1. Introduction
A form-invariant solution is generated from a transformation that can maintain the form of the solution to an equation in the original untransformed space but with new variables. In recent years, there has been interest in applying it to design novel devices (e.g., [
1,
2]). A way to obtain the solution is through conformal mapping. For a 2D system, a suitable mapping not only produces the solution but also offers us freedom to inspect the system’s response when all the variables execute the conformal deformation. Inspired by a conformal monopole and surface revealed from an exploration of the form-invariant solution to the charge-monopole system [
3], the purpose of this paper is to report an application of the conformal deformation and the quantization condition of the pole strength to control the measurement, evolution path of the Berry phase, and resonant frequency of a spin in the 2D spherical parameter space.
This paper is arranged as follows: In 
Section 2, starting with the Hamiltonian of an electron’s spin coupling to a conformal vector in the parameter space, the eigenstates are shown to have the form-invariant representation of the common spinor. The new representation possesses an additional degree of freedom depicted by the conformal index that can be used to tune the outcome of the measurement of the spin along the specific axes. In 
Section 3, the Berry phase of the spinor generated by an adiabatic transportation of the spin along the conformal coordinate paths is evaluated. It is found that the phase is tunable by the index at the different latitude of the Bloch sphere. A rotating magnetic field is suggested to construct the conformal vector and obtain the Berry phase. In 
Section 4, the source of the Berry phase is investigated. We show that the phase is established by going around the conformal monopole in the parameter space. In 
Section 5, we present the dual fields of the dual conformal monopole, and show that the strengths of the pole and its dual partner are dictated by the reciprocally quantized conformal index. 
Section 6 is used to discuss the resonant phenomenon of the spin on the conformal parameter surface. The resonant frequency associated with the conformal deformation is given. Finally, a conclusion and two remarks are made in the 
Section 7.
  2. Form-Invariant Representation of a Spinor
Instead of the common unit vector 
, 
 and 
, in the parameter space used to describe a physical field, we adopt the conformal unit vector 
 to discuss the behavior of a spin coupled to a field by the Hamiltonian 
 where 
 is the vector formed by the Pauli matrices. The definition of the conformal variables 
, 
 is given by the transformation [
3]
      
      where 
a is a constant, and can be regarded as a real number. 
Figure 1 and 
Figure 2 show the graphs of 
 and 
 for some values of 
a. They are periodic functions with the range 
 and 
 except for the trivial case 
 for the latter. The locations of the extreme values of these functions coincide with those given by 
 and 
. An interesting feature of the function is that 
 (
) is an anti-symmetric (symmetric) function with respect to the negative value of 
a. The line element for the surface can be expressed as
      
      where
      
      and 
 is the line element of the common 2D unit sphere 
. Equation (
2) exhibits that the surface with the conformal factor 
 is conformal to 
. Hereafter we shall use 
 to label the conformal surface. Since the deformation of 
 is depicted by 
a, it will be referred to as the conformal index.
It is known that a spin state is described by the spinor 
 which can be obtained by evaluating the solution of the Schrödinger equation 
 with 
 being the eigenvalue. The condition of having a non-trivial solution to the equation is determined by the characteristic equation
      
It gives 
 and the corresponding normalized spinors,
      
      and
      
They maintain the form-invariance of the familiar spinors. Nevertheless, the conformal degree of freedom allows us to tune the measurement of the spin along the different directions by the index 
a. For instance, the measurements along the positive and negative 
z directions of spin for an electron with the spin state 
 give the amplitudes
      
      and
      
      where 
 and 
 are the eigenstates corresponding to the eigenvalues 
 and 
 of the Pauli matrix 
. Therefore, the probabilities of the spin in the measurements along the 
 directions are respectively given by
      
      and
      
They are independent of 
. The graphs in 
Figure 3 show the probability 
 which is manipulable by the index 
a, and the probabilities corresponding to 
a and 
 are complementary. This implies that one can control the probability through the modulation of the index 
a. The spin orientation of a prepared state 
 in the laboratory will almost definitely collapse to the 
z (negative 
z) direction in a measurement when the variable 
 (
) if the index value 
. The average of the two measurements above is 
 which can also be tuned by the index. Analogously, the probabilities of the spin state 
 to appear in the 
, and 
 directions are given by
      
