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# On the Derivation of Conserved Quantities in Classical Mechanics

## 1 Introduction.

It has been well-known for many years of the history of physics that symmetry principles and conservation laws play a crucial role in understanding physical phenomena . Many physical problems can be solved significantly easier by taking into account symmetry consideration, and most importantly, one can gain deep insight of the nature of the phenomena. Many fields of study in modern physics developed rapidly through the understanding of symmetry principles, for instance, the gauge symmetries in quantum field theory and elementary particle physics .

The existence of symmetries in a physical system means that there exists one or more transformations that leave the physical system unaltered. Since physical systems can be completely described by their Lagrangians / Hamiltonians, it is therefore natural to expect the symmetry transformations to be canonical ones. The number of symmetry transformations that can be generated from the system depends on the number of conserved quantities of the associated system. It has been well-known that the conserved quantities of a physical system relate closely to the generator of the associated symmetry transformations .

In this paper, we shall present a derivation of all possible conserved quantities associated with a given physical system directly from its associated conservation laws. We shall limit our task on classical point mechanics, although it may be possible to extend the derivation techniques to quantum mechanics and field theories, once the connection between classical and quantum mechanics is established via canonical realizations . Some simple examples associated with time-independent and time-dependent systems will be considered.

The paper is organized as follows : a brief overview of classical mechanics is given in Section 2, in which we shall use Lagrangian and Hamiltonian approaches. This includes a brief review of canonical transformations, especially a subset of the transformations called infinitesimal canonical transformations. The relation between symmetry canonical transformations and conservation laws, as well as the use of a theorem of partial differential equations to obtain the conserved quantities are given in Section 3. In Section 4, we shall discuss the derivation of conserved quantities associated with time-independent systems. A similar discussion for time-dependent cases is given in Section 5. Some simple examples are used to demonstrate the validity of the formulation. Section 6 presents summary and conclusion of the discussion, as well as a brief remark of the extension possibility of the techniques to quantum mechanics and field theories.

## 2 Classical Mechanics : Canonical Formalism.

A classical system can always be represented by an associated Lagrangian $`L(q_i,\dot{q}_i,t)`$ that satisfies

$$\delta A\delta _{t_1}^{t_2}L(q_i,\dot{q}_i,t)𝑑t=0$$
(II.1)
and leads to Euler-Lagrange equations of motions

$$\frac{L}{q_i}\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{L}{\dot{q}_i}\right)=0,$$
(II.2)
where $`i=1\mathrm{}N`$, N = number of degrees of freedom.

Defining the conjugate momenta $`p_i`$ associated with the canonical coordinates $`q_i`$ as

$$p_i\frac{L}{\dot{q}_i},$$
(II.3)
we may construct a new function $`H(q_i,p_i,t)`$, the Hamiltonian, that can equivalently represent the physical system as $`L(q_i,\dot{q}_i,t)`$ via a Legendre transformation  :

$$H(q_i,p_i,t)\underset{j}{}p_j\dot{q}_jL(q_i,\dot{q}_i,t).$$
(II.4)
$`H(q_i,p_i,t)`$ is known as Hamiltonian. Using Eqs. (II.2) and (II.4), a set of equations of motion equivalent to Eq. (II.2), the so-called Hamilton’s equations of motion, can be obtained as follows :

$`\dot{q}_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{H}{p_i}},`$
$`\dot{p}_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{H}{q_i}},`$ (II.5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{H}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{L}{t}}.`$
A set of invertible phase space transformations

$$(q_i,p_i,t)(Q_i,P_i,t)$$
(II.6)
which preserves Eq. (II.5) is called canonical transformations. It is easy to show that the set of canonical transformations forms a non-abelian group , and that the transformations can be generated by one of the four types of generating functions $`F_1(q_i,Q_i,t),F_2(q_i,P_i,t),F_3(p_i,Q_i,t),F_4(p_i,P_i,t)`$ . The old Hamiltonian $`H(q_i,p_i,t)`$ and the new counterpart $`K(Q_i,P_i,t)`$ are related by

$$K(Q_i,P_i,t)=H(q_i,p_i,t)+\frac{F_\alpha }{t},\alpha =1,\mathrm{},4.$$
(II.7)
In the case of a time-independent system, the value of the old and new Hamiltonian are the same, even if they have different functional forms. In general, $`K(Q_i,P_i,t)`$ and $`H(q_i,p_i,t)`$ have different functional forms, leading to different physical interpretations.

It is more convenient to use the Poisson bracket formulation, defined as follows for $`A(q_i,p_i,t)`$ and $`B(q_i,p_i,t)`$ :

$$\{A,B\}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left(\frac{A}{q_i}\frac{B}{p_i}\frac{A}{p_i}\frac{B}{q_i}\right).$$
(II.8)
The first two equations in Eq. (II.5) can be written as

$`\dot{q}_i`$ $`=`$ $`\{q_i,H\}`$
$`\dot{p}_i`$ $`=`$ $`\{p_i,H\}.`$ (II.9)
In the case of canonical transformations, it is easy to show that the necessary and sufficient condition for the transformation (II.6) to be canonical is

$$\{Q_i,P_j\}=\{q_i,p_j\}=\delta _{ij}.$$
(II.10)
We are now focusing our attention to a subset of canonical transformations that lies in the neighborhood of the identity transformation, namely the infinitesimal canonical transformations. The transformation can be generated by the following generating function

$$F_2(q_i,P_i,t)=\underset{j}{}\left(q_jP_j+ϵ_jf_j(q_i,p_i,t)\right),$$
(II.11)
where $`f_j(q_i,p_i,t)`$ are the generators of infinitesimal canonical transformations, and $`ϵ_j`$ are infinitesimal parameters. The transformation generated by (II.11) can be written as

$`Q_i`$ $`=`$ $`q_i+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}ϵ_j\{q_i,f_j\},`$
$`P_i`$ $`=`$ $`p_i+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}ϵ_j\{p_i,f_j\}.`$ (II.12)
It can be shown that the set of infinitesimal canonical transformations forms an abelian group, and hence it can be used to form a linear vector space and an algebra . The algebra of infinitesimal canonical transformation satisfies the following Poisson bracket relations  :

$$\{f_i,f_j\}=\underset{k}{}C_{ij}^kf_k+d_{ij}$$
(II.13)
where $`C_{ij}^k`$ and $`d_{ij}`$ are constants depending on the nature of the transformation. In some transformations, the constant $`d_{ij}`$ may be removed by a suitable substitution . The relations (II.13) are closely related to the commutation relations in Lie algebras .

## 3 Symmetries, Conservation Laws and General Conserved Quantities.

The infinitesimal canonical transformation (II.12) that leaves the Hamiltonian of a given physical system invariant is called the symmetry canonical transformation of the associated system. The term invariant means that the nature of the physical system is unaltered by the transformation, which means that the old and transformed Hamiltonians have to be of the same functional forms. As a consequence, Eq. (II.7) can be written in the form of

$$H(Q_i,P_i,t)=H(q_i,p_i,t)+\frac{F_2}{t},$$
(III.14)
Inserting Eqs. (II.11) and (II.12) into Eq. (III.14) and applying the Taylor expansion on $`H(Q_i,P_i,t)`$ to the first order of $`ϵ_i`$ together with Eqs. (II.8) and (II.9), we get

$$\frac{df_j}{dt}(q_i,p_i,t)=\{f_j,H\}+\frac{f_j}{t}=0,$$
(III.15)
which means that the generators $`f_j(q_i,p_i,t)`$ are the conserved quantities of the given physical system. Hence there is a closed relation between the existence of a conserved quantity and its associated symmetry canonical transformation. Since the generators $`f_j(q_i,p_i,t)`$ are independent functions due to independent parameters $`ϵ_j`$, the conserved quantities obtained must be independent to each other.

We may obtain the conserved quantities $`f_j(q_i,p_i,t)`$ associated with a given physical system by solving Eq. (III.15), which lead to the constructions of its associated symmetry canonical transformations according to Eq. (II.12). Since Eq. (III.15) is a linear partial differential equation of the first order, the following theorem of partial differential equations provides the general solutions of the equation  :

###### THEOREM 1

Consider a linear partial differential equation of the first order in the form of

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}P_i(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)\frac{z}{x_i}=R(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n,z).$$
(III.16)
If $`u_i(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n,z)=c_i`$, $`i=1\mathrm{}n`$ are independent solutions of the subsidiary equation

$$\frac{dx_1}{P_1}=\frac{dx_2}{P_2}=\mathrm{}=\frac{dx_n}{P_n}=\frac{dz}{R},$$
(III.17)
then the relation $`\mathrm{\Phi }(u_1,\mathrm{},u_n)=0`$ (where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is arbitrary function) is a general solution of Eq. (III.16).

A rigorous proof of Theorem 1 is given in Ref. . It should be noted that there are a maximum of $`n`$ independent solutions satisfying Eq. (III.17).

As the consequences of Theorem 1, the general solution of Eq. (III.15) may be written as

$$f_j(q_i,p_i,t)=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(u_1,\mathrm{},u_{2n}),$$
(III.18)
where $`n`$ is the number of configuration dimension, $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ is an arbitrary function, and $`u_k(q_i,p_i,t)`$, $`k=1,2,\mathrm{},2n`$ are the independent solutions of

$$\frac{dq_1}{\left(\frac{H}{p_1}\right)}=\mathrm{}=\frac{dq_n}{\left(\frac{H}{p_n}\right)}=\frac{dp_1}{\left(\frac{H}{q_1}\right)}=\mathrm{}=\frac{dp_n}{\left(\frac{H}{q_n}\right)}=dt.$$
(III.19)
The form of the solution (III.18) indicates that there could be infinitely many solutions satisfying Eq. (III.15).

Inserting (III.18) into Eq. (III.15), we have

$$\frac{du_k}{dt}(q_i,p_i,t)=\{u_k,H\}+\frac{u_k}{t}=0,k=1,2,\mathrm{},2n.$$
(III.20)
This means that each independent solution of the subsidiary equation (III.19) corresponds to a conserved quantity of the associated physical system. The maximum number of independent solutions may be interpreted as the maximum number of all independent conserved quantities one can possibly find in the system, which depends on the number of configuration degrees of freedom.

## 4 Time-independent Conserved Quantities.

For the time-independent case, Eq. (III.15) reduces to

$$\frac{df}{dt}(q_i,p_i)=\{f,H\}=0.$$
(IV.21)
The general solution of (IV.21) may then be written in the form of

$$f(q_i,p_i)=\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(u_1,\mathrm{},u_{2n1}),$$
(IV.22)
where $`u_i`$, $`i=1\mathrm{}(2n1)`$ are the independent solution of the subsidiary equation

$$\frac{dq_1}{\left(\frac{H}{p_1}\right)}=\mathrm{}=\frac{dq_n}{\left(\frac{H}{p_n}\right)}=\frac{dp_1}{\left(\frac{H}{q_1}\right)}=\mathrm{}=\frac{dp_n}{\left(\frac{H}{q_n}\right)}.$$
(IV.23)
It is clear from Eq. (IV.23) that it is not possible to obtain a time-independent conserved quantity from a time-dependent physical system, since the $`\frac{H}{p_i}`$’s and $`\frac{H}{q_i}`$’s will contain explicit time-dependence. The maximum number of possible independent conserved quantities is $`2n1`$. It should be noted that Eq. (IV.21) admits a trivial solution $`f(q_i,p_i)=H(q_i,p_i)`$, and hence $`f(q_i,p_i)=\mathrm{\Phi }(H(q_i,p_i))`$. This kind of solution will be automatically satisfied in any time-independent case.

