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# Crossover phenomenon in self-organized critical sandpile models

## I Introduction

Crossovers between different universality classes are well known from equilibrium phase transitions. Similar crossover phenomena are also known from non-equilibrium systems which exhibit self-organized criticality . For instance the forest-fire model of Drossel and Schwabl  displays a crossover to a percolation like scaling behavior if one introduces an immunity parameter which prevents trees from burning . Another example is the directed Abelian sandpile model of Dhar and Ramaswamy . Introducing a second stochastic toppling condition the system changes to a directed percolation like scaling behavior .

In this paper we investigate a crossover between the stochastic sandpile model introduced by Manna  and the Zhang sandpile model . Following Ben-Hur and Biham  the crossover connects the different universality classes of undirected sandpile models (the energy or sand-grain transfer of the nearest neighbors is isotropic, e.g. the Zhang model) and undirected on average sandpile models (the energy transfer is isotropic on average only, e.g. the Manna model). Considering the Manna model the crossover takes place just by increasing the threshold value which determines the dynamics, i.e., no additional parameter has to be introduced.

In the next section we briefly remind the distinctive characteristics of the Zhang model. These characteristics will allow us in the following to identify the typical Zhang scaling behavior. Then we describe in section III the Manna model for different values of the threshold condition. The crossover behavior between both models is investigated in section IV. A summary closes the paper.

## II The Zhang model

Consider the Zhang model  on a two dimensional square lattice of linear size $`L`$. A continuous value $`E_{\underset{¯}{r}}0`$ representing the energy is associated to each lattice site $`\underset{¯}{r}`$. A configuration $`\{E_{\underset{¯}{r}}\}`$ is stable if $`E_{\underset{¯}{r}}<E_\mathrm{c}`$ for all lattice sites $`\underset{¯}{r}`$. For the sake of simplicity we choose in all simulations $`E_\mathrm{c}=1`$. A quantum of energy $`\delta `$ is added to a randomly chosen lattice site $`\underset{¯}{r}`$, i.e.,

$$E_{\underset{¯}{r}}E_{\underset{¯}{r}}+\delta .$$
(1)
We consider in this work especially the slow driving limit $`\delta E_\mathrm{c}`$. For $`\delta 0`$ all lattice sites grow parallel and the Zhang model corresponds to the conservative limit of the “spring block” model of Christensen and Olami .

In the case that due to the perturbation a site exceeds the critical value $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ an activation event will occur, the unstable site relaxes to zero, and the energy is added to the nearest neighbors, i.e.,

$$E_{\underset{¯}{r}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},$$
(2)
$$E_{\underset{¯}{r},NN}E_{\underset{¯}{r},NN}+\frac{E_{\underset{¯}{r}}}{4}.$$
(3)
The transferred energy may activate the neighboring sites and thus an avalanche of relaxation events may take place. Energy may leave the system only at the boundary. Since the energy of unstable sites is equally transfered to the nearest neighbors it was argued that the Zhang model belongs to the universality class of undirected sandpile models . It was expected that the Zhang model and the well-known Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld (BTW) model  belong to the same universality class. But the scaling behavior of the BTW avalanches is complex and is not understood. Although most authors agree upon a breakdown of simple scaling the interpretation of the numerically obtained data is still controversial among the different groups (see for instance ). However, we use in the following the classification ansatz of  and denote the universality class of the Zhang model as the class of undirected sandpile models.

The avalanches are characterized by several physical properties like the size $`s`$ (number of relaxation events), the area $`a`$ (number of distinct toppled sites), the time $`t`$ (number of parallel updates until the configuration is stable), the radius $`r`$ (radius of gyration), etc. In the critical steady state the corresponding probability distributions should obey power-law behavior

$$P_x(x)x^{\tau _x}$$
(4)
characterized by the avalanche exponents $`\tau _x`$ with $`x\{s,a,t,r\}`$.

The Zhang model was intensively investigated in the last years (see for instance ). A characteristic property of the Zhang model is the concentration of the steady state energy distribution $`p(E)`$ around $`z`$ distinct peaks, where $`z`$ is the number of nearest neighbors of the lattice . The peaks are located at multiples of $`(z+1)/z^2`$ and the height of the peaks diverges in the thermodynamic limit $`L\mathrm{}`$ (see  and references therein). In the case of an infinite lattice the energy distribution is given by

$$p(E)=\underset{i=0}{\overset{z1}{}}f_i\delta (EE_i),$$
(5)
where $`f_i`$ denotes the statistical weight and $`E_i`$ denotes the position of each peak. It was found numerically that the statistical weights are independent of the input energy $`\delta `$ . Thus the statistical weights can be regarded as another fingerprint of the Zhang model.

Analyzing the numerically obtained avalanche distributions \[Eq. (4)\] it was observed that the avalanche exponents of the Zhang model exhibit finite-size corrections according to

$$\tau _x(L)=\tau _x\frac{\mathrm{const}_\mathrm{x}}{L}.$$
(6)
In this case the values of the infinite lattice $`\tau _x`$ are obtained by an extrapolation to $`L\mathrm{}`$. More than the explicit values of the exponents this characteristic system size dependence allows us in the following to identify the Zhang like scaling behavior.

## III The Manna model

A stochastic sandpile model in which integer values represent local energies (or number of sand-grains) was introduced by Manna . Here, unstable sites relax to zero if $`E_𝐫E_\mathrm{c}`$ and the removed energy is randomly distributed to the nearest neighbors in the way that one chooses randomly for each energy unit (one sand-grain) one neighbor. Thus the Manna model is characterized by a stochastic energy transfer and according to  it belongs to the so-called universality class of undirected on average sandpile models.

Due to the reduction of the energy of unstable sites to zero both the Zhang and the Manna model are non-Abelian models , i.e., the stable energy configurations depend on the sequence in which unstable sites are toppled. Recently Dhar introduced an Abelian version of the two-dimensional Manna model where the energy of critical sites is not reduced to zero but $`E_{i,j}E_{i,j}2`$. The energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=2`$ is then equally distributed with probability $`1/2`$ to the sites ($`i\pm 1,j`$) or otherwise to the sites ($`i,j\pm 1`$. In this case it is possible to extend an operator algebra, which was successfully applied in studying the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld model , to this modified Manna model.

In contrast to this analytically tractable Abelian Manna model we consider in this paper the original Manna model ($`E_{\underset{¯}{r}}0`$). Numerous numerical analysis of the Manna model were performed for $`E_\mathrm{c}=2`$ and the values of the exponents are known within some error-bars (see for instance  and references therein). Usually one assumes that the value of the critical energy $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ has no influence on the scaling behavior of the model (see for instance ) and indeed the analysis of the avalanche probability distributions \[Eq. (4)\] for $`E_\mathrm{c}\{2,3,5,10\}`$ reveals that the exponents are independent of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ (see Fig. 1 in ref. ). But as we will see a crossover to a different universality takes place for sufficiently large values of the critical energy.

Consider the Manna model on a lattice with $`z`$ nearest neighbors. Assume that a given site $`\underset{¯}{r}`$ exceeds the critical value, i.e., $`E_{\underset{¯}{r}}E_\mathrm{c}`$. Thus a toppling process takes place and the unstable energy $`E_{\underset{¯}{r}}`$ is randomly distributed to the nearest neighbors. A given neighbor of $`\underset{¯}{r}`$ get $`n`$ energy units and the corresponding probability distribution is

$$P(n,E_{\underset{¯}{r}})=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{E_{\underset{¯}{r}}}{n}\right)p^nq^{E_{\underset{¯}{r}}}$$
(7)
with $`p=1/z`$ and $`q=1p`$. The corresponding expectation value of the energy transfer is $`\mu =pE_{\underset{¯}{r}}`$ and its variance $`\sigma =\sqrt{pqE_{\underset{¯}{r}}}`$. One can therefore distinguish between two regimes: for small values of $`E_{\underset{¯}{r}}`$ the expectation value is of the same order as the variance ($`\mu \sigma `$), i.e., the energy transfer to the nearest neighbors is characterized by strong fluctuations. With increasing unstable energies the fluctuations decreases and they can be neglected if $`\mu \sigma `$ for large values of $`E_\mathrm{r}`$.

Since the value of the unstable energy $`E_{\underset{¯}{r}}`$ is of the same order as the critical energy $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ we introduce the crossover parameter $`K=\sqrt{(z1)/E_\mathrm{c}}`$. As long as the fluctuations are relevant $`K1`$ we expect that the scaling behavior agrees with that of the Manna model for small $`E_\mathrm{c}`$. Increasing the threshold value $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ the fluctuations become irrelevant if $`K1`$. In this case the energy is nearly equally distributed to the nearest neighbors and the model corresponds to the Zhang model in the limit $`\delta E_\mathrm{c}`$. Thus we expect that a crossover from the Manna to the Zhang scaling behavior takes place if one increases the value of the critical energy. The details of this crossover are investigated in the next section.

