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# Melting transition of an Ising glass driven by magnetic field.

## Abstract

The quantum critical behavior of the Ising glass in a magnetic field is investigated. We focus on the spin glass to paramagnet transition of the transverse degrees of freedom in the presence of finite longitudinal field. We use two complementary techniques, the Landau theory close to the $`T=0`$ transition and the exact diagonalization method for finite systems. This allows us to estimate the size of the critical region and characterize various crossover regimes. An unexpectedly small energy scale on the disordered side of the critical line is found, and its possible relevance to experiments on metallic glasses is briefly discussed.

Understanding disordered systems is one of the main challenges of condensed matter physics, since the presence of disorder is always unavoidable in experiments. When disorder is strong it can dominate the physics and lead to exotic states of matter such as the glassy phasesfisher . The most salient properties observed in glassy systems are the slow dynamical relaxation and history dependence of thermodynamics. Research on quantum spin systems is of primary importance because of potential technological applications. Current work in quantum computing and spintronics, where the understanding of relaxation processes is crucial qcomputers ; spintronics , is boosting a renewed interest in basic models of disordered quantum magnets.

The goal of the present work is to consider the random Ising model that displays a quantum paramagnet to spin glass transition driven by fluctuations introduced by an external magnetic field. We tackle the problem by utilizing two different theoretical approaches. We solve the model using the recently introduced technique of exact diagonalization that includes the averaging over an ensemble of disorder realizations in a finite system. The relevant results are then obtained by extrapolation of the data to the thermodynamic limitar-prl ; ar-prb . This method allows for a direct investigation of the T=0 behavior in the whole range of parameters, circumventing thus the usual technical difficulties encountered in the replica formalism. On the other hand, to investigate in detail the critical behaviorsachdev , we formulate the Landau theory in the vicinity of the quantum phase transitionsach1 ; denvlad . The consistency check of results obtained using those two approaches allows us not only to confirm their reliability, but also to identify an unexpectedly narrow subregime near the phase boundary, in which the rapid onset of the glassy ordering occurs. We discuss the significance of our findings for the current experiments on metallic glassesmetalicglass .

We consider the random Ising model that is placed in a magnetic field that has both the transverse and longitudinal components,

$`H={\displaystyle \underset{<ij>}{}}J_{ij}\mathrm{S}_i^z\mathrm{S}_j^z{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}𝐡𝐒_i.`$ (1)
The random interactions $`J_{ij}`$ are chosen to be infinite range and Gaussian distributed with variance $`J`$, that sets the unit of energy in the model, while $`𝐡=(h^T,0,h^L)`$. This model has an experimental realization in the LiY1-xHoxF4 compound that has been the subject of recent experiments aeppli1 ; aeppli2 . In this insulating compound, the ground state of the magnetically active Ho ions is the low energy Ising doublet. In addition to that, the long-range nature of dipolar interactions between the spins enables us to perform the treatment in the large coordination limit. Disorder in the system arises from the fact that the substitutions of the Y atoms by the Ho ions are positionally random. The strong randomness leads to the clear observation of the spin-glass and ferro-glass phases at low concentration $`x`$ holmio .

To investigate the transition in the system described by the Hamiltonian (1), we employ two methods that complement each other in their scope and range of applicability. The main theoretical tool we use to obtain the detailed analytic behavior is based on the Landau theory approachsach1 ; denvlad . Though attractive, this method is rigorously valid only close to the quantum critical point, so that the actual range of applicability of this approach is always difficult to assess. Hence, in addition, we also use the exact diagonalization scheme, in which one has to obtain the solution of $`H`$ for a number of explicit realizations of disorder (typically several tens of thousands). The procedure is implemented on finite systems of up to 17 spins. The physical observables, such as gaps or spectral functions, are obtained along the lines of Ref.ar-prb . In this approach, no a priori assumptions are made, and its validity is limited by the reliability of the required extrapolations to the large size limit. The main reason for success of the previous applications of the method is that for high connectivity models the numerical extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit is rather well behaved. Nevertheless, as we shall see and discuss later on, in the present study we find a certain range of parameters,where the previous statement does not hold. Remarkably, this circumstance allows us to gain new insight into the problem.

It is useful to characterize the parameter space by $`h^L`$ and $`h^T`$, the longitudinal and transverse components of external magnetic field $`𝐡`$ respectively. The pure transverse field case was the subject of previous investigations ar-prl . At T=0, the existence of the quantum phase transition was established for a value of $`h^TO(J)`$. At this point the spin-spin dynamical local suceptibility becomes gaplessmillerhuse ; daniel . When the longitudinal field is turned on, the net longitudinal magnetization is immediately generated and the critical point extends into a quantum critical line $`h_c^T(h_c^L)`$. This line separates the two phases, in which the transverse degrees of freedom of spins are either disordered (large $`h^T`$ and $`h^L`$) or spin-glass ordered (small $`h^T`$ and $`h^L`$). As we shall show, the excitation gap closes at this critical line, becoming very small in some crossover region on the disordered side of the line.

The Landau functional is constructed using the cumulant expansion about the quantum critical point at zero longitudinal field. Both the term with random interactions and the part with longitudinal field in the Hamiltonian (1) are treated as perturbations. This procedure implies that the longitudinal magnetic field $`h^L`$ is small compared to the primary microscopic energy scale $`h^TJ`$. The derivation is straightforward and leads to the following Ginzburg-Landau actionsach1

$`\beta ={\displaystyle \underset{a,\omega _n}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r+\omega _n^2}{\kappa }}\right)Q^{aa}(\omega _n)+{\displaystyle \frac{u}{2\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _n}{}}Q^{aa}(\omega _n)\right]^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{3}}{\displaystyle \underset{abc}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _n}{}}Q^{ab}(\omega _n)Q^{bc}(\omega _n)Q^{ca}(\omega _n){\displaystyle \frac{\beta h^2}{2}}Q^{ab}(\omega _n=0)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\beta y}{6}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau _1𝑑\tau _2\underset{ab}{}\left[Q^{ab}(\tau _1\tau _2)\right]^4}.`$ (2)
Here $`r`$, being some function of $`h^T/J`$, is the parameter that governs the transition, while $`u`$ and $`y`$ are taken at the critical point $`(h^T/J)_\mathrm{c}O(1)`$. It is important to retain the quartic term, responsible for the RSB instabilitydenvlad . We must insert then the mean field ansatz

$$\kappa Q^{ab}(\omega _n)=\{\begin{array}{cc}D(\omega _n)+\beta q_{\mathrm{EA}}\delta _{\omega _n,0},\hfill & a=b,\hfill \\ \beta q_{ab}\delta _{\omega _n,0},\hfill & ab.\hfill \end{array}$$

into Eq.(Melting transition of an Ising glass driven by magnetic field.) and vary subsequently the free energy with respect to $`D(\omega _n)`$, $`q_{EA}`$ and $`q_{ab}`$. The parametrization of $`q_{ab}`$ depends, however, on the phase under consideration. In the disordered paramagnetic phase (PM) we must use the replica-symmetric ansatz $`q_{ab}=q_{EA}`$, while in the spin glass phase (SG) the solution with a broken symmetry should be useddenvlad ; georges . The variational procedure is lengthy albeit identical to that performed in the previous works. As a result, we obtain that the equation determining $`D(\omega _n)`$ is the same in both PM and SG phases and reads

$`r+\omega _n^2+u\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _n}{}}D(\omega _n)+q_{\mathrm{EA}}\right]D^2(\omega _n)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2y}{\kappa ^2}}q_{\mathrm{EA}}^2D(\omega _n){\displaystyle \frac{2y}{\kappa ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{q_{\mathrm{EA}}}{\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _1}{}}D(\omega _1)D(\omega _1\omega _n)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2y}{3\kappa ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _1,\omega _2}{}}D(\omega _1)D(\omega _2)D(\omega _1\omega _2\omega _n)=0.`$ (3)
This equation must be supplemented by

$`2D(0)q_{\mathrm{EA}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2y}{3\kappa ^2}}q_{\mathrm{EA}}^3+{\displaystyle \frac{h^2\kappa }{2}}=0`$ (4)
in the PM phase and

$`q_{\mathrm{EA}}^2=[D(0)\kappa ^2]/y`$ (5)
in the SG phase, to comprise the full system to be solved self-consistently. Though the exact treatment of this system is not possible, we can obtain the leading order of the correct solution close to the quantum critical point. We consider here only the case of $`T=0`$, so that all the sums over Matsubara frequencies are substituted by the corresponding integrals.

We notice first that, if $`y=0`$, the complete solution is easily derived to be sach1  $`D(\omega _n)=\sqrt{\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}`$. The gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$, that turns to zero right at the critical point, is determined using the following identity

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }(\omega ^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2)^{1/2}}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\omega ^2}{2\pi }}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}(c_1\mathrm{\Lambda }_\omega /\mathrm{\Delta })`$ (6)
In Eq.(6) $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\omega `$ is the upper frequency cutoff and $`c_1`$ is some constant of order unity. Let’s assume that for $`y0`$ the leading approximation of $`D(\omega _n)`$ contains the same square root singularity as for $`y=0`$, and analyze how the last two terms in Eq.(Melting transition of an Ising glass driven by magnetic field.) affect the solution in the leading approximation. Simple inspection reveals that in the prelast term it is sufficient to put $`\omega _n=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ while calculating the integral over $`\omega _1`$. This contributes only to the renormalization of the coefficient $`u`$ before $`q_{\mathrm{EA}}`$, so that $`uq_{\mathrm{EA}}u_1q_{\mathrm{EA}}`$.

