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# HIGGS TRANSVERSE MOMENTUM AT THE LHC

## 1 Introduction

One of the fundamental open problems of the Standard Model (SM) is revealing the dynamics of the electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB). The physical remnant of the spontaneous EWSB, the Higgs boson, is the primary object of search at present and future colliders. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ At the 14 TeV center of mass energy Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the SM Higgs boson will mainly be produced in proton–proton collisions through the partonic subprocess $`gg`$ (via top quark loop) $`HX`$. To experimentally understand the Higgs signature, to enhance the statistical significance of the signal, and to measure its basic properties (mass, lifetime, spin, charge, couplings), it is necessary to determine the transverse momentum ($`Q_T`$) of the Higgs bosons.

To reliably predict the $`Q_T`$ distribution of Higgs bosons at the LHC, especially for the low to medium $`Q_T`$ region where the bulk of the rate is, the effects of the multiple soft–gluon emission have to be included. This, and the need for the systematic inclusion of the higher order QCD corrections require the extension of the standard hadronic factorization theorem to the low $`Q_T`$ region. With a smooth matching to the usual factorization formalism, it is possible to obtain a prediction in the full $`Q_T`$ range. Since Monte Carlo event generators are heavily utilized in the extraction of the Higgs signal, it is crucial to establish the reliability of their predictions. Thus, results of the parton shower formalism are also compared to those of the analytic calculation.

## 2 Low $`Q_T`$ Factorization

In this section the low transverse momentum factorization formalism and its matching to the usual factorization is described. When calculating fixed order QCD corrections to the cross section $`d\sigma /dQdQ_T^2dy`$ for the inclusive process $`ppHX`$, the factorization theorem is invoked. The relevant variables $`Q`$, $`Q_T`$, and $`y`$, are the invariant mass, transverse momentum, and rapidity of the Higgs boson, respectively. The standard factorization

$$d\sigma =\underset{j_1,j_2}{}\frac{d\xi _1}{\xi _1}\frac{d\xi _2}{\xi _2}f_{j_1/h_1}(x_1,Q)𝑑\widehat{\sigma }_{j_1j_2}(\frac{x_1}{\xi _1},\frac{x_2}{\xi _2})f_{j_2/h_2}(x_2,Q),$$
(1)
a convolution in the partonic momentum fractions $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$, fails when $`Q_TQ`$ as a result of multiple soft and soft+collinear emission of gluons from the initial state. The ratio of the two very different scales in the partonic cross section $`\widehat{\sigma }_{j_1j_2}`$ (identified by the partonic indices $`j_i`$), produces large logarithms of the form $`\mathrm{ln}(Q^2/Q_T^2)`$ (being singular at $`Q_T=0`$), which are not absorbed by the parton distribution functions $`f_{j/h}`$, unlike the ones originating from purely collinear parton emission. As a result, the Higgs $`Q_T`$ distribution calculated using the conventional hadronic factorization theorem is unphysical in the low $`Q_T`$ region.

To resolve the problem, the differential cross section is split into a part which contains all the contribution from the logarithmic terms ($`W`$), and into a regular term ($`Y`$):

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dQdQ_T^2dy}=W(Q,Q_T,x_1,x_2)+Y(Q,Q_T,x_1,x_2),$$
(2)
Since $`Y`$ does not contain potentially large logs, it can be calculated using the usual factorization. The $`W`$ term has to be evaluated differently, keeping in mind that failure of the standard factorization occurs because it neglects the transverse motion of the incoming partons in the hard scattering. As it is proven $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$, small $`Q_T`$ factorization gives the cross section as a convolution of transverse momentum distributions

$$W(Q,Q_T,x_1,x_2)=\underset{j_1,j_2}{}d^2\stackrel{}{k}_T𝙲_{j_1/h_1}(Q,\stackrel{}{k}_T,x_1)𝙷_{j_1j_2}(Q,Q_T)𝙲_{j_2/h_2}(Q,\stackrel{}{Q}_T\stackrel{}{k}_T,x_2).$$
(3)
Here $`𝙷_{j_1j_2}`$ is a hard scattering function, and $`𝙲_{j/h}`$ are partonic density distributions depending on both longitudinal ($`x`$) and transverse ($`k_T`$) momenta, and on the scale of the factorization which is set equal to the hard scale $`Q`$. The convolution simplifies to a product in the Fourier conjugate, i.e. transverse position ($`\stackrel{}{b}`$) space

$$\stackrel{~}{W}(Q,b,x_1,x_2)=𝒞_{j_1/h_1}(Q,b,x_1)_{j_1j_2}(Q,b)𝒞_{j_2/h_2}(Q,b,x_2),$$
(4)
where $`\stackrel{~}{W}`$, $`𝒞_{j/h}`$ and $`_{j_1j_2}`$ are the Fourier transforms of $`W`$, $`𝙲_{j/h}`$ and $`𝙷_{j_1j_2}`$. The generalized parton distributions $`𝒞_{j/h}`$, together with the hard scattering function, satisfy an evolution equation somewhat similar to the usual DGLAP equations.

The evolution equation, for the production of a colorless boson, takes the form $`^\mathrm{?}`$

$$\frac{}{\mathrm{ln}Q^2}\stackrel{~}{W}(Q,b,x_1,x_2)=_{C_1/b^2}^{C_2Q^2}\frac{d\mu ^2}{\mu ^2}\left[A(\alpha _S(\mu ),C_1)+B(\alpha _S(Q),C_1,C_2)\right],$$
(5)
where $`\alpha _S`$ is the strong coupling constant. It is customary to choose the renormalization scales arising in the evolution equation such that $`C_1=2e^{\gamma _E}C_0`$ and $`C_2=1`$. The solution of the above evolution equation leads to the expression $`^\mathrm{?}`$

$$\stackrel{~}{W}(Q,b,x_1,x_2)=𝒞_{j_1/h_1}(Q,b,x_1)e^{𝒮(Q,b_{})}𝒞_{j_2/h_2}(Q,b,x_2),$$
(6)
with the Sudakov exponent

$$𝒮(Q,b_{})=_{C_0^2/b_{}^2}^{Q^2}\frac{d\mu ^2}{\mu ^2}\left[A\left(\alpha _S(\mu )\right)\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{Q^2}{\mu ^2}\right)+B\left(\alpha _S(\mu )\right)\right],$$
(7)
which resums the large logarithmic terms. aaaTo prevent evaluation of the Sudakov exponent in the non–perturbative region, the impact parameter $`b`$ was replaced by $`b_{}=b/\sqrt{1+(b/b_{\mathrm{max}})^2}`$. The partonic recoil against soft gluons as well as the intrinsic partonic transverse momentum are included in the modified parton distributions

$$𝒞_{j/h}(Q,b,x)=\underset{a}{}\left[_x^1\frac{d\xi }{\xi }C_{ja}(b_{},\frac{x}{\xi },Q)f_{a/h}(\xi ,Q)\right]_{a/h}(x,b,Q).$$
(8)
The $`A`$ and $`B`$ functions, and the Wilson coefficients $`C_{ja}`$ are free of logs and safely calculable perturbatively as expansions in the strong coupling

$$A(\alpha _S)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left(\frac{\alpha _S}{\pi }\right)^nA^{(n)},\mathrm{etc}.$$
(9)
The process independent non–perturbative functions $`_{a/h}`$, describing long distance transverse physics, are extracted from low–energy experiments. $`^\mathrm{?}`$

In the large $`Q_T`$ region, where $`Q_TQ`$, the standard factorization theorem is applicable. The matching of the small $`Q_T`$ region to the large $`Q_T`$ result is achieved via the $`Y`$ piece. To correct the behavior of the resummed piece in the intermediate and high $`Q_T`$ regions, it is defined as the difference of the differential cross section calculated from the standard factorization formula at a fixed order $`n`$ of perturbation theory and its $`Q_TQ`$ asymptote: bbbThe expression of the $`Y`$ term for Higgs production can be found elsewhere. $`^\mathrm{?}`$

$$Y(Q,Q_T,x_1,x_2)=\frac{d\sigma ^{(n)}}{dQ^2dQ_T^2dy}\frac{d\sigma ^{(n)}}{dQ^2dQ_T^2dy}|_{Q_TQ}.$$
(10)
Using this definition, the cross section to order $`\alpha _S^n`$ is written as

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dQ^2dQ_T^2dy}=W(Q,Q_T,x_1,x_2)+\frac{d\sigma ^{(n)}}{dQ^2dQ_T^2dy}\frac{d\sigma ^{(n)}}{dQ^2dQ_T^2dy}|_{Q_TQ}.$$
(11)
At low $`Q_T`$, when the logarithms are large, the asymptotic part dominates the $`Q_T`$ distribution, and the last two terms cancel in Eq. (11), leaving $`W`$ well approximating the cross section. At $`Q_T`$ values comparable to $`Q`$ the logarithms are small, and the expansion of the resummed term cancels the logarithmic terms up to higher orders in $`\alpha _S`$.cccThe cancellation is higher order than the order at which the singular pieces were calculated. In this situation the first and third terms nearly cancel and the cross section reduces to the fixed order perturbative result. After matching the resummed and fixed order cross sections in such a manner, it is expected that the normalization of the cross section (11) reproduces the fixed order total rate, since when expanded and integrated over $`Q_T`$ it deviates from the fixed order cross section $`\sigma ^{(n)}`$ only in higher order terms. Further details of the low $`Q_T`$ factorization formalism and its application to Higgs production can be found in the recent literature. $`^\mathrm{?}`$

## 3 Higgs $`Q_T`$ at the LHC

The low $`Q_T`$ factorization formalism, described in the previous section, is utilized to calculate the QCD corrections to the production of Higgs bosons at the LHC. In the low $`Q_T`$ region this calculation takes into account the effects of the multiple–soft gluon emission including the Sudakov exponent $`𝒮`$ and the non–perturbative contributions $`_{a/h}`$. In the Sudakov exponent the $`A^{(1)}`$, $`A^{(2)}`$, and $`B^{(1)}`$ coefficients are included. The $`𝒪(\alpha _S^3)`$ virtual corrections are also taken into account by including the Wilson coefficient $`𝒞_{gg}^{(1)}`$, which ensures the $`𝒪(\alpha _S^3)`$ total rate. By matching to the $`𝒪(\alpha _S^3)`$ fixed order distributions a prediction is obtained for the Higgs production cross section in the full $`Q_T`$ range which is valid up to $`𝒪(\alpha _S^3)`$. The details of this calculation are given in an earlier work. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ The analytic results are coded in the ResBos Monte Carlo event generator. $`^\mathrm{?}`$

Fig. 1 compares the Higgs boson transverse momentum distributions calculated by ResBos (curves) and by PYTHIA $`^\mathrm{?}`$ (histograms from version 6.122). The middle solid curve is calculated using the canonical choice for the renormalization constants in the Sudakov exponent: $`C_1=C_0`$, and $`C_2=1`$. To estimate the size of the uncalculated $`B^{(2)}`$ term, these renormalization constants are varied. The upper solid curve shows the result for $`C_1=C_0/2,C_2=1/2`$, and the lower solid curve for $`C_1=2C_0,C_2=2`$. The band between these two curves gives the order of the uncertainty originating from the exclusion of $`B^{(2)}`$. The typical size of this uncertainty, e.g. around the peak region, is in the order of $`\pm 10`$ percent. The corresponding uncertainty in the total cross section is also in the same order. This uncertainty is larger than the uncertainty arising from the non–perturbative sector of the formalism (which was estimated to be less than 5 percent in the relevant $`Q_T`$ region).

## 4 Comparison to Parton Showers

Multiple soft–gluon radiation from the initial state can also be treated by the parton shower technique. $`^\mathrm{?}`$ This approach is based on the usual factorization theorem, giving the probability $`𝒫=e^{𝒮(Q)}`$ of the evolution from the scale $`Q_0`$ to $`Q`$, with no resolvable branchings by the exponent

$`𝒮(Q)={\displaystyle _{Q_0^2}^{Q^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mu ^2}{\mu ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _S(\mu )}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑zP_{abc}(z),`$ (12)
which is defined in terms of the DGLAP splitting kernels $`P_{abc}(z)`$. The formalism can be extended to soft emissions as well by using angular ordering. The distinct difference between the Sudakov exponents of the low $`Q_T`$ factorization and the parton showering approach is apparent. A comparison can be made based on the qualitative argument that parton showering resums leading logs which depend only on the given initial state. These logs correspond to the logs weighted by the $`A`$ function in Eq.(7).