For the purpose of demonstration, we shall use Eqs. (IV.22) and (IV.23) to re-derive time-independent conserved quantities of some well-known cases in one- and many-particle systems.

### 4.1 One-Particle Systems : Free Particles.

The simplest one-particle system is the free particle system, whose Hamiltonian in 3-dimensional case is given by

$$H(q,p)=\frac{p_x^2+p_y^2+p_z^2}{2m}.$$
(IV.24)
The correspondent subsidiary equation can be written as

$$\frac{dq_x}{\left(\frac{p_x}{m}\right)}=\frac{dq_y}{\left(\frac{p_y}{m}\right)}=\frac{dq_z}{\left(\frac{p_z}{m}\right)}=\frac{dp_x}{0}=\frac{dp_y}{0}=\frac{dp_z}{0},$$
(IV.25)
and its independent solutions are

$`p_x`$ $`=`$ $`C_1,`$
$`p_y`$ $`=`$ $`C_2,`$
$`p_z`$ $`=`$ $`C_3,`$
$`L_x`$ $``$ $`q_yp_zq_zp_y=C_4,`$
$`L_y`$ $``$ $`q_zp_xq_xp_z=C_5.`$ (IV.26)
The general solution of Eq. (IV.21) of the system is then

$$f(q,p)=\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(p_x,p_y,p_z,L_x,L_y).$$
(IV.27)
From Eq. (IV.26), we have 5 independent solutions correspond to momenta in the $`x`$, $`y`$ and $`z`$ directions, as well as angular momenta in the $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions. The angular momentum in the $`z`$ direction $`L_zq_xp_yq_yp_x`$ can be expressed as the function of 5 independent conserved quantities as given in Eq. (IV.27).

### 4.2 One-Particle Systems : Central Forces.

The Hamiltonian of a central force system is given by

$$H(q,p)=\frac{p^2}{2m}+V(r),$$
(IV.28)
where $`V(r)`$ is the central force potential. For the 3-dimensional case, it is defined as

$$V(r)=V(q_x^2+q_y^2+q_z^2).$$
(IV.29)
The associated subsidiary equation associated is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dq_x}{\left(\frac{p_x}{m}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dq_y}{\left(\frac{p_y}{m}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dq_z}{\left(\frac{p_z}{m}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_x}{\left(\frac{V}{q_x}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_y}{\left(\frac{V}{q_y}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_z}{\left(\frac{V}{q_z}\right)}}`$ (IV.30)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dq_x}{\left(\frac{p_x}{m}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dq_y}{\left(\frac{p_y}{m}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dq_z}{\left(\frac{p_z}{m}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_x}{\left(2q_x\frac{dV}{du}\right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_y}{\left(2q_y\frac{dV}{du}\right)}}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{dp_z}{\left(2q_z\frac{dV}{du}\right)}},`$
where $`u=q_x^2+q_y^2+q_z^2`$. The independent solutions are

$`H(q,p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p_x^2+p_y^2+p_z^2}{2m}}+V(q_x^2+q_y^2+q_z^2)=C_1,`$
$`L_x`$ $`=`$ $`q_yp_zq_zp_y=C_2,`$
$`L_y`$ $`=`$ $`q_zp_xq_xp_z=C_3,`$
$`L_z`$ $`=`$ $`q_xp_yq_yp_x=C_4.`$ (IV.31)
There are 4 independent solutions associated with an arbitrary 3-dimensional central force system, i.e. the trivial solution associated with the total energy of the system, and 3 non-trivial solutions associated with the angular momentum in $`x`$, $`y`$ and $`z`$ directions. However, there may be 5 independent solutions obtained in some 3-dimensional systems, for instance, the 3-dimensional harmonic oscillators. The general solution of Eq. (IV.21) for the 3-dimensional central force system is then

$$f(q,p)=\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(H(q,p),L_x,L_y,L_z).$$
(IV.32)
### 4.3 Many-Particle Systems.

We now consider the simplest case in many-particle systems. Suppose there are $`N`$ objects with the same masses $`m`$. All the objects lie on a straight line, and each object is connected with its closest neighbourhoods by springs with constant $`k`$. For the simplicity, let us consider only vibrations along the straight line formed by the objects. The Hamiltonian of the system above is given by

$$H(q_i,p_i)=\frac{p_1^2}{2m}+\underset{i=2}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{p_i^2}{2m}+\frac{(q_iq_{i1})^2}{2}\right],$$
(IV.33)
where $`q_i`$ and $`p_i`$ are conjugate coordinate and momentum of the $`ith`$ object. The associated subsidiary equation is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dq_1}{\left(\frac{p_1}{m}\right)}}=\mathrm{}={\displaystyle \frac{dq_i}{\left(\frac{p_i}{m}\right)}}=\mathrm{}={\displaystyle \frac{dq_N}{\left(\frac{p_N}{m}\right)}}`$ (IV.34)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dp_1}{k(q_2q_1)}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_2}{k(q_32q_2+q_1)}}=\mathrm{}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dp_i}{k(q_{i+1}2q_i+q_{i1})}}=\mathrm{}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_{N1}}{k(q_N2q_{N1}+q_{N2})}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dp_N}{k(q_Nq_{N1})}}.`$
whose independent solutions are

$`H(q_i,p_i)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p_1^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \underset{i=2}{\overset{N}{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{p_i^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(q_iq_{i1})^2}{2}}\right]=C_1,`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}p_i`$ $`=`$ $`C_2,`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}q_i`$ $`=`$ $`C_3.`$ (IV.35)
There are 3 independent solution associated with the system, consisted of one trivial solution corresponds to the total energy of the system, one corresponds to the conservation law of linear momentum, and one solution which is equivalent to the conservation of linear momentum since $`p_i=m\dot{q}_i`$. The general solution of Eq. (IV.21) will be an arbitrary function of $`H(q,p)`$, $`p_i`$ and $`x_i`$.

## 5 Time-dependent Conserved Quantities.

In the time-dependent case, Eq. (III.15) must be fully satisfied. There are two kinds of conserved quantities : one associated with a time-independent Hamiltonian, and another one associated with a time-dependent one. With the time-independent Hamiltonian, Eq. (III.15) still admits the trivial solution $`H(q,p)`$, which means the total energy of the physical system is still conserved, as well as time-independent solutions. With the time-dependent Hamiltonian, this is no longer the case.

The subsidiary equation of Eq. (III.15) is given by Eq. (III.19), with the maximum number of its independent solutions being $`2n`$. We shall use Eqs. (III.18) and (III.19) to derive time-dependent conserved quantities of time-independent Hamiltonians, with one-particle systems as the examples, as well as time-dependent conserved quantities associated with a time-dependent Hamiltonian. We shall only discuss the 1-dimensional cases for the non-zero potential systems since calculation difficulties arise in 2- and 3-dimensional as well as in many-particle cases.

### 5.1 Time-independent Physical Systems : Free Particles

Using the Hamiltonian of 3-dimensional free particle system (IV.24), we write the subsidiary equation as

$$\frac{dq_x}{\left(\frac{p_x}{m}\right)}=\frac{dq_y}{\left(\frac{p_y}{m}\right)}=\frac{dq_z}{\left(\frac{p_z}{m}\right)}=\frac{dp_x}{0}=\frac{dp_y}{0}=\frac{dp_z}{0}=dt.$$
(V.36)
The independent solutions for the system are

$`p_x`$ $`=`$ $`C_1,`$
$`p_y`$ $`=`$ $`C_2,`$
$`p_z`$ $`=`$ $`C_3,`$
$`q_x{\displaystyle \frac{p_x}{m}}t`$ $`=`$ $`C_4,`$
$`q_y{\displaystyle \frac{p_y}{m}}t`$ $`=`$ $`C_5,`$
$`q_z{\displaystyle \frac{p_z}{m}}t`$ $`=`$ $`C_6`$ (V.37)
The last 3 solutions in Eq. (V.37) are the expressions of homogeneous linear motions in 3-dimensional space. The general solutions of Eq. (III.15) for the 3-dimensional free particle systems are then

$$f(q,p,t)=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(p_x,p_y,p_z,q_x\frac{p_x}{m}t,q_y\frac{p_y}{m}t,q_y\frac{p_y}{m}t),$$
(V.38)
The angular momenta in 3-dimensional cases may be expressed by (V.38).

### 5.2 Time-independent Physical Systems : Central Forces

From the Hamiltonian of 1-dimensional free particle system

$$H(q,p)=\frac{p^2}{2m}+V(q^2),$$
(V.39)
one may write the associated subsidiary equation for 1-dimensional central force system as

$$\frac{dq}{\left(\frac{p}{m}\right)}=\frac{dp}{\left(\frac{dV}{dq}\right)}=dt.$$
(V.40)
Unlike the derivations discussed in either Section 4 or Section 5.1, the treatment of obtaining time-dependent solution of Eq. (V.40) depends on the functional forms of the central force potentials. For the purpose of demonstration, we shall use the 1-dimensional harmonic oscillator and the 1-dimensional inverse square potential system.

For the 1-dimensional harmonic oscillator with potential $`V(q^2)=\frac{1}{2}kq^2`$, where $`k=`$ constant, Eq. (V.40) becomes

$$\frac{dq}{\left(\frac{p}{m}\right)}=\frac{dp}{kq}=dt,$$
(V.41)
which is equivalent to

$$\frac{d(p+i\sqrt{km}q)}{p+i\sqrt{km}q}=i\sqrt{\frac{k}{m}}dt.$$
(V.42)
The independent solutions of (V.41) are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}kq^2=H(q,p)=C_1,`$
$`\mathrm{ln}(p+i\sqrt{km}q)i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k}{m}}}t=C_2,`$ (V.43)
where the second independent solution is obtained by integrating Eq. (V.42). The second solution of Eq. (V.43) gives us information of how the momentum $`p`$ and coordinate $`q`$ behave in the system. The general solution of (III.15) for a 1-dimensional harmonic oscillator is

$$f(q,p,t)=\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(H(q,p),\mathrm{ln}(p+i\sqrt{km}q)i\sqrt{\frac{k}{m}}t).$$
(V.44)
With the 1-dimensional inverse square potential system, we use $`V(q^2)=\frac{k}{q^2}`$, where $`k=`$ constant. Eq. (V.40) becomes

$$\frac{dq}{\left(\frac{p}{m}\right)}=\frac{dp}{\frac{2k}{q^3}}=dt.$$
(V.45)
The independent solutions of Eq. (V.45) are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{2m}}{\displaystyle \frac{k}{q^2}}=H(q,p)=C_1,`$
$`pq2H(q,p)=C_2,`$ (V.46)
where the second solution in Eq. (V.46) is obtained from the equivalent relation extracted from Eq. (V.45) :

$`pdq{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{m}}dt`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`qdp+{\displaystyle \frac{2k}{q^2}}dt`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (V.47)
The general solution of (III.15) for a 1-dimensional inverse square potential system is

$$f(q,p,t)=\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(H(q,p),pq2H(q,p),t).$$
(V.48)
### 5.3 Time-dependent Physical Systems

As mentioned in the beginning of Section 5, in the time-dependent physical systems the Hamiltonians are no longer conserved quantities, meaning that the subsidiary equations Eq. (III.19) do not have the Hamiltonians as one of their solutions.

