point at $`\mathrm{}`$). Naturally one may consider $`𝔸`$ as a quasi-affine space parameterized by coefficients $`a_{j,i}`$ for all $`i1,1j\mathrm{}`$ and poles $`P_j`$ for $`1j\mathrm{}`$. Let the Hodge polygon of $`𝔸`$, denoted by $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$, be the end-to-end join of line segments of horizontal length $`1`$ with slopes listed below:

(1)
$$\stackrel{\mathrm{}1}{\stackrel{}{0,\mathrm{},0}};\stackrel{\mathrm{}1}{\stackrel{}{1,\mathrm{},1}};\stackrel{d_11}{\stackrel{}{\frac{1}{d_1},\mathrm{},\frac{d_11}{d_1}}};\stackrel{d_21}{\stackrel{}{\frac{1}{d_2},\mathrm{},\frac{d_21}{d_2}}};\mathrm{}\mathrm{};\stackrel{d_{\mathrm{}}1}{\stackrel{}{\frac{1}{d_{\mathrm{}}},\mathrm{},\frac{d_{\mathrm{}}1}{d_{\mathrm{}}}}}.$$

They are joined in a nondecreasing order from left to right starting from the origin on $`^2`$. Let $`d:=_{j=1}^{\mathrm{}}d_j+\mathrm{}2`$. So $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$ is a lower convex hull in $`^2`$ with endpoints $`(0,0)`$ and $`(d,d/2)`$.

For any prime $`p`$ let $`E(x)=\mathrm{exp}(_{i=0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{x^{p^i}}{p^i})`$ be the $`p`$-adic Artin-Hasse exponential function. Let $`\gamma `$ be a $`p`$-adic root of $`\mathrm{log}(E(x))`$ with $`\mathrm{ord}_p\gamma =\frac{1}{p1}`$. Then $`E(\gamma )`$ is a primitive $`p`$-th root of unity. We fix it and denote it by $`\zeta _p`$.

In this paper we let $`p`$ be a prime coprime to $`_{i=1}^{\mathrm{}}d_i`$ and let $`a`$ be a positive integer. Let $`q=p^a`$. Let

(2) $`\overline{f}(x)`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{d_j}{}}}\overline{a}_{j,i}(x\overline{P}_j)^i,`$
where $`\overline{a}_{j,i}𝔽_q,\overline{P}_j𝔽_q\{\mathrm{}\}`$ for every $`i,j`$. Let $`\overline{g}(x):=_{\overline{P}_j\mathrm{}}(x\overline{P}_j)𝔽_q[x]`$. For any positive integer $`k`$, the $`k`$-th exponential sum of $`\overline{f}(x)𝔽_q(x)`$ is $`S_k(\overline{f}):=\zeta _p^{\mathrm{Tr}_{𝔽_{q^k}/𝔽_p}(\overline{f}(x))}`$ where the sum ranges over all $`x`$ in $`𝔽_{q^k}`$ such that $`\overline{g}(x)0`$. The $`L`$-function of the exponential sum of $`\overline{f}`$ is defined by

(3) $`L(\overline{f};T):=\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}S_k(\overline{f}){\displaystyle \frac{T^k}{k}}).`$
It is well known that the $`L`$-function is a polynomial in $`[\zeta _p][T]`$ of degree $`d`$ (e.g., by combining the Weil Conjecture for curves with the argument in  between Remark 1.2 and Corollary 1.3). One may write

(4) $`L(\overline{f};T)`$ $`=`$ $`1+b_1T+b_2T^2+\mathrm{}+b_dT^d[\zeta _p][T].`$
Define the Newton polygon of the $`L`$-function of $`\overline{f}`$ over $`𝔽_q`$ as the lower convex hull in $`^2`$ of the points $`(n,\mathrm{ord}_q(b_n))`$ with $`0nd`$, where we set $`b_0=1`$ and $`\mathrm{ord}_q():=\mathrm{ord}_p()/a`$. We denote it by $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$. One notes immediately that the Newton polygon $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ and the Hodge polygon $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$ have the same endpoints $`(0,0)`$ and $`(d,d/2)`$. Let $`\mathrm{lcm}(d_j)`$ denote the least common multiple of $`d_j`$’s for all $`1j\mathrm{}`$. The main result of the present paper is the following.

###### Theorem 1.1.

Let notation be as above. For any rational function $`\overline{f}𝔸(𝔽_q)`$, the Newton polygon $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ lies over the Hodge polygon $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$, and their endpoints meet. Moreover, for any $`\overline{f}𝔸(𝔽_q)`$ one has $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)=\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$ if and only if $`p1mod(\mathrm{lcm}d_j)`$.

###### Remark 1.2.

The first part (i.e., Newton over Hodge) of Theorem 1.1 was a conjecture of Adolphson-Sperber and Bjorn Poonen, described to the author independently in 2001. The case $`\mathrm{}=1`$ is known (see  or ). The case $`\mathrm{}=2`$ and $`\overline{f}(x)`$ has only poles at $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`0`$ (i.e., $`\overline{f}(x)`$ is a one variable Laurent polynomial) was obtained first by Robba (see \[20, Theorems 7.2 and 7.5\]). Theorem 1.1 is an analog of Katz-type conjectures (see \[9, Theorem 2.3.1\] and ).

Below we shall discuss some applications of our result in algebraic geometry. A question that remains open is whether there is a curve in every Newton polygon stratus in the moduli space of curves over $`\overline{𝔽}_p`$ (for every $`p`$). Recently  and  gave an affirmative answer to this question for $`p=2`$ by constructing supersingular curves over $`\overline{𝔽}_2`$ via a fibre product of Artin-Schreier curves. It is essential to understand the shape of Newton polygons of Artin-Schreier curves, and in particular, to find a sharp lower bound for them. The Newton polygon of the Artin-Schreier curve $`C_{\overline{f}}:y^py=\overline{f}(x)`$ over $`𝔽_q`$ (note that $`C_{\overline{f}}`$ has genus $`d(p1)/2`$) is the normalized $`p`$-adic Newton polygon of the numerator of the Zeta function $`\mathrm{Zeta}(C_{\overline{f}};T)`$ of $`C_{\overline{f}}`$ (here ‘normalized’ means taking $`\mathrm{ord}_p()/a`$ as the valuation). Denote this Newton polygon by $`\mathrm{NP}(C_{\overline{f}};𝔽_q)`$. Then we have the following corollary.

###### Corollary 1.3.

Let notation be as in Theorem 1.1. For any $`\overline{f}𝔸(𝔽_q)`$ and Artin-Schreier curve $`C_{\overline{f}}:y^py=\overline{f}(x)`$, the Newton polygon $`\mathrm{NP}(C_{\overline{f}};𝔽_q)`$ shrunk by a factor of $`1/(p1)`$ (vertically and horizontally) is equal to $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ and it lies over the Hodge polygon $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$. Moreover, for any $`\overline{f}𝔸(𝔽_q)`$ the equality holds if and only if $`p1mod(\mathrm{lcm}d_j)`$.

###### Proof.

We shall first give an elementary proof of the following relation between the Zeta function of $`C_{\overline{f}}`$ and the $`L`$-function of $`\overline{f}`$:

(5)
$$\mathrm{Zeta}(C_{\overline{f}};T)=\frac{\mathrm{N}_{(\zeta _p)/}(L(\overline{f};T))}{(1T)(1qT)}$$

with the norm $`\mathrm{N}_{(\zeta _p)/}()`$ being interpreted as the product of conjugates of the $`L`$-function $`L(\overline{f};T)`$ in $`(\zeta _p)`$ over $``$, the automorphism acting trivially on the variable $`T`$. (One may also see, for example, \[3, Section VI, (93)\] for some relevant discussion.) Recall that for any integer $`n`$ one has $`_{a𝔽_p}\zeta _p^{an}=p`$ or $`0`$ depending on whether $`n`$ is $`0`$ or not, respectively. For any $`k1`$ let $`C_{\overline{f}}^{}`$ be the curve $`C_{\overline{f}}`$ less the $`\mathrm{}`$ ramification points over $`\overline{P}_1=\mathrm{},\overline{P}_2,\mathrm{},\overline{P}_{\mathrm{}}`$. Write $`𝔽_{q^k}^+:=𝔽_{q^k}\{\overline{P}_2,\mathrm{},\overline{P}_{\mathrm{}}\}`$. Then

$$\mathrm{\#}C_{\overline{f}}^{}(𝔽_{q^k})=\underset{a𝔽_p}{}\underset{x𝔽_{q^k}^+}{}\zeta _p^{a\mathrm{Tr}(\overline{f}(x))}$$

where $`\mathrm{Tr}()=\mathrm{Tr}_{𝔽_{q^k}/𝔽_p}()`$. It follows that

$`\mathrm{Zeta}(C_{\overline{f}};𝔽_q)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(\mathrm{}+\mathrm{\#}C_{\overline{f}}^{}(𝔽_{q^k})\right){\displaystyle \frac{T^k}{k}}\right)`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1+q^k+{\displaystyle \underset{a𝔽_p^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{x𝔽_{q^k}^+}{}}\zeta _p^{a\mathrm{Tr}(\overline{f}(x))}){\displaystyle \frac{T^k}{k}}\right)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{_{a𝔽_p^{}}\left(\mathrm{exp}(_{k=1}^{\mathrm{}}(_{x𝔽_{q^k}^+}\zeta _p^{a\mathrm{Tr}(\overline{f}(x))}))\frac{T^k}{k}\right)}{(1T)(1qT)}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{N}_{(\zeta _p)/}(L(\overline{f};T))}{(1T)(1qT)}}.`$
This proves (5). Our first assertion of the corollary follows from (5) and the rest then follows from the first assertion and Theorem 1.1. ∎

###### Remark 1.4.

We remark that $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ and $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$ always coincide at the slope-0 segments (of horizontal length $`\mathrm{}1`$). Indeed, in the spirit of Corollary 1.3, it suffices to show that the Artin-Schreier curve $`C_{\overline{f}}:y^py=\overline{f}(x)`$ has $`p`$-rank equal to $`(\mathrm{}1)(p1)`$, which follows from Deuring-Shafarevic formula (see, for instance, \[5, Corollary 1.8\]). By symmetry, their slope-$`1`$ segments also coincide.

Now we give an amusing example: By the above, the curve

$$C/\overline{𝔽}_p:y^py=a_{1,2}x^2+a_{1,1}x+\underset{j=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(\frac{a_{j,1}}{(x\overline{P}_j)^2}+\frac{a_{j,2}}{(x\overline{P}_j)})$$

for odd prime $`p`$ and nonzero $`a_{j,i}`$’s, has its Newton polygon slope $`0`$ (resp. $`1`$) of length $`(\mathrm{}1)(p1)`$, and slope $`1/2`$ of length $`\mathrm{}(p1)`$.

Finally we comment on our conventions for the proof of this theorem: We first note that for $`d_1=\mathrm{}=1`$ the $`L`$-function of $`f`$ is equal to $`1`$ and we shall exclude this case for the rest of the paper for simplicity; Following conventions often used in algebraic geometry, we set $`P_1=\mathrm{}`$. Recall that one can always move one pole of an Artin-Schreier curve to $`\mathrm{}`$ by an automorphism of the projective line it covers without altering its zeta function. If $`\mathrm{}>1`$ then we set $`P_2=0`$ for the rest of the paper. This is not a restriction for our purpose since it is observed by definition that $`L(\overline{f}(x+c);T)=L(\overline{f}(x);T)`$ for any $`c𝔽_q`$ so one can always shift $`\overline{f}(x)`$ so that one of its poles lies at $`0`$. (Note that we then have $`\overline{g}(0)=0`$.)

