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# Comparison of UHECR spectra from necklaces and vortonsPresented at the Chacaltaya Meeting on Cosmic Rays Physics, La Paz, 23-27 July 2000

## 1 Introduction

The ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) have an energy spectrum of their flux $`F(E)`$ that shows for $`E^3F(E)`$ a minimum around $`5`$ x $`10^{18}eV`$ which is called the ankle, then a maximum before the GZK cutoff at $`5`$ x $`10^{19}eV`$ due to the interaction with the CBR and a recovery after it at $`10^{20}eV.`$

Whereas the cosmic rays below the ankle are most probably of galactic origin, it is not clear which is the explanation of the subsequent rise. The possibility that it is due to an extragalactic source seems to be supported by a partial GZK cutoff which would affect cosmic rays traveling at least $`50Mpc.`$ But the subsequent observed spectrum up to the highest energy event of $`3`$ x $`10^{20}eV`$ indicates a hard component which may be or not related to that which appears above the ankle.

It is difficult to explain the observed events beyond the GZK cutoff with ordinary astrophysical objects which are not identified if they are close to us, and that would require non standard messengers not interacting with CBR if they are very far away .

A solution may be the top-down mechanism where some type of superheavy microscopical object with mass of the order of the Grand Unification Theory (GUT) scale decays very slowly producing the observed UHECR. Since a general feature is a hard spectrum at emission $`F(E_{em})1/E_{em}`$ , these superheavy objects might be either condensed in the galactic halo or uniformly distributed in the universe.

The former case may correspond to closed cosmic strings stabilized by superconducting currents called vortons or to superheavy particles whose interaction with the ordinary ones is of gravitational order generically denoted as cryptons . Since they were presumably produced at the GUT scale, they behave afterwards as cold dark matter (CDM) and should have concentrated in the galactic halo.

The latter case may be instead represented by necklaces where ordinary cosmic strings whose dynamics makes them evolve to a scaling solution, i.e. a uniform distribution in space, incorporate monopoles and antimonopoles that annihilate very slowly.

We will give a brief description of vortons and particularly show that if they represent a small fraction of the halo CDM, they may account for the apparent hard component of the UHECR spectrum above $`10^{20}eV.`$ An additional extragalactic component would be necessary to explain the ankle feature.

Compared to this, an also small fraction of the critical density of universe represented by necklaces may give, with a reasonable law for the energy degrading due to interaction with CBR, the maximum of $`E^3F(E)`$ immediately below the GZK cutoff. The hard spectrum at emission allows a recovery above it at least up to the highest observed UHECR which would be impossible for extragalactic sources with the ordinary law $`F(E_{em})1/E_{em}^3`$ .

## 2 Vortons in halo

Considering sources that emit $`\underset{X}{\overset{.}{n}}\left(t\right)`$ $`GUT`$ boson particles $`X`$ per unit space and time, each of them giving $`N_c`$ UHECR, the total flux on earth will be

$$F=\frac{1}{4\pi }_{t_{in}}^{t_0}𝑑t\text{ }N_c\underset{X}{\overset{.}{n}}(t)\left(\frac{a(t)}{a(t_0)}\right)^3\text{ ,}$$
(1)
where $`a`$ is the scale parameter of universe, $`t_0`$ its age and $`t_{in}`$ the initial time of contributions.

For quasistable objects like vortons concentrated in halo with density $`n(t)`$ which emit by tunneling an $`X`$ with a lifetime $`\tau ,\underset{X}{\overset{.}{n}}=n/\tau `$ and the total flux is

$$F_h=\frac{N_c}{4\pi }n_h(t_0)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{\tau }\text{ ,}$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t50kpc`$ is the halo size.

The energy spectrum

$$F_h(E)=\frac{1}{4\pi }n_h(t_0)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{\tau }\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_c}{}}\delta (EE_i)$$
(3)
must be averaged on the intervals $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_i`$ between produced particles to compare with observations

$$\overline{F}_h(E_i)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }E_i}\text{ }\frac{n_h(t_0)}{4\pi }\text{ }\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{\tau }\text{ .}$$
(4)
Since the production of UHECR comes from the hadronization of the very energetic quark into which the $`X`$ particle decays, by dimensional arguments there are no relevant ordinary mass parameters and we may expect

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_iE_i\text{ , }\overline{F}_h(E_i)\frac{1}{E_i}\text{ ,}$$
(5)
i.e. a hard spectrum consistent with accurate QCD calculations apart from energies close to $`m_X.`$

It is interesting that according to Eq.(5) the average probability of UHECR production on energy intervals will be

$$\frac{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}{dE}\frac{1}{\tau }\text{ }\frac{1}{E}\text{ ,}$$
(6)
which integrated on the ultra-high energy range $`10^{19}10^{24}eV`$ to agree with the total flux Eq.(2) must give

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}{dE}𝑑E=\frac{N_c}{\tau }\text{ ,}$$
(7)
with $`N_c10`$ , that is a reasonably accepted value .

Therefore we may take the equally spaced particles in $`\mathrm{log}E`$ according to

$`E_110^{19}eV,`$ $`E_210^{19.5}eV,`$ $`E_310^{20}eV,`$ $`E_410^{20.5}eV\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}.E_{10}10^{23.5}eV`$

so that $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_i0.7E_i.`$

Since from eq.(4) the flux in each energy bin is the same, one may normalize it roughly at the expected value for $`10^{20}eV`$

$$\frac{n_h(t_0)}{4\pi }\text{ }\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{\tau }=\frac{1}{km^2\text{ }century}\text{ .}$$
(8)
A vorton is a loop of ordinary cosmic string with an energy per unit length $`\mu m_X^2`$ stabilized by $`N`$ massless fermionic carriers giving therefore a total energy

$$E_v=\mu L+\frac{N^2}{L}\text{ ,}$$
(9)
which is minimized at $`E_v2Nm_X`$ by a length $`LN/m_X`$ . The decay of the vorton with emission of $`X`$ by tunneling gives a lifetime $`\tau t_0`$ for $`N1000.`$ Therefore to satisfy Eq.(8) one only needs a fraction $`10^6`$ of the average energy density of the halo $`0.3`$ $`GeV/cm^3`$ represented by vortons. This small density may be the remnant of the collapse of most vortons at the electroweak phase transition .

This contribution of vortons to $`E^3F(E)`$ will be a hard component which reproduces the observed flux above the GZK cutoff as is seen in fig.1. One must therefore complement it with another possibly extragalactic component which may explain the spectrum between the ankle and GZK energy.

A similar analysis may be done for cryptons being necessary to explain their required density.

## 3 Necklaces in universe

These hybrid topological defects may be formed by a sequence of GUT symmetry breakings

$$GH\text{ x }U(1)H\text{ x }Z_2\text{ ,}$$
(10)
where in the first monopoles would be produced and then would be attached to the ordinary strings which appear in the second one as beads of a necklace.

The relevant parameter for the necklace dynamics is $`r=m/(\mu d)`$ where $`m`$ is the monopole mass, $`d`$ its separation from the antimonopole in the string and $`\mu `$ the tension of the latter. For $`r10^6`$ the distance between strings at present is small $`3Mpc.`$

The evolution of the necklace networks is scale invariant, $`i.e.`$ they would be distributed uniformly in the universe and represent a constant fraction of its energy. Monopoles and antimonopoles trapped in the necklaces at the end would annihilate producing $`X`$ particles with a rate

$$\underset{X}{\overset{.}{n}}\left(t\right)\frac{r^2\text{ }\mu }{t^3\text{ }m_X}=\frac{\alpha }{t^3}$$
(11)
Therefore the expression for the UHECR flux eq.(1) would apply but with an early $`t_{in}`$ compatible with avoiding their redshift below $`10^{19}eV`$ which is roughly of the order of the matter-radiation equivalence time. $`r^2\mu `$ cannot be larger than $`10^{28}GeV^2`$ to avoid a diffuse gamma radiation above the experimental bound. The total flux will be

$$F_u=N_c\frac{\alpha }{t_0^2}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{t_0}{t_{in}}\right)$$
(12)
Even though at emission the UHECR produced by an $`X`$ are equally spaced in $`\mathrm{log}E_{em}`$ as discussed in Sec.2, their redshift would cause a softening of the law $`1/E`$ for the flux spectrum on earth.