Given the Hamiltonian of a 1-dimensional physical system as

$$H(q,p,t)=\frac{p^2}{2m}+V(q,t),$$
(V.49)
the subsidiary equations (III.19) may be expressed as

$$\frac{dq}{\left(\frac{p}{m}\right)}=\frac{dp}{\left(\frac{V}{q}\right)}=dt,$$
(V.50)
where we have used partial derivative of $`V(q,t)`$ instead of total derivative as in Eq. (V.40).

As in the central force case in Section 5.2, the treatment of obtaining solutions for Eq. (V.50) depends on the functional forms of the associated potentials. For the purpose of demonstration, let us consider a simple 1-dimensional system of a point mass $`m`$ attached to a spring of constant $`k`$, where the other end of the spring is fixed on a massless cart moving uniformly along $`q`$ axis with speed $`v_0`$<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1The same problem is also discussed in Ref \[7, pp. 350\] using a different approach.. The potential of the system is given by

$$V(q,t)=\frac{k}{2}(qv_0t)^2.$$
(V.51)
Inserting potential (V.51) into Eq. (V.50), we have

$$\frac{dq}{\left(\frac{p}{m}\right)}=\frac{dp}{k(qv_0t)}=dt,$$
(V.52)
which maybe equivalently written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{p}{m}}dp+k(qv_0t)dq=0,`$
$`dq{\displaystyle \frac{p}{m}}dt=0,`$
$`dp+k(qv_0t)dt=0.`$ (V.53)
Applying the total derivative of $`V(q,t)`$ to the first equation of (V.53) and using the third equation of (V.53), we get

$$\frac{p}{m}dp+dVv_0dp=0,$$
(V.54)
which can be easily integrated to obtained the associated independent solution :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}k(qv_0t)^2v_0p=C,`$ (V.55)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(pmv_0)^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}k(qv_0t)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}mv_0^2=C,`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(pmv_0)^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}k(qv_0t)^2=C_1.`$
Although the independent solution has the dimension of energy, it is not the total energy of the associated system, but the total energy of the point mass relative to the cart instead. The general solution of (III.15) for the associated system is

$$f(q,p,t)=\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\left(\frac{(pmv_0)^2}{2m}+\frac{1}{2}k(qv_0t)^2\right).$$
(V.56)
## 6 Summary and Conclusion.

We have discussed the way of obtaining conserved quantities of a given physical system by solving Eq. (III.15) using the subsidiary equations (III.19). The maximum number of possible conserved quantities a physical system may have is given by Theorem 1. Some particular time-independent cases for one-particle and many-particle systems, as well as time-dependent cases for one-particle system have been used to demonstrate the technique and treatment of handling Eq. (III.19). For the same physical systems, it is found that one may not have the same results for the time-independent and time-dependent cases. More complicated treatment may be used to deal with time-dependent cases and many-particle systems.

Although the technique presented here is in the scope of classical mechanics, it may be applicable to classical fields, provided that the Poisson brackets in Eq. (III.15) re-formulated in an appropriate way in terms of field variables . Also, since the connection between classical and quantum mechanics can be established by replacing the Poisson brackets with Lie brackets or commutators, the conserved quantities in quantum mechanics may be obtained directly by replacing $`(q,p)`$ in the associated classical quantities with $`(q,\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{q})`$.

As the symmetries of the physical system yields the existence of non-trivial conserved quantities in classical mechanics, the same argument is true for quantum system. Moreover, the existence of symmetries in quantum mechanics generates degeneracy which depends on the number of degree of freedom. For example, since there is no non-trivial conserved quantity in a time-independent one dimensional harmonic oscillator, no degeneracy occurs in the quantum counterpart. The degeneracy of harmonic oscillator system shows up in 2- and 3-dimensional cases.

## Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Prof. B. Suprapto Brotosiswojo and Dr. A. Rusli of the Department of Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung - Indonesia for their helpful discussions and valuable comments concerning the subject.

## References.


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# Geometry of the 3-Qubit State, Entanglement and Division Algebras

## I Introduction

Quantum mechanics exhibits its difference from classical physical theories in many aspects. A quintessential property of quantum mechanics is quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement rests at the center of the applications such as quantum information and quantum computing. Maximally entangled EPR pairEPR  is an essential ingredient of teleportationBennett1992 , dense codingBennett1993 , and quantum key distributionEkertt1991 ; Ekertt1992 . The maximally entangled 3-qubit GHZ stateGHZ  and the $`m`$-cat state are of cardinal importance to the applications such as cryptographic conferencing or superdense coding Bose1998 , quantum secret sharing or quantum information splittingHillery1999 . Due to the entanglement of the Hilbert space states, it is a highly non-trivial problem to understand the properties of multi-qubit states. Recently, it has become clearMosseri2001  that the properties of the first two simplest qubit states, the single qubit and the $`2`$-qubit state, are very deeply related to two very important mathematical objects, the first two Hopf fibrations $`S^3\stackrel{S^1}{}S^2`$ and $`S^7\stackrel{S^3}{}S^4`$. The global phase freedom of the single qubit state and the entanglement which appears for the first time starting with the $`2`$-qubit case have been proven to be deeply related to the Hopf fibrations. For an entangled $`2`$-qubit state, performing a transformation on the first qubit space induces a transformation on the space of the second qubit space. This feature is naturally captured by the nontrivial second Hopf fibration. The Hopf fibration can determine if the $`2`$-qubit state is entangled or separableMosseri2001  and can also point to the degree of entanglement of a generic $`2`$-qubit pure state. Since obtaining a measure for the degree of entanglement is an essential issue of quantum computing, we believe it is extremely important if this method could be generalized to higher qubit states. Although attempts have been made towards describing the geometry of the 3-qubit statesKus2001 ; Carteret2000 (Mosseri et al.Mosseri2001  briefly mentioned the generalization of their construction to include the $`3`$-qubit state), to our knowledge, no complete description is available. In this paper, we generalize the discussion to the $`3`$-qubit state and the $`3^{rd}`$ Hopf fibration related to the last division algebra of the octonions. The entanglement is understood in a geometrical way and a quantitative measurement of entanglement is proposed. We describe the $`3`$-qubit Hilbert space as a nontrivial $`S^7`$ fibration over $`S^8`$. The entanglement quantity is proven to give the literature established values for the GHZ and W states. The apparent failure of the algorithm for higher qubit states is also briefly discussed. We would like to stimulate discussion and progress on the proper $`n`$-qubit generalization as the rewards obtained from such a generalization could prove enormous, possibly leading to a full classification of entanglement. We want to mention that, as it stands, our discussion is applicable to pure states only.

The paper is organized as follows. In Section II we briefly recall some well know facts about the $`1`$-qubit state, the Bloch sphere representation and the close relation to the 1st Hopf fibration. In section III we present the recent results of Mosseri et al.Mosseri2001  which relate the 2-qubit state to the second Hopf map ($`S^7\stackrel{S^3}{}S^4`$). In Section IV we begin the treatment of the 3-qubit state and convincingly prove that it is related to the third and last Hopf fibration thus clearly determining the geometry of the 3-qubit state. We propose a quantity which can be used as a measure of the entanglement of the 3-qubit state and comment on the prospective generalizations to higher qubit states. Although not strictly necessary, we use the language of the octonions, which nicely simplifies notation and points to very interesting and deep mathematical correspondences. In the appendix we give a brief introduction to the octonions and the three Hopf maps which we believe will be useful to a better understanding of the paper.

## II Single Qubit, Bloch Sphere and $`1^{st}`$ Hopf Fibration

The pure 1-qubit state can be represented as a linear combination of up and down spins:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\alpha _0|0+\alpha _1|1,\alpha _0,\alpha _1,|\alpha _0|^2+|\alpha _1|^2=1,$$
(1)
where we can parametrize

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\alpha _0\\ \\ \alpha _1\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{cos}(\frac{\theta }{2})\mathrm{exp}(i\frac{\varphi }{2}+i\frac{\chi }{2})\\ \\ \mathrm{sin}(\frac{\theta }{2})\mathrm{exp}(i\frac{\varphi }{2}i\frac{\chi }{2})\end{array}\right),\theta [0,\pi ],\varphi [0,2\pi ],\chi [0,2\pi ].$$
(2)
The Hilbert space of a single qubit with fixed norm unity is the unit 3-dimensional sphere $`S^3`$. But since quantum mechanics is $`U(1)`$ projective, the projective Hilbert space is defined up to a phase $`\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi )`$. Therefore the projective Hilbert space is $`S^3/U(1)=S^3/S^1=CP_1=S^2`$. This property points to a map between the full Hilbert space $`S^3`$ and the projective Hilbert space $`S^2`$, with the inverse map (fiber) being an $`S^1`$. This map is the well known $`1^{st}`$ Hopf map, $`S^3\stackrel{S^1}{}S^2`$ which gives $`S^3`$ as an $`S^1`$ fibration over a base space $`S^2`$, the first in a series of maps that are deeply related to the structure of consistently defined number structures (division algebras, see Appendix). The map has the explicit form

$`h_1:\begin{array}{ccc}& & \{\mathrm{}\}S^2\\ (\alpha _0,\alpha _1)& & h_1=\alpha _0\alpha _1^1\end{array},|\alpha _0|^2+|\alpha _1|^2=1`$ (3c)
$`h_2:\begin{array}{ccc}\{\mathrm{}\}& & S^2\\ h_1& & X_{i,(i=1,2,3)}\end{array},{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}X_i^2=1`$ (3f)
$`h_2h_1(\alpha _0,\alpha _1)=X_i=\sigma _i_\mathrm{\Psi }=(\alpha _0^{},\alpha _1^{})\sigma _i\left(\begin{array}{c}\alpha _0\\ \alpha _1\end{array}\right),`$ (3i)
where $`\sigma _i(i=1,2,3)`$ are the three Pauli matrices. We can clearly see that the $`X_i`$’s are defined up to a $`U(1)`$ ambiguity in $`\alpha _0,\alpha _1`$. This map is very useful in describing the density matrix for one qubit. The most general form of this matrix is:

$$\rho =\frac{1}{2}(I+X_1\sigma _1+X_2\sigma _2+X_3\sigma _3)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1+X_3& X_1iX_2\\ X_1+iX_2& 1X_3\end{array}\right),$$
(4)
with the constraint $`det\rho =1X_1^2X_2^2X_3^20`$. For pure qubit states, $`det\rho =0`$. The complete description of the single qubit Hilbert space and its essential phase freedom can therefore be understood through the first Hopf fibration. This fibration is nontrivial since $`S^3S^1S^2`$. Physically, this means that it is impossible to consistently ascribe a definite phase to each point on the Bloch sphere.