This paper is organized as follows. We develop core theory of exponential sums over an affinoid in Section 2. There we determine the size of residue disks and derive an effective trace formula of Dwork-Monsky-Reich. In other words, Section 2 contains fundamentals for the rest of the paper. In Section 3, we present a practical algorithm to estimate the $`p`$-adic valuation of our Frobenius matrix. Finally Section 4 is devoted to the proof of Theorem 1.1. In a sequel paper  we shall study the asymptotic (as $`p`$ varies) generic Newton polygons for $`L`$-functions of exponential sums of one-variable rational function.

## 2. Exponential sums over one dimensional affinoids

We generalize Robba’s work in  from one dimensional annuli to one dimensional affinoids. This differs from Dwork’s original approach (see ), but is somewhat akin to . Our exposition is (of course) after \[15, 20, 21, 16, Monskey:III, 18\]. For fundamental material considering non-Archimedean geometry see  or .

### 2.1. Preliminaries

Let $`_q`$ be the degree $`a`$ unramified extension of $`_p`$ and let $`_q`$ be its ring of integers. Let $`\overline{}_p`$ be the algebraic closure of $`_p`$, and let $`\overline{}_p`$ its ring of integers. Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ be the $`p`$-adic completion of $`\overline{}_p`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1=_p(\zeta _p)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ the unique unramified extension of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ of degree $`a`$ in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Let $`𝒪_1`$ and $`𝒪_a`$ be the rings of integers in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$, respectively. Note that $`𝒪_1=_p[\zeta _p]=_p[\gamma ]`$. Fix roots $`\gamma ^{1/d_j}`$ in $`𝒪_a`$ for the rest of the paper, and let $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}:=\mathrm{\Omega }_1(\gamma ^{1/d_1},\mathrm{},\gamma ^{1/d_{\mathrm{}}})`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}:=\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$. Let $`𝒪_a^{}`$ and $`𝒪_1^{}`$ be the rings of integers of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}`$, respectively. Let $`||_p`$ be the $`p`$-adic valuation on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ such that $`|p|_p=p^1`$. The diagrams below represent these field extensions and the associated extensions of their rings of integers.

By taking Teichmüller lifts of coefficients and poles of $`\overline{f}𝔽_q[x]`$, we get $`\widehat{f}(x)_q[x]`$ with $`\widehat{f}(x)=_{i=1}^{d_1}a_{1,i}x^i+_{j=2}^{\mathrm{}}_{i=1}^{d_j}a_{j,i}(x\widehat{P}_j)^i`$. Since $`\widehat{P}_j`$ is a Teichmüller lift one has $`\widehat{P}_j^\tau =\widehat{P}_j^p`$. Similarly, let $`\widehat{g}(x)=_{j=2}^{\mathrm{}}(x\widehat{P}_j)_q[x]`$ be the corresponding Teichmüller lift of $`\overline{g}(x)𝔽_q[x]`$. Note that $`\widehat{P}_j^q=\widehat{P}_j`$ and $`\widehat{P}_j^q\overline{P}_jmod𝒫`$.

We mainly work on $`p`$-adic spaces over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ (or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}`$). Let $`|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ denote the $`p`$-adic value group of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$. Let $`𝐏^1`$ be the rigid projective line over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$. For any $`\widehat{P}\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ and $`r|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ let $`𝐁[\widehat{P},r]`$ and $`𝐁(\widehat{P},r)`$ denote the closed disk and (wide) open disk of radius $`r`$ about $`\widehat{P}`$ on $`𝐏^1`$, that is $`𝐁[\widehat{P},r]:=\{X\mathrm{\Omega }_a||X\widehat{P}|_pr\}`$ and $`𝐁(\widehat{P},r):=\{X\mathrm{\Omega }_a||X\widehat{P}|_p<r\}`$.

Let $`r|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ and $`0<r<1`$. For any positive $`p`$-power $`s`$ let $`𝐀_{r,s}:=𝐁[0,1/r]_{j=2}^{\mathrm{}}𝐁(\widehat{P}_j^s,r)=𝐏^1_{j=1}^{\mathrm{}}𝐁(\widehat{P}_j^s,r)`$. So $`𝐀_{r,s}=\{X\mathrm{\Omega }_a||X|_p1/r;|X\widehat{P}_j^s|_pr\text{ for }2j\mathrm{},\}`$ and it is an affinoid over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$. Let $`()`$ be the ring of rigid analytic functions over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ of a given affinoid. Hence, $`(𝐀_{r,s})`$ is a $`p`$-adic Banach space with the natural $`p`$-adic supremum norm. For ease of notation, we shall abbreviate $`𝐀_r`$ for $`𝐀_{r,1}`$ in this paper.

### 2.2. The $`p`$-adic Mittag-Leffler decomposition

Let $`_1(𝐀_r)`$ be the subset of $`(𝐀_r)`$ consisting of all rigid analytic functions on $`𝐁[0,1/r]`$. For $`2j\mathrm{}`$ let $`_j(𝐀_r)`$ be the subset of $`(𝐀_r)`$ consisting of all rigid analytic functions on $`𝐏^1𝐁(\widehat{P}_j,r)`$ that are holomorphic at $`\mathrm{}`$ and vanish at $`\mathrm{}`$. For any rigid analytic function $`\xi `$ defined on a subset $`B`$ of $`𝐏^1`$, let $`\xi _B:=sup_{xB}|\xi (x)|_p`$ (i.e., supremum norm). This defines a norm on $`(𝐀_r)`$ and $`_j(𝐀_r)`$, which are $`p`$-adic Banach spaces under the supremum norm $`\xi _{𝐀_r}`$.

###### Lemma 2.1 ($`p`$-adic Mittag-Leffler).

Let $`r|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ and $`0<r<1`$. Then the $`𝐁(\widehat{P}_j,r)`$’s with $`1j\mathrm{}`$ are mutually disjoint. There is a canonical decomposition of $`p`$-adic Banach spaces $`(𝐀_r)_{j=1}^{\mathrm{}}_j(𝐀_r)`$ in the sense that for any $`\xi (𝐀_r)`$ there is a unique $`\xi _{\widehat{P}_j}_j(𝐀_r)`$ such that every $`\xi \xi _{\widehat{P}_j}`$ is analytically expandable to $`𝐁(\widehat{P}_j,r)`$. Every $`\xi `$ can be uniquely represented as a sum $`\xi =_{j=1}^{\mathrm{}}\xi _{\widehat{P}_j}`$ such that

(6) $`\xi _{𝐀_r}`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{1j\mathrm{}}{\mathrm{max}}(\xi _{\widehat{P}_j}_{𝐏^1𝐁(\widehat{P}_j,r)}).`$
###### Proof.

We first show the disjointness. Let $`j3`$. Since the $`\widehat{P}_j`$’s are Teichmüller lifts in $`_q`$ with $`\widehat{P}_j^q=\widehat{P}_j`$ one has $`|\widehat{P}_j|_p=1`$. For any $`3i<j\mathrm{}`$, one first observes easily that $`|\widehat{P}_i\widehat{P}_j|_p\mathrm{max}(|\widehat{P}_i|_p,|\widehat{P}_j|_p)=1`$. The hypothesis that $`\overline{P}_i\overline{P}_j`$ in the residue field of $`_q`$ implies that $`|\widehat{P}_i\widehat{P}_j|_p1`$ and hence one has $`|\widehat{P}_i\widehat{P}_j|_p=1`$.

Let $`j2`$. Pick any $`\widehat{P}𝐁(\widehat{P}_j,r)`$. If $`j=2`$ then $`|\widehat{P}|_p<r<1<1/r`$ so $`\widehat{P}𝐁[1,1/r]`$; If $`j3`$ then $`|\widehat{P}\widehat{P}_j|_p<r<1`$ and $`|\widehat{P}_j|_p=1`$ imply that $`|\widehat{P}|_p=1<1/r`$ so $`\widehat{P}𝐁[0,1/r]`$. This proves that $`𝐁(\mathrm{},r)𝐁(\widehat{P}_j,r)=\mathrm{}`$ for all $`j2`$.

Now let $`j,j^{}2`$ and $`j^{}j`$. For any $`\widehat{P}𝐁(\widehat{P}_j,r)`$, one has $`|\widehat{P}\widehat{P}_j|_p<r<1`$ and $`|\widehat{P}_j\widehat{P}_j^{}|_p=1`$ by the previous paragraph and so $`|\widehat{P}\widehat{P}_j^{}|_p=1>r`$. This shows $`\widehat{P}𝐁(\widehat{P}_j^{},r)`$. This proves the disjointness.

The proof for the rest of the lemma follows directly from \[19, Theorem 4.7\] (see also ). ∎

Every element in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$-space $`(𝐀_r)`$ can be uniquely represented as $`_{i0}c_{1,i}X^i+_{j=2}^{\mathrm{}}_{i1}c_{j,i}(X\widehat{P}_j)^i`$ where $`c_{j,i}\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ and $`j1,lim_i\mathrm{}\frac{|c_{j,i}|_p}{r^i}=0`$. For simplicity, we write $`X_1:=X`$ and $`X_j:=(X\widehat{P}_j)^1`$ for $`1j\mathrm{}`$. Then the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$-space $`(𝐀_r)`$ has a natural monomial basis $`\stackrel{}{b}_{\mathrm{unw}}:=\{1,X_1^i,X_2^i,\mathrm{},X_{\mathrm{}}^i\}_{i1}.`$ In Theorem 3.5 we shall use a weighted basis $`\stackrel{}{b}_\mathrm{w}`$ (note that neither $`\stackrel{}{b}_{\mathrm{unw}}`$ nor $`\stackrel{}{b}_\mathrm{w}`$ is an orthonormal basis):

###### Lemma 2.2.

Let $`r|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ and $`0<r<1`$. For each $`1j\mathrm{}`$, let $`Z_j:=\gamma ^{\frac{1}{d_j}}X_j`$. Then $`\stackrel{}{b}_\mathrm{w}:=\{1,Z_1^i,\mathrm{},Z_{\mathrm{}}^i\}_{i1}`$ forms a basis of $`(𝐀_r)`$ over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}`$.

###### Proof.

Obvious by Lemma 2.1 and remarks preceding the lemma. ∎

### 2.3. The $`U_p`$ operator

For any $`sp^_0`$ and for any $`\xi (X)(𝐀_{r,s})`$, let $`U_p`$ be the map defined by $`(U_p\xi )(X):=1/p_{Z^p=X}\xi (Z)`$ from $`(𝐀_{r,s})`$ to $`(𝐀_{r^p,sp})`$. Similarly let $`(U_q\xi )(X):=1/q_{Z^q=X}\xi (Z)`$. This subsection was influenced by the spirit in  (in particular Section 3.5). This subsection aims to prove Theorem 2.4 with the following lemma.

###### Lemma 2.3.

Let $`X\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$, $`\widehat{P}𝒪_a`$, and $`sp^{_{>0}}`$. If $`rp^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$ then
(1) $`|X\widehat{P}|_p>r^{\frac{1}{s}}`$ implies $`|X^s\widehat{P}^s|_p=|X\widehat{P}|_p^s>r`$, and (2) $`|X^s\widehat{P}^s|_p>r`$ implies $`|X^s\widehat{P}^s|_p=|X\widehat{P}|_p^s`$.

###### Proof.

(1) If $`\widehat{P}=0`$ then the lemma is trivial. We assume $`\widehat{P}0`$ for the rest of the proof. Write $`s=p^k`$ for $`k1`$. We shall use induction on $`k`$. We first prove the case $`k=1`$ for both statements. That is, $`|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p>p^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$ implies that $`|X\widehat{P}|_p>p^{\frac{1}{p1}}`$ which in turn implies that $`|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p=|X\widehat{P}|_p^p`$.

