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# Galaxy structure and kinematics towards the NGP

## 1. Introduction

It is generally accepted that the Galaxy is constituted by four discrete main components, the bulge, the thin disk, the thick disk and the halo, which are characterized by distinctive stellar populations in terms of spatial distribution, kinematics properties, metallicity and age. A detailed knowledge of such galactic components is essential to achieve a complete description of the Milky Way, as well as of the various processes and evolutionary phases which occurred during the history of our Galaxy (and other galaxies too) and that are responsible for the existence and the properties of those components we observe today.

Ground based surveys providing photometry, proper motions and/or spectroscopic observations have been carried out in the past to study the structure and kinematics of Galactic populations, and these will continue and be extended in the next years thanks to availability of all-sky catalogs such as GSC-II and USNO-B, based on multi-epoch photographic surveys, as well as other current and future photometric and spectroscopic surveys (eg. 2MASS, DENIS, SDSS, EIS, HES, HK, VST, etc.) that benefit from the availability of dedicated scanning and large field cameras as well as large multi-fiber spectrographs (eg. 2dF, 6dF, FLAMES).

Clearly, the GAIA mission will provide an enormous contribution to the understanding of the formation and evolution of the Galaxy, thanks to very accurate astrometric parameters complemented by photometric and spectroscopic measurements which will permit the direct determination of the 6D phase space distribution and the chemical abundance of large and complete samples of stellar tracers belonging to the different galactic components.

Here we describe a new project which combines astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic data in order to investigate the kinematics of the outer halo by means of velocities derived from proper motions and radial velocities for a sample of RR-Lyræ and BHB giants towards the NGP.

## 2. NGP survey: proper motions and radial velocities

At the moment we have surveyed about 200 square degrees towards the NGP, and produced positions, proper motions and photographic photometry for about 500 000 objects down to plate limits (R$`{}_{F}{}^{}<20.5`$).

Our material consists of $`6.4^{}\times 6.4^{}`$ Schmidt plates from the Northern photographic surveys (POSS-I, Quick V and POSS-II) carried out at the Palomar Observatory (Table 1). All plates were digitized at STScI utilizing modified PDS-type scanning machines with 25 $`\mu `$m square pixels (1.7 ′′/pixel) for the first epoch plates, and 15 $`\mu `$m pixels (1 ′′/pixel) for the second epoch plates. The digital copies of the plates were initially analyzed by means of the standard software pipeline used for the construction of the GSC-II (see e.g. Lasker et al. 1995 or McLean et al. 2000). The pipeline performs object detection and computes parameters and features for each identified object. Further, the software provides classification, position, and magnitude for each object by means of astrometric and photometric calibrations which utilized the Tycho2 (Høg et al. 2000) and the GSPC-2 (Bucciarelli et al. 2001) as reference catalogs. Accuracies better than 0.1-0.2 arcsec in position and 0.15-0.2 mag in photographic magnitude are generally attained. Relative proper motions were derived by applying the procedure described in Spagna et al. (1996) and afterwards transformed to the absolute reference frame forcing the extended extragalactic sources to have null tangential motion. As shown in Figure 1, the typical precision ($`\sigma _\mu 3`$ mas/yr down to $`R_F18`$) has been estimated from the formal errors of the fitted proper motions, while the zero point accuracy of the absolute proper motions have been tested by checking the mean motion of a set of known QSO’s that give values smaller than 1 mas/yr on each component.

Radial velocities and chemical abundances of the sample of RR Lyræ and BHB giants were derived by means of spectroscopic observations carried out with the 4m Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak and with the 3.5m TNG on La Palma. The data were processed with standard procedures and routines (IRAF), and typical errors are $`\sigma _{\mathrm{RV}}40`$ km s-1 and $`\sigma _{[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]}0.2`$ dex.

## 3. The vertical structure

The color magnitude diagram and the vector point diagram observed in one field of our NGP survey are shown in Figure 2. The observed distributions are the result of the complex mixture of the stars belonging to the various populations which are present towards high galactic latitudes. In particular, these may include:

1. the flat and rapidly rotating old thin disk,
2. the extended thick disk, including its metal weak tail,
3. a flattened and slowly rotating inner halo,
4. a spheroidal non-rotating outer halo,
5. satellite debris and kinematics substructures.

Actually, the physical properties of these components are not completely established and various problems are still controversial. For instance: $`(a)`$ the density scale factor, rotation and metallicity distribution of the thick disk; $`(b)`$ the nature of the metal weak thick disk (MWTD) and its relation with the standard thick disk (satellite debris or initial phase of a dissipative formation?); $`(c)`$ the halo velocity ellipsoid, the spatial distribution and axial ratio of the halo as a function of the distance, $`(d)`$ the search of halo streams; $`(f)`$ the determination of the luminosity and mass function of the faintest Pop.II stars (white dwarfs, late M dwarfs and subdwarfs).

Due to the lack of trigonometric parallaxes for our and similar surveys, accurate distances and tangential velocities cannot be directly determined. In such a case it is convenient to analyze these large data-sets by comparing the observations against ad hoc Galaxy models which describe both the density and kinematics, as for instance the Besançon model (Robin & Oblak 1987), the IAS Galaxy model (Bachall, Casertano & Ratnatunga 1987), or the models developed by Mendez & van Altena (1996) and Chen (1997). To this regard, in Figure 3 starcounts are compared against the Mendez’s Galaxy model which has been extended to the photographic BJ and RF magnitudes by Spagna (2001).

Alternatively, using tracers with known brightness, it is possible to derive distance and space velocity by means of photometry, proper motions and spectroscopic radial velocities. This approach has been adopted to investigate the kinematics of the outer halo traced by a set of 31 RR Lyræ and 65 BHB giants, as will be discussed in the following section. These objects are distributed between $`2<Z<12`$ kpc (V=12-16.5 mag) and accurate photometric parallaxes ($`\sigma _d/d<10`$%) have been computed by means of the MV vs. B–V relation for BHB giants derived by Preston et al. (1991), while for RR Lyræ stars we adopted the $`M_V`$ as a function of metallicity or of Fourier components, as follows:

$`M_V`$ $`=`$ $`0.23\text{[Fe/H]}+0.92`$ (1)
$`M_V`$ $`=`$ $`1.876\mathrm{log}P1.158A_1+0.821A_3+0.448`$ (2)
where Eq. 1 is from Cacciari (2002) and Chaboyer (1999), while Eq. 2 is based on the relation from Kovács & Walker (2001) where $`P`$ is the period (in days), $`A_1`$ and $`A_3`$ are the Fourier amplitudes (mag) of the fundamental and second harmonic components, respectively. The zero point has been calibrated by Kinman (2002) with respect to the absolute magnitude ($`M_V=0.61_{0.11}^{+0.10}`$) of RR Lyr derived from the HST/FGS parallax measured by Benedict et al. (2002). Finally, the extinction E(B–V) has been estimated from the maps of Schlegel et al. (1998).