But more important than this effect is the interaction of cosmic rays with CBR. The $`p\gamma `$ total cross-section at the highest energy is $`0.2`$ $`mb`$ , and rises up to $`0.6`$ $`mb`$ for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance mass.

Then to evaluate the flux spectrum, we may proceed as follows. Instead of taking one cosmic ray in each bin as in the case of vortons in halo, we will consider $`N_i`$ to account for the degrading of energy so that

$$\overline{F}_U\left(E_i\right)=\frac{\alpha }{t_0^2}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{t_0}{t_{in}}\right)\frac{N_i}{\mathrm{\Delta }E_i}$$
(13)
Therefore we may parameterize for all cases

$$\mathrm{log}\left[E_i^3\overline{F}(E_i)\right]=\mathrm{log}J+\mathrm{log}N_i+2\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{E_i}{10^{19}eV}\right)\text{ },$$
(14)
where $`J`$ , related to the properties of sources, will be adjusted to fit the observed events. For the case of vortons all $`N_i=1.`$

For necklaces to determine the effective $`N_i`$ and considering the mean free path associated to the quoted $`\sigma _{p\gamma }`$ and the density of $`3K`$ photons, we will take $`1\%`$ of probability that the cosmic ray for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ production keeps its energy. This is consistent with the fact that the sources of non degrading protons are concentrated in a radius $`50Mpc`$ out a whole space $`100`$ times larger. For higher $`E_i`$ this probability will increase to $`3\%`$ following $`\sigma _{p\gamma }.`$ We will assume that the missing events are transferred in equal parts to the two inmediate lower bins. According to the bins defined in Sec.2, that of $`E_3`$ is particularly affected by the resonant scattering. The inmediate lower one has only the upper $`10\%`$ of the bin in the resonance region so that $`90\%`$ of its events keep their energy and the rest is transferred to the bin of $`E_1`$ .

In this way it turns out

$`N_1=4.09`$ $`N_2=5.15`$ $`N_3=0.05`$ $`N_4=0.14`$ $`N_5=0.12`$

$`N_6=0.10`$ $`N_7=0.08`$ $`N_8=0.06`$ $`N_9=0.04`$ $`N_{10}=0.03`$

and the flux spectrum eq.(14) is shown in fig.2.

We see that the existence of an ankle and the recovery after a transient GZK are successfully reproduced.

A check of the calculation is that the normalization for the bin of $`10^{19}eV`$ must be

$$\frac{\alpha }{t_0^2}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{t_0}{t_{in}}\right)N_1=\frac{1}{km^2\text{ }yr},$$
(15)
which is satisfied for $`\alpha =10^{37}sec^1`$ coming from $`m_X=10^{15}GeV.`$

This is similar to the normalization for ordinary strings the difference being that for them $`\mu m_X^2`$ and the present separation between strings is three orders of magnitude larger than for necklaces. As a consequence our simplified treatment is much more suitable for the latter because protons for sources within a radius $`50Mpc`$ would be detected whereas photons would be mostly absorbed.

It is clear that the feature of fig.2 is consequence of the hard component corresponding to quark hadronization reflected in the last term of eq.(14). If one should have considered an ordinary law $`1/E^3`$ at emission, the corresponding flux due to uniformly distributed extragalactic sources would be given by eq.(14) without the last term and as shown in fig.3 would reasonably reproduce the observed events below the GZK cutoff but without recovery above it.

We must note comparing figs. 1 and 2 that $`J`$ is one order of magnitude larger for necklaces than for vortons which is consequence of the fact that the latter fit the flux at $`10^{20}eV`$ and the former that at $`10^{19}eV`$ with a partial compensation due to degrading of energy. It is important to note that with the above values of $`r,`$ $`\mu `$ and a monopole mass $`m10^{16}GeV`$ the energy per unit length due to monopoles turns out to be $`10^{22}GeV^2`$ and the fraction of critical density $`10^9,`$ slightly smaller than that of ordinary strings.

## 4 Conclusions

We have seen that both vortons in halo and necklaces in universe may be a solution for the problem of UHECR above $`10^{20}eV.`$ From the observational point of view the difference will be the expected anisotropy in the former case because of the asymmetric position of the sun in the galaxy compared to the isotropy of the latter characteristic of a cosmological origin. Regarding this, it must be noted that the anisotropy detected below the ankle is not observed above it , which would be consistent with the appearance of an extragalactic component, a larger statistics being needed at the highest energy to see if new galactic sources contribute.

Referring to elementary particle theory it is interesting that the most appropriate GUT models are different. For necklaces, since it is necesary that the breaking of the abelian symmetry leaves a discrete $`Z_2`$ unbroken, a GUT model based on $`SO(10)`$ is suitable. For vortons on the other hand the $`E_6`$ GUT model is better because the breaking of the contained additional abelian symmetry produces the necessary superconducting current with exotic fermions, whereas necklaces would not be formed due to the fact that its Higgs content does not allow an unbroken $`Z_2`$ .

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to Pedro Miranda and the organizing committee of the Chacaltaya Meeting on Cosmic Rays Physics for the warm hospitality at La Paz. MO thanks Fundación Antorchas for partial financial support.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Noncommutative field theory has emerged from string theory in certain backgrounds . The noncommutativity of space is defined by the relation,

$$[x^\mu ,x^\nu ]=i\theta ^{\mu \nu }$$
(1.1)
where $`\theta ^{\mu \nu }`$ is a second rank antisymmetric real constant tensor. The function algebra in the noncommutative space is defined by the noncommutative and associative Moyal $``$-product,

$$(fg)(x)=e^{\frac{i}{2}\theta _{\mu \nu }\frac{}{\xi ^\mu }\frac{}{\eta ^\nu }}f(\xi )g(\eta )|_{\xi =\eta =x}.$$
(1.2)
A noncommutative field theory is simply obtained by replacing ordinary multiplication of functions by the Moyal $``$-product. An interesting field theory whose noncommutative version would be of interest is the WZW model. In , a noncommutative non-linear $`\sigma `$-model has been studied and an infinite dimensional symmetry is found. They also derived some properties of noncommutative WZW model. In , the $`\beta `$-function of the $`U(N)`$ noncommutative WZW model was calculated and found to be the same as that of ordinary commutative WZW model. Hence, the conformal symmetry in certain fixed points is recovered. In  and , the derivation of noncommutative WZW action from a gauge theory was carried out. The connection between noncommutative two-dimensional fermion models and noncommutative WZW models was studied in .

In this letter, we study the noncommutative two-dimensional field theory of WZW model and its gauged versions. In section 2, we calculate the current Kac-Moody algebra of the noncommutative WZW model and find that the structure and central charge of the algebra are the same as commutative WZW model. In section 3, we construct different versions of gauged noncommutative WZW models. As an example, we consider the axial gauged $`U(2)`$ WZW model by its diagonal $`U(1)`$ subgroup. The obtained gauged action contains infinite derivatives in its $``$ structure and hence is a nonlocal field theory. Integration over the gauge fields requires solving an integral equation which we solve by perturbative expansion in $`\theta `$. The result is a noncommutative non-linear $`\sigma `$-model, which may contains singular structures or a black hole.