Write $`Y:=X\widehat{P}`$. Then $`X^p\widehat{P}^p=(Y+\widehat{P})^p\widehat{P}^p=Y^p+pG`$ where $`G=_{m=1}^{p1}(\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{m}\right)/p)Y^{pm}\widehat{P}^mY[\widehat{P},Y]`$. If $`|Y|_pp^{\frac{1}{p1}}`$, that is, $`\mathrm{ord}_pY\frac{1}{p1}`$, then $`|pG|_p|pY|_pp^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$. Since $`|\widehat{P}|_p1`$, one has $`\mathrm{ord}_pG\mathrm{ord}_pY`$. Thus $`|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p\mathrm{max}(|Y^p|_p,|pG|_p)p^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$. Contradiction, so we have $`|Y|_p>p^{\frac{1}{p1}}`$. This implies that $`\mathrm{ord}_pY^i>\frac{i}{p1}`$ for any $`i`$. By the triangle inequality $`\mathrm{ord}_pG/Y^p\mathrm{min}_{1ip1}\mathrm{ord}_pY^i>1`$. Hence $`\mathrm{ord}_p(pG)>\mathrm{ord}_pY^p`$. Again by the triangle inequality we have $`|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p=|Y^p|_p=|X\widehat{P}|_p^p`$.

(2) Suppose it holds for $`s=p^{k1}`$. By assumption, $`|X^{p^k}\widehat{P}^{p^k}|_p=|(X^p)^{p^{k1}}(\widehat{P}^p)^{p^{k1}}|_p>p^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$. By inductive argument one has $`|X^{p^k}\widehat{P}^{p^k}|_p=|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p^{p^{k1}}`$ and so $`|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p>p^{\frac{p}{p^{k1}(p1)}}p^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$. The latter implies that $`|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p=|X\widehat{P}|_p^p`$, again by induction. Therefore, one has $`|X^{p^k}\widehat{P}^{p^k}|_p=|X\widehat{P}|_p^{p^k}`$, as we desire. Now suppose $`|X\widehat{P}|_p>r^{\frac{1}{p^k}}`$. Then $`|X\widehat{P}|_p>p^{\frac{1}{p1}}`$ and so $`|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p=|X\widehat{P}|_p^p>r^{\frac{1}{p^{k1}}}`$. Then we use induction argument to get

$$|X^{p^k}\widehat{P}^{p^k}|_p=|(X^p)^{p^{k1}}(\widehat{P}^p)^{p^{k1}}|_p=|X^p\widehat{P}^p|_p^{p^{k1}}=|X\widehat{P}|_p^{p^k}.$$

This finishes our proof. ∎

###### Theorem 2.4.

Let $`r|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ and $`p^{\frac{1}{p^{a1}(p1)}}<r<1`$. Let $`sp^_0`$. Then $`U_p(𝐀_{r,s})(𝐀_{r^p,sp})`$. Then $`U_q=U_p^a`$ and $`U_q(𝐀_r)(𝐀_{r^q})`$.

###### Proof.

1) We shall demonstrate a proof for the case $`s=1`$ since the general case is very similar. Let $`\xi (𝐀_r)`$.

Firstly, we show that $`U_p\xi `$ defines a function on the affinoid $`𝐀_{r^p,p}`$. It suffices to show that $`Z^p=X𝐀_{r^p,p}`$ implies that $`Z𝐀_r`$. Indeed, for every $`2j\mathrm{}`$ one has $`|Z^p\widehat{P}_j^p|_pr^p>p^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$ by hypothesis. By Lemma 2.3 one has $`|Z\widehat{P}_j|_p^p=|Z^p\widehat{P}_j^p|_pr^p`$. That is, $`|Z\widehat{P}_j|_pr`$. On the other hand, by $`|Z^p|_p1/r^p`$, one has $`|Z|_p1/r`$. This proves our claim.

Secondly we show that $`U_p\xi (𝐀_{r^p,p})`$. Our proof below follows \[8, Lemma on page 40\]. Before we start, an easy fact is prepared:

(7) $`\underset{X𝐀_{r^p,p}}{sup}|(U_p\xi )(X)|_p`$ $``$ $`p\underset{X𝐀_r}{sup}|\xi (X)|_p.`$
Let $`\mathrm{Tr}`$ denote the trace map from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a(Z)`$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a(X)`$ where $`Z`$ is a function with $`Z^p=X`$. If $`\xi \mathrm{\Omega }_a(X)`$, then by definition $`U_p\xi =\frac{1}{p}\mathrm{Tr}\xi (X)`$. This shows that $`U_p`$ maps $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a(X)`$ to itself and by (7), if $`\xi `$ has no pole in $`𝐀_r`$ then $`U_p\xi `$ has no pole in $`𝐀_{r^p,p}`$. Thus $`U_p`$ restricts to a mapping $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a(X)(𝐀_r)\mathrm{\Omega }_a(X)(𝐀_{r^p,p}),`$ which is continuous relative to the supremum norms. Since $`\xi (𝐀_r)`$, one gets that $`\xi `$ may be uniformly approximated on $`𝐀_r`$ by elements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a(X)(𝐀_r)`$ and so by (7) again $`U_p\xi `$ can be uniformly approximated on $`𝐀_{r^p,p}`$ by elements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a(X)(𝐀_{r^p,p})`$. This completes the proof of the assertion about $`U_p`$.

2) Let $`Z^q=X𝐀_{r^q}`$ for $`r>p^{\frac{1}{p^{a1}(p1)}}`$. For $`2j\mathrm{}`$, one has $`|Z^q\widehat{P}_j^q|_pr^q`$; so $`|Z\widehat{P}_j|_p=|Z^q\widehat{P}_j^q|_p^{1/q}r`$. One also observes that $`|Z^q|_p1/r^q`$ implies that $`|Z|_p1/r`$. This proves that $`Z𝐀_r`$. This proves that $`U_q\xi `$ is a function on $`𝐀_{r^q,q}`$. As $`\widehat{P}_j^q=\widehat{P}_j`$ for all $`j`$ one has $`𝐀_{r^q,q}=𝐀_{r^q}`$, it follows that $`U_q\xi `$ is defined over $`𝐀_{r^q}`$. ∎

### 2.4. Push-forward maps and Dwork’s splitting functions

In the previous subsection we have defined the $`U_p`$ and $`U_q`$ operators on suitable $`p`$-adic Banach spaces. It remains to define the “Dwork’s splitting function” to finish the process of defining the Frobenius map. Let $`\tau `$ be a lift of the Frobenius endomorphism $`cc^p`$ of $`𝔽_{p^a}`$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ which fixes $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$. Thus $`\tau `$ generates $`\mathrm{Gal}(\mathrm{\Omega }_a/\mathrm{\Omega }_1)`$. Let $`𝐀_{r,s}^\tau `$ denote the image of $`𝐀_{r,s}`$ under $`\tau `$.

Since one may have a pole $`\widehat{P}_j`$ other than $`0`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$, one encounters the following problem: for any $`\xi (X)(𝐀_r)`$ its image $`\xi ^\tau (X)`$ does not lie in $`(𝐀_r^\tau )`$ anymore. So the naive generalization of Dwork’s splitting function does not work. This prompts us to define some push-forward maps.

Define a map of $`p`$-adic Banach spaces

$`(𝐀_{r,s})`$ $`\stackrel{\tau _{}}{}`$ $`(𝐀_{r,s}^\tau )`$
$`\xi `$ $``$ $`\tau \xi \tau ^1.`$
For any $`k_0`$, one has $`\tau _{}((𝐀_{r,p^k}))=(A_{r,p^k}^\tau )=(𝐀_{r,p^{k+1}})`$. As a simple example, for $`B\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ and a Teichmüller lift $`\widehat{P}`$ in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ with $`\xi (X)=\frac{B}{X\widehat{P}}(𝐀_r)`$ we have $`(\tau _{}\xi )(X)=\frac{\tau (B)}{X\tau (\widehat{P})}=\frac{\tau (B)}{X\widehat{P}^p}`$. On the other hand, one may check routinely that $`\tau _{}^k`$ commutes with $`U_p`$ for any $`k`$.

For any $`\widehat{f}(x)`$ (fixed in Section 2.1), and for every $`1j\mathrm{}`$, let

(8) $`F_j(X_j)`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{d_j}{}}}E(\gamma a_{j,i}X_j^i)`$
where we recall that $`E(X)`$ is the Artin-Hasse exponential function and $`\gamma `$ is the root of $`\mathrm{log}E(X)`$ with $`\mathrm{ord}_p\gamma =\frac{1}{p1}`$. We now induce our new splitting functions:

(9)
$$F(X):=\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}F_j(X_j);F_{[a]}(X):=\underset{k=0}{\overset{a1}{}}(\tau _{}^kF)(X^{p^k}).$$

###### Lemma 2.5.

Let $`k1`$ be any integer. Let $`r|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ and $`p^{\frac{p}{p1}}<r<1`$. Then for any $`\xi (X)(𝐀_r^{\tau ^k})`$ one has $`\xi (X^{p^k})(𝐀_{r^{1/p^k}})`$.

###### Proof.

It suffices to show that $`|X\widehat{P}_j|_pr^{1/p^k}`$ implies that $`|X^{p^k}\widehat{P}_j^{p^k}|_pr`$. This follows from Lemma 2.3 immediately. ∎

###### Theorem 2.6.

Let $`d_0:=\mathrm{max}_{1j\mathrm{}}d_j`$. Let $`r|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ and $`p^{\frac{1}{d_0p^{a1}(p1)}}<r<1`$. Then $`F(X)(𝐀_{r^{p^{a1}}})(𝐀_r)`$ and $`F_{[a]}(X)(𝐀_r)`$.

###### Proof.

Write $`r_j:=p^{\frac{1}{d_j(p1)}}`$. Write $`F_j(X)=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}F_{j,n}X^n`$ over $`𝒪_a`$. Note that $`F_j(X)`$’s convergence radius is $`lim\; inf_n|F_{j,n}|_p^{1/n}=p^{lim\; inf_n\mathrm{ord}_pF_{j,n}/n}1/r_j.`$ (See Lemma 3.2.) By hypothesis, one has $`r^{p^{a1}}>r_j`$ for every $`j`$, so $`F_1(X),F_j((X\widehat{P}_j)^1)(𝐀_{r^{p^{a1}}})`$ for $`2j\mathrm{}`$. Hence $`F(X)(𝐀_{r^{p^{a1}}})`$.

Then $`(\tau _{}^kF)(X)(A_{r^{p^{a1}}}^{\tau ^k})`$ for every $`0ka1`$. Our hypothesis implies that $`p^{\frac{p}{p1}}<r^{p^{a1}}<1`$. So one may apply Lemma 2.5 and gets, $`(\tau _{}^kF)(X^{p^k})(𝐀_{r^{p^{a1k}}})(𝐀_r)`$ for every $`0ka1`$. Therefore, their product $`F_{[a]}(X)`$ lies in $`(𝐀_r)`$ as well. ∎

### 2.5. The trace formula of $`\alpha _a`$

For the rest of the paper we assume

(10) $`r|\mathrm{\Omega }_a|_p`$ and $`p^{\frac{1}{d_0p^{a1}(p1)}}<r<1`$ where $`d_0=\mathrm{max}_{1j\mathrm{}}d_j`$.
This bound of $`r`$ is to assure that $`F_{[a]}(X)`$ lies in $`(𝐀_r)`$. Let $`\alpha _a:=U_qF_{[a]}(X)`$, by which we mean the composition map of $`U_q`$ with the multiplication map by $`F_{[a]}(X)`$. Then $`\alpha _a`$ is a $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$-linear map from $`(𝐀_r)`$ to $`(𝐀_{r^q})`$ by Theorem 2.4. Composing with the natural restriction map $`(𝐀_{r^q})(𝐀_r)`$, one observes that $`\alpha _a`$ defines an endomorphism of $`(𝐀_r)`$.