## 4. Halo rotation

A retrograde rotation of the outer halo has been suggested by Majewski (1992) who measured a mean velocity $`V=275`$ km s-1, which corresponds to a galactocentric retrograde velocity $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}55`$ km s-1 adopting $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=220`$ km s-1, from the analysis of a pure sample of halo subdwarfs at $`Z>5.5`$ kpc towards the NGP. As shown in Table 2, this parameter is still controversial, in fact Carney (1999), after correcting the kinematics bias of his kinematically-selected subdwarf sample, found a net prograde rotation of about $`V=196`$ km s-1. On the contrary, Chiba & Beers (2000) measured a prograde rotating inner halo, $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}20`$-60 km s-1, up to about 1 kpc, with a decreasing vertical gradient of $`dV/d|Z|=52\pm 6`$ km s-1 kpc-1, while they did not detect any significant rotation above $`Z1.2`$ kpc for very low abundance stars ($`2.4`$ \[Fe/H\] $`1.9`$), where contamination of thick disk stars should be negligible. In addition, their halo sample at larger distances (212 stars with $`4<Z_{\mathrm{Max}}<20`$ kpc and \[Fe/H\]$`1.5`$) still does not support any significant rotation: $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}0\pm 8`$ km s-1.

However, recently Gilmore et al. (2002), who carried out a spectroscopic survey at intermediate galactic latitudes of about 2000 F/G stars, revealed a significant excess of retrograde halo stars in their faintest magnitude bin ($`18<V<19.5`$) corresponding to a vertical distance $`|Z|5`$ kpc.

The fact that the velocities of halo stars do not match an exact gaussian distribution is well known (see eg. Martin & Morrison 1998). How much this depends on the properties of the whole population or on the effects of kinematic substructures, such as satellite debris of ancient accretion events (eg. Helmi et al. 1999), remains to be established.

As shown in Table 2, a preliminary analysis of our sample of RR Lyræ and BHB giants (Kinman et al. 2002) seems to support a retrograde rotation of the outer halo. In fact, we measured a heliocentric velocity $`V=285\pm 17`$ km s-1, which corresponds to $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}60`$ km s-1 adopting a solar motion with respect to the LSR, $`V_{}=+5.25\pm 0.62`$ km s-1, from Dehnen & Binney (1998) and assuming $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=220`$ km s-1. This result is confirmed also by the separate analysis of the RR Lyræ and BHB giants, which both provide a retrograde rotation.

How much this value may be affected by a velocity bias can be estimated by the level of systematic errors on proper motions which in practice give the main contribution to the $`U`$ and $`V`$ galactic components along this line of sight towards $`b90^{}`$. As reported in Sect. 2, we found systematic errors $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu <1`$ mas/yr, from which velocity bias up to 20-30 km s-1 can be expected for such stars located at $`Z5`$-6 kpc, on average. Clearly, this is a critical point which need further analysis.

## 5. Kinematics simulation

A Montecarlo simulation has been developed in order to compare the GAIA capability to recover the halo kinematics with respect to the velocity precision that can be attained by the current and future ground based surveys. For simplicity we considered an uniform spatial distribution with Pop.II-like kinematics, $`(\sigma _U,\sigma _V,\sigma _W)=(150,100,100)`$ km s-1 and an observer rotating with a velocity of 220 km s-1 at a distance of 8 kpc from the galactic center. Implicitly we assumed to measure bright tracers, such as RR Lyræ, BHB and red giants, having apparent magnitude $`V16`$ mag at a distance of about $`d10`$ kpc. The following cases were tested:

* Case A (GAIA), with $`\sigma _\pi =10`$ $`\mu `$as, $`\sigma _\mu =10`$ $`\mu `$as yr-1 (per component) and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Vr}}=10`$ km s-1, from astrometric and spectroscopic observations;
* Case B (ground-based surveys), with $`\sigma _{mM}=0.2`$ mag, $`\sigma _\mu =1`$ mas yr-1 (per component) and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Vr}}=10`$ km s-1, from astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic observations.

Note that the two cases differ essentially in a factor 100 on the proper motion accuracy. In fact, at $`10`$ kpc the distance accuracy is the same for both cases. This points out the fact that, although radial velocities and distance moduli derived from ground based spectro-photometric surveys can attain similar accuracy, GAIA astrometry will uniquely provide accurate and reliable tangential velocities up to large distances.

Figure 4 shows the results of Montecarlo simulations with 5000 stars towards $`b=90^{}`$. Top panels present the velocity errors (i.e. the differences between the observed velocity and the true value) for Case A, and those at the bottom for Case B. As expected, errors increase linearly with distance, and for GAIA the rms of $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ residuals vary from $`10`$ km s-1 at 5 kpc to 20-30 km s-1 at 10 kpc. For Case B the errors on U and V are about a factor 2-3 larger, while $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }W}=\sigma _{\mathrm{Vr}}10`$ km s-1 in both the cases. Note that in Case A the error on the tangential velocity is in practice dominated by the distance uncertainty, $`\sigma _\pi `$, while both the errors on proper motions and photometric parallaxes contribute to the velocity errors of Case B. Similar results are derived in other directions.

These velocity errors should be compared with the typical motion of the halo stars (100-200 km s-1) for which GAIA will provide individual 3D spatial velocities with a significant signal-to-noise, $`\sigma _v/v`$, up to $`d10`$-15 kpc, a distance where ground based surveys are not able to measure reliable tangential velocities. GAIA will measure direct distances and velocities for large samples of halo tracers, selected in situ without kinematics nor metallicity bias, from which it will possible to determine accurately the halo velocity ellipsoid and its orientation. In particular, the GAIA $`\mu `$-arcsec level accuracy will be essential in order to take advantage of the $`\sqrt{N}`$ statistical factor and avoid the risk of velocity biases due to the presence of systematics errors affecting proper motions and parallaxes as discussed in Sect. 4.

Finally, accuracy of the order of 15-20 km s-1, such as that attained by GAIA for $`d<10`$ kpc, is the value requested to resolve kinematics substructures in the halo, as the satellite debris predicted by the hierarchical scenarios of galaxy formation. To this regards, Helmi (2002) estimated that GAIA will be able to recover 2/3 of the accretion events with a velocity accuracy better than 20 km s-1 and $`\sigma _d/d<`$ 20% down to $`V18.5`$, or 1/2 of the events down to $`V15`$ mag.