The last term requires, however, the calculation of the integral

$`K(\mathrm{\Delta },\omega _n)={\displaystyle \frac{d\omega _1}{2\pi }\frac{d\omega _2}{2\pi }\sqrt{\omega _1^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\sqrt{\omega _2^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}`$
$`\times \sqrt{(\omega _1+\omega _2+\omega _n)^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2},`$ (7)
that is difficult to perform exactly for arbitrary $`\omega _n`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$. We need, however, only the leading behavior of this integral provided $`\omega _n,\mathrm{\Delta }1`$. A simple estimate yields:

$`K(\mathrm{\Delta },\omega _n)=A+B\omega _n^2+C_1\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mathrm{ln}(C_2/\mathrm{\Delta }),`$ (8)
where the constants $`A,B,C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ are some cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\omega `$ dependent functions. We see that the first term in the above expression renormalizes the critical value $`r_c`$ (equal to $`u\mathrm{\Lambda }_\omega ^2/2\pi `$ for $`y=0`$), while the contribution from the second one can be simply absorbed by the appropriate rescaling of temperature $`T`$ in $`\omega _n^2`$. The third term in Eq.(8) leads to the renormalization of the coefficient before the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-dependent part of Eq.(6).

Similarly as in Ref.denvlad , we obtain that in the PM phase

$`D(\omega _n)=yq_{\mathrm{EA}}^2/\kappa ^2\sqrt{\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }^2={\displaystyle \frac{rr_c+u_1q_{\mathrm{EA}}}{u_2\mathrm{ln}[Cu_2/(rr_c+u_1q_{\mathrm{EA}})]}},`$ (9)
where $`C,u_1`$ and $`u_2`$ are again some $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\omega `$ dependent functions of the order unity. As a result of solution of Eqs.(Melting transition of an Ising glass driven by magnetic field.) and (4), one can distinguish the following regimes on a ($`rr_c`$, $`h`$) plane (see Fig.1).

(I) In this regime, in which $`h(rr_c)^{3/4}`$, $`q_{\mathrm{EA}}`$ is the smallest parameter and can be treated as a perturbation. As a result, we obtain with the logarithmic accuracy, that $`q_{\mathrm{EA}}=(\kappa h^2)/4\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\{(rr_c)/u_2\mathrm{ln}(1/(rr_c)\}^{1/2}`$. This equation shows that when $`h^L`$ becomes non zero, $`q_{\mathrm{EA}}`$ also becomes finite even in the PM phase due to the finite magnetization along the longitudinal axis.

The expression for the gap was first obtained in Ref.millerhuse  and sach2  that considered the $`h^L`$=0 case. To answer the question of the region of validity of the Landau approach, we use the exact diagonalization method to obtain the gap as a function of $`h^T`$ at $`h^L`$=0. The results are shown in Fig.2. The agreement at small values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ demonstrates the reliability of our methods and gives an indication of the size of the critical region.

(II) This region is characterized by the condition $`|rr_c|^{3/4}h`$. In the leading approximation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\{(u_1\kappa h^2)/4u_2\mathrm{ln}(1/h^{4/3})\}^{1/3}`$, while $`q_{\mathrm{EA}}\{(\kappa h^2/4)\sqrt{(u_2/u_1)\mathrm{ln}(1/h^{4/3})}\}^{2/3}`$.

(III) This regime, in which $`(r_cr)^{3/4}h`$, is the closest to the $`T=0`$ critical boundary. The EA order parameter, that crosses over to its value in the glassy phase, is given by $`q_{\mathrm{EA}}=[(r_cr)/u_1]+(u_2\mathrm{\Delta }^2/u_1)\mathrm{ln}\left[1/\mathrm{\Delta }^2\right]`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\kappa u_1h^2/4(r_cr)][2y(r_cr)^2/3u_1^2\kappa ^2]`$. From this expression it is easily seen that $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ vanishes at the critical line given by $`h=(8y/3)[(r_cr)/u_1\kappa ]^{3/2}`$.

Finally, in the SG phase:

$`D(\omega _n)=yq_{\mathrm{EA}}^2/\kappa ^2|\omega _n|,q_{\mathrm{EA}}=(r_cr)/u_1,`$ (10)
resulting in a gapless form of the spectral density $`\mathrm{Im}\chi (\omega )\omega `$.

We would like now to discuss the nature of the crossover between subregimes II and III in more detail. A rather surprising result, one obtains from the exact diagonalization method, is that in fact the freezing transition of the transverse degrees of freedom takes place at the critical boundary line given by $`h_{c\mathrm{ED}}^T|h^Lh_c^L|^{3/4}`$ (see Fig. 3). This result was verified by two different criteria: (i) the divergence of the spin-glass susceptibility given by $`J^2[\chi _{loc}^{zz}]^2=1`$, and (ii) the vanishing of the excitation energy gap of the regular part of the dynamical spin susceptibility, that corresponds to the so called ”replicon” modegeorges . It is notable that the infinite system size extrapolations for these two different freezing transition criteria do agree well. However, these results seem paradoxical since the Landau theory predicts a phase transition boundary with a different functional form, namely, $`h_c^T|h^Lh_c^L|^{3/2}`$ (and different curvature, see Fig. 2).

This paradox is resolved upon further scrutiny of the results from the Landau theory. To this end, it is important to note that, in the presence of the non-zero longitudinal field, the critical behavior of the gap is different than at $`h^L=0`$. It takes a much slower, linear form $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\delta r)\delta r`$ ($`\delta r`$ is the distance to the critical line), becoming the new effective small energy scale that characterizes the region III. This linear regime of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\delta r)`$ crosses over to the regime II, at values of $`r_cr(\kappa u_1h^2/4)^{2/3}u_2^{1/3}\mathrm{ln}^{1/3}(1/h^{4/3})`$. Remarkably, this is precisely the functional form obtained for the critical line (and gap closure) from the numerical calculation.

The key point is that for systems of the size that one can diagonalize, the physics of the small gap is masked by the finite size effects, affecting thus the validity of extrapolations. This is a well known limitation of exact diagonalization studies that occurs in systems in which the small energy scales emergehm-1d . Interestingly, similar discrepancies are found in the prediction of the de Almeida - Thouless (AT) line in the classical Sherrington-Kirkpatrik (SK) model (with $`h^T=0`$) in a longitudinal field. Numerical calculations suggest that the critical temperature is $`T_c|h^Lh_c^L|^{3/4}`$, instead of the correct result $`T_c|h^Lh_c^L|^{3/2}`$. In the classical case, this can be an indication that the free energies of the ordered and paramagnetic phases are actually very close within a crossover region in the $`Th^L`$ diagram, equivalent to the region III of Fig. 1. The large finite-size effects were found also in the recent numerical simulations of the classical model skfiniteT , and are possibly relevant to the anomalous behavior observed in experimental studies of the AT line mal . For the quantum systems, such small gaps may be also difficult to observe in experiments as well as in numerical calculations. In contrast, in regions I and II, the $`r`$-dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ assumes a form similar to the zero field limit (see Eq.(Melting transition of an Ising glass driven by magnetic field.), except that $`r`$ is shifted by the quantity $`u_1q_{\mathrm{EA}}`$). Since in region II (dropping logarithmic corrections) $`q_{\mathrm{EA}}h^{4/3}`$, we conclude that the crossover line separating regions II and III may play a role of an *apparent* critical line, below which the gap, although finite, may assume unobservable small values.

This outstanding feature, which was overlooked in previous works, may have important consequences. For instance, it may be responsible for the peculiar observation of the quenching of the nonlinear susceptibility at the quantum critical point of the LiY1-xHoxF4 series wu . Another example is the electron glass model that was recently described in Ref. denvlad  and for which essentially identical arguments apply. In this case the dynamical exponent is $`z=1`$, and we find that the crossover energy scale (corresponding to the gap in the Ising case) behaves as $`\mathrm{\Delta }\delta r^2`$ and corresponds to a crossover temperature separating the Fermi liquid regime (at low $`T`$) from the quantum critical regime (at high $`T`$). The second power in $`\delta r`$ indicates an even broader quantum critical regime than in the Ising case. Such an extended quantum critical region may result in enhanced dissipation at low temperatures, a possibility which may bear relevance for the puzzling absence of weak localization (interference) corrections in certain two-dimensional electron gases in the low density regime.

We thank S. Sachdev for useful discussions and suggestions. This work was supported by the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (DD and VD), NSF grants DMR-9974311 and DMR-0234215 (VD), CONICET (LA and MJR) UBACyT and Fudación Antorchas (MJR).