Fig. 1 shows that the shape of the PYTHIA histogram agrees reasonably with the resummed curve in the low and intermediate $`Q_T`$ ($`\stackrel{<}{}125`$ GeV) region. For large $`Q_T`$, the PYTHIA prediction falls under the ResBos curve, since ResBos mostly uses the exact fixed order $`𝒪(\alpha _S^3)`$ matrix elements in that region, while PYTHIA still relies on the multi–parton radiation ansatz. PYTHIA can be tuned to agree with ResBos in the high $`Q_T`$ region, by changing the maximal virtuality a parton can acquire in the course of the shower (dotted curve). In that case, however, the low $`Q_T`$ region will have disagreement.

Since showering is attached to a process after the hard scattering takes place, and the parton shower occurs with unit probability, it does not change the total cross section for Higgs boson production given by the hard scattering rate. Thus, the total rate is given by PYTHIA at $`𝒪(\alpha _S^2)`$. In Fig. 1 the dashed PYTHIA histogram is plotted without altering its output. For easier comparison the default PYTHIA histogram is also plotted after the rate is multiplied by the factor $`K=2`$ (dash-dotted). A detailed comparison of the results for Higgs boson production from ResBos and from event generators based on the parton shower algorithm is the subject of a separate work. $`^\mathrm{?}`$

## Acknowledgments

I thank the organizers of the XXXVth Rencontres de Moriond for their hospitality and financial support. I am indebted to my collaborators in this work: J.C. Collins, J. Huston, I. Puljak, D.E. Soper, and C.–P. Yuan for many invaluable discussions. This work was supported in part by the DOE under grant DE-FG-03-94ER40833.

## References


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# Untitled Document

hep-th/0008083 HUTP-00/A032

Casimir Force in Compact Noncommutative Extra Dimensions and Radius Stabilization

Soonkeon Nam1 Permanent Address : Dept. of Physics, Kyung Hee University; Seoul, 130-701, Korea, nam@khu.ac.kr

Department of Physics

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA 02138

nam@pauli.harvard.edu

Abstract

We compute the one loop Casimir energy of an interacting scalar field in a compact noncommutative space of $`R^{1,d}\times T_\theta ^2`$, where we have ordinary flat $`1+d`$ dimensional Minkowski space and two dimensional noncommuative torus. We find that next order correction due to the noncommutativity still contributes an attractive force and thus will have a quantum instability. However, the case of vector field in a periodic boundary condition gives repulsive force for $`d>5`$ and we expect a stabilized radius. This suggests a stabilization mechanism for a senario in Kaluza-Klein theory, where some of the extra dimensions are noncommutative.

08/00

An old idea, viewed in a new light, can have a new meaning. One of the oldest ideas of unifying gravity with other interactions is that of Kaluza and Klein, i.e. that of extra dimensions. Its modern rebirth came about with the advent of supergravity theories, and it is an essential element in developments of string/M-theory.

More recently, new possibilities of large extra dimension make the Kaluza-Klein modes something to be sought after in experiments . For example, in some models with more than two extra dimensions, there is a distinct mass gap in Kaluza-Klein spectrum. So this eighty-years-old idea is still very much alive and is more so these days.

One question which is essential in Kaluza-Klein theories is how we can have small (or unobserved) extra dimensions. To explain smallness of extra dimensions, Appelquist and Chodos suggested that the vacuum fluctuations of the higher dimensional gravitational field might provide a physical mechanism. They considered linearized quantum gravity in $`D`$-dimensions and computed the effective potential to one loop. For the effective potential, they obtained an infinite constant part2 This infinity can of course be removed by proper dimensional regularization., which is an induced cosmological constant and an attractive part. They computed the one loop vacuum energy in the compact extra dimensions, i.e. the gravitational Casimir energy. Since the attractiveness of the Casimir energy pushed the size of the extra dimension down to the Planck scale, the natural cutoff scale of the linearized gravity, the hope was that presumably the dynamics of Planck scale, where the nonperturbative quantum gravity sets in, will stabilize the size of the extra dimensions. Thermal effects could not introduce any stabilty: either the size is pushed down to zero or to the infinity. A very large number of light matter fields (around $`10^{45}`$) can be introduced to stabilize the radius, since the gravitational contribution per degree of freedom to the Casimir energy is much larger than the matter contribution.

It is very natural to expect that there will be stabilization of the size of the extra dimensions if there is some intrinsic minimum length scale in the theory. One candidate certainly is the Planck (or string) scale as mentioned above. In this paper we will explore another possibility, when there is noncommutativity of space in the extra dimensions. When we have spacetime noncommutativity, Lorentz invariance is broken. However, having extra dimensions with broken (or deformed) Lorentz symmetry is not incompatible with observations so far.

There has been a lot of attention recently on quantum field theories on noncommutative spaces. Interacting scalar field theories, QED and other theories were considered. This class of field theories is very interesting, because it arises naturally in the context of string theory, and is a consistent theory by itself. Here we have the following commutation relations among space-time coordinates $`x^\mu `$

$$[x^\mu ,x^\nu ]=i\theta ^{\mu \nu },$$

and $`\theta ^{\mu \nu }`$ introduces minimum area in the $`\mu ,\nu `$ plane, just as there is a minimum volume in phase space due to $`[x,p]=i\mathrm{}`$, due to a space-time uncertainty relations

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x^\mu \mathrm{\Delta }x^\nu \frac{1}{2}|\theta ^{\mu \nu }|.$$

So in a noncommutative space there will be a length scale associated with $`\sqrt{|\theta ^{\mu \nu }|}`$. Another consequence of this relation is the UV/IR mixing, due to the absence of decoupling of scales. Short distance scales in one direction is related to long distance scales in another direction which is related to the previous one by the parameters $`\theta ^{\mu \nu }`$.

Difference with the Planck scale is that this scale is something which should be determined by underlying dynamics. In this sense we will not be able to solve the problem of radius stabilization in Kaluza-Klein theories completely. However, in most compactification senarios in string theory, $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ has expectation value, and we will be able to relate the expectation value of $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ with the radius of the Kaluza Klein radius.

This is interesting because, despite all the theoretical interests, the relevance of quantum field theories in noncommuatative space to measurable effects in particle physics has not been discussed very much. One of the main reason is that the presence of the external magnetic field which induces the noncommutativity breaks Lorentz invariance of the spacetime and thus a strong noncommutativity might not be a desirable thing to have. However, having a noncommutative extra dimension can be interesting, without destroying the desirable four dimensional Lorentz invariance. Very recently, there has been a work by Gomis et al in this direction where the Kaluza-Klein spectrum due to noncommutative compact extra dimension has been considered. They obtain corrections to the Kaluza-Klein spectrum which resembles the contributions of winding states in string theory. This is consistent with the close relations found between string theory calculations and field theory calculations in noncommutative space .

In this paper, we explore possible effect that the noncommutativity in the extra dimensions might have on the Casimir force. What we expect is that noncommutativity naturally introduces a minimum volume, that of the Moyal cell, which is proportional to the noncommutativity parameter and will eventually stabilize the radius. Therefore it is quite natural to expect that it will compete with the attractive Casimir force. In this paper, we find an interesting result that actually depending on the type of the field, scalar or vector, the next order correction due to the noncommutativity will be either attractive or repulsive. The theory with scalar field with $`phi^3`$ interaction has quantum instability whereas a theory with vector field stabilizes.

To be more quantitative, let us begin by a simple review of the derivation of the Casimir effect, when a massless scalar field is confined between two parallel plates separated by a distance $`a`$. (Similar analysis can certainly be done for massive fields, with similar but more complicated results.) Although Dirichlet, Neumann, or in general Robin (i.e. mixed)boundary condition can be dealt with, we consider the Dirichlet case for simplicity.

$$\varphi (0)=\varphi (a)=0.$$

The Casimir force between the plates is obtained by summing up the zero-point energy per unit area,

$$E/A=\frac{1}{2}\underset{\alpha }{}\omega _\alpha =\frac{1}{2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d^2k}{(2\pi )^2}\sqrt{k^2+\frac{n^2\pi ^2}{a^2}},$$

where for convenience we have set $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$. The integers $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}`$ label the normal modes between the plates and $`k`$ is the transverse momenta along the plates. The sum as it stands is formally divergent.

To extract a finite value from this divergent sum, we invoke dimensional regularization. Using the definition of the Gamma function,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(z)=p^z_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{pt}t^{z1}𝑑t,$$

we can put the energy per unit volume $`A`$ (at the boundary) $`E/A`$ as follows:

$$E/A=\frac{1}{2}\mu ^{3d}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dt}{t}t^{1/2}e^{t(k^2+n^2\pi ^2/a^2)}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{1}{2})}.$$

In the above we have introduced an arbitrary mass scale $`\mu `$ to keep above expression a four dimensional energy density. From now on we will suppress the dependences on $`\mu `$. Now we interchange the integrations over $`t`$ and $`k`$ and integrate over the transverse momenta, which is the Gaussian integration. The final result is

$$E/A=\frac{1}{a^{d+1}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d+2}{2}\right)(4\pi )^{(d+2)/2}\zeta (d+2).$$

In obtaining this equation we have used the following reflection formula of Riemann zeta function to avoid infinities from $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(z)`$ when $`z`$ is a negative even integer:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{z}{2}\right)\pi ^{z/2}\zeta (z)=\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1z}{2}\right)\pi ^{(z1)/2}\zeta (1z).$$

Since the energy is always is negative and falls off as $`a`$ decreases, we always have attractive force between the plates due to the massless scalar field.

Let us now generalize this to the noncommutative $`\varphi ^3`$ field theory on $`R^{1,d}\times T_\theta ^2`$. By this we mean that

$$[x^{d+1},x^{d+2}]=i\theta ,$$

and other commutation relations among space time coordinates vanish. Also $`0x^{d+1},x^{d+2}2\pi R`$. We must have an interacting theory to see the effects of the noncommutativity. In a perturbative quantum field theory in noncommutative space, all the information about the noncommutativity can be put in the interaction vertices of Feynman diagrams. Moreover, the effect of noncommutativity appears through nonplanar diagrams.

The theory we are considering is defined by the following action:

$$S=d^{d+3}x\left(\frac{1}{2}(\varphi )^2\frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2\frac{\lambda }{3!}\varphi \varphi \varphi \right).$$

The $``$-product is defined by

$$(fg)(x)=e^{\frac{i}{2}\theta ^{\mu \nu }\frac{}{\alpha ^\mu }\frac{}{\beta ^\mu }}f(x+\alpha )g(x+\beta )|_{\alpha =\beta =0},$$

and introduces an infinite number of higher derivative interactions. The kinetic part is not modified with the noncommutativity.

One can calculate the one loop contributions to the two point functions and obtain the one loop corrections to the dispersion relation for nonzero modes in the Kaluza-Klein spectrum, when we have periodic boundary condition. The Kaluza-Klein spectrum at one loop is as follows:

$$m_\stackrel{}{n}^2=m^2+\frac{\stackrel{}{n}^2}{R^2}\frac{\lambda ^2}{(4\pi )^3}\left(\frac{R^2}{\stackrel{}{n}^2\theta ^2}+\frac{5}{24}m^2\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{m^2\theta ^2\stackrel{}{n}^2}{R^2}\right)+\mathrm{}\right).$$

In the above, $`\stackrel{}{n}=(n_{d+1},n_{d+2})`$ are integers which give the quantized momenta $`\stackrel{}{p}=\stackrel{}{n}/R`$, along the compact directions. From now on we will simply put $`\stackrel{}{n}=(n_1,n_2)`$. This mass formula resembles that of winding states in string theory. The mass correction is negative, and for small values of $`\theta `$ the mass spectrum becomes tachyonic. This certainly is not a healthy sign. Either there is an intrinsic instability in the theory or the perturbative analysis is not adequate for small $`\theta `$’s. In this paper, we will stay in the region where the perturbative analysis is valid. We will only consider the case of massless scalar field, for the sake of simplicity.