## 2 The Current Algebra of Noncommutative WZW Model

The action of the noncommutative WZW model is :

$$S(g)=\frac{k}{4\pi }_\mathrm{\Sigma }d^2zTr(g^1gg^1\overline{}g)\frac{k}{12\pi }_MTr(g^1dg)_{}^3,$$
(2.1)
where $`M`$ is a three-dimensional manifold whose boundary is $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, and $`g`$ is a map from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (or from its extension $`M`$) to the group $`G`$. We assume that the coordinates $`(z,\overline{z})`$ on the worldsheet $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ are noncommutative but the extended coordinate $`t`$ on the manifold $`M`$ commutes with others:

$$[z,\overline{z}]=\theta ,[t,z]=[t,\overline{z}]=0.$$
(2.2)
We define the group-valued field $`g`$ by,

$$g=e_{}^{i\pi ^aT_a}=1+i\pi ^aT_a+\frac{1}{2}(i\pi ^aT_a)_{}^2+\mathrm{},$$
(2.3)
where the $`T_a`$’s are the generators of group $`G`$.

Inserting the $``$-product of two group elements in the eq. (2.1), we find the noncommutative Polyakov-Wiegmann identity,

$$S(gh)=S(g)+S(h)+\frac{1}{16\pi }d^2zTr(g^1\overline{}ghh^1),$$
(2.4)
which is the same as ordinary commutative identity with products replaced by $``$-products.

Using the Polyakov-Wiegmann identity, we can show that the action (2.1) is invariant under the following transformations:

$$g(z,\overline{z})h(z)g(z,\overline{z})\overline{h}(\overline{z}).$$
(2.5)
The corresponding conserved currents are,

$`J(z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi }}\overline{}gg^1,`$
$`\overline{J}(\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi }}g^1g.`$ (2.6)
By use of the equations of motion, we can show that these currents are indeed conserved,

$$\overline{}J(z)=\overline{J}(\overline{z})=0.$$
(2.7)
We quantized this model by using Poisson brackets. To illustrate this method, consider the following arbitrary action which is first order in time derivative,

$$S=𝑑tA_i(\varphi )\frac{d\varphi ^i}{dt},$$
(2.8)
Under the infinitesimal change of fields $`\varphi ^i\varphi ^i+\delta \varphi ^i`$, one can calculate the variation of the action ,

$$\delta S=𝑑tF_{ij}\delta \varphi ^i\frac{d\varphi ^j}{dt},$$
(2.9)
in which $`F_{ij}=_iA_j_jA_i`$. The Poisson bracket of any two dynamical variables $`X`$ and $`Y`$ in the phase space can be written as,

$$[X,Y]_{PB}=\underset{i,j}{}F^{ij}\frac{X}{\varphi ^i}\frac{Y}{\varphi ^j},$$
(2.10)
where $`F^{ij}`$ is the inverse of $`F_{ij}`$. The advantage of the above method is that no explicit introduction of coordinates and momentum is necessary. Now, consider the case for the action (2.1), whose variation under $`gg+\delta g`$ leads to,

$$\delta S=\frac{k}{2\pi }𝑑\sigma \tau Tr(g^1\delta g\frac{d}{d\sigma }(g^1\frac{dg}{d\tau })).$$
(2.11)
Let $`(g^1\delta g)=(g^1\delta g)^aT_a`$ and $`(g^1\frac{dg}{d\tau })=(g^1\frac{dg}{d\tau })^bT_b`$, where $`T_a`$ and $`T_b`$ are the group generators. So one can introduce $`(g^1\delta g)^a`$ and $`(g^1\frac{dg}{d\tau })^b`$ as $`\delta \varphi ^i`$ and $`\frac{d\varphi ^j}{d\tau }`$ in (2.9), respectively. Therefore the $`F_{ab}`$ can be read as,

$$F_{ab}=\delta _{ab}\frac{k}{2\pi }\frac{d}{d\sigma }$$
(2.12)
and its inverse is,

$$F^{ab}=\delta ^{ab}\frac{2\pi }{k}(\frac{d}{d\sigma })^1$$
(2.13)
Now in (2.10) we take $`X\frac{2\pi }{k}J_a=Tr(T_a\frac{dg}{d\sigma }g^1)`$ and $`Y\frac{2\pi }{k}J_b=Tr(T_b\frac{dg}{d\sigma ^{}}g^1)`$. To find the $`\frac{X}{\varphi ^i}\frac{Y}{\varphi ^j}`$ term, we can evaluate the variation of $`X`$ and $`Y`$,

$$\delta X\delta Y=\delta \varphi ^i\delta \varphi ^j\frac{X}{\varphi ^i}\frac{Y}{\varphi ^j},$$
(2.14)
then drop the $`\delta \varphi ^i\delta \varphi ^j`$. After some algebra one can find,

$$[X,Y]=\frac{2\pi }{k}i\delta (\sigma \sigma ^{})Tr[T_a,T_b]\frac{dg}{d\sigma }g^1+\frac{2\pi }{k}i\delta ^{}(\sigma \sigma ^{})Tr(T_aT_b),$$
(2.15)
or,

$$[J_a(\sigma ),J_b(\sigma ^{})]=\delta (\sigma \sigma ^{})if_{ab}^cJ_c(\sigma )+\frac{k}{2\pi }i\delta ^{}(\sigma \sigma ^{})\delta _{ab},$$
(2.16)
and a similar relation holds for commutation of $`\overline{J}`$’s.

Note that in the above commutation relation, $`\theta `$ does not appear, and it is just as commutative ordinary affine algebra with the same central charge. The absence of $`\theta `$ has been expected, since the currents are holomorphic by equations of motion and hence commutative in the sense of $``$-product.

Constructing the energy momentum tensor is also straightforward,

$$T(z)=\frac{1}{k+N}:J_i(z)J_i(z):+\frac{1}{k}:J_0(z)J_0(z):,$$
(2.17)
where $`J_i`$’s are $`SU(N)`$ currents and $`J_0`$ is the $`U(1)`$ current corresponding to the subgroups of $`U(N)=U(1)\times SU(N)`$. Again the products in (2.17) are commutative because of holomorphicity of the currents. So the Virasoro algebra is also the same as usual standard form and its central charge is unchanged,

$$c=\frac{kN^2+N}{k+N}.$$
(2.18)
## 3 Gauged Noncommutative WZW Models

In this section, we want to gauge the chiral symmetry (2.5) as,

$$g(z,\overline{z})h_L(z,\overline{z})g(z,\overline{z})h_R(z,\overline{z}).$$
(3.1)
where $`h_L`$ and $`h_R`$ belong to $`H`$ some subgroup of $`G`$. For finding the invariant action under the above transformation we need to add gauge fields terms to the action (2.1) as follows,

$$S(g,A,\overline{A})=S(g)+S_A+S_{\overline{A}}+S_2+S_4,$$
(3.2)
where, $`S(g)`$ is the action (2.1) and,

$`S_A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2zTr(A_L\overline{}gg^1)}`$
$`S_{\overline{A}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2zTr(\overline{A}_Rg^1g)}`$
$`S_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2zTr(\overline{A}_RA_L)}`$
$`S_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2zTr(\overline{A}_Rg^1A_Lg)}.`$ (3.3)
Gauge transformations for the gauge fields are,

$`A_L`$ $``$ $`h_L(A_L+d)h_L^1,`$
$`A_R`$ $``$ $`h_R^1(A_R+d)h_R.`$ (3.4)
Using the Polyakov-Wiegmann identity (2.4), one can find,