## 6. Summary

Large field proper motion surveys ($`\sigma _\mu `$ 1-10 mas/yr) based on photographic surveys digitized with fast measuring machines (APS, MAMA, PDS, PMM, SuperCOSMOS) are still useful tools for the study of the structure and kinematics of the galactic stellar populations, especially when combined with radial velocities and chemical abundances from spectro-photometric observations. In particular, we have shown how bright halo tracers, such as BHB giants and RR Lyræ stars with $`V<16`$-17, can be used to investigate in situ the halo kinematics up to $`z5`$-6 kpc via photometric parallaxes if proper motions with $`\sigma _\mu 1`$-2 mas/yr accuracy and radial velocities with precision of about $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Vr}}10`$-20 km s-1 are available. For statistical analysis of large samples, systematic errors on the proper motions (and $`M_V`$ too) are critical and can result in biased mean velocities and dispersions. These problems will be dramatically reduced by the astrometric parameters and spectroscopic $`V_r`$ provided by GAIA, which will permit to determine $`(a)`$ direct distances from parallaxes, $`(b)`$ radial and tangential velocities with an accuracy of a few tens of km s-1 to $`d10`$-15 kpc for $`(c)`$ unbiased and larger sets of tracers identified by means of its spectro-photometric and astrometric data.

### Acknowledgments.

The GSC II is a joint project of the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino. Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by AURA for NASA under contract NAS5-26555. Partial financial support to this research comes from the Italian CNAA and the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR) through the COFIN-2001 program.

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# Is the tetraneutron a bound dineutron-dineutron molecule?

## Abstract

In light of a new experiment which claims a positive identification, we discuss the possible existence of the tetraneutron. We explore a model based on a dineutron-dineutron molecule. We show that this model is not able to explain the tetraneutron as a bound state, in agreement with other theoretical models already discussed in the literature.

In a recent experiment Ma02 , the existence of bound neutron clusters was studied by fragmentation of intermediate energy (30-50 MeV/nucleon) 14Be nuclei. In particular, the fragmentation channel $`{}_{}{}^{10}\mathrm{Be}+^4\mathrm{n}`$ was observed and the $`{}_{}{}^{4}\mathrm{n}`$ system was tentatively described as a bound tetraneutron system.

The possible existence of the tetraneutron has been discussed theoretically by numerous authors already in the 1960’s (e.g., refs. Ar62 ; Gol63 ; Loh63 ; Vla64 ; Hip64 ; Ben64 ; Dan65 ; Tan65 ). The experimental search at that time Sch63 ; Bri64 ; Cie65 ; Coh65 , including the experiments on double pion charge exchange reactions with 4He Dav64 ; Gil65 , gave negative results. The general conclusion, based on experiment and theory, was that the tetraneutron cannot be bound. More recent experiments Ung84 ; Bel88 ; Ale88 ; Gor89  and theoretical calculations Bev80 ; Bad85 ; Gorr89 ; Var95 ; Sof97  give support to this assertion, except perhaps ref. Gut89  where a hyperspherical function method was used and led the authors to the conclusion that the tetraneutron may exist as a resonance in the four-body continuum at energy of about 1-3 MeV. These theoretical models have recently been reconsidered in ref. Tim02  where it was concluded that a too strong four-nucleon force is needed to bind the tetraneutron and that this force would unreasonably bind 4He by about 100 MeV.

It thus seems very unlikely that the tetraneutron can be explained within any standard theoretical model. In this brief report we consider the possibility that the tetraneutron can be described as a composite dineutron-dineutron molecular system. To our knowledge this is a hitherto unexplored model for the possible binding of neutron matter. In this model, the dineutron is considered to be slightly bound due to a polarization mechanism induced by the presence of the other dineutron. Although the dineutron system is not bound (it has a virtual singlet state at $`E=66`$ keV), there is some theoretical Mi73 ; Pud96 ; Sme97  and experimental Sim99  evidence that it might become bound in the presence of another nuclear system.

Another reason to believe that neutrons clusterize, or form correlated bound pairs inside a nucleus, is the existence of the Borromean nuclear systems, e.g. 6He and 11Li, or nultineutron configuration systems in light nuclei, e.g. 8He. The Borromean systems Zh93  are thee-body systems in which the particles are not bound in pairs, but the three-body system is bound. For example, although 10Li and the two-neutron systems are not bound, 11Li is bound. It is the presence of 10Li which induces the neutron-neutron binding correlation, as first suggested by Migdal Mi73 . The authors of ref. Zhuk94  also suggest that two of the three most likely ground state configurations in 8He are compatible with an $`\alpha +^4`$n cluster system.

The model for the tetraneutron is based on two clusters of dineutron molecules as displayed in Fig. 1. A similar model was used in the framework of the generator coordinate method for the scattering problem in ref. Gir73 . The molecular models, similar to those used in quantum chemistry, were successfully applied to the chain of Be isotopes Kan02 . The dineutron wave function can be written as

$$\phi _{12}=\sqrt{2}𝒜_{12}\left\{N_0\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\xi _a^2}{2b^2}\right]\chi _1^{(+)}\chi _2^{()}\right\},$$
(1)
where $`\xi _a=2\left|𝐫_1+𝐑/2\right|`$ is the (relative) intrinsic coordinate and $`𝐫_1`$ is the position of the neutron 1 with respect to the center of mass of the tetraneutron. The relative motion spatial wave function is taken as a Gaussian with $`N_0=\left(b^3\pi ^{3/2}\right)^{1/2}`$, and $`b`$ is the oscillator parameter. The dineutron is assumed to be in a spin-0 state, described by the spinors $`\chi _1^{(+)}`$ (spin-up) and $`\chi _2^{()}`$ (spin-down), respectively. The wave function is antisymmetrized by the operator $`𝒜_{12}=\frac{1}{2}\left(1P_{12}\right)`$, where $`P_{12}`$ exchanges neutrons 1 and 2. An analogous wave function, $`\phi _{34}`$, is written for the second dineutron molecule. Since the spatial part of the dineutron internal wave functions is even under inversion, the operator $`𝒜_{12}`$ only acts over the spin variables and we can write Eq. (1) as

$`\phi _{12}`$ $`=N_0\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\xi _a^2}{2b^2}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left\{\chi _1^{(+)}\chi _2^{()}\chi _1^{()}\chi _2^{(+)}\right\}`$
$`=N_0\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\xi _a^2}{2b^2}}\right]\chi _{12}^{\left(0\right)}.`$ (2)
Accordingly, the wave function for the second dineutron is

$$\phi _{34}=N_0\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\xi _a^2}{2b^2}\right]\chi _{34}^{\left(0\right)}.$$
(3)
The total wave function of the tetraneutron is

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\sqrt{6}𝒜_{12,34}\left[\phi _{12}\phi _{34}\right]\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐑),$$
(4)
where the operator $`𝒜_{12,34}=\frac{1}{6}\left(1P_{13}P_{14}P_{23}P_{24}+P_{13}P_{24}+P_{14}P_{23}\right)`$ implements the antisymmetrization between the dineutrons. The factors $`\sqrt{2}`$ in Eq. (1) and $`\sqrt{6}`$ in Eq. (4) account for the proper normalization. The function $`\mathrm{\Phi }\left(𝐑\right)`$ is the dineutron-dineutron molecular wave function.