Casimir energy is again obtained by summing up all the modes, to obtain the energy density in $`d+1`$ dimensions as follows:

$$u=E/A=\frac{1}{2}\underset{\alpha }{}\omega _\alpha =\frac{1}{2}\underset{n_1,n_2=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d^d\stackrel{}{k}}{(2\pi )^3}\sqrt{k^2+\frac{\stackrel{}{n}^2}{R^2}\frac{\lambda ^2R^2}{(4\pi )^3\theta ^2\stackrel{}{n}^2}}.$$

For the square root we can introduce the Schwinger’s proper time representation:

$$u=\frac{1}{2}\underset{n_1,n_2}{}\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dt}{t}t^{1/2}e^{t\left(\stackrel{}{k}^2+\stackrel{}{n}^2/R^2\lambda ^2R^2/(4\pi )^3\theta ^2\stackrel{}{n}^2\right)}.$$

Now we integrate the transverse momentum $`k`$, by doing a Gaussian integral,

$$u=\frac{1}{4\sqrt{\pi }}\frac{1}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}\underset{n_1,n_2}{}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dt}{t}t^{(d+1)/2}e^{t\left(\stackrel{}{n}^2/R^2\lambda ^2R^2/(4\pi )^3\theta ^2\stackrel{}{n}^2\right)}.$$

Again we perform the $`t`$ integration using the integral representation of Gamma function and obtain

$$u=\frac{1}{4\sqrt{\pi }}\frac{1}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d+1}{2}\right)\underset{n_1,n_2}{}\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{n}^2}{R^2}\frac{\lambda ^2R^2}{(4\pi )^3\theta ^2\stackrel{}{n}^2}\right)^{(d+1)/2}.$$

The infinite sum as it stands does not admit a closed form. However, if we consider only the perturbative regime, then we can expand in terms of $`\lambda ^2a^2/\theta ^21,`$ and have the following:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill u& =\frac{1}{4\sqrt{\pi }}\frac{1}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d+1}{2}\right)\underset{n_1,n_2}{}\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{n}^2}{R^2}\right)^{(d+1)/2}\left[1\frac{d+1}{2}\frac{\lambda ^2R^4}{(4\pi )^3\theta ^2(\stackrel{}{n}^2)^2}+\mathrm{}\right],\hfill \\ & =\frac{1}{2R^{d+1}}\frac{1}{(4\pi )^{(d+1)/2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d+1}{2}\right)\left[v_2\left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)\frac{d+1}{2}\frac{\lambda ^2R^4}{(4\pi )^3\theta ^2}v_2\left(\frac{d+3}{2}\right)+\mathrm{}\right].\hfill \end{array}$$

In the above we have used the following notation and a relation found by Hardy:

$$v_2(s)\underset{m,n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(m^2+n^2)^s=\zeta (s)\beta (s)\zeta (2s),$$

where $`\beta (z)`$ is defined as follows:

$$\beta (z)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^n(2n+1)^z.$$

The value of this function is between $`1/2`$ and 1 for real positive $`z`$’s and oscillates with unbound amplitude for negative real values of $`z`$. Note that the Gamma function in the above function is divergent for odd $`d`$’s. We can use the ‘reflection formula’:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(z)\zeta (z)\beta (z)\pi ^z=\mathrm{\Gamma }(1z)\zeta (1z)\beta (1z)\pi ^{z1}.$$

So the structure of the energy per unit area is

$$u=\alpha /R^{d+1}\gamma /R^{d3}.$$

where both $`\alpha `$ and $`\gamma `$ are both positive constants. $`\alpha `$ is the coefficients one gets in the commutative case, and the ratio $`\gamma /\alpha `$ is

$$\frac{\gamma }{\alpha }=\frac{1}{d1}\frac{\pi \lambda ^2}{8\theta ^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)\zeta \left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)\beta \left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d2}{2}\right)\zeta (d2)\sqrt{\pi }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d+3}{2}\right)\zeta \left(\frac{d+3}{2}\right)\beta \left(\frac{d+3}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d+1}{2}\right)\zeta (d+1)\sqrt{\pi }}.$$

We see that the contribution from the noncommutative part will never become repulsive and will not stabilize the size of radis $`R`$ even for $`d>3`$. The case of $`d=3`$ the contribution from the correction to the Casimir energy constant, so there is no repulsive force. So in the case of $`d=3`$, we see that up to the order of perturbation we have used, there is no stabilization. So we might say that we have to consider the next order in correction to the Casimir energy, i.e. higher order terms in Eq. 18. Of course, in order to be really consistent we first need the result for two loop self energy and it is beyond the scope of this paper.

In order to discuss the higher dimensional tori, each direction having different radius, we can perform a similar calculation. Again the vacuum energy is

$$\frac{1}{2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^3}\sqrt{\stackrel{}{k}^2+\underset{i}{}\left(\frac{n_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{R_i^2}\rho ^2\frac{R_i^2}{n_i^2\theta ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)}.$$

In the above we have indicated the next order correction on dimensional ground the next order correction.

For this we need Epstein Zeta function

$$Z_p(1/a_1,\mathrm{},1/a_p;s)=\underset{n_1=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mathrm{}\underset{n_p=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}{}_{}{}^{}[\left(\frac{n_1}{a_1}\right)^2+\mathrm{}+\left(\frac{n_p}{a_p}\right)^2]_{}^{s/2}.$$

Here the prime denotes that the term for which all $`n_i=0`$ is to be omitted. The qualitative feature will be similar, in the sense that there will a attractive contribution, in the noncommutative limit, and the noncommutative part will have attractive (and sometimes marginal) contribution. This can be seen in the limit where the effects of the nonplanar part is maximal. Of course for a quantitative result we have to resort to numerial methods. We have seen that the noncommutative extra dimensions cannot be stabilized with scalar fields with the introduction of the noncommutativity.

First of all this result should be generalized for the case of vector and linearized gravity. Since in a noncommutative spacetime a pure $`U(1)`$ gauge theory is interacting unlike in ordinary space, we will be able to see the effects of noncommutativity in this theory. Consider the action

$$S=\frac{1}{4}d^{d+3}xF_{MN}F^{MN},$$

where the field strength is

$$F_{MN}=_MA_N_NA_Mig(A_MA_NA_NA_M),$$

Actually the Kaluza-Klein spectrum from a noncommutative $`U(1)`$ gauge theory in six dimensions is available, and is given by the following formula:

$$m_\stackrel{}{n}^2=\frac{\stackrel{}{n}^2}{R^2}\frac{8g^2R^4}{\pi ^3\theta ^4(\stackrel{}{n}^2)^2}+\mathrm{}.$$

There is a similarity with the scalar field case, but also a difference. The dependence on the radius of the extra dimension $`R`$ is different and has a higher power, and this will affect the vacuum energy.

Following a similar analysis we have

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill u& =\frac{2}{4\sqrt{\pi }}\frac{1}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d+1}{2}\right)\underset{n_1,n_2}{}\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{n}^2}{R^2}\right)^{(d+1)/2}\left[1\frac{d+1}{2}\frac{8g^2R^6}{\pi ^3\theta ^4(\stackrel{}{n}^2)^3}+\mathrm{}\right],\hfill \\ & =\frac{1}{R^{d+1}}\frac{1}{(4\pi )^{(d+1)/2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d+1}{2}\right)\left[v_2\left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)\frac{d+1}{2}\frac{8g^2R^6}{\pi ^3\theta ^4}v_2\left(\frac{d+5}{2}\right)+\mathrm{}\right].\hfill \end{array}$$

We have multiplied the polarization factor of 2. A rigorous proof that the case of electromagnetic field fluctuations give the same result as the scalar case with a factor of two can be given. Since the ratio $`\frac{v_2((d+5)/2)}{v_2((d1)/2)}`$ stays positive for all values of $`d>5`$ we now expect that the Casimir force will stabilize for $`d>5`$ and not for $`d4`$. The value of the ratio decreases with increasing $`d`$. The compactification radius will be at

$$R=R_0=\left(\left(\frac{2}{d5}\right)\left(\frac{\pi ^3\theta ^4}{8g^2}\right)\left(\frac{v_2\left(\frac{d+5}{2}\right)}{v_2\left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)}\right)\right)^{\frac{1}{6}},$$

when there is only a $`U(1)`$ vector field present.

This is to be contrasted to what we had for the scalar field. It is expected that similar Kaluza-Klein spectrum for gravity will lead to similar results. Since the Casimir force for the gravity is far more dominant than that of scalar fields, the field which is responsible for the compactifiction will be the gravity field and we expect to have a stabilization of the size of the extra dimensions. Of course, it would be interesting to investigate these cases in detail.

Recently, Casimir force between branes in a flat $`S^1/Z_2`$ orbifold compactification of M-theory was computed. Here one finds similar dependence in the distance between the branes, as in the case with circle compactification. It is expected that for the cases with more extra dimensions, similar analysis as performed here will give a ‘stabilization’ in the distances between the branes. Another interesting work is by Goldberger and Rothstein on the quantum stabilization of radion stabilization. The system is such that it consists of two branes bounding a region of anti de Sitter space. It turns out that the quantum fluctuation destabilizes the system, just as in the case of flat space. It would be interesting to consider the consequences of noncommutativity in the context of radion stabilization and study the quantum stability, which we do expect.

The Casimir effect in supergravity theories in a supersymmetric backgrounds, have cancellation of the contribution from bosonic part by the fermionic part. However, a finite temperature breaks supersymmetry and there will be a finite Casimir effect in a senario of early universe.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank C. Vafa and A. Strominger for the hospitality at the string theory group of Harvard. This work is supported in part by Brain Korea 21 (BK21) program of Korea Research Fund (2000), and by the Research Fund of Kyung Hee University (2000). I would like to thank C. Nunez and K. Olsen for discussions.

References

relax Th. Kaluza, Situngsber. d. K. Preuss. Akad. d. Wissen. z. Berlin, Phys.-Math. Klasse (1921) 966. relax O. Klein, Z. F. Physik 37 (1926) 895. relax L. Randall and R. Sundrum, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83 (1999) 3370 \[hep-ph/9905221\]; Phys. Rev. Lett. 83 (1999) 4690 \[hep-th/9906064\]; N. Arkani-Hamed, S. Dimopoulos, G. Dvali, and N. Kaloper, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 (2000) 586 \[hep-th/9907209\]. relax See for example T.G. Rizzo, ‘‘Indirect Collider Tests for Large Extra Dimensions’’, hep-ph/9910255, and references therein. relax Soonkeon Nam, JHEP 03 (2000) 005 \[hep-th/9911104\]. relax Soonkeon Nam, JHEP 04 (2000) 002 \[hep-th/9911237\]. relax N. Kaloper, Phys. Lett. B474 (2000) 269 \[hep-th/9912125\]. relax T. Appelquist and A. Chodos, Phys. Rev. Lett. 50 (1983) 141; Phys. Rev. D28 (1983) 772. relax H.B.G. Casimir, ‘‘On the Attraction Between Two Perfectly Conducting Plates,’’ Proc. K. Ned. Akad. Wet. 51 (1948) 793. relax M.A. Rubin and B.D. Roth, Nucl. Phys. B226 (1983) 444. relax P. Candelas and S. Weinberg, Nucl. Phys. B237 (1984) 397; A. Chodos and E. Meyers, Ann. Phys. 156 (1984) 412. relax A. Connes, M.R. Douglas, and A. Schwarz, JHEP 9802 (1998) 003 \[hep-th/9711162\]. relax S. Minwalla, M.V. Raamsdonk and N. Seiberg, ‘‘Noncommutative Perturbative Dynamics’’, hep-th/9912072. relax I. Ya Arefeva, D.M. Belov, and A.S. Koshelev, Phys. Lett. B476 (2000) 431 \[hep-th/9912075\]; ‘‘A Note on UV/IR for Noncommutative Complex Scalar Field,’’ hep-th/0001215; ‘‘UV/IR Mixing for Noncommutative Complex Scalar Field Theory, II (Interaction with Gauge Fields)’’ hep-th/0003176. relax M. Hayakawa, ‘‘Perturbative analysis on infrared and ultraviolet aspects of noncommutative QED on $`R^4`$, hep-th/9912167; A. Matusis, L. Susskind, and N. Toumbas, ‘‘The IR/UV connection in the noncommutative gauge theories,’’ hep-th/0002075 relax C.P. Martin, D. Sanchez-Ruiz, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83 (1999) 476 \[hep-th/9903077\]; M. Sheikh-Jabbari, JHEP 06 (1999) 015 \[hep-th/9903107\]. relax N. Seiberg and E. Witten, JHEP 9909 (1999) 032 \[hep-th/9908142\]. relax B.R. Greene, K. Schalm, and G. Shiu ‘‘Warped Compactifications in M and F Theory’’, hep-th/0004103 . relax J. Gomis, T. Mehen, and M.B. Wise, “Quantum Field Theories with Compact Noncommutative Extra Dimensions”, hep-th/0006160. relax Y. Kiem and Sangmin Lee, ‘‘UV/IR Mixing in Noncommutative Field Theory via Open String Loops’’, hep-th/0003145; A. Bilal, Chong-Sun Chu, and R. Russo, ‘‘String Theory and Noncommutative Field Theories at One Loop”, hep-th/0003180. relax W. Fischler, E. Gorbatov, A. Kashani-Poor, S. Paban, P. Pouliot, and J. Gomis, ‘‘Evidence for winding states in noncommutative quantum field theory,’’ hep-th/0002067. relax For the general introduction to Casimir force, see for example, G. Pluien, B. Müller, and W. Greiner, Phys. Rep. 134 (1986) 87; V.M. Mostepanenko and N.N. Trunov, ‘‘The Casimir Effect and its Applications,’’ Oxford Univ. Press, 1997. relax K.A. Milton, ‘‘The Casimir Effect: Physical Manifestation of the Zero-Point Energy,’’ hep-th/9901011. relax J. Ambjorn and S. Wolfram, Ann. Phys. 147 (1983) 1. relax A. Romeo and A.A. Saharian, ‘‘Casimir effect for scalar fields under Robin boundary conditions on plates,’’ hep-th/0007242. relax G.H. Hardy, Mess. Math. 49 (1919) 85. relax M.L. Glasser, J. Math. Phys. 14 (1973) 409. relax I.J. Zucker, J. Phys. A. Math. Gen. 9 (1974) 499. relax P. Epstein, Math. Ann. 56 (1903) 516; 63 (1907) 205. relax M. Fabinger and P. Horava, Nucl. Phys. B580 (2000) 243 \[hep-th/0002073\]. relax See for example Chap. 7 of T. Appelquist, A. Chodos, and P.G.O. Freund,“Modern Kaluza-Klein Theories”, Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park, 1987. relax W.D. Goldberger and I.Z. Rothstein, Quantum Stabilization of Compactified $`AdS_5`$’’, hep-th/0007065. relax W.D. Goldberger and M.B. Wise, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83 (1999) 4922 \[hep-ph/9907447\]. relax G.W. Gibbons and H. Nicolai, Phys. Lett. 143B (1984) 108; T. Inami and K. Yamagishi, Phys. Lett. 143B (1984) 115.


