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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The magnetic response theory for a free electron gas is an old problem considered by Landau , Fock  and Peierls . The revival of interest in physics arose from the advances of recent experiments that made possible measurements of the magnetic response on small 2-dimensional electronic devices. These devices are so “pure” that the classical as well as quantum motion inside them can be considered as “ballistic”, i.e. is uniquely determined by the confining potential. (Taking into account impurities would consist in adding the random potential created by random point scatterers inside the material). The bi-dimensional structure of such electron-gas is realized through semi-conductor heterostructures whose size, and shape can be controlled experimentally, together with the number $`N`$ of confined electrons. The system being in contact with a reservoir at temperature $`T`$, and submitted to a magnetic field $`B`$ perpendicular to the surface, the magnetic response can be measured : say, the magnetization $`M`$ or magnetic susceptibility $`\chi `$ as a function of the thermodynamic parameters $`T`$, $`N`$, $`B`$. . These experiments manifest the sensitivity of the magnetic response to the integrable versus non-integrable character of the classical dynamics of one electron in the system. Numerical experiments on two-dimensional magnetic billards have confirmed this observation, and suggested that the quantum magnetic response is an experimentally accessible criterion for distinguishing classically integrable versus chaotic dynamics . A number of theoretical studies have analyzed the magnetic response from a “semi-classical” point of view, namely as properties manifesting themselves in the limit when $`\mathrm{}`$ (the Planck constant) is small compared to classical actions characterizing the system (say $`ha^2eB/c`$ where $`a`$ is a typical size of the system, $`e`$ the charge of the electron, $`c`$ the velocity of light and $`B`$ the magnetic field size) . In these studies, the Coulomb interactions between the electrons in the system are neglected, so that the system is a “free electron gas” to which the usual thermodynamic formalism is applied.

The thermodynamic functions in the grand-canonical ensemble can be expressed through the density of states of the quantum Hamiltonian for one electron in the system. This quantum density of states, in the semi-classical limit, splits into a mean part and a strongly oscillating one, according to the well known semi-classical trace formula. This formula is known in mathematics as Poisson formula (Colin de Verdière  , Duistermaat-Guillemin ) and in physics as the Gutzwiller trace formula in the chaotic case , or the Berry-Tabor trace formula in the integrable case . This splitting provides a similar splitting in the magnetic response, which allows to understand the oscillations “à la de Haas-van Alphen” of the magnetic susceptibility and their link with the classical periodic orbits of the electronic motion.

The aim of the present paper is to reconsider these questions from a mathematical point of view, in the following two directions (for non-interacting electron gases in arbitrary dimension, and not necessarily homogeneous magnetic fields)

\- examine the regimes of temperature in which the magnetic response can be obtained semi-classically in the form of asymptotic $`\mathrm{}`$ expansions

\- investigate a “mesoscopic” regime of low temperatures where the periodic orbits of the classical one-electron dynamics manifest themselves as highly oscillating contributions, to the magnetic response.

In a recent work, Fournais  studies the semi-classics of the quantum current for a non-interacting gas of electrons in dimension $`n`$ and temperature $`T`$, confined in a potential $`V`$ and subject to a suitable magnetic field $`B`$. For fixed non-zero temperature $`T`$, he obtains a complete asymptotic expansion of the quantum current in small $`\mathrm{}`$, and for zero temperature, he obtains the dominant contribution plus an error term under suitable assumptions. J. Butler  has recently reexamined this last case using a “semi-classical trace formula” by Petkov and Popov .

We recall that in all these studies, the spin of the electron is omitted so that only the orbital magnetic response is considered.

The content of our paper is the following :

* In section 2 we consider the case when the temperature $`T`$ is large compared to the Planck constant $`\mathrm{}`$. We prove asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$ for the thermodynamical potential and we recover the Landau diamagnetic formula for 2-dimensional free electron gas.
* In section 3 we consider the case where the temperature $`T`$ is of the same order as $`\mathrm{}`$. Then we prove that the magnetization splits into two terms : an average part with a regular asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$ plus an oscillating part in $`\mathrm{}`$ which is the contribution of the periodic orbits of the classical motion.
* In section 4 we come back to the regime $`T`$ larger than $`\mathrm{}`$ and prove that the contribution of non zero periods of the classical motion is exponentially small in $`\mathrm{}`$.

## 2 The Landau magnetism

We shall first give the notations and assumptions that will hold all along this paper.

Given $`\beta >0`$, we set :

$$F_\beta (x)=\frac{1}{\beta }\mathrm{Log}\left(1+e^{\beta x}\right)$$
(2.1)
$$f_\beta (x)=F_\beta ^{}(x)=\left(1+e^{\beta x}\right)^1$$
(2.2)
$`f_\beta `$ is related with the Fermi-Dirac distribution.

These functions are meromorphic, with poles (or cuts for $`F_\beta `$) at :

$$x=\frac{2k+1}{\beta }i\pi k\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{}$$

Let $`\kappa IR`$ be a real parameter (coupling constant with a magnetic field). We consider a family of Hamiltonians with magnetic fields given by :

$$H_\kappa (q,p)=\frac{1}{2}\left(p\kappa a(q)\right)^2+V(q)$$
(2.3)
where $`V`$ : $`IR^nIR`$ and $`a`$ : $`IR^nIR^n`$ are $`𝒞^{\mathrm{}}`$ functions satisfying the following properties.

$$q\mathrm{RI}^n,V(q)1,|_q^\alpha V(q)|C_\alpha V(q)$$
$`(\mathrm{H}.1)`$
$$q\mathrm{RI}^n,|_q^\alpha a(q)|C_\alpha V(q)^{1/2}$$
$`(\mathrm{H}.2)`$
$$q\mathrm{RI}^n,V(q)c_0\left(1+|q|^2\right)^{s/2}\text{some }s\text{}c_0>0$$
$`(\mathrm{H}.3)`$
(confinement assumption).

Let now $`\widehat{H}_\kappa `$ be the Weyl quantization of $`H_\kappa `$. The previous assumptions ensure that $`\widehat{H}_\kappa `$ is self-adjoint and its spectrum $`\sigma (\widehat{H}_\kappa )[\epsilon ,\mathrm{})`$ is pure point for $`|\kappa |\kappa _0`$ where $`\epsilon >0`$ (). Let us call $`(E_j)_{jIN}`$ and $`(\phi _j)_{jIN}`$ the set of corresponding eigenvalues and eigenstates.

In the grand-canonical ensemble, the thermodynamic potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is given by :

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(\beta ,\mu ,\kappa )=\underset{j\mathrm{N}\text{ }}{}F_\beta (E_j\mu )=\mathrm{Tr}\left\{F_\beta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)\right\}$$
(2.4)
where $`\mu >0`$ is the chemical potential, $`\beta =1/k_BT`$, $`k_B`$ being the Boltzmann constant, and $`T>0`$ the temperature. ($`\kappa `$ will be the size of the magnetic field). Furthermore, the mean-number of particles in the grand-canonical ensemble is given by :

$$N(\beta ,\mu ,\kappa )=\mathrm{Tr}\left(f_\beta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)\right)$$
(2.5)
Using the functional calculus , it is not difficult to see that $`F_\beta (\widehat{H}\mu )`$ and $`f_\beta (\widehat{H}\mu )`$ are trace-class and that the function : $`\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }(\beta ,\mu ,\kappa )`$ is $`𝒞^{\mathrm{}}`$ for $`|\kappa |\kappa _0`$.

We shall denote $`_\kappa =\frac{}{\kappa }`$.

###### Proposition 2.1

The function : $`\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }(\beta ,\mu ,\kappa )`$ is $`𝒞^{\mathrm{}}`$ on $`\mathrm{RI}`$. In particular we have

$$_\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{Tr}\left[f_\beta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right]$$
(2.6)
Now we have the following definitions of magnetization $`M`$ and magnetic susceptibility $`\chi `$ :

$`M=_\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}\left[f_\beta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right]`$ (2.7)
$`\chi `$ $`=`$ $`_\kappa M`$ (2.8)
Proof of proposition2.1 Since $`\sigma (\widehat{H}_\kappa )[\epsilon _0,+\mathrm{})`$, we can draw a suitable curve $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in the complex energy plane, around $`\sigma (\widehat{H}_\kappa )`$, with all branching points of $`F_\beta (z\mu )`$ left outside. So using Cauchy formula we have

$$F_\beta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)=\frac{1}{2i\pi }_\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑zF_\beta (z\mu )\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa z\right)^1$$
(2.9)
Using Lebesgue convergence theorem and cyclicity of the trace, we get

$$_\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{1}{2i\pi }\mathrm{Tr}_\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑z\left[F_\beta (z\mu )\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa z\right)^2_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right]$$
(2.10)
Integration by parts give

$$_\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{1}{2i\pi }\mathrm{Tr}_\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑zf_\beta (z\mu )\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa z\right)^1_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa $$
(2.11)
This procedure can be easily iterated to prove that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$-smooth in $`\kappa `$. Moreover in the semiclassical regime we can prove that the asymptotics for derivatives in $`\kappa `$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ can be computed using the following commutators formulas for derivatives of the resolvent. Starting from the well known identity :

$$[\widehat{A},(\widehat{H}z)^1]=(\widehat{H}z)^1[\widehat{H},\widehat{A}](\widehat{H}z)^1,$$
(2.12)
we get

$`_\kappa (\widehat{H}z)^1=_\kappa \widehat{H}(\widehat{H}z)^2[_\kappa \widehat{H},\widehat{H}](\widehat{H}z)^3`$
$`[\widehat{H},[\widehat{H},_\kappa \widehat{H}]](\widehat{H}z)^4+(\widehat{H}z)^1[\widehat{H},[\widehat{H},[\widehat{H},_\kappa \widehat{H}]]](\widehat{H}z)^4.`$ (2.13)
Each commutator gives one $`\mathrm{}`$ and we can compute in the same way higher derivatives in $`\kappa `$. So using Cauchy formula we can compute asymptotics in $`\mathrm{}`$ of derivatives in $`\kappa `$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

###### Theorem 2.2

For any $`\epsilon >0`$ and $`\kappa _0>0`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ admits an asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$, uniform in $`\kappa `$ for $`|\kappa |\kappa _0`$, and for $`\beta \mathrm{}^{\epsilon 2/3}`$. More explicitly, for any $`NIN`$ we have :

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=h^n\underset{j=0}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{k\frac{3j}{2}}{}\frac{(1)^{k+1}}{k!}\mathrm{}^j\mathrm{\Omega }_{jk}+O\left(\mathrm{}^{N+1n}\beta ^{\frac{3N}{2}+k(n)}\right)$$
(2.14)
with

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{jk}=_{IR^{2n}}𝑑q𝑑pd_{jk}(q,p)F_\beta ^{(k)}(H_\kappa \mu )$$

$`d_{jk}`$ being a suitable linear combination of derivatives of $`H_\kappa `$ with respect to $`q`$, $`p`$ and $`k(n)`$ a constant depending only on the dimension $`n`$ ($`k(n)2n+1`$). In particular :

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{00}=_{IR^{2n}}𝑑q𝑑pF_\beta \left(H_\kappa (q,p)\mu \right)$$
(2.15)
$$\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_{22}\frac{1}{6}\mathrm{\Omega }_{23}=\frac{\beta }{48\pi ^2}_{IR^{2n}}𝑑q𝑑p\frac{\kappa ^2B(q)^2\underset{jk}{}_{jk}^2V}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left[\frac{\beta }{2}\left(H_\kappa (q,p)\mu \right)\right]}$$
(2.16)
where $`B_{jk}`$ is the magnetic field

$$B^2=\underset{j<k}{}B_{jk}^2,B_{jk}=\frac{a_j}{q_k}\frac{a_k}{q_j},_{jk}^2V=\frac{^2V}{q_jq_k}.$$
(2.17)
and we have chosen the gauge so that $`a/q`$ is symmetric. Moreover, the asymptotic expansion can be derived term by term with respect to $`\kappa `$ and yields an asymptotic expansion of the magnetization and the magnetic susceptibility.

