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# On Ising and dimer models in two and three dimensions

## I Introduction

Dimer models have long been of interest to statistical mechanicians.rushfow ; kasteleyn ; nagle ; gaunt ; liebhei  In addition to their interest in various physical contexts, they have the striking feature that they are exactly soluble on any planar graph.kasteleyn  Following this insight, Fisher,FishIsing  after initial work by Stephenson,stephensonising  constructed a general mapping – reviewed below – from two-dimensional Ising onto dimer models, thereby relating the solvability of the one to that of the other. In particular he related the partition function of the ferromagnetic Ising model on the square lattice to that of the dimer model on the (now) Fisher lattice, which is sketched in Fig. 1.

More recently, quantum dimer models (QDMs) have been formulated and studied.Rokhsar88  These live in Hilbert spaces spanned by dimer configurations of a given lattice and their Hamiltonians contain kinetic and potential energies that are naturally defined in this basis. These models were introduced to capture the dynamics of valence bond dominated phases of quantum antiferromagnets, with the particular intent of finding Anderson’s hypothesized resonating valence bond (RVB) liquidpwabook  – a hope realized recently.MStrirvb

In this context, attention has been focussed on the nature of the quantum dimer phases, in particular their topological properties and low-energy excitations, and a recurring and useful theme has been their interpretation in gauge theoretic terms, particularly the identification of the RVB phase as a deconfined phase.eduardosteve ; wen ; sentfish ; msf ; misserpas  In Ref. msf,  this identification was made as an exact reduction of an “odd” Ising gauge theory to a quantum dimer model on the same lattice, in the extreme strong coupling limit. As Ising gauge theories in $`d=2+1`$ are dual to Ising models, this allows dimer models to be exactly related to frustrated quantum (transverse field) Ising models in $`d=2+1`$ in the limit of weak transverse fields and thence to a set of ideas and techniques for obtaining their phase diagrams.msc  Very recently, Misguich et al. have constructed an exactly soluble dimer model on the kagome lattice. This model maps onto a transverse field Ising model with zero exchange, thereby allowing the entire spectrum and correlations to be determined.misserpas

In this note, we further explore the above connections between Ising and dimer models in two and three dimensions. We begin by reviewing Fisher’s construction in two dimensions which utilises the loop model generated by the Ising high-temperature expansion, which in turn is mapped onto a dimer model on a decorated lattice. We note that the symmetry breaking transition in the two dimensional ferromagnetic Ising model maps onto a non-symmetry breaking, deconfinement transition of test monomers in the dimer model. As an aside we point out that the dimer formulation provides an immediate insight into how the Ising model yields a lattice theory without doubled fermions. We next observe that in the presence of frustration in the Ising model, Fisher’s construction leads to negative weights in the dimer model. To remedy this, we introduce a modification of Fisher’s construction which proceeds via an intermediate map to a generalised (non-hardcore) dimer model on the dual lattice which is then decorated to produce the hardcore constraint. As an example, we solve the fully frustrated Ising model on the square lattice as a dimer model on a modified Fisher lattice.

Finally, we turn to a class of three-dimensional classical Ising models—these are general (frustrated or unfrustrated) two-dimensional Ising magnets stacked ferro- or antiferromagnetically in the third direction, which can therefore be mapped onto transverse field Ising magnets in 2+1 dimensions by taking a continuum limit in the third direction. Armed with the modified Fisher construction we are able to map these onto quantum dimer models where the quantum dynamics induced by the transverse field translates to a particular “resonance” dynamics of the kind studied by Misguich et al. This is particularly interesting from the viewpoint of the dimer models since it allows known lore on Ising models to be transcribed into statements about the former. Quite generally, the paramagnetic phases of the Ising models map to deconfined, topologically ordered phases in the dimer models. Specifically, for the case of the ferromagnetic Ising model we find a dimer transition characterized solely by confinement and the loss of topological order. We also observe that the dimer models are exactly equivalent to Ising gauge theories, as they must be since the latter are dual to Ising models in 2+1 dimensions. Consequently their spectrum in the deconfined phase is understood in terms of Ising vortices or visons. The relationships between these mappings are displayed in Fig. 2.

We close with some remarks concerning possible extensions of this work, including the construction of an exactly soluble quantum eight-vertex model along the lines of Ref. misserpas, . Such a model may also be of interest in the context of orbital current models, such as the d-density wave models considered in Ref. sudipvert, .

## II The Ising transition in $`d=2`$ as a deconfinement transition

In this and further sections, we consider classical Ising models defined by the Hamiltonian

$`H={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}J_{ij}\sigma _i^z\sigma _j^z,`$ (1)
where $`\sigma ^z`$ is a Pauli matrix, and $`J_{ij}`$ is the strength of bond $`ij`$. The sites of the lattice, labelled by $`i=1\mathrm{}N`$, together with the bonds $`ij`$ with nonzero $`J_{ij}`$ form a graph, $`𝒢`$, the interaction graph. In the following, we will use the following definitions: $`\beta =1/k_BT`$; $`K_{ij}=\beta J_{ij}`$; $`v_{ij}=1/w_{ij}=\mathrm{tanh}K_{ij}`$. Although we have formally written a quantum Hamiltonian, the problem is, of course, still classical.

We first briefly review Fisher’s mapping.FishIsing  Its starting point is the high temperature expansion of the partition function, $`Z\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{exp}(\beta H)`$, of the Ising model:

$`Z=2^N\left[{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\mathrm{exp}(K_{ij})\mathrm{cosh}(K_{ij})\right]\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(v_{ij};𝒢).`$ (2)
Here, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(v_{ij};𝒢)`$ is the crucial quantity: it is the sum over all loop coverings, labelled by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝒢)`$, of the graph $`𝒢`$. These loops can intersect one another, provided an even number of links emanate from each site. The weighting of a particular covering is given by the product of $`v_{ij}`$ of all the links of its loops, so that

$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(v_{ij};𝒢)={\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝒢)}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{kl𝒢}{}}v_{kl}`$ (3)
.

Fisher’s mapping turns the resulting loop model on the graph $`𝒢`$ into a dimer model on a decorated graph, $`𝒟`$, by a decoration procedure outlined in Ref. FishIsing, , see in particular its Fig. 6 for the general decoration rule and Fig. 7 for the explicit example of the square lattice magnet. The resulting lattice is depcited in Fig. 1. There are now two types of bonds, the original (‘external’) ones and the new (‘interior’) ones.

The crucial property of Fisher’s mapping is that, if $`𝒢`$ is a planar graph, so is $`𝒟`$. The partition function of the dimer model on $`𝒟`$, $`Z_𝒟`$, which is related to that of the original Ising model in a simple way, can in that case be evaluated by Pfaffian methods; by Kasteleyn’s theorem,kasteleyn  one can assign directions to each bond of $`𝒟`$ such that the product of orientations when traversing any elementary plaquette in a clockwise direction is odd. These orientations can be used to define a matrix, $`A`$, which has entries $`A_{ij}=+1(1)`$ if bond $`ij`$ is oriented for $`i`$ to $`j`$ (from $`j`$ to $`i`$). With fugacities of the external and internal bonds given by $`w_{ij}`$ and 1, respectively, one has $`Z_𝒟=\mathrm{Pf}A`$.

A nonanalyticity in $`Z`$ bequeathes one to $`Z_𝒟`$. For instance, the Fisher lattice dimer model obtained from the square lattice ferromagnetic Ising model must exhibit a phase transition as the ratio of external to internal fugacities is varied. Nevertheless the Ising character of the transition seems to have disappeared en route—there no longer is an Ising symmetry to break. In the following paragraphs, we will see that the dimer model does not break any symmetries whatsoever. Instead the Ising transition has turned into a confinement-deconfinement transition in which the free energy to separate two test monomers is the appropriate diagnostic. The universality classes of the two transitions coincide, as they must, by virtue of both of them mapping onto the theory of a single gapless Majorana Fermion.

As $`𝒟`$ is periodic, one can find the partition function by Fourier transformation; $`Z=\mathrm{Pf}A=\sqrt{detA}=\sqrt{_qdet\stackrel{~}{A}(q)}`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{A}(q)`$ is the Fourier transform of $`A`$ at wavevector $`q`$. The specific free energy, $``$, is given by

$`N\beta =\mathrm{ln}Z_𝒟=(1/2){\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\mathrm{ln}(det\stackrel{~}{A}(q)).`$ (4)
This expression does indeed reproduce Onsager’s formula for the square lattice Ising model for any coupling strength $`K`$.onsager ; FishIsing  In particular, nonanalyticities occur when $`det\stackrel{~}{A}(q)=0`$. WithFishIsing

$`det\stackrel{~}{A}(q)=(1+w^2)^22w(w^21)(\mathrm{cos}q_x+\mathrm{cos}q_y),`$
this happens only for $`q_x=q_y=0`$ and $`w=w_c=1+\sqrt{2}`$ so that $`K_c=\mathrm{ln}(1+\sqrt{2})/2`$, as it should.

What is the nature of the phases on either side of $`w_c`$? For $`w\mathrm{}`$, only one dimer configuration survives, namely one in which all external bonds and the bond linking the two internal sites are occupied. This configuration breaks no lattice symmetries, and is in that sense not a crystal. In the opposite limit, $`w=1`$, all dimer configurations have equal weight and their ensemble also respects all lattice symmetries. Evidently the transition does not involve symmetry breaking.

Instead, the two phases differ in their response to the insertion of a pair of test monomers (sites not part of a dimer). It is not hard to see that the high temperature phase is confining. If one places a monomer on one end of an external leg, the site on its other end has to pair up with another site in its cluster (group of sites obtained from one original site by decoration), which in turn leaves the partner of the latter site unpaired. Two monomers placed a distance $`L`$ apart therefore exact a cost in free energy proportional to the minimal number of unoccupied external bonds, which is proportional to $`L`$. This point is thus in a confined phase. Intuitively, the low temperature phase involves a true dimer fluid which should therefore allow monomers to be separted with finite free energy cost.

These statements can be made precise by tracking the spin-spin correlation, $`\sigma _i\sigma _j`$, from the spin formulation into the dimer formulation. The spin correlator can, in the context of the high-temperature expansion, be expressed as a loop model on the square lattice containing, along with the closed loops, one open string running between the sites $`i`$ and $`j`$.mpw  This loop-string model can in turn be cast in terms of a dimer model with two monomers (Fig. 3). The vertices at the ends of the string can be encoded in the monomer-dimer model by summing over four partition functions, $`Z_{md}`$, with the monomers in the clusters $`i,j`$ being placed independently onto one of two interior points of the cluster. The parition function of the loop-string model is thus given by the sum over the four monomer-dimer partition functions: $`Z_{ls}(i,j)=Z_{md}(i,j)`$.

Next, one uses $`\sigma _i\sigma _j=Z_{ls}(i,j)/Z_𝒟`$. It follows that in the high temperature (paramagnetic) phase, where $`\sigma _i\sigma _j`$ vanishes exponentially, all the monomer pairs are confined. Conversely, in the low temperature phase, $`\sigma _i\sigma _j`$ decays to a constant, which implies that at least one (and probably all) monomer pairs are deconfined.

Two comments on related issues are worth making. First, dimer models generally exhibit topologically disconnected sectors under local moves—a classical precursor of the notion of topological order for quantum problems wen  which we shall invoke below for quantum dimer models. On the Fisher lattice there are four such sectors on a torus corresponding to the various combinations of an even or odd number of dimers intersecting the two non-trivial loops. The Fisher map represents the Ising partition function as a sum over all four sectors of the dimer model. Evidently, all Ising spin configurations in a finite system are accessible from one another by local spin flips, and the topological distinction in the dimer model is an artefact of the bookkeeping from the perspective of the Ising model.