$`S(g^{})`$ $`=`$ $`S(h_Lgh_R)=S(h_L)+S(g)+S(h_R)+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle }d^2zTr\{g^1h_L^1h_Lg\overline{}h_Rh_R^1`$ (3.5)
$`+`$ $`g^1g\overline{}h_Rh_R^1+h_L^1h_L\overline{}gg^1\}_{},`$ (3.6)
where $`\{\}_{}`$ means all products inside brackets are $``$-products. The gauge fields terms (3), under (3.1) and (3) transform as,

$`S_AS_A^{}`$ $`=`$ $`S_A+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle }d^2zTr\{A_L(h_L^1\overline{}h_L+g\overline{}h_Rh_R^1g^1)`$
$`h_Lh_L^1\overline{}h_Lh_L^1h_L^1h_L\overline{}gg^1h_L^1h_Lg\overline{}h_Rh_R^1g^1\}_{}`$
$`S_{\overline{A}}S_{\overline{A}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`S_{\overline{A}}+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle }d^2zTr\{\overline{A}_R(h_Rh_R^1+g^1h_L^1h_Lg)`$
$`+\overline{}h_Rh_R^1g^1h_L^1h_Lg+\overline{}h_Rh_R^1g^1g+h_R^1\overline{}h_Rh_R^1h_R\}_{}`$
$`S_2S_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle }d^2zTr\{h_R^1\overline{A}_Rh_Rh_LA_Lh_L^1+h_R^1\overline{A}_Rh_Rh_Lh_L^1`$ (3.10)
$`+h_R^1\overline{}h_Rh_LA_Lh_L^1+h_R^1\overline{}h_Rh_Lh_L^1\}_{}`$
$`S_4S_4^{}`$ $`=`$ $`S_4+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle }d^2zTr\{h_R^1g^1h_L^1h_Lg\overline{}h_R`$ (3.12)
$`g^1h_L^1h_Lg\overline{A}_R+h_R^1g^1A_Lg\overline{}h_R\}_{}.`$
To find an invariant action $`S(g,A,\overline{A})`$, we have to choose constraints on the subgroup elements $`h_L`$ and $`h_R`$. The first consistent choice is,

$$h_R=h_L^1h,$$
(3.13)
and yields to following transformations,

$`g`$ $``$ $`g^{}=h^1gh`$ (3.14)
$`A`$ $``$ $`A^{}=h^1(Ah+h)`$ (3.15)
$`\overline{A}`$ $``$ $`\overline{A}^{}=h^1(\overline{A}h+\overline{}h).`$ (3.16)
The corresponding invariant action, called vector gauged WZW action, is,

$`S_V(g,A,\overline{A})`$ $`=`$ $`S(g)+S_AS_{\overline{A}}+S_2S_4`$ (3.17)
$`=`$ $`S(g)+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2zTr\{A\overline{}gg^1\overline{A}g^1g+A\overline{A}g^1Ag\overline{A}\}_{}}.`$ (3.18)
The second choice is to take $`h_L=h_Rh`$ with $`h`$ belonging to an Abelian subgroup of $`G`$. In this case we find the following gauge transformations,

$`g`$ $``$ $`g^{}=hgh`$ (3.19)
$`A`$ $``$ $`A^{}=h(Ah^1+h^1)`$ (3.20)
$`\overline{A}`$ $``$ $`\overline{A}^{}=h^1(\overline{A}h\overline{}h),`$ (3.21)
with the so called axial gauged WZW action,

$`S_A(g,A,\overline{A})`$ $`=`$ $`S(g)+S_A+S_{\overline{A}}+S_2+S_4`$ (3.22)
$`=`$ $`S(g)+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2zTr\{A\overline{}gg^1+\overline{A}g^1g+A\overline{A}+g^1Ag\overline{A}\}_{}}.`$ (3.23)
There are some other choices for the gauged transformations, which can be constructed obviously as the commutative case , however they are less common and we will not discuss them here.

By integrating out the $`A`$ and $`\overline{A}`$ from the actions (3.17) and (3.22), in principle, we find the effective actions as noncommutative non-linear $`\sigma `$-models. We take here the noncommutative gauged axial $`U(2)`$ WZW action (3.22), gauged by the subgroup $`U(1)`$ diagonally embedded in $`U(2)`$. The group element of $`U(2)`$ is,

$$g=\left(\begin{array}{cc}a_1& a_2\\ a_3& a_4\end{array}\right),$$
(3.24)
with the following constraints,

$`a_1a_1^{}+a_2a_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`1,`$ (3.25)
$`a_3a_3^{}+a_4a_4^{}`$ $`=`$ $`1,`$ (3.26)
$`a_1a_3^{}+a_2a_4^{}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (3.27)
The gauge parts of the action (3.22) is,

$$S_{gauge}=\frac{k}{2\pi }d^2z\{A\underset{i}{}\overline{}a_ia_i^{}+\underset{i}{}a_i^{}a_i\overline{A}+2A\overline{A}+\underset{i}{}Aa_i\overline{A}a_i^{}\},$$
(3.28)
To illustrate the integrating over the gauge fields $`A`$ and $`\overline{A}`$, we consider abbreviated notations as follows,

$`{\displaystyle 𝒟A𝒟\overline{A}e^{S_{gauge}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟A𝒟\overline{A}e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^2z(A𝒪\overline{A}+b\overline{A}+A\overline{b})}}}`$ (3.29)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟A𝒟\overline{A}e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^2z\left((A+b^{})𝒪(\overline{A}+\overline{b}^{})b^{}𝒪\overline{b}^{}\right)}}},`$
where

$`b^{}𝒪`$ $`=`$ $`b,`$ (3.30)
$`𝒪\overline{b}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{b}.`$ (3.31)
The result of integration would be,

$$e^{S_{eff}}=(det𝒪)^{1/2}e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^2zb^{}\overline{b}}}e^{S(g)}.$$
(3.32)
By comparing eq. (3.29) with (3.28), $`b`$ and $`\overline{b}`$ could be read as follows,

$`b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}a_i^{}a_i`$
$`\overline{b}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\overline{}a_ia_i^{},`$ (3.33)
and $`𝒪`$ can be read from quadratic terms of gauge fields $`A`$ and $`\overline{A}`$ in (3.28). In fact by using the Fourier transformation of Moyal $``$-products of functions,

$$f_1(x)f_2(x)\mathrm{}f_n(x)=f_1(p_1)f_2(p_2)\mathrm{}f_n(p_n)e^{i_{i<j}p_ip_j}e^{i_ip_ix}𝑑p_1𝑑p_2\mathrm{}𝑑p_n,$$
(3.34)
the explicit Fourier transform of $`𝒪`$ is as follows,

