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# Thermal dileptons from quark and hadron phases of an expanding fireball

## 1 Introduction

There are convincing arguments that the theory of the strong interaction, QCD, exhibits a phase transition at sufficiently high temperatures from a confined hadronic phase to the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) phase . Lattice QCD results set the critical temperature $`T_C`$ to about 150-200 MeV . It is hoped that it is possible to create the QGP in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at CERN and BNL, and there are preliminary indications that the QGP might have already been encountered .
Dileptons ($`e^+e^{}`$ or $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ pairs) are considered to be an optimal probe for the early stages of the collision because they leave the hot region without thermalization. Hadrons which reach the detector can only tell us about the later stage of the collision, the freeze-out zone. When the fireball created in a heavy-ion collision is in the QGP or partonic phase, dileptons are mainly produced by thermal quark-antiquark annihilation. As the system expands, it cools off and undergoes the transition into the hadronic phase. There, dileptons come mainly from pion and kaon annihilation processes, which are dynamically enhanced through the formation of light vector meson resonances ($`\rho ,\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ with masses below 1.1 GeV). The dilepton emission rate is proportional to the imaginary part of the hadronic current-current correlation function, or the electromagnetic spectral function. The invariant mass distribution of the lepton pairs reflects the mass distributions of the vector mesons at the instant of decay. This offers the possibility to study the influence of finite temperature and baryonic density on the meson spectral distributions.
In this paper, we calculate the purely thermal dilepton emission rate for both phases and compare it with data from the CERES/NA45 experiment. Much work has been done to interpret the observed dilepton enhancement in the low-mass region  in terms of in-medium modifications of hadron spectra . We investigate the thermal modifications that the hadrons may exhibit in the limit of zero baryon density. We demonstrate that these alone can also explain the data very easily if the initial fireball temperature is sufficiently high to support a QGP during at least part of the expansion. Finally, we study the dependence of the shape of the dilepton emission spectra on the parameters of our simple fireball model and discuss a recently proposed mixed phase structure.

## 2 Dileptons from a fireball

The dilepton emission rate from a hot domain populated by particles in thermal equilibrium at temperature $`T`$ is proportional to the imaginary part of the spin-averaged, time-like photon self-energy, with these particles as intermediate states. The thermally excited particles annihilate to yield a time-like virtual photon with four-momentum $`q`$ which decays subsequently into a lepton-antilepton pair. The differential rate is given by

$$\frac{dN}{d^4xd^4q}=\frac{\alpha ^2}{\pi ^3q^2}\frac{1}{e^{\beta q^0}1}\text{Im}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(q,T),$$
(1)
where $`\alpha =e^2/4\pi `$, $`\beta =1/T`$, and we have neglected the lepton masses. We defined $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(q)=\mathrm{\Pi }_\mu ^\mu /3`$. Here $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\mu ^\mu `$ denotes the trace over the thermal photon self-energy which is equivalent to the thermal current-current correlation function

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(q,T)=id^4xe^{iqx}𝒯j_\mu (x)j_\nu (0)_\beta ,$$
(2)
where $`j_\mu `$ is the electromagnetic current. The result eq.(1) is valid to order $`\alpha `$ in the electromagnetic interaction and to all orders in the strong interaction.
To compare with experimental data, we set up a model for the space-time evolution of a heavy-ion collision, assuming approximate thermal equilibrium to be a useful concept . Some recent discussions suggest  that equilibration times at the conditions of heavy ion collisions at CERN may indeed be very short (less than a fermi), small compared to expansion times of order 10 fm/$`c`$, although this is still a matter of debate. The easiest approach for our purposes is to use a simplified fireball model which parametrizes the time dependence of temperature and volume in accord with microscopic transport calculations . This assumes that the fireball can be characterized by a homogeneous temperature at all times and that it cools off adiabatically with the parametrization

$$T(t)=(T^iT^{\mathrm{}})e^{t/\tau _1}+T^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(3)
This ansatz introduces the initial temperature $`T^i`$, a time constant $`\tau _1`$ and an asymptotic temperature $`T^{\mathrm{}}`$. Furthermore, we assume an isotropic expansion of the fireball in the centre-of-mass frame of the collision such that the time evolution of the volume can be described by

$$V(t)=\frac{N_B}{\rho (t)},\rho (t)=\rho ^ie^{t/\tau _2},$$
(4)
where $`N_B`$ is the number of baryons which participate in the reaction, $`\tau _2`$ is another time constant and $`\rho ^i`$ is the initial baryon density of the hot spot. More sophisticated volume parametrizations can be used, but they introduce more parameters and the differences in the resulting integrated rates are marginal.
Finally, to obtain the measured dilepton rates, we integrate eq.(1) over the space-time history of the collision to compare them with the CERES/NA45 data. The CERES experiment is a fixed-target experiment, i.e. the dilepton rates are measured in the lab frame whereas our volume parametrization (4) is valid for a fireball at rest, in the c.m. frame of the collision. In the lab frame, the CERES detector covers a limited rapidity interval $`\eta =2.12.65`$. The rapidity needed in order to boost to the c.m. frame is therefore 2.375. The CERES collaboration chose to display its data in the format $`d^2N/dMd\eta `$, where $`\eta `$ is the (pseudo-)rapidity of the virtual photon. The longitudinal momentum $`p_L`$ is related to $`\eta `$ by $`p_L=m_T\mathrm{sinh}\eta `$ with the ’transverse mass’ $`m_T=\sqrt{M^2+p_T^2}`$. To be able to compare our calculated rates to the data, we integrate these rates over the transverse momentum $`p_T`$ only, given that

$$d^4p=Mp_TdMd\eta dp_Td\theta .$$

This is equivalent to integrating over all three-momenta as long as we set $`\eta `$ = 0 in the c.m. frame.
The formula for the space-time- and $`p_T`$-integrated dilepton rates is now

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2N}{dMd\eta }}=`$ $`2\pi M{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{t_f}{}}}𝑑t{\displaystyle \frac{N_B}{\rho (t)}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑p_Tp_T`$ (5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN(T(t),M,\eta ,p_T)}{d^4xd^4p}}Acc(M,\eta ,p_T),`$
where $`t_f`$ is the freeze-out time of the collision, and the matrix $`Acc(M,\eta ,p_T)`$ accounts for the experimental acceptance cuts specific to the detector. At the CERES experiment, each electron/positron track is required to have a transverse momentum $`p_T>0.2`$ GeV, to fall into the rapidity interval $`2.1<\eta <2.65`$ in the lab frame and to have a pair opening angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{ee}>35`$ mrad. Finally, for comparison with the CERES data, eq.(5) has to be divided by $`dN/d\eta `$, the number of particles per unit rapidity. As the data have been taken close to midrapidity, i.e. around the central plateau of the approximate Gaussian distribution of $`dN/d\eta `$ in the c.m. frame as mentioned above, its value is assumed to be constant over the $`\eta `$ range restricted by the detector cuts.

## 3 Spectrum above critical temperature

Lattice QCD calculations suggest  that sufficiently far above the critical temperature $`T_C`$ for the deconfinement transition, quarks and gluons can be treated approximately as an ideal gas; they interact only weakly because of the behaviour of the running coupling strength $`\alpha _s`$ at high $`T`$. In this temperature region we can evaluate the hadronic part of the photon self-energy using perturbative QCD. To lowest order in $`\alpha `$ and to zeroth order in $`\alpha _s`$, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }`$ corresponds simply to the thermal quark-antiquark loop to which we restrict ourselves in the present paper. Higher order thermal QCD corrections beyond the leading $`q\overline{q}`$ loop will be investigated in forthcoming work.
At our typical temperatures $`T`$ of several hundred MeV, we need to take into account the three flavours $`u`$, $`d`$ and $`s`$. Heavier quarks such as the $`c`$ and $`b`$ are strongly suppressed by Boltzmann factors because of their large mass and can be considered as ’frozen’. The total contribution to the dilepton emission rate is obtained by summing the individual $`q\overline{q}`$ contributions multiplied by the squares of the electric charges $`e_f`$ of their respective flavour currents. In addition, each quark exists in three colours which leads to an overall multiplicative factor of $`N_C=3`$. Furthermore, the $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks are considered massless and the heavier $`s\overline{s}`$-pair can only be produced if $`q^2`$ is larger than $`4m_s^2`$. So the total imaginary part of the self-energy which will be used in eq.(1), evaluated with standard finite-temperature techniques , is

$`\text{Im}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(q,T)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{f=u,d,s}{}}e_f^2\theta (q^24m_f^2)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{2m_f^2}{q^2}}\right)\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_f^2}{q^2}}}`$ (6)
$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2T}{|𝐪|}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_f^2}{q^2}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{f_D(E_{})}{f_D(E_+)}}1\right],`$
where

$$f_D(E)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}(\beta E)+1}$$

and

$$E_\pm =\frac{q^0}{2}\pm \frac{|\stackrel{}{q}|}{2}\sqrt{1\frac{4m_f^2}{q^2}}.$$

In the limit $`T0`$, eq.(6) reduces to the well-known vacuum result. At finite $`T`$, the quantity (6) is always smaller than Im$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(q,T=0)`$ as a consequence of Pauli blocking.