text:
# Chemical Evolution of Galaxies

## 1 Introduction

The seeds of an idea of galactic chemical evolution were planted by Sir Fred Hoyle a long time ago (Hoyle 1946). In the ensuing half century those seeds have grown and proliferated like a cashew-nut tree, with many roots and branches, some firmer than others; but it is not a mature subject in the sense that, say, stellar evolution is, with the basic ideas well understood and steady progress being made on the basis of previous knowledge. There is still a lot of guesswork involved in the physics of star formation, and the very origin of galaxies like our own depends on an as yet unknown balance between monolithic collapse (Eggen, Lynden-Bell & Sandage 1962), accretion of dwarf galaxies (Searle & Zinn 1978), hierarchical clustering (White & Rees 1978), mergers (Toomre 1977), inflows and outflows. These issues were already raised in the classic conference proceedings edited by Tinsley & Larson (1977).

## 2 Ingredients of chemical evolution models

A chemical evolution model needs to put together at least 5 ingredients:

### 2.1 Stellar yields

Starting with Arnett (1978) and Renzini & Voli (1981), there have been numerous systematic investigations of stellar element production and ejection, as a function of the initial mass and chemical composition of the star. The broad outlines are clear, but not the details: massive stars explode as core-collapse supernovae, but above some mass limit, which could be of the order of $`50M_{}`$, the outer layers may fall back into a black hole, reducing or eliminating ejection into the interstellar medium (ISM). Such stars will, however, have ejected significant amounts of helium and carbon at earlier stages in stellar winds (Maeder 1992). Uncertainties arise from the 12C ($`\alpha ,\gamma )^{16}`$O reaction rate, the treatment of convection and mass loss, the explosion mechanism and the mass cut, which is put in by hand to get a $`Y_e`$-value appropriate for the observed composition of the iron group (Woosley & Weaver 1995; Thielemann et al. 1996). The bulk of the iron group (say 2/3 in the Solar System) comes, however, from thermonuclear supernovae, Type Ia, consisting of a white dwarf that explodes after accreting matter from a companion (Thielemann et al. 1986). Currently, departures from spherical symmetry are being investigated.

Similar uncertainties apply to intermediate-mass stars, which are responsible for a significant part of nitrogen and 13C and for the main s-process (van den Hoek & Groenewegen 1997; Marigo, Bressan & Chiosi 1998; Gallino et al. 1998).

Talbot & Arnett (1974) introduced the distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ nucleosynthesis products, according as the yields were insensitive, or sensitive, to the composition of the progenitor star. There is little abundance evidence for ‘secondary’ behaviour among many elements for which it was once expected (e.g. s-process), but carbon displays secondary-like behaviour, not because of its nuclear progenitors but because higher metallicity favours stronger stellar winds (Gustafsson et al. 1999). Nitrogen, while behaving as a primary element in low-metallicity H ii regions, shows a gradually increasing N/O ratio that finally increases even more steeply than a secondary element, because of its dependence on the quasi-secondary carbon (Henry et al. 2000).

### 2.2 The initial mass function

The overall yield from a generation of stars111Defined as the mass of elements freshly produced and ejected by a generation of stars, divided by the mass remaining as long-lived stars or compact remnants (Searle & Sargent 1972). depends on the initial mass function (IMF), first investigated by Salpeter (1955). Many references to the Salpeter function nowadays refer explicitly or implicitly to a function with the Salpeter slope extending to $`0.1M_{}`$ at the low-mass end, which is neither accurate nor any part of what Salpeter originally claimed. While investigations of field stars in the solar neighbourhood have led to significantly steeper functions at the high mass end (Scalo 1986), extragalactic studies almost invariably confirm Salpeter’s slope above $`1M_{}`$ or so (e.g. Madau et al. 1996). This leads to some intriguing consequences for galactic chemical evolution models, as the full Salpeter function (extending between 0.1 and 100$`M_{}`$, say) leads to an overall yield around 2$`Z_{}`$, too high for the solar neighbourhood; modellers using that function then either adopt a still lower low-mass truncation and/or assume an upper limit of 50$`M_{}`$ or less to stars that become supernovae, more massive stars locking themselves in black holes. The Miller-Scalo and Scalo functions do not need this device, but their lower overall yield has a problem explaining the metallicity of X-ray gas in clusters of galaxies.

Is the IMF invariable? As there is no real theory, the question is wide open, but it is of interest to explore how much can be explained on the basis that it is, apart from random realizations of an underlying universal function. In this spirit, Pagel & Tautvaišienė (1998) have attempted to model the chemical evolution of the Magellanic Clouds on the basis of identical yields to those prevailing in the solar neighbourhood (regardless of what particular combination of stellar yields and IMF is responsible for them), rather than blame their low metallicities on a steeper or more bottom-heavy IMF. Observations tend to favour a universal Salpeter slope above some critical mass below which it flattens or turns over; that critical mass may or may not be variable (Elmegreen 2000).

### 2.3 Star formation rates

Schmidt (1959) proposed a star formation law depending on a power between 1 and 2 of the volume or surface density of gas; such laws have been used in many models and can give a good account of the distribution of gas density and abundances in the Milky Way (e.g. Matteucci & François 1989), especially when some form of self-regulation is incorporated in the coefficients (Dopita & Ryder 1994) . In dwarf and starburst galaxies, on the other hand, star formation often occurs in sporadic bursts, perhaps involving both negative and positive feedback mechanisms. Kennicutt (1998) has given observational evidence for an overall correlation of star formation rates with the surface density of H i, with a definite threshold of order a few $`M_{}`$ pc-2 which may be related to dynamical stability criteria, and this idea has been used by Chiappini, Matteucci & Gratton (1997) to account for the hiatus in star formation that appears to have occurred between the formation of the thick and thin disks.

### 2.4 Stellar populations

One issue that has to be addressed, most notably in modelling the Milky Way, is the relationship between different stellar populations — the halo, the bulge, the thick disk and the thin disk. To what extent have they evolved concurrently, either in space or in time, successively or independently? Partly because of angular momentum considerations (Wyse & Gilmore 1992), opinion has veered away from the older idea of a temporal succession: halo, thick disk, thin disk (Burkert, Truran & Hensler 1992) towards the view that the halo and disks evolved independently, gas lost from the halo ending up in the bulge or the intergalactic medium. The thick disk is old and preceded the thin one, but with a considerable hiatus (Fuhrmann 1998), either because of the above-mentioned threshold effect or because of a merger which led to the thickening of the disk in the first place.

### 2.5 Interaction with other galaxies and the intergalactic medium

Since the pioneering paper by Larson (1972), it has become clear that inflow of relatively unprocessed material is potentially an important factor, notably in helping to solve the notorious G-dwarf problem (see below), and it was also Larson who developed models of terminal galactic winds to account for the luminosity-metallicity relation and predicted the presence of heavy elements in intra-cluster gas (Larson & Dinerstein 1975). More recent ‘chemo-dynamical’ models also take into account the multi-phase structure of the ISM, with stellar ejecta supplying the hot medium and fresh stars forming in the cool one (Samland, Hensler & Theis 1997).

## 3 What have we learned from observations?

### 3.1 The G-dwarf problem

Sometimes dismissed as a little local difficulty, the G-dwarf problem (van den Bergh 1962; Schmidt 1963; Pagel & Patchett 1975; Lynden-Bell 1975) has proved to be a severe constraint on chemical evolution models, not only in the solar neighbourhood, but in elliptical galaxies (Bressan et al. 1994; Worthey et al. 1996) and the Magellanic Clouds (Cole et al. 2000) as well. The problem is that in all these cases there is a narrow distribution of metallicity (MDF), whereas naive concepts of chemical evolution lead to the expectation of a broad one. Such a narrow distribution probably helped to hold up the abandonment of the idea of a universal cosmic abundance distribution (cf. Sandage 2000), and it also explains why stellar population synthesis models assuming just a single metallicity (SSPs) have been quite successful — more so than models incorporating chemical evolution up to now. These models are gradually becoming more refined, often with an indication of a bimodal metallicity distribution (Maraston & Thomas 2000), which may be understandable as a consequence of mergers. Closely related to the G-dwarf problem is the lack of a single clear age-metallicity relation in the solar neighbourhood, explainable only in part by the mixing of populations from different galactocentric distances evolving on different time-scales (Edvardsson et al. 1993).

The MDF is broader in the Galactic bulge and broader still in the halo, with an apparently higher yield (at least for $`\alpha `$-elements) in the former case and a lower one in the latter, where a modified Simple model assuming outflow actually fits the MDF rather well (Hartwick 1976). If the outflow went into the bulge, that might give an explanation for its higher apparent yield on the lines of the ‘concentration model’ of Lynden-Bell (1975) and the models of elliptical galaxy formation by Larson (1976). The halo MDF is becoming well known from the heroic efforts of Beers et al. (1998), and it fits the modified Simple model down to about \[Fe/H\] $`3`$; below that it falls short and below $`4`$ there are 2 stars or less when nearly 10 might have been expected. If significant, this discrepancy could indicate the presence of a distinct Population III of massive stars only, or it could merely be the result of low-mass stars being formed in the neighbourhood of exploding supernovae, for which there is other evidence (see below).