Proof. We start with the following Cauchy formula as in the proof of proposition (2.1)

$$F_\beta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)=\frac{1}{2i\pi }_\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑zF_\beta (z\mu )\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa z\right)^1$$
(2.18)
Proceeding as in , good enough semi-classical approximations of $`(\widehat{H}_\kappa z)^1`$ (for $`z\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) are obtained for any integer $`N`$ of the following form :

$$\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa z\right)^1=\underset{j=0}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{}^j\widehat{b_j(z)}h^{N+1}\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa z\right)^1\widehat{R}_N(z)$$
(2.19)
where $`\widehat{A}`$ denotes Weyl quantization, and $`b_j(z)`$ for $`j2`$ are obtained, from $`b_0(z)=(H_\kappa (q,p)z)^1`$ by the formula

$$b_j(z)=\underset{2\mathrm{}\left[\frac{3j}{2}\right]}{}d_j\mathrm{}b_0^{\mathrm{}+1}(z)$$
(2.20)
$`d_j\mathrm{}`$ being a symbol constructed through partial derivatives of $`H_\kappa (q,p)`$ and that can be computed explicitly. Furthermore, due to the particular form (2.3) of $`H_\kappa `$, $`b_j0`$ for odd $`j`$’s, and $`R_N`$ obeys :

$$|R_N(z)|C_N\left|\frac{z}{Imz}\right|^{\frac{3N}{2}+k(n)},$$
(2.21)
$`k(n)`$ depending only on the dimension $`n`$. (for details see ).

Now inserting (2.19) into the Cauchy formula and using

$$f^{(m)}(\lambda )=\frac{(1)^mm!}{2i\pi }_\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑zf(z)(z\lambda )^{m1}$$
(2.22)
together with $`(h=2\pi \mathrm{})`$ :

$$\mathrm{Tr}\widehat{A}=h^n_{IR^{2n}}𝑑p𝑑qA(q,p)$$
(2.23)
we get the result. Let us make explicit the calculus. We have to find $`b_2(z)`$ such that

$$\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa z\right)\left(\widehat{b_0(z)}+\mathrm{}^2\widehat{b_2(z)}\right)=1+O(\mathrm{}^3)$$
(2.24)
which, according to the rule for the symbol of the product of two operators, yields

$$b_2(z)=d_{22}b_0^3(z)+d_{23}b_0^4(z)$$
(2.25)
with $`b_0(z)=(H_\kappa z)^1`$, and

$$\{\begin{array}{c}d_{22}=\frac{1}{4}\underset{|\alpha |+|\alpha ^{}|=2}{}\left(_p^\alpha _q^\alpha ^{}H_\kappa \right)\left(_p^\alpha ^{}_q^\alpha H_\kappa \right)\frac{(1)^{|\alpha ^{}|}}{\alpha !\alpha ^{}!}\hfill \\ \\ d_{23}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{|\alpha |+|\alpha ^{}|=2}{}\left(_p^\alpha _q^\alpha ^{}H_\kappa \right)\left(_p^\alpha ^{}H_\kappa \right)\left(_q^\alpha H_\kappa \right)\frac{(1)^{|\alpha ^{}|}}{\alpha !\alpha ^{}!}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2.26)
$`\alpha `$ being a multi-index $`\alpha =(\alpha _1,\mathrm{}\alpha _n)IN^n`$, we denote as usually by $`_p^\alpha `$ the multiple derivative $`\frac{^{\alpha _s}}{p_1}\frac{^{\alpha _2}}{p_2}\mathrm{}\frac{^{\alpha _n}}{p_n}`$, by $`|\alpha |`$ the sum $`\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\alpha _j`$, and by $`\alpha !`$ the product $`\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\alpha _j!`$.

Now the calculi proceed as in  :

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle _{IR^{2n}}}dqdqF_\beta ^{(3)}(H_\kappa \mu )({\displaystyle \underset{j,k=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\left(_{q_j}H_\kappa \right)\left(_{p_jp_k}^2H_\kappa \right)\left(_{q_k}H_\kappa \right)`$
$`2\left(_{q_j}H_\kappa \right)\left(_{p_k}H_\kappa \right)\left(_{p_jq_k}^2H_\kappa \right)+(p_jH_\kappa )\left(_{p_k}H_\kappa \right)\left(_{q_jq_k}^2H_\kappa \right))`$
and integrating by parts (over $`q_j`$, or $`p_k`$) we get

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{23}=2_{IR^{2n}}𝑑q𝑑pF_\beta ^{(2)}(H_\kappa \mu )d_{22}(q,p)=2\mathrm{\Omega }_{22}$$
(2.27)
and thus :

$$\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_{22}\frac{1}{6}\mathrm{\Omega }_{23}=\frac{1}{6}\mathrm{\Omega }_{22}$$
(2.28)
We now make $`d_{22}`$ explicit :

$`d_{22}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{j,k}{}}\left(_{q_jp_k}^2H_\kappa \right)\left(_{p_jq_k}^2H_\kappa \right)\left(_{q_jq_k}^2H_\kappa \right)\left(_{p_jp_k}^2H_\kappa \right)`$ (2.29)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left\{\kappa ^2B^2+{\displaystyle \underset{j\mathrm{}}{}}\left(\kappa \left(p_j\kappa a_j(q)\right)_j\mathrm{}^2a(q)_j_{\mathrm{}}V(q)\right)\right\}`$
Clearly the term $`(p_j\kappa a_j(q))_{jk}^2a(q)`$ does not contribute to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{22}`$ using the change of variable $`pp\kappa a(q)`$, and the oddness of the integrand with respect to $`p`$ variable. Thus we are left with

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{22}=\frac{1}{4}_{IR^{2n}}𝑑q𝑑pF_\beta ^{(2)}(H_0\mu )\left(\kappa ^2B(q)^2\underset{jk}{}_{jk}^2V(q)\right)$$

Now the uniformity of the asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$ with respect to $`\beta \mathrm{}^{\epsilon \frac{2}{3}}`$ (for any $`\epsilon >0`$) comes from the fact that $`F_\beta ^{(k)}(x)=\beta ^{k1}F_1^{(k)}(\beta x)`$, ($`k1`$) so that $`\mathrm{}^j\beta ^k\mathrm{}^{j\epsilon }`$ for $`k\frac{3j}{2}`$. Furthermore, the error term in (2.14) follows from (2.21).

For the magnetization $`M`$, we start with formula (2.7) and we use the semi-classical expansion for the resolvant to get

$`M={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2i\pi }}\mathrm{Tr}{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Lambda }}𝑑zf_\beta (z\mu )\left({\displaystyle \underset{0jN}{}}\mathrm{}^j\widehat{b_j}(z)_\kappa \widehat{H_\kappa }\right)`$ (2.30)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^{N+1}}{2i\pi }}\mathrm{Tr}{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Lambda }}𝑑zf_\beta (z\mu )(\widehat{H_\kappa }z)^1\widehat{R_N}(z)_\kappa \widehat{H_\kappa }`$ (2.31)
Then using integration by parts we can prove that the first term in (2.30) is

$$\mathrm{}^n\underset{0jN}{}\underset{k3j/2}{}\frac{(1)^{k+1}}{k!}\mathrm{}^j_\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }_{j,k},$$
(2.32)
and the second term in (2.30), using estimate (2.21), is

$$O\left(\mathrm{}^{N+1n}\beta ^{3N/2+k(n)}\right),$$
(2.33)
uniformly in $`\kappa `$ for $`|\kappa |\kappa _0`$.
The same method can be used to prove semiclassical asymptotics for the susceptibility $`\chi `$ and also for higher order derivatives in $`\kappa `$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

Now let us denote by $`_\mu ^\kappa `$ the energy surface at energy $`\mu `$.

$$_\mu ^\kappa =\{(q,p)IR^{2n}:H_\kappa (q,p)=\mu \}$$
(2.34)
and by $`d\sigma _\mu ^\kappa `$ the Liouville measure on $`_\mu ^\kappa `$ :

$$d\sigma _\mu ^\kappa (q,p)=\frac{d_\mu ^\kappa }{|H_\kappa |}$$
(2.35)
defined for any non-critical $`\mu `$ (i.e. $`H_\kappa (q,p)0`$ on $`_\mu ^\kappa `$) ($`d_\mu ^\kappa `$ Lebesgue Euclidean measure). Then we have

###### Corollary 2.3 (Landau diamagnetism)

Let $`\chi `$ be defined by (2.8), and $`\mu `$ be non-critical for $`H_0`$. Then for $`n=2`$ and $`\kappa =0`$ we have

$$\underset{\mathrm{}0,\beta \mathrm{},\beta \mathrm{}^{\epsilon 2/3}}{lim}\chi =\frac{1}{24\pi ^2}_{_\mu ^0}B(q)^2𝑑\sigma _\mu ^0$$
(2.36)
which is nothing but Landau’s result of the diamagnetism for a 2-dimensional free electron gas.

## 3 A “trace formula” for the magnetization

For a temperature regime $`\beta \mathrm{}^{\frac{2}{3}+\epsilon }`$ ($`\epsilon >0`$), in order to get information on the semi-classical limit of magnetization $`M`$, we shall use the Fourier inversion formula instead of Cauchy formula. First of all let us remark that $`f_\beta `$ is not in the Schwartz space $`𝒮(\mathrm{RI})`$ so it is more convenient to take its derivative, which is in $`𝒮(\mathrm{RI})`$. We have explicitly

$$f_\beta ^{}(x)=\frac{\beta }{4\mathrm{cosh}^2(\beta x/2)}$$

So we have the following Fourier transform formula

$$f_\beta ^{}(x)=\frac{1}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{RI}}𝑑t\frac{\pi t/\beta }{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi t/\beta )}\mathrm{e}^{itx}$$
(3.1)
So we can write

$$f_\beta ^{}(\widehat{H}\mu )=h^1_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑te^{it(\widehat{H}\mu )/\mathrm{}}\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}\pi t/\sigma }$$
(3.2)
where

$$\sigma =\beta \mathrm{}$$
(3.3)
The parameter $`\sigma `$, which has the dimension of a time, will be important in what follows. It plays a role in the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger condition (see).
Because we cannot compute the semiclassical evolution for infinite time, we shall consider a “smeared out” magnetization defined as follows. Fix $`\tau _0`$ and $`\tau `$ : $`0<\tau _0<\tau `$ ; given a $`𝒞^{\mathrm{}}`$ even function $`\rho `$ such that :

$`\rho (t)1\mathrm{if}|t|1`$
$`\rho (t)0\mathrm{if}|t|2\mathrm{and}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{RI}}}\rho (t)𝑑t=1`$ (3.4)
Let us define for $`\tau >0`$,

$$\rho _\tau (t)=\rho (t/\tau )$$
(3.5)
and

$$M_\tau =\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\left(f_\sigma \stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau \right)\left(\frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu }{\mathrm{}}\right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}$$
(3.6)
where $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ denotes the inverse Fourier transform of $`g`$. Clearly $`M_\tau M`$ when $`\tau \mathrm{}`$. However we shall not be able to let $`\tau \mathrm{}`$ in this paper (see discussion at the end of this section), and we will only obtain results for finite $`\tau `$.