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# Strong Universality in Forced and Decaying Turbulence

## I Introduction

The statistical theory of fluid turbulence is concerned with correlation functions of the turbulent velocity vector field $`𝒖(𝒓,t)`$ where $`𝒓`$ is the spatial position and $`t`$ the time 75MY . Since the velocity field is a vector, multi-point and multi-time correlation functions are in general tensor functions of the vector positions and the scalar times. Naturally such functions have rather complicated forms which are difficult to measure and to compute. Consequently, almost from its very beginning, the statistical theory of turbulence had been discussed in the context of an isotropic and homogeneous model. The notion of isotropic turbulence was first introduced by G. I. Taylor in 1935 35Tay . It refers to a turbulent flow, in which the statistical averages of every function of the velocity field and its derivatives with respect to a particular frame of axes is invariant to any rotation in the axes. This is a very effective mathematical simplification which, if properly used, can drastically reduce the mathematical complexity of the theory. For this reason, it was very soon adopted by others, such as T. D. Kármán and L. Howarth 38KH  who derived the Kármán-Howarth equation, and A. N. Kolmogorov 41Ka ; 41Kb  who derived the 4/5 law. In fact, most of the theoretical work in turbulence in the past sixty years had been limited to the isotropic model.

Within the homogeneous and isotropic model there developed the notion of universality of turbulence. By universality, we mean the tendency of different turbulent systems to show, for very large Reynolds numbers $`e`$, the same small-scales statistical behavior when the measurements are done far away from the boundaries. The statistical objects (see bellow for definitions) exhibit approximately the same scaling exponents whether they are measured in the atmospheric boundary layer, in a wind tunnel or in a computer simulation, provided they are measured far from the boundaries. Moreover, the accumulated experimental knowledge over the years indicated that not only in forced, stationary turbulence, but also in decaying turbulence, there is a regime of time where the statistical objects exhibit the same scaling properties. This phenomenon was explained 75MY  by the widely separated time scales (“eddy turn over times”) that characterize large and small length scales in turbulence. While turbulence was decaying on the time scale of the large eddies, the small one had ample time to reach an “energy-flux equilibrium” that in terms of scaling behavior was indistinguishable from forced turbulence. Thus there exists a wide-spread belief that at least from the point of view of scaling exponents, forced and decaying turbulence are in the same universality class, sharing the same scaling exponents of the corresponding correlation functions.

To actually prove this type of universality in experiments and simulations is however far from straightforward. To achieve reasonable precision in the measurement of scaling exponents one needs large ranges of scales where scaling prevails, and this entails large Reynolds numbers. Unfortunately large Reynolds numbers are available usually when anisotropic effects are large, like in the atmospheric boundary layer or in large wind tunnels. Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) can be used to eliminate anisotropy almost completely (up to lattice anisotropy which are unavoidable in simulations), but they are limited to relatively low $`e`$, notwithstanding the very recent simulations of size $`4096^3`$ 02Kan . Decaying turbulence is even harder to characterize precisely, since the effective Reynolds number decreases in time. Thus actual measurements of scaling properties are fraught with difficulties, corrections to scaling, effects of anisotropy and what not. As a result, over the years 95BO  and also very recently, it was proposed 00FONGY  that structure functions in forced and decaying turbulence have different exponents. In this paper we take a strong stand, proposing that the universality that actually exists in turbulence is even stronger than what has been anticipated so far.

To make our point clear, recall that the statistical description of fully developed turbulence employs correlation functions and structure functions. These are ensemble average of velocity differences across a length-scale $`R`$. In the theoretical studies of turbulence the two most common ensemble averages are over realizations of the forcing when one studies forced turbulence, or over initial conditions when one studies decaying turbulence. The longitudinal structure functions are the simplest such objects, being moments of the longitudinal components of the velocity difference between two points. We will denote the longitudinal structure functions in forced and decaying turbulence by $`S_p`$ and $`F_p`$ respectively, with the precise definitions

$`S_p(R)\{[𝒖(𝒓+𝑹,t)𝒖(𝒓,t)]{\displaystyle \frac{𝑹}{R}}\}^p_\mathrm{f},`$ (1)
$`F_p(R,t)\{[𝒖(𝒓+𝑹,t)𝒖(𝒓,t)]{\displaystyle \frac{𝑹}{R}}\}^p_\mathrm{i}.`$ (2)
Here $`𝒖(𝒓,t)`$ is the velocity field measured at point $`𝒓`$ at time $`t`$. $`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{f}`$ and $`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{i}`$ stand for ensemble averaging over the forcing and the initial conditions respectively. In writing Eq. (1) we assumed that the forcing is stationary in time, homogeneous and isotropic, and thus $`S_n`$ is a function of the scalar $`R`$ only. In writing Eq. (2) we assumed that the initial condition are homogeneous and isotropic. Of course the decaying structure functions are by definition time dependent. The widely spread belief 75MY ; 53Bat ; 95Fri  is for $`R`$ values in the inertial range of turbulence (much smaller than the forcing scale but much larger than the dissipation scale), the scaling exponents $`\zeta _p`$ that characterize $`S_p(R)`$, i.e. $`S_p(\lambda R)=\lambda ^{\zeta _p}S_p(R)`$, are the same as the scaling exponents that characterize $`F_p(R,t)`$ for a given value of $`t`$. Of course also here $`R`$ should be well in the (time dependent) inertial range and $`t`$ should be neither too small nor too large 00SS . In the sequel we refer to the identity of the only scaling exponents of these two sets of objects (if it exists) as “the weak version of universality”. As mentioned above the existence of the weak version of universality is by no means accepted by everybody in the field of turbulence. Since there is no proof of this universality, doubts of its existence linger, and for example in 00FONGY  it was concluded that the scaling exponents of the two families of statistical objects are not the same. We note however that in the same paper it was stated that the scaling exponents of the longitudinal and transverse structure functions are also not the same. It was shown recently however that such statements stem from incomplete treatments of the effects of anisotropy 98ADKLPS ; 00KLPS , leaving hope that the weak version of universality is still correct.

In fact, in this paper we will propose that not only the weak version of universality is correct, but in fact also a “strong version of universality” is applicable. By the latter we mean that once properly normalized, the structure functions $`F_p`$ and $`S_p`$ agree not only in exponents but also in amplitudes. In the context of the 2nd order structure function this is not a new statement. The universality of ($`\zeta _2`$ and $`C_2`$) was already stated in the 80’s by Yaglom 81Yag  and Kader 84Kad . Analyzing hundreds of experiments made in different flows under different conditions, Sreenivasan in 1995 came to the conclusion that “the Kolmogorov constant $`C_2`$ is *more or less* universal, essentially independent of the flow as well as the Reynolds number (for $`R_\lambda >50`$ or so),.. with the average value of $`C_20.53`$ with a standard deviation of about 0.055” 95Sre . Nevertheless the universality of $`C_2`$ and $`C_p`$ for $`p4`$ is still under debate. For example, very recently in 03BBCLTV  the authors argued on the basis of a $`256^3`$ DNS “in favor of an “exponents only” universality scenario for forced turbulence”.

We believe that this strong version of universality was never stated before, and the common thinking is that amplitudes depend in a non-universal way on details of the forcing or the preparation of the decaying turbulence. While true, we will argue that the freedom afforded by such details is very limited, amounting at the end to just one free number, which, once taken into account, the strong version of universality applies.

Besides being an issue of fundamental importance to turbulence, there is another reason for returning at this time to the correspondence between force and decaying turbulence. The reason is that the riddle of anomalous scaling of correlation and structure functions in forced turbulent advection (passive and active) had been solved recently. First in the context of the non-generic Kraichnan model of passive scalar advection 01FGV , and then, in steps, for passive vectors 96Ver ; 00AP , generic passive scalars and vectors 01CV ; 01ABCPV ; 02CGP  and finally for generic active scalar and vectors 01CMMV ; 02CCGP ; 03CCGP . The common thread of this advance is that anomalous scaling is discussed in the context of the decaying (unforced problem), in which one shows that there exist Statistically Preserved Structures (eigenfunctions of eigenvalue 1 of the appropriate propagator of the decaying correlation functions). The decaying problem is independent of forcing, and one shows that the statistics of the forced problem is dominated by the same Statistically Preserved Structures that are identified in the decaying problem. The calculation of the anomalous exponents boils down then to calculating eigenfunctions of linear operators. In these problems the correspondence between the decaying and forced statistics is proven mathematically or demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt by careful numerics. A crucial ingredient in all this progress is that turbulent advection is described by linear pde’s. There is therefore an urgent question how to translate (if it is possible) the newly acquired insights to the non-linear turbulent problem itself, be it the Navier-Stokes equations or any of the shell models that were frequently discussed recently in the context of anomalous scaling. In this paper we make a step in this direction, analyzing the decay of the Sabra shell model 98LPPPV  and showing numerically that the statistics of the decaying state and the forced turbulent state are the same in exponents and in amplitudes up to one freedom (the time dependent mean energy). We opt to work with the shell model rather than the Navier-Stokes equations simply because the accuracy required for our aims exceeds the available scaling ranges and decay times for the latter. We express a strong belief that very similar results can be demonstrated also for Navier-Stokes turbulence. Indeed, in a future publication we will present the theory that stands behind the present numerical findings and demonstrate that the basic structure of that theory is the same for shell models and the Navier-Stokes equations.