### 3.2 Abundance patterns

Abundance ratios are a better ‘clock’ than metallicities themselves (however defined). The ‘$`\alpha `$-rich’ effect (Wallerstein 1962) and the O/Fe enhancement (Gasson & Pagel 1966; Conti et al. 1967) are a steady function of metallicity in the thin disk, reaching more or less a plateau in the thick disk and halo, and attributed to the diminishing contribution of SNIa to the elements in increasingly old stars (Wheeler, Sneden & Truran 1989). There is currently controversy as to whether O/Fe actually has a plateau or rises steadily with diminishing Fe/H (Israelian et al. 1999; Boesgaard et al. 1999; Fulbright & Kraft 1999). Numerical GCE models predict a steeper rise in ratios like \[Mg/Fe\] than is observed, but this depends on assumptions about SNII yields that may be invalid and the predicted slope is reduced in any case when finite mixing times are taken into account (Thomas, Greggio & Bender 1999). Complications in this pattern have been found in two respects: (i) some halo stars have more solar-like $`\alpha `$/Fe ratios than do thick-disk stars and other halo stars at the same Fe/H (Nissen & Schuster 1997), maybe because they came from more slowly evolving dwarf galaxies like the Magellanic Clouds, which show a similar pattern; and (ii) the $`\alpha `$-rich pattern persists among thick-disk stars right up to solar metallicity, indicating a fast-evolving ‘get rich quick’ population, which may extend into the bulge,222The ‘get-rich-quick’ nature of the M 31 bulge was already noted by Baade (1963), as Rich (2000) has recently reminded us. and a hiatus with no star formation, just delayed iron-group production combined with some dilution of overall metallicity, before the first stars of the thin disk were formed (Fuhrmann 1998; Gratton et al. 2000).

The time-delay model for $`\alpha `$/Fe effects comes up against some difficulties in the case of elliptical galaxies, where there is a very well-marked correlation between Mg2 and velocity dispersion, but a less well marked one for iron features (Worthey, Faber & Gonzales 1992). This should imply a faster star formation time-scale for larger galaxies, which is hard to understand on the basis of either monolithic or hierarchical clustering models (Thomas & Kauffmann 1999).

At very low metallicities like \[Fe/H\] $`3`$, just where the modified Simple model MDF is breaking down, new abundance patterns emerge, with a large scatter in r/Fe and other ratios, indicating the influence of individual supernovae (Ryan et al. 1996; McWilliam 1997). One bonus from this is the case of CS 22892–052 with low metallicity and enhanced r-process, enabling a credible thorium chronology to be applied (Cowan et al. 1999). The incidence of this scatter is consistent with the view that stars are formed in globular-cluster sized superbubbles of the order of $`10^5M_{}`$, dominated by output from a single supernova ($`2M_{}`$ of oxygen) if the oxygen mass fraction in the ISM is under $`2\times 10^5`$, i.e. $`2\times 10^3`$ of solar. As the metallicity of the ISM increases, the influence of an individual supernova is diluted and there is a semblance of smooth chemical evolution (Tsujimoto, Shigeyama & Yoshii 1999).

## 4 Metal supply to the intra-cluster medium

Hot X-ray gas in clusters of galaxies has a mean metallicity of the order of $`0.4`$, whether measured in \[Fe/H\] or \[$`\alpha `$/H\], and the mass of metals is proportional to that of stars in E and S0 galaxies in the cluster (Arnaud et al. 1992). As discussed by Renzini et al. (1993) and Pagel (1997), this requires a large yield of the order of $`2Z_{}`$ if the metals are supplied by stars in the galaxies, reminiscent of what comes from the conventional form of the Salpeter IMF, but high compared with the yield of $`0.7Z_{}`$ or so required to fit the MDF in the solar neighbourhood (e.g. Pagel & Tautvaišienė 1995). Does this imply a more top-heavy IMF (e.g. Arimoto & Yoshii 1987)? Because of the metallicity-luminosity relation (e.g. Zaritsky, Kennicutt & Huchra 1994) and considerations of cosmic chemical evolution outlined below, I prefer to think of a universal IMF with a high yield, modified by outflow from the smaller galaxies. While an effective blowout due to supernova feedback may be difficult to achieve in medium-sized galaxies as we see them now (MacLow & Ferrara 1999), there are other mechanisms like tides and ram-pressure stripping, and the galaxies that we see today may have been smaller in the past, before being built up by inflow or put together by hierarchical clustering.

## 5 Cosmic chemical evolution and dark metals

Observations at high red-shifts, both of emission from star-forming galaxies (Madau et al. 1996; Blain et al. 1999) and of absorption lines in Lyman-$`\alpha `$ systems (Pettini et al. 1999) have led to interesting investigations of cosmic chemical evolution (Pei, Fall & Hauser 1999). These may account for only a fraction of the metals in the universe, however. From Big-bang nucleosynthesis, we believe that the smoothed-out density of baryonic matter is

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_bh_{70}^20.035$$
(1)
(Tytler et al. 2000), a value just consistent within errors with recent deductions from BOOMERANG and MAXIMA MWB observations (Tegmark & Zaldarriaga 2000; Balbi et al. 2000) or possibly even a slight underestimate, whereas the density of stars is only 1/10 as much (Fukugita, Hogan & Peebles 1998). The remainder could be in the form of diffuse intergalactic gas, low surface-brightness galaxies, MACHOs or something else. For the first two of these, the metal content is certainly an issue. Mushotzky & Loewenstein (1997) have argued that the intergalactic gas dominates, with the same metallicity as the intra-cluster gas, implying a yield of $`2.5Z_{}`$, while numerical simulations by Cen & Ostriker (1999) imply a somewhat lower metallicity like 0.1$`Z_{}`$ requiring a yield of about $`1.5Z_{}`$ (cf. Pagel 1999); thus half or more of the heavy elements in the universe are as yet unseen, although there is a hint of their presence in recent FUSE observations of O vi (Tripp et al. 2000). Models of cosmic chemical evolution disregard the silent majority of dark metals at their peril!


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The fact that the three spatial dimensions we observe at present are expanding, and once were highly curved provides us a logical possibility that there are other dimensions which not only remain small and highly curved but also extend widely and are almost flat. The latter case might appear to conflict with the Newton’s law of gravity since the gravitational interaction sees a whole structure of space-time so that the Newton’s law depends on crucially the dimensionality of space. In recent years, however, it has been shown that we can construct a gravity-localized model by putting a 3-brane in $`AdS_5`$ . Afterwards, the model with a single or two branes  was generalized to a model with many domain walls on topology $`S^1`$ .

One interesting possibility in the gravity localized models is that various spin fields as well as the spin 2 graviton might be confined to a 3-brane. Indeed, this possibility has been recently examined in the Randall-Sundrum model  by a field theoretic approach in detail  where we have seen that spin 0 and 2 fields are localized on a brane while spin 1/2, 1 and 3/2 are not. Thus, for a complete localization of all the fields on the brane it is necessary to invoke the other interactions in addition to the gravitational one in a bulk. For instance, in Ref. , the Dvali-Shifman mechanism  for the spin 1 vector field and the Jackiw-Rebbi mechanism  for the fermionic fields were proposed.

There has been also a lot of activities of constructing some higher dimensional generalizations of the Randall-Sundrum model in five dimensions . About the localization of various fields in those generalizations, it was shown that fermions are not localized on a brane either as in the Randall-Sundrum model .

More recently, a mechanism for localizing fermions on a brane in the context of higher dimensional gravity localized models has been presented . This mechanism makes use of a Yukawa coupling to a scalar field and makes it possible to have chiral fermions as well as the localization of spin 1/2 fermions on a brane.

The aim of the present article is to extend this mechanism for the spin 1/2 fermion to the case of the spin 3/2 gravitino field in a general framework of supergravity theory. We will see that our mechanism provides not only the localization but also the chirality of the gravitino as in the spin 1/2 fermions. It is worthwhile to emphasize that our presentation is quite general in the sense that we treat the most general coupling to supergravity of chiral superfields describing complex scalar fields and Weyl spinor fields.

Thus, a complete localization of all spin fields on a brane is now available from the viewpoint of the local field theory. Namely, in the gravity localized models in an arbitrary space-time dimension except six dimensions, spin 0 and 2 fields are localized on a brane with the exponentially decreasing warp factor by only the gravitational interaction, spin 1 vector field is by the Dvali-Shifman mechanism, and spin 1/2 and 3/2 fermionic fields are so through a coupling to a scalar field. On the other hand, in a string-like defect model with codimension 2 in six dimensions , the spin 1 vector field is also localized on a brane by the gravitational interaction so we do not have to appeal to the Dvali-Shifman mechanism .

## 2 The model

Let us start by considering the general supergravity action coupled to chiral supermultiplets in $`D`$ dimensions  (Only the relevant part for the present consideration in the total action is explicitly written down.):

$`S={\displaystyle }d^Dx\sqrt{g}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\kappa _D^2}}R+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_Mi\mathrm{\Gamma }^{[M}\mathrm{\Gamma }^N\mathrm{\Gamma }^{R]}\{D_N\mathrm{\Psi }_R+i\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }^r(G^iD_N\varphi _iG_iD_N\varphi ^i)\mathrm{\Psi }_R\}`$
$`G_j^ig^{MN}D_M\varphi _iD_N\varphi ^j+\mathrm{}],`$ (1)
where $`\kappa _D`$ and $`\lambda `$ respectively denote the $`D`$-dimensional gravitational constant and a coupling constant, $`M,N,R,\mathrm{}`$ do $`D`$-dimensional indices, and the square bracket on the curved gamma matrices $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^M`$ denotes the anti-symmetrization with weight 1. The Rarita-Schwinger gravitino field in the gravity multiplet and complex scalar fields in the chiral superfields are respectively described as $`\mathrm{\Psi }_M`$ and $`\varphi _i`$. (Here the indices $`i,j`$ denote the number of fields.) Moreover, the function $`G`$, which is usually called to the Kahler potential, is defined as

$`G(\varphi ^{},\varphi )=3\mathrm{log}({\displaystyle \frac{K(\varphi ^{},\varphi )}{3}})+\mathrm{log}|W(\varphi )|^2,`$ (2)
with a general function $`K`$ and the superpotential $`W`$. Various derivatives of the Kahler potential are described as

$`G^i={\displaystyle \frac{G}{\varphi _i}},G_i={\displaystyle \frac{G}{\varphi ^i}},G_j^i={\displaystyle \frac{^2G}{\varphi _i\varphi ^j}}.`$ (3)
And the covariant derivative $`D_M\mathrm{\Psi }_N`$ is defined as

$`D_M\mathrm{\Psi }_N=_M\mathrm{\Psi }_N\mathrm{\Gamma }_{MN}^R\mathrm{\Psi }_R+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\omega _M^{AB}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{AB}\mathrm{\Psi }_N,`$ (4)
where the spin connection $`\omega _M^{AB}`$ and the affine connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{MN}^R`$ are defined as usual, and the indices $`A,B`$ denote the $`D`$-dimensional local Lorentz indices. As a final remark, throughout this article we follow the standard conventions and notations of the textbook of Misner, Thorne and Wheeler .

In this note, without loss of generality, we shall choose the form of $`K`$ which leads to a minimal kinetic term and set the number of complex scalar fields to one. Then,

$`K`$ $`=`$ $`3\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{\varphi \varphi ^{}}{3}}),`$
$`G`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi \varphi ^{}+\mathrm{log}|W(\varphi )|^2,`$
$`G_j^i`$ $`=`$ $`1.`$ (5)
From the action (1), the equations of motion for the Rarita-Schwinger gravitino field are derived as

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{[M}\mathrm{\Gamma }^N\mathrm{\Gamma }^{R]}\left(D_N+i\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }^r\varphi ^{}\begin{array}{c}\hfill \\ _N\hfill \end{array}\varphi \right)\mathrm{\Psi }_R=0,`$ (8)
with the definition of $`\varphi ^{}\begin{array}{c}\hfill \\ _N\hfill \end{array}\varphi =\varphi ^{}_N\varphi _N\varphi ^{}\varphi `$.