Using Eqs. (1-4), we obtain (here we drop the upper index (0) in the singlet spinors)

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\sqrt{6}N_0^2\left\{f(\xi _a,\xi _b)\chi _{12}\chi _{34}g(𝝃_a,𝝃_b,𝐑)\chi _{14}\chi _{32}h(𝝃_a,𝝃_b,𝐑)\chi _{13}\chi _{24}\right\}\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐑),$$
(5)
where

$$f(\xi _a,\xi _b)=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\xi _a^2+\xi _b^2}{2b^2}\right],$$
(6)
$$g(𝝃_a,𝝃_b,𝐑)=\frac{2}{3}f(\xi _a,\xi _b)\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{R^2}{b^2}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{𝝃_a.𝝃_b}{2b^2}\right],$$
(7)
and

$$h(𝝃_a,𝝃_b,𝐑)=\frac{2}{3}f(\xi _a,\xi _b)\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{R^2}{b^2}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{𝝃_a.𝝃_b}{2b^2}\right].$$
(8)
The total Hamiltonian for the tetraneutron system is

$$H=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}\mathrm{\Delta }_i+V.$$
(9)
The neutron-neutron potential was taken as a two-body Volkov potential Vo65 ,

$$V=\underset{ij}{\overset{4}{}}\left(1M+MP_{ij}^x\right)V_{ij},V_{ij}\left(r\right)=V_\alpha \mathrm{exp}\left(r^2/\alpha ^2\right)+V_\beta \mathrm{exp}\left(r^2/\beta ^2\right),$$
(10)
where $`P_{ij}^x`$ is the Majorana exchange operator and the parameters $`V_\alpha `$, $`V_\beta ,`$ $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are chosen to reproduce the scattering length and effective range in low energy nucleon-nucleon collisions, as well as the binding energy of $`{}_{}{}^{4}\mathrm{He}`$ Vo65 .

The total Hamiltonian $`H`$ can be presented as

$$H=T_a+T_b+T_R+V,$$
(11)
with

$$T_{a,b}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{4m_N}\mathbf{}_{𝝃_{a,b}},T_R=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_N}\mathbf{}_𝐑.$$
(12)
Since in our model the mean positions of the clusters are taken to be at $`𝐑/2`$ and $`𝐑/2`$, respectively, and since the position of each nucleon is symmetric with respect to the origin of each cluster, there is no admixture of spurious motion of the center of mass.

We use Eq. (5) as a starting point of a variational procedure. To obtain an effective Schrödinger equation for $`\mathrm{\Phi }\left(𝐑\right)`$, we multiply the full 4-body Schrödinger equation $`H\mathrm{\Psi }=E\mathrm{\Psi }`$ by $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}/\mathrm{\Phi }\left(𝐑\right)`$ and integrate over $`𝝃_1`$ and $`𝝃_2`$. We will assume the variational function $`\mathrm{\Phi }\left(𝐑\right)`$ to be independent of angles (i.e., an s-wave state),

$$\mathrm{\Phi }\left(𝐑\right)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{4\pi }}\frac{u(R)}{R}.$$
(13)
so that the operator $`T_R`$ in eq. (12) becomes

$$T_R=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_N}\frac{d^2}{dR^2}.$$
(14)
The integrals over $`𝝃_1`$ and $`𝝃_2`$ can be performed analytically. One obtains an effective Schrödinger equation for $`u(R)`$ in the form

$$\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_N}u^{\prime \prime }(R)+RV_3(R)u^{}(R)+\left\{V_1(R)+V_2(R)E\right\}u(R)=0$$
(15)
where

$`V_1(R)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m_Nb^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{R^2}{b^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{7}{4}}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(R^2/b^2\right),`$ (16)
$`V_2(R)`$ $`=2\left[M1M{\displaystyle \frac{1\mathrm{exp}\left(2R^2/b^2\right)}{1\mathrm{exp}\left(R^2/b^2\right)}}\right]\left[f\left(\alpha \right)+f\left(\beta \right)\right],`$ (17)
$`f\left(\alpha \right)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{V_\alpha \alpha ^3}{\left(\alpha ^2+b^2\right)^{3/2}}}\left\{1+\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{R^2}{\alpha ^2+b^2}}\right]\right\},`$ (18)
and

$$V_3(R)=\frac{2\mathrm{}^2}{m_Nb^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(R^2/b^2\right).$$
(19)
Since we are interested only in the relative energy between the clusters, we extract from the total Hamiltonian the internal kinetic energy of each cluster: $`T^{int}=3\mathrm{}^2/\left(4mb^2\right)`$ and $`V^{int}=V_\alpha \left(1+b^2/\alpha ^2\right)^{3/2}+V_\beta \left(1+b^2/\beta ^2\right)^{3/2}`$ that do not depend on $`R`$.

Eq. (15) can be put in a conventional form of a Schrödinger equation:

$$\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_N}v^{\prime \prime }(R)+\left\{U_1(R)+U_2(R)E\right\}v(R)=0,$$
(20)
where

$$v(R)=u(R)\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}_0^Rf(R^{})𝑑R^{}\right],f(R)=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_N}RV_3(R).$$
(21)
The effective potentials in eq. 20 are given by

$$U_2(R)=V_2(R),$$
(22)
and

$`U_1(R)`$ $`=V_1(R){\displaystyle \frac{RV_3^{}(R)}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{V_3(R)}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{m_N}{2\mathrm{}^2}}\left[RV_3(R)\right]^2`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m_Nb^2}}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{R^2}{b^2}}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(R^2/b^2\right){\displaystyle \frac{2R^2}{b^2}}\mathrm{exp}\left(2R^2/b^2\right)\right].`$ (23)
We use for the oscillator parameter $`b=1.5`$ fm. A set of 8 parameters of the Volkov potential were taken from Ref. Vo65 . In Fig. 2 we show the results for the Volkov V1 force. We notice that the potential $`U_2(R)`$ is repulsive and the potential $`U_1(R)`$ is attractive. Their sum is dominated by the repulsive part.

In Fig. 3(a) we show the total potential $`U_1(R)+U_2(R)`$ for the 8 sets of parameters in the Volkov potential, as taken from Ref. Vo65 . One sees that none of the parameter sets leads to a potential with an attractive pocket, which could be a sign for the existence of a bound state. But even in that case the pocket would have to be deep enough to allow for the appearance of the bound state.