## 4 Spectrum below critical temperature

At $`T<150`$ MeV, confinement sets in and the effective degrees of freedom of the QCD Hamiltonian are now colourless hadrons. The photon can directly couple to $`J^P=1^{}`$ states (the lowest ”dipole” excitations of the QCD vacuum). In the energy region of interest, these particles are the $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ mesons and multi-pion states carrying the same quantum numbers. Our next step is thus to connect the electromagnetic current-current correlation function with the currents generated by these mesons. We use an effective Lagrangian which approximates the $`SU(3)`$ flavour sector of QCD at low energies. The appropriate model for our purposes is the improved Vector Meson Dominance model combined with chiral dynamics of pions and kaons as described in .
Within this model, the following relation between the imaginary part of the irreducible photon self-energy $`\text{Im}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}`$ and the vector meson self-energies $`\mathrm{\Pi }_V(q)`$ in vacuum can be derived:

$`\text{Im}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{V}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\text{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_V(q)}{g_V^2}}|F_V(q)|^2,`$ (7)
$`F_V(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left(1\frac{g}{g_V^0}\right)q^2m_V^2}{q^2m_V^2+i\text{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_V(p)}},`$ (8)
where $`m_V`$ are the (renormalized) vector meson masses 333In the present context, $`m_V`$ is understood to include the shift from bare to physical mass induced by Re$`\mathrm{\Pi }_V`$ ., $`g_V^0`$ is the $`\gamma V`$ coupling and $`g`$ the $`\mathrm{\Phi }V`$ coupling, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ stands for one of the pseudoscalar Goldstone bosons $`\pi ^\pm ,\pi ^0`$ and $`K^\pm ,K^0`$. Eq.(7) is valid for a virtual photon with vanishing three-momentum, $`q=(q^0,0,0,0)`$. Taking the limit $`|\stackrel{}{q}|=0`$ should be reasonable for our purposes in view of the fact that the c.m. rapidity interval accessible at CERES restricts $`|\stackrel{}{q}|`$ on average to a fraction of the vector meson mass $`m_V`$. For finite three-momenta there would be two scalar functions $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_L`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_T`$, because the existence of a preferred frame of reference (the heat bath) breaks Lorentz invariance. In the following, we calculate the hadronic spectra $`\mathrm{\Pi }_V`$ at finite temperature.

### 4.1 The $`\rho `$ meson spectrum

The main decay channel of the $`\rho `$-meson is $`\rho \pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ with a vacuum width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ 150 MeV. In the VMD model, hadronic current conservation leads to two possibilities to couple the $`\rho `$ to pions: There is a pion tadpole diagram and a two pion loop diagram. Both terms contribute to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho `$ and correspondingly modify the $`\rho `$ meson properties. Their vacuum values are well-known , thus in the following we will calculate only the changes induced by finite temperature.
Using the real-time formalism of thermal field theory , we find for the imaginary part of the two pion loop diagram

$`\text{Im}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(q^0,\stackrel{}{q}=0)=(q^0)^2{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\rho \pi \pi }^2}{48\pi }}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_\pi ^2}{(q^0)^2}}\right)^{\frac{3}{2}}\left(1+2f_B(q^0/2)\right)\theta (q^02m_\pi ).`$ (9)
This is exactly the $`T=0`$ result multiplied by the characteristic thermal factors: the imaginary part is larger than at zero temperature as a consequence of the Bose-enhancement of the thermal pions. Using the relation $`\text{Im}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(m_\rho )=m_\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }`$, we see that the decay width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\rho \pi \pi }`$ of the $`\rho `$ meson is enhanced because there are already thermally excited pions present in the heat bath. At temperatures of about 100 MeV, this effect causes an increase of the $`\rho `$ width by about 20% . Additional sources of thermal broadening at high temperatures are reactions of the $`\rho `$ meson with pions in the heat bath, such as $`\rho \pi 3\pi `$. We checked that this is only a small correction to the width. Other decay modes of the $`\rho `$ like $`\rho \pi ^+\pi ^{}\gamma `$, not taken into account, may also start to play a role at high $`T`$, however, their branching ratios are very small.
The calculation of the real part of the thermal $`\rho `$ meson self-energy is technically more involved, but the resulting temperature dependent mass shift $`\delta m_\rho (T)`$ is small. Eletsky and Ioffe  have pointed out that the leading term of $`\delta m_\rho `$ starts at order $`T^4`$ when $`\rho a_1`$ mixing is properly taken into account. The actual evaluation of $`\delta m_\rho `$ gives an (upward) mass shift of less than 3% of $`m_\rho `$ even at temperatures as high as 150 MeV. We can therefore safely neglect this effect in our calculation.
Note that the general form of the thermal $`\rho `$ spectrum does not change dramatically, at least up to $`T`$ 150 MeV. Substantial broadening of the $`\rho `$ meson spectrum is expected in the presence of large baryon density . However, under the conditions of Pb-Au collisions at CERN, the fireball rapidly expands and the baryon density at hadronization drops to a fraction of normal nuclear matter density. We can thus ignore such density effects.

### 4.2 The $`\omega `$ meson spectrum

The main decay mode of the $`\omega `$(783) vector meson with a branching ratio of 89% is $`\omega \pi ^+\pi ^0\pi ^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\omega 3\pi }`$ = 7.5 MeV. It is well-known that a point-like coupling $`\omega 3\pi `$ does not describe the $`\omega `$ decay properly. It is necessary to include an intermediate step, the Gell-Mann, Sharp, Wagner (GSW) process  $`\omega \rho \pi \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0.`$ The full decay process is described by an interference between the amplitudes of these two processes. In the following, we assume that the intermediate virtual rho meson propagation is merely a ’vertex’ correction and that the effects of temperature on the $`\rho `$ meson are small, so we can neglect them to leading order. This is justified by noting that the thermal production of a $`\rho `$ meson is heavily suppressed by $`e^{m_\rho /T}1`$ in the temperature range we are interested in (up to about 150 MeV).
The explicit calculation  for an $`\omega `$ meson at rest, $`q_\omega =(\omega ,\stackrel{}{q}=0)`$, leads us to the result

$`\text{Im}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{192\pi ^3}}\left(_1+3_2\right),`$ (10)
$`_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{\Delta }_1}{}}𝑑E_+𝑑E_{}\left(\stackrel{}{q}_+^{2}\stackrel{}{q}_{}^{2}(\stackrel{}{q}_+\stackrel{}{q}_{})^2\right)|(\omega ;q_+,q_0,q_{})|^2n(E_+,E_{},\omega ),`$
$`_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{\Delta }_2}{}}𝑑E_+𝑑E_{}\left(\stackrel{}{q}_+^{2}\stackrel{}{q}_{}^{2}(\stackrel{}{q}_+\stackrel{}{q}_{})^2\right)|(\omega ;q_+,q_0,q_{})|^2n(E_+,E_{},\omega ),`$
where

$`(\omega ;q_+,q_0,q_{})={\displaystyle \frac{3h}{f_\pi ^3}}+2{\displaystyle \frac{g_{VVP}}{f_\pi }}g_{\rho \pi \pi }{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =+,0,}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(q_\omega q_\alpha )^2m_\rho ^2\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\rho (q_\omega q_\alpha )}}.`$
Here, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\rho `$ is the zero-temperature rho meson self-energy. Its explicit expression and a general discussion of this matrix element can be found in , including the coupling constants $`h`$ and $`g_{VVP}`$ ($`f_\pi `$ is the pion decay constant). $`E_\pm `$ and $`\stackrel{}{q}_\pm `$ are the energies and momenta of the charged pions in the final state. To keep our notation short, we have introduced the function

$`n(E_+,E_{},\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`((1+f_B(E_+))(1+f_B(E_{}))(1+f_B(\omega E_+E_{}))`$
$`f_B(E_+)f_B(E_{})f_B(\omega E_+E_{})).`$
In eq.(10), $`_1`$ describes the process of a Bose-enhanced three-particle decay of the $`\omega `$ meson, $`n(E_+,E_{},\omega )`$ accounts for the characteristic Bose factors. The kinematically allowed integration region in the $`E_+E_{}`$ plane, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$, is the same as in the $`T=0`$ case for the decay process. It is limited to $`m_\pi E_\pm \omega 2m_\pi `$ and $`2m_\pi E_++E_{}\omega m_\pi `$ with the constraint $`\stackrel{}{q}_+^{2}\stackrel{}{q}_{}^{2}(\stackrel{}{q}_+\stackrel{}{q}_{})^2>0`$.
To interpret the $`_2`$ term in eq.(10), we note that

$`n(E_+,E_{},\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`((1+f_B(E_+))(1+f_B(E_{}))f_B(E_++E_{}\omega )`$ (11)
$`f_B(E_+)f_B(E_{})(1+f_B(E_++E_{}\omega ))),`$
by using $`1+f_B(E)+f_B(E)=0`$. Thus $`_2`$ corresponds to the scattering of the $`\omega `$ meson off a thermally excited $`\pi ^0`$ into $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$, where each particle has the characteristic thermal corrections. The integration region $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ is still constrained by $`\stackrel{}{q}_+^{2}\stackrel{}{q}_{}^{2}(\stackrel{}{q}_+\stackrel{}{q}_{})^2>0`$, but now in the region defined by $`E_++E_{}\omega +m_\pi `$. Because the integration region $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ is now unbounded and the functions involved are only damped by Bose factors and their combinations, the $`\omega \pi \pi \pi `$ scattering contribution to the decay width increases quite strongly with temperature, as we will see below. The factor 3 multiplying $`_2`$ comes from summing over all possible charge combinations $`\omega +\pi ^+\pi ^0+\pi ^+`$, $`\omega +\pi ^{}\pi ^0+\pi ^{}`$ and $`\omega +\pi ^0\pi ^{}+\pi ^+`$.
The evaluation of the real part of the $`\omega `$ meson self-energy coupled to the $`3\pi `$ continuum is much more difficult than that of the imaginary part because it would involve a two-dimensional Cauchy principal value integral. We refrain from calculating the real part of the three-body decay, assuming that its temperature dependent mass shift is not much different from the (small) one of the $`\rho `$ meson.