The paper is organized as follows: in Sec. II we introduce the shell model and the numerical simulations that we perform. We present the data for the energy decay and explain what is the time domain for which we should compare the decaying and the forced statistics. In Sec. III we present the results for forced structure functions for different types of forcing. In determining the exponents and the amplitudes of these functions one has to be extra careful - we explain that one needs to find fits to functions throughout their range of existence. It is not enough to plot log-log plots for the inertial range. In Sect. IV we present the data for the decaying correlation functions, and explain how to find their exponents and amplitudes once the time dependence is taken into account. We explain theoretically that the decaying structure functions contain sub-leading contributions that decay fast toward small scales and do not affect the leading scaling exponents. The results of our calculations are summarized in Table 1 which is the central result of this paper, giving strong support to the conjecture of strong universality. In Sec. V we present a summary and some concluding remarks.

## II Model and energy decay

### II.1 Model and objectives

The Sabra shell model 98LPPPV , like all shell models, is a reduced dynamical description of turbulence in terms of complex variables $`u_n`$ which represent velocity amplitudes associated with wavenumber $`k_n=k_0\lambda ^n`$. The equations of motion are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{du_n}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`i(ak_{n+1}u_{n+2}u_{n+1}^{}+bk_nu_{n+1}u_{n1}^{}`$
$`ck_{n1}u_{n1}u_{n2})\nu k_n^2u_n+f_n,`$
where the symbol  stands for complex conjugation and $`\nu `$ is the “viscosity”. The coefficients $`a,b`$ and $`c`$ are chosen such that $`a+b+c=0`$. This guarantees the conservation of the “energy”

$$E=\underset{n}{}|u_n|^2,$$
(4)
in the inviscid ($`\nu =0`$) forceless limit. As it is well known, the Sabra model has a second quadratic invariant, analogous to the helicity in fluid mechanics, of the form

$$H=\underset{n}{}(a/c)^n|u_n|^2.$$
(5)
In this paper we will compare the statistics of the forced solution (with the forcing $`f_n`$ restricted to the first and second shells, $`n=1,2`$) to the statistics of the decaying problem with $`f_n=0`$ for all $`n`$. The comparison will be presented in terms of the time-independent forced structure functions $`S_n`$ and time dependent decaying structure functions $`F_n`$ defined as follows:

$`S_2(k_n)`$ $``$ $`|u_n|^2_\mathrm{f};F_2(k_n,t)|u_n|^2_\mathrm{i},`$
$`S_3(k_n)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{Im}u_{n1}u_nu_{n+1}^{}_\mathrm{f};`$ (6)
$`F_3(k_n,t)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{Im}u_{n1}u_nu_{n+1}^{}_\mathrm{i},`$
$`S_4(k_n)`$ $``$ $`|u_n|^4_\mathrm{f};F_4(k_n,t)|u_n|^4_\mathrm{i},`$
$`S_6(k_n)`$ $``$ $`|u_n|^6_\mathrm{f};F_6(k_n,t)|u_n|^6_\mathrm{i}.`$
Here $`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{f}`$ and $`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{i}`$ represent averaging with respects to realizations of the forcing and the initial condition respectively for the forced and decaying problem.

The main result of the present work is that in this model there exists *strong universality*. This means that in the bulk of the inertial interval the “decaying” structure functions $`F_p(k_n,t)`$ take on the form

$$F_p(k_n,t)=C_p\left[\frac{\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)}{k_0}\right]^{p/3}\lambda ^{n\zeta _p},$$
(7)
with *the same anomalous scaling exponents* $`\zeta _p`$ and *the same dimensionless constants*  $`C_p`$, as in the scaling laws of the “forced” structure functions

$$S_p(k_n,t)=C_p\left[\frac{\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{f}}{k_0}\right]^{p/3}\lambda ^{n\zeta _p}.$$
(8)
Here

$$\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)\epsilon _n(t)_\mathrm{i},\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{f}\epsilon _n(t)_\mathrm{f}.$$
(9)
In these equations the instantaneous value of the energy flux going through $`n`$th shell (in a given realization) is

$`\epsilon _n(t)=2k_n[`$ $``$ $`a\lambda \mathrm{Im}\{u_n(t)u_{n+1}(t)u_{n+2}^{}\}`$
$`+`$ $`c\mathrm{Im}\{u_{n1}(t)u_n(t)u_{n+1}^{}\}].`$
(for more details, see 98LPPPV ). The only difference between Eqs. (7) and (8) is that the energy flux $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)`$, averaged over the statistics of the initial conditions, is decaying in time, while the energy flux $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{f}`$, averaged over the statistics of the forcing, is time independent. Eqs. (7) and (8) imply that the probability distribution function (PDF) of the velocity fluctuations $`u_n`$ on scales $`k_n`$ within the inertial range in decaying turbulence can be obtained from the corresponding PDF in stationary forced turbulence (and vise versa). This is achieved simply by the interchange $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{f}`$. Moreover, strong universality means that the PDF dependence on $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)`$ for the fine scales in decaying turbulence is independent of the initial conditions, providing that the Reynolds number $`\mathrm{e}1`$ and all the initial energy is concentrated in the region of large scales (first shells). Similarly, the PDF dependence on $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{f}`$ for the fine scales in forced turbulence is independent of the statistics of forcing for $`\mathrm{e}1`$, provided that the forcing is concentrated in the region of large scales.

The rest of this paper is devoted to substantiating these (strong) propositions, which can be summarized in the terms of the existence of a probability distribution function

$$𝒫(u_1,\mathrm{},u_N,t)=\left[v(t)\right]^NP(x_1,\mathrm{},x_N),$$
(11)
in which $`x_iu_i/v(t)`$ and $`v(t)[ϵ_n(t)]^{1/3}`$ is the corresponding velocity scale.

### II.2 Simulations

The calculations presented bellow were carried out for the Sabra model with 28 shells, $`\lambda =2,`$ $`a=1,`$ $`b=c=0.5,`$ $`k_0=2^4`$ and $`\nu =10^7`$. In our simulations we employed two different types of forcing. We denote them as Forced 1 and Forced 2. Forced 1 has white noise added to the equation of the first shell. Forced 2 is forced by a Gaussian force on the first shell which is correlated exponentially in time. In both cases the amplitude of the force in the first shell was chosen $`f_1=0.01`$, while the forcing amplitude in the second shell was adjusted to reduce the helicity input $`f_2=\sqrt{(c/a)}f_1`$, for more details, see 98LPPPV , pp. 1813 and 1815.

In the decaying case, the total initial energy $`E_0`$ in the two first shells was kept constant. The amplitude of the first two shell velocities were defined as $`|u_1(0)|^2=\alpha E_0`$ and $`|u_2(0)|^2=(1\alpha )E_0`$ with $`\alpha `$ random, uniformly distributed in the interval $`[0,1]`$. The phases in both shells were random, uniformly distributed in the interval $`[0,2\pi ]`$. A $`4^{\mathrm{th}}`$ order Runge-Kutta scheme with adaptive time step was applied. The total energy decay was followed for 9 decades in time. The statistical objects were accumulated during 5 decades in time.

Two recording schemes for the decaying turbulence were applied. In one case (denoted as Decay 1), the data were recorded starting after a short transient time with $`E_0=10`$. For this case, the data was averaged over 13200 initial conditions. In another case ( Decay 2), the data were recorded when the energy in each realization have reached the value $`E=0.1`$ with $`E_0=5`$. This data was averaged over about $`37000`$ initial conditions. The decay of the total energy for two cases, plotted with an appropriate time shift, are shown in Fig. 1. It is clear that the two schemes are equivalent for the study of the advanced stages of the decay.

### II.3 The law of energy decay

We first discuss the total energy decay, where the total energy $`E(t)`$ is defined as

$$E(t)=\underset{n}{}|u_n|^2.$$
(12)
In the Navier-Stokes case the law of energy decay had been intensively studied following the influential works of Taylor 35Tay , Kolmogorov 41Ka ; 41Kb , Batchelor and Townsend 47BT ; 53Bat . For recent development, see, e.g. Ref. 00FONGY  and references therein. It was found that $`E(t)t^n`$ with the decay exponent, $`n`$, ranging between 1 and 5/2. This large degree of uncertainty stems from difficulties in pinpointing the energy spectrum at scales larger than the energy containing scale $`L`$. It is also not easy to determine how $`L`$ depends on time. Take for example the case of grid turbulence in a wind tunnel. Immediately behind the grid $`L`$ is of the order of the mesh size. It increases however with the distance from the grid. Downstream $`L`$ may saturate at the wind tunnel diameter. In this regime the phenomenological analysis 00FONGY  predicts $`n=2`$, which is a number that is not in contradiction with experiments 00SS . The same prediction ($`n=2`$) was reached in DNS of the Navier Stokes equation 95BO  and for the GOY shell model Lohse . This prediction was shown to be in agrement with numerical simulation in which $`L`$ is time independent due to the special choice of initial conditions.

For the sake of completeness we review the theoretical analysis of Lohse , and show that our simulations of the Sabra shell model are in excellent agreement with its predictions.