Finally, we have varied the oscillator parameter from 1.2 fm to 2 fm for each set of parameters of the Volkov interaction. No pocket appeared in the effective potential $`U_1(R)+U_2(R)`$ within this range of variation. Figure 3(b) shows this for the specific case of the Volkov-1 interaction.

In summary, we have explored a model of the tetraneutron as a dineutron-dineutron molecule. Using a variational calculation we have found an effective Schrödinger equation for the relative motion of the dineutrons, after a proper account for the Pauli exclusion principle. An effective potential for the relative motion of the dineutron molecules was obtained. We showed that this potential does not have a pocket and thus the tetraneutron is very unlikely to be bound as a dineutron-dineutron molecule, although more complex variational approaches still can be explored. For example, one might consider a different spatial wavefunction for the dineutron system. We have used Gaussian for convenience. But the asymptotic form of the wavefunction might not be correct. An Yukawa form might be more appropriate to achieve a lower energy for the system. Another improvement might be the use of more realistic interactions, other than the Volkov interaction. Interactions including tensor parts might lead to some modifications of our results. Finally, although less probable as an improvement, one might relax the assumption of singlet states for the dineutron allowing for the triplet configurations in the calculation.

Our study is complementary to other approaches and reinforces the commonly accepted idea that a tetraneutron is not a possible outcome of a theoretical calculation starting with underlying two-body nucleon-nucleon interactions. If the tetraneutron is bound, most probably it will be due to a special four-body attraction in $`T=2`$ states or an exceptional fine tuning of the nucleon-nucleon interaction which does not seem to fit within present nuclear models. It might however be useful to recall an old phenomenological argument Vla64  against the stability of the tetraneutron. Adding a pair of neutrons to a nucleus one usually increases the separation energy of the proton. If this rule holds, a simple comparison of the particle-stable tritium and unstable 5H immediately leads to the conclusion that $`M(^4\mathrm{n})>4M_n`$.

After this paper was completed, a detailed variational Monte-Carlo calculation for the tetraneutron was done in Ref. Pie03 . It was shown that it does not seem possible to change modern nuclear Hamiltonians to bind a tetraneutron without destroying many other successful predictions of those Hamiltonians. Otherwise, our understanding of nuclear forces would have to be significantly changed.

More elaborate QCD calculations based on lattice gauge theories cannot presently assess this problem. There are some lattice calculations for the H-dibarion state with not very reliable results (see Ref. WK02 ; Neg98 ). However, lattice claculations still cannot determine if, e.g., the deuteron is bound. State of the art lattice numerical calculations are aiming at $`𝒪`$(10) MeV accuracy in binding energy, not $`𝒪`$(1) MeV or less that is relevant for nuclear physics. Also, how the calculations depend on quark masses is an interesting but very difficult question.

We acknowledge useful discussions with M. Creutz, S. Pieper, S. Ohta and K. Orginos. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. PHY-0110253, PHY-9875122, PHY-007091, PHY-0070818 and PHY-0244453.


text:
# Area expectation values in quantum area Regge calculus

## Abstract

The Regge calculus generalised to independent area tensor variables is considered. The continuous time limit is found and formal Feynman path integral measure corresponding to the canonical quantisation is written out. The quantum measure in the completely discrete theory is found which possesses the property to lead to the Feynman path integral in the continuous time limit whatever coordinate is chosen as time. This measure can be well defined by passing to the integration over imaginary field variables (area tensors). Averaging with the help of this measure gives finite expectation values for areas.

The standard canonical quantisation prescription requires continuous coordinate which would play the role of time. Therefore this prescription is not defined in the completely discrete theory such as Regge calculus formulation of general relativity (GR). Due to the absence of a unique recipe of how to quantise, a lot of different approaches to discrete quantum gravity is possible. In particular, a large amount of hopes are connected with the spin foam approaches (see  for a review). The latter are the 4D generalisations of the 3D Ponzano-Regge model of quantum gravity  where the partition function of 3D Regge calculus is taken as a discrete sum of the products of $`6j`$-symbols corresponding to angular momenta $`j_i`$ for separate tetrahedra with linklengths $`j_i+\frac{1}{2}`$. The basis for such a choice is that the exponential of 3D Regge action arises in the asymptotic form of $`6j`$-symbols at large $`j_i`$. Thus, in the spin foam models the partition function is more fundamental object than the action since the latter arises only in the asymptotic form of the former. As for the standard canonical quantisation approaches issuing directly from the action, these are applicable to the theories with discrete space but continuous time and are faced with the complication consisting in the fact that discrete constraints of GR are generally second class (i.e. do not commute). This is usual problem with lattice regularisation in quantum gravity for it breaks diffeomorphism invariance (see  for a review). This enforces the researchers working in this field to develop some analogs of canonical quantisation of general relativity for the completely discrete spacetimes .

In this letter we quantise in terms of the Feynman path integral a model of the 4D Regge calculus  which does not possess the above difficulty, i.e. noncommutativity of the constraints (in the discrete space but continuous time). Moreover, it turns out that the quantum measure for the completely discrete theory does exist which possesses the following property (of equivalence of the different coordinates). If we pass to the limit when any of the coordinates is made continuous one then we can define in the natural way the limit for this measure which turns out to be just the Feynman path integral measure corresponding to the canonical quantisation with this coordinate playing the role of time. The model in question is some modification of the usual Regge calculus, the so-called area Regge calculus where area tensors are treated as independent variables. The idea that Regge calculus should be formulated in terms of the areas of the triangles rather than the edge lengths was suggested by Rovelli  and further studied in ref . In  the area Regge calculus with independent (scalar) areas has been introduced, and our model seems to be another one not reducable to that of . At the same time, both versions of area Regge calculus possess simple equations of motion which state that angle defects vanish. Because of the lack of metric and of the usual geometric interpretation of angle defect, this does not mean flat spacetime. Simple form of the equations of motion is, however, sufficient to ensure closeness of the algebra of constraints (i.e. their being first class) even on the discrete level. Evidently, considering the area variables as independent ones means that the theory acquires additional degrees of freedom. Remarkable, however, is that this leads to simplification of the theory.