### 4.3 The $`\varphi `$ meson spectrum

Because of the large mass of the $`\varphi `$ and its main two-body decays into heavy kaons, the impact of temperature on its spectrum is marginal. The thermal production of kaons at temperatures even as high as 150 MeV is still suppressed by an order of magnitude compared to thermal pion production. We find that the sharp peak structure of the $`\varphi `$ meson does not change as its total width increases by about 20% to just 5.2 MeV at the highest temperatures. Thus it is only moderately affected by temperature effects and one should be able to observe its sharp resonance structure in future dilepton rate measurements.

## 5 Integrated rates

Whereas the $`\rho `$ and $`\varphi `$ mesons experience only moderate thermal changes of their spectral functions, the $`\omega `$ spectrum changes its shape considerably, mainly due to $`\omega \pi \pi \pi `$ reactions in the heat bath. We now use eq.(7) to relate our temperature-dependent vector meson self-energies to the imaginary part of the electromagnetic current-current correlator which enters the dilepton rate formula (1) as long as we stay below $`T_C`$. Above this critical temperature, we use expression (6) which yields the dilepton emission rate from a thermal quark-antiquark system. It is instructive to have a look at the spin-averaged spectral distributions $`R(q,T)=12\pi \text{Im}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}(q,T)/q^2`$ at different temperatures $`T`$ (presented in fig.1 for $`q^\mu =(\omega ,\stackrel{}{q}=0))`$.

Obviously, the spectral functions on either side of the quark-hadron transition are quite distinct: the $`q\overline{q}`$ loop spectrum is flat with no significant structure whereas the hadronic spectra exhibit a clear resonance structure. How these differences manifest in the dilepton emission spectra is examined in this section where we convolute the dilepton rate with the space-time evolution of the fireball system to obtain the total rate (5) which can then be compared to the CERES/NA45 data.

For a start, we use the parameters shown in table 1 for eqs.(3) and (4) which are adapted to reproduce the results of microscopic transport calculations  for the space-time evolution of the S-Au and Pb-Au collision (we show the Pb-Au parameters as this is the case of primary interest). Let us now apply our ”mixed” model scenario (hadronic degrees of freedom below $`T_C`$, quarks above $`T_C`$) with $`T_C=`$ 150 MeV and initial temperatures of 190 MeV and 210 MeV, respectively. These two cases are shown in fig.2. For the moment, we employ a direct transition between the two phases at $`T_C`$ and comment on the implications of a possible mixed phase later.

We find that we can reproduce the shape of the data quite well. We need a normalization factor $`k`$ which can be explained as follows: for the hadronic phase where thermal $`\pi \pi `$ annihilation is dominant, there is an increased population of the pion phase space due to a finite pion chemical potential we did not include . However, the striking feature is that when choosing a higher initial temperature, $`T^i=210`$ MeV, the normalization factor needed to reproduce the data becomes smaller, consistent with the picture that the system now stays for almost the whole expansion time in the partonic phase where there is no pionic chemical potential. We also checked that our calculations reproduce the observed transverse momentum distributions: the main part of the enhancement resides in the $`p_T<500`$ MeV region.
We can therefore easily account for the dilepton ”excess” in the intermediate mass region. At high masses, the scenario with $`T^i`$ = 190 MeV still underestimates the data a bit. With a higher initial temperature $`T^i=210`$ MeV, the slope becomes flatter and moves up in the right direction. This can be understood as follows: using a spin-averaged spectral function as in fig. 1, we can rewrite eq.(1) as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d^4xd^4q}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{12\pi ^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{R(q^0,\stackrel{}{q})}{e^{\beta q^0}1}}.`$ (12)
From eq.(6) it follows that the thermal spectrum $`R`$ approaches its constant perturbative plateau for large momenta and high temperatures or for any momentum at low temperatures. From this we infer that in the QGP phase, the shape of the dilepton emission rate for high invariant mass at high $`T`$ is basically determined by the inverse of the temperature, $`\beta `$, as

$$\frac{dN}{d^4xd^4q}\text{const.}\times e^{\beta q^0}.$$
(13)
As the integrated rate (5) averages over all temperatures according to the fireball parametrization, we see in fig.2 a straight fall-off at high invariant masses, with a slope parameter $`1/T`$, averaged over the temperature evolution of the fireball. This is an important result: if we start with a different parametrization of the fireball, say, with a higher initial temperature, the slope changes, it becomes flatter because we average over $`1/T`$. Thus an accurate measurement of the dilepton rate at high invariant mass yields valuable information about the temperature evolution of the fireball, assuming that equilibration is fast.
In contrast to its appearance as a sharp resonance at $`T=0`$, the $`\omega `$ meson is hardly visible as a little bump on top of the broad $`\rho `$ meson spectrum. This was to be expected because the temperatures of the system in the hadronic phase before freeze-out are still quite high, between 150 and 125 MeV.
The $`\varphi `$ meson can still be identified as a sharp resonance. As the $`\varphi `$ is hardly influenced by temperature, its height over background ratio may thus act as a chronometer for the critical time $`t_C`$ once the fireball parameters are sufficiently well known: at $`T^i=210`$ MeV, the $`\varphi `$ meson still sticks out of the QGP ’background’, but with a reduced height, confirming that the system stays now longer in the QGP phase than in the scenario with $`T^i=190`$ MeV.

To get a better understanding for the space-time evolution of the fireball, let us look at the time snapshot picture of the fireball expansion in fig.3. Shown are the integrated dilepton rates between the start of the expansion and the freeze-out time $`t_f=10`$ fm$`/c`$ in steps of $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.5`$ fm$`/c`$. Although the QGP phase is very hot in the beginning ($`t_0=0`$), its contribution to the dilepton rate is initially small because it occupies only a small volume. With the consecutive expansion, the rate per unit volume decreases as the temperature goes down. However, the increase in volume outweighs this effect partly. The shape of the spectrum stays roughly the same, but the slope for high $`M`$ is now, following eq.(13), $`\beta \sqrt{M^2+p_T^2}`$ integrated over the transverse momentum $`p_T`$. The change in the slope with increasing time, or equivalently, with decreasing temperature is small yet visible, and the magnitude of the slope is set by the initial temperature.
At $`t_C=7`$ fm$`/c`$, the phase transition occurs, the system goes into the hadronic phase and the $`\rho `$ and $`\varphi `$ meson resonances start to grow out of the QGP ’background’. It is clearly seen that the shape of the dilepton spectrum at high masses $`M`$ is only determined by the QGP phase and that the $`\varphi `$ meson peak height would be larger if the transition occurred earlier or the freeze-out time were later.

With these observations in mind, we investigate the sensitivity of the spectra with respect to the parameters $`T_C`$ and $`t_f`$. In fig.4, the resulting Pb-Au dilepton emission spectra are shown for three different critical temperatures $`T_C=`$130, 150 and 170 MeV. The initial temperature is 210 MeV.
The slopes for high invariant mass $`M`$ are equal in all three cases of $`T_C`$, as expected. For the lowest transition temperature, $`T_C`$ = 130 MeV, we obtain a pure QGP spectrum. The higher $`T_C`$ is chosen, the more ’hadronic’ the spectrum looks and the less dileptons are present in the intermediate mass range $`0.30.6`$ GeV. At high $`T_C`$, the broad $`\rho `$ meson resonance sticks out clearly, so does the narrow $`\varphi `$ meson. From its peak height it is possible to judge how long the system has stayed in the hadronic phase before freeze-out. Note that the $`\omega `$ meson is not visible even for high $`T_C`$, because of its increased thermal width. An amusing side note is that all three curves have four points in common, left and right to the resonances. We also checked that the shape of the dilepton rate is not sensitive to the freeze-out time.
So far, we have assumed that the transition from the QGP to the hadronic phase is instantaneous, in the sense that the quark phase at $`T>T_C`$ is separated from the hadron phase at $`T<T_C`$, and does not affect the time evolution of temperature and volume. Exactly how the hadronization occurs is not known at this stage, but there are indications that it may actually extend over a finite time interval, during which a mixed phase prevails . Lattice data show a discontinuity in the energy density at $`T_C`$ , so this stage is accompanied by a release of latent heat. Such processes can imply that the temperature stays almost constant during the transition time which may be considerably long, of the order a few fm/$`c`$ . In order to estimate the consequences of these effects on the dilepton spectra, we have modified the time evolution of the fireball temperature such that there is a plateau of constant temperature $`T_C`$, as shown in fig.5. The width of the plateau is denoted by $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, and the initial and freeze-out temperature are kept at the values listed in table 1.