We shall adopt the following cylindrically symmetric metric ansatz:

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`g_{MN}dx^Mdx^N`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`e^{A(r)}\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }(x^\lambda )dx^\mu dx^\nu +dr^2+e^{B(r)}\widehat{g}_{mn}(y)dy^mdy^n,`$
where as mentioned above $`M,N,\mathrm{}`$ denote $`D`$-dimensional space-time indices, $`\mu ,\nu ,\mathrm{}`$ do $`D_1`$-dimensional brane ones, and $`m,n,\mathrm{}`$ do $`D_2`$-dimensional extra spatial ones, so the equality $`D=D_1+D_2+1`$ holds. The local Lorentz indices corresponding to curved indices $`M=(\mu ,r,m)`$ are described as $`A=(a,r,\underset{¯}{a})`$. For simplicity, from now on we limit ourselves to the flat brane geometry $`\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\mu \nu }`$. With this ansatz, after a straightforward calculation, the components of the covariant derivative are easily calculated:

$`D_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`(_\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}A^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_r\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu )\mathrm{\Psi }_\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A^{}e^A\eta _{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Psi }_r,`$
$`D_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_r`$ $`=`$ $`(_\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}A^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_r\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu )\mathrm{\Psi }_r+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu ,`$
$`D_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_m`$ $`=`$ $`(_\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}A^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_r\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu )\mathrm{\Psi }_m,`$
$`D_r\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`_r\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu ,`$
$`D_r\mathrm{\Psi }_r`$ $`=`$ $`_r\mathrm{\Psi }_r,`$
$`D_r\mathrm{\Psi }_m`$ $`=`$ $`_r\mathrm{\Psi }_m+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_m,`$
$`D_m\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(_m+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}B^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_r\mathrm{\Gamma }_m+\omega _m)\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu ,`$
$`D_m\mathrm{\Psi }_r`$ $`=`$ $`(_m+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}B^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_r\mathrm{\Gamma }_m+\omega _m)\mathrm{\Psi }_r+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_m,`$
$`D_m\mathrm{\Psi }_n`$ $`=`$ $`(\widehat{D}_m+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}B^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_r\mathrm{\Gamma }_m)\mathrm{\Psi }_n{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B^{}g_{mn}\mathrm{\Psi }_r,`$ (10)
where the prime denotes the differentiation with respect to $`r`$, and $`\widehat{D}_m\mathrm{\Psi }_n(_m+\omega _m)\mathrm{\Psi }_n+\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{mn}^p\mathrm{\Psi }_p`$ with the spin connection $`\omega _m`$ and the affine one $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{mn}^p`$ made in terms of $`\widehat{g}_{mn}`$ .

## 3 Localization and chirality

For spontaneous supersymmetry breaking to occur, at least one of the scalar fields must have a vacuum expectation value (VEV) which is not invariant under local supersymmetry transformations. In this note, we assume that a single scalar field in our model would develop such a VEV with the $`r`$-dependent phase factor

$`\varphi =|v|e^{i|r|},`$ (11)
where $`v`$ is a constant. Then we have an equation

$`i\lambda \varphi ^{}\begin{array}{c}\hfill \\ _r\hfill \end{array}\varphi =2\lambda |v|^2\epsilon (r).`$ (14)
With the assumption $`\mathrm{\Psi }_r=\mathrm{\Psi }_m=0`$ 222This assumption might be legitimate since these Kaluza-Klein spin 1/2 fields would have an infinite energy so they should be unphysical in a noncompact extra space as shown in the ’gauge-scalar’ coming from the KK reduction of the vector field . and using Eqs. (10) and (14), Eq. (8) reduces to

$`\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }^r\left(_r{\displaystyle \frac{D_12}{4}}A^{}{\displaystyle \frac{D_2}{4}}B^{}\right)+2\lambda |v|^2\epsilon (r)+\mathrm{\Gamma }^m(_m+\omega _m)\right]\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu =0.`$ (15)
Here we have used $`D_1`$-dimensional equations $`\gamma ^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_\mu =^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_\mu =\gamma ^{[\mu }\gamma ^\nu \gamma ^{\rho ]}_\nu \mathrm{\Psi }_\rho =0`$ where we have defined $`\gamma ^\mu `$ by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu =e^{\frac{1}{2}A}\gamma ^\mu `$. Note that $`\{\gamma ^\mu ,\gamma ^\nu \}=2\eta ^{\mu \nu }`$. Now let us look for a solution with the form of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mu (x^M)=\psi _\mu (x^\mu )u(r)\chi (y^m)`$ where we impose the following chirality condition and field equation:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^r\psi _\mu (x)=+\psi _\mu (x),\mathrm{\Gamma }^m(_m+\omega _m)\chi (y)=0.`$ (16)
Then, Eq. (15) is of the form

$`\left(_r{\displaystyle \frac{D_12}{4}}A^{}{\displaystyle \frac{D_2}{4}}B^{}+2\lambda |v|^2\epsilon (r)\right)u(r)=0,`$ (17)
from which, $`u(r)`$ is solved to be

$`u(r)=c_1e^{\frac{D_12}{4}A+\frac{D_2}{4}B2\lambda |v|^2\epsilon (r)r},`$ (18)
with $`c_1`$ being an integration constant.

We are now ready to show that the solution (18) is normalizable and consequently we have the localized gravitino on a brane if we take a suitable VEV. To this end, let us focus on the kinetic term of the Rarita-Schwinger field in the action (1) and substitute the solution (18) into it as follows:

$`S_{3/2}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle d^Dx\sqrt{g}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_Mi\mathrm{\Gamma }^{[M}\mathrm{\Gamma }^N\mathrm{\Gamma }^{R]}D_N\mathrm{\Psi }_R}`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^{D_2}y\sqrt{\widehat{g}_y}\chi ^{}(y)\chi (y)𝑑re^{\frac{1}{2}(D_1A+D_2B)+\frac{3}{2}A}u(r)^2d^{D_1}x\overline{\psi }_\mu i\gamma ^{[\mu }\gamma ^\nu \gamma ^{\rho ]}_\nu \psi _\rho }+\mathrm{}.`$
Provided that the first integral over the extra internal space is finite, the condition that $`S_{3/2}`$ has a normalizable kinetic term requires that the second integral should be finite. If we denote this integral as $`I`$, we have an equation

$`I`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑re^{\frac{1}{2}(D_1A+D_2B)+\frac{3}{2}A}u(r)^2}`$ (20)
$`=`$ $`2c_1^2{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑re^{\frac{1}{2}A4\lambda |v|^2r}`$
$`=`$ $`2c_1^2{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑re^{(\frac{1}{2}c4\lambda |v|^2)r},`$
where we have considered a warp geometry $`A=cr(c>0)`$ in the last equation. Then it turns out that $`I`$ is finite if a VEV $`|v|`$ has a large value such that $`\frac{1}{2}c4\lambda |v|^2<0`$. Note that in the absence of a VEV of a scalar field the solution is not normalizable so that the gravitino is localized not on a brane with the exponentially decreasing warp factor but on a brane with the exponentially rising warp factor . In the above, we have imposed the chiral condition on the brane gravitino $`\psi _\mu `$, and then the number of chiral families would depend on the topology of the extra internal space .

## 4 Discussions

In this paper, within a general framework of supergravity, we have investigated the possibility of localizing the spin 3/2 gravitino field on a brane with the exponentially decreasing warp factor, which also localizes the graviton. The mechanism that we have found is quite similar to that found recently in case of the spin 1/2 fermion by Randjbar-Daemi and Shaposhnikov . But one important difference is that we have made use of spontaneous supersymmetry breaking in the bulk in a general supergravity coupled to chiral superfields. The brane gravitino remains to be massless and chiral after bulk-SUSY breaking, so it appears that supersymmetry on a brane is not broken. Of course, to confirm this statement we need further study in future.

By extensive study done so far about the localization of various spin fields on a brane, we could conclude that all the Standard Model particles (which include the graviton and the gravitino) can be confined to a 3-brane by means of a local field theory, so it seems to be timely in near future to construct a more realistic, phenomenological model based on the gravity localized models.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Heisenberg ferrimagnetic spin systems, also known as alternating or mixed spin systems, consisting of two sublattices with spins $`s_{1\text{ }}`$and $`s_2`$ of unequal magnitudes with a net nonzero spin per unit cell have received considerable attention recently. Several theoretical studies have been carried out to calculate the ground-state properties and the low-lying excited states of an alternating $`s_1`$-$`s_2`$ chain. There are two low-lying elementary excitations, the gapless ferromagnetic spin wave excitations and the antiferromagnetic spin waves with a gap. Dimerization of the lattice has been shown to lower the ground-state energy, sublattice magnetization and excitation energies of a ferrimagnetic system.

Frustration due to competing antiferromagnetic second neighbor interactions can in principle destroy any LRO of the Neel type. Ivanov et al. used spin wave expansion, density matrix renormalization group, and an exact diagonalization technique to investigate the effect of weak frustration on the ground state energy of a quantum Heisenberg ferrimagnetic chain. They have identified several critical frustration parameters. The first, called $`\alpha _c`$, heralds a transition from the classical commensurate ferrimagnetic state to a spiral state. The second special point, called $`\alpha _D`$ and termed as the disorder point marks the onset of incommensurate finite-range spin-spin correlations. The third special point, called $`\alpha _T`$, is a first order transition point from the long-range ordered ferrimagnetic state with total spin $`S_g=N(s_1`$ $`s_2)`$ to a singlet state with $`S_g=0`$. They found that frustration causes an increase in the ground state energy.

In classical ferrimagnets, one hopes to see two transition points resulting from frustration: one where the order is completely destroyed, and the other where the classical ferrimagnetic state changes into a spiral state.

The objective of the present study is two-fold: to investigate these transitions in a square lattice ferrimagnet, and to study the combined effect of dimerization and frustration. The purpose of the latter exercise would be to see the effect of dimerization on the transitions induced by frustration. For this purpose, we will study systems with $`(s_1,s_2)`$ equal to (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$), ($`\frac{3}{2}`$,1) and ($`\frac{3}{2},\frac{1}{2}`$) using a zero temperature linear spin wave (LSW) theory. The choice of the spins is guided by the recent assertion that the three systems have different predominant characters: the first has a mixed ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic character, the second is more antiferromagnetic and the third is more ferromagnetic in character. Validity of the linear spin wave theory will be a serious question for frustrated systems, but it has already been argued by Ivanov et al. that the LSW theory yields satisfactory results, at least for small values of frustration.

In order to set the background for the combined effect of dimerization and frustration on square lattice, we shall first use the LSWT to investigate the effect in ferrimagnetic chains. Section II below sets up the LSW formalism for a dimerized ferrimagnetic chain in the presence of frustration. It has already been argued in discussing dimerization of square lattices that a proper account of various possible dimerized configurations as a result of lattice distortions can be taken only when the nearest neighbor interaction is taken as $`J(r)\frac{J}{r}`$. This choice made it possible to conclude that among the various possibilities, plaquette configuration had the lowest ground state energy. But this form of the nearest neighbor interaction has its own consequences, and we shall study those for the chains also in Section II in order to identify its particular effects to distinguish them from the effects of dimensionality of the lattice. Effects of frustration on a dimerized square lattice system are then studied in section III.

## 2 Ferrimagnetic chains with dimerization and frustration

Mixed spin chain systems have recently been studied extensively within the spin wave approximation in both undimerized and dimerized regimes. It has been conclusively shown that the linear spin wave theory gives excellent results for the ground state energy and magnetization of ferrimagnets. We consider a chain consisting of two sublattices occupied by spins $`s_1`$ and $`s_2`$ ( $`s_1`$ $`>`$ $`s_2`$) allowing for both intersublattice and intrasublattice nearest neighbor interactions $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ respectively. We choose to describe this system by the Hamiltonian

$$H=\underset{n}{}[J^+𝐒_{1,n}𝐒_{2,n}+J^{}𝐒_{2,n}𝐒_{1,n+1}+J_2(𝐒_{1,n}𝐒_{1,n+1}+𝐒_{2,n}𝐒_{2,n+1})],$$
(1)
where $`J^\pm =J_1(1\pm \delta ),`$ and $`\delta `$ is the dimerization parameter that varies from $`0`$ to $`1.`$ The total number of sites (or bonds) is 2N and the sum is over the $`N`$ unit cells.