Now let us pass to the action of our specific version of area Regge calculus of interest  (in slightly modified notations),

$$S(\pi ,\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{\sigma ^2}{}|\pi _{\sigma ^2}|\mathrm{arcsin}\frac{\pi _{\sigma ^2}R_{\sigma ^2}(\mathrm{\Omega })}{|\pi _{\sigma ^2}|},$$
(1)
where $`\pi _{\sigma ^2}^{ab}`$ are the tensors of the 2-faces $`\sigma ^2`$ which in the particular case of the usual link vector formulation (not area modified) should reduce to $`ϵ^{abcd}l_{1c}l_{2d}`$, $`l_1^a`$, $`l_2^a`$ being 4-vectors of some two edges of the triangle $`\sigma ^2`$ in the local frame of a certain 4-tetrahedron containing $`\sigma ^2`$. In our case $`\pi _{\sigma ^2}^{ab}`$ are independent area tensors. The curvature matrix $`R_{\sigma ^2}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is the path-ordered product of SO(4) (in the Euclidean case) matrices $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\sigma ^3}^{\pm 1}`$ living on the 3-faces $`\sigma ^3`$ taken along the loop enclosing the given 2-face $`\sigma ^2`$. Some further notations are $`AB`$ $``$ $`\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{tr}A^\mathrm{T}B`$ for any two tensors $`A`$, $`B`$ and $`|\pi _{\sigma ^2}|`$ = $`(\pi _{\sigma ^2}\pi _{\sigma ^2})^{1/2}`$ for twice the area of the 2-face $`\sigma ^2`$.

The whole procedure of constructing measure includes the following steps:
(i) passing to the continuous time;
(ii) writing out Feynman path integral following from the Hamiltonian form and canonical quantisation;
(iii) finding the measure for the completely discrete theory (including time) which would result in the above path integral in the continuous time limit irrespectively of what coordinate is chosen as time.

It is convenient to consider the case of the Euclidean signature. Once the derivation is made, it turns out that the measure obtained can be well defined by passing to the integration over imaginary contours which looks like the formal change of integration variables $`\pi `$ $``$ $`i\pi `$,

$$<f(\pi ,\mathrm{\Omega })>=f(\pi ,\mathrm{\Omega })𝑑\mu (\pi ,\mathrm{\Omega })f(i\pi ,\mathrm{\Omega })𝑑\mu (i\pi ,\mathrm{\Omega }).$$
(2)
It is convenient to write out integrals in such the form from the very beginning, what just is done in the present paper. The considered derivation is performed quite analogously to the case of 3D Regge calculus considered by the author in the paper . This is connected with the fact that the 4D area Regge calculus resembles the 3D Regge calculus.

Passing to the continuous time limit means that some set of the triangles, call these timelike ones, have area tensors of the order of $`O(dt)`$ like

$$\pi _{(i^+ik)}\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}n_{ik}dt.$$
(3)
Here $`i^+`$ means image in the leave at the moment $`t`$ \+ $`dt`$ of the vertex $`i`$ taken at the moment $`t`$. (The leaves are themselves 3D Regge manifolds.) The notation $`(i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{n+1})`$ means unordered $`n`$-simplex with vertices $`i_1`$, $`i_2`$, …, $`i_{n+1}`$ (triangle at $`n`$ = 2) while that without parentheses means ordered simplex. Besides that, the connection matrices living on the 3-tetrahedrons with volume $`O(1)`$ (spacelike and diagonal ones) can be considered as those responsible for the parallel transport at a distance $`O(dt)`$ and therefore it is natural to put these being infinitesimally close to unity. In fact, the transport to the next ($`t+dt`$) time leave is defined by the sum of contributions from the spacelike $`(iklm)`$ and diagonal (differing from $`(iklm)`$ by occurence of superscript ”+” on some of $`i`$, $`k`$, $`l`$, $`m`$) tetrahedra inside the 4D prism with bases $`(iklm)`$ and $`(i^+k^+l^+m^+)`$. Denote the resulting rotation matrix $`1`$ \+ $`h_{(iklm)}dt`$. The considered $`n_{ik}`$ and $`h_{(iklm)}`$ turn out to be Lagrange multipliers at the constraints in the resulting Lagrangian while area tensors on spacelike triangles $`\pi _{(ikl)}`$ become dynamical variables. As for the dynamical variables of the type of connection, these live on the timelike tetrahedrons like $`(i^+ikl)`$. It turns out, however, that dynamical connections live, in fact, on the spacelike triangles. Indeed, consider contribution of a diagonal triangle, e.g. $`(ik^+l)`$, into action. The leading $`O(1)`$ contribution into action is due to the connections on the two timelike tetrahedrons sharing this triangle; suppose these prove to be $`(ik^+kl)`$ and $`(ik^+l^+l)`$. Then equations of motion for the area tensor of this triangle say that these connections are equal, may be, up to possible inversion, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ik^+kl)}`$ = $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ik^+l^+l)}^{\pm 1}`$. This means that timelike connection is a function, in essense, on the set of bases of the 3D prisms where the considered timelike tetrahedrons are contained. Explicit calculation of the continuous time action for the usual (with independent linklengths) Regge calculus in the tetrad-connection representation has been made by the author . Now, in area tensor-connection Regge calculus the problem is, in view of the above discussion, much simpler, and expression for the Lagrangian can be obtained from the result of .

$`L`$ $`=`$ $`L_{\dot{\mathrm{\Omega }}}+L_h+L_n,`$ (4)
$`L_{\dot{\mathrm{\Omega }}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{(ikl)}{}}\pi _{(ikl)}\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ikl)}^{}\dot{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{(ikl)},`$ (5)
$`L_h`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{(iklm)}{}}h_{(iklm)}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{cycle}\mathrm{perm}iklm}{}}\epsilon _{(ikl)m}\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ikl)}^{\delta _{(ikl)m}}\pi _{(ikl)}\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ikl)}^{\delta _{(ikl)m}}`$
$`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}`$ $`C(h)`$
$`(\delta `$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1+\epsilon }{2}}),`$
$`L_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{(ik)}{}}n_{(ik)}R_{(ik)}`$
$`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}`$ $`R(n)`$
$`(R_{(ik)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ikl_n)}^{\epsilon _{ikl_n}}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ikl_1)}^{\epsilon _{ikl_1}},\epsilon _{ikl_j}=\epsilon _{(ikl_j)l_{j1}}=\epsilon _{(ikl_j)l_{j+1}}).`$
Here $`\epsilon _{(ikl)m}`$ is a sign function which put in correspondence +1 or -1 to each pair of tetrahedron $`(iklm)`$ and triangle $`(ikl)`$ contained in it. It is specified only by conditions presented in (Area expectation values in quantum area Regge calculus). The infinitesimal area tensors enter as $`n_{(ik)}`$ = $`n_{ik}`$ \+ $`n_{ki}`$. Important property is absence of the ’arcsin’ function; this is because equations of motion have the same solution $`R`$ = $`\pm 1`$ as if ’arcsin’ were omitted.