During the transition, we assume that both phases exist in a homogeneous mixture and their relative occupation of the volume changes with time. Correspondingly, the spectral function entering the dilepton rates in eq.(12) is modified to

$$R(t)=\alpha (t)R_{QGP}(T_C)+[1\alpha (t)]R_{hadr}(T_C),$$
(14)
where $`\alpha (t_c\mathrm{\Delta }t/2)=1`$, $`\alpha (t_c+\mathrm{\Delta }t/2)=0`$ and between these limits $`\alpha `$ drops linearly. We found that even if $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is set to a value as large as 5 fm/$`c`$, the difference in the dilepton rates is at most 40%. For $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=1`$ fm/$`c`$, the rates are virtually indistinguishable. Within the error bars of the data, we conclude that the existence of a mixed phase is neither confirmed nor excluded at the resolution currently available.

## 6 Conclusions

Within our simple fireball model, we can indeed reproduce the observed CERES dilepton spectra within a pure thermal model, assuming that there exists a partonic phase above a certain temperature $`T_C`$. The transverse momentum dependence is correctly described, too. With a sufficiently high initial temperature $`T^i=`$ 210 MeV, the shape of the spectrum is perfectly well described. At such high initial temperatures, the system stays in the quark phase for much of its expansion period, and the dilepton radiation originates primarily from quark-antiquark annihilation, resulting in a flat spectrum. Hadronization in the final stage then leads to the appearance of resonance structures. We note that the thermal life time of the $`\omega `$ meson may decrease such that the $`\omega `$ actually decays inside the fireball. The detailed shape of the spectra is sensitive to certain combinations of freeze-out, initial and critical temperature.
An improved experimental mass resolution in the region $`M>1`$ GeV may yield important information about the initial temperature of the partonic phase. The role of the $`\varphi `$ meson as both a thermometer and a chronometer for the fireball expansion has been emphasized. Finally we investigated a possible mixed phase scenario and found that it would not leave any distinct traces in the shape of the dilepton rates.

## 7 Acknowledgements

This work has been supported in part by BMBF and GSI.


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# The Dirac field in Taub-NUT background

## 1 Introduction

Hawking  has suggested that the Euclidean Taub-NUT metric might give rise to the gravitational analogue of the Yang-Mills instanton. The Euclidean Taub-NUT metric satisfies Einstein’s equations with zero cosmological constant. This metric is also involved in many modern studies in physics. For example the Taub-NUT metric is the space part of the line element of the celebrated Kaluza-Klein monopole of Gross and Perry  and of Sorkin . On the other hand, in the long-distance limit, neglecting radiation, the relative motion of two monopoles is described by the geodesics of this space . From the mathematical point of view, the Taub-NUT geometry is also very interesting. In the Taub-NUT geometry there are four Killing-Yano tensors . Three of these are complex structure realizing the quaternionic algebra and the Taub-NUT manifold is hyper-Kähler. In addition to these three vector-like Killing-Yano tensors, there is a scalar one and it exists by virtue of the metric being type $`D`$.

The Schrödinger quantum modes in the Euclidean Taub-NUT geometry were analyzed using algebraic  or analytical methods . The Dirac equation in this background was studied in the mid eighties . It was later realized that the geodesic motion in Euclidean Taub-NUT space is integrable and has a remarkable close similarity with motion under a Coulomb force . For the geodesic motion in the Taub-NUT space, the conserved vector analogous to the Runge-Lenz vector of the Kepler type problem is quadratic in $`4`$-velocities, its components are Stäckel-Killing tensors and they can be expressed as symmetrized product of Killing-Yano tensors.

The fermion problem in the Taub-NUT gravitational instanton field was also studied by Comtet and Horvathy  using the observation that the Dirac operator is supersymmetric in $`4`$ dimensions. This property can be connected with fact that the Pauli Hamiltonian for a spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ particle in the field of a Dirac magnetic monopole possesses a dynamical supersymmetry .

We should like to continue this study in the context of the standard relativistic gauge-invariant theory  of the Dirac field in Taub-NUT background . There are some gaps in the previous treatments of the problem which must be filled in. For example, in the Schrödinger case, the existence of the extra conserved quantities of the Runge-Lenz type implies the possibility of separating variables in two different coordinate systems. The presence of the ”hidden” symmetry of the Taub-NUT problem must exercise an influence over the Dirac equation in this background. Finally, we intend to compare the study of the Dirac equation on the Taub-NUT manifold with other treatments of the fermions on curved spaces. For example, there are pseudo-classical models for relativistic spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ particle involving anticommuting vectorial degrees of freedom . For the Taub-NUT spinning space, the relations between symmetries, supersymmetries and constants of motion have been investigated in . Spinning particles are in some sense the classical limit of the Dirac particles. The quantization of these models gives rise to supersymmetric quantum mechanics. After quantization, the anticommuting Grassmann variables are mapped into the Dirac matrices while the supercharge becomes just the static part of the Dirac operator (as defined in section 3).

We devote the present paper to the general $`SO(4,1)`$ gauge-invariant theory of the Dirac fermions  in the external field of the Kaluza-Klein monopole. Our goal is to point out new features of this theory and to find the quantum modes determined by complete sets of commuting operators. We start with a gauge-invariant action involving the Dirac field and pentad fields (or fünfbein) giving local frames like in Ref.. Thus we preserve the manifest covariance of the theory under space rotations such that the familiar three-dimensional vector notation can be used. Our main result is that the Dirac equation obtained in this way  is analytically solvable having quantum modes that can be recovered from those of the Klein-Gordon equation which has the same solutions as the Schrödinger equation  but with different parameters. Thus we show that the Dirac equation can be solved in a manner close to that used for deriving the eigenspinors of the static Dirac operator studied in Ref.. Another result is that for each conserved observable of the scalar theory there is at least one operator which commutes with the Dirac Hamiltonian. Consequently, new conserved observables arise including some interesting ones that can be related to the specific objects of the Taub-NUT geometry. As an application, we write down the general form of the energy eigenspinors of the central modes determined by a complete set of commuting operators that includes the Hamiltonian. We obtain a similar energy spectrum as in Ref. but different energy eigenspinors written in terms of new spherical spinors which solve the angular eigenvalue problems.

We start in section 2 with a brief review of the Taub-NUT geometry and the main orbital operators. In the next one we derive the Dirac equation from the standard $`SO(4,1)`$ gauge-invariant action while in section 4 we show that this theory has well defined properties concerning the supersymmetry and Hermitian conjugation. In section 5 we solve the Dirac equation while in the next one we discuss the form of the possible conserved observables. Section 7 is devoted to the construction of spin-like and Dirac-type operators in direct connections with the hyper-Kähler structure of the Euclidean Taub-NUT space. In section 8 we give the solutions corresponding to the central modes and, finally, we present our conclusions. In Appendix we introduce the new spherical spinors we need. We work in natural units with $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$.

## 2 Preliminaries

The Kaluza-Klein monopole  was obtained by embedding the Taub-NUT gravitational instanton into five-dimensional theory, adding the time coordinate in a trivial way. In a static chart of coordinates $`x^\mu `$ ($`\mu ,\nu ,\mathrm{}=0,1,2,3,5`$), its line element is expressed as

$$ds^2=g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu =dt^2\frac{1}{V}dl^2V(dx^5+A_idx^i)^2.$$
(1)
Here $`dl^2=(d\stackrel{}{x})^2=(dx^1)^2+(dx^2)^2+(dx^3)^2`$ is the usual Euclidean 3-dimensional line element involving the Cartesian physical space coordinates $`x^i`$ ($`i,j,\mathrm{}=1,2,3`$) which cover the domain $`D`$. The other coordinates are the time, $`x^0=t`$, and the Cartesian Kaluza-Klein extra-coordinate, $`x^5D_5`$. The functions $`V`$ and $`A_i`$ are static depending only on $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ as

$$\frac{1}{V}=1+\frac{\mu }{r},A_1=\frac{\mu }{r}\frac{x^2}{r+x^3},A_2=\frac{\mu }{r}\frac{x^1}{r+x^3},A_3=0$$
(2)
where $`r=|\stackrel{}{x}|`$. The regular Taub-NUT metric has the function $`V`$ with $`\mu `$ positive and it is smooth in the range $`r0`$. The case of $`\mu <0`$ is also interesting since then scalar modes with discrete energy levels are allowed. In both cases we consider that the space domain of the local chart with Cartesian coordinates is defined by the condition $`V>0`$. $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ is the Dirac monopole vector potential giving the magnetic field with central symmetry

$$\stackrel{}{B}=\mathrm{rot}\stackrel{}{A}=\mu \frac{\stackrel{}{x}}{r^3}.$$
(3)
In fact, the spacetime defined by (1) and (2) has the global symmetry of the group $`G_s=SO(3)U_5(1)T_t(1)`$ since the line element is invariant under the global rotations of the Cartesian space coordinates and $`x^5`$ and $`t`$ translations of the Abelian groups $`U_5(1)`$ and $`T_t(1)`$ respectively. We note that the $`U_5(1)`$ symmetry eliminates the so called NUT singularity if $`x^5`$ has the period $`4\pi \mu `$.