## III Two Qubits, Entanglement and the $`2^{nd}`$ Hopf Fibration

This section summarizes the results of Mosseri et alMosseri2001 . A pure 2-qubit state reads:

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }=\alpha _0|00+\alpha _1|01+\beta _0|10+\beta _1|11,`$ (5a)
$`\alpha _0,\alpha _1,\beta _0,\beta _1,|\alpha _0|^2+|\alpha _1|^2+|\beta _0|^2+|\beta _1|^2=1.`$ (5b)
The normalization condition means the Hilbert space of the 2-qubit state with fixed norm unity is a seven dimensional sphere $`S^7`$ and the projective Hilbert space is $`S^7/U(1)=CP_3`$. The Hilbert space $`\epsilon `$ is the tensorial product of single bit Hilbert spaces $`\epsilon _1\epsilon _2`$. In general, performing a transformation on the first qubit space induces a transformation on the space of the second qubit space. However, for the case in which $`\alpha _0\beta _1=\alpha _1\beta _0`$ one can independently transform the spaces of the two single qubits. We then call the state non-entangled or separable. To gain insight in the geometry and structure of the 2-qubit we need to analyze the $`S^7`$ manifold of the Hilbert space . $`S^7`$ can be parametrized in many different ways as a product of manifolds, but the most interesting parametrizationMosseri2001  is as an $`S^3`$fiber over an $`S^4`$. Notation can be greatly simplified by introducing a pair of quaternions:

$`q_1`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _0+\alpha _1i_2=Re\alpha _0+i_1Im\alpha _0+i_2Re\alpha _1+i_3Im\alpha _1,`$ (6a)
$`q_2`$ $`=`$ $`\beta _0+\beta _1i_2=Re\beta _0+i_1Im\beta _0+i_2Re\beta _1+i_3Im\beta _1.`$ (6b)
$`i_1,i_2,i_3`$ are square roots of $`1`$ and form a basis for the imaginary part of the quaternionic space ($`^4,ImR^3`$, see appendix). Similar with the single qubit case, we can now define the following map

$`h_1:\begin{array}{ccc}& & \{\mathrm{}\}S^4\\ (q_1,q_2)& & h_1=q_1q_2^1\end{array},|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2=1`$ (7c)
$`h_2:\begin{array}{ccc}\{\mathrm{}\}& & S^4\\ h_1& & X_{i,(i=1,\mathrm{},5)}\end{array},{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{5}{}}}X_i^2=1`$ (7f)
$`h_2h_1(q_1,q_2)=X_i=\sigma _i_\mathrm{\Psi }=(q_1^{},q_2^{})\sigma _i\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\end{array}\right),`$ (7i)
where

$`\sigma _1=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right),\sigma _2=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i_1\\ i_1& 0\end{array}\right),\sigma _3=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i_2\\ i_2& 0\end{array}\right),\sigma _4=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i_3\\ i_3& 0\end{array}\right),\sigma _5=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$ (18)
are a generalization of the Pauli matrices to Quternionic space.

The points $`(q_1,q_2)`$ and $`(q_1q,q_2q)`$ where $`q`$ is a unit quaternion ($`S^3`$) are mapped onto the same point of the base space $`S^4`$ and therefore the map is a nontrivial fibration $`S^7\stackrel{S^3}{}S^4`$. This fibration is entanglement sensitiveMosseri2001  in the sense that the separable states defined by $`\alpha _0\beta _1=\alpha _1\beta _0`$ will be mapped onto the subset of pure complex numbers in the Quaternion field, i.e.,

$`X_3|_{\alpha _0\beta _1=\alpha _1\beta _0}=X_4|_{\alpha _0\beta _1=\alpha _1\beta _0}=0orh_1(q_1,q_2)|_{\alpha _0\beta _1=\alpha _1\beta _0}.`$ (19)
It follows that the base space simplifies to a $`S^2`$ for non-entangled (separable) qubits. The partially traced density matrix $`\rho _1`$ can be written as a functional of the variables in the base space Mosseri2001 :

$`\rho _1`$ $`=`$ $`Tr_2\rho =\left[I_1(|00|+|11|)_2\right]|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1+X_5& x_1iX_2\\ X_1+iX_2& 1X_5\end{array}\right).`$ (22)
This is the most general density matrix for a 1-qubit system. The Bloch ball for one-qubit is then recovered from the 2-qubit system by the partial trace. The determinant of $`\rho _1`$ is

$`det\rho _1=1X_1^2X_2^2X_5^2=X_3^2+X_4^2.`$ (23)
$`det\rho _1=0`$ for non-entangled qubits. Therefore, the density matrix $`\rho _1`$ represents a pure state if $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is non-entangled. Otherwise, $`\rho _1`$ represents a mixed state. Mathematically, losing the information of the second qubit means integrating out or partial tracing the degree of freedom of the second qubit. Then the resulted density matrix is only related to the base space. It then follows naturally that the information of the second qubit is stored in the fiber space while the information of the first qubit and the correlation between these two qubits is stored in the base space. In the non-entangled case, the $`1^{st}`$ Hopf map can be applied to the fiber $`S^3`$ (Hilbert space of the second qubit) as described in the previous section. This would mod out the phase degree of the freedom. Finally, the $`S^7`$ fibration simplifies to $`S^2S^2`$ for non-entangled qubits, with one $`S^2`$ from the base and the other one from the fiber. In addition, the quantity $`X_3^2+X_4^2`$ might be useful to quantitatively measure the entanglementMosseri2001 .

## IV Three Qubits, Entanglement and the $`3^{rd}`$ Hopf Fibration

It is interesting to see that the 1-qubit and 2-qubit systems are closely related to the first two Hopf fibrations and the division algebras of the complex numbers and the quaternions. This relation points to both insightful comments on the geometry of the Hilbert space, and quantities which might describe entanglement. The 2-qubit system is the only system for which entanglement problem has so far been solved Bennett1996  Multiple complications arise for higher qubit problemsLewenstein2001 ; Horodecki2000 . In this section we go one step further to the first complicated qubit state, the 3-qubits. We show that its Hilbert space geometry can be closely related to the geometry of the third and last Hopf fibration and prove several insightful relations on the entanglement of such state.

### IV.1 The $`3`$-qubit Hilbert space. 2-qubit $``$ 1-qubit entanglement

The Hilbert space for the $`3`$-qubit is the tensor product of the 1-qubit Hilbert spaces $`\epsilon _1\epsilon _2\epsilon _3`$ with a direct product basis: $`\{|000,|001,|010,|011,|100,|101,|110,|111\}`$. A pure 3-qubit state reads:

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }=\alpha _0|000+\alpha _1|001+\beta _0|010+\beta _1|011+\delta _0|100+\delta _1|101+\gamma _0|110+\gamma _1|111;`$ (24a)
$`\alpha _0,\alpha _1,\beta _0,\beta _1,\delta _0,\delta _1,\gamma _0,\gamma _1,|\alpha _0|^2+|\alpha _1|^2+|\beta _0|^2+|\beta _1|^2+|\delta _0|^2+|\delta _1|^2+|\gamma _0|^2+|\gamma _1|^2=1.`$ (24b)
Differently from the case of 2-qubits, there are now two ways in which the 3-qubit state can be separated. In the first case, the 3-qubit case can be separated in the subspace of a single qubit with basis $`\{|0,|1\}`$ and the subspace of 2-qubit $`\{|00,|01,|10|11\}`$:

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }=(a|0+b|1)(c|00+d|01+e|10+f|11);`$ (25a)
$`a,b,c,d,e,f,(|a|^2+|b|^2)(|c|^2+|d|^2+|e|^2+|f|^2)=1.`$ (25b)
In this scenario, we get the following relations:

$$\alpha _0\gamma _1=\delta _0\beta _1,\alpha _0\gamma _0=\delta _0\beta _0,\alpha _0\delta _1=\delta _0\alpha _1,\alpha _1\gamma _1=\delta _1\beta _1,\alpha _1\gamma _0=\delta _1\beta _0,\beta _0\gamma _1=\gamma _0\beta _1.$$
(26)
Among these six conditions, only four are fundamental, from which the other two can be obtained.

We can also go one step further and separate the $`2`$-qubit subspace. In this case, the $`3`$-qubit state becomes fully separated in the 3 1-qubit subspaces.

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }=(a|0+b|1)(c|0+d|1)(e|0+f|1);`$ (27a)
$`a,b,c,d,e,f,(|a|^2+|b|^2)(|c|^2+|d|^2)(|e|^2+|f|^2)=1.`$ (27b)
The first step towards separating the $`3`$-qubit space is the partial $`1`$-qubit $``$ $`2`$-qubit separation.

The normalization condition (24b) for the general $`3`$-qubit state identifies its Hilbert space with the 15 dimensional sphere $`S^{15}`$. This manifold can be parametrized in many ways, but considering the experience of the two previous sections and reminding ourselves of the existence of a third and last Hopf fibration $`S^{15}\stackrel{S^7}{}S^8`$, it is tempting to see whether it plays a role in the Hilbert space description.

### IV.2 Octoninic representation of 3-qubit state and the third Hopf Fibration

The most aesthetic way to introduce this fibration is with the use of octonions instead of quaternions or complex numbers. Using octonions introduces complications since they are not only noncommutative (like the quaternions) but also non-associative (see appendix). However, we feel that this discomfort is compensated by the fact that the mathematics becomes very compact and the connection with division algebra and the Cayley-Dickson construction (see appendix) becomes much clearer.

The construction of the two octonions from the complex coefficients of the $`3`$-qubit state in Eq.(24a) proceeds as follows: we first define 4 quaternions:

$$q_1=(\alpha _0,\alpha _1)=\alpha _0+\alpha _1i_2,q_2=(\beta _0,\beta _1)=\beta _0+\beta _1^{}i_2,q_3=(\delta _0,\delta _1)=\delta _0+\delta _1i_2,q_4=(\gamma _0,\gamma _1)=\gamma _0+\gamma _1^{}i_2.$$
(28)
They satisfy the normalization $`|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2+|q_3|^2+|q_4|^2=1`$. Out of these 4 quaternions, by the Cayley-Dickinson construction we can create two octonions belonging to the 8 dimensional octonionic space $`𝕆R^8`$:

$$o_1=(q_1,q_2)=q_1+q_2i_4,o_2=(q_3,q_4)=q_3+q_4i_4.$$
(29)
The normalization condition now translates into $`|o_1|^2+|o_2|^2=1`$, parametrizing an $`S^{15}`$. $`i_1,i_2,i_3,i_4`$ generates through multiplications $`i_5,i_6,i_7`$. These $`7`$ imaginary square roots of $`1`$, along with the unity, close the octonionic multiplication table (see Appendix). The choice in the definition of the four quaternions is specifically related to the tensor-product nature of the 3-qubit Hilbert space. Had we made a different choice for the 4 quaternions (2 octonions), we would have induced an anisotropy on $`S^{15}`$, much in the same case as in Mosseri et alMosseri2001 . The Hopf map from $`S^{15}`$ to $`S^8`$ can again be described as a map $`h_1`$ from $`𝕆𝕆`$ to $`𝕆\mathrm{}`$ composed with an inverse stereographic map $`h_2`$ from $`𝕆\mathrm{}`$ to $`S^8`$:

$`h_1:\begin{array}{ccc}𝕆𝕆& & 𝕆\{\mathrm{}\}S^8\\ (q_1,q_2)& & h_1=o_1o_2^1\end{array},|o_1|^2+|o_2|^2=1`$ (30c)
$`h_2:\begin{array}{ccc}𝕆\{\mathrm{}\}& & S^8\\ h_1& & X_{i,(i=1,\mathrm{},9)}\end{array},{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{9}{}}}X_i^2=1`$ (30f)
$`h_2h_1(o_1,o_2)=X_i=\sigma _i_\mathrm{\Psi }=(o_1^{},o_2^{})\sigma _i\left(\begin{array}{c}o_1\\ o_2\end{array}\right),`$ (30i)
where

$`\sigma _1=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right),\sigma _{2,3,4,5,6,7,8}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i_{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}\\ i_{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}& 0\end{array}\right),\sigma _9=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$ (37)
are a generalization of the Pauli matrices to Octonionic space. As in the case of previous Hopf maps, the fibration is not trivial, as the space $`S^8`$ is not embedded in $`S^{15}`$. The fiber is an seven dimensional sphere $`S^7`$, as can be seen by taking the inverse map:

$$h_1^1(y)=\left(\begin{array}{c}\{(yd,d)|d𝕆,|yd,d|=1\},x\mathrm{}\\ \{(c,0)|c𝕆,|c|=1,x=\mathrm{}\end{array}\right).$$
(38)
We need to pause for a second and address an important comment. Although in the case of quaternions which are only non-commutative, it was clear that the map would have a unit quaternion ($`S^3`$) as fiber, in the case of octonions, because of their non-associativity, this is not automatically transparent. However, the fact that the algebra is still alternative (see appendix)(no other higher dimensional alternative algebra is known) comes to our rescue and renders the fiber of the map be a unit octonion $`S^7`$.

The first interesting feature of the fibration is revealed upon explicit computation.

$`h_1(o_1,o_2)`$ $`=`$ $`o_1o_2^1={\displaystyle \frac{C_1+C_2i_2+C_3i_4+C_4^{}i_6}{|\delta _0|^2+|\delta _1|^2+|\gamma _0|^2+|\gamma _1|^2}}`$ (39)
with

$`C_1`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _0\delta _0^{}+\delta _1^{}\alpha _1+\gamma _0^{}\beta _0+\beta _1\gamma _1^{}`$ (40a)
$`C_2`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _1\delta _0\delta _1\alpha _0+(\beta _1\gamma _0\gamma _1\beta _0)^{}`$ (40b)
$`C_3`$ $`=`$ $`\beta _0\delta _0\gamma _0\alpha _0+(\alpha _1\gamma _1\delta _1\beta _1)^{}`$ (40c)
$`C_4`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _1\beta _0\alpha _1\gamma _0+(\beta _1\delta _0\gamma _1\alpha _0)^{}.`$ (40d)
For the generic 3-qubit state, the $`h_1`$ map is octonionic in nature, as we see above. However, for the case in which the 3-qubit state is separable as a 1-qubit $``$ 2-qubit, the $`h_1`$ maps into the subspace of pure complex numbers $`\mathrm{}`$ in the octonionic field $`𝕆\mathrm{}`$:

$$h(o_1,o_2)|_{3=12}=\frac{C_1}{|\delta _0|^2+|\delta _1|^2+|\gamma _0|^2+|\gamma _1|^2}\mathrm{}.$$
(41)
We have just proved that the last Hopf map is entanglement sensitive. In other words, by computing the value of the map one can establish whether the 3-qubit state is entangled or is separable as an 1-qubit $``$ 2-qubit state. We will come back to this later on as we define a quantity that characterizes the degree of entanglement and we will see that the separated 2-qubit state lives on the fiber of the map while the 1-qubit state lives on the base space of the map. The next step in analyzing the geometry of the Hilbert space consists of an analysis of the base space. For future reference, we here give the expressions of the coordinates on the base space $`S^8`$:

$`X_1`$ $`=`$ $`o_1o_2^{}+o_2o_1^{}`$ (42a)
$`X_2`$ $`=`$ $`Re[i_1(o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{})]`$ (42b)
$`X_3`$ $`=`$ $`Re[i_2(o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{})]`$ (42c)
$`X_4`$ $`=`$ $`Re[i_3(o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{})]`$ (42d)
$`X_5`$ $`=`$ $`Re[i_4(o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{})]`$ (42e)
$`X_6`$ $`=`$ $`Re[i_5(o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{})]`$ (42f)
$`X_7`$ $`=`$ $`Re[i_6(o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{})]`$ (42g)
$`X_8`$ $`=`$ $`Re[i_7(o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{})]`$ (42h)
$`X_9`$ $`=`$ $`o_1o_1^{}o_2o_2^{},`$ (42i)
where $`o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{}`$ is purely imaginary and $`o_1o_2^{}+o_2o_1^{}`$ and $`o_1o_1^{}o_2o_2^{}`$ are purely real. Their values are:

$`o_1o_1^{}o_2o_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _0\alpha _0^{}+\alpha _1\alpha _1^{}+\beta _0\beta _0^{}+\beta _1^{}\beta _1\delta _0\delta _0^{}\delta _1\delta _1^{}\gamma _0\gamma _0^{}\gamma _1^{}\gamma _1`$ (43a)
$`o_1o_2^{}+o_2o_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _0^{}\alpha _0+\delta _1^{}\alpha _1+\gamma _0^{}\beta _0+\beta _1\gamma _1^{}+\delta _0\alpha _0^{}+\delta _1\alpha _1^{}+\gamma _0\beta _0^{}+\beta _1^{}\gamma _1`$ (43b)
$`o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`((a_0,a_1),(b_0,b_1)),a_0,a_1,b_0,b_1`$ (43c)
with

$`a_0`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _0^{}\alpha _0+\delta _1^{}\alpha _1+\gamma _0^{}\beta _0+\beta _1\gamma _1^{}\delta _0\alpha _0^{}\delta _1\alpha _1^{}\gamma _0\beta _0^{}\beta _1^{}\gamma _1`$ (44a)
$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`2\alpha _1\delta _02\delta _1\alpha _0+2\beta _1^{}\gamma _0^{}2\gamma _1^{}\beta _0^{}`$ (44b)
$`b_0`$ $`=`$ $`2\beta _0\delta _02\gamma _0\alpha _0+2\alpha _1^{}\gamma _1^{}2\delta _1^{}\beta _1^{}`$ (44c)
$`b_1`$ $`=`$ $`2\delta _1\beta _02\alpha _1\gamma _0+2\beta _1^{}\delta _0^{}2\gamma _1^{}\alpha _0^{}`$ (44d)
The 9 coordinates (subject to one constraint) of the $`S^8`$ represent the generalization of the Bloch sphere representation. For the case when the 3-qubit state is separable as a 1-qubit $``$ 2-qubit state, the map becomes purely complex, as we have shown. In this case,

$`o_1o_2^{}o_2o_1^{}=\delta _0^{}\alpha _0+\delta _1^{}\alpha _1+\gamma _0^{}\beta _0+\beta _1\gamma _1^{}\delta _0\alpha _0^{}\delta _1\alpha _1^{}\gamma _0\beta _0^{}\beta _1^{}\gamma _1,`$ (45)
which means $`X_3=X_4=X_5=X_6=X_7=X_8=0`$ which means that only an $`S^2`$ ($`X_1^2+X_2^2+X_9^2=1`$) the base space $`S^8`$ is used in the separable case. Therefore now things become clear: for a generic 3-qubit state, the Hilbert space is a 15 dimensional sphere $`S^{15}`$. This sphere admits many parametrizations, the most famous of which is the third and last Hopf map expressible as an $`S^7`$ fibration over $`S^8`$. As we have shown, this fibration is entanglement sensitive, in the sense that it can detect whether the 3-qubit state is separable as a product of a 1-qubit state and a 2-qubit state. Moreover, an analysis of where the states are located points out that the 2-qubit state occupies the fiber $`S^7`$ of the map while the single qubit state occupies three ($`X_1,X_2,X_9`$) of the 9 coordinates on the base space $`S^8`$. The rest of the coordinates somehow characterize the degree of the entanglement between these two states, such that they are zero – as shown – in the case when the 3-qubit states is totally separable as a 1-qubit $``$ 2-qubit state. Quantifying the degree of the entanglement will be our next priority. Since we have now established where the 2-qubit and the single qubit states live, we now have a very similar picture to the one developed by Mosseri et alMosseri2001 . To obtain the fully separable 3-qubit state into 3 1-qubit states, we first separate it into a 1-qubit $``$ 2-qubit state $`S^2S^7`$. We then focus on the fiber of the map, and use the $`2^{nd}`$ Hopf fibration to separate it into an $`S^2S^3`$ as shown in the previous sections. We can then mod out the phase degree of freedom by again particularizing to the fiber of the second Hopf fibration and using the first Hopf fibration to mod out an $`S^1=U(1)`$.

### IV.3 Discussion

Let’s now obtain the the general expression for a state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_O(S^{15})`$ which is sent to $`O`$ by the map $`h_1`$. The inverse of the $`3^{rd}`$ Hopf map gives

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_O=(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Theta }𝐓/2)o,\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Theta }𝐓/2)o)`$ (46)
where $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }=S(O^{})`$, $`\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }=X_1/S(O^{})`$, $`o`$ is a unit octonion which spans the $`S^7`$ fiber and $`𝐓`$ is a unit pure imaginary octonion

$`𝐓={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{7}{}}}𝐕_m(O^{})i_m\right).`$ (47)
Here $`S(O^{})=(O^{}+(O^{})^{})/2`$ and $`𝐕(O^{})=(O^{}(O^{})^{})/2`$ are the scalar and vectorial parts of $`O^{}O/|O|`$.

#### IV.3.1 Separable states

If the first qubit can be separated from the other two, $`O`$ is a complex number. Consequently, the state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_Q`$ becomes

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_O=(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Theta }i/2)o,\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Theta }i/2)o).`$ (48)
The $`S^8`$ base space reduces to $`S^2`$ sphere since $`X_3=X_4=X_5=X_6=X_7=X_8=0`$. This $`S^2`$ sphere is exactly the Bloch sphere of the first qubit.

For the second and third qubits described by $`oS^7`$, we can define the coordinate system on fibre as

$`|00_O`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Theta }/2)|0_1+\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Theta }/2)|1_1\right)(|0_2|0_3)`$ (49a)
$`|01_O`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Theta }/2)|0_1+\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Theta }/2)|1_1\right)(|0_2|1_3)`$ (49b)
$`|10_O`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Theta }/2)|0_1+\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Theta }/2)|1_1\right)(|1_2|0_3)`$ (49c)
$`|11_O`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Theta }/2)|0_1+\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Theta }/2)|1_1\right)(|1_2|1_3).`$ (49d)
A generic state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_O`$ in the $`S^7`$ fibre can be decomposed as

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_O=A_0|00_O+A_1|01_O+B_0|10_O+B_1|11_O`$ (50)
with $`A_0,A_1,B_0,B_1`$ and $`|A_0|^2+|A_1|^2+|B_0|^2+|B_1|^2=1`$. It’s straightforward to see that the $`3`$-qubit system reduces to $`1`$-qubit $``$ $`2`$-qubit. Now, we can fibrate the $`S^7`$ fiber space using the $`2^{nd}`$ Hopf map for this four-level $`2`$-qubit system. If this $`2`$-qubit is separable, the $`S^7`$ fiber space itself reduces to $`S^2S^3`$ with $`S^3`$ living on the fiber. Then we can again fibrate the $`S^3`$ to mod out the global phase. Consequently, if it is fully separable, the $`3`$-qubit reduces to $`S^2S^2S^2`$ with the first, second and third qubits living in the base space of the $`S^{15}`$ fibration, the base space of the $`S^7`$ fibration of the fibre and the fibre of $`S^7`$ fibration of the fibre, respectively.