The eqs. (4) - (Area expectation values in quantum area Regge calculus) present the system of the first class constraints $`C`$, $`R`$ and kinetic term analogous to those in 3D case considered in  and first suggested for the discrete gravity by Waelbroeck . The difference is, first, in the local group (SO(4) versus SO(3)) and, second, in the different topology in 4 and 3 dimensions (here by ’topology’ we mean the scheme of connection of the different vertices); in other respects situation is similar and, in particular, (Euclidean) Feynman path integral measure reads

$$d\mu =\mathrm{exp}\left(iL_{\dot{\mathrm{\Omega }}}𝑑t\right)\delta (C)\delta (R)D\pi 𝒟\mathrm{\Omega },D\pi \stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\underset{(ikl)}{}d^6\pi _{(ikl)},𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\underset{(ikl)}{}𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ikl)}$$
(8)
where $`𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the Haar measure. Upon raising $`C`$, $`R`$ from $`\delta `$-functions to exponent with the help of the Lagrange multipliers $`h`$, $`n`$ the $`d\mu `$ can be rewritten as

$$d\mu =\mathrm{exp}\left(iL𝑑t\right)D\pi Dn𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }Dh.$$
(9)
Important is the problem of fixing the gauge and separating out the volume of the symmetry group generated by constraints. The gauge subgroup generated by $`C`$ consists of SO(4) rotations (in the different terahedrons) and has finite volume. Therefore there is no need to fix the rotational symmetry. The $`R(n)`$ generate shifts in the values of area tensors when $`\pi _{(ikl)}`$ changes by the lateral surface of the 3D prism with the base $`(ikl)`$ which is algebraic sum of $`n_{(ik)}`$, $`n_{(kl)}`$, $`n_{(li)}`$. (More accurately, the sum of the expressions of the type $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}n\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ are some products of matrices $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\pm 1}`$ needed to express $`n`$’s in the frame of the same tetrahedron where $`\pi _{(ikl)}`$ is defined.) Evidently, $`R(n)`$ is an analog of the Hamiltonian constraint in the usual GR which governs the dynamics. Let us fix the symmetry generated by $`R(n)`$ by fixing area tensors of a certain set of the triangles. The number of the triangles from this set should be the same as the number of independent constraints $`R`$. The full number of the constraints $`R`$ is $`N_1^{(3)}`$, the number of links in the 3D leave, but $`N_0^{(3)}`$ of these are consequences of others due to the Bianchi identity which can be written for each vertex; $`N_0^{(3)}`$ is the number of vertices in the 3D leave. Thus, the number of independent constraints $`R`$ is $`N_1^{(3)}`$ \- $`N_0^{(3)}`$. Consider now the set of $`x`$-like triangles $`F`$ in the 3D leave where $`x`$ is some coordinate in the leave. The number of these triangles is $`N_1^{(3)}`$ \- $`N_0^{(3)}`$ as well. More careful investigation shows that the matrix of the Poisson brackets $`\{R,f\}`$ is nondegenerate for $`f`$ = $`\{\pi _{(ikl)}a_{(ikl)}|(ikl)F\}`$, $`a_{(ikl)}`$ = $`const`$ (it’s determinant is unity under appropriate boundary conditions on the manifold) and thereby $`f`$ = 0 is admissible gauge condition. By the standard rule of the Faddeev-Popov ansatz for separating out the gauge group volume, it is easy to find that such gauge fixing amounts to simply omitting integrations over $`d^6\pi _{(ikl)}`$, $`(ikl)`$ $``$ $`F`$.

For subsequent constructing the completely discrete measure respecting the coordinate equivalence it is important to convince ourselves that analogously integration over area tensors of the timelike triangles could be omitted. Indeed, due to conservation in time it is sufficient to impose the constraint $`R`$ only as initial condition. Therefore integration over $`Dn`$ giving $`\delta (R)`$ in other moments of time is not necessary and can be omitted.

As a result, one can use the measure either in the more symmetrical form (9) or in similar form where integration over $`Dn`$ is omitted or in that one where integration over $`d^6\pi _{(ikl)}`$, $`(ikl)`$ $``$ $`F`$ is omitted, $`F`$ being the set of $`x`$-like triangles.

Now we are in a position to generalise the canonical quantisation (continuous time) measure to the full discrete measure. First, we can recast the measure into the equivalent form by inserting integration over variables living on the diagonal triangles. Let, for example, the diagonal triangles $`(ik^+l)`$ and $`(ik^+l^+)`$ exist shared by the tetrahedra $`(ik^+kl)`$, $`(ik^+l^+l)`$ and $`(ik^+l^+l)`$, $`(i^+ik^+l^+)`$, respectively. Add contribution of these triangles to the Lagrangian,

$$\pi _{(ik^+l)}\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ik^+kl)}^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ik^+l^+l)}+\pi _{(ik^+l^+)}\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ik^+l^+l)}^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{(i^+ik^+l^+)},$$
(10)
and at the same time insert integrations over $`d^6\pi _{(ik^+l)}`$, $`d^6\pi _{(ik^+l^+)}`$ and substitute $`𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ikl)}`$ by $`𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ik^+kl)}`$ $`𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ik^+l^+l)}`$ $`𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }_{(i^+ik^+l^+)}`$. Integrations over $`d^6\pi _{(ik^+l)}`$, $`d^6\pi _{(ik^+l^+)}`$ give $`\delta `$-functions of (antisymmetric parts of) the curvature matrices which can be read off from (10). These $`\delta `$’s are then integrated out and, by properties of invariant Haar measure, the two additional integrations over connections reduce to unity.

Second, it is natural to adopt the following rule of passing from the integration over finite rotations to that over infinitesimal ones,

$$𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }d^6h,$$
(11)
if $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ = 1 + $`hdt`$. Then the most symmetrical w.r.t. the different simplices expression for completely discrete measure should take the form

$$d_{}=\mathrm{exp}\left(i\underset{(ABC)}{}\pi _{(ABC)}R_{(ABC)}(\mathrm{\Omega })\right)\underset{(ABC)}{}d^6\pi _{(ABC)}\underset{(ABCD)}{}𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ABCD)}.$$
(12)
Here $`A`$, $`B`$, $`C`$, …denote vertices of the 4D Regge manifold. Integration is omitted over area tensors of the set of triangles $``$. Occurrence of this set means that full symmetry w.r.t. the different simplices is not achieved, but a’priori there is an arbitrariness in the choice of $``$, so we can speak of a kind of spontaneous symmetry breaking. Existence of this set is connected with Bianchi identities which can lead to singularity. Indeed, when integrating over $`d^6\pi `$ the $`\delta `$-functions of (antisymmetric part of) the curvature can arise, their arguments being generally not independent just due to the Bianchi identities and possibility to have something like $`\delta `$-function squared exists. Therefore $``$ is just the set of those triangles the curvature matrices on which are functions of other curvatures. The number of such triangles is evidently the number of independent Bianchi identities. Since Bianchi identity in the 4D case can be written for the curvatures on all the triangles sharing a given link but these identities for all the links meeting at a given vertex are dependent, the above number is $`N_1^{(4)}`$ \- $`N_0^{(4)}`$, $`N_j^{(4)}`$ being the number of simplices of the dimensionality $`j`$ in the 4D manifold. The triangles of the $``$ should constitute a surface which passes through all the links. Let us choose any coordinate, denote it $`t`$, and consider all the $`t`$-like triangles. Their number is just $`N_1^{(4)}`$ \- $`N_0^{(4)}`$, and one can prove that starting from initial conditions on some $`t`$-leave one can successively express the curvatures on these triangles in terms of other curvatures.