The main orbital operators of the relativistic quantum mechanics can be introduced by using the geometric quantization. In this way, one obtains the momentum operators in coordinate representation,

$$P_i=i(_iA_i_5),P_5=i_5.$$
(4)
They obey the commutation rules

$$[P_i,P_j]=i\epsilon _{ijk}B_kP_5,[P_i,P_5]=0,$$
(5)
and give the Klein-Gordon operator,

$$_\mu g^{\mu \nu }_\nu =_{t}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+\mathrm{\Delta },\mathrm{\Delta }=V\stackrel{}{P}^2+\frac{1}{V}P_{5}^{}{}_{}{}^{2},$$
(6)
where $`_\mu `$ are the usual covariant derivatives.

Other important orbital operators are the generators of the group $`G_s`$ defined up to the factor $`i`$ as the Killing vector fields corresponding to the global symmetry of the background. Thus the generator of the group $`U_t(1)`$ is $`i_t`$ while the $`U_5(1)`$ generator is just $`P_5`$. The other three Killing vectors give the $`SO(3)`$ generators which are the components of the orbital angular momentum operator

$$\stackrel{}{L}=\stackrel{}{x}\times \stackrel{}{P}\mu \frac{\stackrel{}{x}}{r}P_5.$$
(7)
These generators satisfy the canonical commutation rules among themselves and with the components of all the other vector operators (e.g. coordinates, momenta, etc.).

## 3 The Dirac Field

Let us denote by $`e(x)`$ the pentad fields that define the local frames and by $`\widehat{e}(x)`$ those of the corresponding coframes. Their components, which give us the 1-forms $`\widehat{e}^{\widehat{\alpha }}=\widehat{e}_\mu ^{\widehat{\alpha }}dx^\mu `$ and the local derivatives $`\widehat{}_{\widehat{\nu }}=e_{\widehat{\nu }}^\mu _\mu `$, have the usual orthonormalization properties $`g_{\alpha \beta }e_{\widehat{\mu }}^\alpha e_{\widehat{\nu }}^\beta =\eta _{\widehat{\mu }\widehat{\nu }},g^{\alpha \beta }\widehat{e}_\alpha ^{\widehat{\mu }}\widehat{e}_\beta ^{\widehat{\nu }}=\eta _{\widehat{\mu }\widehat{\nu }},\widehat{e}_\alpha ^{\widehat{\mu }}e_{\widehat{\nu }}^\alpha =\delta _{\widehat{\nu }}^{\widehat{\mu }}`$, where $`\eta =\mathrm{diag}(1,1,1,1,1)`$ is the five-dimensional flat metric. In the case of the Taub-NUT geometry it is convenient to choose pentad fields with the following non-vanishing components

$`\widehat{e}_0^0=1,\widehat{e}_j^i={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}}\delta _{ij},\widehat{e}_i^5=\sqrt{V}A_i,\widehat{e}_5^5=\sqrt{V},`$ (8)
$`e_0^0=1,e_j^i=\sqrt{V}\delta _{ij},e_i^5=\sqrt{V}A_i,e_5^5={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}}.`$ (9)
The components of the metric tensor, which can be written as $`g_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }}\widehat{e}_\mu ^{\widehat{\alpha }}\widehat{e}_\nu ^{\widehat{\beta }}`$ and $`g^{\mu \nu }=\eta ^{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }}e_{\widehat{\alpha }}^\mu e_{\widehat{\beta }}^\nu `$, raise or lower only the Greek indices (ranging from 0 to 5) while for the hat Greek ones (with the same range) we have to use the flat metric $`\eta `$. The commutation relations of the derivatives $`\widehat{}_{\widehat{\nu }}`$ define the Cartan coefficients $`C_{\widehat{\mu }\widehat{\nu }}^{\widehat{\sigma }}=e_{\widehat{\mu }}^\alpha e_{\widehat{\nu }}^\beta (\widehat{e}_{\alpha ,\beta }^{\widehat{\sigma }}\widehat{e}_{\beta ,\alpha }^{\widehat{\sigma }})`$, which will help us to write the spin connection in the local frames.

The gauge group of the metric $`\eta `$ is $`G(\eta )=SO(4,1)`$. Its universal covering group, denoted by $`\stackrel{~}{G}(\eta )`$, is a subgroup of the $`SU(2,2)`$ group which has a fundamental representation just in the space of the four-dimensional Dirac spinors. The five matrices $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }}`$ which must satisfy

$$\{\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }},\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\beta }}\}=2\eta ^{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }},$$
(10)
can be defined in terms of standard Dirac matrices  as $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^0=\gamma ^0,\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^i=\gamma ^i`$, ($`i=1,2,3`$), $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^5=iϵ\gamma ^5`$ where we have introduced the parameter $`ϵ=\pm 1`$. This choice has the advantage that all these five matrices are self-adjoint with respect to the usual Dirac conjugation, $`\overline{\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }}}=\gamma ^0(\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }})^{}\gamma ^0=\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }}`$. Moreover, if we denote by $`S^{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }}`$ the covariant basis generators of the group $`\stackrel{~}{G}(\eta )`$ then we have

$`[\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }},\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\beta }}]`$ $`=`$ $`4iS^{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }},`$ (11)
$`[S^{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }},\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\mu }}]`$ $`=`$ $`i(\eta ^{\widehat{\beta }\widehat{\mu }}\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }}\eta ^{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\mu }}\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\beta }}).`$ (12)
Let $`\psi `$ be a Dirac free field of mass $`M`$, defined on the space domain $`D\times D_5`$. Its gauge-invariant action  has the form

$$𝒮[\psi ]=d^5x\sqrt{g}\left\{\frac{i}{2}\left[\overline{\psi }\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\mu }}\stackrel{~}{}_{\widehat{\mu }}\psi (\overline{\stackrel{~}{}_{\widehat{\mu }}\psi })\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\mu }}\psi \right]M\overline{\psi }\psi \right\}$$
(13)
involving the spin covariant derivatives $`\stackrel{~}{}_{\widehat{\mu }}=\widehat{}_{\widehat{\mu }}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\widehat{\mu }}`$ whose spin connection matrices are

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\widehat{\mu }}=\frac{i}{4}S^{\widehat{\nu }\widehat{\lambda }}(C_{\widehat{\mu }\widehat{\nu }\widehat{\lambda }}+C_{\widehat{\lambda }\widehat{\mu }\widehat{\nu }}+C_{\widehat{\lambda }\widehat{\nu }\widehat{\mu }}).$$
(14)
Starting with Eqs.(8) and (9), after a little calculation, we find

$$\stackrel{~}{}_i=i\sqrt{V}P_i+\frac{i}{2}V\sqrt{V}\epsilon _{ijk}\mathrm{\Sigma }_j^{}B_k,\stackrel{~}{}_5=\frac{i}{\sqrt{V}}P_5\frac{i}{2}V\sqrt{V}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^{}\stackrel{}{B},$$
(15)
where

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_i^{}=S_i+\frac{ϵ}{2}\gamma ^5\gamma ^i,S_i=\frac{1}{2}\epsilon _{ijk}S^{jk}.$$
(16)
Finally we obtain the Dirac equation, $`𝒟\psi =0`$, given by the Dirac operator

$`𝒟`$ $`=`$ $`i\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }}\stackrel{~}{}_{\widehat{\alpha }}M=i\gamma ^0_t𝒟_s`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`i\gamma ^0_t\sqrt{V}\stackrel{}{\gamma }\stackrel{}{P}{\displaystyle \frac{iϵ}{\sqrt{V}}}\gamma ^5P_5{\displaystyle \frac{iϵ}{2}}V\sqrt{V}\gamma ^5\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^{}\stackrel{}{B}M,`$
which has the usual time-dependent term  and a static part, $`𝒟_s`$, determined by the Taub-NUT geometry. The parameter values $`ϵ=\pm 1`$ define two distinctive versions of the theory related between themselves through

$$𝒟(ϵ,M)=\gamma ^5𝒟(ϵ,M)\gamma ^5.$$
(18)
Hereby it results that these can be considered as chiral transformations to each other only when $`M=0`$. We observe that in both cases the matrices $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_i^{}`$ are singular such that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_i^{}(ϵ)+\mathrm{\Sigma }_i^{}(ϵ)=2S_i`$. This is the motive why these versions appear as having quite different formalisms even if, in fact, they are equivalent as it results from Eq.(18). In order to do not produce confusion, in the following we work only in the version with $`ϵ=1`$. We note that the Dirac operator of Ref. is the static operator $`𝒟_s`$ of the version with $`ϵ=1`$ (and $`M=0`$).