## IV Crossover behavior

### A Energy distribution and energy correlations

In this subsection we investigate the static properties of the Manna model for various values of the critical energy $`E_\mathrm{c}`$. We show that the crossover affects the distribution of the energies, its scaling behavior as well as the spatial correlations of the energies.

We measured the average energy in the steady state

$$E_L=L^2\underset{i,j}{}E_{i,j}$$
(8)
for various values of $`L`$ and $`E_\mathrm{c}`$. Figure 1 shows the system size dependence of the average energy $`E_L`$ for three different values of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$. For all considered values of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ we observed that the system size dependence of the average energy is given by

$$E_L=E_L\mathrm{}\mathrm{const}/L.$$
(9)
This behavior was already found by Manna for $`E_\mathrm{c}=2`$  and it is also known from the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld model . The origin of this system size dependence are boundary effects. The average energy on the boundary is smaller than the energy in the bulk and the relative number of boundary sites scales as $`L^1`$.

The extrapolation to $`L\mathrm{}`$ yields the average energy of the infinite system size and the obtained values are shown in Fig. 2 as a function of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$. Increasing the critical energy from $`E_\mathrm{c}=2`$ the average energy $`E_L\mathrm{}`$ decreases and reaches a minimum for $`E_\mathrm{c}100`$. Here the behavior changes and the average energy increases with the critical energy. For large values of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ the average energy saturates in the vicinity of the value of the Zhang model. A detail analysis suggests that the dependence of average energy on $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ is given by

$$E_L\mathrm{}=E_{\mathrm{Zhang}}\mathrm{const}/E_\mathrm{c}$$
(10)
for $`E_\mathrm{c}350`$ (see inset of Fig. 2). Since finite values of the critical energy results in finite fluctuations we get from Eq. (10) that the average energy is affected by these fluctuations even for very large values of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$.

After the average value of the energy we consider now the steady state distribution $`p(E)`$ of the energies. In Fig. 3 we plot $`p(E)`$ for various values of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$. With increasing critical energy a peak structure appears with four distinct peaks located at $`E_i=5/16i`$ with $`i=0,1,2,3`$. Thus the positions of the peaks agree with the corresponding values of the Zhang model (see  and reference therein).

A similar analysis on a honeycomb lattice is shown in Fig. 4. Here the probability distribution is characterized by three peaks ($`z=3`$) located at multiples of $`E=4/9`$. Again these values are in agreement with those of the Zhang model.

It is known from the Zhang model that the maxima of the energy distribution $`p(E)`$ increase with the system size and that $`p(E)`$ is characterized by $`z`$ $`\delta `$-peaks for $`L\mathrm{}`$ . Therefore we measured the probability distribution $`p(E)`$ for a large but fixed critical energy ($`E_\mathrm{c}=10^4`$) and for various system sizes. In Fig. 5 we present the rescaled distribution $`L^yp(E)`$ as a function of $`L^y(EE_i)`$ around the first peak at $`E_1=5/16`$. The resulting data collapse shows that similar to the pure Zhang model the peak diverges for $`L\mathrm{}`$. But in contrast to the pure Zhang model where the finite-size behavior of $`p(E)`$ is characterized by an exponent $`y0.6`$  we get for $`E_\mathrm{c}=10^4`$ the significant different value $`y=0.27\pm 0.1`$. Similar results are obtained for the second and third peak (not shown). Further investigations have to show if the finite-size scaling exponent $`y`$ depends on $`E_\mathrm{c}`$, i.e., if $`y`$ tends to $`0.6`$ for $`E_\mathrm{c}\mathrm{}`$.

But nevertheless the finite-size scaling analysis of the probability distribution yields that $`p(E)`$ is characterized by four $`\delta `$-peaks \[Eq. (5)\] and one can compare the statistical weight $`f_i`$ of each peak with the values of the pure Zhang model. Therefore we divided the interval $`[0,E_\mathrm{c}]`$ in four parts and measured in each part the area under the curve $`p(E)`$ for various system sizes. The values of $`f_0`$ and $`f_2`$ are shown in the inset of Fig. 5 as a function of the inverse system size. The same system size dependence was observed for the pure Zhang model . The extrapolation to $`L\mathrm{}`$ yields the statistical weights $`f_i`$ and the obtained values agree with those of the Zhang model (see vertical axis of the inset of Fig. 5).

Finally we consider in this section the energy correlations in the steady state. The correlation function is defined as

$$C(\underset{¯}{r})=\frac{E_{\underset{¯}{r}^{}}E_{\underset{¯}{r}^{}+\underset{¯}{r}}E_{\underset{¯}{r}^{}}E_{\underset{¯}{r}^{}+\underset{¯}{r}}}{(E_\mathrm{c}1)^2}.$$
(11)
In Fig. 6 we plot $`C(r)`$ along the symmetry axis of the square lattice. Starting from the autocorrelation peaks at $`r=0`$ the energies of neighboring sites ($`r=1`$) display an anti-correlated behavior. This is caused by the toppling events and is an typical property of sandpile models where the energy of instable sites is reduced to zero. In the inset of Fig. 6 we plot the energy correlations for the distance $`r=2`$ as a function of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ and $`K`$, respectively. For small values of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ we get negative correlations which increases with the critical energy. In the surrounding of $`K^{}0.15`$ the behavior changes from an anti-correlated behavior ($`C<0`$) to a correlated behavior ($`C>0`$). Positive correlations between sites of the same sublattice ($`r=2`$) are a typical feature of sandpile models with an isotropic energy transfer to the nearest neighbors. Thus positive correlations within a sublattice indicate a Zhang like behavior whereas negative correlations are a characteristic of the Manna model. The analysis of the avalanche distributions in the next subsection reveals that the model exhibits the typical Manna scaling behavior (for $`E_\mathrm{c}=2`$) as long as the energies are anti-correlated, i.e., the scaling behavior changes above the value $`K^{}`$.

### B Avalanche distributions

In the following we consider the avalanche distributions \[Eq. (4)\] and examine the behavior of the corresponding exponents $`\tau _x`$ as a function of the critical energy. Using the reported values of the exponents of the Zhang and Manna (for $`E_\mathrm{c}=2`$) model  we expect that the difference is nearly $`\%1`$ for the size exponent $`\tau _s`$, less than $`\%2`$ for $`\tau _a`$, and nearly $`\%5`$ for the radius exponent $`\tau _r`$. In the case of the duration exponent it seems that both models are characterized by the value $`\tau _t3/2`$. In the following we analysis the size and radius exponents. The exponents are obtained from a regression analysis of the corresponding probability distribution.

In Fig. 7 we plot the exponent $`\tau _r`$ for different values of the system size $`L`$ and different critical energies $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ (see also Table I). One can distinguish between three regimes: for small values of the critical energy ($`E_\mathrm{c}100`$) the exponents are independent of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ and display no significant system size dependence. This is the regime of the Manna universality class and the obtained results agree with the observed universal behavior for $`E_\mathrm{c}10`$ in .

For large values of the critical energy ($`E_\mathrm{c}5000`$) another regime occurs where the exponents are nearly independent of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ but display a significant system size dependence. These system size dependence agrees with the observed $`L`$-dependence of the Zhang model \[Eq. (6)\]. Thus we recover the third fingerprint of the Zhang model for sufficiently large values of $`E_\mathrm{c}`$. We call this regime in the following the Zhang regime. Between the Manna and the Zhang regime we find a third transient regime where the exponents depend strongly on the critical energy and on the system size.

The avalanche size exponent $`\tau _s`$ displays a similar behavior (see Fig. 8 and Table II). Again the Manna regime is characterized by independent exponents. Approaching a certain value ($`E_\mathrm{c}100`$) the exponent depends strongly on $`E_\mathrm{c}`$ in the transient regime. In the third regime ($`E_\mathrm{c}5000`$) we observe the characteristic Zhang system size dependence. Thus we see that the scaling behavior corresponds to that of the Zhang model for large but finite values of the energy threshold $`E_\mathrm{c}`$. This means that adding stochasticity to the toppling rules of the Zhang model does not force a change of the universality class in all cases. Only a sufficiently large stochasticity is relevant, otherwise it is irrelevant and the scaling behavior is unchanged.

Considering the behavior of the exponents $`\tau _s`$ and $`\tau _r`$ in the transient regime it seems that the exponents increase with the system size. Especially the ”over-shooting” effect decreases with increasing $`L`$ and usually one would expect that this regime disappears for $`L\mathrm{}`$. Unfortunately it is impossible to conclude from the numerical results whether the transient regime still exist in the thermodynamic limit. Further investigations are needed to answer this question seriously.