The usual boson representation of spin operators in the two sublattices is

$`S_{1,n}^+`$ $`=`$ $`(2s_1a_n^{}a_n)^{1/2}a_n,\text{ }S_{2,n}^+=b_n^{}(2s_2b_n^{}b_n)^{1/2},`$
$`S_{1,n}^z`$ $`=`$ $`s_1a_n^{}a_n,\text{ }\text{ }S_{2,n}^z=b_n^{}b_ns_2,`$ (2)
In terms of the normal mode operators

$`\alpha _k=u_ka_kv_kb_k^{},`$ (3a)
$`\beta _k=u_kb_kv_ka_k^{},`$ (3b)
the linearized Hamiltonian in Eq. (1) becomes

$$\stackrel{~}{H}=\epsilon _g+\underset{k}{}\left[E_1(k)\alpha _k^{}\alpha _k+E_2(k)\beta _k^{}\beta _k\right],$$
(4)
The ground-state energy per unit cell $`\epsilon _g`$ and the energies of the two excitation modes $`E_1(k)`$ and $`E_2(k)`$ are given by

$$\epsilon _g=C\underset{k}{}[A_1(k)+A_2(k)\xi (k)],$$
(5)
$`E_1(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(A_1(k)A_2(k)+\xi (k)\right),`$ (6)
$`E_2(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(A_2(k)A_1(k)+\xi (k)\right).`$ (7)
In these equations

$`\xi _k`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\left(A_1(k)+A_2(k)\right)^24B^2(k)},`$ (8a)
$`A_1(k)`$ $`=`$ $`J_p\text{ }s_2\alpha \text{ }s_1\left[1\mathrm{cos}(2k)\right],`$ (8b)
$`A_2(k)`$ $`=`$ $`J_p\text{ }s_1\alpha \text{ }s_2\left[1\mathrm{cos}(2k)\right],`$ (8c)
$`B(k)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{s_1s_2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_k,`$ (8d)
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_k`$ $`=`$ $`J_p\sqrt{\mathrm{cos}^2(k)+\delta ^2\mathrm{sin}^2(k)},`$ (8e)
$`C`$ $`=`$ $`J_ps_1s_2+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}\left(s_1^2+s_2^2\right),`$ (8f)
where $`J_p=\frac{1}{2}(J^++J^{})`$ and $`\alpha =\frac{J_2}{J_1}`$ is the frustration parameter.

The coefficients $`u(k)`$ and $`v(k),`$ constrained by the condition $`u^2(k)v^2(k)=1`$, are given by

$`u(k)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{A_1(k)+A_2(k)+\xi (k)}{2\xi (k)}}},`$ (9a)
$`v(k)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{A_1(k)+A_2(k)\xi (k)}{2\xi (k)}}},`$ (9b)
Staggered magnetization in the two sublattices corresponding to the spins $`s_1`$ and $`s_2,`$ respectively, is

$`M_1=S_1<D>`$ (10a)
$`M_2=<D>S_2`$ (10b)
where $`<D>=<a_k^{}a_k>=<b_k^{}b_k>`$ is the average taken in the ground state, which is the Neel-like state at zero temperature:

$$<D>=\frac{1}{N}\underset{k}{}v^2(k)$$
(11)
with $`k`$ running from $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ to $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ which is the first reduced Brillouin zone.

For a two-spin system, we can think of three types of spin-spin correlation functions; $`<S_{1,0}^zS_{1,n}^z>,`$ $`<S_{2,0}^zS_{2,n}^z>`$ and $`<S_{1,0}^zS_{2,n}^z>.`$ We are interested in the antiferromagnetic correlations which we define as

$`C_n`$ $``$ $`<S_{1,0}^zS_{2,n}^z><S_{1,0}^z><S_{2,n}^z>`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`<O>^2`$ (13)
where

$$<O>=\frac{1}{N}\underset{k}{}\mathrm{cos}(kn)u(k)v(k)$$
(14)
and $`u`$ and $`v`$ are defined in Eqs.(2). Swapan et al. in their linear spin wave analysis when fit this correlation function to $`e^{r/\xi }`$ found the inverse correlation length $`\xi ^1=\mathrm{ln}\frac{s_1}{s_2}.`$ For ($`s_1,s_2)=(1,\frac{1}{2})`$, this gives $`\xi =1.44`$, whereas their variational calculation gives $`\xi =0.75`$. Others fit it to the Ornstein-Zernike form

$$C(r)\frac{e^{r/\xi }}{\sqrt{r}},$$
(15)
and found it to be 1.01.

Results of the spin wave theory of ferrimagnets have been discussed earlier, but none with dimerization and frustration together.

There is a critical value of the frustration parameter $`\alpha `$ in the linear spin wave theory at which the energies do not remain real, signaling destruction of the long range order. This critical value, that we call $`\alpha _c`$, is strongly $`\delta `$dependent, as shown in Fig.(1). At $`\delta =0`$, $`\alpha _c=\frac{s_1}{2(s_1+s_2)}`$. For a (1,$`\frac{1}{2})`$ chain this is 1/3, whereas earlier DMRG results gave $`\alpha _c=0.28`$.

It is already known that with $`J^\pm =J_1(1\pm \delta )`$ the ground state energy decreases with $`\delta `$ and scales as $`\delta ^2`$. It however has a more interesting behavior with respect to $`\alpha `$. As shown in Fig.(2), the ground state energy per site initially increases with $`\alpha `$ and then decreases before the long range order is destroyed by frustration at $`\alpha _c`$. This is true even when there is no dimerization, where the results agree with those of Ivanov et al. who give values only up to where the maximum occurs. The maximum shifts to lower values of $`\alpha `$ with $`\delta `$ as $`\delta ^2.`$ The curves in Fig.(2) terminate at $`\alpha _c`$ for the corresponding $`\delta .`$ This behavior is true for all the three spin systems considered.

With two atoms per unit cell, a ferrimagnet has to have two modes of elementary excitations. The acoustic mode is gapless ($`E_1(k=0)=0)`$ and has ferromagnetic character while the optic mode $`E_2(k)`$ is antiferromagnetic and has a gap at $`k=0`$.

Both acoustic and optic excitation mode energies decrease as $`\delta `$ increases, as they also do when $`\alpha `$ increases. This behavior is shown in Fig.(3). The two excitation modes in all the three spin systems scale with $`\delta `$ as $`\delta ^2`$and linearly with $`\alpha `$. There is a critical value of $`\alpha `$ at which the elementary excitation modes start to soften, signaling a transition from a Neel-like spin structure to a spiral structure. This critical value, that we call $`\alpha ^{}`$ and evaluate from the changing signs of the slopes of the dispersion curves, is different for the acoustic and optic modes, and in the presence of dimerization is $`\delta `$-dependent:

$`\alpha _{acoustic}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{s_1s_2}{2(s_1^2+s_2^2)}}J_p(1\delta ^2)`$ (16a)
$`\alpha _{optic}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}J_p(1\delta ^2)`$ (16b)
For $`\delta =0`$, the first of these reproduces the critical value reported by Ivanov et al. (denoted therein as $`\alpha _c`$). A uniform decrease of $`\alpha ^{}`$ with $`\delta `$ leads one to conclude that the transition to spiral spin state caused by frustration is facilitated by dimerization. The spin wave theory gives different behavior of mode softening in the two elementary excitation modes; in the case of the ferromagnetic mode, the mode softening starts at an $`\alpha `$ that depends upon the magnitudes of the two component spins while in the case of the antiferromagnetic mode it is uniform for all the pairs of the ferrimagnet-forming spins.

The magnetization of the two sublattices, as given by Eq.(2), decreases in magnitude with both $`\delta `$ and $`\alpha `$ as shown in Fig.(4). The decrease with $`\alpha `$ indicates the destruction of magnetic order.

The spin-spin correlations decay rapidly with the spin-spin separation, as noted earlier also. When fit to the Ornstein-Zernike from, Eq.(15), the correlation length is also found to decrease with both $`\delta `$ and $`\alpha `$, as shown in Fig. (5).

The case of $`J^\pm =\frac{J_1}{1\delta }`$

We shall now look at the same results in the event the spin-spin interaction amplitude is taken to vary inversely with distance between the spins. It has been argued earlier that the choice of nearest neighbor interaction as $`J(1\pm \delta )`$ did not allow taking into account the several spin-Peierls distortions possible in a square lattice. A more general choice we proposed was $`J(r)\frac{J}{r}`$. In the case of nearest neighbor coupling, this means that the amplitudes $`J^\pm `$ in Eq.(1) are $`J^\pm =\frac{J_1}{1\delta }`$ which approximate to the more familiar $`J_1(1\pm \delta )`$ in the limit of small $`\delta `$. We shall in the following describe the results for a ferrimagnetic chain when the proposed interaction is taken into account.

The critical value $`\alpha _c`$ now has a completely different dependence on $`\delta `$. For all the three ferrimagnetic systems, it remains constant for most of the $`\delta `$range, but increases rapidly at higher values of $`\delta `$, as shown in Fig.(6). This implies that in this case dimerization does not facilitate destruction of long range order by frustration until it is rather large in magnitude. This manifests in the variation of the ground state energy with $`\delta `$ and $`\alpha `$, as shown in Fig.(7). Since at $`\delta =0`$, the two cases of $`J^\pm `$ coincide, therefore $`\alpha _c`$ at $`\delta =0`$ is the same for both and is $`\frac{s_1}{2(s_1+s_2)}`$.

The difference shows up in $`\alpha ^{}`$ also. In this case $`J_p=\frac{1}{1\delta ^2}`$ in Eq.(2), because of which $`\alpha ^{}`$ for both acoustic and optic modes becomes $`\delta `$-independent. This contrast between the two choices of $`J^\pm `$ may in fact be taken to be a strong point that could decide, if ever tested, which of the two forms must be chosen to represent dimerization.

The ground sate energy exhibits the same general $`\delta `$\- and $`\alpha `$-dependence as in the case of the coupling $`J(1\pm \delta )`$. Dimerization reduces the energy and frustration increases it, the reduction by dimerization being larger than the increase by frustration. The increase with frustration is again up to a certain value of $`\alpha `$ after which the ground state energy shows a decline before $`\alpha _c`$ is approached. This value of $`\alpha `$ shifts to the lower side as $`\delta `$ increases, disappearing almost completely in the $`\delta 1`$ limit as shown in Fig.(7). The difference is in the way in which the ground state energy scales with the two parameters. For $`\alpha =0`$, it scales with $`\delta `$ as $`\frac{\delta ^{1.5}}{\left|\mathrm{ln}\delta \right|}`$ , as reported earlier, and for $`\delta =0`$ it scales with $`\alpha `$ as $`\alpha ^{0.5}`$.

The dependence of the excitation modes on $`\delta `$ and $`\alpha `$ is also quite in contrast to that for the usual case of $`J(1\pm \delta )`$ coupling. Frustration continues to suppress the excitation mode energies. On the other hand, while for $`\alpha <\alpha ^{},`$ an increase in $`\delta `$ pushes up both the excitation energies, for $`\alpha \alpha ^{}`$, the acoustic and optic modes differ in their dependence on $`\delta `$: the acoustic mode is further suppressed by an increasing $`\delta `$, but the optic mode is pushed up. This behavior is illustrated in Fig.(8). Note also that the antiferromagnetic mode at $`k=0`$ depends upon $`\delta `$but not on $`\alpha `$.

Sublattice magnetization and correlation lengths show the same schematic decreasing behavior with $`\delta `$ and $`\alpha `$ as in the case of the interaction $`J(1\pm \delta )`$, except for the effect of the peculiar dependence of $`\alpha _c`$ on $`\delta `$ \[Fig.(6)\].

## 3 Frustration on a square lattice

There are several ways in which a two-dimensional lattice can be deformed in dimerization. This was discussed in detail earlier, where it was shown that among the various possibilities, the plaquette configuration is the lowest energy deformation. To arrive at this conclusion it was necessary to take the nearest neighbor spin-spin interactions to depend upon the spin-spin distance $`r`$ as $`\frac{J}{r}`$. The consequences of this for a chain have been discussed above. In studying the combined effect of dimerization and the competing second neighbor interactions on a square lattice, it becomes imperative to work with this form of interaction.

Since it has already been established that among the possible deformations of a square lattice, the one that involves two phonons, with wavevectors ($`\pi ,0)`$ and ($`0`$,$`\pi ),`$ forming a plaquette lattice, is energetically the most favorable one, we will restrict our investigation to this kind of deformation alone.