By definition , the Hamiltonian operator is $`H=\gamma ^0𝒟_s`$. Other important observables are the generators of the global symmetry, $`P_5`$ and the whole angular momentum operator $`\stackrel{}{J}=\stackrel{}{L}+\stackrel{}{S}`$. One can verify that its components, $`J_i`$, as well as $`P_5`$ are conserved in the sense that they commute with $`𝒟`$ and $`H`$. This means that, as was expected, the Dirac equation is covariant under the transformations of the group $`G_s`$.

## 4 The regular Dirac equation

The Dirac equation can be studied in the original above representation (with fixed $`ϵ=1`$) or in any other representation obtained through a transformation, $`\psi \psi ^{}=T\psi `$, which can be unitary or not. Thus one can find suitable representations where the behavior of the main operators under Hermitian conjugation or the supersymmetry of the Hamiltonian operator should be better pointed out.

In our case it is convenient to write the Dirac equation in regular form with the help of the transformation $`\psi _R=V^{1/4}\psi `$ . Using the identity

$$V^\alpha P_iV^\alpha =P_i+i\alpha VB_i,$$
(19)
we obtain the regular Dirac equation $`𝒟_R\psi _R=0`$ given by the operator

$$𝒟_R=i\gamma ^0_t\sqrt{V}\stackrel{}{\gamma }\stackrel{}{P}\frac{i}{\sqrt{V}}\gamma ^5P_5\frac{i}{2}V\sqrt{V}\gamma ^5\stackrel{}{S}\stackrel{}{B}M.$$
(20)
In this form the Dirac equation has usual terms apart the specific Kaluza-Klein one and the magnetic term which couples the spin with the magnetic field like in the Schrödinger-Pauli non-relativistic theory.

From the general theory of the Dirac field  we can deduce that the time-independent relativistic scalar product of two regular Dirac spinors is

$$(\psi _R,\psi _R^{})=_D\frac{d^3x}{\sqrt{V}}_{D_5}𝑑x^5\overline{\psi }_R(x)\gamma ^0\psi _R^{}(x).$$
(21)
Now we see that the regular form has the advantage of manifestly pointing out that the operators $`\sqrt{V}P_i`$ are self-adjoint with respect to the scalar product (21). Moreover, it is not difficult to convince ourselves that $`J_i`$ and $`P_5`$ are also self-adjoint operators.

The regular Hamiltonian operator, $`H_R`$, is given by $`𝒟_R=\gamma ^0(i_tH_R)`$. With the standard form of the Dirac matrices ,

$$\gamma ^0=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right),\gamma ^i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \sigma _i\\ \sigma _i& 0\end{array}\right),\gamma ^5=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(22)
(where $`\sigma _i`$ are the Pauli matrices), we obtain

$$H_R=\left(\begin{array}{cc}M& \mathrm{\Pi }^{}\\ \mathrm{\Pi }& M\end{array}\right)$$
(23)
where

$`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{V}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{P}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{V}}}P_5{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}V\sqrt{V}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{B}`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`V^{1/4}\left(\sqrt{V}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{P}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{V}}}P_5\right)V^{1/4},`$
as it results from Eq.(19).

In this representation it is obvious that $`H_R`$ is self-adjoint and has manifest supersymmetry. This means that the two-component spinors of $`\psi _R=(\psi _R^{(1)},\psi _R^{(2)})^T`$ satisfy the equations with second order derivatives,

$$(\mathrm{\Pi }^{}\mathrm{\Pi }+M^2+_{t}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})\psi _R^{(1)}=0,(\mathrm{\Pi }\mathrm{\Pi }^{}+M^2+_{t}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})\psi _R^{(2)}=0,$$
(25)
that can be obtained directly from $`(H_{R}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+_{t}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})\psi _R=0`$.

In the original form of the Dirac equation these properties appear as partially hidden since the transformation which leads to the regular equation is not unitary. Other interesting equivalent forms of the Dirac equation can be obtained by using also non-unitary transformations. For example the transformation $`T=\mathrm{diag}(1,V^{1/2})`$ leads to a representation in which the magnetic term is completely absorbed. However, what is important is that there is at least one representation, namely the regular one, where we find good Hermitian properties and the manifest supersymmetry of the Hamiltonian.

## 5 The energy eigenspinors

Bearing in mind that the energy, $`E`$, is conserved it is convenient to consider particular solutions with fixed energy that can be of positive or negative frequency like in the case of the Dirac theory in flat spacetime. We denote them by

$$\psi _E^{(+)}(x)=e^{iEt}u_E(\stackrel{}{x},x^5),\psi _E^{()}(x)=e^{iEt}v_E(\stackrel{}{x},x^5),$$
(26)
and say that $`u_E`$ is the particle energy eigenspinor while $`v_E`$ is the antiparticle one since they satisfy $`(HE)u_E=0`$ and $`(H+E)v_E=0`$.

Let us analyze the particle-like eigenvalue problems starting with the Hamiltonian operator put in the form

$$H=\left(\begin{array}{cc}M& V\pi ^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}\\ \sqrt{V}\pi & M\end{array}\right)$$
(27)
where we have denoted by

$$\pi =\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{P}\frac{iP_5}{V},\pi ^{}=\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{P}+\frac{iP_5}{V},$$
(28)
the operators which give

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=V\pi ^{}\pi .$$
(29)
Then we find that the two-component spinors of $`u_E=(u_E^{(1)},u_E^{(2)})^T`$ satisfy the following equations

$`V\pi ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}}u^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`(EM)u^{(1)},`$ (30)
$`\sqrt{V}\pi u^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`(E+M)u^{(2)},`$ (31)
which, according to Eq.(29), are equivalent with

$`\mathrm{\Delta }u_E^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`(E^2M^2)u_E^{(1)},`$ (32)
$`u_E^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{E+M}}\sqrt{V}\pi u_E^{(1)}.`$ (33)
This remarkable result shows us that $`u_E^{(1)}`$ may be any solution of the scalar equation (32) which is nothing else than the static Klein-Gordon equation in Taub-NUT geometry. In other respects, it is clear that $`u_E^{(2)}`$ is completely determined by Eq.(33) if the form of $`u_E^{(1)}`$ is given.

Hence the conclusion is that the Dirac equation in Taub-NUT geometry is always analytically solvable since the Klein-Gordon equation (32) is solvable having similar solutions as the Schrödinger one . The selection of the solutions can be done starting with desired spinors $`u_E^{(1)}`$ that satisfy Eq.(32) and then calculating $`u_E^{(2)}`$. Since the Klein-Gordon equation is scalar, the form of the spinor $`u_E^{(1)}`$ and, therefore, that of $`u_E`$ is strongly dependent on the choice of the spin observables included in the complete set of the commuting operators which defines the quantum modes.

## 6 Observables

The knowledge of the general form of the solutions offers us the opportunity to analyze the structure and properties of the conserved observables. These are operators in the spaces of the spinors $`u_E`$ which can be expressed in terms of operators acting upon the two-component spinors , $`\pi ,\pi ^{},_2J_i=L_i+\sigma _i/2`$ and

$$\sigma _r=\frac{1}{r}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{x},\sigma _P=\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{P},\sigma _L=\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{L}.$$
(34)
The problem we briefly investigate here is how may look the operators which commute with the Hamiltonian (27).

The simplest operators have the diagonal form

$$X=\left(\begin{array}{cc}X^{(1)}& 0\\ 0& X^{(2)}\end{array}\right)$$
(35)
where $`X^{(1)}`$ and $`X^{(2)}`$ are $`2\times 2`$ matrix operators. The condition $`[X,H]=0`$ is equivalent with

$$X^{(2)}\sqrt{V}\pi =\sqrt{V}\pi X^{(1)},V\pi ^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}X^{(2)}=X^{(1)}V\pi ^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{V}},$$
(36)
from which it results that $`[X^{(1)},\mathrm{\Delta }]=0`$. Therefore, we can start with an operator $`X^{(1)}`$ which commutes with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and to try to find the operator $`X^{(2)}`$ which satisfies Eqs.(36). If this problem has solution and we have

$$X^{(1)}u_E^{(1)}=\xi u_E^{(1)},$$
(37)
then the energy eigenspinor $`u_E`$ is an eigenspinor of $`X`$ corresponding to the same eigenvalue, $`\xi `$. The best example is represented by the components of the whole angular momentum, $`J_i=\mathrm{diag}(_2J_i,_2J_i)`$, which commute with $`H`$ since $`{}_{2}{}^{}J_{i}^{}`$ commute with $`\pi `$, $`\pi ^{}`$ and $`V`$.