Further, the set $``$ naturally fit to the requirement to yield the canonical quantisation measure in the continuous time limit. In fact, different choices of $``$ correspond to different choices of gauge fixing in the measure (9). Indeed, suppose we make the coordinate $`t`$ continuous. Then, if $``$ is the set of the $`t`$-like triangles, the limit of the measure (12) will be (9) with integration over area tensors $`Dn`$ on the timelike triangles omitted. The choice of $``$ being the set of $`x`$-like triangles results in the limiting measure (9) with integration over area tensors on the set $`F`$ $``$ $``$ $`x`$-like triangles omitted. Finally, the choice for $``$ being some set of the diagonal $`xt`$-like triangles leads to the measure (9) with all area tensor integrations available.

The exponential of the measure constructed containes the terms of the two types: contributions of the $`t`$-like triangles (if $``$ is the set of $`t`$-like triangles for some coordinate $`t`$) and contributions of the spacelike and diagonal triangles. The former can be cast to the form $`nR(R,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ where $`R(R,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ are (rather bulky) expressions for the curvatures on $``$ in terms of other curvatures and connections which solve the Bianchi identities, but coefficients of them, tensors of the $`t`$-like triangles $`n`$ serve as parameters and can be chosen by hand. The latter are $`\pi R`$ where, in principle, $`R`$ can be taken as independent variables. Note that scaling by the imaginary unity (2) refers only to the integration (dummy) variables. The $`t`$-like triangle tensors $`n`$ enter real, and Euclidean expectation values are defined as

$`<f(\pi ,\mathrm{\Omega })>`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle f(i\pi ,\mathrm{\Omega })\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{\stackrel{t\mathrm{like}}{(ABC)}}{}n_{(ABC)}R_{(ABC)}(\mathrm{\Omega })\right)}`$ (13)
$`\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{\stackrel{\mathrm{not}}{t\mathrm{like}}}{(ABC)}}{}}\pi _{(ABC)}R_{(ABC)}(\mathrm{\Omega })\right){\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{\stackrel{\mathrm{not}}{t\mathrm{like}}}{(ABC)}}{}}d^6\pi _{(ABC)}{\displaystyle \underset{(ABCD)}{}}𝒟\mathrm{\Omega }_{(ABCD)}.`$
Using possibility to choose tensors $`n`$ by hand, take these negligibly small. If the function to be averaged does not depend on the connections, it is easy to see, with taking into account invariance property of the Haar measure, that then the measure splits into the product of the measures over separate triangles of the type

$$\mathrm{exp}(i\pi R)d^6\pi 𝒟R.$$
(14)
In turn, we can use the group property SO(4) = SO(3) $`\times `$ SO(3) to expand variables ($`\pi `$ and generator of $`R`$) into self- and antiselfdual parts, in particular, $`\pi `$ is mapped into 3-vectors $`{}_{}{}^{+}𝝅`$, $`{}_{}{}^{}𝝅`$. Thereby the measure (14) is represented as the product of the two measures each of which being copy of the measure which appears in the 3D model . In that paper it has been found that the recipe (2) which means now 3D analog of (13) indeed defines a positive measure if one neglects links given by hand (analogs of $`n`$). Besides that, expectation value of any power $`k`$ $`>`$ -1 of the link vector squared $`𝐥^{2k}`$ turns out to exist,

$$<𝐥^{2k}>=\frac{4^k\mathrm{\Gamma }(2k+2)^2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(k+2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(k+1)}$$
(15)
(in Plank units) which extends to any function

$`<g(𝐥)>`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{do_l}{4\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}g(𝐥)\nu (l)𝑑l},`$ (16)
$`\nu (l)={\displaystyle \frac{2l}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^\pi }\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{l}{\mathrm{sin}\phi }}\right)𝑑\phi .`$
Now one should substitute here $`{}_{}{}^{\pm }𝝅`$ instead of $`𝐥`$ in order to calculate expectation values of any function of area tensor, e.g. the area itself

$$|\pi |^2=(^+𝝅)^2+(^{}𝝅)^2,$$
(17)
or the dual product

$$\pi \pi =(^+𝝅)^2(^{}𝝅)^2.$$
(18)
The tensor $`\pi `$ being bivector, i.e. antisymmetrised tensor product of two vectors, is equivalent to the dual product vanishing. We see that this property holds in average (but the square of (18) has already nonzero VEV).

The main problem is whether description in terms of lengths can arise in the framework of the considered area formalism. Possible approach could be to treat unambiguity of the linklengths as a specific feature of the existing state of the Universe. Since the question is about unambiguity of the lengths in the full discrete spacetime, not only in it’s 3D sections, a generalisation of the usual quantum mechanical notion of the state is implied. Generally the measure can be viewed as a linear functional $`\mu (\mathrm{\Psi })`$ on the (sub)space of functionals $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\{\pi \})`$ on the superspace of area tensors $`\pi `$ each point of which is represented by the set of the values of area tensors $`\{\pi \}`$ of all the triangles of the Regge manifold. Of interest is some hypersurface $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in this superspace which consists of the points $`\{\pi \}`$ defining Regge manifolds with unambiguous lengths. Could we consistently define our measure on the subspace of the functionals of the form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(\{\pi \})=\psi (\{\pi \})\delta _\mathrm{\Gamma }(\{\pi \})$$
(19)
where $`\delta _\mathrm{\Gamma }(\{\pi \})`$ is (many-dimensional) $`\delta `$-function with support on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$? Further, such property as positivity is required to hold anyway to ensure probabilistic interpretation of the measure. Therefore a strict proof is required that the physically reasonable choice of tensors (given as parameters) $`n`$ besides the trivial one $`n`$ = 0 considered above exists which leaves the measure (13) positive.

The present work was supported in part by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research through Grant No. 01-02-16898, through Grant No. 00-15-96811 for Leading Scientific Schools and by the Ministry of Education Grant No. E00-3.3-148.