We will write the Hamiltonian of a ferrimagnetic square lattice as a sum of the nearest neighbor and the next nearest neighbor (or intersublattice and intrasublattice nearest neighbor) parts:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`H_1+H_2`$ (17)
$`H_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{\overset{\sqrt{N}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda =\pm 1}{}}J_\lambda \left[𝐒_{1,i,j}𝐒_{2,i+\lambda ,j}+𝐒_{1,i,j}𝐒_{2,i,j+\lambda }\right]`$ (18)
$`H_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{\overset{\sqrt{N}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda ,\lambda ^{^{}}=\pm 1}{}}J_{\lambda ,\lambda ^{^{}}}\left[𝐒_{1,2i,2j}𝐒_{1,2i+\lambda ,2j+\lambda ^{^{}}}+𝐒_{2,2i,2j}𝐒_{2,2i+\lambda ,2j+\lambda ^{^{}}}\right]`$ (19)
with $`J_\lambda =\frac{1}{(1\lambda \delta )},`$ and

$`J_{1,1}`$ $`=`$ $`J_{1,1}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2(1+\delta ^2)}}}`$ (20a)
$`J_{1,1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}(1+\delta )}}`$ (20b)
$`J_{1,1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}(1\delta )}}`$ (20c)
The linear spin wave analysis follows the same procedure as for the chain above. The same equations are applicable in this case, except that the various coefficients have now the following definitions:

$`A_1(k)`$ $`=`$ $`2J_ps_2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{8}}\left\{\zeta _1^{(1)}(J_{1,1}+J_{1,1})+\zeta _1^{(1)}(J_{1,1}+J_{1,1})\right\}`$ (21a)
$`A_2(k)`$ $`=`$ $`2J_ps_1{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{8}}\left\{\zeta _1^{(2)}(J_{1,1}+J_{1,1})+\zeta _1^{(2)}(J_{1,1}+J_{1,1})\right\}`$ (21b)
$`B(k)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(k)\sqrt{s_1s_2}`$ (21c)
$`C`$ $`=`$ $`2J_ps_1s_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha (s_1^2+s_2^2),`$ (21d)
$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(k)=\sqrt{J_p^2\left(\mathrm{cos}(k_x)+\mathrm{cos}(k_y)\right)^2+J_m^2\left(\mathrm{sin}(k_x)+\mathrm{sin}(k_y)\right)^2}$$
(22)
where

$`J_p=(J_{+1}+J_1)/4=\frac{1}{2(1\delta ^2)}`$

$`J_m=(J_{+1}J_1)/4=\delta J_p`$

$`\zeta _\sigma ^{(\tau )}=2s_\tau \left[1\mathrm{cos}(k_x+\sigma k_y)\right];`$ $`\tau =1,2`$ and $`\sigma =\pm 1.`$

The ground state energy per site $`\epsilon _g`$ defined in Eq.(5), energies of the two excitation modes $`E_i(k)`$ in Eqs.(6) and (7), staggered magnetization $`M_i`$ defined in Eqs.(2) and correlation length defined in Eq.(15) can now be calculated as functions of the dimerization parameter $`\delta `$ and frustration parameter $`\alpha .`$ Setting $`\alpha =0`$ we reproduce the results for unfrustrated dimerized ferrimagnetic square lattice.

The linear spin wave theory shows that, like the chain, the ground-state energy of a square lattice decreases with $`\delta `$ and increases with $`\alpha `$. As reported earlier, an unfrustrated ferrimagnetic square lattice has a dependence of its ground state energy on $`\delta `$ as $`\frac{\delta ^{1.5}}{\mathrm{ln}(\delta )}`$ . We now also find that ground state energy scales as $`\alpha ^{0.5}`$ for any fixed value of dimerization. This is true for all pairs of spins forming the ferrimagnet.

The elementary excitation spectra are plotted for the system ($`1`$,$`\frac{1}{2}`$) in Fig.(9) along the principal symmetry directions in the irreducible Brillouin zone. The same schematic dispersion relations were found for the other two systems. The acoustic and optic modes again have ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic characters respectively, and both of them are pushed up by dimerization and pulled down by frustration. The optic mode at $`𝐤=(0,0)`$ is $`\delta `$ dependent.

As in the chains, the competing second neighbor interaction also causes a transition from a Neel-like state to a spiral state, indicated by softening of the excitation modes. $`\alpha ^{}`$, the critical value at which the transition takes place, in the case of square lattice is also $`\delta `$-dependent:

$$\alpha ^{}=\frac{s_1s_2}{\sqrt{2}(s_1^2+s_2^2)}(1+\delta ^2)(2\delta ^2).$$
(23)
This is different from the $`\alpha ^{}`$ in chains on two counts: it is the same for both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic modes, and even when the interaction is $`J(r)=\frac{J}{r}`$, it is $`\delta `$-dependent. This relation also shows that for $`\delta =0`$, the value of $`\alpha ^{}`$ for a square lattice is $`2\sqrt{2}`$ times larger than that for a chain. Moreover, unlike a monotonically decreasing $`\alpha ^{}`$ for a chain, it is a function that is peaked towards higher values of $`\delta `$, as shown in Fig.(10). This indicates that while the transition to spiral state in a square lattice is initially opposed by dimerization, it is facilitated at larger magnitudes of lattice deformation. This turn around in behavior occurs at $`\delta =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}`$.

The variation of $`\alpha ^{}`$ and $`\alpha _c`$ with $`\delta `$ brings out an interesting aspect peculiar to a square lattice ferrimagnet. As shown in Fig.(10), there is a value of $`\delta `$ at which $`\alpha _c`$ and $`\alpha ^{}`$ are equal, and the systems which have distorted with $`\delta `$ beyond this value, which we call $`\delta ^{}`$, the destruction of order occurs before the onset of spiral magnetic order. The value of $`\delta ^{}`$ is different for different ferrimagnetic systems.

The sublattice magnetization $`M_i`$ decreases with both $`\alpha `$ and $`\delta `$ as shown in Fig.(11). For a non-dimerized square lattice the magnetization has a logarithmic power law scaling behavior with the frustration parameter: $`\frac{\alpha ^{1.5}}{\mathrm{ln}\alpha }`$. The same scaling law was found for a dimerized plaquette.

The correlation function defined in Eq.(15) is calculated with

$$<O>=\frac{1}{N}\underset{𝐤}{}\left[\mathrm{cos}(k_xn_x)+\mathrm{cos}(k_yn_y)\right]u(𝐤)v(𝐤)$$
(24)
These correlations were found to have a more rapid decay with distance than in a chain. The correlation length $`\xi `$ in a square lattice also decreases with both $`\delta `$ and $`\alpha `$ as shown in Fig.(12). There is a clear minimum in the correlation length at a certain $`\alpha `$ that shifts to higher values with $`\delta `$.

In summary, a simple linear spin wave theory brings out quite a few new features in ferrimagnetic systems under the combined effects of dimerization and frustration. The effects in both one- and two-dimensional ferrimagnetic systems are most visible in the elementary excitation spectra. Besides the critical value $`\alpha _c`$ of the frustration parameter at which the long range order is destroyed, there is another critical value $`\alpha ^{}`$ at which the elementary excitations undergo a mode softening, indicating a transition from a Neel-like to a spiral state. The LSWT shows that dimerization facilitates this transition. Both the critical values of $`\alpha `$ are $`\delta `$-dependent. While the ground state energy initially increases with increasing magnitude of frustration, it reaches a maximum and then decreases just before $`\alpha `$ reaches its critical value $`\alpha _c`$. Both sublattice magnetization and correlations decrease as the strength of dimerization and frustration increases, indicating the loss of order. The combined effects of dimerization and frustration in the case when dimerization is taken as $`\frac{J_1}{1\delta }`$ are quite different from the usual case $`J_1(1\pm \delta ).`$ The theory also shows that on a square lattice, dimerization initially opposes the transition to a spiral state, but then beyond a certain critical value $`\delta _c`$, the dimerization parameter facilitates the transition. In the case of a square lattice ferrimagnet, beyond a certain value $`\delta ^{}`$ of the dimerization parameter, the system loses long range Neel-like order before going through a transition to a spiral state.

Figure captions

Figure 1: Dependence of the critical frustration parameter $`\alpha _c`$ on the dimerization parameter $`\delta `$ for the one-dimensional spin systems (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$), $`(\frac{3}{2},1`$) and ($`\frac{3}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$. This is for the case when the dimerization dependence of the nearest neighbor interaction is taken as $`J^\pm =J_1(1\pm \delta ).`$

Figure 2: The ground state energy $`\epsilon _g`$ of the alternating spin chain (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$) vs the frustration parameter $`\alpha `$ for different values of $`\delta `$ for $`J^\pm =J_1(1\pm \delta )`$. The curve for each $`\delta `$ terminates at the respective $`\alpha _c`$. The maximum in the ground state energy occurs at an $`\alpha `$ that shifts to lower values with higher $`\delta `$. In the dimer limit ($`\delta 1)`$, the energy monotonically decreases with $`\alpha `$, a feature peculiar to the combined effect of dimerization and frustration.

Figure 3: The elementary excitation spectra for the chain (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$) for various values of the frustration parameter; (a) for $`\delta =0.0`$, (b) $`\delta =0.4`$ and (c) $`\delta =0.8`$.This is for $`J^\pm =J_1(1\pm \delta )`$ for which the $`k=0`$ optic mode is $`\delta `$ and $`\alpha `$independent. With nonzero $`\alpha `$, the difference between the two modes is no longer constant. Softening of the two modes for $`\alpha `$ beyond $`\alpha ^{}`$ is easily discernible. The other two spin systems $`(\frac{3}{2},1`$) and ($`\frac{3}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$ show the same schematic behavior.

Figure 4: Sublattice magnetizations for the chain (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$) as functions of $`\alpha `$ and $`\delta `$. The curves terminate at the respective values of $`\alpha _c`$. The behavior is schematically the same for the other two spin systems.

Figure 5: The variation of the correlation length $`\xi `$ for the alternating spin chain (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$) vs frustration parameter $`\alpha `$, for different values of $`\delta `$ when $`J^\pm =J_1(1\pm \delta )`$. The curves stop short of the respective critical value $`\alpha _c`$ because of the strong fluctuations that $`\xi `$ experiences near this point. The results are schematically the same for the other two spin systems.

Figure 6: The dependence of $`\alpha _c`$ on dimerization parameter when $`J^\pm =\frac{J_1}{1\delta }`$ for the three spin chains. This is to be seen in contrast to Fig.(1) where the variation is shown for the other choice of $`J^\pm `$.

Figure 7: The ground state energy $`\epsilon _g`$ for the alternating spin chain (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$) as a function of the frustration parameter $`\alpha `$ for different values of $`\delta `$ for the case when $`J^\pm =\frac{J_1}{1\delta }`$. Like in the case of $`J^\pm =J_1(1\pm \delta )`$ the energy has a maximum at an $`\alpha `$ that decreases with $`\delta .`$ Again, in the limit $`\delta 1`$, the ground state energy decreases monotonically with $`\alpha `$. The other two spin systems show the same schematic behavior. In accordance with the peculiar dependence of $`\alpha _c`$ on $`\delta `$, as in Fig.(6), the curves for higher $`\delta `$ can go up to higher values of $`\alpha `$.

Figure 8: The elementary excitation spectra for the chain (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$) for various values of the frustration parameter and for; (a) $`\delta =0.0`$, (b) $`\delta =0.4`$ and (c) $`\delta =0.8`$. This is for the case with $`J^\pm =\frac{J_1}{1\delta }`$ for which the optic mode at $`k=0`$ is $`\delta `$dependent. Because $`\alpha _c`$ in this case remains constant over a larger range of $`\delta `$, the modes in all the three figures are plotted up to just before the critical value $`\alpha _c`$. The mode softening is as explained in the text. The other spin systems have the same schematic behavior..

Figure 9: The elementary excitation dispersion relations of the ferrimagnetic system (1,$`\frac{1}{2}`$) on a square lattice. The spectra are shown for different $`\alpha `$ and for (a) $`\delta =0.0`$, (b) $`\delta =0.4`$ and (c) $`\delta =0.8`$.

Figure 10: The dependance of $`\alpha ^{}`$ and $`\alpha _c`$ on the dimerization parameter $`\delta `$ for the three spin systems on square lattice. The value of $`\delta `$ at which the peak occurs is independent of the spin components of a ferrimagnetic system. For $`\delta >\delta ^{}`$ the long range order is destroyed before the transition to a spiral state can take place.

Figure 11: The $`\alpha `$ and $`\delta `$ dependence of the staggered magnetization of a square lattice (1,$`\frac{1}{2})`$ ferrimagnet. The same schematic behavior is shown by the other spin systems.

Figure 12: Correlation length $`\xi `$ vs frustration parameter $`\alpha `$ for different values of the dimerization parameter $`\delta `$ in a square lattice (1,$`\frac{1}{2})`$ ferrimagnet.