###### Lemma 2.7 (Dwork-Monsky-Reich).

Let $`\overline{f}𝔸(𝔽_q)`$. Let $`r`$ be as in (10), then the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$-linear endomorphism $`\alpha _a`$ of $`(𝐀_r)`$ is completely continuous and one has

(11) $`L(\overline{f};T)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{det}(1T\alpha _a|(𝐀_r))}{\mathrm{det}(1Tq\alpha _a|(𝐀_r))}}.`$
###### Proof.

Let $`^{}(𝐀_1):=_{0<r<1}(𝐀_r)`$. One notes that $`^{}(𝐀_1)`$ is the Monsky-Washnitzer dagger space of $`𝐀_1`$. Our assertions then follow from the trace formula of  and , as explained in \[20, Section 6\] and see (6.3.11) in particular. (Our hypothesis $`g(0)=0`$ was used there). Basically their trace formula says that $`\alpha _a`$ is completely continuous on $`^{}(𝐀_1)`$ and $`\mathrm{det}(1T\alpha _a|^{}(𝐀_1))=\mathrm{det}(1T\alpha _a|(𝐀_r))`$ for any $`r`$ within our range in (10). Since it is routine to check this, we omit details. ∎

###### Remark 2.8.

One can also formulate the above trace formula using Berthelot’s rigid cohomology theory. See  for detailed annotation of Robba’s formulation in \[20, Section 6\].

### 2.6. Descent from $`\alpha _a`$ to $`\alpha _1`$

The results in this subsection are only used in the proof of Theorem 1.1 in Section 4. Below we shall use a subindex in $`\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}()`$ or $`\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}()`$ to emphasize our consideration of a map over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$-space or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$-space, respectively. We shall omit the base space $`(𝐀_r)`$ in $`\mathrm{det}()`$ if the context clearly assures that no confusion is possible. The upshot of our argument is to “descent” the $`\alpha _a`$ map of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$-space $`(𝐀_r)`$ to the $`\alpha _1`$ map of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$-space $`(𝐀_r)`$. This idea appeared initially in \[7, Section 7\]. In this paper we use $`\mathrm{NP}_p()`$ and $`\mathrm{NP}_q()`$ to denote $`p`$-adic and $`q`$-adic Newton polygons, respectively. (These should not be confused with $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$.) We use $`1/a\mathrm{NP}_p()`$ to denote the image of $`\mathrm{NP}_p()`$ shrunk by a factor of $`1/a`$.

###### Lemma 2.9.

Let $`\alpha _1:=\tau _{}^1U_pF(X)`$. Then $`\alpha _1`$ is a completely continuous $`\tau ^1`$-linear map from $`(𝐀_r)`$ to $`(𝐀_{r^p})`$ (over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$) and $`\alpha _a=\alpha _1^a`$ as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$-linear maps. Then

(12) $`\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1T^a\alpha _a)^a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{a1}{}}}\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T\zeta _a^k\alpha _1),`$
where $`\zeta _a`$ is a primitive $`a`$-th root of unity. Then $`\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1T\alpha _a))=1/a\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T\alpha _1)).`$

###### Proof.

As we already remarked at the beginning of Section 2.4, $`\tau _{}^1`$ and $`U_p`$ commute with each other. For any $`k`$, the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$-linear multiplication map of $`(\tau _{}^kF)(X)`$ on $`(A_r^{\tau ^k})`$ can be written as $`\tau _{}^kF(X)\tau _{}^k`$. On the other hand, for any function $`H_k(X)(𝐀_r^{\tau ^k})`$ one has a general identity stating that

(13) $`U_q{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{a1}{}}}H_k(X^{p^k})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{a1}{}}}U_pH_{a1k}(X),`$
where second product is noncommutative and its factors are ordered from left to right as $`k`$ increases. We retain this notation of noncommutative products for the rest of the paper.

Now apply (13) to $`F_{[a]}(X)`$ with $`H_k(X):=(\tau _{}^kF)(X)`$. One has

$`U_qF_{[a]}(X)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{a1}{}}}(U_p\tau _{}^{a1k}F(X)\tau _{}^{(a1k)})`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{a1}{}}}(\tau _{}^{a1k}U_pF(X)\tau _{}^{(a1k)}).`$
By telescoping, one gets $`U_qF_{[a]}(X)=(\tau _{}^1U_pF(X))^a`$. That is, $`\alpha _a=\alpha _1^a`$.

The proof for $`\alpha _1`$ being completely continuous is verbatim for $`\alpha _a`$ which is already proved in Lemma 2.7. Now it is elementary to see that

$$\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T^a\alpha _1^a)=\underset{k=0}{\overset{a1}{}}\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T\zeta _a^k\alpha _1).$$

One may also show as an exercise that (see \[3, (41)\] for details)

$$\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1T\alpha _a)^a=\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T\alpha _a).$$

Combining these two equalities with $`\alpha _a=\alpha _1^a`$, one obtains (12). The last assertion about Newton polygons follows from the elementary theory of Newton polygons (see \[6, Lemma 1.6\] and \[7, Lemma 7.1\]). ∎

###### Proposition 2.10.

The slope $`<1`$ part (of horizontal length $`d\mathrm{}+1`$) of $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ is equal to $`\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1T\alpha _a)modT^{d\mathrm{}+1})`$ which is equal to

$$1/a\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T\alpha _1)modT^{a(d\mathrm{}+1)+1}).$$

The same holds if one replaces $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}`$, respectively.

###### Proof.

By (11), one has

(14) $`L(fmod𝒫;T)\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1Tq\alpha _a)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1T\alpha _a).`$
Note that all slopes are greater than or equal to $`1`$ in $`\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1Tq\alpha _a))`$. By the Weil conjectures for (projective) curves, $`L(\overline{f};F_q)`$ is a degree $`d`$ polynomial (see (4)) with all slopes in $`[0,1]`$. The slope-1 part of $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ is precisely of horizontal length $`\mathrm{}1`$ (see Remark 1.4). Let $`\lambda `$ be the biggest slope of $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ that is strictly less than $`1`$. Then the slope $`\lambda `$ part of $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ is equal to $`\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1T\alpha _a)modT^{d\mathrm{}+2})`$ by (14) and the $`p`$-adic Weierstrass preparation theorem (see section \[11, IV.4\]).

By Lemma 2.9, $`1/a\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T\alpha _1))=\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1T\alpha _a))`$. By the previous paragraph, the latter polygon has a vertex point at $`T^{d\mathrm{}+1}`$, which separates the slope $`\lambda `$ and slope-$`1`$ segments. Hence the former polygon has a corresponding vertex point at $`T^{a(d\mathrm{}+1)}`$. The upshot is that

$$1/a\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T\alpha _1)modT^{a(d\mathrm{}+1)+1})=\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_a}(1T\alpha _a)modT^{d\mathrm{}+2}).$$

Compiling these two paragraphs, our assertion follows. The last assertion is obvious. ∎

## 3. $`p`$-adic estimates of $`L`$-functions of exponential sums

This section aims to prove Theorem 3.5 whose proof is however very technical, so the reader is recommended to refer to it only when needed. We retain all notations from previous sections, in particular we recall the two bases $`\stackrel{}{b}_{\mathrm{unw}}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{b}_\mathrm{w}`$ of $`(𝐀_r)`$ from Lemma 2.2. For any $`c`$ we denote by $`c`$ the least integer greater than or equal to $`c`$.

We start with a lemma inspired by a “Dwork’s Lemma” in :

###### Lemma 3.1.

Let $`m1`$ and $`J3`$. Let $`r`$ be as in (10) of Section 2.5. Then for any $`X𝐀_r`$ one has

(15) $`U_p(X\widehat{P}_J)^m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=m/p}{\overset{m}{}}}C^{n,m}\widehat{P}_J^{npm}(X\widehat{P}_J^p)^n,`$
where $`C^{n,m}_p`$ with $`\mathrm{ord}_pC^{n,m}\frac{npm}{p1}1`$. Then $`\mathrm{ord}_pC^{n,m}=0`$ if and only if $`n=\frac{m}{p}`$. If this is the case, then one has $`C^{n,m}(1)^{ϵ1}modp`$ where $`ϵ=m(n1)p`$.

###### Proof.

By Theorem 2.4 one has $`U_p(X\widehat{P}_J)^m(𝐀_{r^p,p})`$. The first statement of this lemma follows from an analogous verification as presented in Section 5.3 of , so we shall omit its proof here. We shall prove our last assertion below.

By \[8, Lemma of Section 5.3, page 74\], one has $`C^{n,m}=\frac{m}{np}_\stackrel{}{i}_{k=1}^n\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{i_k}\right)`$ where $`\stackrel{}{i}:=(i_1,\mathrm{},i_n)`$ ranges in $`^n`$ with $`1i_1,\mathrm{},i_np`$ and $`_{k=1}^ni_k=m`$ (we denote this set of $`\stackrel{}{i}`$ by $``$). Write $`m=(n1)p+r`$ for some $`1rp`$. If $`r=p`$ then one can easily see that $`C^{n,m}=1`$ and our assertion clearly holds. Below we let $`1rp1`$. We assume additionally that $`p>2`$ since if $`p=2`$ then one has $`m=2n1`$ and it is easy to check that $`\mathrm{ord}_pC^{n,m}=0`$ directly. Write $`\varsigma (\stackrel{}{i}):=_{k=1}^n\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{i_k}\right)`$. For any $`1tn`$ let $`_t`$ be the subset of $``$ consisting of all $`\stackrel{}{i}`$ with $`\mathrm{ord}_p(\varsigma (\stackrel{}{i}))=t`$. It is clear that $`=_{t=1}^n_t`$ is a partition of $``$. Since $`\mathrm{ord}_p\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{i_k}\right)=0`$ (resp., $`=1`$) if and only if $`i_k=p`$ (resp., $`p`$), one gets for any $`1tn`$ that $`\stackrel{}{i}_t`$ if and only if the $`\stackrel{}{i}`$ contain precisely $`t`$ non-$`p`$ components. For each $`\stackrel{}{i}_t`$ there are actually $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{t}\right)`$ of them by a permutation of the non-$`p`$ components among the $`n`$ components and they have the same $`\varsigma (\stackrel{}{i})`$. Let $`𝒥_t`$ be the set of all $`t`$-tuples $`\stackrel{}{j}:=(j_1,\mathrm{},j_t)`$ with $`1j_1,\mathrm{},j_tp1`$ and $`_{k=1}^tj_k=(t1)p+r`$. Then one gets

$`C^{n,m}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{t=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{i}_t}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{m}{np}}\varsigma (\stackrel{}{i})={\displaystyle \underset{t=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{j}𝒥_t}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{m}{np}}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{t}}\right)\varsigma (\stackrel{}{j})`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{r}\right)}{p}}+{\displaystyle \underset{t=2}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{j}𝒥_t}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{m}{np}}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{t}}\right)\varsigma (\stackrel{}{j}).`$
One easily observes that the first summand is a $`p`$-adic unit. Now we claim that for any $`t2`$ and $`\stackrel{}{j}𝒥_t`$ one has $`\mathrm{ord}_p(\frac{m}{np}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{t}\right)\varsigma (\stackrel{}{j}))1`$. Indeed, one has for some $`uZ_p`$ that

$$\frac{m}{np}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{t}\right)\varsigma (\stackrel{}{j})=\frac{m}{np}\left(\frac{n}{t}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n1}{t1}\right)\right)(p^tu)=um\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n1}{t1}\right)\frac{p^{t1}}{t}.$$

It is easy to observe that for any $`t2`$ and $`p>2`$ one has $`\mathrm{ord}_ptt2`$. This proves our claim above. By (3), we get that $`C^{n,m}`$ is a $`p`$-adic unit. ∎

The computation of $`\alpha _1=\tau _{}^1U_pF(X)`$ uses the observation that $`\tau _{}^1`$ and $`U_p`$ respect the Mittag-Leffler decomposition while the multiplication map $`F(X)`$ does not. For $`1j\mathrm{}`$ and for any $`\xi (X)(𝐀_r)`$, let $`\xi (X)_{\widehat{P}_j}`$ denote the $`j`$-th component in the $`p`$-adic Mittag-Leffler decomposition as in Lemma 2.1. We recall our notation $`X_1=X`$ and $`X_j=(X\widehat{P}_j)^1`$ for $`2j\mathrm{}`$.