In the last figure we plot the size exponent $`\tau _s`$ for two different lattice types as a function of the crossover parameter $`K`$. As one can see both curves display the same behavior, i.e., the transition from the Manna regime to the transient regime takes place at $`K^{}0.2`$ independent of the lattice type. This value is in agreement with the value $`K^{}0.15`$ obtained from the analysis of the correlation function, i.e., the change of the scaling behavior coincides with the change from negative to positive correlations $`C(r=2)`$. Thus we conclude that the Manna scaling behavior is strongly connected to the anti-correlations between next nearest neighbors.

## V Summary

We investigated the scaling behavior of the Manna model as a function of the threshold condition. Increasing the value of the critical energy a crossover takes place from the universality class where the energy transfer is undirected on average to the universality class of an isotropic energy transfer (Zhang model). For sufficiently large thresholds all characteristic of the Zhang model could be recovered, namely the quantization of the energy values in the steady state, the statistical weights of the energy quantums in the thermodynamic limit and the observed system size dependence of the avalanche exponents. Our analysis suggests that the scaling behavior of the stochastic sandpile model is connected to the negative correlations between next nearest lattice sites.

I would like to thank A. Hucht for useful discussions.


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# Contents

## 1 Introduction and summary

It has recently been realized that Sen’s conjectures on tachyon condensation and D-brane annihilation  can be studied quite effectively using string field theory (SFT) . With strong evidence now available to the physical correctness of the conjectures, we also have the opportunity to use tachyon dynamics to refine our understanding of string field theory. While the level expansion studies of the bosonic D-brane tachyon potential find with high accuracy the requisite critical point, an analytic solution, showing conclusively the existence of this critical point is still lacking. Such solution for the tachyon condensate would surely teach us a lot about the nature of the string field equations and would help finding many other interesting solutions.

One way to make progress with this question is to develop techniques to deal with the full string field equations. These techniques would presumably use the universality of the tachyon potential  thus requiring methods where various Virasoro algebras play a central role, as in . Another line of investigation is to use toy models and/or simplified models of the tachyon condensation phenomenon. Particularly interesting have been a study in the framework of $`p`$-adic open string theory  and papers where non-commutativity is added via a magnetic field on the D-brane .

In this paper we develop a toy model which captures a different aspect of the problem: the decay of a lump as seen by the field theory of the lump itself. Bosonic D-branes are lump solutions of string field theory. The field theory on a D-brane itself is indeed a string field theory, and contains a multiscalar tachyon potential. In finding the critical point of this string field potential we are indeed exploring the decay of a lump from the viewpoint of the field theory living on the world-volume of the lump.

We begin with the simple $`\varphi ^3`$ theory, which is the truncation of open SFT to the tachyon field only. As analyzed numerically in  this field theory has a codimension one lump solution that provides a first approximation to the codimension one brane of string theory. Additionally, being an unstable lump, the field theory living on the lump has again a tachyon with an estimated $`m^21.3`$ . In fact, the exact lump profile in $`\varphi ^3`$ theory is readily written in terms of hyperbolic functions. More surprising, however, is that the Schroedinger type equation for fluctuations that determines the spectrum of the field theory on the lump is exactly solvable. The associated Schroedinger potential is actually the $`l=3`$ case of the infinite series of exactly solvable reflectionless potentials:222I am grateful to Jeffrey Goldstone for providing this identification, and teaching me how to solve elegantly for the spectrum of such hamiltonians. For a pedagogical review on these and other solvable Hamiltonians with references to the early literature see . Applications of reflectionless systems to fermions can be found in . $`U_{\mathrm{}}(x)=\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)\text{sech}^2x`$. In fact, it is known that the fluctuation spectrum of the sine-Gordon soliton is governed by the $`\mathrm{}=1`$ potential and the the spectrum of the $`\varphi ^4`$ kink solution is governed by the $`\mathrm{}=2`$ potential . In both cases the field theory on the soliton has no tachyon since the soliton is stable. If one tries to associate the $`\mathrm{}=3`$ potential to a stable soliton the result is a very strange field theory potential with branch cuts . Apparently $`U_3`$ was not know to be relevant to the unstable lump of the very simple $`\varphi ^3`$ theory.

This solvability allows us to find the complete field content of the $`\varphi ^3`$ lump field theory. This includes a tachyon with $`m^2=5/4`$, a massless scalar, a massive scalar with $`m^2=3/4`$, and a continuum spectrum of scalar fields with $`m^21`$. Given that we know the analytic expressions for the fluctuation eigenfunctions, the exact cubic multiscalar field theory living on the lump can be calculated exactly.

We then make the following claim: The multiscalar tachyon potential of the unstable lump field theory must have a critical point with a negative energy density equal to the energy density of the lump itself. Indeed, the field theory of the lump describes the fluctuations of the lump, and one possible fluctuation of the unstable lump is the no-lump configuration. Being a critical point in field space with zero energy density, this configuration must appear as a lower energy state of the lump field theory. This remark shows that the critical point of the tachyon field theory of the lump is easily found. Let $`\overline{\varphi }(x)`$ represent the profile of the lump itself and let $`\varphi _0`$ denote the expectation value of the field at the zero energy vacuum, with $`lim_{x\pm \mathrm{}}\overline{\varphi }(x)=\varphi _0`$. In addition, let the fluctuation fields around the lump be written as $`_n\varphi _n\psi _n(x)`$ where the $`\psi _n(x)`$’s are the eigenfunctions of the Schroedinger problem and the $`\varphi _n`$’s are the fields living on the lump. Then the critical point of the tachyon potential is defined by the equation: $`\varphi _0\overline{\varphi }(x)=_n\varphi _n\psi _n(x)`$ which fixes the $`\varphi _n`$’s. Namely, the expectation values for the lump fields at the tachyonic vacuum are given as the expansion coefficients of minus the lump profile in terms of the eigenfunctions of the lump fluctuation equations.

Equipped with both a level expansion approach to the multiscalar potential and the exact solution for the tachyon condensate, we explore the convergence of the level expansion in this model and find the large level behavior of the expectation values of fields representing the condensate. We are also able to track explicitly the masses of the tachyon and other fields as the lump goes through the annihilation process. The tachyon and other fields on the lump flow and join eventually the continuum spectrum of states associated to the massive field defined on the locally stable vacuum of the $`\varphi ^3`$ model. These results are consistent with the discussion of ref.  of the annihilation of a kink and an anti-kink of $`\varphi ^4`$ field theory.

Our study of the toy model gives a plausible resolution to the puzzles found by Sen and the author  concerning the definition of marginal fields in string field theory. While conformal field theory marginal parameters are naturally defined over infinite ranges, it was found that the effective potential for the string field marginal parameter fails to exist beyond a critical value. This appeared to mean that either SFT compresses the CFT moduli into a compact domain, or that SFT does not cover all of CFT moduli space. By studying the toy model we are led to propose that the map from the CFT marginal moduli to SFT marginal moduli is actually two to one; as the CFT parameter parameter grows from zero to infinity the SFT parameter grows from zero to a maximum value and then decreases back to zero! On the way back, a different solution branch for high level fields must be chosen. This behavior is borne out by the analysis of how the massless state in the lump, whose wavefunction is the derivative of the profile, implements translations of the lump. Indeed, even for large translations the expectation value for this massless state is always bounded.

This paper is organized as follows. The lump solution and the spectrum is presented in section 2. The multiscalar potential for the fields living on the brane is computed in section 3. A detailed analysis of the tachyon condensation and the removal of the lump states by the condensation process is given in section 4. The puzzle of marginal parameters is analyzed in section 5, along with a suggestion for a solution branch describing large marginal deformations. This paper concludes in section 6 with a discussion of the results.

## 2 The $`\varphi ^\mathrm{𝟑}`$ Lump and its fluctuation spectrum

In this section we will consider $`\varphi ^3`$ scalar field theory and find the exact lump profile as well as the exact lump energy. We then turn to the fluctuations around the lump solution, identifying the resulting Schroedinger like equation. This Schroedinger equation turns out to be solvable, both for the discrete and continuum spectrum. We give the explicit energy eigenfunctions thus identifying the spectrum of the field theory living on the lump worldvolume.