$`𝒪(p_1,p_2)=2e^{i(p_1p_2)}\delta (p_1+p_2)`$ $`+`$ $`{\displaystyle a_i(p_3)a_i^{}(p_4)e^{i(p_1p_2+p_1p_3+p_1p_4+p_2p_4+p_3p_4+p_3p_2)}}`$ (3.35)
$`\times \delta (p_1+p_2+p_3+p_4)dp_3dp_4.`$
To find $`b^{}`$, we need to inverse the $`𝒪`$ operator in (3.30), and this is equivalent to solve Fourier transform of (3.30) which is an integral equation as follows,

$$2b^{}(p)+b^{}(pp_1p_2)a_i(p_1)a_i^{}(p_2)e^{i(pp_2+p_1p+p_2p_1)}𝑑p_1𝑑p_2=b(p),$$
(3.36)
where

$$b(p)=ia_i^{}(pp_1)a_i(p_1)p_1e^{ipp_1}𝑑p_1.$$
(3.37)
To solve eq. (3.36), we expand the $`b^{}`$ and exponential factors in terms of $`\theta `$,

$$b^{}(p)=b_0^{}(p)+\theta b_1^{}(p)+\theta ^2b_2^{}(p)+\mathrm{}.$$
(3.38)
In zero-th order of $`\theta `$, one finds,

$$b_0^{}(z,\overline{z})=\frac{1}{4}a_i^{}a_i,$$
(3.39)
and in first order of $`\theta `$,

$$b_1^{}(z,\overline{z})=\frac{1}{4}(+4a_i\overline{}a_i^{}4\overline{}a_ia_i^{}).$$
(3.40)
In obtaining the above expressions, we have used the unitarity conditions (3.25) and the equations of motion (2.7). The effective action arising from the $`d^2zb^{}\overline{b}`$ term in eq. (3.32) could be found as a power series in $`\theta `$,

$$S_{eff}=S(g)+\frac{1}{2}Tr\mathrm{ln}(𝒪)+S_{eff}^{(0)}+\theta S_{eff}^{(1)}+\mathrm{},$$
(3.41)
in which 333The term $`\frac{1}{2}Tr\mathrm{ln}(𝒪)`$ gives the noncommutative effective action for dilaton field.

$`S_{eff}^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{8\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2za_i^{}a_i\overline{}a_ja_j^{}}`$
$`S_{eff}^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k}{8\pi }}{\displaystyle }d^2z((a_i^{}a_i+a_i^{}a_i)(\overline{}\overline{}a_ja_j^{}+\overline{}a_j\overline{}a_j^{})+a_i^{}a_i(\overline{}a_j\overline{}a_j^{}\overline{}\overline{}a_ja_j^{})`$ (3.42)
$`(\overline{}a_ia_i^{}a_i\overline{}a_i^{})\overline{}a_ka_k^{}).`$
By looking at equations (3.39), (3.40) and (3), we suggest the following exact forms for $`b^{}(z,\overline{z})`$ and $`S_{eff}`$,

$`b^{}(z,\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}a_ia_i^{}`$
$`S_{eff}`$ $`=`$ $`S(g)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Tr\mathrm{ln}(𝒪){\displaystyle \frac{k}{8\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2za_ia_i^{}\overline{}a_ja_j^{}}.`$ (3.43)
We have to fix the gauge freedom by a gauge fixing condition on $`a_i`$’s. Under infinitesimal axial gauge transformations (3.19), we find,

$$a_i^{}=a_i+a_iϵ+ϵa_i,$$
(3.44)
in which $`ϵ`$ is the infinitesimal parameter of the gauge transformation. We can find ( at least perturbatively in $`\theta `$ ) some $`ϵ`$ such that $`\mathrm{}(a_1^{})=0`$ and one may take this relation as the gauge fixing condition. It is worth mentioned that the $`U(2)/U(1)`$ model after applying all conditions gives us a three dimensional non-linear noncommutativre $`\sigma `$-model.

## 4 Conclusions

We found current algebra and energy-momentum tensor of noncommutative WZW models are the same as corresponding quantities in commutative WZW models. By gauging the chiral symmetry of noncommutative WZW model, we showed that different gauge actions could be constructed. After integrating out the gauge fields from the axial gauged noncommutative WZW model , we observed that the final result is a perturbative noncommutative non-linear $`\sigma `$-model. In general, integrating over the quadratic action demands inversing the quadratic operator $`𝒪`$, but the inversion of operators in noncommutative space is not obvious and it is natural to find an infinite series ( in powers of $`\theta `$ ) for the $`\sigma `$-model action, however, we suggested an exact form for the effective action containing $``$-products. Applying the gauge condition will reduce this effective action to a $`\sigma `$-model on a three dimensional noncommutative target space. The geometrical study of this target space which may contains singular structure will be interesting.

Acknowledgement We would like to thank F. Ardalan and V. Karimipour for useful discussions.


text:
# Density of states for dirty 𝑑-wave superconductors: A unified and dual approach for different types of disorder

Extrinsic defects in high $`T_c`$ materials have observable consequences for the local and bulk density of states (DOS) of quasi-particles. This is seen by scanning tunnelling microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and neutron scattering. Popular wisdom distinguishes “weak” extrinsic disorder introduced by defects above or below the copper-oxide planes through oxygen doping, from “strong” extrinsic disorder caused by substitutions of in-plane copper atoms with ions such as zinc.

Given that the symmetry of the superconducting state is predominantly of the $`d`$-wave type in high $`T_c`$ materials, it is thus not surprising that a considerable theoretical effort has been devoted to the effect of quenched disorder on a $`d`$-wave order parameter by reducing the problem to two models. The first one is a model of Anderson localization for a single “nodal” quasi-particle described by a 2-dimensional (2d) non-magnetic random Bogoliubov-de-Gennes (BdG) Hamiltonian . The second one is a Kondo model in which a single magnetic moment couples to a bath of 2d “nodal” quasi-particles. At this level of approximation no attempt is made to describe either the existence of quasi-particle interactions or the self-consistent effect of defects on the superconducting order parameter, although these effects might be important. In spite of the simplicity of either models many important theoretical issues remain unresolved to this date.

Even in the simpler case of Anderson localization, the effect of disorder on the quasi-particle DOS of a $`d`$-wave superconducting state is poorly understood. The physics of localization is expected to dominate at long distances and small energies in 2d. This fact together with the existence of particle-hole symmetry below $`T_c`$ makes it essential to account for the level repulsion upon approaching the Fermi energy $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}`$. However, the physics of level repulsion and localization are non-perturbative with respect to standard perturbative techniques \[expansions in $`(k_\mathrm{F}\mathrm{})^11`$, $`k_\mathrm{F}`$ the Fermi momentum and $`\mathrm{}`$ the mean free path in the Born approximation\]. The existence of four isolated nodes of the superconducting pairing function $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤`$ in the 2d Brillouin zone also invalidates, upon approaching $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}`$, expansions in powers of $`(k_\mathrm{F}\mathrm{})^11`$. Moreover, there are some theoretical arguments and numerical evidences that have been attributed to the existence of nodes of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤`$ suggesting that the dependence on energy of the DOS depends in a dramatic fashion on the microscopic details of the disorder. On the one hand, for a high density of very weak $`s`$-wave scatterers \[the Gaussian limit (GL)\] level repulsion dominates and causes the DOS to vanish algebraically upon approaching $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}`$ with an exponent that can depend on the disorder strength if the disorder is sufficiently smooth, i.e., correlated in space. On the other hand, a dilute density of uncorrelated and resonant $`s`$-wave scatterers \[the unitary limit (UL)\] is argued to result in a diverging DOS. The purpose of this paper is to present a unified picture of these two limits.

Starting from a BdG Hamiltonian describing a dirty $`d`$-wave superconductor with white-noise correlated disorder that depends on two parameters, the impurity concentration $`\rho `$ and the variance $`g`$ of the disorder, we construct an effective field theory that generates disorder averaged Green functions. We show how this effective action reduces to the nonlinear sigma model (NLSM) describing a random BdG Hamiltonian with time reversal symmetry and spin rotation symmetry (class CI in the classification of Ref. ) in the limit of $`\rho \mathrm{}`$ with $`g`$ finite. The effective action is treated by performing an expansion in powers of $`\rho `$ (virial expansion) in the opposite limit of $`g`$ fine-tuned to its resonant value $`gg_\mathrm{r}`$ with $`\rho `$ finite. Carrying out the expansion up to first (second) order in $`\rho `$ allows to identify this limit with the UL (the expansion parameter). As was the case with the $`(k_\mathrm{F}\mathrm{})^1`$ expansion, the virial expansion converges only for not too small energies. In order to better understand whether there can or cannot be a crossover from the UL to the GL, we use a variational method and show that the form of the self-consistent equations is controlled by how the chemical potential is introduced in the problem. This suggests that the energy alone cannot connect the two limits if the chemical potential is chosen at the “resonant” condition for the UL. By expanding perturbatively for large energies, we identify a duality relation between the GL and UL series that would imply, at low energies, that the diverging DOS $`1/|\epsilon |\mathrm{ln}^2|1/\epsilon |`$ is connected by duality to the vanishing DOS $`|\epsilon |`$ in the GL arbitrarily close to $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}`$. This non-perturbative argument relies in an essential way on the nodes of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤`$.