Consider a cut-off function $`\theta 𝒞_0^{\mathrm{}}(IR)`$ with supp $`\theta [\delta ,\delta ]`$, and $`\theta 1`$ on $`[\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2}]`$. It is a priori arbitrary but in the sequel, we will take $`\delta `$ so small that if $`\mu `$ is non-critical for $`H_\kappa `$, any $`\lambda ]\mu 3\delta ,\mu +3\delta [`$ will remain so.

Let us write the following decomposition

$$M_\tau =M_{\tau ,\theta }+M_{\tau ,1\theta }$$
(3.7)
where

$$\{\begin{array}{c}M_{\tau ,\theta }=\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\left(f_\sigma \stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau \right)\left(\frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu }{\mathrm{}}\right)\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}\hfill \\ \\ M_{\tau ,1\theta }=\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\left(f_\sigma \stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau \right)\left(\frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu }{\mathrm{}}\right)(1\theta )\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.8)
We now prove

###### Lemma 3.1

Let us assume (H1-3) for $`\widehat{H}_\kappa `$, and let $`\sigma >\sigma _0>0`$. Then $`M_{\tau ,1\theta }`$ has a complete asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$.

Proof. $`(1\theta )(x)`$ is supported by the union of $`(\mathrm{},\delta ]`$ and $`[\delta ,+\mathrm{})`$, which yields two contributions to $`M_{\tau ,1\theta }`$ that we call $`M_{\tau ,1\theta }^\pm `$.

Since $`f_\sigma \stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau =_x^{\mathrm{}}(f_\sigma ^{}\stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau )(y)𝑑y`$ is the primitive vanishing at $`+\mathrm{}`$ of a function in the Schwartz class $`𝒮(\mathrm{RI})`$, we have for every $`N`$, uniformly for $`\sigma >\sigma _0`$ and $`\mathrm{}]0,1]`$,

$$|\mathrm{Tr}\left\{(f_\sigma \stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau )\left(\frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu }{\mathrm{}}\right)(1\theta )^+\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}|C_N\mathrm{}^N$$

We now consider $`M_{\tau ,1\theta }^{}`$.

Since $`_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}(f_\sigma ^{}\stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau )(y)𝑑y=(\stackrel{~}{f_\gamma ^{}}\rho _\tau )(0)=1`$, we clearly have, uniformly for any $`\lambda sp(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu )(\mathrm{},\delta ]`$, and any $`\sigma >\sigma _0`$ :

$$f_\sigma \stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau \left(\frac{\lambda }{\mathrm{}}\right)=1+O(\mathrm{}^N)$$
(3.9)
and, since $`\widehat{H}_\kappa `$ is semi-bounded from below, the contribution of 1 in (3.9) gives $`\mathrm{Tr}\left\{(1\theta )^{}(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu )\widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}`$ and obviously has a complete $`\mathrm{}`$ expansion by the functional calculus (in fact it is of the form $`\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\theta _1(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu )_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}`$ for some $`\theta _1𝒞_0^{\mathrm{}}(IR)`$.) $``$$``$

The next step is to decompose $`\rho _\tau `$ in order to isolate the neighborhood of $`t=0`$ of the rest :

$$\rho _\tau =\rho _{\tau _0}\rho _\tau +\left(1\rho _{\tau _0}\right)\rho _\tau \rho _{\tau _0}+\rho _{1,\tau }$$
(3.10)
since $`\rho _{\tau _0}\rho _\tau =\rho _{\tau _0}`$ if $`\tau >2\tau _0`$.

This yields $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau =\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{\tau _0}+\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{1,\tau }`$ and correspondingly :

$$M_{\tau ,\theta }=M_0+M_{osc}$$
(3.11)
$$\{\begin{array}{c}M_0=\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\left(f_\sigma \stackrel{~}{\rho }_{\tau _0}\right)\left(\frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu }{\mathrm{}}\right)\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}\hfill \\ \\ M_{osc}=\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\left(f_\sigma \stackrel{~}{\rho }_{1,\tau }\right)\left(\frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu }{\mathrm{}}\right)\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.12)
Finally $`M_\tau `$ is decomposed into

$$M_\tau =\overline{M}+M_{osc}$$
(3.13)
where $`M_{osc}`$ is given by (3.11), and

$$\overline{M}=M_0+M_{\tau ,1\theta }$$
(3.14)
We prove :

###### Lemma 3.2

Assume also $`\mu `$ is non-critical for $`H_\kappa `$. Then for $`\tau _0`$ small enough the classical flow induced by Hamiltonian $`H_\kappa `$ on $`_\mu ^\kappa `$ has no periodic point of period $`\frac{\tau _0}{2}`$ and $`M_0`$ admits an asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$, uniform for $`\sigma =\beta \mathrm{}\sigma _0>0`$.

Proof. We have

$`M_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _+\mathrm{}^\mu }𝑑\lambda \mathrm{Tr}\left\{\left(f_\sigma ^{}\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{\tau _0}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \lambda }{\mathrm{}}}\right)\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _\mu ^{\mu +3\delta }}𝑑\lambda \mathrm{Tr}\left\{\left(f_\sigma ^{}\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{\tau _0}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \lambda }{\mathrm{}}}\right)\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}+O(h^{\mathrm{}})`$
using the fact that $`f_\sigma ^{}\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{\tau _0}`$ is in the space $`𝒮(\mathrm{RI})`$ and the support property of the cut-off function $`\theta `$. Now, if $`\mu `$ is non-critical for $`\widehat{H}_\kappa `$, it will remain true for any $`\lambda [\mu ,\mu +3\delta ]`$ for small enough $`\delta `$.

We can rewrite the Trace inside the integral in (3), using inverse Fourier transform,

$$M_0=\frac{1}{h}_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑t\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}\pi t/\sigma }\rho \left(\frac{t}{\tau _0}\right)\mathrm{Tr}\left\{e^{it(\widehat{H}\lambda )/\mathrm{}}\theta \left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}\right\}$$
(3.16)
(omitting the index $`\kappa `$ of $`\widehat{H}_\kappa `$ for simplicity). Now, using either WKB method (see for instance ), or the coherent state decomposition , a complete asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$ of $`M_0`$ can be obtained, of the form :

$$M_0=\mathrm{}^{n+1}\left(C_0(\lambda )+\mathrm{}C_1(\lambda )+\mathrm{}+h^kC_k(\lambda )+\mathrm{}\right)\mathrm{mod}O(h^{\mathrm{}})$$

which can be further integrated with respect to $`\lambda `$ on the interval $`[\mu ,\mu +3\delta ]`$, yielding the result. $``$$``$

###### Remark 3.3

Above Lemmas therefore imply that $`\overline{M}`$ has a complete asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$. It is, so to say, the analog of the (complete $`\mathrm{}`$-expansion of) the “mean density of states” in the Gutzwiller trace formula. The other term $`M_{osc}`$ will be the sum of highly oscillating terms, also in complete analogy with the oscillatory part of Gutzwiller trace formula. Before showing this now, let us remark that the dominant $`\mathrm{}`$ contribution to $`\overline{M}`$ has not yet been shown to reduce to the well known “Landau diamagnetism”. This will be postponed to the end of this section.

###### Proposition 3.4

Assume (H1-3) together with

(H.4) $`\mu `$ is non-critical for $`H_\kappa `$ ($`|\kappa |<\kappa _0`$)

(H.5) On $`_\mu ^\kappa `$, the set $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu )_\tau `$ of classical periodic orbits denoted $`\gamma `$ with period smaller than $`\tau `$ is such that the corresponding Poincaré maps $`P_\gamma `$ do not have eigenvalue 1.

Then for any $`\sigma _1>0`$ and for $`\kappa _0>0`$ small enough, we have the following uniform asymptotics for $`\beta \mathrm{}=\sigma ]0,\sigma _1]`$ and $`|\kappa |\kappa _0`$,

$$M_{osc}=\underset{\gamma (\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu )_\tau }{}e^{i(S_\gamma /\mathrm{}+\nu _\gamma \frac{\pi }{2})}\left\{\frac{\rho _{1,\tau }(T_\gamma )}{|det(1P_\gamma )|^{1/2}}\frac{im_\gamma /2\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi T_\gamma /\sigma )}+\underset{k1}{}d_\gamma ^{(k)}\mathrm{}^k\right\}+O(\mathrm{}^{\mathrm{}})$$
(3.17)
where $`m_\gamma =_0^{T_\gamma ^{}}𝑑t_\kappa H_\kappa (q_t,p_t)`$.

$`T_\gamma ^{}`$ is the primitive period of orbit $`\gamma `$,

$`S_\gamma `$ (resp. $`\nu _\gamma `$) is the classical action (resp. Maslov index) of orbit $`\gamma `$.

$`d_\gamma ^{(k)}`$ are constants depending on orbit $`\gamma `$, on the function $`\rho _{1,\tau }`$, and on $`\gamma `$.
Moreover the different orbits $`\gamma `$ can be choosen such that they depend smoothly on the parameter $`\kappa `$ and the asymptotic expansion holds uniformly in $`\kappa `$ for $`|\kappa |`$ small enough.

Proof. Since $`\rho _{1,\tau }`$ is supported away from zero, we can rewrite $`M_{osc}`$ (defined in (3.12)) as the non-singular integral :

$$M_{osc}=\frac{1}{h}_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\frac{dt}{t}\rho _{1,\tau }(t)\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}\pi t/\sigma }\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\theta \left(\widehat{H_\kappa }\mu \right)e^{it(\widehat{H_\kappa }\mu )/\mathrm{}}_\kappa \widehat{H_\kappa }\right\}$$
(3.18)
Now the method that we have developed in  applies, and yields the desired result. $``$$``$

###### Remark 3.5

At zero magnetic field ($`\kappa =0`$) the term $`m_\gamma `$ is computed as follows. We have

$$m_\gamma =_\gamma _\kappa H_\kappa (q_t,p_t)dt=_\gamma a𝑑q=\mathrm{\Phi }_\gamma $$

where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\gamma `$is the flux of the magnetic field through the closed curve $`\gamma `$.

We now come back to $`\overline{M}`$, and prove that the dominant contribution of the $`\mathrm{}`$-expansion is indeed the well-known diamagnetic Landau term.