Now we recall certain properties of $`F_j(X_j)=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}F_{j,n}X_j^n𝒪_a[[X_j]]`$ (see proof in, for instance, \[29, Section 1\]).

###### Lemma 3.2.

For any $`1j\mathrm{}`$ and $`n0`$ one has $`\mathrm{ord}_pF_{j,n}\frac{\frac{n}{d_j}}{p1}`$ where the equality holds if $`d_j|n`$ and $`\frac{n}{d_j}p1`$. In particular, $`\mathrm{ord}_pF_{j,n}>0`$ for any $`n>0`$.

###### Lemma 3.3 (Key computational lemma).

(1) If $`\xi (X)(𝐀_r)`$ is given by its Laurent expansion at $`\widehat{P}_J`$, that is $`\xi (X)=_{n=\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}B_nX_J^n`$ for some $`B_n\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$, then $`(\xi (X))_{\widehat{P}_J}=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}B_nX_J^n`$, and $`B_0=0`$ if $`\widehat{P}_J\mathrm{}`$.

(2) Recall $`F(X)`$ and $`C^{n,m}`$ from (9) and (15) respectively. For all $`i0`$ write $`(F(X)X_J^i)_{\widehat{P}_{J_1}}=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}H_{J_1,J}^{n,i}X_{J_1}^n`$ for some $`H_{J_1,J}^{n,i}\mathrm{\Omega }_a`$. Then

$$(\alpha _1X_J^i)_{\widehat{P}_{J_1}}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}X_{J_1}^n\mathrm{\Omega }_a[[X_{J_1}]]$$

where

$$B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}:=\{\begin{array}{cc}\tau ^1H_{J_1,J}^{np,i}\hfill & \text{for }J_1=1,2\hfill \\ _{m=n}^{np}C^{n,m}\widehat{P}_{J_1}^{nmp^{a1}}\tau ^1H_{J_1,J}^{m,i}\hfill & \text{for }J_13\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

###### Proof.

Part (1) is a simple corollary of the remarks preceding the lemma and Lemmas 2.1 and 3.1. The rest are routine consequences. ∎

For any integers $`s0`$ and $`t1`$ we use $`𝒞(s,t)`$ to denote the condition that $`t|s`$ and $`0\frac{s}{t}p1`$ are satisfied (e.g., the condition in Lemma 3.2 is $`𝒞(n,d_j)`$). We claim the following:

(17)
$$|H_{J_1,J}^{n,i}|_p\{\begin{array}{cc}p^{\frac{ni}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}\hfill & \text{ if }J_1=J\hfill \\ p^{\frac{n+i}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}\hfill & \text{ if }J_1=1J\hfill \\ p^{\frac{n}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}\hfill & \text{ if }J_1=2J\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

Furthermore, the equalities hold if and only if additional conditions $`𝒞(ni,d_{J_1})`$, $`𝒞(n+i,d_{J_1})`$, $`𝒞(n,d_{J_1})`$ hold, respectively.

A proof for the case $`J=J_1`$ is sketched below and proofs for other cases are omitted as they are formal and similar. Let $`\stackrel{}{n}:=(n_1,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}})_0^{\mathrm{}}`$. Then one notices that for $`J=1`$

$`H_{1,1}^{n,i}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \left(F_{1,n_1}\underset{j1}{}\left(\underset{m_j=0}{\overset{n_j}{}}F_{j,m_j}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n_j1}{m_j1}\right)\widehat{P}_j^{n_jm_j}\right)\right)},`$
and for $`J2`$,

$`H_{J,J}^{n,i}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }(F_{J,n_J}\left({\displaystyle \underset{m_1=n_1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}F_{1,m_1}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m_1}{n_1}}\right)\widehat{P}_J^{m_1n_1}\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{j1,J}{}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{m_j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}F_{j,m_j}(1)^{m_j}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n_j+m_j1}{m_j1}}\right)(\widehat{P}_j\widehat{P}_J)^{(n_j+m_j)}\right))`$
where the sums both range over all $`\stackrel{}{n}_0^{\mathrm{}}`$ such that $`ni=n_J_{jJ}n_j`$.

From the above, one observes that $`\mathrm{ord}_pH_{J_1,J}^{n,i}`$ is greater than or equal to the minimal valuation among the $`\stackrel{}{n}`$-summand in its formula as $`\stackrel{}{n}`$ varies in its domain. Each $`\stackrel{}{n}`$-summand is the product of $`\mathrm{}`$ elements in $`𝒪_a`$, so its valuation is equal to the sum of the valuations of these $`\mathrm{}`$ elements in $`𝒪_a`$. It is easy to observe that $`\mathrm{ord}_pH_{J_1,J}^{n,i}\mathrm{min}_{n_1}(\mathrm{ord}_pF_{1,n_1})\frac{ni}{d_{J_1}(p1)}`$ as the minimum is taken over all $`n_1=ni+_{j=2}^{\mathrm{}}n_j`$. Moreover, if $`𝒞(ni,d_{J_1})`$ holds then by Lemma 3.2 the minimal is uniquely achieved at $`\stackrel{}{n}=(ni,0,\mathrm{},0)`$ and the equality holds. Conversely, suppose the equality in (17) holds. It can be easily seen that $`H_{J_1,J}^{n,i}`$ lies in $`𝒪_a`$, in which $`p`$ has ramification index $`p1`$ over $``$, so $`\mathrm{ord}_pH_{J_1,J}^{n,i}=\frac{ni}{d_{J_1}(p1)}`$ lies in $`\frac{}{p1}`$. Thus $`𝒞(ni,d_{J_1})`$ holds. This proves our claim in (17).

###### Theorem 3.4 (Unweighted estimates).

Let $`B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}𝒪_a`$ be as in Lemma 3.3(2).

(1) For $`J_1=1,2`$ and for $`n,i0`$ one has

$$|B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}|_p\{\begin{array}{cc}p^{\frac{npi}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}\hfill & \text{if }J_1=J\hfill \\ p^{\frac{np+i}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}\hfill & \text{if }J_1=1J\hfill \\ p^{\frac{np}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}\hfill & \text{if }J_1=2J.\hfill \end{array}$$

The equalities hold if and only if the additional conditions $`𝒞(npi,d_{J_1}),𝒞(np+i,d_{J_1})`$, and $`𝒞(np,d_{J_1})`$ hold, respectively.

(2) For $`J_13`$ and for $`n1,i0`$ one has

$$|B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}|_p\{\begin{array}{cc}p^{\frac{(n1)p(i1)}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}\hfill & \text{if }J_1=J\hfill \\ p^{\frac{(n1)p+1}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}\hfill & \text{if }J_1J.\hfill \end{array}$$

For $`d_{J_1}2`$ the equalities hold if additional conditions $`𝒞((n1)p(i1),d_{J_1})`$ and $`𝒞((n1)p+1,d_{J_1})`$ hold, respectively.

###### Proof.

If $`J_1=1,2`$ one has $`|B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}|_p=|H_{J_1,J}^{np,i}|_p`$ by Lemma 3.3. Combining this with (17), part (1) follows immediately. We are left to prove part (2). Assume $`J_13`$ from now on. We shall outline a proof for the case $`J=J_1`$: Let $`n,i`$ be fixed in their appropriate ranges. By Lemma 3.3(2), one has that $`|B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}|_p\mathrm{max}_{nmnp}(|H_{J_1,J}^{m,i}C^{n,m}|_p)`$ and the equality holds if the maximum is unique. Pick $`m_0:=(n1)p+1`$, then one has two cases: (a) For any $`m_0<mnp`$ one has $`|H_{J_1,J}^{m,i}|_p<p^{\frac{m_0i}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}`$ by (17); (b) Let $`nmm_0`$. The function $`c(m):=\frac{mi}{d_{J_1}(p1)}+(\frac{npm}{p1}1)=\frac{np}{p1}\frac{i}{d_{J_1}(p1)}1m\frac{d_{J_1}1}{d_{J_1}(p1)}`$ has its minimum $`c(m_0)`$. If $`d_{J_1}2`$ then this minimum is unique. By (17) and Lemma 3.1 one has

$$\underset{nmm_0}{\mathrm{max}}|H_{J_1,J}^{m,i}C^{n,m}|_pp^{c(m_0)}=p^{\frac{m_0i}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}=p^{\frac{(n1)p(i1)}{d_{J_1}(p1)}}.$$

Combining (a) and (b) one gets the desired upper bound for $`|B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}|_p`$. Suppose $`d_{J_1}2`$ and $`𝒞(m_0i,d_{J_1})`$ holds. Then the maximum is achieved uniquely at $`m_0`$ by Lemma 3.1. Combining the above, we have proved part (2) for the case $`J_1=J`$. Since other cases are similar and we omit them here, and finally we conclude the proof to our theorem. ∎

###### Theorem 3.5 (Weighted estimates).

Write $`(\alpha _1Z_J^i)_{\widehat{P}_{J_1}}=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}C_{J_1,J}^{n,i}Z_{J_1}^n`$ in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}[[Z_{J_1}]]`$. Then $`C_{J_1,J}^{n,i}=B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}\gamma ^{\frac{i}{d_J}\frac{n}{d_{J_1}}}`$ and $`\mathrm{ord}_pC_{J_1,J}^{n,i}=\mathrm{ord}_pB_{J_1,J}^{n,i}+\frac{1}{p1}(\frac{i}{d_J}\frac{n}{d_{J_1}})`$ where $`B_{J_1,J}^{n,i}`$ is as in Lemma 3.3 (2).

(1) For $`J_1=1,2`$ and $`n,i0`$ one has

(18)
$$\mathrm{ord}_pC_{J_1,J}^{n,i}\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{n}{d_{J_1}}\hfill & \text{ if }J_1=J\hfill \\ \frac{n}{d_{J_1}}+\frac{i}{p1}(\frac{1}{d_{J_1}}+\frac{1}{d_J})\hfill & \text{ if }J_1=1J\hfill \\ \frac{n}{d_{J_1}}+\frac{i}{(p1)d_J}\hfill & \text{ if }J_1=2J.\hfill \end{array}$$

The equalities hold if and only if $`𝒞(npi,d_{J_1}),𝒞(np+i,d_{J_1})`$ and $`𝒞(np,d_{J_1})`$ hold, respectively.

(2) For $`J_13`$ and $`n1,i0`$ one has

(19)
$$\mathrm{ord}_pC_{J_1,J}^{n,i}\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{n1}{d_{J_1}}\hfill & \text{ if }J_1=J\hfill \\ \frac{n1}{d_{J_1}}+\frac{i}{(p1)d_J}\hfill & \text{ if }J_1J.\hfill \end{array}$$

For $`d_{J_1}2`$ the equalities hold if conditions $`𝒞((n1)p(i1),d_{J_1}),𝒞((n1)p+1,d_{J_1})`$ hold, respectively.

###### Proof.

The first statement is clear by a simple calculation. Parts (1) and (2) follow from Lemma 3.2 and parts (1) and (2) of Theorem 3.4, respectively. ∎

Notations: let $`j,j_13`$, $`jj_1`$, $`n,i1`$. We put row minimal $`p`$-adic valuation in boxes.