Second, dimer problems are solved by lattice Majorana fermions. As the unit cell of the Fisher lattice has 6 sites, microscopically the dimer formulation leads to as many Majoranas. However, at the transition fugacity $`w_c`$, two eigenvalues of $`\stackrel{~}{A}(0)`$ vanish. These two combine to form one single Majorana Fermion, to yield the known critical theory as in the Ising model. We note that given the lore on fermion doubling,franmathsene  it is somewhat surprising that we obtain only a single Majorana Fermion from our lattice problem. While this has been commented on from a different persepctive before,fermdoub  we note that in the dimer formulation this conclusion arises from the manifestly asymmetric nature of our lattice, no longer invariant under reflections along both $`x`$ and $`y`$ axes. This leads to lattice derivatives different from the ones normally encountered when discretising the continuum.

## III Frustrated Ising models as dimer models with positive fugacities

### III.1 The modified Fisher construction

Fisher’s construction is quite general. The high temperature expansion generates a loop model on any interaction graph $`𝒢`$, and the rules for generating the clusters out of the vertices depend only on the number of legs of each given vertex.

One prehaps not so desirable feature of the Fisher mapping is that it leads to negative dimer fugacities in the case of frustrated models: there, not all interactions can be chosen to be ferromagnetic, and hence the $`v_{ij}=1/w_{ij}=\mathrm{tanh}K_{ij}`$ are negative for some of the bonds.

Here, we present a way of addressing this problem via a modified Fisher construction on the dual of a two-dimensional planar lattice. It proceeds by mapping each Ising spin configuration onto a link configuration, $`\{\tau \}`$, on the dual lattice.

A given link of the dual lattice is occupied ($`\tau =1`$) if and only if the bond of the direct lattice it crosses is frustrated. Such a link configuration has the property that the site of the dual lattice at the centre of a frustrated plaquette has an odd number of occupied links emanating from it; for an unfrustrated plaquette, this quantity is even. Clearly a spin configuration and its Ising reversed counterpart map onto the same link configuration on the dual lattice.

Such soft dimer configurations on the dual lattice can be converted into hardcore dimer coverings by suitably decorating each site. Depending on the even or oddness of the number of occupied links at the site, two different decoration operations are required, leading to two different types of clusters. The decoration transformation for odd sites is shown in Fig. 4. For even sites, one requires a slightly different prescription as in Fisher’s original construction, as that included interchanging empty and occupied links. The corresponding construction is also given in Fig. 4.

The dimer fugacities are determined by the Boltzmann factors which come with the presence of a frustrated bond. We find it convenient to add a constant term to the Hamiltonian so that an unfrustrated bond has energy $`0`$ and a frustrated bond has energy $`2J`$, so that the dimer fugacity link $`ij`$ is given by $`u\mathrm{exp}(2K_{ij})`$, which is always positive and between 0 and 1. As in Fisher’s original construction, Ising models on planar lattices lead to planar dimer models, which can hence be solved using Kasteleyn’s theorem.

Three comments on the differences between the Fisher construction and the modified Fisher construction are in order. First, as is appropriate for a dual construction, high and low temperatures trade places when we compare the original Fisher construction to the modified construction—e.g. the equal fugacity dimer model corresponds to zero and infinite temperature respectively. Second, in the modified construction the spin model maps onto a single topological sector of the dimer model. The remaining sectors are generated by considering different boundary conditions for the spin model. Third, the original mapping does not relate individual spin configurations to dimer configurations but the modified mapping does, upto a twofold ambiguity coming from global Ising reversal. This will be important in making a connection between Ising models and quantum dimer models below. But first we apply the modified construction to the solution of a classical frustrated Ising model.

### III.2 The fully-frustrated Ising model as a dimer model

As an an illustration of the above technique, we now use it to solve Villain’s odd model, also known as the fully frustrated Ising model on the square lattice.villainodd  This model is defined for spins on the square lattice with nearest neighbour interactions such that each plaquette has an odd number of antiferromagnetic interactions. This can for example be achieved by choosing all horizontal bonds to be ferromagnetic and the vertical bonds in ferromagnetic rows alternating with antiferromagnetic ones. Transcribed to the dual lattice, which is again square, this corresponds to an odd number of occupied links emanating out of each plaquette. The corresponding decorated lattice (Fig. 1) has five sites per cluster.

The Kasteleyn matrix on this lattice can be partially diagonalized by means of a Fourier transform. While the lattice itself has five sites per unit cell (see Fig. 5), choosing appropriate signs for the matrix requires that we consider a doubled unit cell in one direction which we take to be the horizontal direction. This yields the $`10\times 10`$ Fourier transformed matrix, $`\stackrel{~}{A}(q)`$,

$`\stackrel{~}{A}(q)`$ $`=\left(\begin{array}{cccccccccc}0& 1& 1& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& ue^{iq_x}& 0\\ 1& 0& 1& 0& ue^{iq_y}& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 1& 1& 0& 1& 1& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0& 1& u& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& ue^{iq_y}& 1& 1& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& u& 0& 0& 1& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 1& 0& 1& 0& ue^{iq_y}\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 1& 1& 0& 1& 1\\ ue^{iq_x}& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 1& 0& 1\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& ue^{iq_y}& 1& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$ (5)
Its determinant, $`det\stackrel{~}{A}(q)`$, is given by

$`det\stackrel{~}{A}(q)`$ $`=2u^2\left(2\left(1+u^2\right)^2+\left(1+u^2\right)^2\mathrm{cos}(q_x)\left(1+u^2\right)^2\mathrm{cos}(2q_y)\right),`$ (6)
which yields the dimensionless free energy per site,

$`\beta ={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}u}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{dq_xdq_y}{(2\pi )^2}}\mathrm{ln}det\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{A}(q)}{u^2}}\right).`$ (7)
The first term is the ground state energy, as there is one frustrated bond for each pair of sites. At zero temperature, the second term gives the ground state entropy, which integrates to the well-known result $`G/\pi `$, where $`G`$ is Catalan’s constant.kasteleyn ; fisherdimer  After a little algebra, our expression Eq. 7 can be shown to agree with Villain’s result for the partition function given in Appendix 2 of Ref. villainodd,  at all temperatures.fn-compare

A direct examination of Eq. 7 shows that the model is critical only at $`T=0`$, where $`u=0`$. As a final excercise we will now compute the divergence of the correlation length as $`T0`$ by means of our solution.

To find its behaviour in the critical regime, we consider the case of small $`u`$. Near $`u=0`$, we can expand $`det(\stackrel{~}{A}(q))/(2u^2)`$ to find that it varies as

$`2+\mathrm{cos}(q_x)\mathrm{cos}(2q_y)+2u^2(2\mathrm{cos}(q_x)+\mathrm{cos}(2q_y)).`$ (8)
In particular, at $`u=0`$, it vanishes at $`p_1^{(0)}=(\pi ,0)`$ and $`p_2^{(0)}=(\pi ,\pi )`$.

To find the correlation length, it is necessary to compute the Green function by inverting $`A`$. This is done by inverting $`\stackrel{~}{A}(q)`$ to obtain and then carrying out the inverse Fourier transform on $`\stackrel{~}{G}(q)=\stackrel{~}{A}^1(q)`$. If one is only interested in the correlation length and not the details of the correlations, it suffices to do the Fourier integral $`d^2q\mathrm{exp}(iqr)\stackrel{~}{G}(q)`$ asymptotically, using the property that due to the inversion process, the structure of $`\stackrel{~}{G}(q)=\stackrel{~}{g}(q)/det\stackrel{~}{A}(q)`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{g}(q)`$ denotes a cofactor. We thus have to do integrals of the type

$`G{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{}{q}\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{q}\widehat{r}R)/f(\stackrel{}{q})},`$ (9)
where the zeroes of $`det\stackrel{~}{A}(q)`$ determine the locations of the poles of the integrand – we have checked that the cofactors do not all vanish at the locations of the poles. In this equation, we have emphasised the two-dimensional nature of $`q=(q_x,q_y)`$ by writing it as $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ for the time being. $`\widehat{r}=(\mathrm{cos}\theta ,\mathrm{sin}\theta )`$ is a unit vector in the direction of which the correlations are to be computed, and $`R\mathrm{}`$ is the quantity in which we will evaluate the integral asymptotically, so that $`(x,y)=R\widehat{r}`$.

Let us first carry out the integral over $`q_x`$:

$`I_x{\displaystyle 𝑑q_x\mathrm{exp}(Riq_x\mathrm{cos}\theta )/f(\stackrel{}{q})}.`$ (10)
From Eqs. 6, 8, we find that the location of the poles can be written in terms of $`\stackrel{}{q}^{}=(2q_x^{},q_y^{})`$ so that $`\stackrel{}{p}_i=\stackrel{}{p}_i^{(0)}+\stackrel{}{q}^{}`$, where we have inserted a factor of 2 in front of $`q_x^{}`$ to make the square symmetry more apparent:

$`\stackrel{}{q}^2=q_{x}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+q_{y}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=4u^2\alpha ^2u^2,`$ (11)
so that the poles lie at $`q_x^{}=\pm \sqrt{\alpha ^2u^2+q_{y}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}`$. Depending on the sign of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, we therefore choose an integration contour that runs through the following points in the complex $`q_x`$ plane: $`(0,0)(2\pi ,0)(2\pi ,\pm \mathrm{})(0,\pm \mathrm{})(0,0)`$. Due to the periodicity of the integrand, the contribution from the vertical contours cancel. The contribution from the horizontal contour at $`\pm I\mathrm{}`$ vanishes for $`R\mathrm{}`$ as $`\mathrm{exp}(R|\mathrm{cos}\theta |)`$, so that $`I_x`$ only picks up a contribution from the enclosed poles, where we denote the residue as $`1/f^r[\stackrel{}{p}_i(q_y^{})]`$.

To find $`G`$, we then need to determine

$`G`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑q_yI_x`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }dq_y^{}\{{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^x}{f^r[\stackrel{}{p}_1(q_y^{})]}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{x+y}}{f^r[\stackrel{}{p}_2(q_y^{})]}}\}\times `$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left[R\left(|\mathrm{cos}\theta |\sqrt{\alpha ^2u^2+q_{y}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}iq_y^{}\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)\right].`$
This integral can be treated asymptotically using Laplace’s method. The dominant contribution comes from points where the argument of the exponential is stationary:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dq_y^{}}}\left\{|\mathrm{cos}\theta |\sqrt{\alpha ^2u^2+q_{y}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}iq_y^{}\mathrm{sin}\theta \right\}=0.`$ (13)
One finds $`q_y^{}=i\alpha u\mathrm{sin}\theta `$, so that at large distances, $`G`$ decays exponentially as $`\mathrm{exp}(R/\xi )`$, where the correlation length $`\xi ^1=2u`$. As $`T0`$, the correlation length of the Ising model therefore displays a divergence proportional to $`\mathrm{exp}(2J/k_BT)`$, in agreement with the result given in Ref. zittcorr, , which was obtained using the transfer matrix technique.