#### IV.3.2 Entangled states

Now, let us turn to the maximally entangled states(M.E.S.). They corresponding to the vector $`C_2i_2+C_3i_3+C_4i_6`$ have maximal norm. For a M.E.S., $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_O`$ reads

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_O={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\mathrm{exp}\left(\pi {\displaystyle \frac{C_2i_2+C_3i_4+C_4^{}i_6}{2}}\right)o,\mathrm{exp}\left(\pi {\displaystyle \frac{C_2i_2+C_3i_4+C_4^{}i_6}{2}}\right)o).`$ (51)
The M.E.S. expands a $`5`$-dimensional sphere $`S^5`$. For $`C_4=\pm \frac{1}{2}`$ and $`o=(1\pm i_6)/\sqrt{2}`$, the standard GHZ state is obtained from Eq.(51).

For any $`\mathrm{\Omega }.M.E.S`$, $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_O`$ can be written as

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_O=(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{C_2i_2+C_3i_4+C_4^{}i_6}{|C_2i_2+C_3i_3+C_4^{}i_6|}}\right)o,\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{C_2i_2+C_3i_4+C_4^{}i_6}{|C_2i_2+C_3i_3+C_4^{}i_6|}}\right)o)`$ (52)
From Eq.(59), one see the fact that the base space contains the information of the first qubit and the information of the correlation between it and the other two qubits while the fiber only contains the information of the second and third qubits only. We can utilize this observation to generalize the Bloch sphere representation. The Hopf map clearly suggests to split the representation into a product of base and fiber subspaces. For the base space $`S^8`$, we propose to only keep three coordinates:

$`(X_1,X_2,X_9)=(\sigma _xI_{2qubit},\sigma _yI_{2qubit},\sigma _zI_{2qubit}).`$ (53)
All states are then mapped onto a ball $`B^3`$ of radius $`1`$ described by $`0X_1^2+X_2^2+X_9^21`$ . The set of separable states are mapped onto the $`S^2`$ boundary as discussed previously. The center of the ball corresponds to M.E.S. The concentric spherical shells correspond to the set of states with the same entanglement as defined in Eq.(59).

#### IV.3.3 Angle description of entanglement

For a generic $`3`$-qubit state given by Eq.(24a), we can decompose it as

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }=|0|\mathrm{\Psi }_0+|1|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ (54)
with

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ $`=`$ $`A_0|00+A_1|01+B_0|10+B_1|11`$ (55a)
$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ $`=`$ $`A_0^{}|00+A_1^{}|01+B_0^{}|10+B_1^{}|11.`$ (55b)
Geometrically, we can imagine that $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ ($`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$) lives on the north (south) pole of the one-qubit Bloch sphere. After parallel transporting the vector $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ from the south pole to the north pole, we can define an angle to quantify the difference between $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$. If these two vectors are pointing in the same direction, i.e.,

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_0=C|\mathrm{\Psi }_1(C),`$ (56)
the first qubit can be separated from the other two and the $`3`$-qubit state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ reduces to a $`1`$-qubit $``$ $`2`$-qubit state. We then can iterate this decomposition for the $`2`$-qubit state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$.

The condition (56) leads to the same conditions as given in Eq.(26). A natural definition of the entanglement is then given by

$`E=A{\displaystyle \underset{b,c,b^{}c^{}}{}}\left[|t_{0bc}t_{1b^{}c^{}}t_{0b^{}c^{}}t_{1bc}|^2+|t_{b0c}t_{b^{}1c^{}}t_{b^{}0c^{}}t_{b1c}|^2+|t_{b0c}t_{b^{}1c^{}}t_{b^{}0c^{}}t_{b1c}|^2\right]`$ (57)
where $`A`$ is a proper normalization factor and $`t_{abc}abc|\mathrm{\Psi }`$. The generalization of this definition is straightforward. This definition is exactly the same as the one discussed by Meyer et al.Meyer2002 .

#### IV.3.4 Quantifying Entanglement

Based on our discussion above, we are now in position to propose a quantity that quantifies the degree of entanglement of a 3-qubit state. As our discussion so far suggests, we need to probe for the entanglement of 3-qubits in a 1-qubit $``$ 2-qubit state. (Subsequently, we can particularize to the fiber of the third hopf map and classify the degree of entanglement of the 2-qubit state.) We therefore partially trace two qubits to obtain the partially traced matrix $`\rho _1`$:

$$\rho _1=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1+X_9& X_1iX_2\\ X_1+iX_2& 1X_9\end{array}\right)$$
(58)
Usually, for generic 3-qubit states, $`det\rho _1>0`$. However, in the case of 2-qubit $``$ 1qubit entanglement, the determinant of the matrix vanishes, and therefore $`X_3=X_4=X_5=X_6=X_7=X_8=0`$. It seems obvious then that we could use the quantity

$`E=X_3^2+X_4^2+X_5^2+X_6^2+X_7^2+X_8^2=1X_1^2X_2^2X_9^2`$ (59)
to quantify entanglement. Small values of $`E`$ means high degree of separability of 1-qubit and 2-qubit Hilbert spaces in the 3-qubit state and viceversa. Notice that this quantity $`E`$ only measures the entanglement between the first qubit and the $`2`$-qubit system of second and third qubit. Similarly, we can construct the second or third qubit into base space to get two different constructions of the Hopf fibration. A more reasonable definition of the measurement of the entanglement will be the average of the quantity given in Eq.(59) over all possible constructions.

Let us now test these assumptions on two well known states, GHZ and W states of the 3-qubit problem. The generalized GHZ states read:

$$|GHZ|_{generalized}=\alpha _0|000+\gamma _1|111\begin{array}{c}X_5=2Re\gamma _1Im\alpha _0+2Im\gamma _1Re\alpha _0\\ X_6=2Re\gamma _1Re\alpha _02Im\gamma _1Im\alpha _0\\ X_9=|\alpha _0|^2|\gamma _1|^2\end{array}$$
(60)
the other $`X`$’s being zero, and with a degree of entanglement $`E=1|\alpha _0|^2+|\gamma _1|^2`$. For the pure GHZ state $`\alpha =\gamma _1=1/\sqrt{2}`$ and therefore $`E=1`$, meaning that the GHZ state is a maximally entangled state of the 3 qubit system, consistent with well-known result.

The generalized W state reads:

$$|W_{generalized}=\delta _0|100+\beta _0|010+\alpha _1|001\begin{array}{c}X_3=2Re\alpha _1Re\delta _02Im\alpha _1Im\delta _0\\ X_4=2Im\alpha _1Re\delta _0+2Re\alpha _1Im\delta _0\\ X_5=2Re\beta _0Re\delta _02Im\beta _0Im\delta _0\\ X_8=2Im\beta _0Re\delta _0+2Re\beta _0Im\delta _0\\ X_9=|\alpha _1|^2+|\beta _0|^2|\delta _0|^2\end{array}$$
(61)
For the W state, $`X_3=X_5=2X_9=\frac{2}{3}`$ and the degree of entanglement is $`E=X_3^2+X_5^2=8/9`$, consistent with the literatureMeyer2002 .

#### IV.3.5 Conjecture

A natural question is whether this construction is generalizable to systems with more than 3 qubits. One can imagine expanding the same formalism by always adding another square root of unity and forming the next algebra. Although this is possible via the Cayley-Dickenson formalism (see Appendix), the algebras formed in this way are not alternative, and cannot be written as fibrations of spheres over sphere base spaces. The Hopf construction stops at octonions. However, the subsequent algebras, although not division, are nicely normed, which means that they have an inverse. So in principle the type of map that we give in this paper is possible. However, the map would fail in the following sense: it would be possible to map non-zero points into zeros in the base space, fact which is not possible in the maps using division algebra numbers. This is just a restatement of the fact that further algebras would have zero divisors.

However, the Cayley-Dickson construction, as well as the fact that the number of dimensions of the algebras created by this construction is identical to the number of dimensions of the qubit spaces, hint at some deeper connection between the Cayley construction and qubit states. Interestingly, this construction might be very related to the hyperdeterminant construction of Miyake and Wadatimiyake2003 . Out definition of the entanglement $`E`$ in Eq.(57) is very similar to the hyperderterminant construction. It would be interesting to investigate this correspondence for higher qubit states. The non-existence of Hopf maps for higher than 3 qubits seems to tell us that the 1-qubit, 2-qubit, and 3-qubit states are, in some sense, more special than higher qubit states. However, the richness of information that we are able to procure with the identification presented in this paper and in the paper by Mosseri and Dandoloff seems to make further investigation in this field worthy.

## V Conclusions

In this paper we analyze the 3-qubit state. We give a full description of the 3-qubit Hilbert space by relating it to the third and last Hopf fibration. We prove that this fibration is entanglement sensitive, that is, it can detect whether the 3-qubit state is separable or entangled. Moreover, we show that one can define a quantity to describe the entanglement of the 3-qubit state and the possibility of it being separable as a 1-qubit$``$ 2-qubit state. Our results, cumulated to the results of Mosseri, show that non-trivial fibrations are a very useful tool in describing many-qubit states and their entanglement.

## VI Acknowledgements

This paper was the result of a suggestion by S.C. Zhang, for which we are deeply grateful. We also acknowledge private communications with Remy Mosseri, for which we are deeply grateful. The authors would like to thank G. Chapline, C.H.Chern, T. Cuk, J. Franklin, R.B. Laughlin, D. Santiago, T.-C. Wei, C.J. Wu, J. T. Yard and G. Zeltzer for valuable discussions. This work is supported by the NSF under grant numbers DMR-9814289 and 2FEV602, and the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract DE-AC03-76SF00515. The authors also acknowledge support from the Stanford Graduate Fellowship Program.