      and
      
They retain the form-invariance to the common representation. The graphs in 
Figure 4 show the probability 
 of the state 
 appearing in the positive 
x direction, where we choose 
 to inspect the outcome. Owing to the conformal freedom, the outcome of a measurement for 
 can be realized by the measurement of 
 with the negative index 
, and vice versa.
  3. Controlling the Evolution Path of the Berry Phase
In this section, we first show that the Berry phase of the spin along the conformal coordinate paths depends on the deformation, and the accumulating process of the phase is tunable by the conformal index. Then, a physical realization of the control through a time-dependent rotational magnetic field is suggested. The Berry phase for a normalized, non-degenerate eigenstate 
 is defined by (e.g., [
4,
5])
      
      which characterizes the time evolution of the state when the parameter 
 in the Hamiltonian 
 changes along a closed path 
 with 
 in the parameter space, i.e., the evolution state is given by
      
      where 
 is the energy corresponding to the instant state 
 that satisfies the Schrödinger equation
      
Berry pointed out that the phase can be non-integrable (i.e., path-dependent) [
4]. Thus, there is an interference effect that is physically observable. Hereafter in the article, we shall refer to 
 as the Berry potential. For our consideration of the form-invariant spinors, the Berry potential is given by
      
The corresponding Berry phase is
      
Figure 5 shows the variation of the phase at the different latitudes on the Bloch sphere. The evolution path at a specific 
 can be altered by the index 
a. We see that the phase with 
 in the domain 
 is complementary to 
 in 
, and the evolution processes of the phase for 
 are allowed drastic changes around 
 which show up different interference patterns. For the other spinor with eigenvalue 
, we have the Berry potential
      
 The corresponding Berry phase is
      
This indicates that 
. Along the closed path of 
 constant, it is easy to show that 
. Thus, the Berry phase 
. In the following, let us discuss the gauge freedom of the Berry potential 
. We rename the state in (
5) as
      
      where the Cartesian coordinate system defined by the conformal variables
      
      is introduced in the parameter space. It is thus well-defined in the north conformal hemisphere. The corresponding Berry potential is
      
Another normalized representation of the state 
 can be taken as
      
It has singularity at the north pole, and good behavior in the south conformal hemisphere. Thus, the conformal deformation of parameters retains the singular behavior of the common spinor (e.g., [
5,
6]). Two representations in (
22) and (
25) differ by a gauge transformation, i.e., 
. The corresponding Berry potential of the state 
 is
      
Both potentials give the same electromagnetic tensor
      
The transformation function that associates 
 with 
 can be found through the right hand side of the first equality in the equation. It implies that 
. Thus, the function 
 satisfies 
, and it has the general solution 
. It is seen that the potential and the induced tensor both depend on the index 
a that offers us the degree of freedom to control the fields. The phase 
 can also be obtained by the integral
      
      over the conformal surface bounded by the closed path 
C through Stoke’s theorem.
As a physical realization of the conformal model, the unit vector of the sphere 
 is formulated by the following rotational vector
      
      i.e., choose 
. The values of 
 and 
 on the conformal sphere 
 can be decided by the formulas in Equation (
1) as soon as the index value 
a is chosen, and the unit vector on 
 is given by
      
      with 
, and 
. To obtain the Berry phase (
19), one can consider the Hamiltonian of a spin with magnetic moment 
 coupling to the rotational magnetic field 
,
      
The frequency 
 is given by
      
      where 
 is the frequency for the parameters without deformation. If there exists an interval of 
 that satisfies the ratio 
, we shall have 
 and the required conformal deformation. 
Figure 6 shows that there always exists an interval around 
 satisfying 
. It is easy to use the determinant 
 to find the eigenvalues 
, and the corresponding normalized eigenvectors 
 for 
, and 
 for 
. Compared with (
5) and (
6), the reverse suffix is due to the minus sign of the Hamiltonian for the electron’s magnetic moment. Since 
, one finds that the Berry potential 
 and the corresponding Berry phase is
      