## IV The three dimensional Ising model as a two dimensional quantum dimer model

In this section we use the modified Fisher construction to reformulate a class of three dimensional Ising models as quantum dimer models in $`2+1`$ dimensions. The interest of this mapping is that it yields non-trivial information on the quantum dimer models by transcribing known lore on the Ising models—no advances in solubility are entailed.fn-anydim

The prototypical example of the Ising models of interest is the nearest neighbour ferromagnetic Ising model on the cubic lattice. As is well known, this is equivalent to a $`2+1`$ dimensional transverse field Ising model in the “time continuum” limit. Briefly, this proceeds by the recognition that the phase structure of the model is unchanged if we take the cubic lattice to be a set of stacked square lattices and allow unequal couplings in the plane and in the stacking direction, $`H(J_\tau ,J_s)=J_\tau _{\{ij\}}\sigma _i^z\sigma _j^zJ_s_{ij}\sigma _i^z\sigma _j^z`$ where the sums $`\left\{ij\right\}`$ and $`ij`$ run over nearest neighbour sites in the stacking and planar directions. The anisotropic scaling limit $`\mathrm{exp}(2K^\tau )\mathrm{}`$ can be identified with the Trotter-Suzuki decomposition of the imaginary time path integral of the two-dimensional transverse field Ising model with the quantum Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}=J_s_{ij}\widehat{\sigma }_i^z\widehat{\sigma }_j^z\mathrm{\Gamma }_i\widehat{\sigma }_i^x`$.

The Hilbert space of this quantum model is spanned by all classical Ising configurations of the two dimensional classical model and the transverse field moves the system between these configurations. As the classical configurations can be related to dimer configurations on the Fisher lattice by the modified Fisher construction, it should be intuitively clear that the model can equally well be cast as a resonance dynamics in the space of dimer configurations.

The quantum dynamics induced in this way can be visualised by noting that the effect of the transverse field is to flip individual spins. In the modified Fisher construction, this corresponds to replacing empty external links surrounding the spin by occupied ones, and vice versa. In the dimer model, this also entails moving internal bonds to accomodate the change in external bonds. Here, it is important to note that the configuration of internal bonds of a cluster, given a set of external bonds, is unique and determined only by the by the external bonds belonging to that cluster. The quantum dimer Hamiltonian is therefore strictly local, although it includes a number of kinetic energy terms and loop flips of varying length with exactly the same strength—all nonzero off-diagonal matrix elements equal $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. An example of a dimer move present in the current Hamiltonian is given in Fig. 6. In addition the Ising nearest neighbour interaction—the number of frustrated bonds—translates into a potential energy for dimers on the external bonds.

The resulting quantum dimer Hamiltonian of this model can be schematically written as

$`H_D`$ $``$ $`\widehat{V}+\widehat{T}`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}J_{ij}\widehat{\tau }_{ij}^x+\mathrm{\Gamma }{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}\widehat{\tau }_{ij}^\pm .`$
The $`J_{ij}`$ of internal bonds are zero and the sum $`_{\mathrm{}}`$ runs over all closed loops made up of the external bonds surrounding a spin of the direct lattice and any of the bonds of the clusters on which these bonds terminate. $`_{\mathrm{}}\widehat{\tau }_{ij}^\pm `$ stands for alternating raising and lowering operators, $`\mathrm{}\tau _{ij}^+\tau _{jk}^{}\tau _{kl}^+\tau _{lm}^{}\mathrm{}`$ as one goes around the loop; this form preserves the hardcore condition.

In the above we have ignored one subtlety, namely that the map between Ising configurations and dimer configurations is two-to-one and the Ising dynamics does connect a state and its Ising reversed counterpart. The solution to this lies in considering combinations of a given state and its reversed counterpartmsc

$$|\{\sigma _i\}_{\mathrm{e}/\mathrm{o}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|\{\sigma _i\}\pm |\{\sigma _i\}\right)$$
(15)
that are even and odd under global Ising reversal—a property respected by the Ising dynamics. In order to fix the “up” states we choose those so that a particular spin is always up in them. Now both sets of states can be mapped onto dimer states but the dimer dynamics is slightly (but importantly) different in the two sectors. In the even sector it is exactly what we described above. In the odd sector most matrix elements are the same but the ones that involve the chosen spin acquire an extra minus sign. Since $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ can be chosen negative without loss of generality, by the Perron-Frobenius theorem the ground state will always be in the even sector, although the first excited state need not be. So for the purposes of determing phase structure one can ignore this complication entirely. From the perspective of the dimer model, which is what we will take in the remaining, its dynamics will be represented solely by the even states of the Ising model.

At zero temperature, there is one parameter in this problem, namely the ratio of transverse field to bond strength, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/J_s`$ and two phases that meet at a critical point. In Ising language, the two phases are, of course, the ferromagnet and paramagnet. As the reader may anticipate from our previous classical considerations, the dimer transition is between a deconfining phase at large $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/J_s`$ and a confining phase at small $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/J_s`$ neither of which break any lattice symmetries.

The deconfined phase is of particular interest. Its point $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/J_s=\mathrm{}`$ is the “Rokhsar-Kivelson” point of the model where the ground state wavefunction is the equal amplitude sum over all dimer configurations, which is the canonical short ranged RVB state. As discussed in Ref. misserpas, , the elementary Ising excitation is a a spin antialigned with the transverse field with energy $`2\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and the entire spectrum is composed of them. In the dimer model the flipped spin translates into a vortex in which dimer configurations pick up a minus sign if the number of dimers on a string extending from the chosen plaquette to infinity is odd (labelled by dotted bonds in Fig 7). The dimer model is exactly equivalent to the standard Ising gauge theory, and the vortex is therefore an Ising vortex (vison). For a system on a torus, these vortices need to be created in pairs, so that the minimal excitation energy is in fact $`4\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.misserpas

The Ising states with a single flipped spin have disappeared in the course of the duality transformation. In fact, together with the other states with an odd number of flipped spins, they make up the sector, odd under global Ising reversal, which was discarded en route to the Ising model. The ground state at the Rokhsar-Kivelson point in this sector is the first excited state of the Ising model and has a degeneracy proportional to the system size. The equal amplitude superposition of the configurations in that sector corresponds to the reference spin being antialigned with the field.

As observed before there are four dimer sectors on the torus (and $`4^g`$ on lattices of genus $`g`$) which cannot be connected by local dimer moves. As these sectors correspond to different boundary conditions in the Ising problem, and the latter have only an $`O(e^{L/\xi })`$ effect on the ground state energy in the paramagnetic phase ($`\xi `$ is the correlation length), it follows that they lead to four exponentially degenerate ground states. Hence the deconfined phase displays topological order in the sense of Wen.wen

Finally we observe that the dimer model on the Fisher lattice is exactly equivalent to the standard Ising gauge theoy on the square lattice – dubbed the “even” Ising gauge theory in Ref. msf,  due to the nature of its constraint. That constraint states, in the Hamiltonian formulation, that the number of units of Ising electric flux entering/leaving a site (the distinction is irrelevant for Ising variables) must be even. If we identify a dimer on the external bonds of the Fisher lattice with such a flux, we recover this constraint. This conclusion is only to be expected since the even Ising gauge theory is dual to the transverse field Ising model.

Interestingly, the dimer constraint on the Fisher lattice, that the number of dimers coming out of a given site be one, is a $`U(1)`$ constraint. As discussed in Ref. msf, , this gives the dimer model the character of a $`U(1)`$ gauge theory at the lattice scale. As in the case of the triangular lattice QDM, the topological sectors indicate a low energy structure with Ising character – which would be the general expectation for a deconfined (RVB) phase. What is special here is that, unlike the triangular QDM, we are able to put all states of the Fisher lattice QDM under consideration into correspondence with states in the Ising gauge theory.

Our basic considerations in this section can be generalized to a wide class of Ising models that permit a time continuum limit to be taken. These include models that can be viewed as identical planes stacked ferromagnetically or antiferromagnetically (or in any alternating combination). Depending on the frustration in the planes, we will obtain a QDM on a specific lattice obtained by the decoration procedure. For example, the FFIM stacked ferromagnetically will give rise to a QDM on the lattice shown in Fig. 1, which will be exactly equal to the “odd” Ising gauge theory in which the number of Ising fluxes leaving a site is odd. This QDM will exhibit a transition from a deconfined phase to a confining phase that does break lattice symmetries, as first discussed in the language of Ising models in Ref. blankschtein, .

## V Comments on the soluble kagome quantum dimer model

The dimer model we obtain at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/J_s\mathrm{}`$ has much in common with the kagome dimer model discussed by Misguich et al.: their quantum dimer model also has a range of kinetic terms around a given hexagonal plaquette, and it displays an analogous excitation spectrum consisting of Ising vortices. Nevertheless, the solubility and beautiful simplicity of their model does not derive from a Fisher construction. Instead, their problem has another very useful ingredient, namely the mapping of hardcore dimers to arrows on the kagome lattice,elserzeng  and indeed any other lattice consisting of corner-sharing triangles.

Not until they have executed this mapping does our discussion of the Rokhsar-Kivelson point parallel their model, as one can consider the arrows as bond variables of a triangular lattice Ising model (or equivalently, link variables $`\tau ^x`$ of a honeycomb gauge theory) which, crucially, has zero exchange strength. The quantum dynamics they study consists of the Wilson loop operation $`_{\mathrm{}}\tau ^z`$.

### V.1 An exactly soluble quantum eight vertex model

To illustrate this correspondence, and because it is of interest to ask if the arrow mapping used by Misguich et al. can be generalised, we note that their approach can be used to define an exactly soluble quantum eight vertex model. This model can also be given an interpretation in terms of singlet bonds.

The basic geometric object of this model are squares (instead of triangles), which are again arranged to share corners. At the corners of the squares reside Ising degrees of freedom (arrows), which point either in or out. In addition, we impose the constraint that an even number of arrows point out.

The simplest case occurs when the squares (denoted by fat lines in Fig. 8) are arranged on a square lattice (thin lines) so that they share corners. The different arrow configurations can be mapped onto configurations of the eight vertex model on the dual square lattice by identifying the arrows (which by construction live on the links of the dual lattice) with the arrows of the vertices of the eight-vertex model.

One can further interpret the arrows as link variables of an Ising model. The sites defining this model live on a further dual lattice (dashed lines). For the case of a bipartite thin lattice, one can label a bond frustrated if the arrow points from sublattice A to sublattice B and unfrustrated otherwise. (In the case of a non-bipartite thin lattice, one can choose a reference arrow and a reference spin configuration and identify the two). The constraint of the eight-vertex model then becomes a constraint on the product of exchanges, $`_{\mathrm{}}J_{ij}=1`$, around a plaquette of the dashed lattice. However, this only imposes a constraint on allowed states – the strength of the exchanges vanishes. From this method, one can easily visualise the known result that the number of eight-vertex configurations on the square lattice equals $`2^N`$, as there are no constraints on the Ising model on the dashed lattice. This result is straightforwardly generalised to any lattice defined by the midpoints of corner-sharing squares, as explained in Ref. misserpas,  for lattices defined by midpoints of corner-sharing triangles.

This eight-vertex model can again be endowed with a quantum dynamics generated by a Wilson loop action on the links of the elementary plaquette of the thin square lattice. This becomes the zero-exchange transverse field Ising model on the dashed square lattice.fn-sixvertex  The results, such as on the gap, $`4\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, or on the ultra-short correlation, follow just as they did before.misserpas

A possible interpretation of the different eight-vertex configurations in terms of singlet bonds is as follows (see Fig. 9). Let spins $`S=1/2`$ reside on the vertices of the fat square lattice. If no arrows point into a given square, there are no singlet bonds between any pair of spins of the square. If two point in, there is a singlet bond between the two. If four point in, the spins on the square form some collective singlet state. The choice of equal fugacities for all vertices amounts to disregarding the entropic contribution of the two linearly independent collective singlets.