## 4. Newton polygon lies over Hodge polygon

Our proof of Theorem 1.1 consists of three parts. The first two parts are in the spirit of Dwork (see \[7, Section 7\] or \[3, Lemma 2\]) after a simple reduction. The third part uses Wan’s \[28, Theorem 2.4\].

We queue up the numbers in (1) in nondecreasing order. For any $`i1`$, let $`m_i`$ be the $`i`$-th in this queue. For any $`k1`$, let $`c_k:=_{i=1}^km_i`$ and set $`c_0=0`$. It is by elementary arithmetic of Newton polygons that $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$ is equal to the connecting graph of $`\{(k,c_k)\}_{0kd}`$ on $`^2`$.

Part 1. Newton polygon of $`\alpha _1`$ over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}`$. From now on let $`𝐌`$ be the (infinite) matrix representing the $`\alpha _1`$ action on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}`$-space $`(𝐀_r)`$ with respect to the basis $`\stackrel{}{b}_\mathrm{w}`$. (See Table 1.) Write

(20)
$$\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌)=1+\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}C_kT^k𝒪_a^{}[[T]].$$

Take the minimal $`p`$-adic valuation of all entries in each row, and put them in a nondecreasing order. For any $`i1`$ let $`m_i(𝐌)`$ denote the $`i`$-th smallest row $`p`$-adic valuation of $`𝐌`$ (counting multiplicity). For every $`k1`$ let $`c_k(𝐌):=_{i=1}^km_i(𝐌)`$. By Theorem 3.5, one has

(21)
$$\mathrm{ord}_pC_{J_1,J}^{n,i}\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{n}{d_{J_1}}\hfill & \text{for }J_1=1,2\text{ and }n,i0\hfill \\ \frac{n1}{d_{J_1}}\hfill & \text{for }J_13\text{ and }n1,i0.\hfill \end{array}$$

This implies that $`m_i(𝐌)m_i`$ for all $`1id\mathrm{}+1`$. Thus by arithmetic of Newton polygons (see \[6, Lemma 1.6\]) and Fredholm theory (see \[23, Proposition 7 and its proof\]) one has that $`\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌)modT^{d\mathrm{}+2})`$ lies above the connecting graph of $`\{(k,c_k)^2\}_{0kd\mathrm{}+1}`$. The latter is precisely $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$ as remarked earlier.

Part 2. Newton polygon of $`\alpha _1`$ over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}`$. By the normal basis theorem, there exists $`\xi \mathrm{\Omega }_a`$ such that $`\stackrel{}{\xi }:=\{\xi ^{\tau ^t}\}_{0ta1}`$ is a basis for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}`$ over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}`$. Let $`𝐍`$ be the (infinite) matrix representing $`\alpha _1`$ with respect to the basis $`\stackrel{}{b}_{\mathrm{w},\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}}`$ for $`(𝐀_r)`$ as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}`$-space, where $`\stackrel{}{b}_{\mathrm{w},\mathrm{\Omega }_1^{}}`$ consists of $`Z_j^i\xi ^{\tau ^t}`$ for $`1j\mathrm{}`$, $`0ta1`$ and $`i0`$ (where $`i=0`$ only if $`j=1`$). Write $`\mathrm{det}(1T𝐍)=1+_{k=1}^{\mathrm{}}D_kT^k𝒪_1^{}[[T]].`$ We have $`\alpha _1(Z_J^i\xi ^{\tau ^t})=\alpha _1(Z_J^i)\xi ^{\tau ^{t1}}=_{J_1=1}^{\mathrm{}}_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}C_{J_1,J}^{n,i}Z_{J_1}^n\xi ^{\tau ^{t1}}.`$ Recall the lower bound of $`\mathrm{ord}_p(C_{J_1,J}^{n,i})`$ given in (21). In the two sequences

(22) $`\{m_1(𝐍),m_2(𝐍),\mathrm{},\mathrm{},m_{a(d\mathrm{}+1)}(𝐍)\}`$
(23) $`\{\underset{a}{\underset{}{m_1,\mathrm{},m_1}},\mathrm{},\underset{a}{\underset{}{m_{d\mathrm{}+1},\mathrm{},m_{d\mathrm{}+1}}}\},`$
one notes that (22) dominates (23) in the sense that the $`i`$-th term of the former sequence is greater than or equal to that of the latter. Thus $`1/a\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}(1T\alpha _1)modT^{a(d\mathrm{}+1)+1})`$ lies above the connecting graph of $`\{(k,c_k)\}_{0kd\mathrm{}+1}`$, that is $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$. By applying Proposition 2.10, one now concludes that $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ lies over $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$.

Part 3. Newton and Hodge coincide if and only if $`p1mod(\mathrm{lcm}d_j)`$. One notes that after permuting our basis $`\stackrel{}{b}_\mathrm{w}`$ for $`(𝐀_r)`$ we can arrive at a matrix $`𝐌`$ of $`\alpha _1`$ in block form satisfying the hypothesis of \[28, Theorem 2.4\]. Let $`𝐌_a`$ be the matrix representing $`\alpha _a`$ over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a^{}`$, then one knows that $`𝐌_a=\mathrm{𝐌𝐌}^{\tau ^1}\mathrm{}𝐌^{\tau ^{(a1)}}`$. Note that $`\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌_a))`$ and $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$ meet at the point with $`x`$-coordinate $`d\mathrm{}+1`$ (see Proposition 2.10). Let $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)_{<1}`$ denote the slope $`<1`$ part of $`\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$, which has horizontal length $`d\mathrm{}+1`$. By \[28, Theorem 2.4, Corollary 2.5\], one can show that $`\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌_a)modT^{d\mathrm{}+2})=\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)_{<1}`$ if and only if $`\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌)modT^{d\mathrm{}+2})=\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)_{<1}`$. That is, it is enough to show $`\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌)modT^{d\mathrm{}+2})=\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)_{<1}`$.

Let $`𝐌_{<1}`$ be the principle submatrix of $`𝐌`$ consisting of all $`C_{J_1,J}^{n,i}`$ with

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}0nd_11\hfill & \text{for }J_1=1;\hfill \\ 1nd_21\hfill & \text{for }J_1=2;\hfill \\ 1nd_{J_1}\hfill & \text{for }J_13.\hfill \end{array}$$

One notices that $`𝐌_{<1}`$ has $`d\mathrm{}+1`$ rows in total. By (21), every row of $`𝐌`$ outside these $`d\mathrm{}+1`$ rows has its minimal $`p`$-adic valuation greater than or equal to $`1`$. From matrix arithmetic of Fredholm theory, it is not hard to conclude that all segments of $`\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌))_{<1}`$ have to “come from” $`\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌_{<1})`$ in the following sense. In (20) let $`t`$ be the biggest integer such that $`\mathrm{NP}_q(_{k=0}^tC_kT^k)`$ has all slopes less than $`1`$, then for all $`kn`$ one has $`C_k=_N\pm \mathrm{det}N`$ where $`N`$ ranges over all $`k\times k`$ principal submatrices of $`𝐌_{<1}`$.

Now we assume that $`p1mod(\mathrm{lcm}d_j)`$ where $`j`$ ranges from $`1`$ to $`\mathrm{}`$. By Remark 1.4, the slope-$`0`$ segment of the Hodge polygon is always achieved. This saves us from considering the corresponding rows in $`𝐌_{<1}`$. By Theorem 3.5, for $`J_1=1,2`$ (resp. $`J_13`$) one has that $`C_{J_1,J}^{n,i}`$ in the submatrix $`𝐌_{<1}`$ achieves its minimal row $`p`$-adic value $`\frac{n}{d_{J_1}}`$ (resp., $`\frac{n1}{d_{J_1}}`$) uniquely at $`n=i`$. In summary, all minimal row $`p`$-adic valuations are achieved uniquely on the diagonal of $`𝐌_{<1}`$. These minimal row $`p`$-adic valuations are precisely the rational numbers less than $`1`$ listed in (1). By arithmetic of Fredholm theorem and analysis in Part 1, $`\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌)modT^{d\mathrm{}+2})=\mathrm{NP}_p(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌_{<1}))=\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)_{<1}`$. Combining with the above paragraph, we have shown that $`\mathrm{NP}_q(\mathrm{det}(1T𝐌_a)modT^{d\mathrm{}+2})=\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)_{<1}`$. By Proposition 2.10, one concludes that $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)=\mathrm{HP}(𝔸)`$.

Conversely, suppose $`\mathrm{NP}(\overline{f};𝔽_q)`$ coincides with Hodge. By the above argument, one has $`m_i(𝐌)=m_i`$ for all $`i`$. Because every minimal row $`p`$-adic valuation is achieved only at $`J=J_1`$ (it lies in the diagonal blocks in the matrix $`𝐌`$), the Newton polygon of $`𝐌`$ lies above the end-to-end join of those of $`𝐌_j`$ for $`1j\mathrm{}`$ where $`𝐌_j:=\{C_{j,j}^{n,i}\}_{1n,id_j1}`$. Thus the Newton polygon of $`𝐌_j`$ has to coincide with its Hodge (its Hodge polygon is defined in the obvious sense). By the remark in the second last paragraph in Section 1, one can shift the pole to $`\mathrm{}`$ so that we may assume $`p1modd_1`$. Since $`\mathrm{ord}_p(C_{1,1}^{n,i})=n/d_1`$ for some $`1i_nd_11`$ for all $`1nd_11`$, by Theorem 3.4, the condition $`𝒞(npi_n,d_1)`$ holds, and it is $`npi_nmodd_1`$. Since $`p1modd_1`$, one has $`ni_n`$ for every $`n`$. From simple linear algebra, one sees that the first slope of the Newton polygon of $`𝐌_j`$ is greater than or equal to $`\mathrm{ord}_p(C_{1,1}^{1,i_1})>1/d_1`$. A contradiction.

This finishes the proof of Theorem 1.1.

###### Acknowledgments .

I am grateful to Bjorn Poonen and Steve Sperber for communicating to me of their conjecture and for stimulating discussions. I thank Hanfeng Li for many exchanges of ideas and in particular for constructive comments on Section 2.4.


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# Atomic time-of-arrival measurements with a laser of finite beam width

## 1 Introduction

In spite of the emphasis on “observables” and “measurements” in the standard formulation of quantum mechanics, one of the fundamental difficulties of the theory is to establish the relation between “observables” represented by operators that act on the variables of the microscopic system in isolation, and actual measurements. There is no universal prescription to construct an apparatus for a given operator and, in the other direction, identifying from the macroscopic experiment the corresponding microscopic operator may also be difficult. These problems have been particularly accute, or have been perceived to be so, for time observables. According to an argument due to Pauli , there is no self-adjoint time operator conjugate to a semibounded Hamiltonian (see however ), and this limitation has hindered the research on the theoretical understanding and description of time quantities measured in the laboratories. The trend is slowly changing though . During the last two decades, many works have been devoted to find consistent theories, in terms of operators or otherwise, about characteristic times for tunneling, quantum jumps, decay, or arrival . This effort has been mostly focused on establishing fundamental theories for the isolated system, typically a structureless particle. In these theories the measuring apparatus is totally absent, at least in an explicit form, or at best modelled very schematically . We have advocated the need for an analysis of more realistic models , not only to determine how and if the ideally defined quantities can be measured but also to ascertain what usual operational methods are “really” measuring in the language of system variables. In a previous article  we have modelled the measurement by fluorescence of the time of arrival (TOA) of an atom at a given location. An important finding was that, in the limit of weak driving, the quantum current density $`J`$ may be obtained from the distribution of first photon detections $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$. This is satisfactory because, in the classical limit, $`J`$ is the correct TOA distribution for the initial states considered (with momenta fully directed towards the laser); but it is also surprising because $`J`$ may be negative in quantum mechanics, even for states formed entirely by positive momentum components . By contrast, the positive and axiomatic TOA distribution of Kijowski  was not obtained in any limit of the parameters involved, except when it is sufficiently close to $`J`$. A simplifying assumption of the model was that the laser-illuminated region had a semi-infinite width, from $`x=0`$ to $`\mathrm{}`$. This is a good approximation at very low kinetic energies, because the atom is either detected before abandoning the finite illuminated region, or reflected by the laser; but it fails otherwise. In this paper we remove that assumption and consider the more realistic case of a finite laser beam width, $`L`$.