###### Proposition 3.6

Assume (H1-4). Then for any $`\sigma _1>0`$ and for $`\kappa _0>0`$, uniformly for $`\beta \mathrm{}=\sigma ]0,\sigma _1[`$ we have, mod $`O(h^{\mathrm{}})`$,

$$\overline{M}=\kappa \frac{\mathrm{}^{2n}}{24\pi ^2}_{_\mu ^0}𝑑\sigma _\mu ^0B(q)^2+\underset{k3n}{}c_k(\mu ,0,\sigma ,T)\mathrm{}^k+O(\mathrm{}^{\mathrm{}}).$$
(3.19)
Proof. Whereas the existence of a complete asymptotic expansion for $`\overline{M}`$ results immediately from lemmas (3.1) and (3.2), the explicit calculus of the dominant contribution in (3.19) is not an immediate consequence. It will be done through the functional calculus. In the previous section we have shown that the coefficients of the asymptotic $`\mathrm{}`$-expansion are regular functions of $`\kappa `$, and can be differentiated with respect to $`\kappa `$. Thus, according to (3.14), we shall obtain the dominant contribution to $`\overline{M}`$ from two different contributions $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0(\lambda )|_{\lambda =\mu }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\tau ,1\theta }(\lambda )|_{\lambda =\mu }`$ by differentiating with respect to $`\kappa `$ :

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Omega }_0(\lambda )=\mathrm{Tr}\left[\left(F_\beta \stackrel{~}{\rho }_{\tau _0}\right)\left(\frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \lambda }{\mathrm{}}\right)\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)\right]\hfill \\ \\ \mathrm{\Omega }_{0,1\theta }(\lambda )=\mathrm{Tr}\left[\left(F_\beta \stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau \right)\left(\frac{\widehat{H}_\kappa \lambda }{\mathrm{}}\right)(1\theta )\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)\right]\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.20)
Let us consider the contribution of second derivatives in $`\lambda `$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0(\lambda )`$ :

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_0^{\prime \prime }(\lambda ):=G(\lambda )=h^nc_0^{\prime \prime }(\lambda )+h^{n+2}c_2^{\prime \prime }(\lambda )+O(h^{n+3})$$
(3.21)
and we shall identify $`c_0(\lambda )`$ and $`c_2(\lambda )`$ by the following trick (inspired from ref.  prop. V.8) : Take $`\phi 𝒞_0^{\mathrm{}}(]\mu 3\delta ,\mu +3\delta [)`$ and integrate against (3.21) ; we get :

$$𝑑\lambda \phi (\lambda )G(\lambda )=h^1\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{eff}\left(\frac{\lambda }{\mathrm{}}\right)\mathrm{Tr}\left[\phi _\theta \left(\widehat{H}\lambda \right)\right]𝑑\lambda $$
(3.22)
where

$$\rho _{eff}(t)=\rho _{\tau _0}(t)\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\pi t/\sigma \right)},$$

$`\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{eff}(\lambda )`$ is its Fourier transform, and

$$\phi _\theta (E):=\phi (E)\theta (E+\lambda \mu )$$
(3.23)
(3.22) follows from :

$$G(\lambda )=\frac{1}{h}𝑑t\rho _{eff}(t)\mathrm{Tr}\left[e^{it(\widehat{H_\kappa }\lambda )/\mathrm{}}\theta \left(\widehat{H_\kappa }\mu \right)\right]$$

Now (3.22) is rewritten as

$$𝑑\lambda \phi (\lambda )G(\lambda )=\frac{1}{2\pi }𝑑\lambda \stackrel{~}{\rho }_{eff}(\lambda )\mathrm{Tr}\left[\phi _\theta \left(\widehat{H_\kappa }\lambda \mathrm{}\right)\right]$$
(3.24)
which can be developed through Taylor’s formula (since integration variable $`\lambda `$ is in a compact interval), as :

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\lambda \phi (\lambda )G(\lambda )}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^k\mathrm{}^k}{k!}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\lambda \lambda ^k\stackrel{~}{\rho }_{eff}(\lambda )\mathrm{Tr}\left[\phi _\theta ^{(k)}(\widehat{H_\kappa })\right]}`$ (3.25)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{i^k\mathrm{}^k}{k!}}\rho _{eff}^{(k)}(0)\mathrm{Tr}\left[\phi _\theta ^{(k)}(\widehat{H_\kappa })\right]`$
Actually the term with $`k=0`$ is absent since $`\rho _{eff}^{}(0)=0`$ ($`\rho `$ is an even function, and so is $`\rho _{eff}`$). We calculate the coefficients of $`\mathrm{}^n`$ and $`h^{2n}`$ by the functional calculus, like in section 2 :

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\lambda \phi (\lambda )G(\lambda )}=`$ $`h^n({\displaystyle }\phi _\theta (H(q,p))dpdq{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{12}}{\displaystyle }\phi _\theta ^{\prime \prime }(H(q,p))[\kappa ^2B^2\mathrm{}V]dqdp`$ (3.26)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2}}\rho _{eff}^{\prime \prime }(0){\displaystyle }\phi _\theta ^{\prime \prime }\left[H(q,p)\right]dqdp+O(h^3))`$
Clearly the first and third terms in (3.26) are independent on $`\kappa `$ (through the change of variable $`pp\kappa a(q)`$), and we are left with lower order term

$`{\displaystyle \frac{h^{2n}}{124\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑q𝑑p\phi _\theta ^{\prime \prime }(H(q,p))\left[\kappa ^2B^2\underset{1j,kn}{}_{j,k}^2V\right]}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{h^{2n}}{124\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\lambda \phi _\theta (\lambda )\frac{d^2}{d\lambda ^2}_{_\lambda ^\kappa }\left(\kappa ^2B^2\underset{1j,kn}{}_{j,k}^2V\right)𝑑\sigma _\lambda ^\kappa (q,p)}`$ (3.27)
where we have used integration by parts :

$$_{IR^{2n}}G(q,p)\phi ^{\prime \prime }((H_\kappa (q,p))dqdp=d\lambda \phi (\lambda )\frac{d^2}{d\lambda ^2}\left[_{_\lambda ^\kappa }d\sigma _\lambda ^\kappa G(q,p)\right]$$

Therefore since the above calculation holds for an arbitrary test function $`\phi `$, we can identify the functions $`c_0`$ and $`c_2(\lambda )`$ appearing in (3.21), modulo $`\kappa `$-independent terms as :

$$\{\begin{array}{c}c_0(\lambda )=0\hfill \\ \\ c_2(\lambda )=\theta (\lambda )\frac{\kappa ^2}{124\pi ^2}__\lambda B^2𝑑\sigma _\lambda (q,p)\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.28)
We can do the same calculus for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\tau ,1\theta }`$ instead of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ by replacing $`\tau _0`$ by $`\tau `$ and $`\theta `$ by $`1\theta `$. This yields a contribution to the magnetization which, added to that coming from $`c_2(\lambda )`$ in (3.28) gives the dominant Landau term in (3.19).

We shall extend now the above results to the magnetic susceptibility $`\chi `$. The statement is the following

###### Theorem 3.7

Let us assume H-1 to H-5 and $`\sigma =\beta \mathrm{}]0,\sigma _1]`$ where $`\sigma _1>0`$ is fixed. For $`\chi _\tau =\chi \rho _\tau `$, $`\tau >0`$, we have the decomposition

$$\chi _\tau =\overline{\chi }+\chi _{osc}$$
(3.29)
with

$`\overline{\chi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^{2n}}{24\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _{_\mu ^\kappa }}𝑑\sigma _\mu ^\kappa B(q)^2+{\displaystyle \underset{k3n}{}}c_{\chi ,k}(\mu ,\kappa ,\sigma ,T)\mathrm{}^k+O(\mathrm{}^{\mathrm{}})`$ (3.30)
$`\chi _{osc}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\gamma (\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu )_\tau }{}}e^{i(S_\gamma /\mathrm{}+\nu _\gamma \frac{\pi }{2})}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{1,\tau }(T_\gamma )}{|det(1P_\gamma )|^{1/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_\gamma m_\gamma ^2/2\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi T_\gamma /\sigma )}}+{\displaystyle \underset{k1}{}}d_{\chi ,\gamma }^{(k)}\mathrm{}^k\right\}+`$ (3.31)
$`O(\mathrm{}^{\mathrm{}})`$
where we have used the notations in proposition (3.4) and $`r_\gamma =\frac{T_\gamma }{T_\gamma ^{}}`$, $`c_{\chi ,\gamma }`$, $`d_{\chi ,\gamma }`$ are smooth coefficients depending on the periodic orbit $`\gamma `$, on $`\sigma `$, and on function $`\rho `$.

Proof We use the same cut-off already introduced for the magnetization $`M`$. So we define in a natural way

$`\overline{\chi }`$ $`=`$ $`_\kappa M_{\tau _0,\theta }+_\kappa M_{\tau ,1\theta }`$ (3.32)
$`\chi _{osc}`$ $`=`$ $`\chi _\tau \overline{\chi }`$ (3.33)
Compute first the term $`\chi _{\tau _0,\theta }=_\kappa M_{\tau _0,\theta }`$. From the proof of proposition (3.4) we get

$$\chi _{\tau _0,\theta }=\frac{1}{h}_0^\mu 𝑑\lambda _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑t\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi t/\sigma )}\rho \left(\frac{t}{\tau _0}\right)_\kappa \mathrm{Tr}\left\{\mathrm{e}^{\frac{it}{\mathrm{}}(\widehat{H_\kappa }\lambda )}\theta \left(\widehat{H_\kappa }\lambda \right)_\kappa \widehat{H_\kappa }\right\}$$
(3.34)
We compute derivative in the parameter $`\kappa `$ with the following easy consequence of the Duhamel formula

$`_\kappa \mathrm{Tr}\left\{\mathrm{e}^{\frac{it}{\mathrm{}}(\widehat{H}\mu )}\theta \left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}\right\}=\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\mathrm{e}^{\frac{it}{\mathrm{}}(\widehat{H}\lambda )}_\kappa [\theta \left(\widehat{H}\lambda \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}]\right\}+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i\mathrm{}}}\mathrm{Tr}\left\{{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑s\left(\mathrm{e}^{\frac{is}{\mathrm{}}\widehat{H}_\kappa }_\kappa \widehat{H_\kappa }\mathrm{e}^{\frac{is}{\mathrm{}}\widehat{H_\kappa }}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\frac{it}{\mathrm{}}(\widehat{H_\kappa }\lambda )}\theta \left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H_\kappa }\right\}`$ (3.35)
Then due to the support property of $`\tau _0`$, the only stationary points corresponds to the period $`T=0`$ and the leading term in $`\mathrm{}`$ is given by the first term. The term $`\chi _{\tau ,1\theta }=_\kappa M_{\tau ,1\theta }`$ is computed in the same way and the both term combines to yield the asymptotic expansion of $`\overline{\chi }`$.
For the term $`\chi _{osc}`$ we start from a formula like (3.34) replacing the time cut-off $`\rho _{\tau _0}`$ by the following $`\rho _{1,\tau }=\rho _\tau (1\rho _{\tau _0})`$. Hence applying the methods of  we can compute with the stationary phase theorem the contributions of the periodic trajectories with period $`T_\gamma (\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu )_\tau `$.

###### Remark 3.8

In the so-called “mesoscopic regime” examined in this section (i.e. $`T=\frac{\mathrm{}}{\sigma k_B}`$ for some fixed $`\sigma `$ having the dimension of time) , and in the special case of dimension 2, the dominant semi-classical contribution $`M_L`$ to $`\overline{M}`$ and $`M_1`$ to $`M_{osc}`$ are of the same order (apart from highly oscillating factors). A comparison of the corresponding contributions $`\chi _L`$ and $`\chi _1`$ to the susceptibility is made in the physics literature, measuring a factor of 100 for $`\chi _1/\chi _L`$ .