## Appendix A Octonions and the last Division Algebra

An extensive review of octonions and division algebras is provided by Baezbaez . Real and Complex numbers are used by physicists daily. Although real numbers are in a sense ‘nicer’ than complex numbers because the conjugate of a real number is itself, complex numbers bring about new and powerful properties and structure. However, they are only the first two kind of numbers in a set of four possible structures. In a far-reaching and very deep argument, it has been proved that there are only four division algebras, in other words, there are only 4 vector spaces $`A`$ equipped with a bilinear map $`m:A\times AA`$ called multiplication, and with a non-zero element called unit such that $`m(1,a)=m(a,1)=a`$ (these properties form an algebra) and given $`a,bA`$ with $`ab=0`$ then either $`a=0`$ or $`b=0`$ (no zero divisors - property defining the division algebra). The real and the complexes ($`,`$) form the first two division algebras. The third and fourth division algebra are the quaternions and the octonions ($`,𝕆`$). The Cayley-Dickson constructions provides a construction of the elements in $`,,,𝕆`$ which makes apparent the fact that each one fits nicely in the next. The complex numbers can be considered as a pair of real numbers $`(a,b)`$; then addition can be performed component-wise whereas the multiplication rule is:

$$(a,b)(c,d)=(acdb,ad+cb)=acdb+(ad+cb)i.$$
(62)
We can define the quaternions in a similar way: a quaternion is a pair of complex numbers $`(a,b)`$, with the complex conjugation and the multiplication laws being:

$$(a,b)^{}=(a^{},b),(a,b)(c,d)=(acd^{}b,bc^{}+da)=acd^{}b+(bc^{}+da)i_2.$$
(63)
The quaternions are non-commutative and upon expansion, can be written as $`q=Rea+i_1Ima+i_2Reb+i_3Imb`$, $`i_1^2=i_2^2=i_3^2=i_1i_2i_3=1`$. We can go one step further and build an octonion from a pair of quaternions $`(q_1,q_2)`$, with the multiplication and conjugation laws the same as before. The octonions are non-associative, as well as non-commutative. They are the biggest division algebra. If one continues the Cayley-Dickson construction further, by taking a pair of octonions, one discovers that the division property is lost, that is, the new numbers have zero divisors. The division algebras, including the non-associative octonions have the essential property that they are alternative, in other words:

$$a,b,,,𝕆(aa)b=(aab),(ab)a=a(ba),(ba)a=b(aa).$$
(64)
Octonions can be presented in the double quaternion format but also, equivalently, in expanded format with $`i_1,i_2,i_3,i_4,i_6,i_7`$ as imaginary units (square roots of $`1`$):

$$o=x_0+\underset{\alpha }{}x_mi_m,x_{0,\mathrm{},7},i_1^2=\mathrm{}=i_7^2=1,$$
(65)
which can also be described in terms of quaternions and complex numbers as $`o=\{(x_0+x_1i_1)+(x_2+x_3i_1)i_2\}+\{(x_4+x_7i_1)+(x_6x_5i_1)i_2\}i_4`$. The multiplication table can be given in terms of the cycles:

$$(123),(246),(435),(367),(651),(572),(714)$$
(66)
which read, for example $`i_7i_1=i_4`$, etc. The conjugate and inverse of an octonion $`o`$ is:

$$\overline{o}=x_0\underset{m}{}x_mi_m,o^1=\frac{\overline{o}}{|o|^2}.$$
(67)
Another way in which an octonion $`o`$ can be written is as a scalar $`S(o)`$ part and a vectorial $`V(o)`$ part:

$$S(o)=\frac{1}{2}(o+\overline{o})=x_0,V(o)=\frac{1}{2}(o\overline{o})=\underset{m=1}{\overset{7}{}}V_m(o)i_m=\underset{m=1}{\overset{7}{}}x_ii_m$$
(68)
An octonion $`o`$ can also be written in exponential form:

$$o=|o|\mathrm{exp}(\theta I),\theta =\mathrm{arccos}\left(\frac{S(o)}{|o|}\right),I=\frac{V(o)}{|V(o)|}$$
(69)
As presented in the body of the paper, the third hopf map is nicely presented in terms of octonions:

$`h_1:\begin{array}{ccc}𝕆𝕆& & 𝕆\{\mathrm{}\}S^8\\ (q_1,q_2)& & h_1=o_1o_2^1\end{array},|o_1|^2+|o_2|^2=1`$ (70c)
$`h_2:\begin{array}{ccc}𝕆\{\mathrm{}\}& & S^8\\ h_1& & X_{i,(i=1,\mathrm{},9)}\end{array},{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{9}{}}}X_i^2=1`$ (70f)
$`h_2h_1(o_1,o_2)=X_i=\sigma _i_\mathrm{\Psi }=(o_1^{},o_2^{})\sigma _i\left(\begin{array}{c}o_1\\ o_2\end{array}\right),`$ (70i)
where

$`\sigma _1=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right),\sigma _{2,3,4,5,6,7,8}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& i_{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}\\ i_{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}& 0\end{array}\right),\sigma _9=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$ (77)
are a generalization of the Pauli matrices to Quternionic space. The form of the map is identical to the form of the map presented in Mosseri et alMosseri2001 . However, proving that $`S^7`$ is the fiber of this map turns out to be non-trivial, since as opposed to the quaternionic case of the second Hopf map, we lose the associativity property and therefore $`(o_1o_2)o_3o_1(o_2o_3)`$ for $`o_1,o_2,o_3𝕆`$. However, after some explicit calculations one can find out that the essential property is that the algebra be alternative. Alternativity holding, one can prove the following: $`o_1^1(o_1o_2)=(o_1^1o_1)o_2`$ and therefore inverse map is:

$$h_1^1(y)=\left(\begin{array}{c}\{(yd,d)|d𝕆,|yd,d|=1\},x\mathrm{}\\ \{(c,0)|c𝕆,|c|=1,x=\mathrm{}\end{array}\right)$$
(78)


text:
# hep-ph/0302181 Implications of partially degenerate neutrinos at a high scale in the light of KamLAND and WMAP

Abstract

Electroweak radiative corrections can generate the neutrino (mass)2 difference required for the large mixing angle solution (LMA) to the solar neutrino problem if two of the neutrinos are assumed degenerate at high energy. We test this possibility with the existing experimental knowledge of the low energy neutrino mass and mixing parameters. We derive restrictions on ranges of the high scale mixing matrix elements and obtain predictions for the low energy parameters required in order to get the LMA solution of the solar neutrino problem picked out by KamLAND. We find that in the case of standard model this is achieved only when the (degenerate) neutrino masses lie in the range $`(0.72)\mathrm{eV}`$ which is at odds with the cosmological limit $`m_\nu <0.23\mathrm{eV}`$ (at $`95\%C.L`$) established recently using WMAP results. Thus SM radiative corrections cannot easily generate the LMA solution in this scenario. However, the LMA solution is possible in case of the MSSM electroweak corrections with (almost) degenerate spectrum or with inverted mass hierarchy for limited ranges in the high scale parameters.

Introduction: Results from solar and atmospheric neutrinos  have greatly helped in establishing patterns for neutrino masses and mixings particularly after the report of the positive evidence of neutrino oscillations seen at KamLand . The allowed possibilities are quite constrained. One needs hierarchical differences in the neutrino (mass)2 and two large and one small ($`0.2`$) mixing angle to fit the observations.

The phenomenological determination of neutrino masses and mixing raises several theoretical questions two of which are ($`i`$) why two of the six physical fermionic mixing angles are large and ($`ii`$) what is the cause of hierarchy in the solar ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$) and the atmospheric ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{atm}}`$) mass scales. There have been number of answers to these questions in variety of frameworks . One possibility is to invoke radiative corrections to understand smallness of $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_S}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{atm}}}`$. These corrections could be weak corrections to the lepton number violating neutrino mass operators  or could also come from physics beyond standard model . Possibility of the electroweak corrections generating solar scale has recently been analyzed in . It is assumed that two of the neutrinos are degenerate at some high scale and electroweak corrections result in generation of the solar (mass)2 difference. This possibility was shown to be quite constrained. It leads to a definite prediction for the solar scale namely,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_S\mathrm{cos}2\theta _S=4\delta _\tau \mathrm{sin}^2\theta _A|m_{ee}|^2+𝒪(\delta _\tau ^2).$$
(1)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ is the mass-squared difference responsible for the solar neutrino oscillations, and the angles $`\theta _S`$ and $`\theta _A`$ respectively denote the solar and the atmospheric mixing angles at a low scale. $`m_{ee}`$ is the effective neutrino mass probed in the $`0\nu \beta \beta `$decay and $`\delta _\tau `$ specifies the size of the radiative corrections induced by the Yukawa coupling of the $`\tau `$:

$$\delta _\tau c\left(\frac{m_\tau }{4\pi v}\right)^2\mathrm{ln}\frac{M_X}{M_Z}.$$
(2)
$`c=\frac{3}{2},\frac{1}{\mathrm{cos}^2\beta }`$ in case of the standard model (SM) and the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) respectively .

Additional assumption made in deriving eq.(1) was that the mixing element $`U_{e3}`$ of the leptonic mixing matrix $`U`$ was zero at high scale. This assumption was motivated by the observed smallness of $`U_{e3}`$ at low energy. Given this assumption, eq.(1) makes very strong predictions analyzed in detail in . Two of the major consequences being that the MSSM radiative corrections cannot generate the large mixing angle (LMA) solution to the solar neutrino problem and in the case of SM one needs $`m_{ee}`$ close to the present experimental limit .

A non-zero and relatively large low scale $`U_{e3}0.2`$ could change some of the qualitative aspects of predictions based on eq.(1). More importantly, the mixing angle at high scale could even be larger than $`0.2`$ and can still give rise to an experimentally acceptable $`U_{e3}`$ at the low scale. In this paper we study the general implications of two degenerate neutrinos at high scale without assuming a zero $`U_{e3}`$. The general numerical analysis carried out in this paper leads to very strong predictions for three of the yet unknown observables namely, $`U_{e3},m_{ee}`$ and the absolute neutrino mass $`m_{\nu _e}`$ probed in beta decay . One of the conclusions of our analysis is that a non-zero high scale $`U_{e3}`$ makes the MSSM viable. In the SM however the LMA mass difference can be generated radiatively only when the the degenerate neutrino mass is in the range of $`(0.72)eV`$. This requirement is ruled out by the WMAP result that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu h^2<0.0076`$ (at $`95\%C.L`$.)  which for the degenerate neutrino spectrum implies that $`m_\nu <0.23.`$

Formalism: Consider a CP conserving theory specified by a general $`3\times 3`$ real symmetric neutrino mass matrix $`M_{\nu 0}`$ specified at a high scale $`M_X`$. We require that the solar scale vanishes at $`M_X`$ and consequently two of the eigenvalues of $`M_{\nu 0}`$ are degenerate, $`i.e.`$ , we assume 111The solar angle can be rotated away in case of the other viable possibility $`m_{\nu _{0i}}=(m,m,m^{})`$ which cannot reproduce the observed pattern. $`m_{\nu _{0i}}=(m,m,m^{})`$ for the neutrino masses at $`M_X`$. The atmospheric neutrino oscillations are induced by $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{A0}|m^2m^2|`$.

Neutrino mixing matrix has the following general form under the assumption of CP conservation.

$$U_0=R_{23}(\theta _2)R_{13}(\theta _3)R_{12}(\theta _1),$$
(3)
where $`R_{ij}(\theta )`$ denotes a rotation in the $`ij^{th}`$ plane by an angle $`\theta `$. The $`\theta _{1,2}`$ are assumed to vary between 0 and $`\pi /2`$ while $`s_3=\mathrm{sin}\theta _3`$ varies over the full range. The neutrino mass matrix at $`M_X`$ is given by

$$_{0\nu }=U_0Diag.(m,m,m^{})U_0^T.$$
(4)
The matrix $`_{0\nu }`$ determined by eq.(4) is modified by the radiative corrections. The radiatively corrected form of $`_{0\nu }`$ follows from the relevant RG equations . We assume the RG equations corresponding to the SM or the MSSM. The modified neutrino mass matrix is given  in this case by

$$_{0\nu }_\nu I_gI_t(IU_0diag.(m,m,m^{})U_0^TI)$$
(5)
where $`I_{g,t}`$ are calculable numbers depending on the gauge and top quark Yukawa couplings. $`I`$ is a flavour dependent matrix given by

$$Idiag.(1+\delta _e,1+\delta _\mu ,1+\delta _\tau ).$$

$`\delta _{e,\mu }`$ are obtained from eq.(2) by replacing the tau mass by the electron and the muon masses respectively. The physical neutrino masses and mixing are obtained by diagonalizing the above matrix.