As a related (and known) combinatorial result, we notice in passing that the number of non-overlapping (but possibly intersecting) loop configuration on a lattice can be trivially evaluated in the same spirit. One can think of the loops as domain walls of an Ising model on the dual lattice. Up to a factor 2 from the global Ising symmetry, the number of domain wall configurations is then given by the size of the configuration space of the Ising model, which is of size $`2^N`$ for a dual lattice with $`N`$ sites.

## VI Summary

Two dimensional Ising models are intimately related to dimer models. By means of the modified Fisher construction introduced in this paper, this connection can be exhibited configuration by configuration. The Ising transition in two dimensions maps onto a deconfinement transition in the dimer language as does the Ising transition in three dimensions which now appears in a quantum dimer model. This last equivalence provides an instructive example of a topologically ordered RVB phase and a transition from it to a confining phase, and one for which all the details are known. These ideas can be extended straightforwardly to generate an exactly soluble quantum eight vertex model.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Gregoire Misguich, Vincent Pasquier and Didina Serban for useful discussions, and Paul Fendley also for collaboration on related work.


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# Dark Energy May Probe String Theory

## 1 Introduction

There is still no fundamental physical theory of the very early universe which addresses issues that arise from the regime of transplanckian physics. It is the lack of a fundamental theory, valid at all energies, that makes the model building of the transplanckian regime very interesting. The main issue is how much are the known observables affected by the unknown theory. The apparently ad hoc modification of the dispersion relation at high energies is contrained by the criterion that its low energy predictions do no conflict the observables.

In this talk we address the possibility that transplanckian regime can contribute to the observed dark energy of the universe through a counterintuitive UV/IR mixing. The physics mechanism that gives rise to dark energy is the freeze-out of ultralow frequency short distance modes by the expansion of the background universe. This transplanckian dark energy (TDE) model is motivated from closed string theory in a toroidal geometry by invoking superstring duality.

The transition from string theory to conventional cosmology is becoming increasingly important to theoretical physics. As we describe in  corrections to short distance physics due to the nonlocal nature of strings contribute to dark energy. The possibility to detect their signature observationally is thus very intriguing.

A potential way for detecting dark energy and distinguishing it from a pure vacuum energy $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is through its equation of state. I will briefly touch upon the calculation of the stress-energy tensor, in order to address the puzzle of “cosmic coincidence” (see  for details), and the time dependence in the equation of state $`w(z)`$ predicted by this model.

## 2 The TDE Model

Let us start with the generalized Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) line-element in the presence of scalar and tensor perturbations. For simplicity, we will take the class of inflationary scenarios that has a power law solution for the scale factor $`a(\eta )`$, $`a(\eta )=|\eta _c/\eta |^\beta `$, where $`\beta 1`$ and $`|\eta _c|=\beta /H(\eta _c)`$. The initial power spectrum of the perturbations can be computed once we solve the time-dependent equations in the scalar and tensor sector. The mode equations for both sectors reduce  to a Klein-Gordon equation of the form

$$\mu _n^{\prime \prime }+\left[n^2\frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}\right]\mu _n=0,$$
(1)
where the prime denotes derivative with respect to conformal time, and $`n`$ is the comoving wavenumber. Therefore, studying perturbations in a FLRW background is equivalent to solving the mode equations for a scalar field $`\mu `$ related (through Bardeen variables) to the perturbation field in the expanding background. The above equation represents a linear dispersion relation for the frequency $`\omega `$,

$$\omega ^2=p^2=\frac{n^2}{a^2}.$$
(2)
The dispersion relation of Eq. (2) holds for values of momentum smaller than the Planck scale $`M_P`$. There is no reason to believe that it remains linear at ultra-high energies larger than $`M_P`$.

In what follows, we replace the linear relation $`\omega ^2(p)=p^2=n^2/a(\eta )^2`$ with a nonlinear dispersion relation $`\omega (p)=F(p)`$. Therefore, in Eq. (1), $`n^2`$ should be replaced by:

$$n_{eff}^2=a(\eta )^2F(p)^2=a(\eta )^2F[n/a(\eta )]^2.$$
(3)
Let us consider the following Epstein function  for the dispersion relation, in the squared bracket in Eq. (1):

$`\omega ^2(p){\displaystyle \frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}}`$ $`=`$ $`F^2(p)=p^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{1+e^x}}+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_2e^x}{1+e^x}}+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_3e^x}{(1+e^x)^2}}\right),`$ (4)
$`n_{eff}^2{\displaystyle \frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}}`$ $`=`$ $`a^2(\eta )F^2(n,\eta )=n^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{1+e^x}}+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_2e^x}{1+e^x}}+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_3e^x}{(1+e^x)^2}}\right),`$ (5)
where $`x=(p/p_C)^{1/\beta }=A|\eta |`$, with $`A=(1/|\eta _c|)(n/p_C)^{1/\beta }`$, in general for power-law inflation with $`\beta 1`$. This is the most general expression for this family of functions. For our purposes, we will constrain some of the parameters of the Epstein family in order to satisfy the features required for the dispersion relation as follows.

Imposing the requirement of superstring duality fixes $`ϵ_2`$, and the condition of a nearly linear dispersion relation for $`p<p_C`$ requires that

$`ϵ_2=0,{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_3}{4}}=1.`$ (6)
Still we will have a whole family of functions parametrised by the constant $`ϵ_1`$, as can be seen in Fig. 1.

The initial vacuum state is well-defined in this model and it is a Bunch-Davis vacuum, due to the dispersion function going asymptotically flat at early times. At late times the solution becomes a squeezed state by mixing of positive and negative frequencies:

$$\mu _n_{\eta +\mathrm{}}\frac{\alpha _n}{\sqrt{2\mathrm{\Omega }_n^{out}}}e^{i\mathrm{\Omega }_n^{out}\eta }+\frac{\beta _n}{\sqrt{2\mathrm{\Omega }_n^{out}}}e^{+i\mathrm{\Omega }_n^{out}\eta },$$
(7)
with $`|\beta _n|^2`$ being the Bogoliubov coefficient equal to the particle creation number per mode $`n`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n^{out}\sqrt{ϵ_1}n`$. Using the linear transformation properties of hypergeometric functions we obtain:

$$|\beta _n|^2=\frac{e^{2\pi \sqrt{ϵ_1}}}{2\mathrm{sinh}2\pi \sqrt{ϵ_1}}.$$
(8)
Clearly the spectrum of created particles is nearly thermal to high accuracy.

We define the $`tail`$ as the range of those transplanckian modes in fig.1 whose frequency is less or at most equal to the present Hubble rate, $`H_0`$ (see Fig. 2). Since $`H`$ has been a decreasing function of time, many modes, even those in the ultralow frequency range, have become dynamic and redshifted away one by one, everytime the above condition is broken, i.e. when the expansion rate $`H`$ dropped below their frequency. Clearly, what is left from the tail modes at the present Hubble scale have always been frozen. They contain vacuum energy of very short distance, hence of very low energy. The last mode in the tail (at infinite momenta) would decay when and only if $`H=0`$ by acquiring a kinetic term. The $`tail`$ starts from some value $`p_H`$ which must be found by solving the equation

$$\omega ^2(p_H)=H_0^2.$$
(9)
The range of the modes defining the $`tail`$ is then for $`p_H<p<\mathrm{}`$. Their equation of state depends on the evolution of $`H`$ and is a complicated tracking solution because they contribute to the expansion rate for $`H`$ and their equations of motion are coupled to the Friedmann equation for expansion.

However let us first calculate their energy contribution today, by asking which “tail” modes have always been frozen from inflationary times to present and how much energy do they contain. The energy for the tail is given by:

$$\rho _{tail}=\frac{|\beta _n|^2}{2\pi ^2}_{p_H}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\omega (p)}{p}\omega (p)p^2𝑑p,$$
(10)
while the expression for the total energy is:

$$\rho _{total}=\frac{|\beta _n|^2}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\omega (p)}{p}\omega (p)p^2𝑑p.$$
(11)
The numerical calculation of the tail energy produced the following result: for random different values of the free parameters, the dark energy of the tail is $`\rho _{tail}=10^{122}f(ϵ_1)`$, times less than the total energy during inflation, i.e. $`\frac{\rho _{tail}}{\rho _{total}}=10^{122}f(ϵ_1)`$ at Planck time. The prefactor $`f(ϵ_1)`$, which depends weakly on the parameter of the dispersion family $`ϵ_1`$, is a small number between 1 to 9, which clearly can contribute at the most by 1 order of magnitude. This is an amazing result! The lack of fine-tuning in obtaining the right ammount of dark energy can be understood from the following feature: due to the decaying exponential, the main contribution to the energy integral in Eq. (10) comes from the highest value of this exponentially decaying frequency, which is the value of the integrand at the tail starting point, $`p_HO(M_P)`$, i.e.,

$$\frac{\rho _{tail}}{\rho _{total}}\frac{p_H^2}{M_P^4}\omega ^2(p_H)\frac{H_0^2}{M_P^2}10^{122}.$$
(12)
From the physical requirement that the tail modes must have always been frozen, the tail starting frequency $`\omega (p_H)`$ is then proportional to the current value of Hubble rate $`H_0`$ (Eq. (9)).

## 3 TDE Dispersion Relation from Closed Strings in Toroidal Cosmology

Here we attempt to motivate the exponentially supressed transplanckian dispersion function from T-duality of the following string theory model. Let us consider the Brandenberger-Vafa model  of a D-dimensional anisotropic torus with radius $`\overline{R_i}`$, by including the dynamics of both modes: momentum modes, $`p_{1,i}=m/\overline{R}_i`$ (where $`m`$ is the wavenumber), and winding modes with momenta $`p_{2,i}=w\overline{R}_i/\alpha ^{}`$. The dimensionless quantity for the radius is $`R_i=\overline{R_i}/\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}`$, where $`\alpha ^{}`$ is the string scale. Based on the arguments presented in , we choose a cosmology with three toroidal radii equal and large $`R1`$ in units of the string or Planckian scale, with the other $`(D3)`$ toroidal radii equal and small $`R_C1`$. Here the subscript $`C`$ refers to compactified dimensions. Then, $`R(t)`$ becomes the scale factor for the 3+1 metric in conventional FRW cosmology $`R(t)=a(t)`$, while $`R_C`$ corresponds to the radius, in this factorizable metric, of the $`D3`$ compact dimensions $`z_j`$ that decrease with time,

$$ds_D^2=dt^2+4\pi R^2(t)dx_i^2+4\pi R_C^2(t)dz_j^2=a(\eta )^2[d\eta ^2+dy^2]+ds_{D3}^2.$$
(13)
These solutions were found by Mueller, Ref. , by ignoring the backreaction of string matter on the geometry.