Consider a decaying solution with the energy initially concentrated, say, in the first two shells, see Fig. 2, upper panel. Time is measured in natural time units $`T`$ which are determined by the characteristic time of the first shell, $`T=1/5k_0\sqrt{E_0}`$ ($`E_0`$ is the total initial energy). One sees that during one $`T`$ the energy cascaded down to the 6th shell, and during $`2T`$ down to the 12th shell. At later times the cascade process accelerates, and the energy goes from the 13th shell to “infinite” shells during a time that is roughly between $`2.75T`$ and $`3T`$. As expected, the completion of the cascade process requires a finite time $`T_{}`$ of a few units $`T`$. In our case $`T_{}3T`$.

For $`t>T_{}`$ the total energy of the system $`E(t)`$ begins to decay with

$$\frac{dE(t)}{dt}=\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t).$$
(13)
Accordingly, the time dependent Reynolds number $`\mathrm{e}(t)`$, which is proportional to $`\sqrt{E(t)}`$, decreases, and the viscous cutoff $`k_d(t)`$ is moving toward smaller shell numbers, as is shown in Fig. 2, lower panel. For example, $`k_d(10^5T)2^{12}`$, $`k_d(10^8T)2^3`$ and the inertial interval almost disappeares. For larger times all the energy is contained in the first shell, and it decays exponentially,

$$E(t)\mathrm{exp}[2\nu k_1^2t],$$
(14)
following the linear part of the equation of motion for the first shell.

For intermediate times, which in our simulations span the eight orders of magnitude for $`3T<t<10^8T`$, the slope of plots of log$`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{2}^{}(k_n)`$ vs $`n`$ remains more or less constant. This is a manifestations of the time independence of the scaling exponents. Taking this as a fact, one immediately see from Eq. (7) for $`p=2`$ that $`E(t)[\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)]^{2/3}`$ and hence $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)[E(t)]^{3/2}`$. Note that this result is independent of the precise value of the scaling exponent $`\zeta _2`$, anomalous or not. Thus Eq. (13) can be presented as

$$\frac{dE(t)}{dt}=\kappa [E(t)]^{3/2},$$
(15)
with a pre-factor $`\kappa `$, which may be expressed via the parameters of the shell model, $`k_0`$, $`\zeta _2`$ and $`C_2`$. Approximately, $`\kappa k_0`$. In our calculations, both Decay 1 and Decay 2, $`\kappa =0.0687`$, while $`k_0=0.0625`$. The solution of Eq. (15) is

$$E(t)=E_{}\frac{t_{}^2}{(t+t_{})^2},$$
(16)
where $`t_{}=2/\kappa \sqrt{E_{}}`$ and $`E_{}`$ is the integration constant.

The results of the numerical simulations for the total energy, $`E(t)`$, (cf. Fig. 3, solid line), are in excellent agreement with Eq. (16), which is shown in the figure as a dashed line. The total energy decay was followed for 9 decades in time. After 1.5 decades of transient behavior, the decay of total energy follows very closely the $`t^2`$ law, until at about 6 decades the viscous scale reaches the first shells and the decay become exponential in agreement with Eq. (14).

## III Forced structure functions

In this section we present results for the forced structure functions. As far as the scaling exponents are concerned, there is not much novelty in this section, the exponents are basically the same as those reported in a number of previous publications. The new aspect stressed here is that of the coefficients $`C_p`$ of the structure functions, cf. Eq. (8). We demonstrate that these coefficients are independent of the forcing, and that the scaling form proposed in Eq. (8) is indeed universal.

To get an accurate determination of the scaling exponents and of the coefficients, and to be able to demonstrate strong universality, it is mandatory to fit the measured data to model functions that contain the presumed dissipative behavior. Failing to do so results in inaccuracies that may lead to infinite confusions. As a first step in analysis of the data we fit the normalized structure functions $`S_p/E^{p/2}`$ with the fit formula Eq. (44) from 98LPPPV :

$$P_p(k_n)=\frac{A_p}{k_n^{\zeta _p}}\left(1+\alpha _p\frac{k_n}{k_{\mathrm{d},p}}\right)^{\mu _p}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{k_n}{k_{\mathrm{d},p}}\right)^x\right],$$
(17)
where

$$A_p,\zeta _p,\alpha _p,\mu _p,k_{\mathrm{d},p},\mathrm{or}n_{\mathrm{d},p}\mathrm{log}_2k_{\mathrm{d},p}$$

are the fit parameters and $`x=\mathrm{log}_\lambda (1+\sqrt{5})/2`$ is the exponent of the viscous range. The parameters $`A_p,\zeta _p`$ determine the behavior of $`P_p(k_n)`$ in the inertial interval, $`k_{\mathrm{d},p}`$ determines the viscous cutoff. The “auxiliary parameters” $`\alpha _p,\mu _p`$ correct the behavior in the transient inertial-viscous region.

To obtain the best fit we minimize the error function:

$$=\sqrt{\underset{n}{}\left(1\frac{\mathrm{log}_{10}P_p(k_n)}{\mathrm{log}_{10}S_p(k_n)}\right)^2},$$
(18)
where $`S_p`$ refers to the numerically obtained data. Both sets of forced structure functions data were fit with all the shells taken into account except the first two and the last three shells, to minimize the boundary effects.

The quality of the fit may be seen in Fig. 4. The forced data are shown normalized by the respective total energy, but not compensated by $`k_n^{\zeta _p}`$. Then the different structure functions are separated and data for Force 1 and Force 2 cases may be distinguished.

The fit procedure allows us to express the structure function in the inertial range as $`S_p=A_pE^{p/2}k_n^{\zeta _p}`$. To calculate the coefficients $`C_p`$ we have now estimate the value of the energy flux $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{f}`$\[ see Eq. (8)\]. We use the exact result for $`S_3`$ to express $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{f}`$ via $`A_3`$ and parameters of the model Eq. (20). The coefficient $`C_p`$ of the structure functions, other than $`S_3`$, may be therefore written as:

$$C_p=\frac{a_p}{[2a_3(ac)]^{p/3}}.$$
(19)
The results are summarized in the Table 1. Before we discuss this Table, which is the central result of this paper, we turn to the analysis of the decaying structure functions and add their analogous results to the Table as well.

## IV Decaying structure functions

In this section we present results for the decaying structure functions, including the numerical support for the strong universality proclaimed in Eq. (7). We caution the reader (and whoever wants to repeat these calculations in other systems, including Navier-Stokes decaying turbulence), that the issue is fraught with sub-leading contributions, even in the isotropic sector. One obvious sub-leading term is provided by the rate of change of $`F_p(k_n,t)`$ which is coupled, via the infinite hierarchy of equations, to terms involving $`F_{p+1}(k_m,t)`$, with $`m`$ of the order of $`n`$. To see this phenomenon clearly and to learn how to take it into account we discuss first the case of the 3rd order structure function which can be dealt with analytically.

### IV.1 Sub-leading corrections to the scaling of decaying turbulence

The easiest case for theoretical analysis of the scaling behavior of the decaying structure functions $`F_p(k_n,t)`$ is the case $`p=3`$, for which in the forced case $`S_3(k_n)`$ is known exactly 98LPPPV . For simplicity we will discuss here the helicity-free case, for which

$$S_3(k_n)=\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{f}/k_n(ca).$$
(20)
We will show now that in the decaying case strong universality is realized, but only well within the inertial range. In the vicinity of the energy containing scales there are significant sub-leading corrections caused by the time dependence of $`\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)`$.

To find these corrections, consider the equation of motion of the 2’nd order structure in the inertial interval (i.e. for $`k_nk_d`$) {Eq. (9) of Ref. 98LPPPV }:

$$\frac{dF_2(k_n,t)}{2k_ndt}=a\lambda F_3(k_{n+1},t)+bF_3(k_n,t)+\frac{c}{\lambda }F_3(k_{n1},t).$$
(21)
In the stationary case, the LHS of this equation vanishes and Eq. (20) is a solution. In the decaying case, let

$`F_3(k_n)`$ $`=`$ $`F_3^{(0)}(k_n,t)+\delta F_3(k_n,t),`$ (22)
$`F_3^{(0)}(k_n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\epsilon }_\mathrm{i}(t)}{k_n(ca)}}.`$
In the intermediate time regime $`F_2(k_n,t)(t+t_{})^2`$,

$$dF_2(k_n,t)/2k_ndtF_2(k_n,t)/k_n(t+t_{}).$$
(23)
Comparing with Eq. (21), we see that the leading solution for $`F_3`$ gains a sub-leading term $`\delta F_3(k_n,t)k_n^{(1+\zeta _2)}`$ or more precisely

$$\delta F_3(k_n,t)\frac{F_2(k_n,t)}{(t+t_{})k_n(a\lambda ^{\zeta _2}+b+c\lambda ^{\zeta _2})}.$$
(24)
Notice, that $`F_3^{(0)}(k_n,t)`$ and $`\delta F_3(k_n,t)`$ have the same time dependence, $`(t+t_{})^3`$, but different scaling. As a result, their ratio is time independent; the sub-leading term does not become relatively smaller in time. On the other hand it decays relatively to the leading term as $`k_n`$ increases:

$$\frac{\delta F_3(k_n,t)}{F_3^{(0)}(k_n,t)}\frac{1}{\lambda ^{n\zeta _2}}.$$
(25)
Although the 3rd order structure function is easiest to handle, it is clear that there will always be a subleading term added to $`F_p`$ from the time derivative of $`F_{p1}`$ which appears in the infinite hierarchy of equations. Since these equations always have $`k_n`$ on the RHS, one can immediately guess the general form of the correction to scaling for $`F_p`$, i.e.

$$\frac{\delta F_p(k_n,t)}{F_p(k_n,t)}\frac{1}{\lambda ^{n(1+\zeta _{p1}\zeta _p)}}.$$
(26)
This means that the sub-leading term of the $`p`$-order structure functions decreases toward small scales roughly as $`\lambda ^{2n/3}`$ for “normal” K41 scaling, and somewhat slower for anomalous scaling. Strong universality of the turbulent statistics is thus expected only deeply in the inertial interval.