There were two basic difficulties with a direct “good TOA measurement” in the semi-infinite model: the atomic reflection with no photon emission, due to a strong laser field, and the detection delay for a weak one. Although we could find and characterize operation regimes where the two effects were negligible in practice, the best fit with the free-motion current density was obtained for weak driving and for a short lifetime $`1/\gamma `$ of the excited state ($`\gamma `$ is Einstein’s coefficient); this avoids reflection but induces delay because, in spite of the short life time, the laser pumping is very inefficient. Nevertheless, the flux $`J`$ for the freely moving atoms may be obtained in principle from the experimental signal $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$, since, in that limit, $`\mathrm{\Pi }=JW`$, where $`W`$ is the (known) distribution of photon detection times corresponding to a laser-illuminated atom at rest.

The applicability of the above “deconvolution” method is limited because the long detection delays implied require also a large laser-beam width, and the required width increases with the atomic velocity. In practice the laser beam is of course always finite, so there is a third problem aside from reflection and delay: atomic transmission through the laser without photon detection, which mainly affects the fast components and may also cause distortion in the measured photon distribution. We shall characterize this effect, and describe several operation regimes. Finally, we shall see how, taking advantage of the Rabi oscillation induced by the laser, the flux may also be obtained by deconvolution with a finite width laser at least in two cases: for strong driving and $`\gamma 0`$, i.e., in a limit which is quite the opposite from the one used for the semi-infinite laser, and when the momentum width of the atomic wave packet is small compared to its average momentum.

## 2 The model

The setting of the modelled experiment and the fundamental theory are described in Ref.  so we shall only outline the basic ideas and equations here, emphasizing the novelties due to the finite laser-beam width. A two-level atom wave packet impinges on a perpendicular laser beam at resonance with the atomic transition. In the so called quantum jump approach  the continuous measurement of the fluorescence photons is simulated by a periodic projection onto no-photon or one-photon subspaces every $`\delta t`$, a time interval large enough to avoid the Zeno effect, but smaller than any other characteristic time. The amplitude for the undetected atoms in the interaction picture for the internal Hamiltonian obeys, in a time scale coarser than $`\delta t`$, and using the rotating wave and dipole approximations, an effective Schrödinger equation governed by the complex “conditional” Hamiltonian (the hat is used to distinguish momentum and position operators from the corresponding c-numbers)

$$H_\mathrm{c}=\widehat{p}^2/2m+\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{0}{0}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{0}{i\gamma }\right)+\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\chi (\widehat{x})\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{0}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}{0}\right),$$
(1)
where the ground state $`|1`$ is in vector-component notation $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1}{0}\right)`$, the excited state $`|2`$ is $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{0}{1}\right)`$,

$$\chi (x)=\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}<x<L}{0,\mathrm{otherwise}}$$
(2)
and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the Rabi frequency. The probability, $`N_t`$, of no photon detection from $`t_0`$, the instant when the packet is prepared far from the laser and with positive momenta, up to time $`t`$, is given by

$$N_t=e^{iH_\mathrm{c}(tt_0)/\mathrm{}}|\psi (t_0)^2,$$
(3)
and the probability density, $`\mathrm{\Pi }(t)`$, for the first photon detection by

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(t)=\frac{dN_t}{dt}=\gamma P_2,$$
(4)
where $`P_2`$ is the population of the excited state. $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ plays the role of an “operational” time-of-arrival distribution. To obtain the time development under $`H_\mathrm{c}`$ of a wave packet incident from the left we first solve the stationary equation

$$H_\mathrm{c}𝚽=E𝚽,\mathrm{where}𝚽(x)\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\varphi ^{(1)}(x)}{\varphi ^{(2)}(x)}\right)$$
(5)
for scattering states with real energy $`E=\mathrm{}^2k^2/2mE_k,`$ which are incident from the left ($`k>0`$),

$$𝚽_k(x)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}\{\begin{array}{cc}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e^{ikx}+R_1e^{ikx}}{R_2e^{iqx}}\right),\hfill & x0,\hfill \\ \left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{T_1e^{ikx}}{T_2e^{iqx}}\right),\hfill & xL.\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
These states are not orthogonal, in spite of the reality of $`E`$, because the Hamiltonian $`H_\mathrm{c}`$ is not Hermitian. The wavenumber $`q`$ obeys

$$E+i\mathrm{}\gamma /2=\mathrm{}^2q^2/2m,$$
(7)
with $`\mathrm{Im}q>0`$ for boundedness, while $`R_{1,2}`$ and $`T_{1,2}`$ are reflection and transmission amplitudes yet to be determined for the ground and excited state channels.

To obtain the form of $`𝚽_k(x)`$ for $`0<x<L`$ we denote by $`|\lambda _+`$ and $`|\lambda _{}`$ the (unnormalized and nonorthogonal) eigenstates of the matrix $`\frac{1}{2}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{0}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}{i\gamma }\right)`$ corresponding to the eigenvalues $`\lambda _\pm `$,

$`\lambda _\pm `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}\gamma \pm {\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}\sqrt{\gamma ^24\mathrm{\Omega }^2}`$ (8)
$`|\lambda _\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1}{2\lambda _\pm /\mathrm{\Omega }}}\right).`$ (9)
(Formally we assume that $`\lambda _+\lambda _{}`$. The case $`\lambda _+=\lambda _{}`$ may be treated by taking the limit.) For $`0<x<L`$, one can write $`𝚽_k`$ as a superposition of $`|\lambda _\pm `$ in the form

$`\sqrt{2\pi }𝚽_k(x)`$ $`=`$ $`C_{++}|\lambda _+e^{ik_+x}+C_+|\lambda _{}e^{ik_{}x}`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`C_+|\lambda _+e^{ik_+x}+C_{}|\lambda _{}e^{ik_{}x},0<x<L,`$ (11)
which, at variance with the semi-infinite laser case must contain now growing exponentials in addition to decaying ones. From the eigenvalue equation $`H_\mathrm{c}𝚽_k=E_k𝚽_k`$, together with $`E_k=\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m`$, there follows

$$k_\pm ^2=k^22m\lambda _\pm /\mathrm{}=k^2+i\gamma m/2\mathrm{}i\sqrt{\gamma ^24\mathrm{\Omega }^2}m/2\mathrm{},$$

with Im$`k_\pm >0`$. The continuity of $`𝚽_k(x)`$ and its derivative at $`x=0`$ and $`x=L`$ leads to eight equations with eight unknowns and to explicit but rather lengthy expressions for the coefficients of the wave function in the laser region, see (10), and for the transmission and reflection amplitudes. We shall not display them here but discuss different limits, approximations and numerical examples.

An important simplification occurs for kinetic energies above $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{}/2`$ or, equivalently, for de Broglie wavelengths $`2\pi /k`$ smaller than the Rabi-wavelength $`2\pi v/\mathrm{\Omega }`$: the stationary wave may be very well approximated according to the classical idea that the atom moves along an unperturbed classical trajectory, without reflection, and with its internal level populations oscillating quantally in the laser-illuminated region. Specifically, $`𝚽(𝐱)`$ in the laser region ($`0<x<L`$) can be approximated as the product of the internal wave function for the atom at rest, assuming a pure ground state at an entrance instant $`t=0`$, and making the substitution $`t=x/v`$, times the translational plane wave $`e^{ikx}/(2\pi )^{1/2}`$,

$$𝚽(x)=\frac{e^{ikx}e^{\gamma x/4v}}{(2\pi )^{1/2}}\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{cos}[\frac{x}{2v}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }^2\gamma ^2/4}]+\frac{\gamma }{2\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }^2\gamma ^2/4}}\mathrm{sin}[\frac{x}{2v}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }^2\gamma ^2/4}]}{\frac{i\mathrm{\Omega }}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }^2\gamma ^2/4}}\mathrm{sin}[\frac{x}{2v}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }^2\gamma ^2/4}]}$$
(12)
whereas to the left of the laser $`R_1R_20`$, and to the right the transmission amplitudes $`T_{1,2}`$ are obtained by continuity from (6) and (12). In particular,

$$T_2=e^{i(kq)L}e^{\gamma L/4v}\frac{i\mathrm{\Omega }}{(\mathrm{\Omega }^2\gamma ^2/4)^{1/2}}\mathrm{sin}\left[\frac{L}{2v}(\mathrm{\Omega }^2\gamma ^2/4)^{1/2}\right].$$
(13)
The validity of this semiclassical approximation for the translational part of the stationary waves does not mean that every wave packet with energy components well above $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{}`$ behaves classically. Two or more different stationary components may add up coherently in the time dependent wavefunction, leading to very non-classical interference effects, as we shall see in an example below.

If $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }(k)`$ denotes the wavenumber amplitude that the wave packet would have as a freely moving packet at $`t=0`$, then

$$𝚿(x,t)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑k\stackrel{~}{\psi }(k)𝚽_k(x)e^{i\mathrm{}k^2t/2m}$$
(14)
describes the “conditional” time development of the state for an undetected atom which in the remote past comes in from the left in the ground state.

## 3 Operation regimes

Figure 1 shows the total detection probability, or “absorption” due to the non-hermitian potential, $`A=1|T_1|^2|R_1|^2`$, versus the incident velocity $`v`$ and Rabi frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for the stationary wavevectors $`𝚽_k`$. $`A`$ may also be understood as the probability that the particle be reflected or transmitted in state $`|2`$, or be detected through a photon emission in the laser region. We may distinguish several regions in the $`v`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ plane (these regions are also portraid in figure 2) depending on three basic criteria, each associated with a dimensionless parameter:

* Reflection: Except for very weak driving, where it is not significant, reflection is important for kinetic energies below or around $`E=\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{}/2`$, (dashed line in figure 2), but vanishes when $`E>>\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{}/2`$.
* Laser intensity: Strong driving for $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\gamma >1`$, and weak driving for $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\gamma <1`$.
* Laser beam width: Let $`l`$ be the “penetration length” of the stationary wave in the semi-infinite laser region, that we may estimate as five times the detection delay  multiplied by the atomic velocity $`v`$,

$$l=5v\left(\frac{2}{\gamma }+\frac{\gamma }{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}\right).$$
(15)
For $`L>l`$ the laser behaves effectively as a semi-infinite one. This regime, to the left of the curved solid line of figure 2, corresponds essentially to the one examined in the previous paper. The exact expressions for wave functions, reflection and transmission amplitudes obtained in  are good approximations for the finite width laser if $`L>l`$ but fail otherwise. Figure 3 shows the critical “temperature” versus $`L`$ (for Cs atoms and $`\gamma =33.3\times 10^6`$ s-1) above which the finite width of the laser has to be taken into account.