The partition function for this system was calculated, from first principles, by summing up over their momenta in :

$$Z=\underset{\sigma }{}e^{n_\sigma ϵ_\sigma },$$
(14)
where $`n_\sigma `$ is the number of strings in state $`\sigma `$ with energy $`ϵ_\sigma `$

$$ϵ_\sigma =p_0=\sqrt{\left(\frac{m}{R}\right)^2+(wR)^2+N+\stackrel{~}{N}2},$$
(15)
and $`\sigma `$ counts over $`(m,w)`$, with the constraint $`N\stackrel{~}{N}=mw`$ for closed strings where $`N`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{N}`$ are the sums over the left- and right- mover string excitations, respectively. By now, in Eq.(15), we are considering only the large 3 spatial dimensions. The string state can also be described by its left and right momenta, $`k_L=p_1+p_2`$, $`k_R=p_1p_2`$. The string state for left and right modes can be expanded in terms of the creation and annihilation operators $`\alpha _m`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_n`$, with higher excitation string states given by $`N=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}\alpha _n\alpha _n`$ (similarly for $`\stackrel{~}{N}`$), and string energy $`L_0+\stackrel{~}{L}_0=p_1^2+p_2^2+(N+\stackrel{~}{N}2)/\alpha ^{}`$.

We would like to write the path integral for this configuration in terms of quantum fields111Below we use quantum string equations under the assumption that the dilaton is massive and stable.. The path integral is calculated from the hamiltonian density. The hamiltonian density over the fields in configuration space is extracted from the string spectrum in such a way that its Fourier transform in $`k`$-space corresponds to the string energy expression Eq. (15).

Our system of winding and momentum modes is described by nonequilibrium dynamics due to the expanding background spacetime. All the information about the evolution of these modes will be contained in the effective action. The kinetic terms are unambiguous while for the interaction terms we must appeal to simplicity and the requirement of T-duality.

Correlation functions are obtained by using the correspondence between the Euclidean path integral of the persistence vacuum amplitude $`|in|out|^2`$ and the partition function $`Z`$. All the string quantum operators below are promoted to quantum field operators with the corresponding hamiltonian density $`(t,x)`$ in configuration space derived from the quantum string hamiltonian $`(t)`$.

The following calculations are done in the conformally flat background through the scaling of the fields and operators with the conformal factor $`a(\eta )`$. The momentum field $`\varphi _1(R,x)`$ and the winding field $`\varphi _2(R,x)`$ are defined by the relation:

$$\varphi _i(x)=e^{ip_ix}\varphi _i(p_i)d^3p_i,|\varphi _i|^2d^3x=d^3p_ip_i^2\varphi _i(p_i),$$
(16)
where

$$=R/x=/y,$$
(17)
and $`p_i=p_1,p_2`$. Let us also define two new fields, $`\psi _L(R,x)`$ and $`\psi _R(R,x)`$, with momenta $`k_L,k_R`$ that are the left and right combinations of the Kaluza Klein momentum and winding modes

$`\psi _L(R,x)`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _1(R,x)+\varphi _2(R,x),`$ (18)
$`\psi _R(R,x)`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _1(R,x)\varphi _2(R,x).`$ (19)
These fields live in the expanding (3+1) spacetime dimensions.

The Hamiltonian density ansatz that would describe the energy of our two string states in the $`D=3`$ expanding dimensions with energy $`H=L_0+\stackrel{~}{L}_0`$, including the oscillators from string’s higher excitations $`(N+\stackrel{~}{N}2)/\alpha ^{}`$, is similar to the hamiltonian of spin waves in a periodic lattice222Torus is obtained by identifying the first and the last lattice sites, thus the periodicity.. Our lattice spacing is given by the string scale $`\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}`$. Therefore the hamiltonian density can be written for this dual lattice in terms of wave functional “spin” fields $`\psi _L(R,x),\psi _R(R,x)`$ of Eqs. (18), (19) as follows

$$_3=|\psi _L|^2+|\psi _R|^2|+|\psi _L||\psi _R|+m_0^2(|\psi _L|^2+|\psi _R|^2)+g_1(|\psi _L|^4+|\psi _R|^4)+g_2|\psi _L|^2|\psi _R|^2,$$
(20)
where the fields $`\psi _L,\psi _R`$ are expanded in terms of the mode functions $`u_n,\stackrel{~}{u}_n`$,

$$\psi _L=\mathrm{\Sigma }u_nb_n+u_n^{}b_n^+,\psi _R=\mathrm{\Sigma }\stackrel{~}{u}_n\stackrel{~}{b}_n+\stackrel{~}{u}_n^{}\stackrel{~}{b}_n^+,$$
(21)
and $`b_n,\stackrel{~}{b}_n`$ are the normalised quantum creation and annihilation operators of $`\alpha _n,\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_n`$. The commutation relation for the unnormalised operators are such that $`[\alpha _n,\alpha _m^+]=\omega _\pm \delta _{nm}`$ with $`\omega _\pm `$ the frequency of left and right moving modes.

The periodic lattice condition $`N\stackrel{~}{N}=mw`$ introduces an interaction term in the hamiltonian $`_3`$ of the form $`\psi _L\psi _R`$. In terms of the 2-component state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}=(\psi _L,\psi _R)`$, the hamiltonian reads,

$$_3=|\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}|^2+\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}\widehat{X}\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}+m_0^2|\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}|^2+g_1|\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}|^4+(g_22g_1)|\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}\widehat{X}\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}|^2,$$
(22)
with

$$\widehat{X}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1/2\\ 1/2& 0\end{array}\right)$$
(23)
The system is known as the dual momentum-space lattice, and for $`g_2=2g_1`$ reduces to the XYZ model of condensed matter. Let us for simplicity limit to the XYZ model case, $`g_2=2g_1`$, for the rest of this talk.

These periodic lattice systems studied in 3+1 dimensions in terms of Bloch wavefunctions have a solution which respect lattice translation invariance, $`exp(pl)`$, with the lattice spacing “$`l`$” equal to the string scale $`\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}`$. The interaction term, in the tight-binding approximation, lifts the degeneracy between the energy eigenstates due to the leakage/tunnelling of the wavefunction from one lattice site to the neighbour site. As a result the gap energy produced between the ground (bound) state and higher excitation states is

$$p^2\mathrm{\Delta }_p=p^2|\mathrm{cos}(2\theta )|=p^2|2cos^2(\theta )1|,$$
(24)
in which

$$pl=p\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}=\sqrt{\alpha ^{}(p_1^2+p_2^2)}=\sqrt{(\frac{m}{R})^2+(wR)^2},$$
(25)
and $`\theta \theta +ipl`$. Therefore,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_p2\mathrm{cosh}^2(pl)1.$$
(26)
The first term in $`\theta `$ is a pure phase of rotation of the “spin-wave” in the dual lattice, but the second term describes the tunnelling of the wavefunction to the nearest neighbour333 In condensed matter this is known as Coulomb dipole type of vortex interaction.. The gap energy of Eq. (24) introduces a correction to the kinetic energy, such that in momentum space the hamiltonian reads

$$_3=z_pp^2|\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}|^2+m_0^2|\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}|^2+g_1|\mathrm{\Psi }_{EN}|^4,$$
(27)
with $`z_p=1+\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$. One can evaluate the reduced 3 dimensional partition function $`Z`$ from the above hamiltonian. We want to separate our modes into system (S) + environment (E) degrees of freedom, and coarse grain by integrating out the degrees of freedom for the environment. This amounts to finding out the backreaction of the coarse grained environment on the system, and eventually leads to the RGE’s444The running of the coupling constants with time depends on how one selects the environment and the system.. We will consider as environment all the short wavelength modes with momenta

$$(E):\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{b}<p^E=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}[(m/R)^2+(wR)^2]^{1/2}<\mathrm{\Lambda },$$
(28)
where the cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=(\alpha ^{})^{1/2}`$ is the string scale because $`(\alpha ^{})^{1/2}`$ is identified with the lattice spacing $`l`$, and $`b=a(t)/a(t_0)`$ is the coarse grain scaling parameter, where $`t_0`$ is the initial time. The scale factor $`a(t)`$ plays the role of the collective coordinate describing the environmental degrees of freedom. Time in this procedure is playing the role of a scaling parameter and dynamics is being replaced by scaling, an artificial procedure, known as Kadanoff-Migdal transform, that relates the microscopic and macroscopic properties of a system based on the existence of scaling properties of the system in the infrared limit.

The system modes are the ones with:

$$(S):p^S<\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{b},$$
(29)
¿From the above definitions of system and environment, Eqs. (29) and (28), at initial times when $`b1`$ we have $`p\mathrm{\Lambda }/b`$ thus all our modes, momentum and winding, are in the system; but at later times when $`b1`$ more and more winding modes systematically transfer to the environment because the condition of Eq. (29), $`p=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}[(m/R)^2+(wR)^2]^{1/2}\mathrm{\Lambda }/b`$ is satisfied only for vanishingly small winding numbers $`w0`$. As $`t`$ becomes large, the system contains $`mR\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`w=0`$, i.e. all the modes except $`mR\mathrm{\Lambda },w=0`$ have been transfered to the environment.

After integrating out the high energy environmental modes in the above action, one can extrapolate the correlation function from the coarse grained effective action of the system. The canonical two-point correlation function at high energy for system-environment interaction is calculated from the path integral of the canonical fields $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{S,E}`$ in momentum space (Fourier transform of $`G^{\mathrm{\Lambda }/b}`$). It is related to the correlation function of the original fields $`\mathrm{\Psi }_E`$ (which decreases at high energy) as follows

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_E\mathrm{\Psi }_E=\frac{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_E\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_E}{z_p}.$$
(30)
where $`z_p=1+\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$ is given in Eq.(26). This is the crucial result for the interpretation of the cosmological dark energy. Because of the mass gap, the correlation function is suppressed exponentially in p-space. It is very familiar that a mass gap leads to an exponential fall off in x-space, but here for the dual lattice the exponential fall off is in momentum space. This may be traced to the T-duality of the closed strings and the resultant interchange of the IR/UV limits. Thus the two point function of the original fields (by dividing with the $`z_p`$ normalisations factor), goes as an exponential for large momentum $`p`$, and as a polynomial for low momenta.

The observed small value $`\mathrm{\Lambda }10^{120}`$ in natural units has an explanation in the toroidal cosmology of closed strings and thus the dark energy provides an exciting opportunity to connect string theory to precision cosmology. We may argue that numerically the size of the cosmological constant in the present approach is a combination of the string scale and the Hubble expansion rate in the sense that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }/M_{Planck}^410^{120}(H_0/M_{Planck})^2`$. Therefore the correct amount of dark energy obtained by this frequency dispersion function does not require any fine tuning and relies, besides a physical mechanism (such as freeze-out), only on the string scale as the parameter of the theory.

## 4 TDE Equation of State

Nonlinearity of short distance physics and the breaking of Lorentz invariance results in a violation of Bianchi identity for transplanckian models. Therefore one needs to modify the stress-energy tensor ($`T_{\mu \nu }`$) in the Einstein equations, such that the modified ones satisfy Bianchi identity.

Based on the equation of motion as our sole information for short-distance physics, we therefore use a kinetic theory approach for modifying Einstein equations in the absence of an effective lagrangian description. The assumption made is that a kinetic theory description of the cosmological fluid is valid even in the transplanckian regime. Despite its nonlinear behavior at short distances, this imperfect fluid shares the same symmetries, namely homogeneity and isotropy, as the background FRW universe. Then the corrections $`\tau _{\mu \nu }`$ to the stress energy tensor $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ will also be of a diagonal form

$$\tau _{\mu \nu }=(\overline{ϵ}+\mathrm{\Pi })u_\mu u_\nu +\mathrm{\Pi }g_{\mu \nu }$$
(31)
In a similar manner to particle creation cases in imperfect fluids , the highly nontrivial time-dependence of the mode $`p_H`$ and the transfer of energy between regions, due to the defrosting of this mode across the boundary $`p_H`$, gives rise to pressure corrections in the fluid energy conservation law. The defrosting of the modes results in a time-dependent “particle number” for regions near $`p_H`$. From kinetic theory we know that this “particle creation”, (the defrosting of the modes), gives rise to effective viscous pressure modifications . The term $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ denotes the effective viscous pressure modification to the “bare” pressure, $`\overline{p}`$.