To model a dirty 2d $`d`$-wave superconductor, we use the tight-binding Hamiltonian $`=_0+𝒱`$,

$`_0={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}(t_{ij}^{}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma =,}{}}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }^{}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}c_i^{}c_j^{}+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.),`$ (1)
$`𝒱={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma =,}{}}V_i^{}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{i\sigma }^{},`$ (2)
that describes electrons hopping on a square lattice made of $`𝒩`$ sites with lattice spacing $`a`$. The real valued hopping matrix $`t_{ij}`$ contains in its diagonal the chemical potential $`\mu _0`$. Its off diagonal elements describe nearest neighbor hopping ($`t`$), next-nearest hopping ($`t^{}`$) etc., and yield the normal state dispersion $`\epsilon _𝐤`$ in reciprocal space. The order parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}=(\mathrm{\Delta }_0/2)\left(\delta _{i,j\pm \widehat{𝐱}}\delta _{i,j\pm \widehat{𝐲}}\right)`$ enforces the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry. The disorder potential $`V_i`$ describes $`N`$ uncorrelated $`s`$-wave scatterers with the individual potential strength $`V_0`$. Moreover, $`N`$ is randomly distributed according to a Poisson distribution. Hence,

$$\overline{V_i^pV_j^q}_c^{}=\rho V_0^{p+q}\delta _{ij}^{},\rho =\frac{N}{𝒩},$$
(4)
where the overline denotes disorder averaging (the subscript $`c`$ refers to the cumulant). Instead of parametrizing the disorder by $`(\rho ,V_0)`$ it is more convenient to introduce the parametrization $`(\rho ,g)`$ where $`g=\rho V_0^2.`$ We can then identify two distinct limits:

$`\rho \mathrm{},g\text{ finite}.\text{GL}`$ (5)
$`gg_\mathrm{r},\rho \text{ finite}.\text{UL}`$ (6)
The resonant disorder strength $`g_\mathrm{r}=\mathrm{}`$ when the normal state dispersion is particle-hole symmetric, whereas it is a finite energy scale that depends on $`\mu _0`$, $`t^{}`$, etc., otherwise. To simplify notation we will assume a particle-hole symmetric normal state dispersion from now on: $`g_\mathrm{r}=\mathrm{}`$.

Effective field theories in Anderson localization are constructed to compute the disorder average over products of the Green functions $`G(z)=(iz)^1`$ at different Matsubara energies $`z`$. For the problem at hand, the (bosonic) replicated canonical partition function

$`\mathrm{\Xi }_{2N,n}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝒩^N}}{\displaystyle \underset{i_1=1}{\overset{𝒩}{}}}\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \underset{i_N=1}{\overset{𝒩}{}}}{\displaystyle 𝒟[\mathit{\varphi }]e^{\frac{1}{2}\mathit{\varphi }^\mathrm{T}\left(iz𝓗\right)\mathit{\varphi }}}`$ (7)
$`={\displaystyle 𝒟[\mathit{\varphi }]e^{\frac{1}{2}\mathit{\varphi }^\mathrm{T}\left(iz𝓗_0\right)\mathit{\varphi }}\left[𝒜(\rho ,g)\right]^N},`$ (8)
$`𝒜(\rho ,g)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝒩}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{𝒩}{}}}e^{\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\frac{g}{\rho }}\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}\underset{\tau ,\tau ^{}=1}{\overset{2}{}}\varphi _{ia\tau }^{}()^\tau \delta _{\tau ,\tau ^{}}^{}\varphi _{ia\tau ^{}}^{}},`$ (9)
yields, upon insertion of a source term, the disorder average of the single-particle Green function $`G(z)`$ whereby disorder averaging is defined by weighing equally all the spatial configurations that $`N`$ impurities can take on the lattice. Here, $`𝓗=𝓗_0+𝓥`$ is a $`2𝒩n\times 2𝒩n`$ matrix representation of Eq. (1) (in the Nambu representation with the Pauli matrices $`\gamma _{1,2,3}`$ to represent the particle-hole grading) and $`\mathit{\varphi }`$ is a replicated bosonic real field with $`2\times 𝒩\times n`$ components. In order to make a connection between the GL and the UL we need to relax the condition that $`N`$ is fixed in Eq. (8). This is done by defining

$`𝒵_{\alpha ,n}^{}={\displaystyle \underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\mathrm{\Xi }_{2N,n}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^N}{N!}}e^\alpha ={\displaystyle 𝒟[\mathit{\varphi }]e^{S_0S_1\rho 𝒩}},`$ (10)
$`S_0={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathit{\varphi }^\mathrm{T}\left(iz𝓗_0^{}\right)\mathit{\varphi },`$ (11)
$`S_1=\rho {\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{𝒩}{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\rho }}}{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\tau =1}{\overset{2}{}}}\varphi _{i\tau a}^{}()^\tau \delta _{\tau \tau ^{}}^{}\varphi _{i\tau ^{}a}^{}\right].`$ (12)
This Poisson grand canonical partition function is normalized to one in the replica limit $`n0`$. Denoting averaging with $`𝒵_{\alpha ,n}`$ by $`(\mathrm{})`$, we deduce that the average number of impurities is $`N=\alpha `$ and that the standard deviation in the number of particles scales like $`\sqrt{\alpha }`$. From now on we will identify the impurity concentration $`\rho `$ with $`\alpha /𝒩`$. The interacting field theory described by Eq. (11) has already been introduced by Mézard, Parisi and Zee as an effective field theory for random Euclidean matrices  (see also Refs. ). Our derivation shows that the interacting field theory with a Gaussian interaction appears very naturally in the problem of Anderson localization with Poisson distributed impurities.

According to Eq. (5), the GL for a white noise distribution of impurities should be recovered as $`\rho \mathrm{}`$. It is natural to expand the exponential of $`S_1`$ in this limit. The first non-vanishing contribution to the action in the grand canonical partition function is of order $`g`$