The eigenvalues of $`_\nu `$ can be approximately determined in the limit of vanishing $`m_{e,\mu }`$. We find,

$`m_{\nu _1}`$ $``$ $`m(1+2\delta _\tau (c_1c_2s_3s_1s_2)^2)+𝒪(\delta _\tau ^2),`$
$`m_{\nu _2}`$ $``$ $`m(1+2\delta _\tau (s_1c_2s_3+c_1s_2)^2)+𝒪(\delta _\tau ^2),`$
$`m_{\nu _3}`$ $``$ $`m^{}(1+2\delta _\tau c_2^2c_3^2)+𝒪(\delta _\tau ^2).`$ (6)
We thus have

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}m_{\nu _2}^2m_{\nu _1}^24\delta _\tau m^2\left(\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1(s_2^2s_3^2c_2^2)+s_3\mathrm{sin}2\theta _1\mathrm{sin}2\theta _2\right)+𝒪(\delta _\tau ^2).$$
(7)
It is conventional to order masses in a way that makes the solar scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ positive. The phenomenological analysis then restricts $`\theta _S`$ to be $`<\pi /4`$. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}`$ as defined above can have either sign. For positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S=\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}2\theta _S=\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1`$. One needs to interchange first two eigenvalues and eigenvector of $`_\nu `$ in the opposite case with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}<0`$ giving us $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S=\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}2\theta _S=\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1`$. In either situation, one needs $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1>0`$ in order to obtain the LMA solution. For $`s_3=0`$, the sign of $`\delta _\tau `$ determines the sign of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1`$. As a result one cannot reproduce the LMA solution in the case of MSSM as already remarked . The introduction of a non-zero $`s_3`$ changes this behavior. As follows from eq.(7) one can now obtain positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1`$ in case of the MSSM also for some range in parameter space corresponding to $`s_3\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1<0`$. This range is limited since $`s_3`$ cannot be very large without conflicting with the observed bound on $`U_{e3}`$.

Realization of the LMA solution in this framework would require some restrictions on the initial high scale parameters and would also restrict the values of the low energy observables. These observables include $`m_{ee},\mathrm{\Delta }_S,U_{e3}`$ and the electron neutrino mass $`m_{\nu _i}`$. We study these restrictions in detail below through the following procedure:

Input parameters: We randomly vary the input mixing angles $`\theta _i`$ and the mass $`m`$ over the range $`0<\theta _{1,2}<\pi /2`$, $`\pi /2<\theta _3<\pi /2`$ and $`0<m<2\mathrm{eV}`$. Since the atmospheric mass scale does not significantly change by the radiative corrections, we fix the third mass $`m^{}`$ by requiring $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{atm}}|m^2m^2|=(.05)^2`$. $`m^{}`$ can have either sign relative to $`m`$ and could be heavier or lighter than $`m`$. We will consider $`|m^{}|>|m|`$ and $`m^{}m`$. The MSSM radiative corrections involve an additional parameter $`\mathrm{cos}\beta `$ which is also randomly varied in the range (0-1\].

Output values of observables: Eq.(5) is numerically diagonalized for each choice of the randomly chosen input variables. This gives us the output values of the solar and atmospheric masses and mixing angles, $`U_{e3}`$ as well as $`m_{ee}`$ and $`m_{\nu _e}`$. The known output parameters are required to lie in the range :

$$\begin{array}{cc}|U_{e3}|0.2& \\ 410^5\mathrm{eV}^2\mathrm{\Delta }_S2.810^4\mathrm{eV}^2;& 0.2\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _S0.8,\\ 1.210^3\mathrm{eV}^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{atm}}5.010^3\mathrm{eV}^2;& 0.8\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _A1.0,\end{array}$$
(8)
The ranges quoted for the solar parameters is $`3\sigma `$ level. The KamLand results on the anti neutrino oscillations do not allow the full range of the LMA solution quoted above but the allowed values at 90% CL lie in two different ranges which are subsets of the above range. Consistency of the results with KamLand can be explicitly seen from the figures to be presented.

From the randomly varied set of 100,000 points, we collect the acceptable choice of the (high scale) input variables which lead to the low energy parameters lying in the ranges in eq.(8). This procedure also gives us the predicted values of the output observables like $`m_{ee},m_{\nu _e}`$ corresponding to the acceptable choices of the input parameters. Results of our analysis are presented in case of the SM as well as MSSM in Figs.(1-5).

Fig.(1) shows the allowed values of the input parameters $`s_1,s_3`$ consistent with random variations of these and other parameters. The effect of the radiative corrections on mixing angles is not pronounced in case of the SM and the input ranges for $`s_3`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _1`$ coincide approximately with the allowed ranges in $`U_{e3}`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _S`$. Radiative corrections can be appreciable in case of the MSSM and an $`s_3`$ as large as 0.4 can lead to $`U_{e3}0.2`$ at the low scale. But values of $`s_3`$ larger than this cannot reproduce the correct low energy parameters. Two different patches in the figure correspond to $`s_3>0,\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1<0`$ and $`s_3<0,\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1>0`$ both of which can lead to the correct solution as argued above.

In Fig.(2), we display output values of the solar scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ and $`m_{ee}`$ consistent with the random variation of the input parameters. The allowed points span the entire range in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ and thus the two sub regions corresponding to the KamLand results are easily obtained. The predicted values of $`m_{ee}`$ are quite restricted. Typical lower bound in case of the SM is around $`0.050.1`$ and most points crowd in the range $`0.41.0\mathrm{eV}`$ in case of the SM. Typical range preferred by MSSM is $`m_{ee}0.20.4\mathrm{eV}`$.

We show the values of $`|U_{e3}|`$ realized in the random analysis in Fig.(3) as a function of $`m_{ee}`$. In large number of cases, $`|U_{e3}|`$ is seen to lie close to the experimental limit in case of the SM. The MSSM also predicts larger values but allows smaller values $`|U_{e3}|.02`$ also.

Fig.(4) is prediction for the mass $`m`$ which corresponds to the electron neutrino mass probed in the tritium beta decay. One sees a clear preference for $`m0.72\mathrm{eV}`$. In fact $`3\sigma `$ lower bound on $`m`$ following from approximate eq.(7) and realized in the figure is $`m>0.7`$ eV. MSSM also prefers similar values but it can still allow $`m`$ as low as $`0.1\mathrm{eV}`$ due to the presence of an additional parameter $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$.

We had initially chosen 100,000 random points in both cases but the allowed set of input points is much larger in case of the SM. This clearly shows that radiative corrections in SM can more easily reproduce the low energy neutrino spectrum than in MSSM. This was to be expected since when $`s_3`$ is zero, MSSM cannot lead to the LMA solution at all . Introduction of $`s_3`$ now allows MSSM but the allowed values of $`s_3`$ are constrained by the observed bound on $`U_{e3}`$ and as a result one gets correct solution in case of MSSM for much smaller number of input points. In contrast, the SM can reproduce correct spectrum even for $`s_3=0`$ as clearly seen in Fig.(1).

We assumed three neutrinos to be almost degenerate in the above analysis. Alternative possibility corresponds to the inverted mass hierarchy in which only the solar pair has non-zero mass mass $`m`$, the third mass $`m^{}`$ being zero or much smaller. It was argued  that in all these models the weak radiative corrections are unable to give the LMA solution if $`s_3=0`$. This conclusion arises because the mass $`m`$ in this case is required to be close to the atmospheric scale. The resulting $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ is at least an order of magnitude smaller than required by LMA in case of the SM. MSSM has additional parameter $`tan\beta `$ which can overcome this suppression but $`tan^2\theta _S`$ is predicted to be greater than 1 when $`s_3=0`$. Non-zero $`s_3`$ changes this conclusion. As already discussed, one can obtain $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _S<1`$ even in case of MSSM if $`s_3\mathrm{cos}2\theta _1<0`$. In this case one can get a $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ corresponding to the LMA solution even for $`m^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{atm}}`$ by choosing a large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. This is demonstrated in Fig. (5) which shows allowed values of $`|s_3|`$ and $`m`$ resulting from the random variations of input parameters. Unlike in earlier figures, the mass $`m`$ is now varied only near the atmospheric range specifically in the interval $`0.010.1`$ eV and $`\mathrm{cos}\beta `$ is varied in the range $`0.0010.2`$ since only these ranges are expected to give the correct $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{atm}}`$. As seen in the figure, we do get the correct solutions although for limited number of output values starting with 100,000 input points as before.

Summary and implications for models: We have numerically investigated consequences of having vanishing $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ at a high scale. This assumption can account for the smallness of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ after inclusion of the weak radiative corrections. The predicted value for the solar scale is linked to observable low scale parameters. This results in stringent predictions which can be tested.

Basic assumption of our analysis is two degenerate neutrinos. This can be realized in number of ways and there are numerous models which predict two  or all three  neutrinos to be degenerate. If the third neutrino has comparable mass then one gets the almost degenerate scenario. Precise information on the common mass of these degenerate neutrinos has recently been provided by the data on microwave anisotropy . In combination with the information on the galactic structures, this data imply a bound of $`m<0.23eV`$ at $`95\%CL`$ . As our Fig.(4) shows, this mass is required to be in the range (0.7-2 ) eV in case of SM but it could be smaller for MSSM. Thus the SM radiative corrections and degenerate spectrum cannot account for the LMA solution at $`95\%CL`$. The lower bound is also inconsistent with the $`99\%CL`$ limit, $`m<0.3\mathrm{eV}`$ following from analysis by Giunti in .

The standard model also fails in generating correct $`\mathrm{\Delta }_S`$ if neutrinos have inverted mass hierarchy. It is possible to obtain the LMA solution in case of the MSSM which allows degenerate mass in the range $`0.12\mathrm{eV}`$ range. Likewise, one can also obtain the LMA solution in case of MSSM and the inverted mass hierarchy, see Fig.(5). The LMA solution and value $`m<0.23\mathrm{eV}`$ occurs in both these cases only for very limited range of parameters.

Another related but testable prediction of the scheme is $`m_{ee}`$ probed by $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ decay results. The present experimental limit on this scale is uncertain due to the unknown nuclear matrix element. The present bound is  $`m_{ee}<0.4h\mathrm{eV}`$ at 95% CL. The $`h0.62.8`$ parameterizes222See, Feruglio et al in . the uncertainty in nuclear matrix element. The present scenario is consistent with this limit (see Figs. 2 and 3) but it can be constrained with improvement on our knowledge of the solar parameters, $`m_{ee}`$ and $`U_{e3}`$.