The criteria we will use for modifying $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ is that Bianchi identity must be satisfied  with the new expressions for pressure, $`P`$,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }[\dot{\rho }+3H(\rho +\overline{p}+\mathrm{\Pi })]=\mathrm{\Sigma }_i[\dot{\rho }+3H(\rho +P)]=0,$$
(32)
The presence of pressure corrections, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_i`$, (where $`i=II,H`$ denotes transplanckian defrosted and tail modes respectively) is due to the exchange of energy between the two regions, from the defrosting of the modes $`p_H`$ at the boundary. This is directly related to the time dependence of the boundary $`p_H`$, which in turn is going to be controlled by the Hubble parameter $`H`$. In essence, there is an exchange of modes between the two regions. Although the number of particles555We are loosely using the term particle here to refer to the wavepackets of the transplanckian modes, centered around a momenta $`p_i`$. in each of these regions, $`N_{II}`$ and $`N_H`$, is not conserved, their rate of change, in the physical FRW Universe, is related through the conservation of the total number of particles which contains both of these components

$$\dot{N}_T=0,$$
(33)
The contribution terms to pressure, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_i`$, are related to decay rates $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i`$ through

$$3H\mathrm{\Pi }_H=(\rho _H+\overline{p}_H)\mathrm{\Gamma }_H,$$
(34)
Details of the calculation can be found in. The value of the tail’s decay rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_H`$ is:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_H3H+\frac{\dot{H}}{H}3H(\frac{1w_{total}}{2}),$$
(35)
where $`w_{total}=\overline{p}_{total}/\rho _{total}`$. Notice that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_H`$ is positive for all equations of state $`w_{total}1`$ and thus it slows down the dilution of the tail with the scale factor.

The effective equation of state resulting from the modification $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_H`$ of stress-energy tensor becomes:

$$w_H=(\frac{w_{total}1}{2}).$$
(36)
This is a tracking solution. During a radiation dominated universe, $`w_H=1/3`$ and only after matter domination, the tail starts acquiring a strongly negative equation of state until it asymptotically aproaches $`w_H=1`$ when it becomes the only component left in the expansion equation. Therefore cosmic coincidence is explained naturally by the intrinsic time evolution of the tail which tracks the background equation of state $`w_{total}`$ through its coupling to the Hubble parameter.

Careful analysis of the highly anticipated new data from CMB, LSS and SN1a will reveal more scrutinity between various models.

## 5 Acknowledgment

LM issupported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant PHY-009412 and by the U.S. Depart ment of Energy under contract number DE-FG02-85 ER40231.


text:
# 1 The gauge gravity correspondence and wrapped branes

## 1 The gauge gravity correspondence and wrapped branes

Recently, it has become more and more evident that a lot of relevant information about supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theories can be obtained by studying their dual supergravity backgrounds produced by stacks of D branes. This gauge/gravity correspondence has been throughly investigated in different cases. In this contribution I will mainly concern with $`𝒩=1`$ gauge theory in four dimensions. One way to get this amount of supersymmetry is to consider D branes whose world-volume is partially wrapped on a supersymmetric cycle inside a Calabi-Yau space. The unwrapped part of the brane world-volume remains flat and supports a gauge theory. In order to preserve some supersymmetry, the normal bundle to the wrapped D branes has to be partially twisted and, as a consequence of this twist, some world-volume fields become massive and decouple. This procedure has been used by Maldacena and Nuñez in Ref.  to study the pure $`𝒩=1`$ SYM theory in four dimensions. This is obtained by considering the world-volume theory of the D5-branes at energies where both the higher string modes as well as the KK excitations on the 2-cycle decouple. The back-reaction of the D-branes deforms the original background. The topology of the resulting space is in general very different from the starting CY space. In this case, as discussed by Vafa in Ref. , one expects the resulting space be a deformed CY space, where the 2-cycle has shrunk but a 3-sphere has blown-up, rendering a ten-dimensional non-singular solution. As it is the case for gravity duals of confining gauge theories, one cannot obtain an exact duality since extra degrees of freedom, not belonging to the gauge theory, cannot be decoupled within the supergravity regime. The question is now whether one can extract information on the gauge theory from this dual supergravity background.

This question has been addressed in many papers  and a number of information on the gauge theory have been shown to be predicted by the dual supergravity background in a precise and quantitative way. In particular, in this contribution I will show how to derive from the supergravity solution the perturbative running of the gauge coupling with the corresponding $`\beta `$-function, the chiral symmetry anomaly, the phenomenon of gaugino condensation with the corresponding breaking of the chiral symmetry to $`_2`$ in the IR.

### 1.1 Ten dimensional supergravity solution

Let us start by summarizing the explicit form of the MN solution. This solution is obtained from a non-singular domain wall solution of seven-dimensional gauged supergravity , parameterized by coordinates $`(x_0,\mathrm{},x_3,\rho ,\theta _1,\varphi _1)`$, and uplifting to ten dimensions along a 3-sphere , parameterized by coordinates $`(\psi ,\theta _2,\varphi _2)`$. The relevant fields (the metric, the dilaton and the RR 3-form the D5-branes magnetically couple to) are

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`e^\mathrm{\Phi }dx_{1,3}^2+e^\mathrm{\Phi }\alpha ^{}g_sN\left[e^{2h}\left(d\theta _1^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _1d\varphi _1^2\right)+d\rho ^2+{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left(\sigma ^aA^a\right)^2\right]`$ (1)
$`e^{2\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }{2e^h}}`$ (2)
$`F^{(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`2\alpha ^{}g_sN{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left(\sigma ^aA^a\right)\alpha ^{}g_sN{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{3}{}}}F^a\sigma ^a`$ (3)
where

$`A^1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a(\rho )d\theta _1,A^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a(\rho )\mathrm{sin}\theta _1d\varphi _1,A^3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{cos}\theta _1d\varphi _1`$ (4)
$`e^{2h}`$ $`=`$ $`\rho \mathrm{coth}2\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{\mathrm{sinh}^22\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}},a(\rho )={\displaystyle \frac{2\rho }{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }}`$ (5)
$`A^a`$ being the three $`SU(2)_L`$ gauge fields of the relevant seven-dimensional gauged supergravity. The $`\sigma ^a`$ are the left-invariant one-form parameterizing the 3-sphere

$`\sigma ^1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{cos}\psi d\theta _2+\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\theta _2d\varphi _2),\sigma ^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{sin}\psi d\theta _2\mathrm{cos}\psi \mathrm{sin}\theta _2d\varphi _2)`$
$`\sigma ^3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(d\psi +\mathrm{cos}\theta _2d\varphi _2\right)`$ (6)
## 2  $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills theories in 4 dimensions

We now show how to use the supergravity solution described in the previous paragraph to extract information on the corresponding gauge theory. To this aim, we consider the world-volume action of a wrapped five-brane with a gauge field strength $`F`$ and then extract from it the quadratic terms in $`F`$. The non abelian bosonic action that we obtain is then simply :

$$S_{YM}=\frac{1}{4g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}d^4xF_{\alpha \beta }^AF_A^{\alpha \beta }+\frac{\theta _{\mathrm{YM}}}{32\pi ^2}d^4xF_{\alpha \beta }^A\stackrel{~}{F}_A^{\alpha \beta }$$
(7)
where

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _5(2\pi )^2\alpha ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle _{S^2}}\mathrm{e}^\mathrm{\Phi }\sqrt{detG},`$ (8)
$`\theta _{\mathrm{YM}}`$ $`=`$ $`\tau _5(2\pi )^4\alpha ^2{\displaystyle _{S^2}}C^{(2)}.`$ (9)
where $`C^{(2)}`$ is the RR two form potential.

In the above set of coordinates, ($`\theta _1,\mathrm{\Phi }_1,\theta _2,\mathrm{\Phi }_2,\psi `$), the actual $`S^2`$ that enters these gauge-gravity relations is

$$S^2:\theta _1=\theta _2,\varphi _1=\varphi _2,\psi =0$$
(10)
Note that the inverse square of the YM coupling constant is proportional to the volume of the 2-sphere on which the D5 branes are wrapped and the YM vacuum angle is proportional to the flux of the R-R 2-form across this 2-sphere.

If we insert the explicit form of the supergravity solution (1)-(5) in eq.(8-9), after simple calculations we obtain

$$\frac{1}{g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}=\frac{N}{16\pi ^2}Y(\rho )\theta _{\mathrm{YM}}=N\psi _0$$
(11)
where

$$Y(\rho )=4e^{2h(\rho )}+(a(\rho )1)^2=4\rho \mathrm{tanh}\rho ,a(\rho )=\frac{2\rho }{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho },$$
(12)
$`\psi _0`$ being an integration constant.

In the following we will exploit these results to discuss some relevant features of the pure $`𝒩=1`$ SYM theory from the gravitational point of view.

### 2.1 The chiral symmetry

As it is well-known, the $`𝒩=1`$ SYM theory possesses a classical abelian $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry which becomes anomalous at the quantum level. If we assign $`R`$-charge 1 to the gaugino $`\lambda (x)`$ so that under a chiral transformation with parameter $`\epsilon `$

$$\lambda (x)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\epsilon }\lambda (x),$$
(13)
then the presence of the anomaly implies that

$$\theta _{\mathrm{YM}}\theta _{\mathrm{YM}}2N\epsilon .$$
(14)
From eq.(11) it is easy to see that we are describing the gauge theory in a fixed $`\theta `$ vacuum. Following a suggestion made in  we now argue that the other solutions are related to this by a seven dimensional gauge transformation, namely

$$A^{}=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\epsilon \sigma _3}A\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\epsilon \sigma _3}$$
(15)
As pointed out in , different seven dimensional gauge choices correspond to different parametrizations of the relevant ten dimensional geometry. In the case at hand, after the gauge transformation (15), the longitudinal $`S^2`$ which enters the various gauge-gravity relations is now

$$S^2:\theta _1=\theta _2,\varphi _1=\varphi _2,\psi =2\epsilon $$
(16)
From (8-9) it is easy to see that, on the gauge theory side, we are now describing the same running of the gauge coupling (as in (11)) but we are studying the theory in a different $`\theta `$-vacuum, namely:

$$\theta _{\mathrm{YM}}^{}=N(\psi _0+2\epsilon )$$
(17)
The new form of the solution seems to suggest that even the phase of the gaugino condensate (that we identify with the supergravity field $`a(\rho )`$, see next section and ) has been shifted by $`2\epsilon `$. We are then describing the different vacua related by the $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry of the gauge theory.