$`𝒵_{\alpha ,n}^\mathrm{g}={\displaystyle 𝒟[\mathit{\varphi }]\mathrm{exp}\left(S_0^\mathrm{g}S_1^\mathrm{g}\right)},`$ (13)
$`S_0^\mathrm{g}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathit{\varphi }^\mathrm{T}\left(iz𝓗_0^\mathrm{g}\right)\mathit{\varphi },S_1^\mathrm{g}={\displaystyle \frac{g}{8}}\left(\mathit{\varphi }^\mathrm{T}\gamma _3^{}\mathit{\varphi }\right)^2,`$ (14)
aside from a shift in the chemical potential $`\delta \mu =\sqrt{\rho g}`$. Equation (14) describes the effective action needed to calculate the average Green function of the random BdG Hamiltonian $`𝓗_0^\mathrm{g}+𝒗`$. The superscript “g” indicates that the chemical potential $`\mu _0^\mathrm{g}=\mu _0^{}\sqrt{\rho g}`$ in $`𝓗_0^\mathrm{g}`$. The random potential $`𝒗`$ is white noise correlated and Gaussian distributed with vanishing mean and variance $`g/4`$, respectively. The usual justification for neglecting terms of order $`\rho (g/\rho )^{3/2}`$ is that they are irrelevant at the fixed point to which $`S_0^\mathrm{g}+S_1^\mathrm{g}`$ flows. This fixed point is itself described by a NLSM on the manifold Sp($`2n`$) in the limit of weak disorder, i.e., when the mean free path in the Born approximation $`2t/g`$, is much larger than the lattice spacing $`a`$ and for energies close to the band center $`\mu _0^\mathrm{g}=0`$. At this fixed point the DOS $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ is only sensitive to the existence of nodes for not too small energies . The physics of weak localization comes into play below the energy scale $`\epsilon _1^\mathrm{g}(B/A)\mathrm{exp}(\pi B^2/2g)`$ at which a pseudo gap opens up. Below an even smaller energy scale $`\epsilon _2^\mathrm{g}\epsilon _1^\mathrm{g}[g/(A^2B^2)]\mathrm{exp}(A^2)`$ random matrix theory (RMT) predicts that the DOS becomes linear and insensitive to the nodes of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤`$ (the prediction of RMT can break down for correlated disorder in which case sensitivity of the DOS to the nodes of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤`$ is recovered ). Here, $`B\sqrt{2t\mathrm{\Delta }_0}`$ is the band width and $`A\sqrt{2t/\mathrm{\Delta }_0}`$ is the Dirac cone anisotropy. For notational simplicity $`2t=\mathrm{\Delta }_0=1`$ from now on.

According to Eq. (6) the natural expansion for small impurity concentrations is the virial expansion , i.e., one in powers of $`\rho `$ of $`\mathrm{exp}(S_1)`$ in Eq. (11). We have calculated the increment $`\delta \nu ^{(p)}(\epsilon )`$ in the DOS due to $`p=1`$ and $`p=2`$ impurities, respectively. As it should be we reproduce the known increment $`\delta \nu ^{(1)}(\epsilon )`$ induced by one impurity off and at resonance ($`g=g_\mathrm{r}`$) to first order in $`\rho `$. Off resonance the DOS crosses over to a linearly vanishing DOS upon approaching $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}`$. This is not so at resonance. We infer from the calculation of the averaged single particle Green function $`G(z)`$ up to second order in $`\rho `$ that the virial expansion is an expansion in the small parameter $`\alpha ^\mathrm{u}\pi \rho /[z^2\mathrm{ln}(z^2)]`$. Hence, the virial expansion is not uniform in the Matsubara energy $`z`$. This non-uniformity of the virial expansion is the counterpart to the fact that in the GL the expansion in $`1/k_\mathrm{F}\mathrm{}`$ of $`G(z)`$ is really an expansion in the small parameter $`\alpha ^\mathrm{g}g\mathrm{ln}(z^2)/\pi `$. \[The simplest guess, as suggested by the first terms in the virial expansion, for a small expansion parameter that interpolates between these two limits is $`\alpha ^{\mathrm{eff}}\alpha ^\mathrm{u}\alpha ^\mathrm{g}/(\alpha ^\mathrm{u}+\alpha ^\mathrm{g})`$.\] The non-uniformity of the perturbative expansions in $`\alpha ^{\mathrm{g},\mathrm{u}}`$ reflects the importance of quantum interferences already at the level of the single-particle Green function. Both perturbative breakdowns below the thresholds $`\epsilon _1^{\mathrm{g},\mathrm{u}}`$ are signatures of the existence of isolated nodes of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤`$ in the 2d Brillouin zone that require non-perturbative approaches to access the DOS arbitrarily close to $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}`$. We have not been able to find a counterpart to the Sp($`2n`$) NLSM that describes the GL and is amenable to a calculation of the DOS arbitrarily close to $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}`$. On the other hand, comparison of the expansions in $`\alpha ^\mathrm{g}`$ and $`\alpha ^\mathrm{u}`$ up to second order suggests that the GL and UL are related by $`g/\pi \pi \rho `$ and $`\mathrm{ln}(z^2)1/z^2\mathrm{ln}(z^2)`$. If this relationship holds to all orders and extends to the non-perturbative regime as well it would allow access to $`lim_{\epsilon \epsilon _\mathrm{F}}\nu (\epsilon )`$ in the UL from knowledge of $`lim_{\epsilon \epsilon _\mathrm{F}}\nu (\epsilon )`$ in the GL. We will argue from a detailed study of a variational approach that this duality relating the GL and UL indeed holds.

For practical purposes $`\epsilon _1^{\mathrm{g},\mathrm{u}}`$ can be considered small and the crossover of the DOS between the GL and UL is needed when $`\epsilon >\mathrm{max}\epsilon _1^{\mathrm{g},\mathrm{u}}`$. This can be achieved by treating the interacting theory (11) within a variational approximation. We thus replace the kernel of $`S_0+S_1+\rho 𝒩`$ in Eq. (11) by the non-interacting, translationally invariant, and replica diagonal kernel $`iz^{}^{\mathrm{sc}}`$, $`z^{}z+\overline{z}`$. In reciprocal space $`_𝐤^{\mathrm{mf}}=\epsilon _𝐤^{}\gamma _3^{}+\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^{}\gamma _1^{}`$, $`\epsilon _𝐤^{}\epsilon _𝐤^{}\mu _0+\overline{\epsilon },`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^{}+\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}.`$ The self-consistent parameters $`\overline{z}`$, $`\overline{\epsilon }`$, and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$, i.e., the disorder induced self-consistent shifts in the self-energy, chemical potential, and gap, respectively, are obtained by solving the self-consistent equations

$`\mathrm{\Omega }(z^{})=\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\overline{z}}{\overline{z}^2+\overline{\epsilon }^2+\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}^2}},`$ (16)
$`(z^{})=\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\epsilon }}{\overline{z}^2+\overline{\epsilon }^2+\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}^2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{g}}},`$ (17)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }(z^{})=\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}}{\overline{z}^2+\overline{\epsilon }^2+\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}^2}},`$ (18)
$`(\mathrm{\Omega },,\mathrm{\Delta })(z^{})={\displaystyle \frac{1}{𝒩}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(z^{},\epsilon _𝐤^{},\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^{})}{(z^{})^2+(\epsilon _𝐤^{})^2+(\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^{})^2}}.`$ (19)
The self-consistent DOS is $`\nu _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}(\epsilon )=`$ $`lim_{\eta 0}`$ $`lim_{iz\epsilon +i\eta }`$ $`\mathrm{Im}\left[i\mathrm{sgn}(\eta )\mathrm{\Omega }(z^{})\right].`$ It is sufficient to consider Eqs. (16,17) alone since $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{k_x,k_y}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{k_y,k_x}`$ allows $`\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}=0`$.

That details of disorder matter in 2d $`d`$-wave superconductors (see Ref. ) already follows from the variational approach. Indeed, Eqs. (16,17) are not so much sensitive to the energy $`z`$ as they are to the chemical potential $`\mu _0`$ when it comes to describing the crossover from the UL to the GL. Equations (16,17) reduce to the two well-known self-consistent equations

$`\rho \mathrm{},g<\mathrm{},\mu _0=\sqrt{\rho g}\mathrm{\Omega }(z^{})={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{z}}{g}},\overline{ϵ}=\mu _0,`$ (21)
(22)
$`g\mathrm{},\rho <\mathrm{},\mu _0=0\mathrm{\Omega }(z^{})={\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\overline{z}}},\overline{ϵ}=0,`$ (23)
(24)
in both the GL and the UL. It is thus imperative to scale $`\mu _0`$ with $`\sqrt{\rho g}`$ for $`\overline{\epsilon }`$ to be tuned away from the UL resonance $`|\overline{\epsilon }||\overline{z}|`$.