###### Remark 3.9

Thus the magnetic response is a measurable quantity where the skeleton of the periodic orbits of the classical motion manifests itself clearly ; we have investigated this effect rigorously and in great generality. Furthermore the oscillations in (3.17) are a generalization of the well-known de Haas-van Alphen oscillations of the magnetic response which are a result of the classical cyclotronic orbits demonstrated in dimensions 2 and 3, and which can be recovered from (3.17) in the limiting case where all classsical orbits are of cyclotronic nature ($`V=0`$ or quadratic).

Now, we want to comment about the fact that we have only been able to give semi-classical expansions for “smeared out magnetizations” $`M_\tau `$ instead of the true one $`(\tau =\mathrm{})`$. For non-zero temperature $`T0`$, the exponential decrease of $`\stackrel{~}{f_\beta ^{}}(t)`$ when $`k+\mathrm{}`$ lets us expect that the Fourier inversion formula (3.1) combined with “trace formulas” will be enough to obtain Proposition (3.4) without the $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau `$ which cuts off time at $`|t|\tau `$. We expect that our method using semi-classical evolution estimates for coherent states  will allow to prove this for $`\sigma =\beta \mathrm{}>\sigma _0>0`$ with suitable assumptions on the classical flow. This is presently under study. However for $`T=0`$, the cut-off $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }_\tau `$ will be necessary to make the sum over periodic orbits finite and thus convergent, and we cannot expect to get rid of it.
For the moment, using estimates proved in , we can see that it is sufficient to control the periods of the classical flow in the time interval $`[\tau ,c_0\mathrm{log}(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}}])`$. In  we have proved that the semi-classical propagation of coherent states is valid in time interval $`[c_0\mathrm{log}(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}}),c_0\mathrm{log}(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}})]`$ for some $`c_0>0`$. So we can write down the operator $`\mathrm{e}^{\frac{it}{\mathrm{}}(\widehat{H}\lambda )}`$ as a Fourier integral operator with a complex phase for $`|t|c_0\mathrm{log}(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}})`$. So we have to compute two terms, ($`H_\kappa =H`$),

$`F_1(\mathrm{},\sigma ):={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{RI}}}𝑑t\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\mathrm{e}^{\frac{it}{\mathrm{}}(\widehat{H}\mu )}\theta \left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)\widehat{A}\rho \left({\displaystyle \frac{2t}{c_0\mathrm{log}(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}})}}\right)R_\sigma (t)\right\}`$ (3.36)
$`F_2(\mathrm{},\sigma ):={\displaystyle _R}𝑑t\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\mathrm{e}^{\frac{it}{\mathrm{}}(\widehat{H}\mu )}\theta \left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)\widehat{A}\left[1\rho \left({\displaystyle \frac{2t}{c_0\mathrm{log}(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}})}}\right)\right]R_\sigma (t)\right\}`$ (3.37)
where $`\widehat{A}`$ is some quantum observable and $`R_\sigma (t)=\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}\pi t/\sigma }`$. The term $`F_1`$ is difficult to check and we have nothing to say about it here except that for each time, it is a Fourier integral with a known complex phase but it is difficult to control the stationary phase argument for large times.
The term $`F_2`$ is easily controlled because it contains the damping factor $`R_\sigma `$. More precisely we have

###### Lemma 3.10

There exists $`C>0`$ such that for every $`\mathrm{}]0,1]`$ and $`\sigma >0`$ we have easily :

$$F_2(\mathrm{},\sigma )Cc_0\mathrm{log}(\frac{1}{\mathrm{}})\mathrm{}^{(\pi /\sigma )c_0}.$$
(3.38)
So that $`F_2(\mathrm{},\sigma )`$ is negligible for $`\frac{c_0}{\sigma }`$ large enough.

## 4 The regime of temperature $`\mathrm{}^{1\epsilon }T\mathrm{}^{\frac{2}{3}\epsilon }`$

In section 2 we have shown that the functional calculus applies to the thermodynamical functions in the grand-canonical ensemble and provided asymptotic expansions in the semi-classical limit provided $`T\mathrm{}^{\frac{2}{3}\epsilon }`$ (some $`\epsilon >0`$). In section 3 we have investigated a rather different temperature regime (called “mesoscopic”) where $`k_BT=\mathrm{}/\sigma `$ (some $`\sigma >0`$ but finite) where a splitting of the magnetic response into a “mean part” and an “oscillating part” appears in the semi-classical limit. In order to be complete, the “in-between regime” is now considered.

###### Theorem 4.1

Assume (H1.4). Then the magnetisation $`M=_\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }`$ has for any temperature $`T`$ satisfying $`\mathrm{}^{1\epsilon }T\mathrm{}^{\frac{2}{3}\epsilon }`$ (some $`\epsilon >0`$) a complete asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$ obtained by taking the derivative in $`\kappa `$ of the formal expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ given (2.14).

Proof. As in section 3 take $`\tau _0>0`$ so small that, the classical flow induced by $`H_\kappa `$ has no periodic point with non-zero period $`[2\tau _0,2\tau _0]`$, and take $`\rho _{\tau _0}`$ as in section 3. Futhermore let $`\theta 𝒞_0^{\mathrm{}}(IR)`$ be, as in section 3 ($`\theta 1`$ on $`[\frac{\delta }{2},\frac{\delta }{2}]`$, and $`0`$ on $`IR[\delta ,\delta ]`$). We decompose $`M`$ and

$$M=M_\theta +M_{1\theta }$$
(4.1)
with

$$M_\theta =Tr\left\{f_\beta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}$$
(4.2)
and similarly for $`M_{1\theta }`$.

Furthermore :

$`M_\theta `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _\mu ^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\lambda \mathrm{Tr}\left\{f_\beta ^{}\left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \lambda \right)\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _\mu ^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{1}{h}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}𝑑t{\displaystyle \frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}\pi t/\sigma }}\mathrm{Tr}\left\{e^{it(\widehat{H}\lambda )}\theta \left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H}\right\}`$
$`=`$ $`M_{\theta ,\rho }+M_{\theta ,1\rho }`$ (4.4)
where we insert, inside the integral over $`t`$, the partition of unity
$`1=\rho _{\tau _0}(t)+(1\rho _{\tau _0})(t)`$, which yields, correspondingly a splitting of $`M_\theta `$ into the two contributions.

###### Lemma 4.2

Assuming (H.1-3), $`M_{1\theta }`$ has a complete asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$.

Proof. We can proceed as in the proof of Lemma (3.1), by splitting $`(1\theta )(x)`$ into the sum of two disjoint functions $`(1\theta )^\pm `$ supported respectively in $`[\delta ,+\mathrm{})`$ (for $`+`$ sign) and $`(\mathrm{},\delta ]`$. Since $`f_\beta `$ is the primitive vanishing at $`+\mathrm{}`$ of a function in the Schwartz class of $`𝒞^{\mathrm{}}`$ functions of rapid decrease, we have

$$|\mathrm{Tr}\left\{f_\beta \left(\widehat{H_\kappa }\mu \right)(1\theta )^+\left(\widehat{H_\kappa }\mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H_\kappa }\right\}|C_N\mathrm{}^N\text{(for any }N\text{)}$$

and

$$|\mathrm{Tr}\left\{(1f_\beta )\left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)(1\theta )^{}\left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)\frac{\widehat{H}}{\kappa }\right\}|C_N\mathrm{}^N\text{( for sany }N\text{)}$$

Finally, we know, like in the proof of Lemma (3.1), that $`\mathrm{Tr}\left\{(1\theta )^{}(\widehat{H}\mu )_\kappa \widehat{H}\right\}`$ has a complete asymptotic $`\mathrm{}`$ expansion by the functional calculus.

###### Lemma 4.3

Assuming (H1-3), one has, for $`\mathrm{}^{1\epsilon }T\mathrm{}^{\frac{2}{3}\epsilon }`$

$$M_{\theta ,1\rho }=O\left(e^{c_1/\mathrm{}^\epsilon }\right)$$

where $`c_1`$ is a positive constant only depending on $`\tau _0`$.

Proof. Using (4), the support property of $`\theta `$, and the exponential decrease of $`f_\beta ^{}`$, it is easy to show that :

$$M_\theta =_\mu ^{\mu +2\delta }𝑑\lambda \mathrm{Tr}\left\{f_\beta ^{}\left(\widehat{H_\kappa }\lambda \right)\theta \left(\widehat{H_\kappa }\mu \right)\widehat{H_\kappa }\right\}+O\left(e^{\delta /\sqrt{\mathrm{}}}\right)$$

Therefore

$$M_{\theta ,1\rho }=_\mu ^{\mu +2\delta }𝑑\lambda h^1_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑t\left(1\rho _{\tau _0}(t)\right)\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}\pi t/\sigma }$$

$$\mathrm{Tr}\left\{\mathrm{e}^{it(\widehat{H}\lambda )/\mathrm{}}\theta \left(\widehat{H}\mu \right)_\kappa \widehat{H_\kappa }\right\}+O\left(\mathrm{e}^{\delta /\sqrt{\mathrm{}}}\right)$$

and since, in the considered temperature regime

$$\left|\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi t/\sigma )}\right|C\mathrm{e}^{c_0|t|/\mathrm{}^\epsilon }$$

we have, using the support property of $`1\rho _{\tau _0}`$ :

$$\left|M_{\theta ,1\rho }\right|Ce^{c_1/\mathrm{}^\epsilon }$$

$`c_1`$ being a positive constant depending on $`\tau _0`$.

###### Lemma 4.4

Assuming (H.1-4), then $`M_{\theta ,\rho }`$ has a complete asymptotic expansion in $`\mathrm{}`$.

Proof. As is the previous section, we take $`\delta `$ so small that, if $`\mu `$ is non-critical for $`H_\kappa `$, then any $`\lambda [\mu ,\mu +2\delta ]`$ is also non-critical for $`H_\kappa `$.

Now, using the support property of $`\rho _{\tau _0}`$, and either WKB method, or decomposition over coherent states, a complete asymptotic expansion can be obtained for

$$h^1_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑t\rho _{\tau _0}(t)\frac{\pi t/\sigma }{\mathrm{sinh}\pi t/\sigma }\mathrm{Tr}\left\{e^{it(\widehat{H}_\kappa \lambda )/\mathrm{}}\theta \left(\widehat{H}_\kappa \mu \right)\widehat{H}_\kappa \right\}$$

for any $`\lambda [\mu ,\mu +2\delta ]`$. Integrating with respect to $`\lambda `$ in this interval yields the result.


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# SCUBA observations of Hawaii 167

## 1 Introduction

Hawaii 167 was identified in the Hawaii K-band survey (Songalia et al. 1994). Displaying a rest-frame ultraviolet spectrum of a young stellar population at z=2.34, Hawaii 167 also possesses broad absorption troughs of both high and low ionized species, consistent with the presence of bulk outflows (Cowie et al. 1994). While such features are characteristic of the Broad Absorption Line (BAL) class of quasars, the broad emission lines indicative of an AGN core are not seen in the ultraviolet spectrum. Infrared spectroscopy, however, does reveal both broad $`\mathrm{H}_\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{H}_\beta `$ (Cowie et al. 1994; Egami et al. 1996), with a redshift of $`z=2.36`$. These observations indicate a substantial Balmer-decrement (Hall et al. 1997), suggesting that Hawaii 167 is an example of a dust enshrouded quasar; thought to represent an early evolutionary stage, such systems would appear as fully fledged quasars once all the dust has been removed. During the transition from one phase to another, as dust is blown from a central obscuring torus, the system will appear as a BAL-type quasar. It appears, therefore, that Hawaii 167 provides us with a view of an embryonic quasar. The limited data available on Hawaii 167, however, means that an accurate determination of dust mass, total luminosity and its true evolutionary status is not currently possible.