If we have an operator $`X^{(1)}`$ which commutes with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and satisfies Eq.(37) but there is no satisfactory solution for $`X^{(2)}`$ we can introduce an observable starting with the singular operator $`X_0=\mathrm{diag}(X^{(1)},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0})`$ that commutes with $`H^2`$. This property guarantees that the new operator

$$𝒬(X^{(1)})=\{X_0,H\},$$
(38)
commutes with $`H`$. In addition, by using Eqs.(30), (31) and (37) we obtain the interesting eigenvalue equation

$$𝒬(X^{(1)})u_E=(E+M)\xi u_E.$$
(39)
Thus we arrive to another important result namely that for any operator which commutes with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ there exists an operator in the space of the Dirac energy eigenspinors $`u_E`$ of the form (38) which commutes with $`H`$. Particularly, for $`X^{(1)}=1`$ we get $`𝒬(1)=H+M`$. On the other hand, the mapping $`X^{(1)}𝒬(X^{(1)})`$ cannot be interpreted as a representation since, in general, for two operators $`X^{(1)}`$ and $`Y^{(1)}`$ which commute with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we have $`[𝒬(X^{(1)}),𝒬(Y^{(1)})]𝒬([X^{(1)},Y^{(1)}])`$. Fortunately, if $`X^{(1)}`$ and $`Y^{(1)}`$ commute with each other then it is true that $`[𝒬(X^{(1)}),𝒬(Y^{(1)})]=0`$.

However, apart from the above cases, there are many other types of conserved operators constructed by using algebraic operations or directly related to the specific geometric objects of the Taub-NUT geometry, as Stäckel-Killing and Killing-Yano tensors. In the next Section we shall present some operators connected with the covariantly constant Killing-Yano tensors of the Taub-NUT geometry.

## 7 Spin-like and Dirac-type operators

As observed in , the Taub-NUT geometry possesses four Killing-Yano tensor of valence $`2`$:

$$f_{\mu (\nu ;\lambda )}=0$$
(40)
where the round bracket denotes symmetrization over the indices enclosed. The first three,

$`f^i`$ $`=`$ $`f_{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }}^i\widehat{e}^{\widehat{\alpha }}\widehat{e}^{\widehat{\beta }}`$ (41)
$`=`$ $`2\mu (dx^5+\stackrel{}{A}d\stackrel{}{x})dx^i+\epsilon _{ijk}V^1dx^jdx^k`$
$`=`$ $`2\widehat{e}^5\widehat{e}^i+\epsilon _{ijk}\widehat{e}^j\widehat{e}^k,`$
are rather special since they are covariantly constant (with vanishing field strength).

Using these tensors we can construct the following spin-like operators,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_i=\frac{i}{4}f_{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }}^i\gamma ^{\widehat{\alpha }}\gamma ^{\widehat{\beta }}=S_i\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^5\gamma ^i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\sigma _i& 0\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(42)
which have similar properties to that of the Pauli matrices $`\sigma _i`$ and, in addition, satisfy

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_i+\mathrm{\Sigma }_i^{}=2S_i.$$
(43)
Since the Pauli matrices commute with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the spin-like operators (42) commute with $`H^2`$ and, therefore, we can introduce the operators of the form (38)

$$𝒬(\sigma _i)=\{\mathrm{\Sigma }_i,H\}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}2M\sigma _i& V\sigma _i\pi ^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}\\ \sqrt{V}\pi \sigma _i& 0\end{array}\right)$$
(44)
which commute with the Hamiltonian (27). Let us observe that they have the remarkable property:

$$\{𝒬(\sigma _i),𝒬(\sigma _j)\}=2\delta _{ij}(H+M)^2.$$
(45)
The existence of the Killing-Yano tensors (41) allows one to construct generalizations of the operator $`𝒟_s`$ defined by

$$𝒟_i=f_{\widehat{\alpha }\widehat{\beta }}^i\stackrel{~}{\gamma }^{\widehat{\alpha }}\stackrel{~}{}^{\widehat{\beta }},$$
(46)
and called Dirac-type operators . After a little calculation we find that their explicit form is

$$𝒟_i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& V\sigma _i\pi ^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}\\ \sqrt{V}\pi \sigma _i& 0\end{array}\right)$$
(47)
and from Eqs.(42), (44) and (47) we get

$$𝒬(\sigma _i)=2M\mathrm{\Sigma }_i+𝒟_i.$$
(48)
In addition, we have

$$\{\gamma ^0,𝒟_i\}=0,$$
(49)
and

$$[H,\mathrm{\Sigma }^i]=\gamma ^0𝒟_i,[H,𝒟_i]=2M\gamma ^0𝒟_i.$$
(50)
For $`M=0`$, the operators $`𝒬(\sigma _i)`$ coincide with the Dirac-type operators $`𝒟_i`$. Moreover, including into Eq.(45) the static part of $`𝒟`$, denoted now by $`Q_0=i𝒟_s=i\gamma ^0H`$, by the side of the operators $`Q_i=𝒬(\sigma _i)`$ we obtain

$$\{Q_A,Q_B\}=2\delta _{AB}H^2,A,B,\mathrm{}=0,1,2,3.$$
(51)
It is worthy of notice that these relations correspond to the $`N=4`$ supersymmetry algebra realized by the supercharges of the spinning Taub-NUT model . In fact relations of the form (51) make manifest the link between the existence of the covariantly constant Killing-Yano tensors (41) and the hyper-Kähler geometry of the Taub-NUT manifold. In other respects, let us observe that Eq.(49) permits to convert the anticommutator (51) into a commutation relation between the operators $`\gamma ^0Q_A`$ and $`Q_B`$ for $`AB`$.

The fourth Killing-Yano tensor of the Taub-NUT space is not covariantly constant. This tensor is involved in the construction of a conserved vector analogous to the Runge-Lenz vector of the Kepler problem . The existence of the extra conserved quantities, quadratic in velocities, implies the possibility of separating variables for Dirac equation in two different coordinate systems. This matter will be discussed elsewhere .

## 8 Central modes

In this section we shall show in what manner the central modes can be defined using an appropriate complete set of commuting observables. We consider the local chart with spherical coordinates, $`r,\theta ,\varphi `$, commonly related to the Cartesian ones and the new coordinate $`\chi `$ defined as

$$\chi =\frac{1}{\mu }x^5\mathrm{arctan}\frac{x^2}{x^1}.$$
(52)
Then the line element reads

$$ds^2=dt^2\frac{1}{V}(dr^2+r^2d\theta ^2+r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)\mu ^2V(d\chi +\mathrm{cos}\theta d\varphi )^2,$$
(53)
since $`A_r=A_\theta =0`$ and $`A_\varphi =\mu (1\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$. Note that in this chart $`rD_r=\{r|V(r)>0\}`$ (i.e., $`r>0`$ if $`\mu >0`$ or $`r>|\mu |`$ if $`\mu <0`$), the angular coordinates $`\theta ,\varphi `$ cover the sphere $`S^2`$ while $`\chi D_\chi =[0,4\pi )`$.

In the following it is convenient to use the orbital operators in spherical coordinates  and $`Q=\mu P_5=i_\chi `$ instead of $`P_5`$. We assume that the central modes of the Dirac field in Taub-NUT geometry are given by the common eigenspinors of the complete set of commuting operators $`\{H,Q,\stackrel{}{J}^2,J_3,𝒬(\sigma _L+1)\}`$. These eigenspinors have the form

$$u_{E,q,j,m_j}^\pm =N_{E,q,j}^\pm \frac{1}{r}\left(\begin{array}{c}\hfill i(E+M)f_{E,q,j}^\pm \mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm \\ \hfill \sqrt{V}(h_{E,q,j}^\pm \mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm +g_{E,q,j}^\pm \mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^{}),\end{array}\right)$$
(54)
where $`N^\pm `$ are normalization factors, the radial functions $`f^\pm ,g^\pm `$ and $`h^\pm `$ depend only on $`r`$ while $`\mathrm{\Psi }^\pm `$ are the spherical spinors defined in Appendix. These completely solve the common eigenvalue problems of the operators $`Q,\stackrel{}{J}^2`$, $`J_3`$ and $`𝒬(\sigma _L+1)`$ for the eigenvalues $`q,j(j+1)`$, $`m_j`$, and $`\pm (E+M)(j+\frac{1}{2})`$, respectively.