The self-consistent Eq. (22) does not capture the interplay between the physics of localization and that of level repulsion below the energy scale $`\epsilon _1^\mathrm{g}`$. The same should be true of Eq. (24) below the energy scale $`\epsilon _1^\mathrm{u}`$ at which the virial expansion breaks down. We are going to argue that the physics of localization and level repulsion results in a diverging DOS upon approaching $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}`$ in the UL. Our argument relies first on identifying a duality relating the perturbative expansions of the self-energy in the GL and UL valid at large energies relative to the disorder strength. We then postulate that the same duality extends to small energies relative to the disorder strength. Let $`z`$ be a large Matsubara energy, i.e., $`g`$ ($`\rho `$) is sufficiently small so that level repulsion can be ignored and the physics of localization is that of the standard orthogonal symmetry class. In this regime, we can safely remove the self-consistency condition in

$`\mathrm{\Omega }(z+\overline{z})=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{p=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{g^p}{p!}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }(z^{})\right]^{+p}(_z^p\mathrm{\Omega })(z),\hfill & \text{GL,}\hfill \\ \frac{\rho ^p}{p!}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }(z^{})\right]^p(_z^p\mathrm{\Omega })(z),\hfill & \text{UL,}\hfill \end{array}`$ (26)
by substituting $`\mathrm{\Omega }(z+g\mathrm{\Omega }(z+\mathrm{})\mathrm{})`$ \[$`\mathrm{\Omega }(z+\rho /\mathrm{\Omega }(z+\mathrm{})\mathrm{})`$\] with $`\mathrm{\Omega }(z)+(_z\mathrm{\Omega })(z)\mathrm{\Omega }(z)g+𝒪(g^2)`$ \[$`\mathrm{\Omega }(z)+(_z\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega })(z)\rho +𝒪(\rho ^2)`$\]. In this way, the self-energy reduces to the perturbative expansion

$`\mathrm{\Omega }(z+\overline{z})`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{z\mathrm{ln}(z^2)}{\pi }}+{\displaystyle \frac{2z[\mathrm{ln}(z^2)+2]}{\pi }}\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{\mathrm{ln}(z^2)}{2}\frac{g}{\pi }\hfill & \\ \frac{\pi \rho }{2z^2\mathrm{ln}(z^2)}\hfill & \end{array}`$ (27)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2z}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{p=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\{\begin{array}{cc}\beta _p^\mathrm{g}[\mathrm{ln}(z^2)]^{+p}\left(\frac{g}{\pi }\right)^p,\hfill & \text{GL.}\hfill \\ \beta _p^\mathrm{u}[z^2\mathrm{ln}(z^2)]^p\left(\pi \rho \right)^p,\hfill & \text{UL.}\hfill \end{array}`$ (28)
Here, the combinatoric coefficient $`\beta _p^{\mathrm{g},\mathrm{u}}`$ depends on the order in $`g,\rho `$ to which the self-consistency has been truncated. For example, the substitution $`\mathrm{\Omega }(z^{})=\mathrm{\Omega }(z)`$ gives $`\beta _p^\mathrm{g}=1/p(p1)=\beta _p^\mathrm{u}`$ and accounts only for the pure rainbow diagrams in the expansion of the Dyson equation for the self-energy in the GL. Truncation to higher order in $`g`$ accounts for diagrams that are not purely of the rainbow type but in which impurity lines never cross. Neglecting diagrams with crossing of impurity lines is only justified for sufficiently weak disorder at a fixed energy. Correspondingly, the condition on the disorder strength for the physics of localization and level repulsion to be unimportant is

$`\alpha ^\mathrm{g}{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\pi }}\mathrm{ln}(1/z^2)<1|z|>|\overline{z}_0^\mathrm{g}|,\mathrm{GL}.`$ (30)
$`\alpha ^\mathrm{u}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \rho }{z^2\mathrm{ln}(1/z^2)}}<1|z|>|\overline{z}_0^\mathrm{u}|,\mathrm{UL}.`$ (31)
Note that the expansions in the GL and UL are related

$$\frac{g}{\pi }\pi \rho ,\mathrm{ln}(z^2)\frac{1}{z^2\mathrm{ln}(z^2)}.$$
(32)
By undressing the propagator in Eq. (28), two expansions of the same scaling form $`\mathrm{\Omega }(z^{})\mathrm{\Omega }(z)=2(z/\pi )\{\frac{1}{2}[\mathrm{ln}(z^2)+2]\alpha ^{\mathrm{g},\mathrm{u}}f(\alpha ^{\mathrm{g},\mathrm{u}})\}`$ have been derived for large energies in the GL and UL, respectively. We now assume that the self-energy can also be written as some scaling function $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ that can be expanded in powers of $`\alpha ^{\mathrm{g},\mathrm{u}}`$ outside of the radius of convergences (Density of states for dirty $`d`$-wave superconductors: A unified and dual approach for different types of disorder), i.e., at low energies. The scaling function $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ should be specified by the symmetry class CI, i.e., the physics of level repulsion induced by the particle-hole symmetry of a time-reversal and spin-rotation symmetric superconductor. This scaling function is not completely unknown since RMT predicts that $`\stackrel{~}{f}(\alpha ^\mathrm{g})\alpha ^\mathrm{g}`$ for $`|\alpha ^\mathrm{g}|1`$. \[$`(2z/\pi )(g\mathrm{ln}z^2/\pi )`$ is the combination that, upon analytical continuation, leads to $`\nu ^\mathrm{g}(\epsilon )|\epsilon |`$ arbitrarily close to $`\epsilon =0`$.\] By the duality assumption $`\stackrel{~}{f}(\alpha ^\mathrm{u})\alpha ^\mathrm{u}`$ must also hold outside of the radius of convergences (31) \[leading to the combination $`(2z/\pi )(\frac{\pi \rho }{z^2\mathrm{ln}z^2})`$\]. Upon analytical continuation, duality then predicts a diverging DOS $`\nu ^\mathrm{u}(\epsilon )1/|\epsilon |\mathrm{ln}^2|\epsilon |`$ arbitrarily close to the Fermi energy $`\epsilon _\mathrm{F}^{}`$ in the UL. The robustness of this conjecture requires a careful study of the role played by diagrams with crossing impurity lines (the Goldstone modes in NLSM terminology) in the UL that is beyond the scope of this paper.

Our main conclusion is that the crossover between the resonant UL and the GL in a 2d dirty $`d`$-wave superconductor is not controlled by energy only but by the chemical potential and the strength of the disorder, which together tune out of the resonance. A variational approach yields self-consistent equations that interpolate between the GL and UL. In practice these self-consistent equations describe accurately the DOS since the energy scales signalling breakdown of perturbative expansions are expected to be rather small. We have established under what conditions the diverging DOS $`1/|\epsilon |\mathrm{ln}^2|\epsilon |`$ predicted by Pépin and Lee in Ref.  can arise. A duality between the UL and the GL that holds in the regime of applicability of the variational approach must extend to the non-perturbative regime. In this way the apparent dichotomy between a DOS controlled solely by RMT in the GL and one controlled solely by the nodes of the gap is elegantly resolved. Only the leading functional dependence on energy is predicted to be universal by RMT. Accordingly, we cannot predict the prefactor of the diverging DOS whereas Pépin and Lee state that this prefactor is exactly given by $`\rho `$, coincidentaly the prefactor for independent impurities.

We thank Patrick Lee and Catherine Pépin for valuable discussions. This work was supported by the NSF under grant No. DMR-98-76208, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (CC) and by an ESF/FERLIN grant (CM).