The $`U(1)_R`$ transformation which relates the different vacua is

$$\psi \psi +\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\epsilon ,$$
(18)
This transformation is not a symmetry of the supergravity solution (1)-(3) (or of one related to this by the gauge transformation (15)) and is not even an isometry of the metric. However, there is a region where the transformation (18) is an isometry, namely the large-$`\rho `$ region where the function $`a(\rho )`$ becomes exponentially small and can be neglected. In fact, if we remove $`a`$, then all explicit $`\psi `$ dependence disappears from the metric (1) and the parametrization of the world-volume 2-cycle no longer fixes the value of $`\psi `$ (differently from (10-16) $`\psi `$ can be now an arbitrary constant). The $`\psi `$ dependence instead still remains in the R-R 2-form (3), which therefore is not invariant under (18). However the relevant quantity that should be considered is the flux of $`C^{(2)}`$ across the 2-sphere, i.e.

$$\frac{1}{4\pi ^2\alpha ^{}g_s}_{S_2}C^{(2)}|_{a=0}=\frac{N}{2\pi }(\psi \psi _0)$$
(19)
which is allowed to change by integer values. Thus the transformations (18) with $`\epsilon =(\pi /N)k`$ and $`k`$ integer are true symmetries of the supergravity background in the large-$`\rho `$ region. These are precisely the non-anomalous $`𝐙_{2N}`$ transformations of the gauge theory that correspond to shifts of the $`\theta `$-angle by integer multiples of $`2\pi `$. What we have described here is therefore the gravitational counterpart of the well-known breaking of $`U(1)_R`$ down to $`𝐙_{2N}`$.

However, in the true supergravity solution $`a(\rho )`$ is not vanishing and thus even the non-anomalous $`𝐙_{2N}`$ transformations are not symmetries of the background. Thus, the only non-anomalous symmetries of the supergravity background are given by (18) with $`\epsilon =k\pi `$ and $`k`$ integer. This phenomenon is the gravitational counterpart of the spontaneous breaking of the chiral symmetry from $`𝐙_{2N}𝐙_2`$.

### 2.2 The gaugino condensate

In the previous subsection we have seen that the presence of a non-vanishing $`a(\rho )`$ in the supergravity solution is responsible for the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking to $`𝐙_2`$, which, on the gauge theory side, is accompanied by the presence of a non-vanishing value of the gaugino condensate $`\lambda ^20|\left(\frac{\mathrm{Tr}\lambda ^2}{16\pi ^2}\right)|0`$. Thus, it appears very natural to conjecture that the gravitational dual of this condensate is precisely the function $`a(\rho )`$ that is present in the supergravity solution (1)-(3)

The gaugino condensate $`\lambda ^2`$ belongs to a class of gauge invariant operators which do not acquire any anomalous dimensions. This happens because the gaugino condensate is the lowest component of the so-called anomaly multiplet whose scale dimensions are protected by virtue of the fact that its top component is the trace of the energy-momentum tensor which is a conserved current. Thus, since the engineering dimension of $`\lambda ^2`$ is 3, we have

$$\lambda ^2=c\mathrm{\Lambda }^3$$
(20)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the (exact) dynamical scale of the $`𝒩=1`$ SYM theory and $`c`$ a computable constant.

In view of our previous discussion, we now propose to identify the function $`a(\rho )`$ given in (5) with the gaugino condensate $`\lambda ^2`$ measured in units of the (arbitrary) mass scale $`\mu `$ that is introduced to regulate the theory. Thus, we write

$$a(\rho )=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}{\mu ^3}.$$
(21)
This crucial equation allows us to establish a precise relation between the supergravity radial coordinate $`\rho `$ and the scales of the gauge theory. Notice that, as usual, since $`a(\rho )0`$ for $`\rho \mathrm{}`$, the large-$`\rho `$ region corresponds to the UV regime of the gauge theory, and vice-versa the small-$`\rho `$ region corresponds to the IR regime.

Now we exploit the relation (21) to compute the perturbative $`\beta `$-function of the pure $`𝒩=1`$ SYM theory.

### 2.3 The beta function

From the above equations one can get the complete perturbative $`𝒩=1`$ $`\beta `$-function. We can write

$$\beta (g_{\mathrm{YM}})=\frac{g_{\mathrm{YM}}}{\mathrm{ln}(\mu /\mathrm{\Lambda })}=\frac{g_{\mathrm{YM}}}{\rho }\frac{\rho }{\mathrm{ln}(\mu /\mathrm{\Lambda })}$$
(22)
and compute the two derivative contributions from eq. (11) and eq. (21), respectively. In doing so, let us first disregard the exponential corrections, which are sub-leading at large $`\rho `$ and which give rise to non-perturbative contributions. We easily get

$$\frac{g_{\mathrm{YM}}}{\rho }=\frac{Ng_{\mathrm{YM}}^3}{8\pi ^2},\frac{\rho }{\mathrm{ln}(\mu /\mathrm{\Lambda })}=\frac{3}{2}(1\frac{1}{2\rho })^1=\frac{3}{2}(1\frac{Ng_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}{8\pi ^2})^1$$
(23)
The final result is then

$$\beta (g_{\mathrm{YM}})=3\frac{Ng_{\mathrm{YM}}^3}{16\pi ^2}\left(1\frac{Ng_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}{8\pi ^2}\right)^1$$
(24)
which is the NSVZ $`\beta `$-function .

Notice that the complete supergravity solution suggests the presence of a Landau pole. However, this is not really an issue. The curvature of the MN background goes like $`\alpha ^{}1/g_sN`$ so the regime in which the supergravity approximation is reliable is for large $`N`$. In this regime a Landau pole can indeed be present even if the gauge coupling remains finite at the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, since in eq. (11) it is really $`g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2N`$ which is going to infinity for $`\rho 0`$ ($`\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }`$) and not the gauge coupling itself. To discuss the duality in the deep IR at finite $`N`$, one has to go beyond the supergravity approximation.

## 3 Conclusions and Perspectives

We have shown that many interesting features of the pure $`𝒩=1`$ SYM theories in four dimensions are quantitatively encoded in the supergravity solutions that describe D5 branes wrapped on supersymmetric 2-cycles. These features comprise the running of the gauge coupling constant, the $`\beta `$-function and the chiral anomaly.

All these are well known results on the gauge theory side, but the important point is that they are nicely encoded in a classical supergravity solution. Moreover, I find particularly nice that the gauginos condensation (a typical infrared phenomenum of the gauge theory) is also described by this supergravity solution.

Another issue related to the infrared of the gauge theory is that of fractional instantons. The supergravity solution seems to suggest that they modify the running of the Yang-Mills coupling constants itself . However in the IR these fractional instantons mix with some other unwanted Kaluza-Klein effects on the gravity side. This renders the correspondence with the gauge theory difficult to establish. Nevertheless one could infer that fractional instantons with topological charge $`2/N`$ modify the running of the coupling constant, giving a modified $`\beta `$-function with respect to the NSVZ one. This would avoid the pole of the NSVZ $`\beta `$-function, whose physical interpretation is not complety clear, giving:

$$\beta (g_{\mathrm{YM}})=3\frac{Ng_{\mathrm{YM}}^3}{16\pi ^2}\left(\mathrm{coth}\left(\frac{8\pi ^2}{Ng_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}\right)\frac{Ng_{\mathrm{YM}}^2}{8\pi ^2}\right)^1$$
(25)
It is surely interesting to look for a precise form of the correspondence also in the infrared of the gauge theory.

Acknowledgements: I thank M. Bertolini, P. Di Vecchia, A. Lerda and W. Mueck for usefull discussions and/or correspondence.
I would like also to thank the organizers of the workshop “The quantum structure of spacetime and the geometric nature of fundamental interactions” in Leuven for the stimulating and nice atmosphere I have found there.
Work supported by the European Community’s Human Potential Programme under contract HPRN-CT-2000-00131 Quantum Spacetime in which P.M. is associated to Copenhagen.


text:
# Gamma-Ray Burst Hubble Diagram to 𝑧=4.5

## 1 Introduction

As always in astronomy, the determination of distances is a crucial and difficult problem. Until recently, the distance scale of GRBs was unknown by over 12 orders-of-magnitude. In 1997, the discovery of optical and radio counterparts (Costa et al., 1997; van Paradijs et al., 1997; Frail et al., 1997) proved that at least the long-duration bursters were at cosmological distances with redshifts of $`z1`$. The measurement of GRB redshifts requires deep optical spectra, and to date only 24 redshifts are known for bursts with unknown selection effects.

If GRB distance indicators can be found that use only gamma-ray data, then we can measure the demographics and cosmology of large and well-understood samples of bursts. Two such luminosity (and hence distance) indicators have recently been proposed. The first (Norris, Marani, & Bonnell, 2000) relates the burst luminosity ($`L`$) with the spectral lag ($`\tau _{lag}`$), which can be idealized as the time between peaks as recorded at high and low photon energies. The second (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz, 2000) relates the luminosity with the variability ($`V`$), which is a specific measure of the ’spikiness’ of the burst light curve. High luminosity bursts have short lags and spiky light curves, while low luminosity events have long lags and smooth light curves. These two relations make GRBs into ’standard candles’, in the same sense as for Cepheids and supernovae where an observed light curve property can yield the luminosity and then the distance.

The two luminosity indicators were originally proposed and calibrated with 6 or 7 bursts. The addition of 3 or 2 further bursts (for a total of nine) have fallen on the original relations, hence adding confidence in their utility. Further, if both the $`L/\tau _{lag}`$ and $`L/V`$ relations are true, then there must be a particular $`\tau _{lag}/V`$ relation, and this prediction has been strongly confirmed with an independent sample of 112 BATSE bursts (Schaefer, Deng, & Band, 2001). Finally, the very long lag bursts have been shown to be very low luminosity as demonstrated by their concentration to the local supergalactic plane (Norris, 2002).

These luminosity indicators have been used to identify specific bursts (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz, 2000) that are at redshifts of $`z10`$ as well as to show that the star formation rate of the Universe is rising steadily (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz, 2000; Schaefer, Deng, & Band, 2001; Lloyd-Ronning, Fryer, & Ramirez-Ruiz, 2001) from $`z2`$ to $`z>6`$. This Letter reports on the construction of a Hubble diagram (a plot of luminosity distance, $`D_L`$, versus redshift) as a means of measuring the expansion history of our Universe.

## 2 GRB Hubble Diagram

Only nine GRBs have the required information of red shift ($`z`$), peak flux ($`P`$), lag time ($`\tau _{lag}`$), and variability ($`V`$). These data are collected in Table 1, along with the characteristic photon energy ($`E_{peak}`$) and the observed luminosity ($`L_{obs}`$). These nine bursts were all detected by BATSE with redshifts measured from optical spectra of either the afterglow or the host galaxy. The highly unusual GRB980425 (associated with supernova SN1998bw) is not included because it is likely to be qualitatively different from the classical GRBs. Bursts with red shifts that were not recorded by BATSE cannot (yet) have their observed parameters converted to energies and fluxes that are comparable with BATSE data.

Simplistically, plots of $`L_{obs}`$ versus $`\tau _{lag}`$ and $`L_{obs}`$ versus $`V`$ can calibrate the luminosity indicators, which then can yield luminosity distances to each burst for plotting on a Hubble Diagram and fitting to cosmological models. In practice, there must be a simultaneous chi-square minimization for the luminosity calibrations and the cosmology, so as to avoid the effects of possible correlations between the indicators and distance.