The potential of 
 is 
 and the phase is
      
The phases are what we want to seek. However, in this formulation of the rotational magnetic field, they are true only in the interval of  satisfying .
  4. The Source of the Path-Tunable Berry Phase: The Conformal Monopole
A non-integrable phase is often rooted in a singularity in the parameter space (e.g., [
4,
7]). The source of the non-integrability of the Berry phase in (
19) and (
21) is investigated in this section. We need to calculate the Berry potential of 
 with respect to the whole parameter space, then the corresponding field strength will reveal the type of singularity at the origin. For this, let us set up a Cartesian coordinate system in the parameter space, and calculate the Berry potential 
 first. Since 
 is expressed as the conformal coordinates 
, it is convenient to decompose the operator 
 in the spherical coordinate system
      
With
      
      and
      
      one finds the 
x component of the Berry potential
      
In vector form, the components of the Berry potential can be combined to become
      
      in the spherical coordinates, where the coupling strength 
g of the potential is defined to be
      
The corresponding magnetic field is given by the curl operation 
. It yields
      
      where 
 is the radial unit vector. This is the magnetic field produced by the conformal monopole located at the origin of the coordinates 
 revealed by the recent investigation [
3]. The field satisfies the Gauss law of summing over the conformal surface. It can be shown by considering the surface integral of the field over 
:
      where 
 was used to obtain the second equality, and we have used 
 to label the surface element of 
. The final equality is the Gauss law for a pole with the coupling strength of 
 over the conformal surface. The index 
a controls the conformal deformation. Thus, it seems that the deformation is continuous with the variation of 
a along the real line. However, the physical condition of the gauge equivalence of the Berry potential under gauge transformation requires that the index can only be an integer. The proof is as follows: The magnetic field (
44) produced by the curl operation 
 can also be produced through
      
The potentials 
 and 
 are only different by a gauge transformation. It is known that the global formulation of any gauge field is through the non-integrable phase factor 
 [
8,
9]. Consider the closed contour integral in the parameter space
      
Since 
 and 
 produce the same magnetic field, to have no physically observable effects differentiating them the phase needs to be 
 positive integer. We thus have the restriction
      
Here 
n (
) is for the positive (negative) monopole. A monopole with the quantized strength 
 was pointed out by Dirac [
8]. The presented discussion shows that the quantization rule is also true for a more general monopole field.
  5. The Dual Fields of the Dual Conformal Monopole
Due to the symmetric appearance of the Berry potential (
42), it is not difficult to reveal that the dual form of the potential 
 is
      
      where the coupling constant
      
      and 
 is the unit vector in the direction of increasing 
 that can be decomposed in the directions of the unit vectors 
 and 
 of the Cartesian coordinate system defined in (
23) as 
. The magnetic field produced by the dual potential is then given by
      
It is produced by a dual magnetic pole at the origin of the untransformed parameter space. Consider the surface integral over the conformal surface
      
      where the equality 
 was introduced to get to the second equality and the surface element 
. The final equality reveals that the field 
 is produced by a magnetic monopole with strength 
 at the origin of 
. Again, the allowed values of 
 can be determined by the single-valued condition of the potential under the gauge transformation. It is easy to find the second dual potential that produces the same 
,
      
Consider the non-integrable phase factor along any closed curve 
C in the conformal parameter space
      
Since the electromagnetic effect of 
 and 
 is the same, the phase can only be 
, i.e., the quantization of the strength of the dual conformal monopole is
      
Here  is for the positive (negative) dual pole. However, unlike the quantization condition  of the conformal monopole, the rule  for the dual pole violates the single-valued condition of the form-invariant spinor when . For this reason, only  can be applied to tune the evolution path.
  6. Resonant Frequency on the Conformal Parameter Surface
The quantum resonance of the two-level model is a typical phenomenon in the actual systems. The effects of the external field 
 with the conformal variables on the resonance of the spin is investigated here. Without loss of generality, the Hamiltonian is simply taken as 
 such that the spinor must satisfy the Schrödinger equation
      