Then it remains only to solve the energy eigenvalue problem which must give the radial functions according to Eqs.(32) and (33). We find first that $`f^\pm `$ is a solution of the radial Klein-Gordon equation,

$$\left[\frac{d^2}{dr^2}+\frac{l_{}(l_{}+1)}{r^2}\frac{\alpha }{r}\right]f_{E,q,j}^\pm (r)=\beta f_{E,q,j}^\pm (r),$$
(55)
which has the same form as the Schrödinger one  but with the parameters, $`l_\pm =j\pm \frac{1}{2}`$ and

$$\alpha =\mu \left[E^2M^22\frac{q^2}{\mu ^2}\right],\beta =E^2M^2\frac{q^2}{\mu ^2}.$$
(56)
The other radial functions can be calculated from Eq.(33) if we take into account that

$$i\sigma _P=\sigma _r\left[_r+\frac{1}{r}\frac{\sigma _L+1}{r}\right]+\frac{Q}{r}$$
(57)
and by using Eqs.(67) and (71). We obtain the radial equations

$`g_{E,q,j}^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{1(\lambda _j^q)^2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}\pm {\displaystyle \frac{j+\frac{1}{2}}{r}}\right)f_{E,q,j}^\pm ,`$ (58)
$`h_{E,q,j}^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _j^q\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}+{\displaystyle \frac{j+\frac{1}{2}}{\mu V}}\right)f_{E,q,j}^\pm ,`$ (59)
which lead to the identity

$$h_{E,q,j}^\pm =\frac{q}{\mu }f_{E,q,j}^\pm \pm \frac{\lambda _j^q}{\sqrt{1(\lambda _j^q)^2}}g_{E,q,j}^\pm .$$
(60)
The last step is to calculate the normalization constants with the help of the scalar product (21) where the spinors $`\psi _R`$ will be replaced by $`V^{1/4}u_{E,q,j,m_j}^\pm `$. Since the spherical spinors are orthogonal, we obtain for the eigenspinors corresponding to the discrete energy levels that

$$\frac{1}{|N_{E,q,j}^\pm |^2}=(E+M)^2_{D_r}\frac{dr}{V}|f_{E,q,j}^\pm |^2+_{D_r}𝑑r\left(|g_{E,q,j}^\pm |^2+|h_{E,q,j}^\pm |^2\right).$$
(61)
The radial Klein-Gordon equation (55) produces the same central modes as those discussed in Ref. with similar energy spectra. Therefore the energy levels are deeply degenerated having no fine structure. For example, the discrete levels of the case $`\mu <0`$,

$$E_n^2=M^2+\frac{2}{\mu ^2}\left[n\sqrt{n^2q^2}(n^2q^2)\right],$$
(62)
depend only on the principal quantum number $`n`$ which takes all the integer values allowed by the selection rule $`|q|<j+\frac{1}{2}<n`$ derived from those presented in Appendix. It is interesting to observe that the condition $`n>|q|`$ eliminates the zero modes (with $`E=M`$) for $`q0`$. Like in the scalar case the energy spectrum is countable with finite range since

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}E_n^2=M_{ef}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=M^2+\frac{q^2}{\mu ^2},$$
(63)
where $`M_{ef}`$ play the role of the effective mass of the spin half particle in the field of the Dirac monopole. This arises from the usual mass term of $`𝒟`$ combined with the specific Kaluza-Klein contribution . We must specify that in the case of $`M=0`$ this spectrum is similar with that of Ref. but the energy eigenspinors as well as the selection rules of the quantum numbers are different.

Finally we observe that there are more other conserved observables which commute with those of the complete set that defines the central modes. Indeed, if we take the operators $`\stackrel{}{L}^2`$, $`{}_{2}{}^{}\stackrel{}{J}_{}^{2}`$ and $`{}_{2}{}^{}J_{3}^{}`$ which commute with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we can verify that the operators $`𝒬(\stackrel{}{L}^2)`$, $`𝒬(_2\stackrel{}{J}^2)`$ and $`𝒬(_2J_3)`$ commute among themselves and with all the other observables considered above. Consequently, the eigenspinors (54) of the central basis are, in addition, common eigenspinors of these new observables, corresponding to the eigenvalues $`(E+M)l_{}(l_{}+1)`$, $`(E+M)j(j+1)`$ and $`(E+M)m_j`$, respectively.

## 9 Conclusions

The main conclusion of this article is that the $`SO(4,1)`$ gauge-invariant theory of the Dirac field in Taub-NUT geometry leads to an analytically solvable field equation which gives similar energy levels like those of the scalar modes. In general, these are deeply degenerated having no fine structure. For this reason we need to use many commuting operators in order to completely determine the quantum modes of the Dirac field. Fortunately, in this theory we have to handle a collection of conserved observables much more larger than that of the scalar field. This is because one can associate to each operator which commutes with the Klein-Gordon operator at least one operator which should commute with the Dirac Hamiltonian. In this way we have found the new operator $`𝒬(\sigma _L+1)`$ necessary to complete the set of commuting operators $`\{H,Q,\stackrel{}{J}^2,J_3\}`$ and the other new conserved observables that are diagonal in the basis of the eigenspinors (54). However, as mentioned, there is the possibility that other kind of conserved observables could be constructed using the specific Killing-Yano tensors of the Taub-NUT geometry.

In a forthcoming paper  we shall analyze the consequences of the presence of a conserved vector analogous to the Runge-Lenz vector of the Kepler-type problem. The existence of this conserved quantity is rather surprising in view of the complexity of the equations of geodesic motion in the Taub-NUT space. The components of the Runge-Lenz type vector are Killing tensors and they can be expressed as symmetrized products of the covariantly constant Killing-Yano tensors $`f^i`$ (41) and a fourth Killing-Yano tensor $`f^Y`$ non-covariantly constant . The first three tensors, $`f^i`$, transform as vector under spatial rotations generated by $`\stackrel{}{J}`$, while the last one, $`f^Y`$, is a scalar. The existence of the extra conserved quantities, quadratic in four-velocities, implies the possibility of separating variables in two different coordinate systems.

Finally we intend to extend the study of the Dirac equations on generalized Taub-NUT metrics . This class of metrics admits a Kepler-type symmetry, but, in general, the Killing tensors involved in the Runge-Lenz vector cannot be expressed as products of Killing-Yano tensors . It is expected that the non-existence of the Killing-Yano tensors makes the study of ”hidden” symmetries more laborious for relativistic particles with spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$.

### Acknowledgments

We should like to thank Marc Henneaux and Yavuz Nutku for interesting and helpful conversations concerning the motion of fermions on curved spaces.

## Appendix A Spherical spinors

We define the spherical spinors in usual manner  starting with our $`SO(3)U(1)`$ harmonics, $`Y_{l,m}^q`$, introduced in Ref.. These are more general than others  since they are defined for any real value of $`q`$ without restrictions upon the values of $`l`$ and $`m`$ apart the selection rule $`|q|1<|m|l`$.

In the case of the Taub-NUT geometry the boundary conditions on $`S^2\times D_\chi `$ require $`l`$ and $`m`$ to be integer numbers while $`q=0,\pm 1/2,\pm 1,\mathrm{}`$ . However, for integer $`l`$ the spherical spinors can be defined for any $`q`$ according to the usual method of the decomposition of the direct product of $`SU(2)`$ representations by taking the $`SO(3)U(1)`$ harmonics instead of the usual ones. Thus we find that the spherical spinors, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm (\theta ,\varphi ,\chi )`$, are the common two-component eigenspinors of the eigenvalue problems

$`Q\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`q\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm ,`$ (64)
$`{}_{2}{}^{}\stackrel{}{J}_{}^{2}\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`j(j+1)\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm ,`$ (65)
$`{}_{2}{}^{}J_{3}^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`m_j\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm ,`$ (66)
$`(\sigma _L+1)\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\pm (j+1/2)\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm .`$ (67)
They are, in addition, eigenfunctions of $`\stackrel{}{L}^2`$ corresponding to the eigenvalues $`l(l+1)`$ with $`l=j\pm \frac{1}{2}`$. For $`j=l+\frac{1}{2}>|q|\frac{1}{2}`$ we have

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^+=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2j}}\left(\begin{array}{c}\sqrt{j+m_j}Y_{j\frac{1}{2},m_j\frac{1}{2}}^q\hfill \\ \sqrt{jm_j}Y_{j\frac{1}{2},m_j+\frac{1}{2}}^q\hfill \end{array}\right)$$
(68)
while for $`j=l\frac{1}{2}>|q|\frac{3}{2}`$ we get

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2j+2}}\left(\begin{array}{c}\sqrt{jm_j+1}Y_{j+\frac{1}{2},m_j\frac{1}{2}}^q\hfill \\ \sqrt{j+m_j+1}Y_{j+\frac{1}{2},m_j+\frac{1}{2}}^q\hfill \end{array}\right).$$
(69)
We specify that these spherical spinors are orthonormal since the $`SO(3)U(1)`$ harmonics are orthonormal with respect to the angular scalar product .

Finally, using Eq.(67) and the superalgebra

$$\sigma _{r}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=1,\{\sigma _r,\sigma _L+1\}=2q$$
(70)
we find that

$$\sigma _r\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm =\pm \lambda _j^q\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^\pm +\sqrt{1(\lambda _j^q)^2}\mathrm{\Psi }_{q,j,m_j}^{}$$
(71)
where we have denoted $`\lambda _j^q=q/(j+\frac{1}{2})`$. Note that a similar property is reported in Ref..