### 2.1 The lump solution

We begin with the $`\varphi ^3`$ scalar field theory in $`p+2`$ space-time dimensions with action

$$S=𝑑td^py𝑑x\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\varphi }{t}\right)^2\frac{1}{2}_\stackrel{}{y}\varphi _\stackrel{}{y}\varphi \frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\varphi }{x}\right)^2V(\varphi )\right],$$
(2.1)
where we have separated out the $`x`$ coordinate, to be used to produce the lump solution. The resulting lump will therefore represent a $`p`$ brane, with $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ denoting the $`p`$ spatial coordinates of the brane worldvolume. In the action above, the potential will be taken to be:

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{1}{3\varphi _{}}(\varphi \varphi _{})^2(\varphi +\frac{\varphi _{}}{2})=\frac{1}{2}\varphi ^2+\frac{1}{3\varphi _{}}\varphi ^3+\frac{\varphi _{}^2}{6}.$$
(2.2)
This is a generic $`\varphi ^3`$ potential, it has a local maximum and a local minimum rather than an inflection point. The local maximum is at $`\varphi =0`$, where we have a tachyon of $`m^2=1`$ (this particular value can be thought as a choice of units). The local minimum is at $`\varphi =\varphi _{}`$, where we have a scalar particle of $`m^2=+1`$ (this equality of squared masses up to a sign, is generic). The open string field theory action, truncated to the tachyon and with $`\alpha ^{}=1`$, is given as $`S/g_0^2`$, where $`g_0`$ is the open string coupling constant, and $`S`$ is the above action with $`p=24`$ and $`\varphi _{}=1/K^3`$ with $`K=3\sqrt{3}/4`$. By rescaling the field variable as $`\varphi \varphi _{}\varphi `$, the action and potential can be simply written as

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`(\varphi _{})^2{\displaystyle d^{p+1}y𝑑x\left[\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi \frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\varphi }{x}\right)^2V(\varphi )\right]},`$ (2.3)
$`V(\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(\varphi 1)^2\left(\varphi +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\varphi ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\varphi ^3,`$ (2.5)
where $`\varphi _{}`$ appears now as an overall multiplicative constant in the action, and therefore, it does not appear in the equations of motion. All energies will be measured in units of $`(\varphi _{})^2`$, which, for the purposes of the present paper will be set to unity. In the above equation we have defined $`y^\mu =(t,\stackrel{}{y})`$ with metric $`(,+,+,\mathrm{}+)`$. The potential is shown in Fig. 1.

In the lump solution $`\overline{\varphi }(x)`$, as $`x\pm \mathrm{}`$ we must have $`\overline{\varphi }(x)1`$, which corresponds to the locally stable vacuum. Given the familiar mechanical analogy of motion on the potential $`(V)`$, we will find that $`\overline{\varphi }`$ will vary from $`+1`$ down to $`(1/2)`$ and back to $`+1`$ as $`x`$ goes from minus to plus infinity. For symmetry, we take $`\overline{\varphi }(x=0)=1/2`$. The equation one must solve is:

$$\frac{d^2\overline{\varphi }}{dx^2}V^{}(\overline{\varphi })=0\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\overline{\varphi }}{dx}\right)^2=V(\overline{\varphi })x=_{1/2}^{\overline{\varphi }}\frac{d\varphi ^{}}{\sqrt{2V(\varphi ^{})}}.$$
(2.6)
With the potential in (2.3), the above integral is elementary333This is because two of the three possible zeroes in $`V(\varphi )`$ coincide. If the lump was placed on a circle of finite radius, the relevant potential would have three different zeroes, and the integral would be expressed in terms of complete elliptic functions. and gives the profile:

$$\overline{\varphi }(x)=1\frac{3}{2}\text{sech}^2\left(\frac{x}{2}\right),$$
(2.7)
whose plot is shown in Fig. 2. We record, in passing, that

$$V^{\prime \prime }(\overline{\varphi })=13\text{sech}^2\left(\frac{x}{2}\right).$$
(2.8)
We now expand the action (2.3) around the lump solution by letting $`\varphi \overline{\varphi }+\varphi `$, where, with a little abuse of notation we now use $`\varphi `$ to denote the fluctuation field around the lump. We find (recall we have set $`\varphi _{}=1`$)

$`S={\displaystyle d^{p+1}y𝑑x\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\overline{\varphi }}{dx}\right)^2V(\overline{\varphi })\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi \frac{1}{2}\varphi \left(\frac{^2\varphi }{x^2}+V^{\prime \prime }(\overline{\varphi })\varphi \right)\frac{1}{3}\varphi ^3\right]}.`$ (2.9)
The first two terms of this action give (minus) the energy density of the $`p`$-brane defined by the lump solution. Indeed, the total energy $`E`$ is given by

$$E=d^p\stackrel{}{y}dx[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\overline{\varphi }}{dx}\right)^2+V(\overline{\varphi })]=(\text{Vol}_y)dx\left(\frac{d\overline{\varphi }}{dx}\right)^2,$$
(2.10)
and performing the last integral one finds

$$T_p=\frac{E}{(\text{Vol}_y)}=\frac{6}{5},$$
(2.11)
for the tension of the $`p`$-brane. Given that the original $`\varphi ^3`$ theory around the unstable vacuum $`\varphi =0`$ is supposed to represent the space-filling ($`p+1`$)-brane, we have $`T_{p+1}=V(\varphi =0)=1/6`$. Therefore

$$\frac{1}{2\pi }\frac{T_p}{T_{p+1}}=\frac{18}{5\pi }1.146,$$
(2.12)
a ratio that in string theory takes the value of unity444In  the exact value of the string theory brane tension $`T_p`$ is compared to the value $`T_p^{\mathrm{}}`$ obtained with the lump arising from the tachyon truncation of the string action. For this ratio we obtain the exact value $`T_p^{\mathrm{}}/T_p=\frac{8192\pi }{32805}0.7845`$, in agreement with the numerical estimate in..

The fluctuations on the brane require an analysis of the quadratic terms in (2.9). For this we consider the Schroedinger type eigenvalue equation

$$\frac{d^2\psi _n}{dx^2}+V^{\prime \prime }(\overline{\varphi }(x))\psi _n(x)=M_n^2\psi _n(x).$$
(2.13)
The relevance of this equation is that expanding the fluctuation field $`\varphi (y,x)`$ as

$$\varphi (y,x)=\underset{n}{}\xi _n(y)\psi _n(x),$$
(2.14)
and substituting back in (2.9), the fields $`\xi _n(y)`$ living on the lump would be seen to have mass squared $`M_n^2`$ (this analysis will be done in section 3). Using the expression for $`V^{\prime \prime }(\overline{\varphi })`$ in (2.8) we have

$$\frac{d^2\psi _n}{dx^2}+\left(13\text{sech}^2\left(\frac{x}{2}\right)\right)\psi _n(x)=M_n^2\psi _n(x).$$
(2.15)
Letting $`x2u`$ this equation is written as

$$\frac{d^2\psi _n}{du^2}+\left(912\text{sech}^2u\right)\psi _n(u)=(4M_n^2+5)\psi _n(u),x2u.$$
(2.16)
This equation is the $`\mathrm{}=3`$ case of the following Schroedinger problem

$$\frac{d^2\psi _n}{du^2}+\left(\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)\text{sech}^2u\right)\psi _n(u)=E_n(\mathrm{})\psi _n(u).$$
(2.17)
We now turn to the solution of this eigenvalue equation.

### 2.2 $`\mathrm{}=3`$ wavefunctions and lump spectrum

The eigenvalue equation (2.17) is readily solvable in terms of special functions. Indeed, it is a textbook case (see, for example , section 23, problem 5) where the wavefunctions can be written in terms of associated Legendre polynomials when $`\mathrm{}`$ is an integer, and in terms of hypergeometric functions when it is not. The solution to be presented here (which I learned from J. Goldstone) uses methods explained in generality in . One introduces a set of operators

$$a_{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{}\mathrm{tanh}u+\frac{d}{du},a_{\mathrm{}}^{}=\mathrm{}\mathrm{tanh}x\frac{d}{du},$$
(2.18)
and verifies that

$$H_{\mathrm{}}\frac{d^2}{du^2}+\left(\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)\text{sech}^2u\right)=a_{\mathrm{}}^{}a_{\mathrm{}}.$$
(2.19)
In addition, one readily confirms that:

$$H_\mathrm{}1=a_{\mathrm{}}a_{\mathrm{}}^{}(2\mathrm{}1).$$
(2.20)
The equation we must solve is:

$$H_{\mathrm{}}\psi _n^{(\mathrm{})}(u)=E_n^{(\mathrm{})}\psi _n^{(\mathrm{})}(u),$$
(2.21)
for the various eigenfunctions labelled by $`n`$, with $`n=0`$ denoting the ground state. The ground state wavefunction $`\psi _0^{(\mathrm{})}(u)`$ is found from the condition

$$a_{\mathrm{}}\psi _0^{(\mathrm{})}(u)=0\psi _0^{(\mathrm{})}(u)=N_0(\mathrm{})\text{sech}^{\mathrm{}}u.$$
(2.22)
The normalization of this wavefunction follows from the relations