For a constant $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, at moderate to strong driving, $`A`$ increases very sharply from zero to one at low $`v`$. This increase is not visible in figure 1 because of the scale, but can be seen in the close-up of figure 4. The small absorption near $`v=0`$ is due to reflection into the ground state. After the rapid increase of $`A`$ at low $`v`$ along a constant $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ line, there follows a plateau of perfect detection, still within the “semi-infinite laser” regime, see again figure 1. Gradually, for higher and higher velocity $`v`$ and in strong driving conditions, the plateau is substituted by an oscillating pattern. The absorption surface to the right of the plateau resembles a fan, which can be explained in terms of the semiclassical picture and the finiteness of the laser “barrier”. The ridges correspond to combinations of parameters where the Rabi oscillation leaves the excited state population at a maximum on the laser edge $`L`$, so that the decay takes place behind the laser, at $`x>L`$, with a detection delay $`1/\gamma `$ from the instant when the classical trajectory leaves the laser.

Each ridge corresponds to a number $`n+1/2`$ of Rabi oscillations between $`x=0`$ and $`x=L`$, and will be indexed by $`n=0,1,2\mathrm{}`$. Neglecting the effect of $`\gamma `$ within the laser region, the velocity at the ridge for a given $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is given by

$$v_n=\frac{L\mathrm{\Omega }}{(2n+1)\pi }.$$
(16)
Equivalently, each absorption ridge may be characterized by the straight line

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_n=\frac{(2n+1)\pi v}{L}$$
(17)
in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$$`v`$ plane. The first one, for $`n=0`$, corresponds to a spatial version of a $`\pi `$ pulse, i.e., the velocity, laser-beam width, and Rabi frequency are just the right ones to pump the (semiclassical) atom, from the ground state at $`x=0`$ to the excited state at $`x=L`$, in half Rabi oscillation. Note from (16) that the fan structure “folds upwards” by decreasing $`L`$, because smaller lengths require higher laser intensities to achieve full detection. The minima at the valleys correspond to an entire number of Rabi oscillations. These minima are not exactly zero due to the absorption that takes place in the laser region. As the velocity $`v`$ increases, however, this absorption decreases, as may be seen in figure 5. Finally, for velocities greater than $`v_0`$, the atom is too fast for being completely excited during the crossing of the laser-illuminated region, and the absorption decreases monotonously. The solid line in figure 5 shows a cut of the absorption surface along a constant-$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ line for strong driving conditions.

The velocity window for nearly complete detection on a ridge along a constant-$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ line is larger for smaller $`n`$. This is also clearly illustrated in figure 5. A simple formula for the window width $`\mathrm{\Delta }_W`$ around the maximum where absorption is better than $`99\%`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_W<\left[\frac{2}{\pi (2n+1)}\right]^2\frac{L\mathrm{\Omega }}{10}=\frac{4v_n}{10\pi (2n+1)}.$$
(18)
Notice that even in the best case, $`n=0`$, a wave packet located essentially within one of these windows of full detection will have a small width $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ compared to its average velocity. In particular, for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_W=8\mathrm{\Delta }v`$,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }v\frac{v_n}{(2n+1)60}.$$
(19)
An interesting feature of the transmission amplitude $`T_2`$ at the detection maxima is its alternating sign, $`i`$ for $`n`$ even, and $`i`$ for $`n`$ odd, see (13). We shall comment on physical consequence below.

The above description is not applicable to weak driving conditions. Reflection in particular is less important at low velocities than for strong driving, and it vanishes for any $`v0`$ when $`\gamma /\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{}`$. Also, the plateau of full detection is much narrower than for strong driving, and for higher velocity $`v`$ along a constant-$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ line, the laser does not have enough intensity to produce Rabi oscillations, so the absorption decays monotonously with $`v`$, see figures 1, 4, and 5.

The detection delay for a given incident wavenumber will in general have contributions from the laser region and from the region outside. The delays in the laser region are $`2/\gamma `$ for strong driving or $`\gamma /\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ for weak driving when $`L>l`$ , or fractions of these quantities for smaller laser-beam widths, whereas the detection delay once the (semiclassical) excited atom arrives at $`L`$ is $`1/\gamma `$. This later contribution would be very small for large (ideally infinite) $`\gamma `$, but in this limit, with all other parameters constant, there would not be excitation at all. One might then imagine the case where both $`\gamma `$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are infinite, but with a constant ratio $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\gamma `$. In this case, however, the penetration length goes to zero, and the semi-infinite laser result, $`R_11`$, applies, so that all atoms would be reflected without being excited . Another not very helpful limit is $`L0`$, with all other parameters fixed, because all atoms are transmitted in the ground state without being detected111One might of course insist on using the information of the very few detected atoms and normalize, but the result is strongly biased in favour of the slowest energy components.. “Good” direct (no delay, full detection) measurements are possible, but only within specific parameter ranges. For moderate velocities, i.e., provided $`L>l`$ for the wave packet momentum components, and above the reflection region, the measurement on the full-detection plateau can be very efficient, as illustrated in Ref. . This requires, for strong or weak driving,

$$\frac{\mathrm{}}{E}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}+\frac{\gamma }{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}\frac{2}{\gamma }\frac{L}{5v},\mathrm{\Delta }t,$$
(20)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is the time span of the wave packet passage. Even when these conditions are fulfilled, the observed $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is only approximately equal to $`J`$. Unfortunately, the deconvolution used in Ref.  to get the flux $`J`$ exactly for large $`\gamma `$ may be impossible to implement with a finite-width laser at large velocities, since the penetration length $`l\mathrm{}`$ as $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$. The following section provides a way out which, again, is not universal but depends in fact on rather restrictive conditions.

## 4 An ideal distribution

Full detection is achieved sufficiently close to the ridges of the fan structure for moderate to strong driving. The first maximum, corresponding to $`n=0`$, is particularly suitable because it provides the largest momentum window of nearly complete absorption. Let us assume that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`L`$ may be adjusted so that most of a wave packet lies within an absorption maximum. As in the weak driving case of the semi-infinite laser, full detection comes with a price: the detection delay due to the time necessary to de-excite the atom, now outside the laser illuminated region. We have pointed out already that a short lifetime (a large $`\gamma `$) “solves” this problem but also creates a new one: the absence of excitation and therefore of detection. This suggests that the useful limit may be quite the opposite, namely, $`\gamma 0`$. The long delay can then be substracted using a convolution formula to obtain an “ideal” distribution that coincides with the flux when $`\gamma 0`$, or, quite independently of $`\gamma `$, for narrow wave packets in momentum space.

To define from the “experimental” $`\mathrm{\Pi }(t)`$ an idealized arrival-time distribution, we shall assume

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{E}}<<{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}}\stackrel{<}{}{\displaystyle \frac{L}{v}}<<{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma }},`$ (21)
so that we can use the semiclassical and strong driving approximations neglecting the effect of $`\gamma `$ between 0 and $`L`$, since the only significant absorption (i.e., detection) occurs for $`x>L`$.

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{id}}(t)`$ is then defined by the convolution formula

$$\mathrm{\Pi }=\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{id}}W,$$
(22)
where

$$W(t)=\gamma e^{\gamma t}$$
(23)
is the probability density to detect a photon at time $`t`$ if the atom is excited at $`t=0`$ in the laser-free region. Even though (22) is in fact the equation that defines $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{id}}`$, there is of course a “classical” physical motivation for the convolution structure. If the arrival time of the atom, and the time of photon emission from the arrival instant were independent random variables, then the distribution for the sum of these two quantities would have precisely that form. It turns out, as discussed in Ref.  that $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{id}}`$ may become negative so, generically, this simple hypothesis does not hold true quantum mechanically. This does not invalidate $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{id}}`$, but should make us cautious about its interpretation: it plays the role of a time of arrival density in quantum mechanics, but does not share all the properties of the corresponding classical density, most prominently positivity. This resembles the status of the Wigner function, which plays the role of a classical phase-space probability density but can also be negative.

The ideal distribution $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{id}}`$ is obtained from the relation between Fourier transforms, $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{\mathrm{id}}=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}/\stackrel{~}{W}`$ where $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}(\nu )=𝑑te^{i\nu t}\mathrm{\Pi }(t)`$ etc. From (23) one finds

$$\stackrel{~}{W}(\nu )=\frac{\gamma }{i\nu +\gamma },$$
(24)
so that, in the time domain,

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{id}}(t)=\mathrm{\Pi }(t)+\frac{1}{\gamma }\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(t).$$
(25)
If the wave packet is centered at one of the absorption maxima, and the momentum width satisfies (18), the atoms are all pumped to the excited state, $`|T_2|1`$, and we may write

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(t)=\frac{\gamma }{2\pi }_L^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x𝑑k𝑑k^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }(k)\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}(k^{})e^{i(EE^{})t/\mathrm{}}e^{i(qq^{})x}.$$
(26)
Performing the $`x`$ integral, and approximating the resulting denominator according to (21),

$$qq_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{}kk^{}+\frac{i\gamma m}{2\mathrm{}}\frac{k+k^{}}{kk^{}},$$
(27)
one finally gets

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{id}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑k𝑑k^{}e^{i(EE^{})t/\mathrm{}}e^{i(kk^{})L}\stackrel{~}{\psi }(k)\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}(k^{})}`$ (28)
$`\times `$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{i\gamma +(k^2k^2)\mathrm{}/2m}{(kk^{})+\frac{i\gamma m}{2\mathrm{}}\left(\frac{k+k^{}}{kk^{}}\right)}}\right].`$
The term in square brackets tends to the kernel of the integral that gives the current density $`J`$,

$$\frac{(k+k^{})\mathrm{}}{2m},$$
(29)
in several limits. Using $`k^{}=k+\delta `$, this occurs in particular for $`\gamma 0`$, and also for $`\delta /k0`$ independently of the value of $`\gamma `$, as long as (21) is satisfied. In this later case, namely for a small momentum width in comparison to the momentum itself, (29) coincides also with the kernel of Kijowski’s axiomatic TOA distribution,

$$\frac{(kk^{})^{1/2}\mathrm{}}{m},$$
(30)
since $`kk^{}`$ and the arithmetic and geometric means in (29) and (30) coincide. The condition of small momentum-width also implies that the effect of the derivative in (25) is negligible, and that, even if the last inequality of (21) fails, $`J`$ can be obtained very accurately by normalizing the observed results. An example is shown in figure 6, where two Gaussians on the top of a single ridge have been added coherently,

$$\psi =\psi _a+\psi _b,$$
(31)
to produce an interference pattern in the flux.

According to (19), the condition $`\mathrm{\Delta }v/v<<1`$ is necessarily fulfilled when the wave packet momenta are within one ridge of maximum detection, so that the flux and Kijowski’s distribution will coincide, i.e., no negative values of $`J`$ may be found in this case. In order to measure backflow the wave packet must be located within the full detection plateau and then proceed as in Ref.  but the finite width of the laser beam imposes a maximum speed for this method to work. Another route would be to use different ridges of maximum detection for each gaussian. The two gaussians should be on odd or even $`n`$ ridges but not on contiguous ones because of the sign change of the transmission amplitude mentioned below (19).

## 5 Conclusions

In this paper we have analyzed the measurement of the arrival time of an atom at a given location by means of a laser that illuminates a finite region. Repeating the experiment many times for a given atomic preparation produces an “observed distribution” of first fluorescence photons $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$, that will in general be distorted with respect to the “axiomatic” distribution of Kijowski $`\mathrm{\Pi }_K`$ or the flux $`J`$ (both evaluated for the isolated atom, i.e., without the laser) because of detection delay, and atomic reflection or transmission without photon detection. (In general even if the three problems are made negligible $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is only approximately equal to these “ideal” quantities.) It is possible to correct for the distortions due to detection delays, at least in certain limits, and obtain the current density by deconvolution. In the present model the laser beam intensity has sharp edges to facilitate the analytical examination but very similar results have been obtained for a more realistic Gaussian profile, see figure 7.

This work has been supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (BFM2000-0816-C03-03), UPV-EHU (00039.310-13507/2001), and the Basque Government (PI-1999-28).

## References