The equation can be solved exactly (e.g., [
10,
11]). To make it easier for readers to access the solution, we take a little space here to sketch the process. Simply calling 
, 
, 
, and 
 with 
 turns the equation into
      
The off-diagonal terms correspond to the driving force of the quantum transition. In the situation without the off-diagonal terms, the solution of the steady state is obviously given by
      
      where 
 and 
 are constant. Assume that in the presence of the driving force the solution is given by
      
Let 
 (
) be the high (low) energy level. If the initial condition is assumed to be 
 and 
, one can find the solution
      
      where
      
      is the Rabi frequency in the magnetic field 
 in which 
 with 
, the nature frequency of the system without the disturbance of the driving force. The probability of a transition from the low energy to high energy level during the time interval 
 is given by
      
      and the probability from high to low level is
      
They maintain the appearance of the transition probability for the two-level system. However, the expression here contains the information of the conformal deformation of the parameters. The condition of resonance is given by 
 which results in
      
      and
      
The Rabi’s resonant frequency is now
      
Put 
, which represents the resonant frequency in the situation of the parameters without deformation. We then have
      
      where the index 
a can only be an integer due to the requirement of the single-valued condition of the Hamilton operator. 
Figure 7 exhibits the ratio of the resonant frequencies. There are three interesting features. (i) The resonant frequency basically decreases with the increase of the index 
n over most of the domain of 
, and the frequency is altered at the specific latitude 
 according to the integer 
n. (ii) Any value of 
 can be achieved by an arbitrary integer. Nevertheless, the allowed resonant domain of 
 is controlled by 
n. (iii) The resonant frequency is very sensitive to the conformal deformation. The resonance can only happen around 
 when the index comes to 
. This means that the resonance only occurs in the systems with tiny level spacing when the field 
 is constructed with a large index 
n.
  7. Conclusions
In this paper, we discuss the influences of the conformal deformation of the spherical parameters on the measurement, Berry phase, and resonance of a spin. It is shown that the physical deformations, depicted by the integer index , can be used to control the measurement of the spinor, the evolution path of the Berry phase on the Bloch sphere, and the resonant frequency. The path-tunable Berry phase is rooted in a conformal monopole that possesses the field with non-isotropic characteristic determined by the index . Two observations worth noticing are stated as follows:
(a) The index 
 controls the quantum-to-classical behavior of the measurement outcome of spin orientation. The spinor behaves as an ideal binary switch when the index 
 is large enough. 
Figure 8 shows the measurement of the spinor along the 
z direction when the index becomes 
. The outcome exhibits a perfect classical switch behavior. On the other hand, at the beginning value of the index, 
, the measurement exhibits an entirely stochastic property of the quantum switch. Similar correspondences can also be found in the measurements of the 
x and 
y directions. However, the classical binary property mostly appears around 
.
(b) The resonant frequency for a more general parameter surface is also given by 
 as (
67). For instance, let us consider the resonance on the conformal ellipsoidal surface. The line element of the undeformed surface reads
      
      where 
c and 
 are constants that control the shape of the surface, and the ranges of the variables 
, and 
. Assume that the line element of the form-invariant deformation of the surface is given by
      
      where 
, 
, and 
 and 
 are constants. The conformal condition of the deformation is determined by
      
Put 
. It can be shown that the relation between 
 and 
 can be established by the Appell series 
. There thus exists a conformal deformation leading to the expression (
69). For our purpose of the proof of the form of 
, learning (
70) is enough. Now the components of the magnetic field 
 are modulated to form the conformal ellipsoidal surface
      
The evolution of the spin in the field must satisfy the Schrödinger equation
      
The resonant frequency has the expression
      
Using (
70) gives the relation
      
      where 
, and the conformal index taken as an integer is due to the single-valued condition about the 
 variable. Obviously, a parameter surface with spherical symmetry with respect to 
 would have the same conclusion.