$$I_{\mathrm{}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑u\text{sech}^{\mathrm{}}u,I_{\mathrm{}+2}=\frac{\mathrm{}}{\mathrm{}+1}I_{\mathrm{}},I_1=\pi ,I_2=2.$$
(2.23)
Thus, for example, for our $`\mathrm{}=3`$ case of interest, we have

$$\psi _0^{(3)}(u)=\sqrt{\frac{15}{16}}\text{sech}^3u,E_0^{(3)}=0.$$
(2.24)
To find the other wavefunctions, we use another feature of the hamiltonians $`H_{\mathrm{}}`$: each $`H_\mathrm{}1`$ eigenfunction provides an $`H_{\mathrm{}}`$ eigenfunction. Indeed, one readily verifies that

$$H_\mathrm{}1\psi =E^{(\mathrm{}1)}\psi H_{\mathrm{}}(a_{\mathrm{}}^{}\psi )=(E^{(\mathrm{}1)}+2\mathrm{}1)(a_{\mathrm{}}^{}\psi )E^{(\mathrm{})}(a_{\mathrm{}}^{}\psi ).$$
(2.25)
Applying this for $`\mathrm{}=3`$, the ground state $`\psi _0^{(2)}\text{sech}^2u`$ of $`H_2`$ is used to find

$$\psi _1^{(3)}a_3^{}\psi _0^{(2)}\mathrm{tanh}u\text{sech}^2u,$$
(2.26)
which upon normalization yields

$$\psi _1^{(3)}(u)=\sqrt{\frac{15}{4}}\mathrm{tanh}u\text{sech}^2u,E_1^{(3)}=5.$$
(2.27)
Similarly, the ground state $`\psi _0^{(1)}\text{sech}u`$ of $`H_1`$ can be used to find, after two steps:

$$\psi _2^{(3)}(u)=\sqrt{\frac{3}{16}}\left(5\text{sech}^3u4\text{sech}u\right),E_2^{(3)}=8.$$
(2.28)
The three states above are the only bound states. Their wave-functions are orthonormal, $`\psi _0^{(3)}`$ and $`\psi _2^{(3)}`$ are $`u`$ even and $`\psi _1^{(3)}`$ is $`u`$ odd. In addition to these bound states, we have a continuum of $`\delta `$-function normalizable eigenfunctions. These can be found analogously starting with the $`\delta `$-function normalizable continuum $`e^{iku}`$ of $`H_0=\frac{d}{du^2}`$. We therefore have

$$\psi _k^{(3)}(u)=\frac{1}{N(k)}a_3^{}a_2^{}a_1^{}e^{iku},N(k)=\sqrt{(1+k^2)(4+k^2)(9+k^2)},E_k=9+k^2,$$
(2.29)
satisfying the orthonormality condition

$$𝑑u(\psi _k^{}^{(3)}(u))^{}\psi _k^{(3)}(u)=2\pi \delta (kk^{}).$$
(2.30)
More explicitly, we have

$$\psi _k^{(3)}(u)=\frac{1}{N(k)}e^{iku}\left[\mathrm{tanh}u\left(66k^215\text{sech}^2u\right)+ik\left(k^211+15\text{sech}^2u\right)\right].$$
(2.31)
The state at $`k=0`$ is $`u`$ odd, and while it is only $`\delta `$-function normalizable, the wavefunction approaches a constant at infinity. It should be thought as a bound-state at threshold. It will play no special role in our discussion.

Having found all the relevant wavefunctions, we now summarize them and use them to provide the explicit solutions of our original equation (2.16). For this we use $`x`$ rather than $`u`$, and give the corresponding mass squared values $`M_n^2`$ via the relation $`E_n=4M_n^2+5`$. We also drop the $`\mathrm{}=3`$ index, and use different symbols to denote $`x`$-even as opposed to $`x`$-odd wavefunctions:

$`\xi _0(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{15}{32}}}\text{sech}^3\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{2}}\right),M^2={\displaystyle \frac{5}{4}},`$ (2.32)
$`\eta _0(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{15}{8}}}\mathrm{tanh}({\displaystyle \frac{x}{2}})\text{sech}^2({\displaystyle \frac{x}{2}}),M^2=0,`$ (2.34)
$`\xi _1(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}}\left(5\text{sech}^3({\displaystyle \frac{x}{2}})4\text{sech}({\displaystyle \frac{x}{2}})\right),M^2={\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}.`$ (2.36)
We have one tachyon, one massless scalar and one massive scalar. While the original tachyon in the $`\varphi ^3`$ theory had $`m^2=1`$, the tachyon living on the lump worldvolume has a larger mass $`m^2=5/4`$. In string theory both tachyons have the same mass. For the continuum, from (2.29) and (2.31), we introduce:

$$\mathrm{\Xi }_k(x)=\frac{e^{ikx/2}}{\sqrt{2}N(k)}\left[\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{x}{2})\left(66k^215\text{sech}^2(\frac{x}{2})\right)+ik\left(k^211+15\text{sech}^2(\frac{x}{2})\right)\right],$$
(2.37)
with mass squared given by

$$M_k^2=1+\frac{k^2}{4}.$$
(2.38)
The wavefunctions $`\mathrm{\Xi }_k(x)`$ satisfy the reality and orthogonality properties

$$\mathrm{\Xi }_k^{}(x)=\mathrm{\Xi }_k(x),𝑑x\mathrm{\Xi }_k^{}^{}(x)\mathrm{\Xi }_k(x)=2\pi \delta (kk^{}).$$
(2.39)
We introduce real and imaginary parts

$$\mathrm{\Xi }_k(x)\eta _k(x)+i\xi _k(x),$$
(2.40)
where

$$\eta _k=\eta _k,\xi _k=\xi _k,\text{and}\eta _k(x)=\eta _k(x),\xi _k(x)=\xi _k(x).$$
(2.41)
The wavefunctions $`\xi _k`$ and $`\eta _k`$ are associated with a continuum of scalar fields with mass squared greater than or equal to one.

## 3 The action living on the $`\varphi ^\mathrm{𝟑}`$ lump

In order to find the complete field theory living on the worldvolume of the lump we must expand the fluctuating field $`\varphi `$ in terms of lump fields and lump wavefunctions, and substitute back into the action given in (2.9).

We begin by expanding the fluctuating field (as suggested in (2.14)) using the notation introduced above. This gives

$$\varphi (y,x)=\varphi _0(y)\xi _0(x)+\psi _0(y)\eta _0(x)+\varphi _1(y)\xi _1(x)+_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑k\mathrm{\Phi }_k(y)\mathrm{\Xi }_k(x).$$
(3.1)
Here $`\varphi _0`$ is the tachyon, $`\psi _0`$ is the massless scalar and $`\varphi _1`$ is the massive scalar, all living on the lump worldvolume. Reality of $`\varphi (x,y)`$, on account of (2.39), requires that

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_k^{}(y)=\mathrm{\Phi }_k(y)\mathrm{\Phi }_k(y)\psi _k(y)+i\varphi _k(y),\text{with}\varphi _k=\varphi _k,\psi _k=\psi _k.$$
(3.2)
We will focus our attention on the exact potential for the fields living on the lump. For this, it suffices to consider the part of the action in (2.9) that includes the last two terms:

$$V=d^{p+1}y\left[𝑑x\left\{\frac{1}{2}\varphi \left(\frac{d^2\varphi }{dx^2}+V^{\prime \prime }(\overline{\varphi })\varphi \right)+\frac{1}{3}\varphi ^3\right\}\right].$$
(3.3)
In order to find the potential for the standard fields (as opposed to the continuum fields) we must simply substitute $`\varphi =\varphi _0\xi _0(x)+\psi _0\eta _0(x)+\varphi _1\xi _1(x)`$ into the above, and perform the integral over $`x`$. The resulting potential takes the form $`V=d^{p+1}yV_{dis}`$, with

$`V_{dis}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{8}}\varphi _0^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}\varphi _1^2`$ (3.8)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{175}{8192}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{15}{2}}}\pi \varphi _0^3+{\displaystyle \frac{225}{8192}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\pi \varphi _0^2\varphi _1+{\displaystyle \frac{129}{8192}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{15}{2}}}\pi \varphi _0\varphi _1^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{201}{8192}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\pi \varphi _1^3+\left({\displaystyle \frac{75}{2048}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{15}{2}}}\pi \varphi _0{\displaystyle \frac{105}{2048}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\pi \varphi _1\right)\psi _0^2.`$
Note the masslessness of $`\psi _0`$, expected as it represents the translation mode of the lump.