### IV.2 Numerical results

All calculated statistical objects were normalized by the total energy, $`F_p(k_n,t)/E^{p/2}(t)`$. All the normalized, compensated decaying structure functions show a plateau. To enrich the statistics the data were first normalized by the total energy and then averaged over one tenth of a temporal decade. For the same reasons that were explained in the case of the forced objects, the fit region for the decaying structure functions was chosen from $`n=3`$ to $`n=n_{\mathrm{d},p}+5`$ for the Decay 1 data and from $`n=5`$ to $`n=n_{\mathrm{d},p}+5`$ for the Decay 2. For $`t=10^5T`$ $`n_d7`$ and only very few shells may be considered as the “inertial interval”. Therefore the fit parameters become unreliable. The quality of the fit can be seen in Fig. 5 for $`t`$ between $`20T`$ and $`10^4T`$. For $`t20T`$ the flux equilibrium cannot be guaranteed and the coefficients $`C_p`$ and the exponents may be not universal. This is definitely the case for $`t10T`$. The decaying structure functions are plotted normalized by the total energy and compensated to emphasis the fact that main effect is the shift of $`k_{\mathrm{d},p}`$.

## V Summary and discussion

In summary, we analyzed, using the Sabra shell model of turbulence, “forced” structure functions $`S_p(k_n)`$ for two types of forcing, and “decaying” structure functions $`F_p(k_n,t)`$ for two types of initial conditions, (called Decay 1 and Decay 2). For Decay 1 we considered four times, which differ in order of magnitudes ($`t=20T,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^2T,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^3T,`$ and $`10^4T`$, where $`T`$ is the characteristic time of the 1st shell). For Decay 2 we considered three different times $`t=10^2T,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^3T,`$ and $`10^4T`$. In all these cases we found the scaling exponents, $`\zeta _p`$, and the dimensionless amplitudes, $`C_p`$, for the three even orders $`p=2,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}`$ and $`6`$. The results are collected in Table 1 together with our estimates of the error bars.

We can state that our results support the conjecture of strong universality within the numerical accuracy. Concerning the fact that before the data analysis presented above the raw results contained objects differing by orders of magnitude, the degree of precision of the identity of the amplitudes $`C_p`$, and the exponents $`\zeta _p`$, shown in Table 1 should be taken very seriously. We propose that all the results presented by previous authors with negative indications about universality (even of the weak type) stem from problems in handling the corrections to scaling, either from anisotropy or from dissipative or other boundary effects.

It should be stressed at this point that the strong universality observed here is not expected in the much simpler problem of turbulent advection. The difference stems from the linearity of the advection problem vs. the nonlinearity of the Navier-Stokes problem and its shell counterpart. In the linear advection problem one finds equations for the statistical objects that decouple for each order $`p`$. The independent $`p`$-order equations determine the anomalous scaling exponent $`\zeta _p`$ from solvability conditions, leaving the amplitude $`C_p`$ to be found by matching the scale invariant correlation function in the inertial interval with its non-universal “boundary conditions” at energy contained scales. The amplitudes $`C_p`$ depend therefore on the details of the non-universal forcing, and the statistics of the turbulent advection problem may exhibit weak universality only. In contrast, the nonlinearity of the Navier Stokes equations and their shell-model counterparts leads to coupled, hierarchical equations for all the $`p`$-order statistical objects that have to be solved for simultaneously. This rigid structure allows much less freedom than the linear advection problem, leading to the possibility of strong universality.

Finally, we comment on a possible theoretical support for the strong universality conjecture. We propose that a necessary condition for strong universality is the locality of interaction, which allows to formulate (see Refs. 98LP ; 98BLP ; 98BLPP ) the hierarchy of equations in terms of inertial-range objects only. The locality of energy transfer over scales, which is built in the shell models of turbulence, is an assumption in the Richardson-Kolmogorov cascade picture of turbulence, see, e.g. 75MY ; 41Ka ; 95Fri . The locality of interaction was demonstrated in Ref. 95LP , using the Belinicher-L’vov transformation of the Navier-Stokes equations 87BL , which allows to eliminate from the theory the sweeping effect. Once we have a theory in terms of inertial-range objects, it is quite acceptable that amplitudes should be universal as well, up to an overall single parameter which is the energy flux per unit time and mass. An elaboration of these ideas will be presented in a future publication. At this point we finish with the conjecture that strong universality is a property shared also by Navier-Stokes turbulence.

###### Acknowledgements.

This research was supported in part by Israel Science Foundation administered by the Israeli Academy of Science and the European Commission under the TMR network “Nonideal Turbulence”.


text:
# Compressing compound states

## I Introduction

The technique of quantum date compression Schumacher (1995) (cf. Petz and Mosonyi (2001); Hiai and Petz (1991)), can be used to tranform a signal from a quantum source onto a smaller number of qubits in order to obtain more efficient storage or transmision. In this scenario, one is interested in preserving the signal, and one discards the redundant qubits. These redundant qubits are then thought of as containing no information, and can be regarded as being in some known (or standard) state. One might also be interested in applying this technique in another situation, namely, in the case where one treats the signal as noise, and instead, one is interested in obtaining pure states in a standard state. Such a situation was considered in Schulman and Vazirani (1998) where it was applied to produce more pure initial states for a NMR quantum computer. In this case, “the signal” is actually noise and one compresses and discards this noise to isolate the pure states (see Janzing, Wocjan, Zeier, Geiss, and Beth (2000) in this context).

Such a technique is also useful from the point of view of a paradigm introduced in Oppenheim, Horodecki, Horodecki, and Horodecki (2002a). There, one considers parties in distant labs who share a state $`\rho _{AB}`$, and who wish to distill local pure states. This can be thought of as the complementary procedure Oppenheim, Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, and Horodecki (2002b) to the usual situation, where they attempt to distill entanglement. It was found that this paradigm allows one to understand nature of correlations in shared quantum states. The insight came from thermodynamics, where pure states in a known state can be treated as a resource and used to extract work from a single heat bathSzilard (1929). A more information theoretic analysis was done in Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Oppenheim, Sen(De), and Sen (a) and Horodecki, Horodecki, and Oppenheim (b) where the techniques of quantum information, including compression where applied to such a paradigm.

Here, we expand on the ideas introduced in Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Oppenheim, Sen(De), and Sen (a) and show in greater detail how to apply techniques developed by Rains Rains (2000) for entanglement theory, to the paradigm of distilling pure product states. This allows to express the problem of distilling local information in terms of compression with restricted means.

## II Concentration of subjective and objective information

In this section we will discuss the dual pictures of compression of quantum information. We will follow the approach of Ref. Horodecki, Horodecki, and Oppenheim (b). Let us first calculate the rate of compression in the general case where one is free to perform all operations.

Given a state $`\varrho ^n`$, with $`\varrho `$ acting on Hilbert space $`C^d`$ one can ask for the smallest Hilbert space that still carries most of the weight of the state. Such a Hilbert space is called the typical subspace. In other words we would like to know the minimal dimension of the projector $`P`$ satisfying

$$\mathrm{Tr}\varrho ^nP1ϵ.$$
(1)
The interesting characteristic is the number of qubits of the typical subspace, per input copy $`\varrho `$

$$R_ϵ=\underset{n}{lim}\frac{1}{n}\mathrm{log}\mathrm{Tr}P.$$
(2)
where $`P`$ is chosen to have minimal dimension under the restriction (1). It turns out Hiai and Petz (1991) that for $`ϵ(0,1)`$, $`R_ϵ`$ does not depend on $`ϵ`$ and is equal to the von Neumann entropy of $`\varrho `$

$$R_ϵR=S(\varrho )$$
(3)
The rate $`R`$ can be interpreted as the amount of qubits needed to carry the signal produced by the source, for which the density matrix of $`n`$ messages is $`\varrho ^n`$. The actual scheme of transmission of the information from the source is as follows. One makes a measurement given by the identity resolution $`\{P,IP\}`$ and with high probability the outcome corresponding to $`P`$ is obtained. Then the resulting state collapses onto the typical subspace (the subspace of the projector $`P`$). Thus the support of the state has now dimension $`2^{nS}`$. The total system can be now unitarily transformed into the state $`\varrho ^{}|\psi \psi |`$. The state $`\varrho ^{}`$ carries the information, while the state $`|\psi \psi |`$ represents redundancies. The state resides on the tensor product of two spaces: the ”signal space” $`_s`$ consisting of $`nS`$ qubits and the ”redundancy space” $`_r`$ consisting of $`n(\mathrm{log}dS)`$ qubits.