In this paper we present submillimetre observations of Hawaii 167, probing the emission from a dusty component. These were obtained as part of a survey of the dust properties of BAL quasars (Lewis & Chapman 2000 in preparation). In Section 2 the details of the observations are presented, while Section 3 discusses the dust content and evolutionary status of Hawaii 167. The conclusions to this study are presented in Section 4.

## 2 Observations

We observed Hawaii 167 with the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope 111The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is operated by The Joint Astronomy Centre on behalf of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, and the National Research Council of Canada. on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. We used the PHOTOMETRY three bolometer chopping mode described in Chapman et al. (2000) and Scott et al. (2000) to keep the source in a bolometer throughout the observation. This mode has the additional advantage of allowing a check on the apparent detection of a source over three independent bolometers. The observations were taken in May 2000, using the 450$`\mu `$m and 850$`\mu `$m arrays simultaneously. The alignment of the 450$`\mu `$m and 850$`\mu `$m arrays is not perfect, and we did not include the 450$`\mu `$m offbeams in our final flux estimate, except to check that the source had offbeam flux consistent with the detection in the primary bolometer.

For our double-difference observations there are instantaneously $`N=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}`$ beams, with the central beam having an efficiency of unity and the two off beams having

$$ϵ=0.5\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{d^2}{2\sigma _\mathrm{b}^2}\right),$$
(1)
where $`d`$ is the angular distance of the off-beam centre from the source, and $`\sigma _\mathrm{b}`$ is the Gaussian half-width of the beam. For the secondary bolometer the beam efficiency is simply 0.5. However, distortion in the field results in our chosen third bolometer being slightly offset from the source position, resulting in a beam efficiency of 0.44. Our detection level increases from $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3.0}\sigma `$ to 3.7$`\sigma `$, after folding in the negative flux density from the two offbeam pixels.

The effective integration time on source was 1900 ks. The secondary was chopped at 7.8125 Hz with a chop throw at 53 arcsec to keep the source on bolometer at all times. Pointing was checked before and after the observation on blazars and a sky-dip was performed to measure the atmospheric opacity directly. The rms pointing errors were below 2 arcsec, while the average atmospheric zenith opacities at 450$`\mu `$m and 850$`\mu `$m were 1.5 and 0.22 respectively. The data were reduced using the Starlink package SURF (Scuba User Reduction Facility, Jenness & Lightfoot 1998) and our own reduction routines to implement the three bolometer chopping mode. Spikes were first carefully rejected from the data, followed by correction for atmospheric opacity and sky subtraction using the median of all the array pixels, except for obviously bad pixels and the source pixels. The data were then calibrated against standard planetary and compact H ii  region sources, observed during the same night. The resulting fluxes were 6.04$`\pm `$1.65 mJy at 850$`\mu `$m and 66.0$`\pm `$20.7 mJy at 450$`\mu `$m.

## 3 Discussion

### 3.1 Luminosity and Dust Content

Figure 1 presents the extant data of Hawaii 167, including the SCUBA data discussed in Section 2. Also included for comparison is the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the z=2.28 ultraluminous infrared galaxy FSC 10214+4724 (Rowan-Robinson et al. 1993); this system is also thought to harbour a dust enshrouded quasar (e.g. Barvainis et al. 1995). Gravitational lensing has significantly boosted the apparent luminosity of FSC 10214+4724 (e.g. by 30$`\times `$ in the IR; Broadhurst & Lehar 1995), although no correction for magnification has been made to its data points in the figure.

Emission from a dusty component can be modeled as a greybody of the form

$$\mathrm{F}_\nu \frac{\nu ^3}{\mathrm{exp}^{\left(\frac{\mathrm{h}\nu }{\mathrm{kT}}\right)}1}\left[1\mathrm{exp}^{\left(\frac{\nu }{\nu _\mathrm{o}}\right)^\beta }\right]$$
(2)
where $`\nu _\mathrm{o}`$ is the frequency at which the source becomes optically thick (Benford et al. 1999); the shape of the greybody is only mildly sensitive to the value of $`\nu _\mathrm{o}`$ and we adopt the value of $`2.4\mathrm{THz}`$ (Hughes et al. 1993). The Hawaii 167 data is consistent with a greybody temperature of $`\mathrm{T}=88\pm 25\mathrm{K}`$ and $`\beta =2.8\pm 1.1`$; while these values differ from ‘typical’ greybody fits to AGN, which result in values of $`\mathrm{T}=50\mathrm{K}`$ and $`\beta =1.5`$ (Benford et al. 1999), the differences are not significant given the errors.

Following the recipe of McMahon et al. (1999), the 850$`\mu `$m flux was use to calculate the following physical properties 222$`(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{o}=1,\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{o}=0,\mathrm{H}_\mathrm{o}=50\mathrm{h}_{50}\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{Mpc}`$ assumed throughout$`)`$; a far infrared luminosity of $`\mathrm{L}_{\mathrm{FIR}}1.1\times 10^{13}\mathrm{h}_{50}^2\mathrm{L}_{}`$ and an associated dust mass of $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{d}=3.3\times 10^8\mathrm{h}_{50}^2\mathrm{M}_{}`$ (assuming a dust temperature of 50K). Such values place Hawaii 167 firmly in the ultraluminous class of infrared galaxies (Sanders & Mirabel 1996). If the observed infrared emission were solely due to stars, it would correspond to a star formation rate of $`1000\mathrm{M}_{}/\mathrm{yr}`$ (this is an upper limits as Hawaii 167 obviously contains a central AGN source which also acts to heat the dust). Hawaii 167 displays no evidence of gravitational lensing, appearing point-like at a PSF-scale $`0\text{′′}\text{.}5`$ (Cowie et al. 1994), and hence its inferred properties have not been magnified and we can conclude that Hawaii 167 is truly an ultraluminous system.

While we have added to the SED of Hawaii 167, the data are still sparse and a detailed determination of the underlying physical properties and geometry is unwarranted. Instead, we compare its SED to published models of dust enshrouded quasars. The lines in Figure 1 represent such models for ultraluminous infrared galaxies (Granato, Danese & Franceseschini 1996). Consisting of a optically thick torus of dust, extending over several hundred parsecs from the AGN core, each curve represents a differing viewing angle; the dot-dashed line is an equatorial view which maximally extinguishes the optical-UV light from the quasar, which the treble-dot-dashed line is a polar view with an unobstructed view of the AGN core. The dotted line represents an intermediate case, with a viewing angle of $`45^o`$. A substantial portion of the radiation from the central quasar is reprocessed into submm/IR by dust in the torus. Such models reasonably reproduce the SED characteristics of FSC 10214+4724 (equatorial view), as well as other ultraluminous systems such as the cloverleaf quasar, H1413+117 (polar view) and IRAS 09104+4109 & IRAS FSC 15307+3252 (intermediate view). In Figure 1, these curves have been normalized to the data presented in this paper. It is important to note that Egami et al. (1996) conclude that the (rest-frame) UV emission in Hawaii 167 arises solely in a stellar population, with no contribution from the AGN core due to complete obscuration by the circumnuclear dust. As all the models of Granato et al. (1996) predict that some radiation from the central regions must be visible in the UV, none can accurately describe the SED of Hawaii 167, but this may be due to the parameter set employed in the modeling; the inclusion of more dust, or changing the opening angle of the torus may bring better agreement between the models and the data. It is apparent, however, that combining the submillimetre and infrared data favours a model with an intermediate viewing angle on to the obscuring torus. Again, scaling from the models, the resulting dust mass in Hawaii 167 is $`3\times 10^7\mathrm{M}_{}`$. Without more data over the SED of Hawaii 167, this value possesses a significant uncertainty, but does indicate that Hawaii 167 harbours a vast quantity of dusty material.

### 3.2 Broad Absorption Lines

The nature of the broad absorption lines seen in the rest frame UV of Hawaii 167 presents an interesting problem. In the ‘standard model’ of BAL quasars the prominent absorption lines are the result of the central continuum emission being observed through material which is ablated from an obscuring torus by the action of the central quasar (e.g. Barvainis et al. 1995). In Hawaii 167 the UV view of the central quasar is completely obscured and the AGN radiation cannot be responsible for accelerating the BAL material. A potential solution, however, is that the BAL material is driven from the outer dusty regions by hot young stars. The requirement of two sources for the driving force of the BAL material during different stages of the systems evolution does, however, seem a little contrived, but we can currently offer no solution to the problem.

### 3.3 Evolutionary State and Further Study

In terms of infrared luminosity, and hence associated dust mass, Hawaii 167 is similar to other ultraluminous systems (Rowan-Robinson 2000), and it is only the detection of broad emission lines in the infrared that directly reveals the presence of a quasar at its core. Such a picture is consistent with their being an evolutionary link between the two populations (e.g. Sanders & Mirabel 1996). Here, an initial burst of star formation is triggered by the merger between two gas-rich systems. The merger channels gas into the central regions of the remnant, forming and feeding an quasar core. This AGN, however, is obscured by dust, the detritus of the star burst; it is at this stage which we find Hawaii 167. The dust is ablated from the torus due to radiation from the quasar core, eventually clearing and revealing an ‘normal’ quasar.

Further clues to the nature and geometry of Hawaii 167 will be gleaned from polarization studies. As demonstrated with FSC 10214+4724 (Goodrich et al. 1996), such observations can reveal the presence broad emission features, and hence an AGN core, the light of which has been scattered from a exterior region (Barvainis et al. 1995). The identification of a scattered view of the central engine will imply that the AGN core is not completely obscured.

## 4 Conclusions

We have presented new submillimetre photometry of the high redshift, broad absorption line system Hawaii 167. These observations confirm that this system consists of a quasar which is enshrouded in a massive ($`10^710^8\mathrm{M}_{}`$) quantity of dust. With an inferred infrared luminosity of $`10^{13}\mathrm{h}_{50}^2\mathrm{L}_{}`$, Hawaii 167 is a member of the ultraluminous class of infrared galaxies. The more extreme members of this family, namely FSC 10214+4724 and H 1413+117, have been found to be gravitational lenses. Hence, their apparent luminosities have been significantly magnified. Considering this, Hawaii 167 represents an intrinsically more luminous source than these objects.

The identification of Hawaii 167 as an ultraluminous infrared galaxy provides more supporting evidence for there being an evolutionary link between these and the AGN family. While presenting us with the rare view of a embryonic quasar in the process of shedding its dusty cocoon, data on Hawaii 167 are currently quite sparse and more observations are required before detailed modeling can be undertaken.

## Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of the JCMT for their assistance with the SCUBA observations, and the weather for being so cooperative. GFL thanks the Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organization (ANSTO) for financial support.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

One of the original motivations of Witten  to introduce topological quantum field theories (TQFT) was precisely to understand the Donaldson invariants of four-manifolds from a physical point of view. This approach proved its full power in 1994, when it was realized that all the information of Donaldson theory was contained in the Seiberg-Witten (SW) invariants. These new invariants led to a true revolution in four-dimensional topology, and they were introduced in  based on nonperturbative results in supersymmetric quantum field theory. The relation between Donaldson invariants and SW invariants was fully clarified in an important paper by G. Moore and E. Witten , where they introduce the so called $`u`$-plane integral.