For the continuum states we can also determine the potential. We focus on the quadratic terms only. Making use of (2.38), (2.39), and (2.40), and writing $`V=d^{p+1}yV_{cont}^{(2)}`$, we find

$`V_{cont}^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑k^{}\mathrm{\Phi }_k^{}(y)\mathrm{\Xi }_k^{}^{}(x)\left[\frac{d^2}{dx^2}+V^{\prime \prime }(\overline{\varphi })\right]_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑k\mathrm{\Phi }_k(y)\mathrm{\Xi }_k(x)}`$ (3.9)
$`=`$ $`\pi {\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\mathrm{\Phi }_k(y)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{4}}\right)\mathrm{\Phi }_k(y)`$ (3.11)
$`=`$ $`2\pi {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k\left[\varphi _k^2+\psi _k^2\right]\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{4}}\right).`$ (3.13)
We can calculate all other interaction terms involving both discrete and continuum fields, as well as continuum fields only. Since our analysis will not make use of all of such terms and the expressions are considerably lengthy we will not attempt to record their explicit forms.

## 4 Analysis of tachyon condensation

In this section we begin by studying the decay of the lump with a level expansion analysis of the multiscalar tachyon potential. This is, to date, the only tool available in SFT. We then turn to an exact analysis, based on the fact that the vacuum state represents a well defined fluctuation of the lump profile. Finally, we discuss the flow of the masses of various states, including the tachyon, as the lump decays away.

### 4.1 Analysis in the level expansion

As is customary we will assign level zero to the tachyon field $`\varphi _0`$. Our first approximation to the condensation problem is to work at level zero, where we have the mass term and the cubic interaction of the tachyon $`\varphi _0`$ (see (3.8)):

$$V^{(0)}(\varphi _0)=\frac{5}{8}\varphi _0^2+\frac{175}{8192}\sqrt{\frac{15}{2}}\pi \varphi _0^3.$$
(4.1)
The nontrivial critical point is at

$$\overline{\varphi }_0=\frac{2048}{105\pi }\sqrt{\frac{2}{15}}2.26705,$$
(4.2)
giving us

$$V^{(0)}(\overline{\varphi }_0)=\frac{1048576}{99225\pi ^2}1.07073.$$
(4.3)
The absolute value of this result is our first approximation to the tension of the lump, given in (2.11). Thus forming the ratio, whose exact value should be unity, we find

$$\frac{|V^{(0)}(\overline{\varphi }_0)|}{T_p}=\frac{524288}{59535\pi ^2}0.89227.$$
(4.4)
which at about 90%, is surprisingly close to the expected answer (in bosonic string theory this first approximation gives about 70% of the vacuum energy ).

To continue, recall that twist odd states play no role in tachyon condensation to the stable vacuum in open string theory. For completely analogous reason, states that arise from wavefunctions that are odd under $`xx`$, such as $`\psi _0`$, will not acquire expectation values. So we can restrict ourselves to $`\varphi _0`$ and $`\varphi _1`$. Since the mass squared of $`\varphi _1`$ is $`3/4`$ and that of $`\varphi _0`$ is $`(5/4)`$, the field $`\varphi _1`$ must be assigned level two ($`=3/4(5/4)`$).

We can therefore work out the (2,4) approximation (fields up to level two, and interactions up to level 4). This includes all terms involving $`\varphi _0`$ and $`\varphi _1`$ except for the term cubic in $`\varphi _1`$. This time we find

$$\text{Level (2,4)}:\overline{\varphi }_02.41575,\overline{\varphi }_10.43908,$$
(4.5)
giving us

$$V^{(2,4)}(\overline{\varphi })1.1917\frac{|V^{(2,4)}(\overline{\varphi })|}{T_p}0.9931.$$
(4.6)
Indeed, this gives an extremely close value for the energy density of the lump. We now try the level (2,6) approximation, by including the $`\varphi _1^3`$ term. This gives

$$\text{Level (2,6)}:\overline{\varphi }_02.405,\overline{\varphi }_10.403234,$$
(4.7)
resulting in

$$V^{(2,6)}(\overline{\varphi })1.1185\frac{|V^{(2,4)}(\overline{\varphi })|}{T_p}0.9872.$$
(4.8)
It may seem surprising that the error in the energy density has increased. This is presumably because once we are using level six interactions the continuum spectrum (whose fields start at level 9/4) could have played a significant role. At any rate we will see later on that the addition of the cubic term $`\varphi _1^3`$ has brought the expectation value of $`\varphi _1`$ significantly closer to its true value.

It is instructive to see how the above solutions are attempting to reconstruct the vacuum solution $`\varphi (x)=1`$. We can consider the function $`C(x)`$ defined as

$$C(x)=\overline{\varphi }(x)+\overline{\varphi }_0\xi _0(x)+\overline{\varphi }_1\xi _1(x).$$
(4.9)
This function is computed by adding to the profile $`\overline{\varphi }(x)`$ the appropriately weighted wavefunctions of the first two states. As explained in the introduction, this sum evaluated at the exact expectation values, and including additionaly the continuum states should reproduce the vacuum configuration: $`\overline{\varphi }(x\mathrm{})=1`$. Since we have only included the effect of the discrete fields, and their approximate expectation values $`C(x)`$ is only expected to be roughly equal to one. The plot of $`C(x)`$ for the various approximations we have taken is shown in Fig. 3. While the original profile $`\overline{\varphi }(x)`$, shown in Fig. 2 extends from $`0.5`$ to $`1.0`$, we see that at level (2,4) (or (2,6)) $`C(x)`$ has already been flattened around one, extending less than 5% up or down.

### 4.2 Exact analysis of the condensation

The exact condensate is found from the condition that the fluctuation representing the condensate added to the profile $`\overline{\varphi }(x)`$ must give the vacuum configuration $`\varphi (x)=1`$. Therefore we have the equation

$$1\overline{\varphi }(x)=\frac{3}{2}\text{sech}^2\left(\frac{x}{2}\right)=\overline{\varphi }_0\xi _0(x)+\overline{\varphi }_1\xi _1(x)2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑k\overline{\varphi }_k\xi _k(x),$$
(4.10)
where $`\overline{\varphi }_0,\overline{\varphi }_1,`$ and $`\overline{\varphi }_k`$ are the desired expectation values for the lump fields representing the stable vacuum as seen from the lump. Using the orthogonality of the associated $`\xi `$ eigenfunctions we find:

$`\overline{\varphi }_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{32}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{15}{2}}}\pi 2.41976,`$ (4.11)
$`\overline{\varphi }_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}}\pi 0.3607,`$ (4.13)
$`\overline{\varphi }_k`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{16\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{\text{sinh}(k\pi /2)}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{4+k^2}{(1+k^2)(9+k^2)}}}.`$ (4.15)
Note that for the continuum states (2.38) the level $`L`$ is given by $`L(\overline{\varphi }_k)=1+\frac{k^2}{4}+\frac{5}{4}`$ (see (2.38)). Taking the large $`k`$ limit of the amplitude $`\overline{\varphi }_k`$ we find

$$\overline{\varphi }_k\sqrt{L}\mathrm{exp}(\pi \sqrt{L}).$$
(4.16)
Since all fields have properly normalized kinetic terms, this gives an idea of how fast the expectation values of fields decay as we go up in the level expansion. There is still no analogous result in the string field theory–in this case the number of states themselves increase as the level increases. In the present model we have two states at each continuum level, one arising from an even wavefunction, and one arising from an odd wavefunction.

We can do a consistency check by using the following simple result: given a multiscalar potential consisting of quadratic and cubic terms only, the quadratic terms evaluated at the solution give a value three times larger than the value of the potential at the solution. For our case, we must therefore have that the value $`(6/5)`$ of the potential at the minimum can be written as

$$\frac{6}{5}=\frac{1}{3}\left[\frac{5}{8}\overline{\varphi }_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+\frac{3}{8}\overline{\varphi }_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+2\pi _0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑k\varphi _k^2\left(1+\frac{k^2}{4}\right)\right],$$
(4.17)
where the terms inside brackets in the right hand side are the quadratic terms in the potential evaluated at the solution. Using the values quoted in (4.11) we must have

$$\frac{6}{5}=\frac{999\pi ^2}{8192}+\frac{3\pi }{1024}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑k\frac{k^4(4+k^2)^2}{(1+k^2)(9+k^2)\mathrm{sinh}^2(k\pi /2)}.$$
(4.18)
While the definite integral in the right hand side can surely be done analytically, the correctness of the above equation has been verified numerically to high accuracy. Equation (4.18) can be viewed as a kind of spectral decomposition of the lump energy. The continuum lump spectrum is seen to carry about 0.298% of the lump energy, a small part indeed.