After we have perform concentration of information we have two opposite schemes. In the ”subjective” scenario information is randomness, and it is represented by the signal part. One then keeps this part, while discarding redundancies. This is the usual interpretation of Schumacher compression. The signal contains the information because it contains something which we have to read in order to learn about it. The more random something is, the more information it has. We are surprised by its contents.

In the opposite scheme – the ”objective” scenario – the information is purity. A known pure state contains information because we know what the state it. A standard pure state is something which is known to us, hence we consider it to be information. Here, the “signal part” is treated as noise, and is rejected, while the redundancy part represents a valuable resource - qubits in pure states. The former approach is in spirit of Shannon, while the latter one is of thermodynamic origin and is in the spirit of Brillouin and Szilard.

Note that in the first scenario, one has to be careful that the operation does not damage the information of the signal part. Thus the compression is attained by a highly degenerated measurement, so that the pure states - individual signals - will not loose their quantum coherences. However if we are interested in the pure part, then we can make a measurement that is non-degenerate. In particular it can be a complete measurement, with one dimensional projectors. Then, if the noise were actually some ”quantum information”, it would get totally destroyed. But the pure part would remain untouched (if the measurement is chosen in such a way that $`|\psi `$ corresponds to possible outcomes).

In this paper we are interested in the ”objective” scenario, and information for us is ”purity”. The rate of obtaining pure qubits is given by

$$R^{conc}=\mathrm{log}dS=\mathrm{log}d\underset{n}{lim}\frac{1}{n}\mathrm{log}\mathrm{Tr}P\varrho ^n$$
(4)
(recall that $`P`$ depends on $`n`$). This is equal to the information $`I`$, and is a unique measure of informationHorodecki, Horodecki, and Oppenheim (b). One can generalize the picture, by replacing the projectors with positive operators Rains (2000). One is then interested in the positive operator $`A`$ of mimimal trace, satisfying

$$\mathrm{Tr}(\varrho ^nA)1ϵ$$
(5)
It turns out that the rate is the same as in the case of projectors. Thus one can express the rate of concentration of information as follows

$$R^{conc}=\mathrm{log}d\underset{n}{lim}\frac{1}{n}\mathrm{log}\mathrm{Tr}A\varrho ^n$$
(6)
where $`A`$ is chosen to have minimal trace and satisfy the condition (5). In the following section we will see that the concentration of information in the distnt lab paradigm is connected with a similar quesiton, however the operator $`A`$ will be suitably constrained.

## III NLOCC maps and dual maps

In entanglement theory, the paradigm is based on considering Local Operations and Classical Communciation (LOCC maps). Here we will define a map which we call NLOCC mapsHorodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Oppenheim, Sen(De), and Sen (a) for Noisy Local Operations and Classical Communication. The motivation for using NLOCC maps, as opposed to the usual LOCC maps is that here we are interested not in distilling singlets, but in distilling pure product states, and so, care must be taken to properly account for all pure states, including local ancillas, involved in any transformation. We will show that the dual map of an NLOCC map is (up to a factor) also an NLOCC map. We will need this to represent distillation to product states as compression with restricted means.

### III.1 NLOCC maps

NLOCC maps are any maps that can be composed of the following maps:

1. local unitary transformations
2. adding quantum system in a maximally mixed state
3. discarding local subsystems (local partial trace)
4. sending subsystems down completely decohering (dephasing) channels

The latter channel is of the form

$$\varrho _{in}\varrho _{out}=\underset{i}{}P_i\varrho _{in}P_i$$
(7)
where $`P_i`$ are one-dimensional projectors. For a qubit system, it acts as

$$\varrho _{in}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\varrho _{11}& \varrho _{12}\\ \varrho _{21}& \varrho _{22}\end{array}\right]\varrho _{out}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\varrho _{11}& 0\\ 0& \varrho _{22}\end{array}\right]$$
(8)
i.e. the state becomes classical, as if it has been measured. Here, $`\varrho _{in}`$ is at the sender’s site, while $`\varrho _{out}`$ is at the receiver’s site. The operation (4) can be disassembled into two parts: (i) local dephasing (at say, the sender’s site) and (ii) sending qubits intact (through a noiseless quantum channel) to the receiver. Thus suppose that Alice and Bob share a state $`\varrho _{AB}\varrho _{A^{}A^{\prime \prime }B}`$, and Alice decides to send subsystem $`A^{\prime \prime }`$ to Bob, down the dephasing channel. The following action will have the same effect: Alice dephases locally the subsystem $`A^{\prime \prime }`$

$$\varrho _{A^{}A^{\prime \prime }B}\underset{i}{}(P_i^{A^{\prime \prime }}I_{A^{}B})\varrho _{A^{}A^{\prime \prime }B}(P_i^{A^{\prime \prime }}I_{A^{}B})$$
(9)
The state is now of the form

$$\varrho _{A^{}A^{\prime \prime }B}^{out}=\underset{i}{}p_iP_i^{A^{\prime \prime }}\varrho _i^{A^{}B}$$
(10)
Thus the part $`A^{\prime \prime }`$ is classically correlated with the rest of the system (this is a stronger statement than to say that the state is separable with respect to $`A^{\prime \prime }:A^{}B`$). Now Alice sends the system $`A^{\prime \prime }`$ to Bob through an ideal channel. Thus the final state differs from the state $`\varrho _{A^{}A^{\prime \prime }B}^{out}`$ only in that the system $`A^{\prime \prime }`$ is at Bob site. It follows that the operation 4 can be replaced by the following two operations

1. Local dephasing
2. Sending completely dephased subsystem.

Note that the definition of NLOCC maps differ from LOCC only in that one cannot add local ancilla in any state, but only in maximally mixed one. One allows POVM’s which involves adding a pure state ancilla, but we do so by including the ancilla as part of the initial state $`\varrho `$. This difference causes us to consider in more detail the classical communication. Indeed, since information becomes the resource, we have to take care also about the bits that carry information between the labs. The information represented by the carriers must be counted. Otherwise, given the initial state, we could supply an infinite amount of local information, just by multiplying the number of bits comunicated.

The reader may have the impression that unlike in LOCC, we have disallowed making measurement, and that this is another big difference between our maps and LOCC. As a matter of fact, we do allow measurements, however we care not only about the system to be measured but also the measuring apparatus. This is natural approach when one counts pure states as a resource, since a measuring device must initially be in a pure state to be effective, and one must therefore take care to properly account for this. This is also natural from the thermodynamical point of view: Maxwell’s demon was exorcised just by including itself into the description Bennett (1982).

### III.2 Dual maps

Let us now describe the dual maps to the elementary NLOCC maps of the previous subsection, and show that they are also NLOCC maps up to a factor. Consider a map

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }:(_1)(_2)$$
(11)
The dual map

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}:(_2)(_1)$$
(12)
is defined with repsect to the Hilbert-Schmidt scalar product

$$A|B=\mathrm{Tr}(A^{}B)$$
(13)
by the following relation

$$\mathrm{Tr}(A^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }(B))=\mathrm{Tr}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(A^{})B)$$
(14)
for any operators $`A(_1)`$, $`B(_2)`$. If the map is completely positive i.e. it is of the form

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }(\varrho )=\underset{i}{}V_i\varrho V_i^{}$$
(15)
its dual is of the form

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(\varrho )=\underset{i}{}V_i^{}\varrho V_i$$
(16)
i.e. it is still completely positive, though perhaps not trace preserving. If the output dimensions are equal to each other, then the dual is trace preserving iff the map preserves the identity (is bistochastic). Out of our elementary maps, the maps with equal in and out dimensions are (1),(4a) and (4b). They also preserve the identity, hence their duals are valid physical operations. Specifically, the dual to a local unitary is again a local unitary (the inverse one), and the local dephasing is self-dual, i.e. is equal to its dual. This can be seen simply by inspecting (15) and (16).

A dual to the map (4b) is simply sending a qubit in the converse direction. Consider now the maps (2) and (3). They are not trace preserving, but the only reason is that the in and out dimensions are not equal, hence, as trace preserving maps, they cannot preserve identity. However our maps (2) and (3) preserve the maximally mixed state. As a result the duals will be trace preserving up to a factor. For a state $`\varrho `$ we have

$`\mathrm{Tr}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(\varrho ))=\mathrm{Tr}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(\varrho )I_{out})=\mathrm{Tr}(\varrho \mathrm{\Lambda }(I_{out}))=`$ (17)
$`=d_{out}\mathrm{Tr}(\varrho \mathrm{\Lambda }(I_{out}/d_{out})=d_{out}\mathrm{Tr}(\varrho I_{in}/d_{in})={\displaystyle \frac{d_{out}}{d_{in}}}`$
where $`d_{in}`$ and $`d_{out}`$ are the dimensions of input and output Hilbert spaces $`_1`$ and $`_2`$, respectively. Consequently the map $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{d_{in}}{d_{out}}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}`$ is a valid physical operation.