If the Earth is not along the central axis of the GRB’s jet, then various off-axis effects will change the observed properties. For light viewed off-axis by angle $`\theta `$ from a jet moving at $`\beta `$ times the speed of light, the transverse Doppler shift, redshift, and beaming will change the various observed properties by powers of $`B=(1\beta )/(1\beta cos\theta )`$. The observed value of $`E_{peak}`$ will scale as $`B`$, $`\tau _{lag}`$ will scale as $`B^1`$, $`V`$ will scale as the inverse of a time and hence as $`B`$, while $`L`$ will have a model dependent variation that scales roughly as $`B^3`$. For structured jets (Rossi, Lazzati, & Rees, 2002; Zhang & Mészáros, 2002), the luminosity and bulk Lorentz factor can be parameterized as being proportional to some positive power of $`B`$. When viewed on-axis, the bursts will presumably display fairly tight lag/luminosity and variability/luminosity relations. These relations can be converted to similar relations involving observed off-axis quantities with an extra factor of $`B`$ to some power. Fortunately, the observed distribution of $`E_{peak}`$ is remarkably narrow for bursts of a given brightness (Mallozzi et al., 1995; Brainard et al., 1998), and the removal of kinematic effects shows that the on-axis $`E_{peak}`$ is virtually constant (Schaefer, 2002). Thus, $`E_{peak}`$ should be proportional only to some power of $`B`$, and this relation can be used to convert the $`B`$ dependency of the luminosity relations into a $`E_{peak}`$ dependency. Essentially, we can use the observed $`E_{peak}`$ value to get information about the off-axis angle and correct the observed $`\tau _{lag}`$ and $`V`$ values to those which would be seen on-axis. In practice, the correction factor can be taken as some power of $`E_{peak}(1+z)/400keV`$. (The division by 400 keV is to minimize correlations between the normalization constant and the exponent during the fits.) The exponents of the correction factors will be free parameters which depend on the scenario and jet structure.

With the off-axis correction, the luminosities can be derived by fitting the relations $`L\tau _{lag,corr}^{\alpha _{lag}}`$ and $`LV_{corr}^{\alpha _V}`$, where $`\tau _{lag,corr}=\tau _{lag}\times [E_{peak}(1+z)/400]^{e_{lag}}`$ and $`V_{corr}=V\times [E_{peak}(1+z)/400]^{e_V}`$. Plots of $`L_{obs}`$ versus $`\tau _{lag,corr}`$ and $`L_{obs}`$ versus $`V_{corr}`$ for the nine bursts with known redshifts (see Figure 1) have slopes of $`\alpha _{lag}`$ and $`\alpha _V`$, while the scatter in these plots will be minimized for the best values of $`e_{lag}`$ and $`e_V`$. This gives $`\alpha _{lag}=1.27\pm 0.20`$, $`\alpha _V=1.57\pm 0.17`$, $`e_{lag}=0.6\pm 0.7`$, and $`e_V=0.85\pm 0.40`$. Thus:

$$L=10^{50.03}[(\tau _{lag}\times \{E_{peak}(1+z)/400\}^{0.6}]^{1.27},$$
(1)
$$L=10^{55.32}[(V\times \{E_{peak}(1+z)/400\}^{0.85}]^{1.57},$$
(2)
where $`L`$ is in $`ergs^1`$, $`\tau _{lag}`$ is in seconds, $`V`$ is dimensionless, and $`E_{peak}`$ is in keV. As independent checks, a plot of $`\tau _{lag,corr}`$ versus $`V_{corr}`$ for 93 BATSE bursts will have a slope of $`\alpha _{lag}/\alpha _V`$, and the scatter will be minimized for the best values of $`e_{lag}`$ and $`e_V`$. This gives $`\alpha _{lag}/\alpha _V=0.7\pm 0.2`$, $`e_{lag}=0.0\pm 0.3`$, and $`e_V=1.1\pm 0.3`$; values which are consistent with the calibration from Figure 1.

The lag and the variability produce two independent luminosity values through Eqs 1 and 2. These can be combined as weighted averages (with the weights equal to the inverse square of the one-sigma errors) to produce a combined luminosity ($`L_{comb}`$) and then $`D_L`$, as given in Table 1. A plot of $`D_L`$ versus $`z`$ is a Hubble diagram (Figure 2).

Equations 1 and 2 are optimal for studies of GRBs where the cosmology is not in question. When the goal is to use the bursts as cosmological markers, care must be taken to avoid circular logic. In particular, the previous paragraph assumed a specific cosmology ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ for a flat Universe and $`H_0=65\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$) for calculating the $`D_L`$ values as a function of $`z`$. To avoid this circularity, the fits must be performed with the cosmological parameters as additional fit parameters. That is, the model being fit to the data will have cosmological plus GRB parameters that are to be simultaneously determined by the minimization of the chi-square. This will tie the cosmology conclusions into GRB calibrations, but both will be well constrained when many bursts are available. A correct procedure to find the best value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ in a flat Universe is (1) to fix $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, (2) derive $`D_L`$ and $`L_{obs}`$ for each burst for that cosmology, (3) fit $`L_{obs}`$ as power laws of $`\tau _{lag,corr}`$ and $`V_{corr}`$, (4) use the best fits to derive $`L_{comb}`$ and then $`D_L`$ for each burst, (5) calculate chi-square by comparing the model and observed $`D_L`$ values, (6) repeat steps 1-5 to identify the best fit $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ value as that where chi-square is minimized, and (7) identify the one-sigma range where chi-square is within unity of its minimum value. By this procedure, the lowest chi-square corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.05`$ with the one-sigma constraint $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m<0.35`$. The three-sigma limit is larger than unity, so this particular measure is not helpful for cosmology. This new result is completely independent of, yet in agreement with, those from supernovae and other methods (Durrer & Novosyadlyj, 2001). However, the current value for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is not yet of high reliability because the number of degree of freedom in the fit are small and the slope of the Hubble diagram is dominated by just two high redshift events. While this new result does not seriously constrain current cosmology, it does act as a demonstration of principle and a sign for the future.

## 3 Comparison with Supernovae

A comparison with the supernova-based Hubble diagram is inevitable. GRBs have both advantages and disadvantages when compared to supernovae.

At least currently, supernovae have an advantage over GRBs for the accuracy of the distance measurements for a single event. Well-observed nearby Type Ia supernovae have an RMS scatter about their Hubble Diagram of 0.18 mag (Phillips et al., 1999) which translates into an uncertainty in the log of the distance of 0.04. GRBs currently have an RMS scatter about their calibration curves of 0.35 and 0.20 in the logs of lag and variability; which translates into uncertainties in the log of the distance of 0.22 and 0.16 respectively. These two independent measures can be combined to give an uncertainty of 0.13 in the log of the distance. Thus, individual supernovae are roughly three times more accurate as standard candles than are individual GRBs.

The physics of gamma-ray emission from relativistic shocks in GRBs is largely known (but not how to create the magnetic fields) although the explosion scenario is still uncertain. The basic physics of supernovae is well known (although the Type Ia progenitors are still not identified). Supernovae can have their decline-rate versus luminosity calibration from low-redshift events, and this allows the elegance of being able to make the calibration substantially separate from the cosmology. Thus, supernovae are much better understood than are GRBs, and this will be a substantial comfort for using them as standard candles. Nevertheless, it is unclear where this advantage for supernovae will pay off. Currently, the analyses of both supernova and GRB Hubble Diagrams are entirely empirical with no contribution from theory, so a better theoretical understanding of supernovae has not helped in any specific manner. Supernova will have better known evolution effects; yet Branch et al. (2001) show that evolution is no problem for supernovae and their argument applies identically to GRBs.

Supernovae have substantial problems with a higher dust density at high red shift (Totani & Kobayashi, 1999) and the possibility of grey dust (Aguirre, 1999). Gamma radiation suffers from no extinction.

After a tremendous observational effort, the current supernova Hubble diagram (Perlmutter et al., 1999) extends only out to $`z=0.97`$. (SN1997ff at $`z1.7`$ has very large uncertainties (Riess et al., 2001) even without the large corrections for gravitational lensing (Lewis & Ibata, 2001; Moertsell, Gunnarsson, & Goobar, 2001) and the uncertainty of the supernova type.) The dedicated SNAP satellite (SNAP collaboration, 2002), proposed for launch in 2008, will go out to $`z=1.7`$ with exquisite accuracy in the light curves. In contrast, the GRB Hubble Diagram is already out to $`z=4.5`$ and likely it will be extended to $`z10`$ (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz, 2000; Lloyd-Ronning, Fryer, & Ramirez-Ruiz, 2001) or farther (Lamb & Reichart, 2000; Bromm & Loeb, 2002). With the launch of the SWIFT satellite in 2003, the GRB Hubble Diagram will be available for the redshift ranges $`1<z<1.7`$ and $`1.7<z10`$ roughly five years before SNAP can extend the supernova Hubble Diagram only to $`1<z<1.7`$.

In summary, GRBs are $`3\times `$ worse in accuracy than supernovae, but this is traded-off for the lack of problems from extinction, extension to $`z10`$, and an answer many years before SNAP. I do not think that the GRB Hubble Diagram will replace the supernova Hubble Diagram. The reason is that both diagrams will have known and unknown systematic problems which will make results from any one method not conclusive. What is needed is the concurrence of multiple independent methods. So both GRB and supernova Hubble Diagrams are needed for a confident result.

## 4 Implications

Conceptually, the biggest question related to a construction of the GRB Hubble diagram is the possibility of luminosity evolution. Fortunately, there are two strong reasons that any such effects must be small. First, theoretical explanations for the luminosity indicators (Schaefer, 2001; Ioka & Nakamura, 2001; Plaga, 2001) tie the relations to simple physics (involving relativistic effects operating on any light source, the delay in light travelling different paths, and the cooling of any body by radiation) that are unrelated to properties (such as metallicity) that might evolve. Second, just as for the purely empirical supernova Hubble diagram (Branch et al., 2001), any drift in population average properties (Lloyd-Ronning, Fryer, & Ramirez-Ruiz, 2001) is irrelevant as the calibrations will work for any individual event whether near or far. That is, it does not matter whether population average properties (like luminosity) evolve because the distances are derived for individual events that are each correctly calibrated.

Within two years, the GRB situation will be greatly improved with the dedicated SWIFT satellite (Gehrels, 2000) currently scheduled for launch in September 2003. SWIFT is expected to get $`100`$ bursts per year, of which $`40\%`$ will have directly measured redshifts. The redshift will be difficult to measure for $`z>6`$ bursts, yet it is possible by locating the Lyman break with broad-band photometry or spectroscopy extending into the near infrared. In its nominal three-year lifetime, we can get $`120`$ bursts with measured values for $`z`$, $`P`$, $`\tau _{lag}`$, $`V`$, and $`E_{peak}`$. This many bursts will allow for high accuracy calibration of the luminosity indicators. The large number of bursts will also allow for the reduction of statistical errors (dominated by the intrinsic scatter of the bursts) by a factor of $`10`$. If the bursts are divided into six redshift bins, each bin will have an error of 0.03 in the log of the distance. This accuracy will, for example, yield an uncertainty of $`0.03`$ in the derived value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ for a flat Universe, even with no improvements in the luminosity indicators. So with SWIFT, the prospect is that we can produce an accurate GRB Hubble diagram with $`120`$ bursts from $`0.1<z<10`$ by 2006.

What can we learn from the GRB Hubble Diagram? We can test the predicted shift of the Universe from matter to dark-energy domination in the range $`1<z<2`$. We will also look for various predicted quintessence (Weller & Albrecht, 1999) and non-standard (Mannheim, 2002) effects in the range $`2<z<10`$. The typical sizes of these effects are 0.4 in the log of the distance around a redshift of $`z=3`$. The current paradigm of cosmology (the new inflation perhaps with quintessence) is so new and untested that surprises could easily await in the unknown regime of $`z>1`$.