### 4.3 Tracking the flow of the states

In this subsection we will study the fate of the fields living on the lump as the tachyon condenses. We will focus on the fields $`\varphi _0`$ and $`\varphi _1`$, namely, the tachyon and the massive scalar. We will imagine giving expectation values to the tachyon $`\varphi _0`$ that vary from zero to $`\overline{\varphi }_0`$. As in the discussion of , we imagine adding a source term that cancels the tadpole arising because we are not at stationary points of the potential. For every value of $`\varphi _0`$ we solve for $`\varphi _1`$ using its equation of motion. Some intuition to the generic behavior of the flow follows from the discussion in . One expects both fields to eventually merge into the continuum and there will be a particular configuration along the flow where the tachyon will have zero mass.

We consider first directly expanding around the tachyonic vacuum. To first approximation we can simply work to level zero, where $`\overline{\varphi }_0=2.267`$ (see (4.2)). Expanding the level zero potential around this expectation value by letting $`\varphi _02.267+\varphi _0`$ we find that

$$V^{(0)}1.071+0.625\varphi _0^2+𝒪(\varphi _0^3),$$
(4.19)
which implies a $`m^21.25`$ for the tachyon after condensation.

Consideration of the next level of approximation shows this is not a very precise result. We expand the level (2,4) potential around the (2,4) expectation values given in (4.5) to find the quadratic form

$$V^{(2,4)}1.192+0.661\varphi _0^2+0.392\varphi _0\varphi _1+0.702\varphi _1^2+𝒪(\varphi ^3).$$
(4.20)
After diagonalization one obtains two masses: $`m^2=0.969,1.756`$. Finally, we can use the exact expectation values for the fields, as given in (4.11) and insert them into the level (2,6) potential finding the quadratic form

$$V^{(2,6)}1.183+0.671\varphi _0^2+0.413\varphi _0\varphi _1+0.805\varphi _1^2+𝒪(\varphi ^3).$$
(4.21)
In this case after diagonalization we find the following eigenvalues and associated wave-functions (recall $`\varphi _0`$ and $`\varphi _1`$ are associated to $`\xi _0(x)`$ and $`\xi _1(x)`$):

$`m_1^21.04,`$ $`0.81\xi _00.59\xi _1,`$ (4.22)
$`m_1^21.91,`$ $`0.59\xi _0+0.81\xi _1.`$ (4.23)
As we can see, the wavefunction of the first state is mostly $`\xi _0`$ and that of the second state is mostly $`\xi _1`$. We therefore expect the first state to be the endpoint of the flow of the tachyon, and the second state to be the endpoint of the flow of the massive state. Indeed, this way the two mass levels do not cross under the flow. In order to confirm this we have studied the flow of the masses by letting $`\varphi _0`$ vary, using the $`\varphi _1`$ equation of motion to fix $`\varphi _1`$ as a function of $`\varphi _0`$, and diagonalizing the mass matrix for every value of $`\varphi _0[0,\overline{\varphi }_0]`$. The result is shown in Fig. 4.

Let us try to understand the meaning of what we have just calculated. The rearrangement of the lump degrees of freedom into the vacuum degrees of freedom is based on the simple statement that the plane waves of the vacuum can be expanded in terms of the lump wavefunctions as:

$$e^{ipx}=\varphi _0(p)\xi _0(x)+\varphi _1(p)\xi _1(x)+\psi _0(p)\eta _0(x)+𝑑k\mathrm{\Phi }_k(p)\mathrm{\Xi }_k(x).$$
(4.24)
In here, the expansion coefficients $`\varphi _0(p),\varphi _1(p)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_k(p)`$ are readily calculable. As we let the lump begin to flow into the vacuum, we expect the potential to define a mass matrix that ceases to be diagonal and whose mass eigenstates become linear combinations of the lump wavefunctions. As we approach the vacuum, those linear combinations must approach the ones given in the above right hand side, for the pure exponentials are the eigenstates of the mass matrix around the vacuum. In fact, $`m^2=1+p^2`$ for the wave $`\mathrm{exp}(ipx)`$.

It follows readily form (4.24) that

$$\varphi _0(p)=\sqrt{\frac{15}{2}}\frac{\pi (p^2+\frac{1}{4})}{\mathrm{cosh}p\pi },\varphi _1(p)=\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\frac{5\pi (p^2\frac{3}{20})}{\mathrm{cosh}p\pi },$$
(4.25)
giving a ratio of

$$\frac{\varphi _1(p)}{\varphi _0(p)}=\sqrt{5}\frac{p^2\frac{3}{20}}{p^2+\frac{1}{4}}.$$
(4.26)
We can now use the above result to test our flow. The first state of (4.22) has $`m^2=1.04`$ and $`\varphi _1/\varphi _0=0.59/0.81=0.727`$. Back in (4.26) this gives $`p^2=0.051`$ and a mass squared $`m^2=1+p^21.05`$. This is in very good agreement with the value $`1.04`$ found directly by diagonalization. For the other state, we have $`m^2=1.91`$ and $`\varphi _1/\varphi _0=1.37`$. Back in (4.26) this gives $`p^20.79`$, and therefore predicts $`m^2=1.79`$, in reasonable agreement with the value $`1.91`$ obtained by diagonalization.

Since momentum dependence plays no role in the field theory potential, as opposed to the case in string theory, the whole flow of masses is due to mass terms changing. In string theory both $`m^2`$ and $`p^2`$ terms change under the flow, and the resulting flow of masses (determined from zeroes in the inverse propagator $`p^2+m^2`$) will be a combined effect of these two changes. Certainly mass squared terms alone can do the job in the field theory case.

## 5 Large marginal deformations: moving the lump

In a recent work of Sen and the author  a puzzle was found. In order to study large marginal deformations the authors calculated in the level expansion the effective potential for the marginal parameter. The marginal parameter was taken to be the expectation value of the zero mode of the gauge field on a D-brane, a Wilson line. In the T-dual picture, this marginal parameter is the parameter translating the brane, and this viewpoint was emphasized in the early analysis of . Surprisingly, it was found in  that there is a critical value of the string field marginal parameter beyond which its effective potential fails to exist. This raised a puzzle. In conformal theory both the Wilson line parameter or the translation parameter take values from zero to infinity. How does the string field theory manage to describe the physics with a finite range marginal parameter ? Two options were discussed: the string field critical value corresponds to (i) infinite CFT parameter, or (ii) finite CFT parameter. The first possibility was considered to be better, the second worse, for it seemed to imply that SFT could not describe in a single patch all of CFT moduli space.

The interpretation here, to be substantiated below, is that indeed the critical value corresponds to a finite CFT parameter (possibility (ii)) but this does not mean that SFT does not cover CFT moduli space. What happens is that there is a double valued relation: to every SFT parameter we associate two CFT parameters. As the CFT parameter parameter grows from zero to infinity the SFT parameter grows from zero to a maximum value and then decreases back to zero! Of course, as the SFT marginal parameter starts to decrease fields higher in the level expansion must take larger expectation values.

To substantiate the above claim let us consider the lump field theory, where the field $`\psi _0`$ associated with the wavefunction $`\eta _0(x)`$ plays the role of a marginal parameter. Since $`\eta _0`$ is proportional to the derivative of the profile, $`\psi _0`$ is the parameter associated with translating the lump along the $`x`$ coordinate. Thus, $`\psi _0`$ plays the role of the string field marginal parameter in the present model.

We begin by considering the potential (3.8) restricted to the tachyon and the marginal parameter:

$$V(\varphi _0,\psi _0)=\frac{5}{8}\varphi _0^2+\frac{175}{8192}\sqrt{\frac{15}{2}}\pi \varphi _0^3+\frac{75}{2048}\sqrt{\frac{15}{2}}\pi \varphi _0\psi _0^2.$$
(5.1)
In order to find the effective potential for the marginal field we must use the tachyon equation to find $`\varphi _0(\psi _0)`$:

$$\varphi _0^\pm (\psi _0)=\frac{1}{210\sqrt{30}\pi }\left(4096\pm \sqrt{16777216756000\pi ^2\psi _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\right)$$
(5.2)
which indeed shows that the domain of definition of the effective potential for $`\psi _0`$ cannot exceed

$$|\psi _0|\frac{512}{15\pi }\sqrt{\frac{2}{105}}1.4995.$$
(5.3)
This is exactly parallel to the situation in string field theory . There are two branches to the solution. In the notation of , the marginal branch is that where the tachyon begins with zero expectation value and corresponds to the top sign in (5.2). In the stable branch, corresponding to the bottom sign, the tachyon begins with its expectation value for the stable vacuum. The effective potential on the marginal branch is obtained substituting $`\varphi _0^+`$ into (5.1). Expanding the result for small $`\psi _0`$ we find

$$V_{eff}^M(\psi _0)=\frac{16875\pi ^2}{4194304}\psi _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}+𝒪(\psi _0)^6.$$
(5.4)
As in  this effective potential has a leading quartic term, but would be expected to be identically zero in the exact solution. For the stable branch we find:

$$V_{eff}^S(\psi _0)=\frac{1048576}{99225\pi ^2}+\frac{5\psi _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{7}+𝒪(\psi _0)^4,$$
(5.5)
and we see that to this first rough approximation, we get $`m^2(\psi _0)=10/71.429`$ for the marginal mode around the stable vacuum. Including the effects of the field $`\varphi _1`$ changes the above results moderately. Working to level $`(2,4)`$ in these fields and exactly on $`\psi _0`$ we find that the domain of definition of the marginal effective potential shrinks down to about $`|\psi _0|1.426`$. Substituting the exact values $`\overline{\varphi }_0`$ and $`\overline{\varphi }_1`$ at the vacuum into (3.8) we can read a mass term for $`\psi _0`$ of

$$m^2(\psi _0)=\frac{5535\pi ^2}{32768}1.667.$$
(5.6)
In fact, the exact version of this result is readily obtained. We are simply studying the mass term associated to the fluctuation $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }=\psi _0\eta _0(x)`$ around the stable vacuum $`\varphi =1`$. The contribution to (minus) the action from this fluctuation is quadratic and given simply by $`\frac{1}{2}𝑑x((\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{})^2+(\stackrel{~}{\varphi })^2)`$. Numerical integration gives

$$m^2(\psi _0)=1.714286,$$
(5.7)
for the mass of this mode around the stable vacuum. Note that the approximation with two fields in (5.6) was good. In string field theory a nonvanishing mass squared was found for the fluctuation mode of the marginal parameter around the stable. This was consistent with the expectation that the vacuum has no marginal deformations  and with the expectation that the gauge field on the brane dissappears after condensation .

We now turn to an explanation for the finite range of marginal parameters. As we have seen above, it happens in the field theory model for the “marginal” state $`\psi _0`$, so it is not a strictly stringy phenomenon. Consider the deformation that moves the lump a distance $`a`$ to the left. From the viewpoint of the lump, this is a field fluctuation of the form $`\overline{\varphi }(x+a)\overline{\varphi }(x)`$ since added to the lump profile $`\overline{\varphi }(x)`$ it gives us $`\overline{\varphi }(x+a)`$, representing the lump at $`x=a`$. This fluctuation is therefore to be expanded as usual:

$$\overline{\varphi }(x+a)\overline{\varphi }(x)=\varphi _0(a)\xi _0(x)+\psi _0(a)\eta _0(x)+\mathrm{},$$
(5.8)
where the expansion coefficients are $`a`$-dependent. For the marginal mode one finds

$$\psi _0(a)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\overline{\varphi }(x+a)\overline{\varphi }(x)\right)\eta _0(x)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\overline{\varphi }(x+a)\eta _0(x),$$
(5.9)
where we used the $`xx`$ symmetry of $`\overline{\varphi }(x)`$ and antisymmetry of $`\eta _0(x)`$. This integral is readily done for small $`a`$. To this end first use (2.7) and (2.32) to obtain

$$\frac{d\overline{\varphi }}{dx}=\sqrt{\frac{6}{5}}\eta _0(x),$$
(5.10)
which gives the precise normalization relating the derivative of the profile to the massless mode representing the marginal operator. With this result, the integral (5.9) is readily done for small $`a`$ giving:

$$\psi _0(a)=\sqrt{\frac{6}{5}}a+𝒪(a^2).$$
(5.11)
This is the expected linear relation between the “SFT marginal parameter” $`\psi _0`$ and the “CFT marginal parameter” $`a`$. On the other hand it is manifest from the integral expression (5.9) for $`\psi _0(a)`$ and the fact that $`\eta _0(x)`$ is localized in $`x`$, that for sufficiently large $`a`$ the overlap between the lump, now centered at $`a`$ and $`\eta _0(x)`$ will go to zero. Thus, very large $`a`$ will correspond to small $`\psi _0(a)`$. This is the double valued relation we mentioned before. In Fig. 5 we show, in continuous line, the value of $`\psi (a)`$. Indeed, the plot begins straight but $`\psi _0`$ reaches a maximum value of $`\psi _0^{max}1.39`$ for $`a2.3`$. This maximum value is in good agreement with the level (2,4) approximation that resulted in $`|\psi _0|1.426`$. For values of $`a`$ larger than $`a=2.3`$ the magnitude of $`\psi _0`$ decreases.

The expansion in (5.8) suggests what is happening when $`a>2.3`$. In this case, some higher level fields, indicated by the dots will acquire larger expectation values. Thus for each value of $`\psi _0`$ we obtain two values of $`a`$, the small one realized with small expectation values for the high level fields, and the large one realized with large expectation values for some high level fields.

We now investigate the expectation value of the tachyon field $`\varphi _0(a)`$ as a function of the displacement. In this case it follows from (5.8) that

$$\varphi _0(a)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\overline{\varphi }(x+a)\overline{\varphi }(x)\right)\xi _0(x).$$
(5.12)
For small $`a`$ the terms in parenthesis are well approximated by $`a`$ times the derivative of the profile. Since $`\xi _0`$ is even, the integral cancels, and we must have $`\varphi _0(a)a^2+𝒪(a^4)`$. On the other hand for large $`a`$ the first term in the parenthesis becomes irrelevant to the integral, and we simply get the overlap of the tachyon wavefunction with the profile. This is precisely given by $`\overline{\varphi }_0`$ (recall (4.10)). Thus $`\varphi _0(a)\overline{\varphi }_0`$ as $`a\mathrm{}`$. This behavior is shown in Fig. 5, where the $`\varphi _0(a)`$ is shown as a dashed line. The intuition behind this result is clear, by the time the lump is far away we have recovered the vacuum in the vicinity of $`x=0`$. This requires giving the tachyon the expectation value $`\overline{\varphi }_0`$.

We can now interpret more fully the branch structure found in , as exemplified by Fig. 1 of that work. For convenience we have included Fig. 6 with a sketch of the branches. We show the potential energy $`V`$, normalized to the energy of the lump, and $`\psi _0`$ normalized to its maximum value. The solid curves were discussed in , and here we have added a dashed curve. The solid curve closest to the real line represents the marginal branch. In perfect approximation it should be flat. When the maximal value of $`\psi _0`$ is attained it represents the lump displaced to some finite distance ($`a=2.3`$ in the model). The bottom solid curve is the stable branch, at its leftmost point it intersects $`V=1`$ and represents the vacuum. In the present model it is clear what that curve represents. As we go from the branch point downhill to the left we are simply letting the lump, centered at $`a=2.3`$ decay away. The dashed line represents the branch where the lump is moved beyond $`a=2.3`$. In this branch we expect the vev’s of higher level fields to increase. This branch has not been identified yet in the string field theory, but the study of the field theory model suggests very strongly that it will be found there.

## 6 Conclusions and open questions

We considered $`\varphi ^3`$ field theory and used the exact lump solution and the complete solvability of the fluctuation problem to produce a detailed model where the decay of an unstable lump is seen from the viewpoint of the field theory living on the lump itself.

There are many analogies with string field theory studies of D-brane annihilation. In particular, the multiscalar potential on the lump is nontrivial, and the vacuum state can be explored in the level expansion. Indeed, if did not have the exact expression for the tachyonic condensate in the model, we would have been hard pressed to find it from the explicit form of the cubic multiscalar potential. The problem becomes simple only with the realization that the multiscalar condensate is basically the expansion of the lump profile in terms of the lump wavefunctions. It may be possible to apply these lessons fruitfully to the study of the tachyon condensate in string field theory.

One of the deepest questions with regards to string field theory is whether or not the string field is big enough. Indeed, before tachyon condensation and brane annihilation was shown to be described correctly by string field theory, it was thought that the string field would not reach far enough to describe this non-perturbative vacuum. Now we know this is not the case. In the recent work of Sen and the author  the possibility resurfaced that maybe the string field is not big enough, as large marginal deformations could possibly be beyond reach of the string field. Based on similar circumstances in the toy model, we have been able to propose a natural resolution where a different branch of the solution space contains the large marginal deformations. It thus seems likely that the string field, after all, is big enough.

Acknowledgments: I am indebted to J. Goldstone for instructing me on reflectionless potentials and on their relevance to field theory solitons. I thank R. L. Jaffe for his insights on the role of tachyons in the annihilation of solitons and for many useful discussions. I am very grateful to J. Minahan for his interest in this work and for many stimulating conversations and detailed discussions. Comments and suggestions by A. Sen are also gratefully acknowledged. Finally, I thank R. Jackiw for help identifying references on the early literature. This work was supported in part by DOE contract #DE-FC02-94ER40818.