One then easily finds that up to a factor the map (2) of adding a maximally mixed state is dual to map (3) of local partial trace and vice versa. More precisely if

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }(\varrho _{A^{}A^{\prime \prime }B})=\varrho _{A^{}B}$$
(18)
is (local) partial trace then the dual map is given by

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(\varrho _{A^{}B})=\varrho _{A^{}B}I_{A^{\prime \prime }}=dim_{A^{\prime \prime }}\left[\varrho _{A^{}B}\frac{I_{A^{\prime \prime }}}{d_{A^{\prime \prime }}}\right]$$
(19)
## IV Distilling pure product states and compression

In this section we will represent distillation of product states by NLOCC as compression with restricted means. First of all it is clear that in comparison with the usual compression situation described in section II, we have a restricted class of operations. As we shall see, this will lead us to optimize over suitably constrained positive operators $`A`$. We will follow Rains approach Rains (2000) (see also Eggeling, Vollbrecht, Werner, and Wolf (2001)), similarly as it was applied in Ref. Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Oppenheim, Sen(De), and Sen (a). Our goal is the following: to obtain the maximal number of product states out of $`\varrho ^n`$, where $`\varrho _{AB}`$ is a state on $`C^dC^d`$. I.e. one wants to maximize the rate $`r=m/n`$ in the transition

$$\varrho _{AB}^nP_{|00}^m$$
(20)
I.e., instead of distilling singlets, we wish to distill local pure states. Here $`P_{|00}=|0000|`$ is a state of two qubits. Consider a given protocol of concentration of information, i.e. the map $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ that takes $`\varrho _{AB}^n`$ to some state close to the required $`P_{|00}^m`$. (More precisely it is family of maps indexed by $`n`$). We impose some fixed rate of transition $`r=m/n`$, and require the fidelity of transition to tend asymptotically (for $`n\mathrm{})`$) to 1

$$F=\mathrm{Tr}\left[P_{|00}^m\mathrm{\Lambda }(\varrho _{AB}^n)\right]1ϵ.$$
(21)
The condition for fidelity will give us a restriction on possible rates $`r`$. We rewrite the fidelity as

$$F=\mathrm{Tr}\left[\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(P_{|00}^m)\varrho _{AB}^n\right].$$
(22)
Consider now the operator $`\mathrm{\Pi }=\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(P_{|00}^m)`$. Let us evaluate its trace. According to formula (III.2) we obtain that

$$\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Pi }=\frac{d_{in}}{d_{out}}=\frac{d^{2n}}{2^m}$$
(23)
Hence the asymptotic rate of information concentration is given by

$$r=2\mathrm{log}d\frac{1}{n}\mathrm{log}\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{\Pi }\varrho _{AB}^n]$$
(24)
The maximal possible rate is obtained if in the formula above we put optimal operators $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$, that (i) satisfy high fidelity condition (21), and (ii) can be obtained by action of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}`$ from $`P_{|00}^m`$, where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is NLOCC.

We can now interprete the action of concentration of information to local form as follows. Alice and Bob, want to separate noise from purity. Normally they should perform the measurement $`\{P,IP\}`$ to project the state onto the typical subspace. However the projector $`P`$ onto the typical subspace, or the projector $`IP`$ may be entangled. Also the state $`\psi `$ of decomposition into $`_s`$ and $`_r`$ can be entangled. Then in general they cannot implement such a measurement.

Indeed, Alice and Bob can make only such measurements that are allowed by LOCC, and these measurements may not commute with the projector $`P`$. Thus, to be able to compress the state, Alice and Bob have to destroy it making it ”classical”. Then using classical communication they can transform it in a lossless way to product form, and perform local compression.

Note that what makes this compression less efficient is the fact that under LOCC the implementable measurements may not commute with the projector $`P`$. It is quite possible, that although $`P`$ is not implementable, one can make a finer measurement that will commute with the above $`P`$. This is okay in this paradigm, since the pure states remain pure (the signal is damaged, but we do not care about that in this “objective” compression scheme). If the measurement is finer only in the part $`P`$, so that it is of the form $`\{P_1,\mathrm{},P_n,IP\}`$, then the concentration is done as well by NLOCC as by means of NO: the pure state is untouched, even though the signal state is cut into incoherent pieces. However if it is finer in the second part $`IP`$, then this may damage the state $`\psi `$.

Let us now go back to discussion of the constraints (i) and (ii) above that $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ must satisfy. The first one is the same as the one of eq. (5) in the usual compression scheme, with positive operators instead of projectors. Thus we should consider the second constraint that was not present in the usual compression case. First of all, the operator $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ must be, up to a factor, a separable state. Thus it must be a mixture of product positive operators. This is because the map $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}`$ is up to a factor, an NLOCC operation, hence it can not transform a product state $`P_{|00}^m`$ into an entangled state.

This suggests considering the maximal rate possible with operators $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ being separable ones. This is certainly an upper bound for the optimal rate of concentration of information. It closely resembles compression of an unknown source which we now describe roughly Cover and Thomas (1991). Suppose we have a source $`\varrho ^n`$ but think it is $`\sigma ^n`$. We then take projectors $`P`$, which are suitable for $`\sigma `$. Of course it will not work for our source. However, we can try to take projectors of greater dimension built in an analogous way to $`P`$. The question is how large should the subspace be, to be good also for the state $`\varrho ^n`$? The answer is that the compression rate will now be worse. The penalty will be $`S(\varrho |\sigma )=\mathrm{Tr}\varrho \mathrm{log}\varrho \mathrm{Tr}\varrho \mathrm{log}\sigma `$. Thus the rate of ”objective” information concentration will be $`\mathrm{log}dS(\varrho )S(\varrho |\sigma )`$. We thus get the bound for the rate under NLOCC

$$r\mathrm{log}dS(\varrho )\underset{\sigma sep}{inf}S(\varrho |\sigma )$$
(25)
with $`\sigma `$ taken from the set of seperable states. In view of the discussion above, this scheme of concentration of information to a local form is a sort of compression while imagining that the state is separable, or at least while using ”separable tools”.

If such a bound were achievable, then we would essentially have that the penalty one pays under NLOCC for compression, is the relative entropy of entanglementVedral and Plenio (1998). However, it seems that instead, the penalty is given not only by the entanglement, but also, by so called non-locality without entanglement Bennett, DiVincenzo, Fuchs, Mor, Rains, Shor, Smolin, and Wootters (1999). Whether this is the case, amounts to the question: can we produce by use of the map $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{d_{out}}{d_in}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is NLOCC, all possible separable states of the input system out of $`P_{|00}^m`$? The answer seem to be negative: Namely there are additional constraints. Since the map $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is NLOCC, it cannot increase the amount of information. The initial information is $`2m`$ bits (this is actually the final information in the real scenario, yet here we deal with the dual scenario). Thus one can obtain only such separable states, that can be prepared by NLOCC from 2m bits of information. The question of information of formation was considered in Ref. Oppenheim, , Horodecki, and Horodecki (2003). It was pointed out there, that the local information needed to create a separable state may be greater than $`nS`$. This is because, a separable state may be a mixture of product states, that are locally non-orthogonal. Then to create such states, one will be forced to use some irreversible operations. In particular, one expects density matrices whose eigenbasis are the “sausage states” of Ref. Bennett, DiVincenzo, Fuchs, Mor, Rains, Shor, Smolin, and Wootters (1999) to not be preparable with only $`nS`$ bits. Thus the fact that we deal with NLOCC operations rather than LOCC ones enter the scene twice. First, it restricts the trace of operator $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ making the problem nontrivial. Second, it restricts the class of separable states, that corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ up to a factor.

## V Conclusion

By applying Rains method, we have shown how to obtain bounds on the rate of compression of information when in the distant labs paradigm. In Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Horodecki, Oppenheim, Sen(De), and Sen (a) it was conjectured that the maximum compression rate under NLOCC was

$$r=\mathrm{log}dS(\varrho )\underset{\sigma IPB}{inf}S(\varrho |\sigma )$$
(26)
where IPB is the set of states whose eigenbasis were orthogonal projectors implementable under NLOCC. i.e. projectors which can be achieved from the standard projector $`P_{|00}^m`$. It would be very valuable to prove such a conjecture.

Here, we have explored an “objective” scheme of compression of information, where instead of protecting a signal, one instead wishes to obtain pure states. It also may be interesting to explore the “subjective” scheme of compression in the distant labs paradigm. Such scenarious might lead one to consider various quantum versions of the Slepian-Wolf theoremSlepian and Wolf (1971) (c.f. Winter (1999); Devetak (2002); Hayashi and Matsumoto (2002))

In Slepian-Wolf encoding, two people in distant labs attempt to compress a signal. They then meet at some later time to decompress it. In a quantum version of such a scenario, the compression rate would depend heavily on the ensemble. If the signal states were entangled, then very little compression could take place, but if the signal states were classical states, then the entire state should be compressable. The rate of compression would therefore not be a universal function of the density matrix, but would instead depend on the ensemble. Further exploration of a quantum Slepian-Wolf theorem may be of interest.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported by EU grants RESQ, contract No. IST-2001-37559, and QUPRODIS, contract No. IST-2001-38877. J.O. acknowledges the support of the Lady Davis Fellowship Trust, and grant No. 129/00-1 of the Israel Science Foundation.