In this note, I review some recent results on four-manifold invariants which have been obtained through the use of $`u`$-plane integral techniques. I emphasize how these results are related to the physics of four-dimensional quantum field theories. First, I discuss Donaldson invariants as correlation functions in TQFT. I present some new results for non simply connected manifolds (for product ruled surfaces, in particular), and for extensions of Donaldson theory to higher rank gauge groups. Second, I use compactifications of the field theory to make contact with results in three and two dimensions. In the two-dimensional case, I recover in fact Thaddeus’ celebrated formula for the intersection pairings on the moduli space of flat connections on a Riemann surface. Finally, I consider qualitatively new physics (a field theory with critical behavior) to obtain new relations between the SW invariants and classical invariants of four-manifolds. In the last section, I briefly consider some open problems.

## 2 Correlation functions

### 2.1 General aspects

The Donaldson invariants of smooth, compact, oriented four-manifolds $`X`$  are defined by using intersection theory on the moduli space of anti-self-dual connections. The cohomology classes on this space are associated to homology classes of $`X`$ through the slant product  or, in the context of topological field theory, by using the descent procedure . Here we will restrict ourselves to the Donaldson invariants associated to zero, one and two-homology classes333The inclusion of three-classes has been considered in .. Define

$$𝐀(X)=\mathrm{Sym}(H_0(X)H_2(X))^{}H_1(X).$$
(2.1)
Then, the Donaldson invariants can be regarded as functionals

$$D_X^{w_2(E)}:𝐀(X)𝐐,$$
(2.2)
where $`w_2(E)H^2(X,𝐙)`$ is the second Stiefel-Whitney class of the gauge bundle. It is convenient to organize these invariants as follows. Let $`\{\delta _i\}_{i=1,\mathrm{},b_1}`$ be a basis of one-cycles, $`\{\beta _i\}_{i=1,\mathrm{},b_1}`$ the corresponding dual basis of harmonic one-forms, and $`\{S_i\}_{i=1,\mathrm{},b_2}`$ a basis of two-cycles. We introduce the formal sums

$$\delta =\underset{i=1}{\overset{b_1}{}}\zeta _i\delta _i,S=\underset{j=1}{\overset{b_2}{}}v_iS_i,$$
(2.3)
where $`v_i`$ are complex numbers, and $`\zeta _i`$ are Grassmann variables. The generator of the $`0`$-class will be denoted by $`xH_0(X,𝐙)`$. We then define the Donaldson-Witten generating function:

$$Z_{DW}(p,\zeta _i,v_i)=D_X^{w_2(E)}(\mathrm{e}^{px+\delta +S}),$$
(2.4)
so that the Donaldson invariants can be read off from the expansion of the left-hand side in powers of $`p`$, $`\zeta _i`$ and $`v_i`$. The main result in  is that $`Z_{DW}`$ can be understood as the generating functional of a twisted version of the $`N=2`$ supersymmetric gauge theory – with gauge group $`SU(2)`$ – in four dimensions. In the twisted theory one can define observables $`O(x)`$, $`I_1(\delta )=_\delta O_1`$, $`I_2(S)=_SO_2`$ (where $`O_i`$ are functionals of the fields of the theory) in one to one correspondence with the homology classes of $`X`$, and in such a way that the generating functional

$$\mathrm{e}^{pO(x)+I_1(\delta )+I_2(S)}$$

is precisely $`Z_{DW}(p,\zeta _i,v_i)`$.

Based on the low-energy effective descriptions of $`N=2`$ gauge theories obtained in , Witten obtained a explicit formula for (2.4) in terms of SW invariants for manifolds of $`b_2^+>1`$ and simple type . The general framework to give a complete evaluation of (2.4) was established in . The main result of Moore and Witten is an explicit expression for the generating function $`Z_{DW}`$:

$$Z_{DW}=Z_u+Z_{SW}$$
(2.5)
which consists of two pieces. $`Z_{SW}`$ is the contribution from the moduli space $`M_{SW}`$ of solutions of the SW monopole equations. $`Z_u`$ (the $`u`$-plane integral henceforth) is the integral of a certain modular form over the fundamental domain of the group $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^0(4)`$, that is, over the quotient $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^0(4)H`$, where $`H`$ is the upper half-plane. The explicit form of $`Z_u`$ was derived in  for simply connected four-manifolds, and extended to the non-simply connected case in . $`Z_u`$ is non-vanishing only for manifolds with $`b_2^+=1`$, and provides a simple physical explanation of the failure of topological invariance of the Donaldson invariants on those manifolds .

### 2.2 Donaldson invariants in the non-simply connected case

Most of the computations of Donaldson invariants have focused on simply connected manifolds. The study of the nonsimply connected side was initiated in , and finally a complete description of the invariants was given in . Some additional results were obtained in . The nonsimply connected case presents some new features, mostly when $`b_2^+=1`$. Of particular interest are the Donaldson invariants of product ruled surfaces $`𝐒^2\times \mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$, which as far as I know have not been completely determined from a mathematical point of view. Recall that the invariants depend on the chamber chosen in the Kähler cone. The result gets simpler in the limiting chambers of very small or large volumes for $`𝐒^2`$. We will take a symplectic basis of one cycles in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$, $`\delta _i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},2g`$, and consider the $`\mathrm{Sp}(2g,𝐙)`$-invariant element $`\iota =2_{i=1}^g\delta _i\delta _{i+g}`$. In the limit of small volume for $`𝐒^2`$, the generating functions $`Z_g^{w_2(E)}=D_{𝐒^2\times \mathrm{\Sigma }_g}^{w_2(E)}(\mathrm{e}^{px+r\iota +s\mathrm{\Sigma }_g+t𝐒^2})`$ are given by :

$`Z_g^{w_2(E)=0}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}\left[(h_{\mathrm{}}^2f_2\mathrm{})^1\mathrm{e}^{2pu_{\mathrm{}}+2stT_{\mathrm{}}}\left(2f_1\mathrm{}h_{\mathrm{}}^2s+2r\right)^g\mathrm{coth}\left({\displaystyle \frac{is}{2h_{\mathrm{}}}}\right)\right]_{q^0},`$ (2.6)
$`Z_{g,𝐒^2}^{w_2(E)=[𝐒^2]}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left[(h_{\mathrm{}}^2f_2\mathrm{})^1\mathrm{e}^{2pu_{\mathrm{}}+2stT_{\mathrm{}}}\left(2f_1\mathrm{}h_{\mathrm{}}^2s+2r\right)^g\mathrm{csc}\left({\displaystyle \frac{s}{2h_{\mathrm{}}}}\right)\right]_{q^0},`$ (2.7)
and they vanish for the other choices of Stiefel-Whitney class. For $`g=0`$, one recovers the expressions for $`𝐒^2\times 𝐒^2`$ which were obtained in . The above equations involve the modular forms with $`q`$ -expansions:

$`u_{\mathrm{}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\vartheta _2^4+\vartheta _3^4}{(\vartheta _2\vartheta _3)^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8q^{1/4}}}(1+20q^{1/2}62q+\mathrm{}),`$
$`T_{\mathrm{}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{E_2}{h_{\mathrm{}}^2}}8u_{\mathrm{}}\right)=q^{1/4}(12q^{1/2}+6q+\mathrm{}),`$
$`h_{\mathrm{}}(\tau )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\vartheta _2\vartheta _3=q^{1/8}(1+2q^{1/2}+q+\mathrm{}),`$
$`f_1\mathrm{}(q)={\displaystyle \frac{2E_2+\vartheta _2^4+\vartheta _3^4}{3\vartheta _4^8}}=1+24q^{1/2}+\mathrm{},`$
$`f_2\mathrm{}(q)={\displaystyle \frac{\vartheta _2\vartheta _3}{2\vartheta _4^8}}=q^{1/8}+18q^{5/8}+\mathrm{},`$ (2.8)
and the subscript $`q^0`$ means that one has to extract the $`q^0`$ power in the $`q`$-expansion. The expressions for the other limiting chamber can be found in two ways: since the wall-crossing formula in the nonsimply connected case was obtained in , one can sum to the above expression an infinite number of wall-crossing terms. Alternatively, one can perform a direct evaluation of the $`u`$-plane integral . The Donaldson invariants for the chamber of small volume for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ can also be computed using the structure of the Floer cohomology of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g\times 𝐒^1`$ , and results are in full agreement with the generating functions obtained in the context of the $`u`$-plane.

### 2.3 Extension to gauge group $`SU(N)`$

The Donaldson invariants are usually defined for the gauge group $`SU(2)`$. In principle, one can formally consider invariants of four-manifolds defined from anti-self dual $`SU(N)`$ gauge connections. Although this seems to be pretty difficult from a mathematical point of view, the evaluation of the would-be $`SU(N)`$ Donaldson invariants turns out to be tractable using quantum field theory . The result is simpler for manifolds of simple type and with $`b_2^+>1`$. Not surprisingly, it can be expressed in terms of the cohomology ring of $`X`$ and of SW invariants:

$`\mathrm{e}^{pO(x)+I_2(S)}_{SU(N)}=\alpha _N^\chi \beta _N^\sigma {\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}\omega ^{k(N^21)\chi _h}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda ^I}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{I=1}{\overset{N1}{}}}SW(\lambda ^I)`$
$`\left({\displaystyle \underset{1I<JN1}{}}q_{IJ}^{(\lambda ^I,\lambda ^J)}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[p\omega ^{2k}N+2\omega ^{2k}S^2+2\omega ^k{\displaystyle \underset{I=1}{\overset{N1}{}}}(S,\lambda ^I)\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi I}{N}}\right],`$ (2.9)
where $`\omega =\mathrm{exp}[i\pi /N]`$, $`\chi _h=(\chi +\sigma )/4`$, and $`\chi `$, $`\sigma `$ are the Euler characteristic and the signature of $`X`$, respectively. The $`q_{IJ}`$ are $`\mathrm{exp}\pi i\tau _{IJ}`$, where $`\tau _{IJ}`$, $`IJ`$, are the leading terms of the offdiagonal effective couplings $`\tau _{IJ}`$, which have been computed in . The sum in (2.9) is over basic classes, and $`(,)`$ is the intersection form of $`X`$. Finally, $`\alpha _N`$ and $`\beta _N`$ are universal constants. In the above expression we have only considered $`SU(N)`$ bundles with zero Stiefel-Whitney class. In addition, one can consider additional operators associated to higher Casimirs of the gauge group, that we have not included in (2.9). Notice that the above expression shows that the theory factorizes down to the “magnetic” Cartan torus $`U(1)^{N1}`$, but there is an important mixing measured by the off-diagonal effective couplings.

## 3 Compactification

### 3.1 Down to three dimensions

To make contact with results in three-dimensional topology, one should consider four-manifolds of the form $`X=𝐒^1\times Y`$. Donaldson theory on these manifolds has been explored in . Using results from supersymmetric gauge theory, we would expect the partition function of Donaldson-Witten theory on $`Y\times 𝐒^1`$ for gauge group $`G`$ to agree with the Rozansky-Witten invariant $`Z_{RW}(Y,X_G)`$ , where $`X_G`$ is a hyperKähler manifold. When $`G=SU(2)`$, $`X_{SU(2)}`$ is the Atiyah-Hitchin manifold and the Rozansky-Witten invariant is the Casson-Walker-Lescop invariant $`\lambda _{\mathrm{CWL}}(Y)`$. For $`G=SU(N)`$, $`X_{SU(N)}`$ is the reduced moduli space of $`N`$ monopoles, which is a hyperKähler manifold of dimension $`4(N1)`$.

This expectation can be partially checked. Using (2.9) and the Meng-Taubes theorem , one can prove that, for $`b_1(Y)>1`$

$$Z_{DW}^{SU(N)}(Y\times 𝐒^1)=N^2(\lambda _{\mathrm{CWL}}(Y))^{N1},$$
(3.10)
and the left hand side is in fact (up to an overall constant) $`Z_{RW}(Y,X_{SU(N)})`$, which has been recently computed by Habegger and Thompson . This gives an interesting non-trivial check of (2.9). For $`b_1(Y)=1`$ there are important subtleties in the correspondence with Rozansky-Witten theory, which have been discussed in  when the gauge group is $`SU(2)`$.

### 3.2 Down to two dimensions

The connection to two-dimensional moduli problems appears when one considers product ruled surfaces $`X=𝐒^2\times \mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$. Anti-self dual connections on $`X=𝐒^2\times \mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ with zero instanton number and $`w_2(E)=[𝐒_2]`$ are in one-to-one correspondence with flat connections on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ with odd degree, which form a moduli space $`M_g`$. Donaldson invariants correspond to intersection pairings on $`M_g`$, which were determined by Thaddeus in . The $`\mathrm{Sp}(2g,𝐙)`$-invariant cohomology ring of $`M_g`$ is generated by cohomology classes $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$, of degrees $`2`$, $`4`$ and $`6`$, respectively. The relation between the intersection pairings and the Donaldson invariants of product ruled surfaces is given by:

$$\alpha ^m\beta ^n\gamma ^p_{M_g}=D_{𝐒^2\times \mathrm{\Sigma }_g}^{w_2(E)=[𝐒^2]}((2\mathrm{\Sigma }_g)^m(4x)^n\iota ^p),$$
(3.11)
where the overall minus sign is due to a different choice of orientation. On the other hand, we know the explicit expression for the Donaldson invariants, which is given in (2.7), and we can then rederive some important results about the intersection pairings . The first thing that we can prove is the recursive relation for insertions of $`\gamma `$. One easily sees that

$$\frac{}{r}Z_g^{w_2(E)=[𝐒^2]}=2gZ_{g1}^{w_2(E)=[𝐒^2]},$$
(3.12)
and this implies, using (3.11), that $`\alpha ^m\beta ^n\gamma ^p_{M_g}=2g\alpha ^m\beta ^n\gamma ^{p1}_{M_{g1}}`$, which is precisely Thaddeus’ recursive relation.

We now compute the intersection pairings $`\alpha ^m\beta ^n`$. To do this, we use the expansion:

$$\mathrm{csc}z=\underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^{k+1}(2^{2k}2)B_{2k}\frac{z^{2k1}}{(2k)!},$$
(3.13)
where $`B_{2k}`$ are the Bernoulli numbers. We have to extract now the powers $`s^mp^n`$ from the generating function (2.7). Fortunately, only the leading terms contribute in the $`q`$-expansion of the modular forms. Taking into account the comparison factors from (3.11), and the dimensional constraint $`2m+4n=6g6`$, one finds

$$\alpha ^m\beta ^n=(1)^g\frac{m!}{(mg+1)!}2^{2g2}(2^{mg+1}2)B_{mg+1},$$
(3.14)
which is exactly Thaddeus’ formula for the intersection pairings.

The relation between topological Yang-Mills theory on $`𝐒^2\times \mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ and two-dimensional moduli problems is in fact more interesting, since the Donaldson invariants in the limiting chamber of small volume for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g`$ correspond to the Gromov-Witten invariants of $`M_g`$. We refer the reader to  for results in this direction.

## 4 Critical behavior

### 4.1 Superconformal points

When one considers topological quantum field theories in four dimensions with qualitative new physics, one also finds a completely different kind of predictions from a mathematical point of view. In  we studied a quantum field theory with a critical behavior on a four-manifold $`X`$ of simple type and with $`b_2^+>1`$, namely twisted $`N=2`$ supersymmetric QCD with gauge group $`SU(2)`$ and one massive hypermultiplet with mass $`m`$. It is known  that the low-energy theory becomes superconformal for a certain critical value of the mass $`m_{}`$, and that the quantities that characterize the theory (like the masses of the BPS particles) have a scaling behavior near the critical point. The theory has the same BRST operators than topological Yang-Mills theory, although mathematically it describes equivariant intersection theory on the moduli space of $`SU(2)`$ monopoles (see  for a review). Using the results of  and some additional input, one can compute the analog of the generating function (2.4) for this theory, which now depends on the extra parameter $`m`$. To write the result, we need the family of Seiberg-Witten elliptic curves for the $`N_f=1`$ theory , parameterized by $`(u,m)𝐂^2`$ and given by:

$$y^2=x^2(xu)+2mx1.$$
(4.15)
The curve is easily put into standard form $`y^2=4x^3g_2xg_3`$, with $`g_2(u;m)=\frac{4}{3}(u^26m)`$, $`g_3(u;m)=\frac{1}{27}(8u^372mu+108)`$, and discriminant $`\mathrm{\Delta }(u;m)=g_2^327g_3^2`$. This discriminant is a cubic in $`u`$ and has three roots $`u_j(m)`$, $`j=1,2,3`$. For generic, but fixed, values of $`m`$ one of the periods of (4.15) goes to infinity as $`uu_j`$ while the other period, $`\varpi _j\varpi (u_j(m);m)`$ remains finite, and in fact is given by $`(\varpi _j)^2=g_2/(36g_3)`$. The generating function of the critical theory is given by a sum over the singular fibers of the Weierstrass family (4.15) and over the basic classes of $`X`$:

$`Z(p,S;m)=k{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{g_2^3(u_j(m);m)}{\mathrm{\Delta }^{}(u_j(m);m)}}\right)^{\chi _h}(\varpi _j(m))^{7\chi _hc_1^2}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{x}{}}SW(x)(1)^{(\upsilon ^2+\upsilon x)/2}\mathrm{exp}[2pu_j+S^2T_ji{\displaystyle \frac{(S,x)}{2\varpi _j}}]`$ (4.16)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}=\frac{}{u}\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`T_j=\frac{1}{24}\left((\varpi _j)^28u_j\right)`$, and $`k`$ is a nonvanishing constant, independent of $`p,S,m`$. The topological data of the manifold $`X`$ enter through $`\upsilon `$, which is an integral lifting of $`w_2(X)`$, the basic classes $`x`$ and their SW invariants, and the numerical invariants $`\chi _h`$ and $`c_1^2=2\chi +3\sigma `$.

The critical behavior of this theory is associated to the cusp singularity of (4.15) when $`m_{}=\frac{3}{2}`$, $`u_{}=3`$. Indeed, when $`z=mm_{}0`$, two of the roots of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(u;m)=0`$, call them $`u_\pm (m)`$, coincide, and the period $`\varpi _\pm `$ diverges as $`z^{1/4}`$, while $`g_2(u_\pm (m);m)z`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}(u_\pm (m);m)\delta u_\pm z^{3/2}`$. At the third singularity all the various factors in (4.16) are given by nonvanishing analytic series in $`z`$, but, evidentally, the contributions from $`u_\pm (m)`$ contain factors which are diverging or vanishing as $`z0`$. What can we say about the behavior of the complete function $`Z(p,S,m)`$ as $`z0`$? For physical reasons, we do not expect any divergence in the correlation functions: there are no infrared divergences in spacetime, since $`X`$ is compact, and since the moduli space of vacua is also compact for $`b_2^+>1`$, we do not expect any divergence from the target geometry. In more physical terms, since we are working at finite volume, correlation functions should still be finite near the critical point. This implies that $`Z(p,S,m)`$ must be a regular analytic function of $`z`$ near $`z=0`$.

### 4.2 Mathematical implications

Let’s now see what are the mathematical implications of this fact. We first define the “twisted” Seiberg-Witten series as follows.

$$SW_X^{w_2(X)}(z):=\underset{x}{}(1)^{\frac{\upsilon ^2+\upsilon x}{2}}SW(x)\mathrm{e}^{zx}.$$
(4.17)
This is a finite sum . Notice that a change of lifting changes (4.17) only by a sign. We now make the key definition:

Definition. Let $`X`$ be a compact, oriented 4-manifold of simple type with $`b_2^+>1`$. We say that “$`X`$ is SST” (superconformal simple type) if $`SW_X^{w_2(X)}(z)`$ has a zero at $`z=0`$ of order $`\chi _hc_1^23`$.

One has the following result, whose proof can be found in :

Theorem. If $`X`$ is SST, then $`Z(p,S,m)`$ is regular at $`m=m_{}`$.

It is interesting to notice that, for most of the SST manifolds, the contributions to $`Z(p,S,m)`$ from the colliding singularities $`u_\pm `$ go to infinity separately as $`z0`$, but when we sum the two contributions (and we are forced to do that because the manifold is compact) the infinities cancel and we get a finite result.

All the simple type, four-manifolds we are aware of are in fact SST. Using the definition, one can check that SST manifolds satisfy the following remarkable property, which gives a relation between SW invariants and the problem of geography for four-manifolds:

Theorem (Generalized Noether inequality). Let $`X`$ be SST. If $`X`$ has $`B`$ distinct basic classes and $`B>0`$, then

$$B\left[\frac{\chi _hc_1^2}{2}\right].$$

In particular, $`c_1^2\chi _h2B1`$.

Although being SST is only a sufficient condition for $`Z(p,S,m)`$ to be finite, the analysis of  leads naturally to the following conjecture:

Conjecture. All compact four-manifolds of simple type and with $`b_2^+>1`$ are SST.

In fact, Feehan, Kronheimer, Lenness and Mrowka have proved in  that the above conjecture is true under some mild assumptions, by using the $`PU(2)`$ monopole equations.

## 5 Conclusions and open problems

I think it is fair to say that we have a rather complete understanding of the relation between Donaldson theory and TQFT in four dimensions. There are however a few open problems that deserve investigation, both in physics and in mathematics:

1) There are many predictions from TQFT that should still be checked from the mathematical side, and I think that this is interesting by itself. For example, the results (2.6) and (2.7), as well as the wall-crossing formula of  for nonsimply connected manifolds, may be obtained by generalizing . The extension to $`SU(N)`$ seems still out of reach mathematically, but it would be extremely interesting to check (2.9) in some detail. One can invert the logic and say that (2.9) gives a good reason not to study the $`SU(N)`$ Donaldson invariants, since it shows that these generalizations have the same topological information than the SW invariants!

2) In a different direction, it would be interesting to study the theory for four-manifolds with $`b_2^+=0`$. A motivation to do that would be to shed some four-dimensional light (via compactification on a circle) on the relation between the Casson invariant and the three-dimensional Seiberg-Witten invariant for homology three-spheres.

3) Finally, the twisted counterparts of superconformal field theories in four dimensions certainly deserve closer scrutiny.